Variations: Chapter One
This has not yet been beta'ed, so if you spot any glaring errors, contradictions or inconsistencies, please let me know.
Title: Variation
Fandom: YYH
Warning: Probable character death. Some language. Violence.
Status: Incomplete, but fully outlined. Likely to be about five parts long. Shortfic, so far. *crosses fingers*
Prologue: Gambit
Variation
Part One: The Isolated Pawn
"The Pawns are the soul of the game."
(Francois Andre Danican Philidor)
Wednesday evening, 9:42 pm
"Human, I can smell you." The demon was crouched on all fours on top of parked car, streetlights reflected off a thick black carapace, and glistening antennae. Drooping black wings draped over the sides of the car, fluttering slightly as the demon braced itself to leap at any sight of its prey. It was unattractive as far as demons went, which was to say that it would have sent Lovecraft screaming into the night.
Kuwabara supposed he was lucky that so far no other humans had wandered across the scene, although he wouldn't have minded a distraction right about then. A little hysterical screaming might have been just what he needed to cover his attack. Unfortunately, as things stood it didn't look like anyone was going to wander across them any time soon, and the creepy bug-thing had him cornered.
The car rocked slightly above him as the bug-thing shifted its weight and Kuwabara winced as the muffler cut into his leg. The demon's weight had already pushed the car low enough to press him into the pavement, turning a bad hiding place into a dangerous one. Kuwabara rolled his eyes and bit back a sigh. He bet Kurama never got himself into these situations.
But then Kurama had gotten himself captured by bug-thing's boss, so Kuwabara was probably doing all right just to still be free. Even if he was hiding under a parked car.
Bug-thing inhaled sharply, a wet sucking sound that made Kuwabara want to twitch. "Human, I can taste you. I will find you. I will drink the blood from your veins and suck the marrow from your bones, and before you die I will warm my hands against your beating heart as it steams in the night air." The wings slapped against the side of the car as the bug-thing laughed. "Kingman doesn't need you alive. Kingman gave you to me. Perhaps I will plant my eggs in your chest and let them feed off your corpse as they hatch."
Oh, now we're just getting gross. Kuwabara risked moving enough to worm a hand between his chest and the underside of the car, flattening his palm against the metal. He could hear bug-thing shift its weight, tried to judge where exactly the demon was sitting atop the car. The hell with it.
The reiken flared into existence above his palm, smashing through the bottom of the car and piercing through metal and upholstery. Bug-thing shrieked in what Kuwabara fervently hoped was pain, then he shoved, and the car went flying.
Man, someone's gonna be pissed when they see that.
As soon as the car moved, Kuwabara threw himself to the side, rolling across the pavement and pushing himself up into a crouch. He held the reiken with both hands as he searched the wreckage of the car several meters away, looking for any hint of movement.
It had wings...
He threw both hands over his head, the reiken cutting into leathery wings as the bug-thing dropped on top of him. Claws slammed into the pavement on either side of his head as the demon screamed in his face, bright purple blood slicking Kuwabara's hands as the wings shredded and tore. He jerked the reiken to the side, cutting through membrane and into the bug-thing's torso, slicing through its chest before it screeched again and threw itself away from him. Kuwabara wiped his hands on his jeans, smearing violet blood across his thighs as he approached the flailing demon.
Blood was pooling around it on the pavement in a slowly spreading circle, and while its wings flapped spastically against the pavement, one little more than a ragged collection of scraps, the demon didn't seem capable of moving.
Kuwabara approached it warily, nonetheless. Black eyes glared at him and the demon growled low in its throat. "I thought you were going to drink my blood," Kuwabara taunted.
Bug-thing gurgled and kicked at him, but Kuwabara dodged. "Who is Kingman?" he asked urgently. "Why did he send you after me?"
A raspy sound wormed its way out of bug-thing's throat, growing louder and harsher until the creature was convulsing with the force of it. Laughter, Kuwabara realized. The damn thing was laughing at him.
"Kingman will send another," bug-thing said.
"Who is he?" Kuwabara demanded. He slammed the reiken into the street inches from the demon's face, making the creature flinch. "Tell me who this Kingman thinks he is!"
The demon chuckled, blood coating his lips and tongue. "Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends, human." A shadow flickered across bug-thing's reflective carapace, and Kuwabara barely had time to dodge, throwing himself across the demon's body, before a demon the size of a Volkswagen slammed to the ground where he'd been standing a second earlier, cracking the pavement and shaking the ground beneath his feet. "Kingman thinks he is the one who will rule Makai without interference!"
Kuwabara studied the newcomer, decidedly unimpressed. Big, yeah, a hulking wolf-type with about six arms, though they were scattered all over so it was hard to tell for certain at a glance and an impressive set of horns that looked like something an elk or caribou would have. Huge muscles flexed across its chest and abdomen as it breathed heavily, drooling slightly as it leered at Kuwabara.
"That's gross," Kuwabara told it, grimacing slightly as spittle dripped onto the street.
Big, yes. Powerful, no. If Kuwabara was any judge of youki, drool-monster was only slightly stronger than bug-thing had been. Kuwabara was beginning to feel that Kingman thought he was a pushover or something.
"Let me guess," Kuwabara said. "You're going to drink my blood and suck the marrow from my bones?"
Drool-monster bared its teeth in a grin. "Human pretty," it rumbled.
Well, that wasn't expected. Kuwabara blinked at it, feeling slightly dirty. "Ew," he grimaced, resisting the urge to squirm. "That is just wrong."
Between them, bug-thing twitched and fell still, youki fading to nothing. Drool-monster didn't seem to care, lifting one leg and slamming a foot the size of a trash-can lid down onto the demon's corpse.
"Are you going to tell me who Kingman is?" Kuwabara asked.
Drool-monster threw its head back and roared, arms spread out, hand held up to the sky.
"No, huh?" Kuwabara slammed both hands against the pavement and channeled his reiki through the stone. Beneath drool-monster's feet, the reiken burst forth and speared the demon, slicing into its groin and bursting out of its neck. "Fucking demons. Always making this so difficult." He glared as the huge demon toppled over without so much as a twitch.
He made a face at the corpses littering the street and the ruined car, and wondered how he was going to explain this away. Now, he decided, would be a good time to get out of there before anyone came investigating.
Kuwabara stood, wiping his hands off on his jeans and grimacing at the tacky, drying blood. Another pair done for. Demonslaying was hell on clothing. Shizuru would not be amused. Ah, at least I didn't step in any of it, he thought, checking his shoes.
Genkai's was just a few blocks away. He could be there in minutes, and if anyone this side of the Makai was likely to know who or what Kingman was, it would be her.
Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends.
Yuusuke and Kurama were not dead. Hours later, Hiei's death was still an aching bruise in the back of his mind - if Kurama and the asshole had died as well, Kuwabara would have known about it. But that didn't mean this Kingman was treating them like honored guests, either.
Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends.
Kingman had a lot to answer for. As soon as Kuwabara knew what questions to ask.
Youki crept in at the edges of Kuwabara's awareness and made his skin crawl. Waves of it, pouring over him from every direction, still some distance away but getting closer.
But first, Kuwabara was going to have to get out of there with his skin intact.
"Human!"
The ground cracked beneath his feet, then shattered, dropping him into the sewers. Cold sewage splashed everywhere as chunks of pavement fell around him, and he shuddered as the contaminated water seeped into his sneakers and through his jeans. "I take it back," he sighed, "This, this is gross." So much for sparing his shoes.
"Human!" Something crept through the water, eyes blinking owlishly, a tail slapping the surface. "It has been too long since I tasted human flesh."
"Just out of curiosity," Kuwabara asked, summoning the reiken with a casual flick of his wrist. "How many of you are there, anyway?"
The demon smiled, showing pointed teeth. "Enough, human. Enough."
Kuwabara charged, the reiken slicing between those wide eyes like a knife through butter.
The sewer demon died so easily Kuwabara almost felt bad about it, but any regret he may have felt was done in by the stench of human waste that clung to his clothing as he hauled himself back up to street level. A wall of youki surrounded him now, coming closer, and he probed it, trying to get a feel for how many demons Kingman had sent. But they were low-level and not very intelligent. D-class mostly, barely capable of intelligent speech, and one was a lot like another. On an individual basis, Kuwabara could have killed them all in his sleep. But a wave of them, coming at him one after another... They were going to wear him down with sheer numbers, if nothing else.
Genkai's was no longer an option. He wouldn't lead a horde down on top of her. Well, not while Yukina was there, anyway. Genkai herself probably wouldn't bat an eye.
Makai, he thought, readying himself as one of the demons separated itself from the pack. Kingman is in the Makai. Kurama and Urameshi are in the Makai. That's where I need to go to get some answers.
Not that he knew how to do that, exactly. Always before, when he'd traveled to the demon world, it had been with the help of Koenma or Botan. The only time he'd gone there under his own power was in his desperate pursuit of Sensui - and slicing the dimensional barrier was definitely not an option here. Even if he could find a place where the barrier was visible, he figured he had pushed his good luck far enough already the first time. Koenma hadn't gone into details, but apparently his father had not been happy with the idea of a human walking around with the ability to wander through the three worlds at will.
There was a fire escape attached to the building across the street, and Kuwabara pulled himself up with one easy movement, then braced his feet against the metal railing and jumped to the next landing. At the top he paused, surveying the street, and trying to focus his sixth sense.
There were at least a couple dozen low-class demons out there, and they had to have gotten into the human world somehow. If Kingman was feeding them through a gate, or a portal, then Kuwabara just trace them back to where they'd appeared, and use the portal himself.
Yeah, bright idea, he scoffed. It's not like the hordes of demons are going to get in your way or anything, And no way would this Kingman guy actually bother to guard the gate. Although, Kingman had originally intended for bug-thing to do him in, so all things considered, the bastard couldn't be that smart.
They were spreading out, trying to surround him, but he could definitely tell where they were coming from. If he could get past them and find whatever they were using to travel back and forth...
Well, he'd be in the Makai with no backup, no idea who the enemy was, and no knowledge of where his friends were being held. And possibly no way back, if Kingman shut the gate down behind him. Not the best plan he'd ever come up with, really.
Kurama was better at that sort of thing. It was pretty much why they kept him around, anyway. Well, that and his ability to defuse Hiei's temper in 2.4 seconds flat.
Hiei was dead.
The street beneath him was a wreck; the overturned car and its shattered windows, the gaping hole in the streets, the two demon corpses - three if you bothered to glance into the sewers, but hopefully the rats would take care of that. Silhouettes were starting to appear in windows as people finally got up the nerve to see what the noise was now that it had ended. Someone would call the cops and in a couple minutes this would be a very awkward place to be found covered in purple blood and sewage.
The still-expanding wall of youki was nearly a circle now, as the demons spread out to surround him. He wasn't worried about being penned in, but he'd rather do it somewhere there were smaller odds of civilians getting caught in the crossfire.
He needed a plan. Something better than storming his way into the Makai with no backup. That... wasn't even a plan, really. That was suicide.
Somewhere to the east, two youkai broke off from the pack and headed straight for him.
First things first. New battleground. Sarayashiki was just a few blocks away, and it should be deserted at this hour of the night. Something about the idea of demonslaying on his old turf appealed to him.
He called the reiken to hand, lengthening it into a spear, then took a running jump off the edge of the building. The reiken hit the edge and he used it to vault himself across the street, onto the roof of the dry cleaner's across the way. Two more jumps brought him to the edge of the block, where he paused to make sure they were following.
Not like I'm exactly hiding my ki, or anything. Not like the stink of sewage wasn't more or less ground into his skin or anything, either. He grimaced and kicked his foot slightly, wincing at the sloshing sound of water still in his shoes. Well, the demons would be able to follow him by smell, if nothing else. Ah, the romantic and adventurous life of Kuwabara Kazuma. If I ever write my memoirs they'll have to go in the horror section. Or humor. Probably humor.
The demons were keeping pace with him as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, not gaining but not falling behind, either. Sarayashiki schoolyard was just ahead, dark and unlit except for the outdoor lights, and no trace of human thought patterns anywhere. Perfect.
Youki!
He caught a whiff of sulfur and a malicious anticipation pushing at his thoughts, then one of the two closest to him attacked, darting forward at three times the speed it had previously been moving.
Kuwabara waited, tracing the youki until it was nearly on top of him, then threw up a kekkai. The barrier flared briefly just before him, and the demon slammed into it with enough force to flatten itself. Purple blood dripped out of a broken nose as the demon slowly slid to its knees and toppled over.
"Surprise!" Kuwabara spun a roundhouse kick at the kneeling demon's head, grunting as he felt bone crush beneath his heel. The demon fell over with a groan and didn't move.
Yeah, I'm real impressed. If I ever see this Kingman in person we're gonna have a talk about underestimating your opponents.
The second one howled like an angry dog and attacked from the side. In the streetlights, Kuwabara could see floppy dog-ears and a snout on an otherwise humanoid demon. It snarled, teeth bared, and went for his throat. Kuwabara met the attack with a right hook, extended the reiken as his fist met flesh, and stabbed the demon through the jaw. It gurgled at him as it died and he let its body slide off the reiken.
He could feel tension building in the other demons. They'd been sent to slaughter one lousy human, and now it looked like they were the ones who might end up being slaughtered. Kuwabara smirked. There was nothing he liked more than failing to live down to people's expectations.
The closer they got, the easier they were to pick apart. He figured more than a dozen were coming for him this time. He gripped the reiken in both hands, and readied himself. He could handle fifteen or twenty lousy D- and C-class demons as long as he kept his head.
Then the sky opened up, and the demons descended.
The first one fell for the same trick, flattening itself against a kekkai. The next didn't dodge the reiken, and suddenly found out how hard it was to fight with no legs. The third, a humanoid demon with a snake tongue and silver eyes, got in the first hit, ducking low while Kuwabara fought off an attack from above, and landing a blow on his kidneys. He staggered slightly, but recovered long enough to kick it in the head. That, actually turned out to be a bad idea. The demon's snake-tongue wrapped around his leg and pulled him off-balance.
"Shit." He hit the ground, braced on one knee, and just barely parried an attack from something that looked an awful lot like Puusuke had back in its stuffed animal days. He caught a grey-skinned demon by the throat and squeezed while using the reiken to slice through the snake-demon's tongue. It shrieked in pain, the severed whip of its tongue flapping and spilling blood down the front of its shirt as it writhed. Kuwabara used his grip on the grey demon's throat to pull himself upright, and kicked the snake demon into a wall.
Something struck his back, knocking him back to the ground, the grey demon trapped beneath him, and claws dug into his shoulder for an instant before they tore away. Kuwabara swore and twisted the grey demons neck until it snapped, then rolled to his feet in time to meet an attack from a feathered demon with grasping talons and a hooked beak. The bird-creature didn't put up much of a fight after he sliced on of its wings off, and when he threw it into a tree, it didn't get up again.
He spun to meet the next attack, but there wasn't one.
The schoolyard was littered with bodies, nearly two dozen of them, some still twitching. Kuwabara did a quick mental tally and figured he'd been responsible for seven of them. Maybe eight.
"All right," he called, planting his feet firmly and letting the reiken flare brightly. "Show yourself."
Something dark and fast and much, much more powerful than a D-class demon leapt at him.
end The Isolated Pawn
Continued in Chapter Two: Exchange Sacrifice
Title: Variation
Fandom: YYH
Warning: Probable character death. Some language. Violence.
Status: Incomplete, but fully outlined. Likely to be about five parts long. Shortfic, so far. *crosses fingers*
Prologue: Gambit
Variation
Part One: The Isolated Pawn
"The Pawns are the soul of the game."
(Francois Andre Danican Philidor)
Wednesday evening, 9:42 pm
"Human, I can smell you." The demon was crouched on all fours on top of parked car, streetlights reflected off a thick black carapace, and glistening antennae. Drooping black wings draped over the sides of the car, fluttering slightly as the demon braced itself to leap at any sight of its prey. It was unattractive as far as demons went, which was to say that it would have sent Lovecraft screaming into the night.
Kuwabara supposed he was lucky that so far no other humans had wandered across the scene, although he wouldn't have minded a distraction right about then. A little hysterical screaming might have been just what he needed to cover his attack. Unfortunately, as things stood it didn't look like anyone was going to wander across them any time soon, and the creepy bug-thing had him cornered.
The car rocked slightly above him as the bug-thing shifted its weight and Kuwabara winced as the muffler cut into his leg. The demon's weight had already pushed the car low enough to press him into the pavement, turning a bad hiding place into a dangerous one. Kuwabara rolled his eyes and bit back a sigh. He bet Kurama never got himself into these situations.
But then Kurama had gotten himself captured by bug-thing's boss, so Kuwabara was probably doing all right just to still be free. Even if he was hiding under a parked car.
Bug-thing inhaled sharply, a wet sucking sound that made Kuwabara want to twitch. "Human, I can taste you. I will find you. I will drink the blood from your veins and suck the marrow from your bones, and before you die I will warm my hands against your beating heart as it steams in the night air." The wings slapped against the side of the car as the bug-thing laughed. "Kingman doesn't need you alive. Kingman gave you to me. Perhaps I will plant my eggs in your chest and let them feed off your corpse as they hatch."
Oh, now we're just getting gross. Kuwabara risked moving enough to worm a hand between his chest and the underside of the car, flattening his palm against the metal. He could hear bug-thing shift its weight, tried to judge where exactly the demon was sitting atop the car. The hell with it.
The reiken flared into existence above his palm, smashing through the bottom of the car and piercing through metal and upholstery. Bug-thing shrieked in what Kuwabara fervently hoped was pain, then he shoved, and the car went flying.
Man, someone's gonna be pissed when they see that.
As soon as the car moved, Kuwabara threw himself to the side, rolling across the pavement and pushing himself up into a crouch. He held the reiken with both hands as he searched the wreckage of the car several meters away, looking for any hint of movement.
It had wings...
He threw both hands over his head, the reiken cutting into leathery wings as the bug-thing dropped on top of him. Claws slammed into the pavement on either side of his head as the demon screamed in his face, bright purple blood slicking Kuwabara's hands as the wings shredded and tore. He jerked the reiken to the side, cutting through membrane and into the bug-thing's torso, slicing through its chest before it screeched again and threw itself away from him. Kuwabara wiped his hands on his jeans, smearing violet blood across his thighs as he approached the flailing demon.
Blood was pooling around it on the pavement in a slowly spreading circle, and while its wings flapped spastically against the pavement, one little more than a ragged collection of scraps, the demon didn't seem capable of moving.
Kuwabara approached it warily, nonetheless. Black eyes glared at him and the demon growled low in its throat. "I thought you were going to drink my blood," Kuwabara taunted.
Bug-thing gurgled and kicked at him, but Kuwabara dodged. "Who is Kingman?" he asked urgently. "Why did he send you after me?"
A raspy sound wormed its way out of bug-thing's throat, growing louder and harsher until the creature was convulsing with the force of it. Laughter, Kuwabara realized. The damn thing was laughing at him.
"Kingman will send another," bug-thing said.
"Who is he?" Kuwabara demanded. He slammed the reiken into the street inches from the demon's face, making the creature flinch. "Tell me who this Kingman thinks he is!"
The demon chuckled, blood coating his lips and tongue. "Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends, human." A shadow flickered across bug-thing's reflective carapace, and Kuwabara barely had time to dodge, throwing himself across the demon's body, before a demon the size of a Volkswagen slammed to the ground where he'd been standing a second earlier, cracking the pavement and shaking the ground beneath his feet. "Kingman thinks he is the one who will rule Makai without interference!"
Kuwabara studied the newcomer, decidedly unimpressed. Big, yeah, a hulking wolf-type with about six arms, though they were scattered all over so it was hard to tell for certain at a glance and an impressive set of horns that looked like something an elk or caribou would have. Huge muscles flexed across its chest and abdomen as it breathed heavily, drooling slightly as it leered at Kuwabara.
"That's gross," Kuwabara told it, grimacing slightly as spittle dripped onto the street.
Big, yes. Powerful, no. If Kuwabara was any judge of youki, drool-monster was only slightly stronger than bug-thing had been. Kuwabara was beginning to feel that Kingman thought he was a pushover or something.
"Let me guess," Kuwabara said. "You're going to drink my blood and suck the marrow from my bones?"
Drool-monster bared its teeth in a grin. "Human pretty," it rumbled.
Well, that wasn't expected. Kuwabara blinked at it, feeling slightly dirty. "Ew," he grimaced, resisting the urge to squirm. "That is just wrong."
Between them, bug-thing twitched and fell still, youki fading to nothing. Drool-monster didn't seem to care, lifting one leg and slamming a foot the size of a trash-can lid down onto the demon's corpse.
"Are you going to tell me who Kingman is?" Kuwabara asked.
Drool-monster threw its head back and roared, arms spread out, hand held up to the sky.
"No, huh?" Kuwabara slammed both hands against the pavement and channeled his reiki through the stone. Beneath drool-monster's feet, the reiken burst forth and speared the demon, slicing into its groin and bursting out of its neck. "Fucking demons. Always making this so difficult." He glared as the huge demon toppled over without so much as a twitch.
He made a face at the corpses littering the street and the ruined car, and wondered how he was going to explain this away. Now, he decided, would be a good time to get out of there before anyone came investigating.
Kuwabara stood, wiping his hands off on his jeans and grimacing at the tacky, drying blood. Another pair done for. Demonslaying was hell on clothing. Shizuru would not be amused. Ah, at least I didn't step in any of it, he thought, checking his shoes.
Genkai's was just a few blocks away. He could be there in minutes, and if anyone this side of the Makai was likely to know who or what Kingman was, it would be her.
Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends.
Yuusuke and Kurama were not dead. Hours later, Hiei's death was still an aching bruise in the back of his mind - if Kurama and the asshole had died as well, Kuwabara would have known about it. But that didn't mean this Kingman was treating them like honored guests, either.
Kingman thinks he is the one who killed your friends.
Kingman had a lot to answer for. As soon as Kuwabara knew what questions to ask.
Youki crept in at the edges of Kuwabara's awareness and made his skin crawl. Waves of it, pouring over him from every direction, still some distance away but getting closer.
But first, Kuwabara was going to have to get out of there with his skin intact.
"Human!"
The ground cracked beneath his feet, then shattered, dropping him into the sewers. Cold sewage splashed everywhere as chunks of pavement fell around him, and he shuddered as the contaminated water seeped into his sneakers and through his jeans. "I take it back," he sighed, "This, this is gross." So much for sparing his shoes.
"Human!" Something crept through the water, eyes blinking owlishly, a tail slapping the surface. "It has been too long since I tasted human flesh."
"Just out of curiosity," Kuwabara asked, summoning the reiken with a casual flick of his wrist. "How many of you are there, anyway?"
The demon smiled, showing pointed teeth. "Enough, human. Enough."
Kuwabara charged, the reiken slicing between those wide eyes like a knife through butter.
The sewer demon died so easily Kuwabara almost felt bad about it, but any regret he may have felt was done in by the stench of human waste that clung to his clothing as he hauled himself back up to street level. A wall of youki surrounded him now, coming closer, and he probed it, trying to get a feel for how many demons Kingman had sent. But they were low-level and not very intelligent. D-class mostly, barely capable of intelligent speech, and one was a lot like another. On an individual basis, Kuwabara could have killed them all in his sleep. But a wave of them, coming at him one after another... They were going to wear him down with sheer numbers, if nothing else.
Genkai's was no longer an option. He wouldn't lead a horde down on top of her. Well, not while Yukina was there, anyway. Genkai herself probably wouldn't bat an eye.
Makai, he thought, readying himself as one of the demons separated itself from the pack. Kingman is in the Makai. Kurama and Urameshi are in the Makai. That's where I need to go to get some answers.
Not that he knew how to do that, exactly. Always before, when he'd traveled to the demon world, it had been with the help of Koenma or Botan. The only time he'd gone there under his own power was in his desperate pursuit of Sensui - and slicing the dimensional barrier was definitely not an option here. Even if he could find a place where the barrier was visible, he figured he had pushed his good luck far enough already the first time. Koenma hadn't gone into details, but apparently his father had not been happy with the idea of a human walking around with the ability to wander through the three worlds at will.
There was a fire escape attached to the building across the street, and Kuwabara pulled himself up with one easy movement, then braced his feet against the metal railing and jumped to the next landing. At the top he paused, surveying the street, and trying to focus his sixth sense.
There were at least a couple dozen low-class demons out there, and they had to have gotten into the human world somehow. If Kingman was feeding them through a gate, or a portal, then Kuwabara just trace them back to where they'd appeared, and use the portal himself.
Yeah, bright idea, he scoffed. It's not like the hordes of demons are going to get in your way or anything, And no way would this Kingman guy actually bother to guard the gate. Although, Kingman had originally intended for bug-thing to do him in, so all things considered, the bastard couldn't be that smart.
They were spreading out, trying to surround him, but he could definitely tell where they were coming from. If he could get past them and find whatever they were using to travel back and forth...
Well, he'd be in the Makai with no backup, no idea who the enemy was, and no knowledge of where his friends were being held. And possibly no way back, if Kingman shut the gate down behind him. Not the best plan he'd ever come up with, really.
Kurama was better at that sort of thing. It was pretty much why they kept him around, anyway. Well, that and his ability to defuse Hiei's temper in 2.4 seconds flat.
Hiei was dead.
The street beneath him was a wreck; the overturned car and its shattered windows, the gaping hole in the streets, the two demon corpses - three if you bothered to glance into the sewers, but hopefully the rats would take care of that. Silhouettes were starting to appear in windows as people finally got up the nerve to see what the noise was now that it had ended. Someone would call the cops and in a couple minutes this would be a very awkward place to be found covered in purple blood and sewage.
The still-expanding wall of youki was nearly a circle now, as the demons spread out to surround him. He wasn't worried about being penned in, but he'd rather do it somewhere there were smaller odds of civilians getting caught in the crossfire.
He needed a plan. Something better than storming his way into the Makai with no backup. That... wasn't even a plan, really. That was suicide.
Somewhere to the east, two youkai broke off from the pack and headed straight for him.
First things first. New battleground. Sarayashiki was just a few blocks away, and it should be deserted at this hour of the night. Something about the idea of demonslaying on his old turf appealed to him.
He called the reiken to hand, lengthening it into a spear, then took a running jump off the edge of the building. The reiken hit the edge and he used it to vault himself across the street, onto the roof of the dry cleaner's across the way. Two more jumps brought him to the edge of the block, where he paused to make sure they were following.
Not like I'm exactly hiding my ki, or anything. Not like the stink of sewage wasn't more or less ground into his skin or anything, either. He grimaced and kicked his foot slightly, wincing at the sloshing sound of water still in his shoes. Well, the demons would be able to follow him by smell, if nothing else. Ah, the romantic and adventurous life of Kuwabara Kazuma. If I ever write my memoirs they'll have to go in the horror section. Or humor. Probably humor.
The demons were keeping pace with him as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, not gaining but not falling behind, either. Sarayashiki schoolyard was just ahead, dark and unlit except for the outdoor lights, and no trace of human thought patterns anywhere. Perfect.
Youki!
He caught a whiff of sulfur and a malicious anticipation pushing at his thoughts, then one of the two closest to him attacked, darting forward at three times the speed it had previously been moving.
Kuwabara waited, tracing the youki until it was nearly on top of him, then threw up a kekkai. The barrier flared briefly just before him, and the demon slammed into it with enough force to flatten itself. Purple blood dripped out of a broken nose as the demon slowly slid to its knees and toppled over.
"Surprise!" Kuwabara spun a roundhouse kick at the kneeling demon's head, grunting as he felt bone crush beneath his heel. The demon fell over with a groan and didn't move.
Yeah, I'm real impressed. If I ever see this Kingman in person we're gonna have a talk about underestimating your opponents.
The second one howled like an angry dog and attacked from the side. In the streetlights, Kuwabara could see floppy dog-ears and a snout on an otherwise humanoid demon. It snarled, teeth bared, and went for his throat. Kuwabara met the attack with a right hook, extended the reiken as his fist met flesh, and stabbed the demon through the jaw. It gurgled at him as it died and he let its body slide off the reiken.
He could feel tension building in the other demons. They'd been sent to slaughter one lousy human, and now it looked like they were the ones who might end up being slaughtered. Kuwabara smirked. There was nothing he liked more than failing to live down to people's expectations.
The closer they got, the easier they were to pick apart. He figured more than a dozen were coming for him this time. He gripped the reiken in both hands, and readied himself. He could handle fifteen or twenty lousy D- and C-class demons as long as he kept his head.
Then the sky opened up, and the demons descended.
The first one fell for the same trick, flattening itself against a kekkai. The next didn't dodge the reiken, and suddenly found out how hard it was to fight with no legs. The third, a humanoid demon with a snake tongue and silver eyes, got in the first hit, ducking low while Kuwabara fought off an attack from above, and landing a blow on his kidneys. He staggered slightly, but recovered long enough to kick it in the head. That, actually turned out to be a bad idea. The demon's snake-tongue wrapped around his leg and pulled him off-balance.
"Shit." He hit the ground, braced on one knee, and just barely parried an attack from something that looked an awful lot like Puusuke had back in its stuffed animal days. He caught a grey-skinned demon by the throat and squeezed while using the reiken to slice through the snake-demon's tongue. It shrieked in pain, the severed whip of its tongue flapping and spilling blood down the front of its shirt as it writhed. Kuwabara used his grip on the grey demon's throat to pull himself upright, and kicked the snake demon into a wall.
Something struck his back, knocking him back to the ground, the grey demon trapped beneath him, and claws dug into his shoulder for an instant before they tore away. Kuwabara swore and twisted the grey demons neck until it snapped, then rolled to his feet in time to meet an attack from a feathered demon with grasping talons and a hooked beak. The bird-creature didn't put up much of a fight after he sliced on of its wings off, and when he threw it into a tree, it didn't get up again.
He spun to meet the next attack, but there wasn't one.
The schoolyard was littered with bodies, nearly two dozen of them, some still twitching. Kuwabara did a quick mental tally and figured he'd been responsible for seven of them. Maybe eight.
"All right," he called, planting his feet firmly and letting the reiken flare brightly. "Show yourself."
Something dark and fast and much, much more powerful than a D-class demon leapt at him.
end The Isolated Pawn
Continued in Chapter Two: Exchange Sacrifice