Flipside Dreams
chapter 3
by Talya Firedancer
Konnichiwa, minna-san!
I proudly present to you the third installment of Flipside Dreams, finished after slaving and completing the eeevil ten-page term paper. Luriko-Ysabeth, Shirin -- anyone else who's already read this fic -- please take note, I've made some changes to this part. Let me know what you think! As always, pleasepleaseplease give me C&C!
FLIPSIDE DREAMS -- Part Three
(Copyright 1998 Talya Firedancer)
Standard disclaimer: YYH belongs to the very talented Yoshihiro Togashi and Shonen Jump comics, not me; I'm just a lowly little fic writer.
WARNING!! This fic contains a shonen ai alert! This means it deals with the relationship between Hiei and Kurama, in part but not exclusively. If you don't like that idea, don't read this or if you do, don't flame me.
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Hiei sat up with a start, moving to sit up and winced. He clutched at the bleeding wound that formed a bloody tunnel through his shoulder - obviously someone had tried to kill him while he lay locked in the unnatural slumber, but that someone had been a bleeding incompetent and hadn't finished him off. They'd completely missed the heart. He struggled to his feet, katana gripped in his hands. The others were gone. Kurama was gone.
"K'so!"
He yanked the ward off his Jagan, pressing his consciousness outward, searching for any traces of that fox and his companions. There. . .off in the distance. The faint, fluttering sense of youki and reiki - weak and growing weaker.
Why hadn't *he* been taken? Why only the others? Why had they tried to kill only him?
*If you go now. . .i'll spare your life. . .pathetic youkai. . .*
NANI!?
Hiei whirled, the Jagan glowing an angry purple in the center of his forehead. It had been a ghostly whisper across his senses. But when he probed, nothing was there. A faint, faraway laugh fluttered at the edge of his Jagan's "sight," cold and brittle, the sound of breaking glass.
*HE doesn't love you.*
The voice was flat, final. Colder.
It sounded like Kurama's voice.
Hiei ignored the brittle voice and hurried deeper into the stronghold. He met with instant resistance, and was pressed in close quarters by at least a dozen bodies. Hiei snarled and launched himself at the foremost opponent, striking out with his katana and a flare of dark fire. The fluttering sensation at the back of his mind - Kurama's youki - was growing weaker. He set his mouth in a grim line and carved his way through the scores of opponents who stood between him and his destination. They practically threw themselves on his blade, and Hiei recognized the wide, blank stare Kurama had mentioned earlier, which meant they were being controlled.
Finally Hiei stood alone in a hallway littered with bodies and gore, barely breathing hard. He put a hand to his shoulder, where the blood now dripped thickly. Making a small face, he generated a lick of fire, searing at the open wound with the heat of the flame to cauterize it.
*All you can offer him is death and destruction. . .*
Once again he brushed off the annoying voice. Yumenoshu playing games, but he wasn't even asleep. It must be something his Jagan could sense, some residual energy of the disrupted dream plane leaking over that he could detect.
Hiei followed the faint sense of his teammates' ki. Kurama's youki was a strangely fluttering sensation that scared him with its weakness - and then it *wrenched* in his othersight and he blinked. No. NO! *Where* were they, damn it all to hells! He blurred up the hallway.
Here.
He blurred to a halt, wrenching open the door in front of him, and inside the room sprawled on the cold stone floor were the bodies of his teammates. His eyes went wide and utterly still for a moment as it seemed like Kurama was not breathing. Then the youko's chest rose in a shallow breath and Hiei's breath resumed with it, ragged. Even a fraction of a second had been too long to consider the possibility that that fox. . .that sneaky, thieving fox! - could be dead.
He approached warily. Were they asleep, or merely unconscious? Yuusuke and the idiot seemed okay. Why had he only sensed Kurama in distress? Kneeling, he felt at the fox's pulse. It beat strongly under his fingers.
Kurama sat up, blinked, focused on Hiei.
"Hiei?"
"Hn," he responded, struggling to keep the concern out of his face and voice as he let go of his wrist, fingers lingering.
"Hiei, sometimes you are so stupid," Kurama said, a smile curling his lips. But it wasn't the familiar, playful smile the kitsune usually gave him.
"Nani?" Hiei frowned. "What do you mean, fox?"
"How could you think I would *ever* be in love with something like YOU?"
Hiei froze.
Kurama's gem-brilliant eyes were hard, meeting his gaze with an icy merciless stare. For an endless instant he was falling, like the pit of his stomach, into an abyss of pain, as every single insecurity, every betrayal, every loss flashed back to him to punch him in the gut, wearing green eyes. Kurama's laughing, smiling, teasing face danced before him, then transformed into a snarl and took the words back, turning them into stabbing shards that tore away anything he might have ever gained. . .
His eyes. Kurama's eyes.
His emerald-bright eyes.
Jewel-deep, *blank* eyes.
Hiei snarled, the Jagan in his eye opening once more, and he plunged himself without a second thought into Kurama's mind.
He opened. . .other eyes, in another place. A gray, empty place swirling with mist and cold. The unformed dreamscape. Normally in a person's mind this would be filled with images and settings formed and shaped by their own subconscious. . .but this was the blank, neutral setting he had found usually occurred when a person was under control.
He should know; he'd done it before.
"Yumenoshu!!" Hiei yelled out a challenge. He drew his katana.
*That won't do any good here,* an amused voice wrapped around him from the shadows, low and liquid.
Hiei narrowed his eyes and held tight to the weapon. "It will if I believe it can," he growled back.
The fog coalesced into a slender form, not much taller than his own. Hiei stared in shock. "You're a. . ."
"Woman," Yumenoshu confirmed, a faint smile touching her lips.
Hiei shrugged. It didn't matter. Woman or no, this being had taken possession of *his* mate. He lunged forward, katana sweeping in a vicious, glinting arc.
Yumenoshu dissolved in a swirl of fog and breathless laughter.
*How will you save him, Hiei?* she taunted. *He is in MY embrace now. What can you do against the power of his own dreams, once they become MINE?*
Hiei snarled soundlessly and stopped, stock-still. He couldn't use physical force against this one. But he still had his wits. . .and his Jagan.
The Jagan.
THAT was why. She had taken Kurama and the others because her power could reach them through her power over the dreamscape she could control in the stupor of their slumber. But his Jagan. . .somehow it rendered him proof against her manipulations of the dreamscape. That was why he'd been left for dead at the portcullis. If he could link, somehow, with that youko. . .if he could FIND that youko, maybe the two of them could resist Yumenoshu together. . .
*Kurama!* he called, springing forward again, slashing uselessly at a fogbank to make the dream master believe she still had him running in circles. *Kurama!* He put all his force behind the call.
Something stirred within the dreamscape, and the fog seemed to shimmer for a moment. *. . .nani. . .* he half/heard, half/felt.
*Kurama, link with me!* he called.
Silence.
Kurama's consciousness had subsided beneath the gray blankness of Yumenoshu's control. He swore viciously and the dream master's laughter tinkled in broken shards around him as she stood before him again. He lunged, aiming for the heart in a killing blow -- *if*, that is, he'd been able to score.
"K'so!" She vanished again.
*Kurama!* he shouted again in his mind, increasing the strength of the call. The ground beneath his feet shifted and stirred.
*. . .hiei. . .?* It was a whisper on the edge of his senses, tickling his mind, but not connecting with him. *. . . . .* The thread faded again.
Hiei clenched his teeth, realizing that the link would never be complete. . .unless he opened himself up. He heard Yumenoshu's brittle laughter and knew she was about to attack. Gathering himself desperately, he concentrated on thoughts of that infuriating, teasing, hopelessly human. . .endearing, beautiful, *sexy* fox. . .the kitsune who was *his* now, his. . .and Hiei CALLED.
*KURAMA!*
There was a flash of green, a lingering scent of roses flooding through his mind.
*You called?* The warm voice filled him up inside the way he never thought anything could. Hiei closed his eyes, admitting to himself how he welcomed the touch, felt/tasted Kurama's amazement/happiness/answering welcome. . .
And then he showed his kitsune what he'd learned.
The dreamscape heaved and rippled as they linked completely in a meeting of minds he'd never let himself even consider, the power of Hiei's Jagan flooding through the climate of Kurama's mind that Yumenoshu had *thought* she could control. Of course, there was an exception to every rule.
Yumenoshu screamed as Kurama/Hiei took control back from her manipulations, and the encroaching wraiths of the white fog banks burned away in the brilliant outpouring of golden light. Greenery sprouted underfoot and Yumenoshu stood revealed in the no longer-barren landscape, shaking from head to foot with rage as she stared at Hiei.
*HOW could you - how DARE you - *
Hiei ignored her. He could only see Kurama.
The fox was walking towards him over a carpet of grass and flowers that bloomed under his feet, spreading out behind him, covering the gray bleak landscape with bright warm life. In his hand, he twirled a single red rose, giving Hiei that familiar impish smile he'd only just begun to realize he loved.
"Hn," Hiei snorted, observing his approach. "Melodramatic fox." But he allowed Kurama to see him smile before he stepped to meet him, putting his arms around him and drawing him into a tight embrace.
Yumenoshu evaporated in motes of screaming energy, expelled from Kurama's dreamscape, no longer able to control or even remain a part of it in the face of the fierce bond she had infringed upon.
Hiei's eyes snapped open, and the Jagan eased shut. He drew back from a muffling mouthful of red hair, blinking as he realized he was wrapped securely in Kurama's arms, the fox's arms twined around him. He pulled back, half-afraid to see the same blank stare in his eyes as before.
Kurama gave him a gentle smile.
"Hn. It worked," was Hiei's only comment, and he wriggled uneasily in Kurama's embrace, looking at the prone forms of their companions. "What do you think happened to Yumenoshu?"
"Do you think we killed her?" Kurama responded, a frown creasing his brow.
"Let's find out," Hiei said with a hard-edged smile. Anyone who messed with his fox's mind was *toast.*
They quickly woke Yuusuke and Kuwabara, then searched through the fortress. They met no further resistance, but found a lot of fallen bodies, and not in the corridor Hiei had carved his way through.
"It wasn't me!" Hiei exclaimed defensively.
"Yeah, right-" Yuusuke rolled his eyes.
"No, he's right," Kurama agreed, examining one of the fallen youkai. "There isn't a mark on them. It seems like they all just. . .collapsed."
"Maybe Yumenoshu's dead!" Yuusuke said hopefully.
"She was on the dreamscape," Hiei grunted. "It's a plane of pure will, and she had enough to twist others' dreams to her own purposes. I doubt she's dead."
"If they all collapsed at the moment Yumenoshu was expelled from my mind, perhaps she truly is gone," Kurama said thoughtfully.
"Demo. . .where *is* Yumenoshu?" Yuusuke frowned. "And the artifacts she stole?"
They all looked baffled.
Then, "Leave it up to me, the great Kuwabara Kazuma! I, wielder of the mighty rei ken, will use my awesome ability-"
"To prove what an ass you are?" Hiei sniffed.
"NANI!?" Kuwabara squealed, his voice spiraling on a broken upward note. He lunged for Hiei and Yuusuke grabbed him reflexively. "You little sh-"
"Cool it, man!" Yuusuke exclaimed.
"Let's just find Yumenoshu," Kurama urged, touching Hiei's arm lightly. The fire demon glared balefully at Kuwabara but disdained to continue.
It was Hiei who finally led them to the room in the tower, as he followed the scent of decay. Kuwabara broke the locks on the tower with a flick of his rei ken. Within the room, lying on the bed, was a body wasted beyond repair. Beside the bed which reeked of rotting flesh and mold was a table that contained the proscribed artifacts Koenma had sent them for; they recognized those from the pictures the Prince had shown them.
"It's Yumenoshu," Hiei said curtly.
"NANI!?" Yuusuke and Kuwabara exclaimed, reeling.
"But she's dead!" Yuusuke protested. "How-"
Kurama's eyes were deep and thoughtful.
* * *
"So it was Yumenoshu who stole the artifacts?" Koenma blinked. "That makes sense."
"HOW!?" Yuusuke demanded, frustrated. "She was dead!"
"But her spirit never departed," Koenma informed him, adopting a lecturing attitude. "By virtue of her special youki, Yumenoshu was able to manipulate the dreamscape."
"We got *that* part," Yuusuke said impatiently. "But she was dead. DEAD! As a doornail! And rotting!"
"Well, a youkai of her power could go back and forth on the dreamscape. So instead of dying, she transferred her consciousness there. Not having a physical body to tie her down, weaken her with its demands gave her more power. Which was why she was able to control you so thoroughly."
"Then why did she have her stooges steal those artifacts?" Kuwabara put in. "If she had so much power. . .what could those do for her?"
Koenma fixed a brilliant eye on him. "What's the use of having power if you can't enjoy most of its benefits?"
"She wanted to be alive again," Kurama murmured.
"Yes, exactly," Koenma beamed. "Those proscribed artifacts would have enabled her with the means to transfer her living spirit, via the dreamscape, into a new body."
Kuwabara made a face. "But her body was already rotting when we found it."
"Like your intellect," Hiei snorted. Kuwabara turned a mottled shade of red and lunged; Hiei sidestepped him, appearing on the other side of the room.
"Yumenoshu wasn't going to return to a rotting corpse," Hiei continued, flicking a disdainful gaze at the ranting Kuwabara, held back by long-suffering Yuusuke.
"Not her body," Kurama added quietly. "Mine."
Yuusuke's and Kuwabara's eyes widened, and the carrot-topped man stopped struggling. "Yours!?"
Kurama nodded.
"Well, shrimp," Kuwabara said, with an air of one conferring a great favor, "looks like you did some good after all, in keeping Kurama from-ack!" He stopped short, faced with a katana pricking at his Adam's apple, and tried not to swallow.
Hiei turned away, having made his point.
"If you're done," he said to the Prince of the dead, "I have other places to be."
Koenma raised an eyebrow. "That was all. Good job, boys. You handled that case rather miraculously, considering it turned out rather unexpected."
Yuusuke looked speculative. "Ne, I think you owe us a trip to. . ."
"Botan! Make sure they get home!" Koenma called hurriedly, before Yuusuke could finish his sentence.
Everyone sweatdropped and looked queasy.
"Great, not the express route," Yuusuke managed, as Botan appeared with oar in hand, looking sprightly and cheerful, blue ponytail bobbing.
* * *
Kurama sat at his desk, pretending to read the sheaf of papers spread out in front of him but in reality unable to concentrate. Hiei had disappeared without a word once Botan had dropped them off, and now he had been gone for hours. He was starting to wonder if Hiei remembered that - well, that their relaionship was still unconsummated.
He ran a hand through his hair, self-consciously. The one good thing that had come of the whole Yumenoshu mess had been the amazing link that he and Hiei had shared, if only for a few brief moments. If he'd ever had cause to doubt the little fire demon's feelings for him, the link would have dispelled it instantly. Hiei had been so deeply into his mind. . .he had felt/tasted Hiei's fear for him, the desperation to find him, felt how Hiei had welcomed him into his mind with relief and. . .
A slight breath of air alerted him, and the flicker of a familiar dark ki.
"Hiei," he turned, smiling. The little Koorime was perched on the windowsill, one leg tucked under him. He had discarded cloak and scarf already and his katana was leaned against the wall. His intense scarlet gaze caught at Kurama's. He hopped off the windowsill and approached him, scowling.
"Here," the fire demon shoved something at him.
Kurama's fingers closed around something round and cool. He stared into his cupped palm, holding up the polished bright perfection of a black Koorime tear gem.
"Hiei," he breathed, astonished.
Hiei had done something to it, wound a fine little mesh of silver wire about the gem, supporting it, connecting it to the fine, threadlike silver chain. Also from the chain dangled a tiny, bloodred rose charm, its stem as green as Kurama's eyes.
He looked up with a soft smile at the Koorime who was trying so hard suddenly to avoid his eyes. "Would you fasten it for me, please?"
Strong, callused fingers brushed against the nape of his neck, tingling and tickling him a bit and then Hiei patted his hair back into place.
"*Now* are we married?" Kurama asked almost plaintively, and heard Hiei's snort in reply.
"Stupid fox. . ." came the slow whisper, as Kurama turned around. Hiei's crimson eyes bored into him.
"Hiei, was that this *only* reason you came?" he couldn't help teasing him, reaching up to touch the tear gem that connected them both. An outward symbol of the link that had forged them together even more tightly than before.
Hiei's slow answering smile was more than a match for his own.
"Baka yaro," he replied. "Did you forget we're not mated until-"
Whatever he might have said next was spoken directly down Kurama's throat as the enthusiastic fox plastered him with a kiss.
~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~Talya Firedancer~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~ ~-*-~~-*-~~-*-~
Guardian of the Watchtower of the South, Fire and Feeling....Miko to many!