In the Dark of the Night

Author's notes = Spelling mistakes in Entry 36 are intentional, after all, a child wrote it. Yes I realize that some kids can write without making a lot of the mistakes I have Jun make. But remember that Jun is under extreme conditions. If your sister's hand has been bitten off by ghosts and you are trapped in a house filled with those same ghosts, would you worry about capitalization?

I'm pulling my hair out over the 28th (or was it 29?) DVD where they show Hiei's memories and clearly state that Yukina is his twin! I've been asking people for months what episode it was revealed and I finally found it! This is in direct conflict with the early part of the series. After they rescued Yukina from the fat human, Hiei watched her leave. He tells Yusuke that she is only his half-sister, they had different mothers. Even when they are going to rescue Yukina, they show Hiei having a dream, he looks almost the same age as he is now but with out the Jagan eye, he's watching a very young Yukina playing with forest animals. >__< Talk about contradicting a story line! I'm already following the first version in Wandering Souls, with Hiei older and they are not twins. I may use the same here or it's possible that I don't address that issue at all.


Chapter 6

Entry 36 by jun,sunday

Momma is sleeping and daddy isn't here so I'm writing for them. Sorry if there's mistakes spelling. I'm only ten. I don't know why I'm saying sorry to a silley book. Momma says that someone might read this later so she write in it as if it's a letter. Whatever she means by that.

I better write about today. Momma told us that Yoshi is going to live this morning. During breakfast those nasty ghosts tried to break into here. Kohaku made them go away with his ofuda. But later they returned. I got really scared when the walls started to breathe. Then the lights started to flick off and on. Everyone screamed when the lights went all tha way out. Okay, not everyone. Kohaku-san is really brave. He didn't yell like a girl the way grampa Kuwa did.


Snickering from Yusuke interrupted the reading. No one said a word, realizing that this was the first time they've heard anything close to a laugh from Yusuke since he learned that the Kuwabara siblings was missing. "Heh, that old man sounds like our Kuwabara." As quickly as he started, Yusuke stopped the half-hearted attempt at humor. "Go on, Genkai."


I wish I was strong like him. And he's cute too. He's not a old, bald guy that you think monks as.

This time it was Keiko and Botan sniffling that caused the interruption. Hiei looked askance at Botan as she used his scarf to dry her tears as Yusuke soothed Keiko. "That's just soo sad. That was probably her first crush. And most likely she didn't live long enough to get a second crush. I'm sorry for interrupting Genkai."

Genkai said nothing as she continued to read, never looking up. Yusuke wasn't sure, he could have sworn that a tear rolled down her left cheek.

Later I heard Kohaku-san talking to Father MacGavin-san and Shino-san. They were whispering so we kids couldn't hear them. But I heard them. They said that the wards aren't going to last too much longer. They didn't want to say it out loud cause they didn't want to scare us kids. But I was already scared before that. I sometimes dream of things that will come true. Sometimes Misao does too. She told me that she dreamed the monk ghost was yelling at that Mr. Browning the day before it happened.

That's why I'm not sleeping, I don't want to have those bad dreams again. Last night was the worsted opps That should be worst. momma wants us to spell the right way but it's hard sometimes . Specially when I don't have a pencil only a pen. And pens don't erase. Anyway I was saying that last night was the worst bad dream I ever had. And let me tell you I had some bad dreams before!

At first all I could see is a baby, my brother naked and crying surrounded by the dark. The only other person there was momma but she's not moving towards my brother she just stands there. Then all the sudden her belly is covered in blood! I knew the that momma was dead and that's why she's not picking my brother up. Suddenly everything changed. I walked into a room and saw Misao lying on the floor next to our brother.
They're both covered in blood and crying. I looked around trying to find some help. I saw daddy, Yoshiko, Shizuru even Kohaku-san and grandpa Holmes was there standin around. I tried yelling that Misao needs help but they acted as if they never heard me. I noticed that they were staring at some boxes that were lying at the front of the room. As I walked to them they became coffins. There were five of them. I looked into the first one and saw that is was Shino-san in it. I saw Father MacGavin in the second one. I started to cry and scream NO when I saw the third one was Grampa Kuwa. My hand trembled as I lifted up the lid to the fourth box
It was momma!

I really didn't want to write that. I got up to get a cup of water before I could say it or say who was in the fifth coffin.

It was me.


"Oh gods, she dreamed of her own death?" Botan buried her face in her hands as Kurama placed a hand on her shoulder.

"There's more." Genkai whisper so softly that several of them didn't hear her.

Kurama did, it was the soft tremble of her voice that made him look closer. "Genkai, you've read all day. Please, allow me to read now." At his question, others looked to see something that startled them. Genkai was crying.

"About time you returned. We will take a break for a few minutes then finish." Genkai snapped as she walked to a back room. She stopped when Yusuke spoke up.

"Why?" Yusuke asked softly, unable to keep quiet any longer. Only when Genkai looked over her shoulder at him did he elaborate. "Why are you crying? You didn't cry when I died so why now over some events that it sounds like already happened. I always thought you were too hardened to cry over a book. What are you not telling us?"

Everyone watched her as Genkai looked away for a few seconds. When she finally turned towards them, she whispered "It's because of the events written in that book that helped harden me so much. Even more so than Toguro". Before anyone could question her, she walked out of the room.

Waiting until her energies were farther away, Yusuke finally turned to Kurama. "Did you find Kaito?" Yusuke stared at Kurama when he simply nodded his head yes. "Well? Is he going to help or not?"

"Kaito agreed to research the family history of the Kuwabaras." Kurama sat down to a cup of tea. "I told him about Kuwabara-kun's disappearance and Genkai's odd behavior." Kurama didn't say anymore as Genkai returned looking more composed as she picked the journal up. Kurama raised a hand, silently reminding her of his offer to read. 'Some may think that I'm being kind. That is one reason for it. Another is that I want to make certain that nothing is being left out from us. From her reactions, Genkai's been more involved with the Kuwabaras than we ever knew. Perhaps even Kuwabara-kun didn't even know or remember.'

When I turned around screaming, I saw pictures on the back wall. They scared me as much as the coffins did. In one picture, it showed Grampa Holmes falling out of a really high window. Another showed Kohaku-san lying on a floor of a shrine with blood all around him. And another showed daddy lying in a hospital bed with one those tubes going into his mouth and a ugly arm, like a mummy or something was touching his forhead. Another showed Misao hiding in a corner of a dark room, she looks older though. Another was of Yoshiko looking like a teen and wandering some weird field that was scattered with bones. Shizuru was all grown up and was in a hospital but she wasn't hurt or sick. She was protecting some brown-haired girl and waving her jacket to shoo away some ugly bugs.

Then there was a guy who I've never seen but I know it's my baby brother. There were a lot of pictures of my brother. I didn't want to wake up, I wanted to look at them all. I know I'll never get a chance to be the big sister to him, I'm not going to live to see him grow up. He's going to grow strong and fight all kinds of monsters. The pictures I like best is the ones where he's holding some swords, but they're not normal swords. My baby brother's going to have some nifty magic swords! The first one kinda glows orange. The second one glows in different colors,at one time it glows orange too but they look different. Another picture shows it glowing red. And a third picture shows the sword looking like a really big tennis racket! I know they are all the same sword becaus they have the same normal looking handle on them. The first and third swords don't have handles, they're glowing like the blades. The first ones look like orange fire, the way it sparks out.

The third one really rocks! It looks like he can cut between worlds! There was this picture and it showed my brother swinging the sword down. On one side there was a cave, on the other, it was a red sky filled with a mountain of monsters.


"Hn, this sister dreamed of each one of Kuwabara's swords." Hiei's voice drifted from the far wall that he propped himself against.

"Yeah, It's enough to make you wonder how strong she could have been if she lived." Yusuke commented softly gazing off at the sun shining in a high window. "I can't believe that it took a crisis like this to make us realize how much we assumed about Kuwabara, about his family and all. How much of those assumptions were wrong. Or how much we took advantage of that ignorance ... and of Kuwabara."

"Yusuke." Keiko didn't need to say anything besides his name. The soft touch of her hand on his knee assured him that he had her support.

"I understand what you are saying Yusuke. Both Hiei and myself had thought that Kuwabara had a simple childhood. To our reasoning, he ... is a ningen." Kurama caught himself before he slipped up, but that pause was noticeable. Even Genkai took note. Kurama thanked the gods that he was able to catch himself before he slipped and said was. 'We cannot give up hope. It's only the second week that we've discovered the Kuwabara residence in ruins.'

Glaring at Kurama's slip, Yusuke accepted Keiko's tugging him into leaning against her side. "That's what's bothering me. I should have realized that his childhood was weird!"

"How could you have known?" Kieko interjected, in an attempt to soothe Yusuke and to satisfy her own curiosity.

"Do you remember the time when we first learned about Kuwabara's sixth sense?" Yusuke asked Botan, watching as she nibbled on a fingertip as she thought. When Botan shook her head yes, Yusuke went on to explain to the others. "It happened when I died the first time, during the first day I wandered around as a ghost and my body was brought back to life and preserved by Reikai. We were floating above Kuwabara while he was talking to Okubo, Sawamura and Kirishima. He seemed to sense that we were near. When he acted odd, Sawamura asked if it was that again. Kirishima knew what he was referring to but Okubo didn't. Kuwabara confirmed that they were talking about his reikan. Kuwabara told Okubo that since he was a child he would see will-o-the-wisps, get hit with sleep paralysis...."

His face paling, Yusuke let his sentence die off as he looked at Botan who had the same look of horror. "Oh no," was the only thing she was able to get past the lump in her throat.

"Well, one of you spit it out!" Hiei spoke up before anyone else could. Just because Kurama is the fox does not mean that he had a monopoly on curiosity.

"Kuwabara said that he was often chased by a grisly ghost and a knife-wielding old hag of a ghost." Botan muttered softly, ashamed she could have forgotten about that or think it was an exaggeration.

"Well, they both sound grisly to me!" Keiko shuddered.

Genkai had allowed them some time to talk, it helped everyone's nerves to have a few minutes that were less tense than the time reading. As Genkai took the journal back, she cleared her throat. "It's getting late. We'll read one more entry then stop for the evening."

Entry 37, Sunday
By Amanda

Dear Gods please spare my daughters! I woke up in the late evening to find Jun had written in this journal. The fact that my eldest daughter has looked inside this diary of horror does not disturb me as the fact of what she revealed in her own chapter. I've shown Jun's entry to both the priests and the monks.


Later on in the evening, Genkai noticed that Kurama was checking his cellphone. 'Leave it to Kurama to be the one to do some investigations outside of my shrine. Somehow I suspected that if they ever found out my secret that it would be him. Oho, I realize my current actions are suspicious. If they can find the right clues I'll tell them the truth and why it's been kept hidden all these years.'

---------TBC-------