Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Price of Friendship ❯ Koenma's POV ( Chapter 8 )

Thank You! kahuffstix, KyoHana, Red Kitsune Flames, Lady Inari, darksoul0016 & GrayPheonix

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------

 

Chapter 8 - Koenma's POV

 

It's been awhile since I heard from Yusuke. I had almost completely lost track of him after Kuwabara's funeral. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, I was able to find him after the other deaths.

 

It was hard for me to tell him that. It was even harder watching his emotions play on his teenage visage. He may be a demon lord and my ex-spirit detective, but he is still a child by many standards. I…sometimes forget that. It's moments like these that serve to remind me.

 

…Perhaps my office is not the best place for me to reminisce, but I have nowhere else to go. And it would happen anyway…

 

It's been playing over in my mind since I told him; the shadows of emotion within those chocolate brown eyes, ever changing. One feeling passing as quickly as it appeared; disbelief, sadness, incredulity, then sadness again until they finally settled on anger.

 

“He came back, Yusuke. He…he finished it.”

 

“Whaddyou…No!” His eyes widened. “Kei…?”

 

I nod solemnly. “Yes, Yusuke. But that's not all. Did you stop by Genkai's shrine before coming?” He shakes his head no, eyes wide as saucers. I sigh. “He got them all, Yusuke: Keiko, Yukina, Shizuru, and…Atsuko.” I had avoided looking into his eyes until this point, but when I spoke the name of his mother, I had to. I had to make sure he knew how serious I was. I had to make sure he understood how serious this situation was.

 

“He…he might come back, Yusuke,” I say looking away from him again but still leaning towards him over my desk. “He…he might come after Botan. Or me. Or…or you. Which is why you have,” I take in a shuddering breath, trying to keep my composure, “which is why I want you to find him first.” I turn to him again, “I want you to find him and bring him back here. Dead or alive.”

 

He glances up at me from where he had collapsed upon hearing his mom's name among Kurama's victims. His eyes asked me the question his lips could not: `You want me to kill Kurama? My teammate, our fox, you want me to kill him?' they say. At this moment, he looks supremely like the child he is, but that doesn't last long. For once I nod - once I put out a death warrant on the youko's head - he stands; eyes hard, tears stayed.

 

The moment of child-likeness passes and he is once again a demon lord who will do anything to protect and avenge his own. Kurama and Hiei upset his balance and so, they would pay. All this I read in his eyes. Nothing else is said as he turns and stalks out.

 

A promise was made, a promise he won't hesitate to fulfill should the need arise.

 

That day…I almost loathed assigning him that task. But, it had to be done, and he was the only one left who could do it; possibly the only one who could ever do it.

 

I sigh into my interlaced hands as I think about all the disaster to befall my team. My ex-team, that is, though even that doesn't do them justice. They were never really under my control even when they were completing those missions for me. We all knew it was of their own accord that they even listened to my orders when they did.

 

I never thought their downfall would be at the hand of one of their own. And I surely never expected that hand to belong to the oldest and most level-headed of the group. Hiei, if anyone, but definitely not Kurama. But seeing as his soul arrived shortly after the others, I now see that that assumption was seriously flawed.

 

He still refuses to speak. Even when I told him the worst of the punishment he could receive, all he did was give me an even gaze (one of his calmest yet fiercest, I'm sure) and say he was waiting to speak with “the fox”. When I told him it could be awhile, if ever, before that happened, he looked away with his arms folded.

 

`He'll be here,' he said. And he hasn't spoken since. He's just sat in his cell, quietly, calmly, as if he really were awaiting Kurama's arrival. His reasons I shall never know, until he decides to reveal them. That is the only reason why I haven't started his trial yet.

 

My thoughts were just about to go off on another tangent, this one of the first member of my team to become deceased, when my office flies open with no premonition. Botan, my best and dearest ferry girl, comes rushing in, faced flushed and ponytail flying out behind her. She addresses me with owlish pink eyes.

 

“Lord Koenma, there's something you need to see.”

 

I stand immediately and follow her; only one topic could cause this kind of reaction in her right now. One of two souls will have appeared in my palace. The only question is whose?

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -

 

Well, as I said last chapter, the end is drawing near for this story. There's going to only be two more chapters after this one and then the sequel…once I write it.

 

Review, please!