http://clampfix.fanworks.net/guests/kurama-t.txt </head><body><pre>See me, Feel me, Touch me, Heal me... -- Tommy, The Who The second tail sat alone in a dark corner of Kurama's subconcious, brooding. "Damn you," he whispered harshly to himself. "DAMN YOU!" And the darkness waited, watching for the violence that it knew would come eventually. It always did. Kurama 1/2 -The Second Tail's Tale- Calculus was ridiculously easy for someone with six minds in his body. That was Kurama's secret to being an outstanding student as Minamino Shuuichi. It was not unlike having four elder brothers, he mused. And a twin sister on occasion. "Carry the four, divide by three...!" she warbled from somewhere in the back of his head. "She's having entirely too much fun," the second tail observed bitterly. He and the third tail were helping the fifth tail with the calculus. "I love you too!" she sang out merrily. "I... am leaving," the second tail decided. "Tell your twin-self that she is DAMNED annoying," he told the fifth tail, shortly before dissolving into nothingness as he left for a distant corner of their mind. "Spoilsport," Kurama said as they merged into one and returned their attention to the calculus before them. He was just a little surprised to see that it was all already completed. But then, half of him had been skipping working on it in favor of a card tournament he'd promised to the first and fourth tails. Kurama grinned; once the first tail had managed to get the position of dealer away from the fourth tail (which had involved no little bit of haggling on the part of the first tail), the game had gone fairly well, and for once he... she?... hadn't done too badly against the fourth tail. Of course, changing the deck of marked cards for a fresh deck hadn't hurt the game results, either. Tokyo wasn't always the nicest place in the world to be. It had its nice areas, to be sure, and its respectable business districts, but, like any other major metropolitan area in the world, it had its slums. Some of these were places that you could go during the day and not feel more than minorly threatened. Others were not. Carried beyond reason and speech by terror, a teenage girl ran raggedly, pursued by a fact that was the daily reality of her life. It had happened to so many around her. She'd heard the stories, been cautious, tried not to attract attention. But to no avail. He had found her. No reason, no anything. Only the pure desire to hurt, to dominate. Only the desire to hurt HER. She stumbled into an alley that she should have known was dead-ended. But her eyes were unseeing, and it was only when her hand touched the wall at the end of it did she realize her mistake. Turning, she saw HIM at the end of the alley, trapping her in. "No," she whimpered as he stepped closer. "No...." He laughed and opened his knife, enjoying the fright in her eyes as he walked closer. He softly touched her dark hair in a gesture that would have seemed tender and loving to the girl, if she hadn't been so terrified. He smiled. A line of blood trickled down the girl's cheek from the movement of the knife in a movement too fast for the eye to follow. She cringed back, touching her cheek. He smiled again and licked the blood from the knife. As the violation of the girl's body and soul commenced in one violent move, a shockwave of pain and terror spread from her all across the Tokyo area. It was nothing more than an simple empathic wave of tangled emotions, such as emanated from the victim of any violent attack, but what was different about this was that the girl had unknown, hidden, psychic powers. The scale comparison was that of the ripples caused by dropping a pebble into a pond, and a tsunami caused by an enormous earthquake. Anyone within a hundred kilometers of the attack who had psychic powers, even vestigial ones, felt it. It was comprised of merely one word. "TASUKETEI!!!" _Help me._ "Itetete!" Kuwabara moaned, sitting up, his hand on his aching head. He looked over at his still-unconcious companion. "Oi, Urameshi!" he said, shaking him with his free hand. "Okiteyo! Wake up!" "Nnnn...." Yuusuke reluctantly opened his eyes and sat up. "What happened?" "Trouble," Hiei replied, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. "Big trouble," Kurama added, duplicating Hiei's trick. "Come on, we have to get to the source." "How the hell do you do that?" Yuusuke asked, standing up. Then, before either of them could answer, he said, "Ahh, never mind. Let's just get going. Which way?" "That way," Hiei and Kurama said together, pointing in the same direction. The four of them took off immediately, Kurama, Kuwabara, and Yuusuke running, while Hiei flickered ahead like the living shadow he was. Kurama felt a wrenching in his mind as he deliberately split into his male and female sides, but it didn't show in the slightest, as his step didn't alter in the least. "What is it?" he silently asked his female tail. "Nothing," she replied, frowning. "I have a bad feeling about this...." "What do you think's going on?" the fourth tail asked. "... Something not good," the third answered. "Bad," the first tail agreed. "Very bad." The second tail was oddly silent. "Hey," the fourth tail said as they all looked at the second tail, "you okay?" The second tail looked at the lot of them, and disappeared without a word. "He's acting even weirder than usual...." the female tail mused. The other tails, all except the first, nodded in agreement. The first merely locked his eyes on hers. <You wish to understand why?> he asked her. <Then follow him.> <?> she thought in return. Then, shrugging, she obeyed, and dissolved into nothingness as she silently followed the second tail. "What do you think's happened?" Yuusuke asked Kurama as they ran. "... I don't know," Kurama replied, his eyes worried. "But it's nothing good, that much I know." <Where is he?> the female fifth tail asked herself. She was in the second tail's territory, but there was no sign of him. <Where did he go?> A flicker of darkness, of hate-filled energy, caught her attention, and she moved to where she'd seen it move. <There he is.> The second tail sat alone, arms wrapped around himself, as still as a statue. Kurama could sense the pain rolling off of him, and wondered what was hurting him. She stepped closer, out of her hiding place, and asked, "What is it, second tail? Are you alright?" "Go away," he muttered, his voice full of hate. "Tell me what's wrong," Kurama-chan implored. "What happened?" "Get out!" the second tail commanded. An invisible wall of force slammed into her, knocking the breath, and momentarily, the conciousness, out of the female tail. It deposited her just outside of the second tail's territory, and reformed into a wall aroud it. "Damn...." Kurama muttered, pressing her hand to her chest. It almost felt like she'd broken a rib, but she knew she wasn't physical right now, and nothing short of destroying their body could kill any of a youko's tails. "What's he hiding? And why'd he hurt me? He talks down to me all the time, sure, but he's never attacked _any_ of the tails like that before!" When Kurama, Kuwabara, and Yuusuke finally entered the alley that was their destination, Hiei had already been standing next to the girl's still form for several seconds. "She's not dead," was all he said as they skidded to a halt. "What happened to her?" Yuusuke asked. "Was she mugged or beaten up by a gang, or somethin'?" Kurama took a step closer and knelt down by the girl. "She's in shock," he observed. "And I think I know why." "Why?" Kuwabara demanded. Kurama turned to face them, his eyes impassively serious. "Rape," he answered quietly. Kuwabara and Yuusuke's eyes widened. Only Hiei remained totally impassive. Kurama turned back to the girl, his fingers gently touching her uncut cheek. <Let me handle this.> The female tail stepped to the fore and took control of the body. The instant she did, a thousand feelings and sensations, thoughts filled with pain and helplessness, flooded her conciousness. She saw the rape as it occured, through the eyes of the victim. She WAS the victim; terror and fear such as she had never before known flooded her being. <No....> was all she could whimper, as the entire post-cognitive experience took place in the longest, most intense, most agonizingly painful half-second that any of the tails had ever had to endure. She broke away with a gasp, and stumbled back a few paces in their mind. "What is it?" she heard Yuusuke ask, and managed to frame an answer. "Nothing," Kurama replied, shaking his head softly. "Nothing," he said again, as if trying to convince himself. <Something's wrong,> Yuusuke thought, watching as Kurama took the girl in his arms. <More than what's obivous, anyway.> "Maira," Kurama said softly. "Maira, wake up." <He knows her name?> Yuusuke wondered. The girl's bruised eyelids fluttered, then opened. She stared for a second at the strange boy holding her, then began to cry. "It's all right," Kurama soothed, "it's all right." "I'll go find a phone and call the cops," Kuwabara said. "She's gonna need help." "It's a good thing that you boys found her so quickly," the police officer said. "There aren't a whole lot of people in this slum who'd be willing to help her." "Is she gonna be okay?" Yuusuke asked, looking to where Maira was being loaded into an ambulance, crying and still clutching Kurama's hand. "I don't know," the officer replied. "To be honest, it depends on how ready she is to deal with it, how prepared she was beforehand. I see this stuff all the time. Some live, some don't." "You can die from this?" Yuusuke asked. "From sex? Come on...." The officer looked at him strangely, then said, "It's not the act that makes it wrong, it's the fact that the victim has no control over it. It's the same with any case of abuse." Still shuddering, Kurama-chan sat in the back of their territory, watching from a distance as her twin called Genkai. "She's a pretty powerful telepath if she could cause that kind of effect," Kurama said into the phone. "If she comes through this okay, she'll need training." "IF she comes through it," Genkai emphasized. "Where is she?" Kurama listed off a hospital name and room number. "Are you going to go see her?" "I am," Genkai replied. "She'll probably need someone to talk to, and I'm not sure that a man can understand what she's going through." "I'll be visiting her too," Kurama said. "If you think that talking to a man might not be the best for her.... I don't think that she was in any condition to notice that I was a guy." "Finding Nannichuan useful?" Genkai asked, laughing slightly. Kurama hesitated. "... Yeah," he said finally. "It has its uses. I'll meet you at the hospital tomorrow around 2?" "Okay," Genkai said. "I'll see you there." Kurama hung up and sat down at his desk. He turned on his computer and opened an empty file. He absently started typing, and let the fourth tail take over, writing whatever the hell he wanted. "Are you okay?" Kurama asked his female self. "I'm fine," she replied. "No, you're not," he said. He dug in a chest in the corner of the room and pulled out a blanket, draping it over her shoulders. He then sat down crosslegged in front of her. "Tell me." "I can't--" she started, then stopped herself. "What is it?" he asked her. She looked up at him from her examination of the floor. "... Do you think the two of us are youkos?" she asked quietly. "Why?" "This." Kurama-chan raised her hand to Kurama-kun's, and touched their palms together. With a shock, Kurama found himself re-living the rape as his other had, only more distant. He sensed that she was trying, struggling, to soften the impact, to keep the worst from him. "What the--?" Kurama asked as he came out of it. "When I touched Maira, that's what happened," Kurama replied. Kurama rarely cursed, having been raised by a genteel mother, but hanging around with Yuusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei had taught him the art well. "Holy shit." "You got it," she agreed. "This means we really are youkos," Kurama murmured in surprise. "If you have the empathic powers of a youko woman, then there's no other answer." Kurama-chan stood. "I'm going to find the second tail," she said. "Something's wrong with him, and I think I'm best equipped of all of us to find out what." "You can't control it yet, can you?" he asked. "No." In darkness, the second tail sat, expertly torturing himself. He faced a wall hung with weapons of every type imaginable, excluding firearms. He'd never liked firearms. Too banal and murderous in the modern age. Older styles had grace and gave one a fighting chance, which was all he desired in a weapon. He knew how to use every weapon that hung on the wall, how to use them well. He could inflict exquisite pain, or kill mercifully. Like his younger tail's friend Hiei, he mastered every weapon he came across. He chose a simple blade and it came to his hand. "I wonder how it would feel to die?" Slowly, deliberately, he traced the edge of the knife across his inner arm. A thin line of blood followed its movement. "Not enough." "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" a female voice demanded as he was suddenly slapped forcefully on the back of his head. The knife clattered from the second tail's hand and slid across the floor as he righted himself. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he demanded. "I want to know what's getting you freaked out," Kurama-chan said, sitting down cross-legged in front of him. "It's none of your business," Kurama replied. "Get the hell out of my territory!" "In your dreams," she returned. "I'm here, and I'm staying here until I get what I want." "I'm not going to tell you anything. How are you going to get it out of me?" he demanded. "Like this," the female tail said, raising her hand. Gently she placed it on his cut. And the world vanished around them with a rush. <No! Kuronue!!> the second tail screamed. The first tail was sleeping in blissful ignorance, unaware even that Kuronue was gone, so the second tail was heard by no one. Not that he would or could have seen anyone else, his grief was so great. Kuronue was gone. That was all that mattered. The love, the smiles, the happiness - it was all gone. The friendship that the two lovers had shared... all gone. <Kuronue....> Kurama thought mournfully. <Why did I have to insist we go after that mirror? If I hadn't, you'd be alive, with me....> His head was buried in his arms as he wept, the forgotten silver mirror at his feet. He was alone again, after a period of happiness such as he'd never known. Immersed in utter grief and misery, there was no way he could have heard the footsteps behind him, even if he had cared to. "Well, what do we have here?" a rough voice asked amusedly, a thick hand landing on Kurama's shoulder and forcing him around. Kurama looked up at the youkai with a tear-streaked face. "A boy," the youkai declared. "A youko boy." Kurama began to feel a little afraid, looking into the strange eyes of the youkai and his friends. "What do you want?" he demanded. "I'm not bothering you; leave me alone!" The big youkai smiled cruelly. "Oh, but it doesn't work that way," he told Kurama. "You see, this is our territory, and anything in it belongs to us. Including boy youkos." Kurama was inclined to run. "I'll leave," he said. "You can keep the mirror as payment." "Oh, but we don't want... the mirror," he was told. "This can either be easy or hard, boy. Your choice." Kurama stood up and tried to flee, but was caught and held by two of the youkai surrounding him. The leader gently caressed his face. "So pretty," he murmured. Then, in one cruel stroke, he ripped off Kurama's clothes. "So fair...." Kurama's mind suddenly kicked into gear, and he tried to summon a rose to create his weapon, but before it manifested, a binding ward was slapped onto his arm, cutting off his power at the base. He choked back a cry of pain, and was forced down. Fingers ran gently all over his paralyzed body, and it took all his willpower not to scream. <Kuronue....> he thought, trying to block tears from his eyes. <Help me, Kuronue!> A whisper of a thought, something Kuronue might have said in life, and what might have been the echoes of his soul, answered. <I can't, Kurama.... I can't reach you!> <KURONUE!!> Kurama mentally screamed as he felt the presence fade. And then there was nothing but the sounds and sensations made by the gang aound him. He wanted to choke. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to die. He wanted to cry, and most of all, he wanted this not to be happening, and for Kuronue to be there to hold him. "Cry out, damn you," the leader whispered harshly. "Cry out!" What felt like a burning brand, or the fiery stroke of a whip, landed on Kurama's back. And then - pain. So much that Kurama stopped thinking irrationally, and completely detactched himself from the world around him for a minute. <I will never care again,> he decided. <And I will never let anyone hurt me.> And then the world descended upon him in a rush again. He didn't scream, refused to make a sound, and was nearly dead by the time they left him. <Oh Gods.> Kurama-chan couldn't believe it. The second tail had been raped. "Why have you kept this hidden?" she asked, looking up at him. "Did you want to know?" he demanded harshly. "Would it have helped any of you survive any?" "I'm sorry," she murmured, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm so sorry it ever happened to you!" She closed her eyes as she started crying, and threw herself into his arms. The second tail was startled for a second, as his arms closed instinctively around her. "You saw it?" he asked. "You experienced it? You shouldn't be able to do that!" "I'm changing," she choked. "When I touched that girl the other day, I saw through her eyes, too. Whenever I touch anything, it happens!" "Post-cognition? And empathy?" the second tail murmured. "Why? Unless... because you're female...." "I'm human, aren't I?" the female tail asked. "I'm not supposed to be a youko!" "You're a youko who thinks she's human," the second tail replied. "You're empathic to the degree of any female youko if you can see that with a touch. You really are a youko... and so is your twin...." "I don't want to be!" Kurama said. "I can't even touch anyone anymore!" "You just don't know how to control the power," the second tail murmured. "I can teach you. I'm... good at control." "What are we doin' here?" Yuusuke muttered as they followed Botan down the hallways of the Gates of Judgement to Koenma's office. "So that girl got raped. Big deal. She'll live." Kurama, in chan form at the moment, gave him a look, but said nothing. "But... if she's a psychic, even a latent one...." Kuwabara muttered. "Maybe he wants us to train her or somethin'...?" "Genkai intends to train her," Kurama said quietly. "I think Koenma wants us for something else related to this occurance." Yuusuke and Kuwabara stared curiously at Kurama for a minute, then turned away as they reached the doors to Koenma's office. "Koenma-sama!" Botan called out, knocking on the door. "They're here!" "Come in," Koenma replied, and the doors opened before them in an impressive display. Behind the two heavy doors, pulling them back, two oni sweated and cursed under their breath. "So what do you want us for?" Yuusuke demanded, getting right to the point. Botan sighed, and muttered under her breath about how some people had no appreciation for subtlety. Koenma glanced at her, then turned back to the three Investigators. "The incident that the three of you surely noted recently, the rape of one Shukudai Maira, is a product of regrettable circumstances. Though it is out of our normal jurisdiction, the Reikai has decided, as it has awakened a new, powerful psychic, that the perpetrator of the crime shall be apprehended. This is your job." Kuwabara scratched his head. "That IS a little out of our normal pattern, Koenma. How're we supposed to find a normal human? I mean, we have nothing to go on." Koenma sighed at Kuwabara's denseness. "Everyone has a certain type of energy, right?" he asked. "The type that people like rapists have is very different from normal. This pendant," he said, holding up a necklace with a jade circle on it, "will start to glow purple when you get near someone with this type of energy." "Cool," Kuwabara said, grabbing it and holding it. "But what happens to the girl?" "Genkai has contacted me about giving her proper training, and she will hopefully become a Reikai Investigator in due time," Koenma said, his eyes serious. "But for now, she needs to heal. Now get going." The grunting oni closed the doors behind the Investigators as Botan led them away. Koenma looked at the three-foot-tall stacks of paper on his desk, and sighed, slumping back in his chair in defeat. "Genkai-san," Kurama asked quietly. "May I inquire why you chose to come as a young woman?" "For much the same reason as you did, I suspect," Genkai replied, as they walked down the hall to the room where Maira was being kept. "Because she may be more inclined to trust someone of around her own age." Kurama nodded as they stopped before the room whose door said 413. "May we come in?" Kurama asked, knocking softly on the door. "Come in," a quiet voice replied from within the room. Kurama opened the door, and motioned for Genkai to precede her. Inside the room, sitting on the bed, was a young woman with several bandages on her face, and ugly bruises covering what they didn't hide. The rest of her body was concealed underneath a long white nightgown. Short black hair curled to her shouders, and dark brown eyes dominated her face. "My name is Minamino Kurama," Kurama said, stepping closer and bowing. "I see," Maira replied, her eyes studying Kurama intently. "I remember you. I thought you were taller, though." "Perhaps I was," Kurama replied. "This is my friend Genkai." "I am very pleased to meet you," Genkai said, stepping forward and bowing formally, "though I wish it was under better circumstances." "Please, have a seat," Maira said, gesturing towards the two chairs next to her bed. "Thank you," Genkai said, sitting gracefully. Kurama, though, remained standing. "You're blocking it, aren't you?" she asked. "Kurama!" Genkai admonished sharply. Kurama ignored her and stepped closer to the bed, where Maira had fallen silent. Kurama looked into her frightened eyes, and felt sympathetic. "I know what's happened to you," she said softly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "You're not the only one who it's happened to." Her hand sought out Maira's, catching it as it pulled back from her touch. Kurama held Maira's hand still as she pulled off one of the thin gloves she wore. Gently touching it to Maira's captured hand, Kurama entered the girl's tumultuous emotions. <Can you hear me?> she silently asked. <... Yes....> Maira answered, sounding a little confused. <What's going on? How can you do this?> <A talent,> Kurama replied. <You have it too. When you were raped, a shockwave of emotions spread from you across the city. Everyone who is even marginally psychic felt your distress. That's how my friends and I found you.> <... What do you mean? And what did you mean about how... it's happened to you? You were... too?> <A long time ago,> Kurama replied. <In another body, another lifetime.> <???> Maira's thought only held confusion. <Here, let me show you.> Kurama opened her newly-found memories and carefully showed them them to Maira. The second journey through them was no less painful than the first had been. <... What...?> <I was once a youko,> Kurama replied. <It's a long story. But it happens, no matter what world you're born in, no matter what gender you're born to. Don't let it ruin your life, Maira-san. Please.> <Kurama-san....> Maira thought. <Why?> <The Reikai wants to apprehend your attacker,> Kurama replied. <I know it will hurt, but I need to know what he looks like.> <... Okay,> Maira whispered. Genkai watched interestedly as Kurama touched Maira's arm and they both seemed to go into a trance. <Odd. I thought only female youkos had the power of empathy. I wonder why he has the abilities too? Because of Nannichuan?> A few minutes later tears began to leak from Maira's eyes, followed by tears from Kurama. A few minutes even later, both girls opened their eyes. "I'll find him for you," Kurama quietly promised. "I'll let you know what happens. When you feel well enough, please, train with Genkai. She can help you guide your talents." Maira mutely nodded, her eyes bright with tears that traced down her battered face in shimmering rivulets. She watched after Kurama as she stood and walked to the door. Only after the door had closed did she turn to Genkai. "I want you to teach me," she said quietly. "So how do we find him?" Yuusuke asked. "We don't even know where to start looking!" "Maybe in the place of the attack...?" Kuwabara asked hopefully. "Kurama?" asked Yuusuke. The redheaded girl, who stood shorter than Yuusuke, gave him one of her looks. One of the kind that made you realize just how really old Kurama was. "It sounds like a good place to start," she agreed in a soft voice. Yuusuke stared after her for a second as Kurama lightly sprang into the air and began taking the rooftop route to what was one of the worst areas of Tokyo. Something was off about this entire case, and he didn't like it. Especially since it made Kurama act weird.... "Oi, Urameshi, are you coming or not?" Kuwabara asked, looking back at him before taking off. "Yeah, I'm comin'," Yuusuke replied, turning his attention back to street level. "Let's go." Kurama knew, though she had told neither her teammates or her other selves, what she was going to do. She was going to be bait for the rapist. Trolling for monsters wasn't her idea of a great pasttime, but she *knew*, with a gut reaction, that it would work. With everything that she'd gotten from Maira's mind, she knew how her opponent's worked. She knew how to find him. How to hook him. How to make him pay. Rather than waiting at the entrance of the alley for her friends, Kurama diverged her route from theirs by several hundred meters. And waited. "Where the hell is he?" Kuwabara demanded after several minutes of waiting for Kurama to show up had passed. "Do you think something happened to him?" Yuusuke asked Hiei, who was leaning against the wall, his expression indicating that he was trying his damnedest to ignore the world. "No," Hiei replied succinctly. "Kurama would have a plan." "You mean maybe he's doing something on the case and doesn't want us to know?" Kuwabara asked. Hiei did not deign to reply, which in itself answered the question. "But what?" Yuusuke asked, his mind turning. "What could he do that we couldn'--" It fell into place. No wonder Kurama showed up in girl form. "Oh shit." "You don't think--" Kuwabara started. "Masaka," Hiei said, standing up. His Jagan opened and glowed blue, searching. When they looked at him, he said, still intent on his search for her, "Kurama HAS gone looking to find him herself. She's going to get herself killed!" He flitted upwards, and vanished from sight, beginning an immediate search. Yuusuke and Kuwabara looked at each other, surprised first by Hiei's concern over Kurama, and second by his use of the feminine pronoun. '_She_?' Then they echoed him, and ran from the alley, to find Kurama. It was him. Kurama would never forget the face, not after having lived through Maira's nightmares. She would never forget the milky blue eyes. She made sure he saw her leaving the crowded public area, heading for a more deserted part of the slum. She could feel his eyes fasten on her as she walked in *that* way. It made her feel a little sick to think that the gentle swaying of her hips as she walked, a most definitely feminine thing that she had perfected in hopes that Hiei might notice it, was getting her the attention of a rapist. But if it got him to follow her.... It did. She smiled to herself, and glanced over her shoulder, deliberately speeding up her pace. She had to make him think that she was the prey, and he the hunter. How untrue that was.... <You'll die for what you've done.> Quickly, it became an all-out chase. Kurama ducked into an alley, hoping that he would follow her. She trembled as he came near her, not in fear, as he thought, but in repulsion that someone like this man was allowed to walk freely on the same world as she. He flicked out his knife and gently caressed her cheek with the flat of the blade. "Utsukushii...." he said softly. "Me or the knife?" Kurama asked coldly. He looked at her, surprised that she wasn't paralyzed with fear like all the others had been. Kurama took the instant of confusion to knee him in the groin. HARD. She moved away as he fell to his knees, gasping and clutching his stomach. "BITCH!!!" he growled, rolling to his feet despite the pain. He grabbed his blade from the ground and held it out before him, advancing on her. "You're gonna die for this, you're gonna wish you'd never been born. I'm not gonna be merciful like the other times were...." Kurama took a rose from her hair and flicked it into the Rose Whip. "I know all about you and what you've done, you bastard," she said in a low tone. "And I'm gonna see you shut down NOW." Yuusuke and the others arrived at the mouth of the alley in time to hear the last of the second statement. Kurama barely acknowledged their presence, her mind concentrated on her opponent. "Fuck you, bitch!" the brown-haired man growled, not seeing the three behind him. "And I'm gonna, before you die!" He ran forward, obviously intending to stab Kurama into submission. Kurama stepped aside and plucked the knife from his grasp as he ran past her. She threw it on the ground behind her as he turned around. "I know what you've done," she intoned softly. "I know who you are. I've seen it through the eyes of another. I know what you've done. I know you're a threat that mothers use to get their children to go to sleep at night. 'Go to sleep, or the gakis will get you,' was never as effective as your name." "I know what you did to those girls. I _know_." "You don't deserve to live," Kurama said quietly. "What you took from that girl - what you took from all of them - is something that can never be healed." The whip lashed out again, wrapping around the young man's throat. "Please...." he whimpered. But his eyes still held hatred. If she let him go, he would rape her and kill her in a second. He was merciless, and Kurama couldn't afford to show mercy to him. Not now. Not after what he'd done to others. "You will never know the hurt you've inflicted upon others," Kurama whispered. "That is my only regret." The vine tightened, and the young man's face turned purple. He fell to the ground and writhed for a few second before becoming utterly still. Kurama watched impassionately, and when the body stilled entirely, she dropped the whip and walked away. "Kurama!" Yuusuke sounded desperate, Kurama thought. "Damn it, Kurama, give us some answers!" Kurama stopped without turning around. "You don't know what being raped is like, Yuusuke. You don't know what it does to the soul." "What?" Yuusuke asked, obviously taken aback. "Kurama, what do you mean?" Kuwabara asked, his hand resting on her shoulder, preventing her from leaving. Kurama hesitated. To say anything more was to let them know something that she didn't particularly want in their view of her. "Don't think that it only happens to girls," the second tail said quietly, taking control of the body. She let him; he could say what he wanted to far better than she could. "It was a long time ago." Kurama quietly left the alley. Yuusuke and Kuwabara stared after Kurama's retreating form. "Kurama was...." Yuusuke started, unable to comprehend the idea. "Raped," Hiei finished for him. Kuwabara and Yuusuke both turned to look at Hiei. "A long time ago...." Hiei said to himself. "The second tail.... He must have hidden the memory from the other tails, except somehow _she_ found out.... That's why this case got to him so badly...." "What the hell are you blathering about?!" Kuwabara demanded. Hiei turned to face him. "If Kurama was raped, what kind of effects do you think it would have on him?" he asked quietly. "His soul would become poisoned, twisted, from the pain and anger and shame." "But Kurama's not like that!" Yuusuke protested. "Part of him is," Hiei replied in annoyance. "The part that _you_ know isn't. The youko part is." "You mean, at the Ankoku Bujutsukai--" Kuwabara started. Hiei turned back away from them, ignoring what Kuwabara was saying. He stared after Kurama, wishing for the first time in his life that he would be able to comfort someone and take their pain. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. Hiei abruptly flashed upwards, leaving Yuusuke and Kuwabara to look after him, wondering what was up with him. Hiei needed to be alone, to think, and to lose himself. <Kurama....> Author's Ramblings: Only one of my proofers actually got back to me on this side-story, so therefore, only John's input was used, and only he gets to be thanked in the credits. Aside from taking a scene out that referred to Tokyo Babylon and really did nothing more than fill a cameo quota, though, nothing was changed. I refuse to apologize for anything in this story. The YuuYuus run around in my head quite a lot of the time, and as the second tail coaches me during badminton, I've grown quite fond of him. He told me his story once, and I had to write it. It helps me understand a little bit more about all the Kuramas. The universe that I write this out in isn't all fun and games and Ranma-ish mix-ups. Rape is sick and twisted and evil and perverted and all rapists should be castrated and then tortured to death. I hope that this entire thing isn't too heavy for the ML, but stuff like this happens every day, and society's attitude to it is pretty much like Yuusuke's. Unless it touches you, then it doesn't register. </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>