Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ THE WOLVES OF MUSHIYORI CITY ❯ Copyright Penalty ( Chapter 7 )

CHAPTER 7: COPYRIGHT PENALTY

 

 

 

Yanagisawa Mitsunari at first considered getting other people's memories confused with his own to be the biggest bane about his ability to copy another person's memories.

Waking up just after midnight from a recurring nightmare he'd never had before, Yana decided that being plagued by other people's bad dreams was much worse.

 

On his way to his kitchen he stumbled over Asato Kido's crutches his friend and roommate had the bad habit of carelessly leaving on the floor.

He picked them up and fought his anger enough not to throw them at his friend sleeping on his couch and turned on a dim light in the kitchen so as not wake Asato.

Yana poured himself a bowl of cereal and rummaged around his medicine cabinet for sleeping pills which he dry swallowed and proceeded to eat his cereal.

He anticipated Asato waking up soon from the exact same nightmare that plagued him as it was Asato's to begin with.

 

Asato began mumbling and thrashing around after almost fifteen minutes of Yana watching him sleep. He sat up panting and sweating heavily. Asato rubbed the sleep from his eyes and noticed Yana sitting across from him nursing a bowl of cereal.

"What are you doing up?"

"Same reason you are. Exact same."

Asato tried to smile to lighten the mood as he apologised but couldn't. "Sorry, Yana. If you weren't afraid about going to the makai before I bet you are now." He mentally punched himself for making a joke out of his friend's life-threatening mission to the world of demons. "Sorry. Again. You know, you can always tell Mitarai to go to hell...figuratively, I mean. He doesn't have the right to ask you be his spy in demon world."

 

"I could have said no. He's been giving me opportunities to for days now. As scared as I am, I actually want this."
"Why?"

"Because I make my living spying on people and engaging in industrial espionage. Because once in a while I want to use my powers for something other than making money, playing jokes or copying the looks of women on the street so I can see them naked. My fear may be cranked up to eleven but I'm even more scared of waking up one morning when I'm forty and rich and wondering why I never did anything meaninful with my life." Yana returned his cereal bowl to the kitchen and threw a small towl at Asato.

"You know where the porn is. Are you sure you don't want a sleeping pill?"

Asato painfully got up from Yana's couch and headed towards the oak cabinet housing Yanagisawa's pornography collection without his crutches. "They don't work for me. Besides, I need to go back to sleep feeling good. And Yana? Thanks for letting me stay here."

 

Although he previously intended on demanding Asato get himself healed and get over his fear and his hatred for Mitarai but after experiencing his friend's recurring nightmare Yana saw why Asato used his weak legs as a built in excuse not to go anywhere or do anything.

He laid in bed staring up at the celing waiting for his sleeping pills to kick in even though he knew it was a hopeless cause since there were too many things swimming through his head at the time.

 

After another hour passed Yana decided to give up on sleep entirely and listened at his bedroom door for audible indications that Asato was still awake then went about showering and dressing when he heard Asato's low murmmering in his sleep.

He packed his checkered blue robe and nothing else and left wearing the tidal blue suit no one other than himself liked and silently wrote a note to Asato before leaving his friend alone with the television flickering from the looped porn movie.

 

Yana debated taking his van to Irima Cave where he was to begin his mission but opted to take the first taxi that presented itself as he and Asato had split the cost of van. He then worried about who would drive Asato around should he not come back.

When he managed to flag down a taxi some three blocks from his home Yana decided to let Asato take care of himself since he was completely physically capable.

 

The driver almost refused to take him to the allegedly haunted Irima Cave until Yana pulled a wad of bills from his pocket he was sure would be enough for a trip to hell and back.

Even though it was a long drive Yana offered even more money should the driver remain silent throughout the trip.

When they arrived at their desination the taxi driver wasted no time in claiming his money and speeding off. Even to regular humans Irima Cave had a disturbing presence to it.

 

Though he had only been inside the maze-like caves once before ten years ago and only made it part way, Yana had to rely on Mitarai's memories which he found more than adequate.

"Don't panic, man," Yana told himself when he wavered on entering the mouth of the cave. "Mitarai knows this place like the back of his hand and rap lyrics. He knows, so you know. You won't get lost."

 

He waded through the pitch dark series of tunnels while singing to himself to keep calm. When he ran through all the songs he knew he switched to the ones stuck in his memory from copying others. Mitarai's rap songs. Kaito's favorite funk songs. Even a Tears For Fears song Kuwabara hummed to himself when he felt anxious.

Other than killing time they did nothing to calm Yana's nerves.

 

When he reached the huge cavern where the barrier seperating the human and demon worlds had been broken ten years prior Yana sat down on an old broken television that was in the middle of the cavern. For five minutes he sat with his face in his hands until deciding to get undressed and slip into his robe.

He neatly folded his suit and placed his clothes in a plastic shopping bag he carried with him.

 

Kuwabara and Mitarai told him that most demons escaping the makai came through in Irima Cave although he didn't see any of which Yanagisawa was glad. He took a deep breath and walked through the hole in dimensions that existed and then through the kekkai barrier that weeded out the strong demons. Being a weak human psychic, Yana had no trouble entering the demon world.

 

The low class demons were too busy jockying for position at the hole in dimensions inside the makai to pay him any heed. Yana grazed one of the indifferent demons with his finger as he ran past and turned himself into a perfect copy of the demon before any of the others could change their mind about eating him.

 

Once disguised as a large, horned, red ogre Yana sat down on a near rock to rest. None of the other demons paid him any attention despite being the only demon wearing a robe and boxer shorts. He considered himself lucky to have copied an ogre since they were considered much like insects in the makai. Easily swatted but mostly ignored.

"Yo, fellow demon!" he called out to the first ogre he saw.

The other ogre furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at Yana who suddenly slipped into character.

"Yes?"

Yana sifted through the ogre's memories and was surprised to find refferences to a certain demon the name of which the ogre didn't know. Something moderately useful if vague.

"I'm looking for the boss."

 

Yana's fellow ogre could only offer vague descriptions of a strange gray-haired human with a powerful enough spiritual presence to avoid being eaten and even take on a leadership role.

He went from demon to demon and found that in the makai other demons found ogre's innocuous enough to give information to given their low rung on the demon ladder.

 

The parallell to his detective work in the human world was eerie. The ease of getting information put him temporarily off his guard until he started to get hungry. His anxiety returned when he realized what he was hungering for was human flesh.

With a few hunger pangs a flood of memories of eating humans came to the surface. Then memories of beatings from higher class demons. Then memories of his childhood as an ogre.

He remembered being a young ogre child listening to heavy metal music and getting high in his parent's basement at the age of thirteen.

Repressed memories from the hundreds of humans he had copied opened themselves up inside his head and mixed with his new ogre memories.

He rememberd meeting Asato Kido on the first day of junior high in gym class. Then he remembered being Asato Kido on the first day of junior high gym class.

 

The strange demonic mind he had copied and assimilated with his own had tipped the delicate balance of memories and personalities Yanagisawa Mitsunari had stored in his head. The conflicting memories forced Yana to give up his ogre disguise when it became too much effort to hold that form.

He didn't even notice when a gang of demons flocked around him and began beating him.

"Well, I'll be damned! A human! There's something you don't see every day," said a voice just before Yana felt himself being lifted into the air before blacking out.

 

Yana woke when what looked like a human pried open his right eyelid.

"Nifty power you got there, kid."

He tried to sit up only to find himself bound to a long wooden table. Yana used what little spirit awareness he had to tell just what was talking to him and found it to be human.

"Who the hell are you?"

The gray-haired human rifled through the pockets of Yana's robe and grimaced. "Shit. I guess it was too much to hope that you brought some chocolate with you. Five years in the makai and I found that human companionship is easier to do without than chocolate. Oh, before I forget....what's your name?"

"Akira Kurosawa. Maybe you've seen my movies."

The human grabbed the little finger and ring finger of Yana's right hand and broke them with a turn of his wrist.

"I'll ask again. What's your name?"

"Takeshi Kaneshiro. Want an autograph?"

 

Yana went through every actor and director he could think of while the other man went through Yana's digits. After every finger and toe was broken short punches to the ribs were made in place of broken fingers. After the second broken rib Yana couldn't think of any more names.

"Name?"

"Y-Yanagisawa. Mitsssssuuuuunaaaari."

"Good." The man called for one of the demons in the corner of the room who procceeded to heal Yana. The pain remained but it had lessened considerably.

"See. All you had to do was tell me your name. Nice to meet you, Yanagisawa Mitsunari. I'm Shinji. I'll make you a deal. You tell me something about yourself and I'll tell you something about myself. Okay? What's your favorite color?"

Yana couldn't think of anything clever or misleading to say before answering blue.

 

Over the next hour Yana was subjected to broken fingers once again then small strips of metal hammered underneath his fingernails for every one of his false answers to Shinji's seemingly innocuous queries.

Before he was healed again he had given away his favorite color, birthday, favorite Star Wars movie and a plethora of other useless information of no strategic value.

With each bit of information he passed to Shinji Yana learned more about his captor but likewise nothing of any real use. He learned Shinji worked as a dishwasher and stumbled through a hole in the barrier between worlds and ended up in the makai. His hair grayed too soon for his liking and he developed his psychic powers soon after arriving.

 

"I think I'm somwhere in the strong C-class when it comes to strength. At least that's what the bosses tell me. I guess that's good since I no longer get messed with by all these fuckers who consider me food. How about you?"

"D-Class, I think. I don't fight. I'm just a spy." It took Yana a minute to realise he had both answered a question and been offered information from his captor without any sort of torture.

 

Shinji kept asking questions about Yana's likes and dislikes and avoided asking about Mitarai and the others. Yana made sure to lie as much as he could. Most times he was in too much pain to bother lying about trivial things. Gradually the torture was toned down as his answers grew more quick and honest.

"Yana, I have an important question for you now. Something I've been meaning to ask since I found you. How in the hell do you get your hair to stand up like that?"

"Combination gel and hair spray."

 

By the time the questions about who he was spying for were asked Yana had been too physically broken down by the torture and in too much a frame of mind of answering questions to resist.

Shinji cut at the ropes binding Yana to the table and gave him a fresh robe to put on.

"Gotta go spread the to word to the big guys. I'll be back in an hour or two. Don't go anywhere. I'll take you back to the human world later."

 

Yana cursed his powers for what seemed like the millionth time. Not only were they inadvertently responsible for him being caught for being unable to assimilate a demon's memories but they were of no value in him trying to escape. Copying someone's memories wouldn't have helped him break the ropes tying him down nor fight his way out of the makai. The worst indignity was that he was left ungaurded and unbound he was so little of a threat.

His anger started simmering and came to a boil once Shinji entered the hut he was being kept in and pounced on his captor.

 

While strangling him Yana ended up unconsciously downloading his copied memories into Shinji. He conjured up every memory of pain and humiliation that didn't belong to him and found himself transmitting them into his torturer's mind.

He'd heard before that extreme sitautions brought out greater power in psychics but never thought he'd ever benefit from it. Before Yana could try to run while Shinji was distracted the other psychic lightly punched his shoulder and shattered it.

 

Shinji sat up massaging his head. "Damn, that hurt! I was going to lead you back to your friends in peace but fuck that! This won't be like before. That was my friendly torture."

He picked up a threaded sewing needle and dipped it into a small bowl of what Yana assumed was the demonic equivalent of hot sauce then pulled down Yana's shorts.

Before starting to work Shinji called for one of the minor demons that hung around him and handed him a written note.

"Get that to whoever's spirit detective." Shinji then turned his attention back to Yana who clenched his mouth shut to keep from screaming. "Your pal should be at the mouth of Irima Cave in a few of hours. We'll leave to meet him in about an hour...but damn will it be a long hour for you."