太長了，要分開來呀。
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Yuu Yuu Hakusho
Shadows and Lies
by Sionna Klassen and Kristin Huntsman
Chapter 5
Don't look, don't look,
The shadow's free
Whispering me away from you...
You know that you will always sleep...
--The Cure, "Burn"
Kuwabara heard something and quickly looked at Kurama.
Kurama gave a low moan, twisting in his sleep. Kuwabara automatically
reached out to shake him awake, but he stopped himself and pulled his hand
back. He didn't know what to do. He opened the door and saw Yusuke passing
through the hallway. He called softly, "Urameshi! Come quick!"
Yusuke turned and hurried into the room. "What?"
"It's Kurama," Kuwabara said, pointing. "Should we wake him up?"
"I..." Yusuke seemed just as uncertain as Kuwabara. "Damn!" he cried.
"If we wake him up, he might go crazy again - but if we don't..."
Kuwabara looked back at Kurama. "He might anyway."
Kurama whimpered and thrashed free of the blankets. Yusuke still
hesitated, torn.
Then Hiei appeared inside the room. He looked sharply at Kurama, then
looked at Yusuke and Kuwabara, and realized that they weren't going to do
anything.
"Idiots!" he snarled, and started toward Kurama.
He didn't get half a step. Kurama suddenly surged up from the floor,
giving a bloodcurdling cry of rage. A flash of red and green whipped through
the air from his hand, and Hiei dropped back abruptly, a long gash opening on
his left arm.
Hiei pressed his hand to the wound, hissing between his teeth. Blood
trickled between his fingers. "Damn!"
The whip came back at them. Yusuke dodged it, but Kuwabara wasn't fast
enough. The whip tangled around him, and he lost his balance and fell over,
crashing to the floor. Hiei drew his sword and slashed in a movement almost too
fast to follow, and the whip went slack as he cut it near the base. Kurama
dropped it as Kuwabara started to free himself, and instead flung seeds at
them. In midair they exploded into a tangled mess of vines, flinging themselves
at Hiei, Yusuke, and Kuwabara and winding around them in impossible knots.
Yusuke fell flat on the floor, struggling desperately as the vines
started to tighten, making it hard to breathe. His powers weren't any use here,
it had to be Hiei or Kuwabara who got them out of this. He twisted, trying to
look at the others. Kuwabara was still doubly tangled, because he hadn't even
freed himself from the whip before being caught by the vines. Yusuke groaned
and looked for Hiei instead.
Hiei was lying on the floor, his eyes closed. He barely seemed to be
moving. "Hiei--?!" Yusuke cried, and then caught sight of the vine wrapped
around Hiei's throat, strangling him. Yusuke looked back at Kuwabara.
"Kuwabara!" he yelled in desperation. "Use your Rei sword!"
"How the hell do I do that with my arms stuck?!" Kuwabara demanded.
"Figure something out!" Yusuke snapped, trying to break the vines by
straining against them. It didn't work.
There was a flash of light and a sizzling noise, and Kuwabara
manifested his sword inside the vines, paper-thin against his body. Then he
sliced outward, freeing himself.
"Free Hiei first," Yusuke gasped, his ribs beginning to bend from the
pressure of the vines. Kuwabara sliced downward and cut the vines from Hiei's
body. Hiei propped himself up on his good arm, gasping for breath. As Kuwabara
cut Yusuke free, Hiei cried hoarsely, "Look out!"
Kurama flung blades of grass at them, a foot long and thin as stiletto
blades. Hiei flickered out of sight, and Yusuke rolled to the side. Kuwabara
tripped over his own feet and fell to the floor, causing the blades to miss him
and stab into the wall.
Hiei appeared briefly next to Kurama, and Kurama swung at him
instantly, but was too slow to catch him. Yusuke took advantage of the
distraction and ran at him, but Kurama still saw him coming and dodged
effortlessly, at the same time flinging Yusuke into the wall. Yusuke dropped to
the floor, rubbing his head.
Vines adorned with huge, purple flowers curled down from Kurama's
hands and eeled
across the floor, reaching for Yusuke and for Kuwabara's and Hiei's feet.
Yusuke leaped across the room, over the sea of vines. The flowers snapped their
petals like hungry mouths.
Hiei, Yusuke, and Kuwabara pressed their backs against the wall as the
vines lifted themselves off the floor and weaved in front of them, striking at
them like snakes. Yusuke stared at Kurama, barely visible behind the curtain of
thorns and purple flowers as big as Hiei's head. Kurama seemed to be smiling,
although it was difficult to tell.
The vines sliced Yusuke's cheek. To his left, Hiei looked vainly for
somewhere to go, but he was cramped into a tiny space, and couldn't move.
Another vine slashed across Hiei's chest, cutting through his cloak, his shirt,
and his skin. Hiei flattened himself even more against the wall, raising his
arms to try and protect himself.
Yusuke had had enough. "Dammit!" he cried. He raised his hand and
pointed his finger at Kurama. His finger started to glow and sparkle.
"Urameshi - what are you doing?" Kuwabara asked, even though he
already knew the answer.
Yusuke fired his Rei gun.
The bolt of blue-white energy burned through the vines instantly and
slammed into Kurama, flinging him back against the wall. The vines dropped to
the ground. The energy pinned Kurama to the wall like a butterfly in an insect
collection, crackling around him in tiny lightning bolts. Hiei and Kuwabara
both stared, seeing the shadow thing in Kurama's chest writhing under the
onslaught of psychic power. Yusuke stared, horrified, as Kurama screamed in
agony and writhed in the crackling field of energy. He hadn't even had his Rei
gun on full power - he only wanted to stop him, not hurt him!
The energy dissolved, and Kurama fell bonelessly to the floor, totally
limp. Yusuke stood frozen. Kurama stirred and pushed himself up on his arms,
trembling from the effort and breathing raggedly. He looked up at them. None of
them said a word. They didn't have to. He knew what had happened.
Kurama stared at them for what seemed like a long time, although it
couldn't have been more than a few seconds. His eyes were filled with pain and
despair. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
"Kurama, I'm--" Yusuke started to apologize.
Kurama collapsed back into a crumpled heap on the floor, his body
completely still.
<Oh God, I've killed him ->
Yusuke ran forward, falling to his knees beside Kurama. Once he was
closer, he could see Kurama breathing shallowly and he heaved a sigh of relief.
Hiei and Kuwabara stepped closer, each seeing the shadow-thing,
shrunken and weak. It throbbed erratically in time with Kurama's pulse. Beating
with Kurama's heart, or _making_ it beat? Hiei wondered. He had a feeling that
it was the latter...
Kuwabara dropped the last of the vines on top of the pile of plants
that had been formed outside the house. Cleaning up the mess in the bedroom had
taken an entire hour even with both he and Yusuke working, picking up all of
the vines and pulling the grass blades out of the wall. Hiei had taken it upon
himself to watch over Kurama. When Kuwabara went back into the bedroom to see
if he'd missed anything, he noticed that Hiei had finished bandaging the wounds
on his arm and chest. Yusuke was sitting next to Kurama, still angry at
himself. Kuwabara wondered if Yusuke knew about the promise Kurama had made him
make. He wondered too if Kurama had asked anyone else to kill him.
There didn't seem to be anything else he could do, so he left, walking
out into the meadow. He dropped down into the grass and stared at the forest,
thinking about Kurama and that shadow thing inside him. He knew he wasn't
imagining things now. Not if he'd seen it twice - and Hiei had seen it too. He
knew that from the expression on Hiei's face when he looked at Kurama.
Slowly his attention shifted to the forest. Something or someone was
behind this, and it was in _there_. He decided that he was going to find out
what it was. And if he did find the cause of all the trouble, he was going to
do something about it.
He stood up and walked into the forest.