Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Slight Problem ❯ Insecurity ( Chapter 8 )

Here's chapter eight!! Please R&R!!

 

I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, as much as I might wish otherwise. All I own are my own two characters, Natalie and Lisa.

 

*****

 

Upon finding George wandering through the hallways, Natalie requested that he show her to her room. The ogre nodded immediately and showed her to a guest room that was only a few doors down from Lisa's. The girl entered the room, quickly thanking the blue skinned and yellowed haired ogre, and shut the door behind her without another word. She cast a casual glance around the room, taking in the decor, and seeing the extravagance that normally would have left her feeling a little awed as it had her friend. But at the moment, she was still too pissed off at Hiei and his bullshit antics to give a shit.

She sat down on the edge of her bed, still fuming from the memory of her encounter with the koorime, and wondered what the hell his problem had been. From watching the series, he didn't pull shit like he had today, and she couldn't figure out why he would sink so low as to bring up a topic he knew was sensitive to her and use it against her in such a malicious and heartless manner. She had played his little game, but she still didn't have a clue what the hell the point of it had been.

She scowled then. So much for HIM being her favorite... and to top things off, his stunt had royally fucked up her train of thought when it came to trying to figure out a way to get herself and Lisa home again. She took in a few deep breaths, trying to calm her short temper, and trying to shove all thoughts of the koorime out of her mind so she could get back to the more immediate concern of returning the two of them back to their own dimension.

She sat there trying to calm herself down sufficiently enough so that she could think rationally once more. After taking in a few more deep breaths and telling herself mentally to forget about Hiei's games for the time being, she started thinking over the current dilemma of her and Lisa's displacement once more.

After a couple of hours had passed, she felt a little of her frustration returning as no answers came to her, just as before. She just couldn't figure out how it was possible for she had Lisa to be here in the first place.

Once again her contemplation was interrupted, this time by a knock at her door. She considered ignoring it, and then sighed heavily, knowing there was probably no point in trying.

"Come in," she called, trying with little success to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

The door opened and she blinked, seeing Kurama step into her room. "Am I interrupting something, Natalie? I hope you don't mind, but I asked George where your room was, and he..."

She shook her head immediately and got to her feet. "No. What can I do for you, Kurama.?"

The red haired boy nodded, closing the door behind him as he turned to regard her steadily with those green eyes of his. "I understand that this is a subject you will not wish to get into with me. However, it is necessary that I ask and that I receive and explanation. I want to know exactly why you attacked Hiei earlier. He mentioned a man named Dave, and..."

Her expression went hard as she held up the index finger of her left hand, cutting him off in mid-sentence. "Hold it right there. It was bad enough that Hiei had to bring it up. I don't want to get into it AGAIN."

His expression never changed as he regarded her steadily. "I understand that it is a difficult subject for you, but I will receive an answer for this. We cannot have you and Hiei fighting, Natalie."

She scowled now and crossed her arms, turning to face the window leading out to her balcony. "I don't intend to be here long enough for us to have another confrontation, so stop worrying about it!"

"Have you figured out a way for you and Lisa to return to your own world, then?"

She was quiet for a long moment and then sighed heavily, her arms falling limply at her sides. "No. I haven't."

He nodded, although the action was unseen by his female companion. "Then there is still a chance that you and Hiei could have more confrontations. I need to find out why you attacked him, Natalie. You ARE the one who dealt the first blow, and we cannot have the two of you at one another's throats."

She turned, her expression hard once again. "He provoked me, Kurama, so don't make it sound like this was MY fault!" she said, her voice low.

"In what way did he provoke you?" he countered calmly.

She looked at him for a long moment before her expression fell and she sat heavily on the edge of the bed. She sighed in defeat. "You're not going to leave until I tell you, are you?"

She felt his hand on her shoulder a moment later and heard his voice softly reply. "You know me well. And you also understand my reasons. It is illegal for demons to kill humans, and if Hiei uses enough power in a fight against you, he could kill you, even accidently. This issue must be addressed for both of your sakes. Once I know the specifics, I will be able to speak with Hiei to determine exactly what caused him to provoke you in the first place."

She snorted. "You wouldn't mind giving him a good ol' right hook for me while you're at it, would you?"

If she had looked up, she would have seen the first indication of a smile on Kurama's face since he had entered her room. "I guess we'll see. And now, if you would please...?"

She nodded and got to her feet once more. "This... is something I hate others knowing. Other than Hiei, only my immediate family and closest friends are aware of it, so I would appreciate it if you could keep what I'm going to tell you to yourself."

He nodded. "If you wish it, then I shall."

She sighed heavily. "I was a lonely kid growing up. Throughout elementary school and junior high, I didn't have any friends at school. In fact, until Master Yamaguchi moved in next door to us and started teaching me how to fight, I was bullied more than anything else. Then, once I started learning how to defend myself, the other kids just stayed away and wanted nothing to do with me. I don't pretend to know why I was singled out as I was, and quite frankly I'm beyond caring. That aspect of my life is ancient history and I probably wouldn't care for any of those kids who went to my school to be my friends anyway. But at the time I was craving friendship more than anything else, and I finally got it from an unexpected source when I was twelve years old."

"My father introduced me to Dave... a man who he worked with at the time before my Dad retired a few months later. He was 25 years my senior, but we shared many of the same interests. It wasn't long before we were almost inseperable friends, which may sound strange, but it felt absolutely natural at the time. He spent every spare moment he had with me, and we'd talk, go shopping, and once I got a little older, we even went on camping trips together." She cast a meaningful look at Kurama. "And just to let you know right now that there was absolutely NOTHING romantic involved in our relations... it was strictly a friendship thing, at least from my point of view." She shook her head. "But I was young, stupid and sadly naive. All I knew was that I had a friend and that he would listen to me when I needed to talk, and he would do things to try and cheer me up when I felt like shit. To me, nothing else mattered.

Her gaze turned away from him, and her stomach twisted slightly when she reached the next phase of her story. "I was seventeen when everything went wrong. At the time, although I knew how to fight, I never fully trained myself to increase my strength, and didn't focus much on the chi aspect of martial arts. And, although I had been involved in the Craft for two years at the time, I only dabbled in it a little, and hadn't decided to make it my absolute path in life as of that point. Dave brought me out camping in BC (AN: British Columbia) for a weekend in the summer. It was all good at first. We went fishing and sight seeing, and I did a little drinking, all things that I'd done with him before, and so I thought it was just going to be another camping trip and nothing struck me as being odd or different from my previous times camping with him. Two nights into our trip, I had two drinks one night. Just two beer... something that should have hardly affected me." She snorted. "I didn't see him put the tablet into my second beer bottle before I started drinking it."

Kurama's eyes widened slightly hearing this, and he had a sinking sensation he knew exactly where this was going.

"Before I even knew it, I was paralyzed. My entire body was completely limp. I was feeling very light headed and I was going in and out of consciousness. All I know is that each time I came to... every time I opened my eyes... Dave was on top of me."

After a moment of silence, she snorted. "I didn't know what to do when he brought me home the next day. He just continued on as if nothing had happened and he told me the would see me in two weeks. A week after the trip, I visited with my sister in the city for a few days. She and I hung out, and she let me get drunk. One night while I was there, she started talking to me, as she had done on several occasions before, about how she didn't like Dave and how she thought it wasn't good for me to be hanging out with the likes of him. She never did like him, and never did approve of my hanging out with him in the first place. She always was a better judge of character than I was... at least until I finally delved deeply into the Craft and developed my abilities. But that night, as she was lecturing me, I finally broke down and told her what had happened." She smiled a little wanly. "To say she was pissed off at Dave would be an understatement of epic proportions. She was ready to get her husband to drive out to where Dave was working up north and castrate him herself. Instead, what wound up happening is she phoned up Mom and Dad, and told them what had happened herself."

"The next day, my father brought me to the doctors to see if I had contracted anything from him. Thankfully, all tests came back negative. Unfortunately, whatever drug he had used on me was out of my system by that time, so we didn't have much evidence. We spoke to our family lawyer and he told us that if we were to try and charge him, all we would be able to get him with was providing alcohol to a minor, which would only give him a hefty fine. So the fucker was never charged with anything."

"He had the audacity to show up as he had told me he was going to do, and my father personally got rid of him for me. He told him that if he ever came near me or anyone else in our family again, that he was personally going to kill him. So Dave left without a word and I've never seen him again."

Kurama sighed heavily when it became evident that her story was now complete. "I'm... sorry, Natalie. I wish there was something I could do or that I could say..."

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. The worst of it all is that once all was said in done and he was finally gone... looking back, I could see that all the signs were there. But at the time I was too stupid to see them for myself. Sis saw them before me and she hardly spent any time with Dave at all. She told me often enough that something about him just made her skin crawl, but I didn't listen to her. I had to learn the hard way. And since that night, when I finally started dating guys and started trying to get involved romantically with them..." She snorted. "I've gone out with four guys since the incident and none of the relationships have lasted longer than three months... all because I can't relax whenever a man tries to touch me. Even now, five years later, I have a hard time with it."

Kurama frowned from where he sat on the bed. "Hindsight is a curse, as well as a blessing, in that you can see the mistakes you've made, but you can also see that which you thought you should have seen as the events were unfolding. You were not stupid, in any sense of the word. You were simply lacking in experience to see the signs for what they were. The fault for your experience does not lie with you, Natalie. The fault lies only with the man who took advantage of a lonely child seeking companionship."

She nodded. "I know that," she said quietly.

He cleared his throat slightly as he got to his feet. "And now... although I am not almost hesitant to ask... if you could tell me what it was that Hiei did to provoke you?"

The scowl was back on her face immediately at the mention of his name. Her arms folded across her chest as she remembered her encounter with him once more, her attitude back in a rush. "He brought up Dave in the first place, which was bad enough, but then, upon pointing out that he knew that he was my favorite character back in our world, he told me that he could reproduce the exact same effects as the drug Dave used on me with his jagen eye if he chose to do so!"

Kurama's eyes went wide, hearing this. "He WHAT?! Hiei did that?!"

She nodded. "Yeah... knowing I would blow my stack, obviously, but I don't have a fucking clue WHY he wanted to provoke me in the first place. He kept taunting me with the information he had and when I tried to get away from him, he blocked my path! He wouldn't leave me alone!"

Kurama frowned deeply now. "I will speak with him and see if I can learn anything to shed light on why he would use such extreme measures to anger you. It is not like Hiei to do something like that."

She frowned and nodded. "Yeah... I thought stuff like that went against his honor code."

Kurama allowed a bit of a sheepish smile to come to his face. "Hiei's sense of honor is very... complex. I know he never does things without a reason, even if that reason may not seem immediately clear. I will get to the bottom of this for you, Natalie. Have no fear of that."

She nodded. "Alright. Thanks, Kurama. And please, just remember..."

He nodded, knowing what she was going to say before she could finish uttering the sentence. "I will not repeat what you have told me to anyone else. You have my word."

"Thanks."

He inclined his head to her respectfully as he left her room without another word and went on a search for a certain koorime.

 

*****

 

Kurama found Hiei twenty minutes later, in one of the trees on the grounds of the palace, his hands placed behind his head as he looked out over the River Styx.

"Hiei, we need to talk," the kitsune said, his voice leaving no room for argument.

"Hn. So talk, Kurama," he said, his voice casual.

His eyes narrowed slightly. "I just spoke with Natalie about the fight, and I want to know why you provoked her. And not only that, but why you used such a underhanded and cruel manner that you did! You had no right to reopen old wounds, and use such a sensitive subject to anger her! And the insinuation you made, comparing your jagen eye to the drug used against her in the past was simply disgusting on your part! What the hell were you thinking? It is n't like you to use such cruel methods in your dealings with others!"

Hiei shrugged easily. "I wanted to see what she was capable of."

The kitsune blinked in surprise hearing this, and then he frowned deeply. "You were inside her mind, so don't try telling me that you don't know what she was capable of, Hiei! Not to mention you know she was failing miserably in the fight against those demons yesterday, or do I need to remind you of the day she spent in the medical wing?!"

"She wasn't using her full capabilities in that fight, for one thing, and for another, she had the portion of her mind that had her knowledge pertaining to her magickal knowledge blocked off securely in a small corner of her mind when I used my jagen eye on her earlier today. My eye was unable to penetrate it because it was very tightly locked away."

Kurama stared at him. "What do you mean she was...?"

He snorted. "Hn. Didn't you notice the difference between her aura when she had been fighting in the city compared to when she was in battle with me? In the city she never used her full fighting power to fight them off, because she was worried about possible hurting some of the few humans that were in the area, nestled inside the buildings. In addition to that, she was distracted trying to keep Lisa safe at the same time as she was fighting them off. She was also concerned that using her full power might inadvertedly bring harm to her friend, due to Natalie's inexperience in using the techniques in fights. She's never had to use them in that manner before. Yesterday was her first time fighting against demons."

Kurama's frown lessened slightly as he contemplated this information. "So you wanted to test her, is what you are saying?"

He nodded. "Yes. Because she had the magickal portion of her information blocked off from my mind probe, I didn't know what methods she knew, and wanted to find out for myself. Unfortunately, Koenma's interference in our fight brought it to a stop before she used any of them against me. I had no intentions of actually hurting her."

He frowned again. "But did you have to use such a disgustingly sensitive subject as you did to get her to attack you?!"

The koorime smirked. "Perhaps I did go overboard with that one, but it did have the desired effect. I wanted her to be enraged, and it worked. Although her power isn't nearly enough to stand up against me, she does have impressive skills... for a human, that is."

Kurama shook his head. "She is not at all impressed with you, Hiei. And you do realize that you were her favorite out of the four of us until you decided to pull your stunt."

He shrugged. "Whatever. Do you honestly expect me to care? I couldn't care less what she thinks of me or of my tactics. You wanted to know why I provoked her, and so now you know. Is there anything else you wanted from me, or are you finished now, Kurama?"

The kitsune sighed. "As you wish, Hiei. But I warn you... do NOT use such tactics again. You said yourself that she is unpracticed in using her magickal techniques in battle and if she were trying to use one and she failed at a critical moment, you could kill her, intentions aside. I'm certain you know what Koenma would have to say about that. And if you try fighting her again, I may feel inclined to step in myself. Just a warning to you now, Hiei. Goodnight to you."

Kurama turned and left the koorime where he was on his perch. Hiei simply snorted and took up his position again, looking out over the River Styx.

 

*****

 

And there you have chapter eight! Please tell me what you think everyone!!!

 

In chapter nine, Natalie learns of Hiei's intentions, and later that night has another visit from the koorime!! Will it result in another fight or does Hiei have another reason for his visit this time? Read and find out!!!