Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Beautiful Thing ❯ Chapter 12

Seara ~ aw, bummer. My computer was out of commission for at least a month! I was like, "grr! dammit!" Thank you so much for supporting me throughout this whole fic. I don't know what I would have done without you!

BlueEyedDemon90 ~ lmao "viva la goldfish!" I was sitting in the middle of the library when I read that and I just started laughing. I looked like I was nuts. Thank you for reading my story! Yeah I thought that adding keiko would be a nice twist.

AMK ~ argh! I hate keiko for being with yusuke, too! yeah, I'm back. This'll be the last chapter, though, and then I'm gonna start a new story. *evil laugh* wasn't the cliffhanger mean? …sent by the rubber chickens?! *looks around shiftily* I knew it…

animefreak11 ~ here's the update! Sorry I was gone for so long. I feel really bad.

KanolaGirl ~ don't worry - I did promise that this would be out in a week, right? It's only a little bit over… yeah like a month or two. So sorry! ^_^;;

Kurama13 ~ Yeah, yusuke's a turd. lol thanks for reviewing.

Kuranga108 ~ why, thank you! about keiko - I really wasn't planning on bringing her into the fic, but then I needed something for yusuke and roxy to get into a fight about, so… it all just kind of fit.

Twilight Myst ~ I literally forced myself to sit down and finish that last chapter…I had a major guilt trip for not updating in so long. Speaking of not updating in so long… Here's chapter twelve! ^^

A/N: all right. So I have a feeling you all want an explanation. Well, A.) I am so very sorry it took me so long to get this out. And 2.) I blew up my computer again. For the second or third time, I believe. So that should make me forgiven, right? ^_^;; Right?? o.o

Chapter Twelve

"Shit," I mumbled, slowly opening my eyes. I don't know what the hell happened to me in that parking lot, but my head hurts like a bitch.

Okay, so the first thing I noticed was that I was sitting up, with my back to a wall in a strange building. `Where the hell am I?' Wait - I've never even seen this place before. Great. The room I was in was big and empty save for a few crates and cardboard boxes over there in the far corner. Further assessment confirmed my suspicions, when I discovered that my wrists and ankles were bound with some kind of heavy rope.

I scowled at my most recent discovery, and my lips puckered in the `you-keep-that-up -and-your-face-is-gonna-freeze-like-that' way. At least that's what Maya used to tell me. She said I looked like an angry fish. I struggled against my bonds, but it was useless. I rolled my eyes and thunked my head back against the wall. "This feels like a really bad horror movie."

I fought with the bindings at my ankles for several more minutes; could have been hours. By the time that I had given up hope and slumped back down, the skin around my ankles was good and irritated. For all I knew, I could be bleeding. That would sure make my day.

I have no idea how long I sat there, waiting for somebody to come and help. Being bored started to get to me, and I began to wonder if I could somehow stand up and hop over to an exit somewhere. Not like I even knew where a friggin' door was, or anything.

~

Yusuke swore, hurling the phone across the room before throwing himself down onto the couch. He had left countless messages on the Maya chick's answering machine, but Roxy refused to pick up the phone. Yusuke was starting to get a little aggravated - he needed to talk to Roxy. Now.

Right after she had jumped out of his apartment window, he had contacted Hiei and had him track her down. The fire demon had followed Roxy all the way to what turned out to be Maya's condominium.

Looking up Maya's number had been pretty easy - what had been hard was figuring out what he should say to Roxy. To tell the truth, he had been relieved when she hadn't picked up the phone that first time.

But after several calls, Yusuke wasn't feeling all that relieved. The messages on Maya's machine sounded less sincere and more like he was getting really wound up.

He had apologized so many times it felt repetitive. But the more that Yusuke thought about it, the more incensed he got. He hadn't done anything wrong, why should Roxy be mad at him? It's not like he asked Keiko to kiss him or nothing.

*Flashback*

After Roxy had fallen asleep again, Yusuke silently left his apartment building and headed for the café he said he would meet Keiko at.

Him and Keiko went way back. They were friends when they were little kids, and they've gone to school together their whole lives. The two of them liked each other in junior high, but they found out that it wouldn't work between them and so they broke it off. Keiko's got a boyfriend now, but Yusuke's yet to find a girl who can deal with the fact he's a Spirit Detective.

Yusuke knew that he could talk to Keiko about anything. Of course, he never did, but he knew that she would listen if he had something to say. It wasn't good for his reputation to go spilling stuff about his personal life to some chick.

Keiko was already sitting at a table, fiddling with her school uniform. She was supposed to be in school right now, but since Yusuke had asked her to meet him, she had asked for permission to leave. Probably the first and last time she'd ever do something like that.

"Hey," Yusuke muttered as he sat down, looking grim.

Keiko looked up, startled, but smiled nonetheless. "Hi Yusuke." When he did nothing but sit there, scowling at the ground, Keiko leaned forward and impatiently tapped her fingernails on the table. "You needed to talk to me?"

He was quiet for several minutes. "There's this girl," Yusuke began, looking uncomfortable now. He started to think that maybe calling Keiko wasn't the best idea.

Her face lit up, and her brown eyes shone with happiness. She clasped her hands together. "Oh Yusuke, that's wonderful! I'm so happy for you!"

He glared. "You didn't let me finish." Yusuke looked away again. "There's this girl. And I think I l-"

Keiko tilted her head to the side and drew her eyebrows together. "Well, does she like you back?" she asked.

He ignored the interruption and threw his arms up. "I have no fucking clue!"

And so Yusuke and Keiko talked about his girl troubles for hours. When Urameshi remembered that Roxy was at his apartment, he checked a clock.

"Damn!" He shoved his chair back from the small table and stood up. "I gotta go."

"Wait!" Keiko called. She caught up to him and smiled, putting on her coat. "At least let me walk you home."

*End Flashback*

~

I had been resting my head against the wall, relaxing, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a door slamming. And there was no mistaking it - that door was close by. Every muscle in my body tensed, and my ears strained for any sound that they could pick up on. The minutes passed, and I remained unmoving.

Becoming restless now, I let loose a rather colorful vocabulary and tried to wrench my hands apart. I felt the rope loosen around my wrists, and very quietly, I let it fall to the floor behind me. I was working on untying the ties around my ankles when I heard them. The footsteps.

You can determine many things based upon how a person moves, you know. There were at least six of them. They knew what they were doing, and I knew right then that these people were here to make sure that I didn't make it out of here alive. Their steps were cautious, and they were obviously trying to keep quiet.

I began to work at the knot near my feet, my fingers quickly flitting over the rope. I worried at my lower lip when the lights in this place - faint as they were - suddenly shut off, pitching me into total darkness.

`Damn,' I thought to myself, getting anxious now.

There was a dull thud from the other side of this stupid warehouse, and I recognized it to be one of them cardboard boxes that I had seen earlier. I almost chuckled to myself when I realized that the idiots who were after me probably turned off the lights and ran right into a box. I settled for smiling a bit, preferring to not give away my location so early in this stupid game.

But I sobered immediately when the severity of the situation hit me head-on. Someone is trying to KILL me. That's not exactly a comforting feeling, you know.

There was another thud and some muffled curses from over near the cardboard boxes, and I suppressed the urge to groan. Don't tell me that they knocked over another box. …It kind of hurts my feelings to know that I'm going to be murdered by a group of morons.

I felt a brief moment of relief when the knot holding my feet together fell apart.

I got up and moved quietly, mentally thanking the idiot who cut the lights. This way, I could either fight these guys and have the element of surprise, or I could run for it and they'd never see. I decided to stay in the building so I could find out who they were; of course, I'd find out later that that wasn't the brightest decision.

Managing to cross the room in complete silence was pretty hard, but it was doable. I hugged closely to the wall, stopping only when I came across a group of men dressed in black. I had come up behind them, and I inched forward to stand directly behind the guy closest to me.

My eyes had become accustomed to the darkness by now, so I could make out the shocked expression on the man's face when he turned around after I tapped him. Then I hauled off and slugged the poor guy, giving him a bloody nose and sending him to the floor.

"Looking for me, fuckers?" Now's an awfully good time for me to start getting serious about all of this.

"Get her!" one of them cried. There was a chorus of yells, and then the fight began. Yeah, but the odds were like, eleven to one. Seems a little unfair, if you ask me.

`Woah,' I thought as they all rushed me at once. I ducked, dodged, and parried a couple of dudes, and then I switched to offensive mode when I got surrounded.

Some guy with a ski mask over his face charged me, and I sidestepped just in time to plant my knee into his stomach. When he began to fall forward, I brought up my knee again, right into his face.

I punched and roundhouse kicked several more men, until there were only me and three others left. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

My confidence began to fade when one guy pulled out a gun from inside his black windbreaker.

"Aw, come on. That's not playing fair," I protested, backing up a step or two. There's the whole "me really not wanting to get shot" thing to consider, here. I mean, I'm only human. I can't take a shot to the chest and live to tell the tale.

The sound of the man's windbreaker snapped my attention back to him. While I had been worrying about the gun, he had leveled it at me, and now I was looking down the barrel of a .38.

Without thinking, I instinctively shoved the barrel away from me and glared at the big guy, whose expression was hidden by his mask. "Get that outta my face," I snapped. I know, I know. Pretty risky move for a chick who doesn't want to get shot.

~

Yusuke roughly pulled on his jacket and wrenched open the front door. "That's it," he shouted, to no one in particular. "I'm sick of waiting!"

~

"Eep!" I squeaked. A bullet zinged past my ear, making me wince and reflexively duck down.

Mr. Trigger Happy had been chasing me around in the darkness for a good ten minutes now, shooting at me the whole friggin' way. But if my logic is correct, that was his sixth shot, and he's gotta reload his gun sooner or later. Preferably the first choice.

`Yes! Thank god!' I saw an opening and I took it, doing an about-face and running back the way I came when I heard him stop to put another clip into the .38.

The look in his eyes was priceless. He saw me coming at the very last second, and his eyes just got real big and round before I jumped, spun, and roundhouse kicked him in the face.

I gotta give this dude credit - he picked himself off of the floor awfully fast and was fighting me back with a look like he wanted to settle the scores. He was throwing punches with one hand, and with the other he was waving the .38 around like a madman.

"Ack! Don't point that at me!" I exclaimed when he brought it up again. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them when at the same time I kicked out and knocked the gun right out of his hands. There was a loud click of metal on metal where the gun hit the ground and skittered off into the shadows.

By now, the other jerks who had been with him had caught up to us, and I found myself in the middle of all of them.

`Oh wow,' I glanced warily between the three guys, shifting my weight nervously from one foot to the other.

`He's not so tough without a weapon,' I thought cockily, arguing with myself.

My eyes widened when one of them slugged me in the stomach with a solid right hook. Jesus! I hadn't even seen him move!

"You cheater," I snarled, doubling over and fighting the urge to cry out in pain. He grinned maliciously.

Even though I still hadn't fully recovered from the hit I had taken, I still showed a rather valiant attempt at defending myself when they all attacked at once.

Now, this wasn't fair. I could feel the fatigue starting to build up the longer I stood here, dodging and deflecting everything that came my way.

~

"Damn it, Roxy," Yusuke cursed to himself. "Where the hell are you?"

He kept glancing back over his shoulder as he was walking away, hoping to spot Roxy in one of the house's windows. When he reached the end of Maya's driveway, Yusuke broke into a run. He was starting to get a really bad feeling about all of this.

~

"Hiyah!" With a thud, the last thug hit the ground.

I was breathing heavily now, resting my hands on my knees. "Jesus Christ…" I muttered.

The lights flashed on, nearly blinding me for life. I threw an arm up to shield my eyes and slowly stood up straight. "What the…?"

The sound of slow, deliberate clapping reached my ears. I could feel my heart beating heavily in my chest as I waited for this new threat to come out in the open. The silence stretched out for what seemed like hours.

"I must say, I'm impressed. Those were my best guards you just took out." It was a man's voice - and I gotta say, it sounds pretty familiar. But for the life of me, I just couldn't place it.

"Show your face, you coward," I spat.

The stranger chuckled, and stepped out of the shadows. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped open. "You?"

~

Yusuke stooped down and snatched Roxy's keys off of the pavement near her bike. The moonlight illuminated some of his surroundings, so he studied the shadowy area around the motorcycle.

His eyes narrowed when he noted the obvious signs of a struggle. Blood was smeared in several places across the parking lot, and he was assuming that it was Roxy's. Yusuke tightly clenched his hand into a fist and snarled at the thought of someone hurting her. She was his, didn't anyone understand that? He turned to leave, practically radiating pure fury. `Just what the hell is going on here?'

Heads were gonna roll.

~

I shook my head fiercely, not wanting to believe what I was seeing. "No. It can't be you."

Charlie sighed, "I'm truly sorry about this, Roxy. But you have to understand, I'm the kind of man who has to finish what he starts." He took a placating step in my direction. "And by ridding myself of you, my dear, I can finally take a break. Maybe get a vacation house in the Bahamas."

I slowly shook my head "no", with my eyes wide open and staring at him incredulously. `He's nuts,' I reasoned.

Taking another step forward, he was still talking animatedly about his plans for the future. "Might I introduce to you my assistant, Roxy? I believe you know her quite well."

My eyes widened, since I had a pretty good idea of who the bitch would be. From out of the shadows behind Charlie, my foster mother came to stand beside him. The sound of her high heeled shoes clicking on the floor filled the large, empty warehouse. When she reached Charlie, she wrapped both arms around one of his and clung on to him. Kinda like a leech.

"Roxanne," she greeted me coolly, with her nose high up in the air. She was looking down on me like I was the dirt beneath her feet. God, what a prick.

"Brainless conniving shrew," I responded loudly. `Yeah, that wasn't immature.'

"Please don't feel upset," Charlie said, nonchalantly. "This is something that I have to do."

I pinned him with an accusing glare. "I trusted you!"

He shrugged. "Then that was a mistake." He looked thoughtful. "Like father like daughter, I suppose."

My breath caught in my throat and I suddenly found it very difficult to think straight. "D…Did you…kill my dad, Charlie?" The man standing before me now was a complete stranger. I felt…betrayed. I mean, who wouldn't? Praying that I wouldn't get an affirmative on what I had asked, I nonetheless shifted myself so that I could get up without a problem. If it turns out that Charlie was the one who I had been searching for since I was a kid, I'll kill him. The thought that this guy has been planning on offing me ever since I met him makes me sick to my stomach.

"Personally? No. You see, what I did was I -"

"Did you order the hit on my parents?" I cut in harshly. I didn't give a damn about the details.

Charlie blinked. "Well you don't have to sound so nasty about it, but yes. I had my men -"

He never got to finish. I was in front of him in a flash, tackling him to the floor and digging my nails into the front of his throat. "You fucking bastard," I hissed.

I could kill him right this very second. Don't really see a reason why I shouldn't, you know? This is the asshole who ruined my life. I've got no parents because of him.

"You're scum." I leaned harder onto his windpipe, and had the overwhelming desire to just crush it. To be done with all of this right here and right now.

A saner portion of my enraged mind registered the sound of the safety switch being snapped off of a gun. Before I could do anything, the cold metal of a .9mm was pressed rather painfully to the back of my head. `Damn,' I thought angrily.

"Get up," ordered Ame. When I didn't comply, she grabbed me by the upper arm and started to wrench me to my feet. Halfway there, I got up on my own and yanked my arm away.

"Don't you touch me," I snapped. I moved a few feet away from the two, figuring that the more distance that was between us, the less I'd be tempted to do something I'd regret later.

"Why?" I thought that it would kind of be my business to know why this dick killed my mom and dad.

Ame knelt down and helped Charlie to his feet, handing him the .9mm when he was done massaging the abrasions around his neck. "Your father was an honorable man, Roxy," he said, sounding a little less pleasant than before. "A few years after you were born, your family needed some extra cash - badly. They would have lost everything they had if I hadn't offered your father a position in my line of work."

"Your line of work?" I asked, balling my hand into a fist.

It had begun to rain outside, and as the droplets fell atop the roof of the warehouse, they sounded louder than ever. Everything was quiet except for Charlie, who continued on with his speech.

"Drugs," Charlie stated. "The importing and exporting of illegal narcotics into the United States. But your dad wanted out - and that was unacceptable."

My heartbeat echoed in my ears as I listened to Charlie's story. I was feeling a number of things at the moment, but pissed off was pretty much number one.

Rain pounded on the roof above my head, the resonance seeming to be uncharacteristically thunderous and noisy. My heart beat in time with the rhythm of the downpour.

Charlie was pacing now, staring off into space as he recalled the events that happened years ago. "He threatened to go to the police when I told him that I'd take you away. Told him that he'd never see you again." Charlie shook his head. "That got him angry, but he stayed, like I knew he would."

"You killed my dad because he tried to do the right thing?" I don't think I've ever been this upset before. I could feel the blood dripping down my hands from where my fingernails were digging into the skin.

Charlie spun to face me, anger written across his face. "I killed your dad because the police showed up at my home in the middle of the night, asking questions," he spat, but then visibly calmed himself. "The next day, I gave the orders to kill you all. The whole Masuro family, just to make him pay for letting information leak to the authorities." He held me in place with his stare. "You were the only one that survived."

"So what now?" I snapped. "You gonna kill me for not dying the first time around?" I eyed Ame, who was looked like she was having a ball listening to our conversation, and then back to Charlie. "Or don't you do your own dirty work?"

"On rare occasions, I've been known to take care of certain predicaments," he replied easily, and brought up the gun. "I could shoot you in the heart, and make it quick," he said, smiling. "Or I could just shoot you in the head, and watch you suffer. Which would you prefer?"

"Can I think about it?"

Ame grabbed the gun from Charlie and took aim. "There's no time, I'll do it myself," she said shortly.

`All right,' I thought. This I could handle. I darted forth and kicked Ame right in the wrist, sending the gun soaring up into the air.

"Move bitch," I shouted as I pushed her out of my way. Sprinting for the gym, I pushed myself to go as fast as I could. I was almost there…

Once I was nearly five feet away, I leapt for it, only to see Charlie pluck it right out of the air. I tucked and rolled to avoid crashing down onto the floor. Ending up in a kneeling position, I fell backwards in surprise when I saw how close Charlie had gotten.

He was right up in my face, and now, with me being caught completely off guard, he moved forward and pressed the .9mm to my temple.

"It's time to end this, Roxy." I whimpered as the barrel of the gun dug into my sin. "Any last words?"

Defiant to the end, I spat in his face. "Eat my shorts."

I cried out when he roughly shoved me backwards, slamming my skull onto the hard floor. "Five," he began. "…Four." I prayed for a miracle. Anything. "Three." Oh man, it can't end like this! "Two." Why did I leave on such bad terms with Yusuke? "One -"

"SPIRIT GUN!"

`Oh shit, oh god, oh jesus,' I chanted over and over again in my mind. Yusuke's spirit gun had just barreled on through here, crashing into Charlie and sending him through the wall on the other side of the building.

I turned to look at Urameshi, who was standing stock-still and still had his index finger and thumb raised, ready to shoot again. He slid his gaze over to me, and I swallowed hard. Oh boy, he looked kind of pissed.

"Uh…" I stared at the ground. "Thanks, I guess."

He snorted. "Someone had to come and save your sorry ass. Might as well have been me."

I could tell he was lying by the way he kept sneaking looks at me when I wasn't looking. He was making sure I was all right, but I didn't think I had the guts to tell him that I was being shot at for the whole time I'd been here and my head's probably bleeding right now.

Still, he was being a jerk. I jumped to my feet, ignoring the waves of nausea and the dizziness that washed over me. "You could have hit me, you know," I marched over to him and poked him in the chest.

Yusuke looked away. "I wouldn't have hit you," he grunted.

My eyebrow arched, and I looked at him skeptically. "You don't know that."

He scowled and his eye twitched. "I said I wouldn't have hit you, now can we drop the damn subject?"

"Is Charlie…dead?" I asked him, peering over to the hole in the wall that Charlie had been sent through.

"Better be," Yusuke growled, and I saw his fist tighten at his side. I briefly wondered why he was the one that should be mad. I mean, hello? I should be the one killing this guy off, not Yusuke. Don't get me wrong though, I was flattered that Yusuke had actually come to save me. Impeccable timing, really.

"No human could have survived that attack," I murmured, mostly to myself. Ah, well, it's better to be rid of him. Wouldn't really want the guy putting the gun to my head again, eh?

Oh shit! I had forgotten about Ame!

Since I had been too busy getting mad at Urameshi for being unpleasant, I hadn't even noticed Ame stumble to her feet and grab Charlie's discarded gun.

I knew that Ame would shoot me without a second thought. "This blows," I breathed. I slowly moved backwards, but ended up bumping into Yusuke's chest. "A...Ame," I stuttered. Keeping the gun trained on my forehead, she arched one perfect eyebrow and said nothing. "Why work with Charlie?"

Yusuke brought his hands up and placed them on my waist, steadying me. He leaned down and murmured in my ear, "Stalling?"

I never took my eyes off of Ame. Barely even breathing, I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, "Maybe."

Ame sniffed haughtily. "Charles made me feel wanted, Roxanne. I don't expect you to understand." Her eyes took on an odd gleam, and I noticed the change immediately. "Say goodbye," she said coldly.

"You don't really want to do this," I begged. "Do you want to be a murderer?"

The gun went off, and Yusuke quickly shoved me behind him. I cringed back, awaiting the impact. `This is it,' I thought sadly. `It's all over.' When nothing happened after several moments of waiting, I cracked open one eye and peered around Urameshi to look at my foster mother.

Her eyes were open, staring straight ahead, straight through me and Urameshi. She sunk down to her knees, and the .9mm dropped down with a "clack". Behind her stood Maya, with the .38 I had kicked into the shadows earlier.

Slowly, Maya lowered the gun and smiled wearily. "Hey guys, how's it going?"

"No way," I whispered. My best friend tossed the gun deep into the shadows of the warehouse, and then opened her arms to me. I shot around Yusuke and collided into Maya. "This is unreal," I cried.

"I made a full recovery." I could hear the smile in her voice, as well as a few unshed tears. "The doctors couldn't believe it."

"How did you know where I was?"

She pulled away. "Let's not worry about that right now. I'm just happy I got here in time."

I turned back at Urameshi, who was standing in the same spot that I left him in, with the usual scowl back in place. "I've still got a bone to pick with you," he said darkly. "Jumping out my damn window wasn't the brightest thing in the world."

"Yeah? Well making out with some chick in the middle of the street wasn't the brightest thing, either!"

"We weren't making out!" he exclaimed. "Will you get over it, already?"

I stalked over to him. "I am over it! I don't give a damn who you're involved with!" It was a lie, and even I could hear it in my voice. Truth was, I was still a little hurt about this whole ordeal.

"Why do you care so much, anyway?" Our fight had escalated, and by now we were both about a foot apart, yelling at each other.

"I don't care!" I snorted, hoping that he didn't catch on. But I probably gave myself away when my eyes dropped to the ground and I found my shoelaces pretty fascinating.

"You do too, quit being such a stubborn bitch and admit it already!"

"Stubborn bitch? Excuse me! You can kiss my ass, Urameshi!"

"Answer my question, bitch!"

I drew my eyebrows together with anger and before I knew what I was saying, I had shouted, "Because I think I love you, you asshole!" The room was suddenly so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Yusuke blinked. "You w…what?"

My eyes were wide as I turned to Maya and cleared my throat. "Hey cool, time to go." To Yusuke, I said with my eyes downcast, "Forget about what I said. It was stupid." Before I could make a mad dash for the exit, Yusuke had grabbed me by the wrist and muttered something unintelligible.

I tried to pull my hand away. "What?"

He yanked me off balance and pulled me to him. "I said I think I love you too, don't make me repeat myself, bitch!" He kissed me, and the only thing running through my mind was, `He loves me too…'

I pulled back, suddenly feeling so happy I was lightheaded. Maya quietly came up behind me and put her arms around both me and Urameshi. She smiled serenely, just like she used to. "It's a beautiful thing," she sighed blissfully.

End Chapter.

A/N: all right! first story I've ever completed! *victory dance* ending sucked, but… how'd ya like the long chapter?? Cool, huh? Awesome, or what! I've decided `nay' on writing that story I was thinking about. I might write a ranma