Divided Soul
by Theresa Ann Wymer
& Morgan D.

The Yu Yu Hakusho characters belong to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Studio Pierrot, Fuji TV and Jump Comics. All the rest is the product of our convoluted imagination.

The girl knelt in the virgin snow, unaware of the cold. The light kimono she wore seemed made for summer, her feet were bare, and her breath did not fog the frigid air like a dragon's. Her pale, sea-green hair flowed down her back, tied in a neat ponytail. She chirruped softly to the small flock of feather-fluffed birds around her, throwing seeds in neat handfuls on the ground for them. They hopped about eagerly, pecking at the food which was so hard to come by any other way. The blued shadows of the thick pine trees above her swayed over her body, blocking the sun at intervals, but she seemed oblivious to the small changes in warmth. When at last she rose, she had left no imprint in the snow, though the rest of the clearing was covered with bird tracks and paw prints. Though she did not like to think of it, her generosity helped more than just the seed-eaters to feed themselves in the cold times.

She took small, precise steps, which did not crunch in the firmly-packed snow, drifting like the shadows over the sparkling white surface. The nearly-blinding light of the sun reflecting off it did not concern her. Her element could not harm her. She listened happily to the small sounds of birds chirping and rustling, of piled-up snow sliding off the pine tree branches with occasional muffled thumps. Now and then, a woodpecker boring for insects "tocked" with startling, hammer-like force, but little disturbed the tranquility of her forest.

She looked up as a crow, black against the clear blue sky, took off with a loud cawing and circled, once, twice, three times above her, then joined its mate, high and superior, in the topmost twigs of a high tree. She smiled. The crows knew everything, and shared much. For those who knew how to listen.

What had alerted it?

Carefully, she stepped through her territory, alert to even the slightest change.

Her head swiveled in alarm as a large thump, which could have been snow sliding off an over-laden branch, but was not, shook the trees behind her and sent the birds fluttering from their perches with alarmed cries. She circled back.

Something was in her forest, something not part of it.

A black form lay curled up on its side in a ball. She came closer. Like her, it was pale-skinned, had human features, and wore clothes. Very similar to her, but something was a little different about it, something she couldn't place. The figure had tightly closed eyes and a grimace of pain, and held something clenched tightly in one fist. There seemed to be a scar or gash on its forehead. Its breath smoked oddly against the air, very lightly.

She gazed at the unknown figure. The eyes opened and stared glassily at nothing, until they focused on her. Eyes as deep a garnet-red as her own.

She could make no sound in the deep silence that surrounded them. Even as the other one's mouth contorted to form a word that would shatter it forever.

"Lava..."

She trembled. Lava? In her forest? Amid the snow?

"Wanna... go back..." mumbled the figure after a moment, then snuggled tighter to itself, as if trying to vanish between two heartbeats. The voice was wrapped in a hazy veil of despair, and she thought of a frightened pup calling for its mommy.

A call she simply couldn’t turn her back on.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, kneeling beside the stranger. She timidly brushed away the hair over the strange gash. There was no blood.

The figure moaned and hid the face against the white soft ground. It hurt, obviously.

"NO!" The stranger pulled away, making a poor effort to stand.

Her heart skipped a beat. She could sense the stranger’s pain as if it was piercing her own being... "Please," she begged. "Let me help you."

The figure sat on the ground facing her, and in many ways, it felt like looking at herself in a slightly distorted mirror. The aqua hair was shorter in that reflection, barely reaching the shoulders, but falling abundantly over the eyes. There was no question about the eyes though. Red, round, deep, glinting. A perfect copy of hers.

The pale skin seemed to have been cut of the same fabric of hers too, and their bodies were almost alike. The stranger’s were just as short, just as nimble and apparently frail, but... it looked wrong somehow. Different, in tiny peculiar ways.

Distressed by her scrutiny, the stranger looked away. "Leave... please." The last word came out choked, hesitant.

Curiosity and empathic suffering wouldn’t let her leave. "Do I know you?" she questioned, puzzled with the similarities between them.

The eyes of the stranger widened wild. "Wha-what?"

"My name is Yukina," she said. "I live in the south side of the Glacier. You?"

The stranger’s chin hardened, its diminutive body shivered from head to toes. "I... don’t live... here."

Yukina considered that for a moment. Everyone lived in the Glacier. What else there was?

She watched as annoyed fingers delved in the thick aqua fringe to pull it up, away from the eyes. With the hair standing up like that, the... outsider... reminded her of a misty image she had seen once... long ago... in a dream... "And what should I call you?"

Right after her last word her heart began to pound so heavily it ached. It took her a while to comprehend it was the stranger’s anxiety she was feeling in her soul. This never happened before... did it?

"Call me..." The stranger faltered, pulling the hair back down, as if trying to hide. "...Akaishi."

She frowned. "Akaishi?" That was not the figure’s name. She knew.

But then, she didn’t really asked for the stranger’s name. Fair is fair. "Why won’t you let me heal you?"

"I’m not injured," replied the other, a little dryly.

"But..." She gestured vaguely towards the horizontal gash in the center of the stranger’s brow. The pain clearly emanated from that cut. "...this is..."

"Exactly how it should be."

"May I at least take you to the Elders?" she breathed. "They can help you with the pain..."

"No!!!"

Yukina almost jumped at the categorical reply.

"The... Elders..." muttered the stranger, "they don’t like... beings... like me."

Beings? She stared at the strangely familiar figure before him, paying more attention to the slight differences between them: the flat chest under the black ragged shirt, the smoother curve of the hips, the rougher angles of the face... She gaped.

Yukina's skin crawled just at the thought. A male. Something wrong, something unholy, had entered her territory. She instinctively scooted back a step or two and prepared to focus her ki. Already roused to heal, it reverberated throughout her body, attuned to defend or to attack if necessary.

Fighting back? Attacking her? No. She was sensing his emotions. And not fear or anger, as might be expected, but something like sorrow. And biting self-hate.

Akaishi watched her warily, clearly uncertain of what she might do next. Slowly, Yukina stretched her hand out to him, as she would to any frightened animal. "Shh. You're okay. I won't hurt you. I was surprised, that's all. I'm sorry." She bowed her head to accentuate her apology.

He stared at her as though she'd sprouted an extra eye. "No one says she's sorry to me." He seemed more puzzled than angry. "Why did you do that?"

She couldn't let anything bad happen to him, any more than she could the small animals she loved to watch over. "If you can't see the Elders, you still need a place to rest in."

"No! I don't..."

Yukina cut him off with an apprentice-healer's authority. "There's a cave not far from here where I stay when I'm out overnight. It's warded, so you can heal up a bit without worrying about intruders." And when you're calmer, I can look at that wound of yours, she promised herself silently. There was something very disturbing about that little cut. She didn't know what it was, but it bothered her. She tucked her food bag away. "Can you stand up?" Cautiously, she put her hand on him to help him up.

She jerked it away. He was burning hot!

Yukina opened her mouth to shout after him... but closed it quickly. In the mountainous Glacier her voice could carry away far enough to alarm the ones in the village, and if they decided to come and see what was going on... She closed her eyes, fighting a sudden vertigo. For a moment she felt as if she were falling, fast and very alone, cutting through the clouds towards... she didn’t know where.

Maybe he’s "going back" to wherever it was that he wanted so badly, she wondered. However, deep inside she feared Akaishi had run off in exactly the opposite direction.

She stood there, waiting, until all the pain, sorrow and bitterness vanished from her heart. That left her with only confusion and concern, and after a while she recognized those feelings as being exclusively hers.

Musing worriedly about two very mysterious and utterly frightening things to her people: males and lava.

"K’na! K’na! Wanna play butter-bar?"

"Children are a necessary inconvenience," she heard one of the Elders say once. "Just like the sun."

Yukina shook her head. Her little neighbor insisted, running to her and trying to pull her by the arm. "Come, K’na! Ya can be first runner!"

Gently disentangling her arm, Yukina petted the kid’s bluish hair. "I can’t, Riko-chan. I need to go home now." And make up her mind about telling Rui about Akaishi or not...

"Pleeeease, K’na..." the girl whimpered.

"Why don’t you ask your mommy if you can sleep over tonight?" Yukina suggested. "I’d comb your hair and tell you a new story..."

The kid’s face beamed up. "About dragons?"

Yukina shushed her. "Don’t say it so loud, Riko-chan. It’s our secret, remember?"

Riko-chan nodded, obediently. Even at her young age, she already knew they would both be in trouble with the grown-ups if the contents of their private conversations were ever revealed.

Yukina saw her join her little friends, all of them just a bit older than Riko-chan, to resume their play. They formed two lines facing each other, six meters apart, reaching out with her hands, palms upward. One of the girls would cross the distance, choose one of the other team and slap her hand, then run the fastest she could back to her team, while the chosen adversary would run to catch her. If the first were caught before reaching her team line, she would have to become part of the adversary team.

Yukina loved that game. No one could catch her, she was the fastest of all. Rui used to say she had wings on her ankles.

But now she had too much on her mind to play.

Night in the Glacier Country was greeted with relief after the days of harsh, warm sun. The moon glittered on sparkles of ice, and faded out in the shadows of deep blue that gathered in the overhangs of the cliff dwellings where the Koorime lived. Some of the moon and starlight fell through a gap in the snow ceiling of Yukina's "sun room", as she called it, her private place away from the other Koorime. She sat a little distance from the light, watching it from a snug corner. Riko-chan sat just in front of her, almost in her lap. Yukina played with the little girl's hair affectionately, grooming it with her bone brush and comb.

"Tell me a story, K'na," Riko begged. "Tell a good story about... ow! K'na, you pulled my hair!"

"Well, don't twist around like that! You're gonna hurt yourself if you do that when I comb your hair, okay?" Yukina kissed her cheek. "Feel better? Now... what kind of story do you want?"

Riko bounced. "Tell me about the dragons again."

"Okay, but you have to sit still and not yell, so we don't wake the grownups up." She ran the brush through the underside of Riko's light blue hair, letting the strands run through her fingers gently.

"The first dragon is the one who circles the world. She's like a long, long ice-snake, without the fur, and she sleeps with her tail in her mouth so she won't make a lot of noise when she snores." Riko giggled. "Her scales are pure white and they shine and sparkle like the sun on the snow outside when there aren't any clouds. One day, she got lonely because she didn't have anyone else to talk to. So she shook herself really hard and some of her scales fell off and fell to the ground."

"Didn't that hurt?"

"No, because she's such a magic dragon. The scales fell down like big snowflakes, and when they landed they became the first Ice Maidens. So, ever since then, she's never been lonely, because all she has to do is open her eyes and look at the little girls like you and me."

"K'na, you're silly!"

"What, you don't like my story?"

"No, I like it lots! But you're a big girl, not a little girl like me!"

"Okay, she likes to look at the little girls and the big girls too. How's that?"

Riko nodded and Yukina gave her an affectionate squeeze. "Now, tell me about the second dragon," Riko demanded.

"The second dragon is a lot harder to see, because she doesn't like to be around people much. The animals in the forest know her, but they don't talk about her because they know she likes to be by herself. She's very wise and very old, and she lives in the heart of the forest where no one else goes." Does Akaishi know her? Yukina suddenly wondered, even though she knew her story was made up. She mentally scolded herself and continued. "She lives where the water drips from the branches and where the water rests in small pools all grey-green with algae. If you look really closely and don't speak, you'll see the mist rise just above the water and hover there. That's the second dragon. And if you're very quiet and respectful, maybe she'll tell you the answers to your questions."

Riko shook her head. "It's boring to have to be that quiet," she objected, and Yukina chuckled in agreement.

"So, the third dragon is very different from her big sisters. She doesn't like to be quiet at all." Yukina grinned. "She's kinda like you, Riko!" The girl giggled and rested her head against Yukina's shoulder as the older girl finished combing her hair. "The third dragon is all blue and black with shiny scales. She flies reaaaally fast, and when her wings flap sometimes you'll hear a boom! in the sky. And when she laughs she sticks her tongue out really far, like this"--Yukina demonstrated--"and it looks like a big, crooked line in the sky. So, if it starts lightning and thundering really hard, I don't want you to be scared, because it's just the third dragon flying around, having fun. And when she's feeling happy, she'll make little puffs in the sky, and that's what the clouds are."

Riko lolled against Yukina and stuck her finger in her mouth. "I wanna see that dragon. I like her."

"The fourth dragon..." Yukina's voice trailed off as she looked down to see the little girl fall asleep in her lap. She smiled and quietly got them both tucked in and ready to sleep for the night. She continued her story in her head. The fourth dragon is different from the others. Yukina shut her eyes and felt Riko roll over and cuddle up next to her. He's small and he's black as the bark of a lightning-struck tree.

He? she suddenly thought to herself. All the dragons in her imaginary pantheon were female. Her meeting with Akaishi must have affected her more than she realized. Anyway, she--he--whatever--is the lone wanderer. He slithers through the land, always watching, never staying in one place. When a Koorime has ventured very near to death and returned, she has been carried in the jaws of the fourth dragon. No one who meets him is ever unchanged, but no one seeks him out of her own free will. His body is burning heat and his eyes are the heart of fire itself. He carries fear and death with him wherever he goes, but he bears no malice or wickedness to anyone. It is simply his fate to be as he is. And no one weeps for him.

Poor, lonesome dragon, Yukina suddenly thought. She knew it was silly, but her eyes filled with tears for the exiled dragon. One slid down her cheek and onto her pillow, where it rested, unnoticed, for the remainder of the night, while the two young Koorime slept in each others' arms.

Outside, another kept vigil, unseen by anyone else.

Yukina found herself running, running full tilt away from... something. She ran blindly, unaware of where she was going. She stumbled through thick mud and grasses that sucked at her ankles and legs, through snow that somehow did not rest properly underfoot but clung like fetters as she tried to break a path, through dry dust that rose in clouds around her face and made her choke and gasp for breath. At last she made her way through the last of the barriers to freedom.

A cliff gaped at her feet, plummeting to the unseen depths.

Yukina wanted to stop, but, no, no, the terror from behind forced her to run although there was nowhere left to go. Caught between two unbearable dangers, she shut her eyes and...

...fell...

...fell...

...fell...

...and beneath, the river of fire waited for her. Lava flowed in a steady stream, calling to her.

Yukina shut her eyes and opened herself to her fate.

Outside, someone watched the two girls dream, and waited.