Out of Bounds and Beneath Dreams

Out of Bounds and Beneath Dreams
Part eight…

I. Somewhere out on those Moors
Hiei was standing out on the little stone balcony. He pulled his coat pulled up tighter to his skin, enough though the cold night air didn’t really bother him. It must have been nerves. Yusuke couldn’t tell if he was looking out at the starry night sky or the moon lit moors. It didn’t matter.

“Have a cup a tea?” Yusuke approached him, a steaming cup of sweet smelling beverage in hand. That was when he noticed the thick slivery disk in Hiei’s hand. It was the compass thing that Hiei had found in Mukuro’s on that horrible day. “Torturing yourself with that thing again?”

Hiei nodded, “I feel that we’re getting close.”

“Sure? Cuz we’ve been here for like three weeks. The lady who owns this place asked me today if we were looking to settle down in the area.” Yusuke told him.

“If they’re not here, I’ll be pissed,” Hiei muttered. The first thing that he discovered, when he started off on his hunt for the Cult of the First Ones, was that the cult was somewhere in the Human World. Because the first attacks happened in Demon World and because Koenma had mentioned that a number of them were powerful demons, Hiei had assumed they would be based in Demon World. But when he went there, the enchanted arrows on the compass didn’t move. So he, Yusuke and Kurama returned to the Human World-- then the arrows pointed, westward, very far westward.

Traveling in the Human World was such a pain, Hiei thought. A man couldn’t just walk from one side of it to the other. There were borders with crossing regulations and customs. It was a good thing that back when Hiei decided to move in with Yusuke and Kurama in the Human World, Koenma had mocked up a bunch of fake official documents for him, like a birth certificate, school transcripts, and a passport. That would have been rich, his quest to save his comrades and possibly the world, hampered by airport security customs. And oh, the air travel… a bunch of humans stuffed into a can like anchovies, and there was Hiei stuffed in with them. It smelled like sweat and plastic. The air was stifling. The air pressure made him feel like his head was going to pop. And then Yusuke and Kurama vanished for like twenty minutes, saying something about joining some Mile High Club.

He endured and he followed the pointing arrows as far as Yorkshire, England. To one of those little rural communities on the moors that had barely changed since the turn of the century. It was the type of place where tourists pay a bundle to stay in a cottage with out television or central heating, and call it quant. Any farther west and the compass pointed east. More northward, it said south and vice versa. They were right on top of it, he knew it.

“They’re hiding somewhere out on those moors,” Hiei said to no one in particular.

“They’re hiding really well. Such a large number of demons in one location and you can’t sense them, not even with your Jagan eye. They must have a serious perception filter set up.” Kurama startled both of his lovers from were he stood framed in the doorway. He was fresh out of the shower and wrapped in fuzzy bathrobe. He moved on, “Now, this cold air’s gotten to me. Who wants to help me warm up?”

“Yusuke Urameshi, at your service,” Yusuke grinned and hopped toward the redhead. He paused and looked back, “Coming Hiei?”

“Go ahead. I’ll catch up in a second,” Hiei told them. He wanted to give the area one last go over, before retiring for the night. He removed his headband. The Jagan opened and reached out over the land. Nothing. All he could sense some animals, the family of goat herders-- or something like that-- that lived ten miles down the road, but no demonic auras, nothing powerful. Hiei was about to give up and go inside when he looked down at the compass and-- one of the arrows, the green one, was moving apart from the other arrows!

It could only mean that the cultist with the green compass was separating from the group. This might just be the break they were looking for. Hiei glanced back through the patio door and saw that Yusuke was already unclothed and busy straddling Kurama’s thighs. Hiei looked down at the compass; the arrow was moving quickly. He couldn’t wait for them; he had to move, now! Without another backward glance, Hiei was off and racing across the moors.

His plan was simplicity in itself, if Hiei could track down this stray cultist and then he would only have to follow him back to their nest. The arrow was pointing dead ahead of him now. It had occurred to Hiei to wonder why this single cultist had separated from the rest. Maybe he snuck out to hit up some local farmer’s daughter. But no, there was no farmer’s house that Hiei could see; only sparse wooded lands. Hiei looked down at the compass to make sure he was still on the right path, when all of the sudden, his senses picked up an energy. And it felt… familiar somehow. And what’s more it was right in front of him!

“Who’s there?” A deep tenor called out.

Hiei almost jumped back to the shadows, but then thought better of it. The other had most certainly sensed his energy, just as he had sensed his, so hiding would just be silly at that point. So, Hiei stepped out into a spot were the moonlight shined through the straggly tree branches.

“Hiei?” The other gasped his name far too familiarly.

The other was tall, but that‘s all Hiei could tell fore his long dark robe. He couldn‘t even see his face in the shadows of his hood. Hiei demanded, “Who are you?”

In response the other reached up and lifted his hood. Hiei saw the light blue hair that framed a very handsome face that was marred by a large cross shaped scar over the bridge of his nose. It was a face Hiei had not seen for a long time… one he’d never thought he’d see again, not since the end of the Dark Tournament.

“Bui….”

“So you haven’t forgotten me,” Bui responded, “I’m flattered.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Hiei spat before he really had time to think about it. Then he remembered something that Koenma had said. Karasu and Bui were members of the cult, before they challenged the Toguro brothers and got their asses thoroughly owned. He added, “You’re with them; the Cult of the First Ones.”

Bui smiled warily and nodded, “Thanks to you and your teammates. After you beat me and Yusuke killed Toguro at the dark tournament, I had nothing to live for in the fighting world. So I came crawling back here to the cult that helped me realize my power to begin with, only to have me turn my back on it. Gareth felt sorry for me and greeted me back with open arms. He’s a real angel, you know.”

“What are you up to?” Hiei hissed.

“Oh, I was just out for some midnight training. You know, to keep in shape,” Bui said off handedly.

“That is not what I meant, and you know it,” Hiei growled, “This business of turning people into stone, stealing spells, and accosting Spirit World dignitaries.…”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that with you, Hiei,” Bui shrugged, “Gareth may be an angel, but he does have a short temper when it comes to treachery.”

“You don’t have many options, Bui,” Hiei informed him, “I’ve found you and it’ll only be a matter of time before I flush out your cohorts. And in case you’ve gotten some idea in your head that you can take me out before I do that, I’d like to remind you; I did defeat you before. And I’ve only become more powerful since.”

“I see that,” Bui looked Hiei over, “Yes, my raw strength doesn’t even come close to yours-- so it’s a good thing I have more than strength at my disposal!”

Hiei was suddenly engulfed in a blinding white light. He couldn’t feel the ground under his feet anymore. And for that matter he couldn’t feel anything anymore, not the chill night air. He couldn’t even feel a sensation of gravity. Was he dead? Was he going to come to and find himself in Koenma’s office, waiting for some ogre to pull up his file?

“Yusuke! Kurama!” He yelled into the whiteness. They were waiting for him to come to bed.

At that same time, elsewhere, Yusuke sat up with a start, calling, “Hiei?!” Was it a bad dream? He looked for the demon who must surly be asleep next to him. He wasn’t there.

“Yusuke,” Kurama’s hand fell on his forearm. He turned to find the fox wearing a worried face to match his own.

“I thought I heard him calling to me,” Yusuke whispered.

Kurama shook his head, “I heard it too. It was a telepathic scream. Yusuke--”

“Damn it, Short Stack just had to run off without us and now he‘s gotten him self in trouble!” Yusuke groused as he climbed out of bed.

“Yusuke, what do you plan on doing?” Kurama followed him.

“I’m gonna go find him. You coming?”

“Of course, but how?”

Yusuke’s eyes narrowed as his hand drifted to his chest where Hiei’s tear gem rested on its silver chain. He gripped it in his hand. Kurama found his hand doing the same to the gem that hung around his neck. The gem felt warm and alive in his hand. It felt like Hiei. And he knew they would find him.
* * *
II. Gareth Waits for You
The world turned black, gravity returned, as did the cold. Hiei fell to land with a splash in rancid smelling water. Hiei spit and struggled to his feet in the waist deep water while he cursed, “Bastard teleported me!”

He felt so stupid. It was a trick like Kuwabara would have fallen for. But he was far from daunted. Wherever the hell he’d been dropped, he’d find a way out and then he’d hunt Bui down and serve him his balls on a plate! The walls were rough and natural, so he concluded he was somewhere underground, in some natural cave. Not surprising, Kurama did mention once that area was supposedly full of unknown holes and niches. Hiei thought he could detect a slight breeze, though he couldn’t tell if it was fresh air fore the smell of the slimy water he was standing in. He growled again and trudged on in the dark toward the direction the breeze was coming from.

He tripped on something in the water and stumbled, catching himself on the wall. That was when he noticed something off. The wall under his hand didn’t feel like stone at all. It was sooth, slimy, sort of sticky, and it was moving! Hiei snatched his hand way, only to have it snatched right back by some strange tentacle-like thing. In a moment of shock, Hiei summoned a flame into his hand. The cave was washed in its warm orange glow. Hiei saw pods, like giant mottled green and grey peapods. They were hanging all along the walls of the cave. Their roots dangled down into the putrid water-- expect for the one that held Hiei’s arm. Hiei tried to pull away from it, but it pulled him back. And at that same moment the pod split to reveal rows of spiny teeth.

“Shit!” Hiei shouted and hurled his fireball into its mouth. It almost sounded like thing screamed as it went up in a ball of blue-green flame. It fell off the wall and into the water, subsequently casting the space into darkness again. Nevertheless, Hiei could hear scraping and rustling along the walls. Hiei cursed again as he summoned twin balls of flame in each hand. The room was lit again and he could see that the freaky pod-things were indeed moving across the walls, moving toward him. Their vines reached for him as their hungry mouths were opened and closed.

“Hungry? Eat this!” Hiei shouted, taking out two more of the things. He didn’t hesitate a moment before summoning up more flame. But just when he thought this was all too easy, something gripped him around his legs and in one quick yank he was splashing down into the foul water. His flames extinguished as he was submerged. The thing in the water tangled around his limbs. He felt the water move around him. Sharp spiny teeth grazed his skin.

He was SO not going die by getting eaten by a plant! In rage, he charged his energy up. The water began to boil around him. The pod-things in the water shrieked as they were boiled alive. Hiei surfaced with a roar. Any pod-things that were not in boiled like Bessel sprouts were soon roasted by the flames that sprouted off his body. He killed countless of their number before they stopped coming. He might have killed them all, maybe they just gave up on pursuing him, or perhaps he’d moved out of their territory. They lived in the dark, but the place where Hiei now found himself seemed to carry some light. He looked for the source. It was coming from above him in that apparently ceiling less cavern.

“Oh fine then,” He growled and the started his ascent up the wall. Nothing accosted him on his way up. That was good, because it would have been annoying having to fight things off while clinging to a slippery cave wall-- not that he wasn’t annoyed anyway.

After a while he smelled fresher air and he could finally see the source of the light. It wasn’t daylight, too orange and it couldn’t possibly be dawn yet. More likely it was torch light. It was coming from a recess high in the wall, which soon he managed to climb his way up onto it. He flopped down on level ground with his limbs burning and breathing heavily.

“I knew that wouldn’t keep you long,” Hiei heard Bui’s deep tenor above him.

He gritted his teeth, “What the hell was that worthless little side trip about, huh?”

“Like you said, I had no chance of defeating you, so I stalled you, by sending you down into one of the pits. I’m guessing by the smell of burnt vegetation on you that you met the things that live down there. Would you believe that they are actually native to this world? They’re ancient relics from a forgotten time. Nasty things, but I knew they wouldn’t be a match for you. Though, they did keep you occupied long enough for me to return and report your presence to my fellows,” Bui turned and started walking, “Come Hiei, Gareth wants to meet you.”

Bui took him through a long series of natural caverns which eventually gave way to man-made corridors. The walls were carved with letters from a long lost language and pictures of bizarre inhuman creatures. They would have been terrifying to someone who hadn’t grown up in the demon world-- even then the images made Hiei… uncomfortable. If that wasn’t enough, they came to the end of a final corridor, out to a wide room the far wall was carved with the same motifs as the tunnels had been, but on much larger scale. The wall held life-sized relief’s of creatures all different shapes with claws or tentacles, multiple mouths filled with rows of teeth. It reminded Hiei of his encounter with the Lords of Luz in the Dreamlands. Central to the wall was a pair thirty foot statutes of creatures that seemed half man and half octopus, supporting great pillars on their shoulders. Between which was a dark and sinister opening. This was the stronghold of the Cult of the First Ones.

Hiei commented if only to make it seem that he wasn‘t bothered, “Dreary place you got here. Decorate it yourselves?”

“These ruins predate our association,” Bui told him, “They were built here by secret sects way back during the Roman occupation. And probably for the same reason why we occupy them now.”

“And why’s that?” Hiei probed.

“Geographic reception to comic energies,” Bui said a-matter-of-factly.

“That’s worthless to me,” Hiei snarled.

“I know,” Bui glanced at him, “I assumed you were here after revenge over what happened to Mukuro. You think I would tell you anything useful?” They entered the ancient temple. Bui paused and pointed, “Gareth waits for you in there.”

Hiei entered the room and was instantly at loss for words. Sitting atop of the dais was a being that he could only describe as… an angel. Draped in dark blue, silver embroidered robes was a tall and lithe creature with a beautifully androgynous face, framed by long black hair that hung over his shoulders like satin curtains. But the real showstopper was the wings. The wings were not the pretty little dove’s wings like he’d seen on human greeting cards. They were layered like feathers, but ridged and transparent, like shards of broken glass suspended in the air at his back, but not really attached. They were more localized spatial disturbance than appendage. They glowed with some sort of inner light as sparks jumped between the shards. They were beautiful and… positively electric!

And then he spoke. His voice was surprisingly deep and rich. “You must be Hiei. Bui has told me much about you.”

“He obviously hasn’t told you enough,” Hiei replied with bravado, in spite of the shock he felt at seeing this being. “If he really told you so much, you’d be wetting yourself now.”

“You think you’re something, don’t you?” Gareth smiled, “Truth is, you are. You mastered a technique that thousands failed to, defeated some of the strongest apparitions known and became an A-class demon at such a young age and still you have lots of potential for improvement. But none of that doesn’t matters here, Hiei. Would you like to know why?”

“I didn‘t come here to listen to you monologue,” Hiei ground out, “I came to get answers. You and your goons hurt a lot of people, who I consider allies. I want to know why and how to fix it. And if you don’t feel like volunteering the answers, I’ll be more than happy to beat them out of you.”

Gareth smiled, “Try.”

Hiei growled. The nerve of this guy. Well, if he wanted his ass kicked so badly, who was Hiei to deny him? Hiei knotted his fist and quick as lighting threw a punch aimed directly at his jaw. His fist was stopped inches short of the man’s face. It was like he hit an invisible brick wall.

“A force field, honestly?” Hiei griped, “Fine. I was going to go easy on you, because you’re obviously a weakling, but now you’ve pissed me off! Fist of the Moral Flame!” The fire sprung up in Hiei’s hand, bringing with it the rush of excitement that it always did, using that kind of raw primal power. With a roar he plunged his fist into the invisible barrier between him and his enemy.

Hiei was sure it would have been enough to crack the barrier, if the barrier had acted the way it should and remained firm, but when his fist came in contact with it, it gave. He felt his hand sink into it; become surrounded by it, like he’d punched raw dough or tar! Yes, it was like tar because now he couldn’t pull his hand out of it. He glanced up just in time to see Gareth’s haughty smile. In the next second he felt his power surge, but with no excitement this time, because he was not controlling it. It was being drawn down his trapped arm and sucked out of his body. Hiei screamed. His legs gave out under him. He fell at the angel’s feet.
* * *
III. How it Ends
He wasn’t really asleep, but he wasn’t really conscious either. He was awake, but unaware, stunned by whatever it was that Gareth had done to him. When Hiei’s mind came alive again, he was in another place. It was like a theater and he was on the stage. But the people in the stands were not an audience. Audiences don’t wear dark robes and masks, and they don’t carry knifes and daggers. And they sure as hell didn’t chant creepy unintelligible words like that. Hiei was not in a theater and it was not a stage. It was sacrificial chamber and he was on the slab!

“Lay still,” Hiei heard Bui whisper at his left.

His vision focused and he saw that man, Gareth, approaching his limp body. “I suppose by now you‘ve figured out that wasn‘t a force field. It was more like an electromagnetic field. I can move, disrupt, or negate any energy that passes into it. How, pray tell, did you think I kept a legion of quest-class demons in line?”

“Charisma and a pretty face?” Hiei sneered as best he could. His head still felt a little too heavy to lift off the slab where he was laid.

Gareth smiled without humor, “Making jokes to cover for your own weakness, cute. Though I do admit, you are much stronger than the typical specimen. A lesser being would have been laid out for a week. Ah yes, Bui certainly wasn’t exaggerating when he said how strong you were. I’m glad I didn’t kill him after he and fool Karasu took off like typical demons, thinking that power and glory belongs to the man with the bigger fist.”

“You’re monologueing again,” Hiei groused.

“Ah, and I do have an audience waiting for me to start things.” Gareth raised his hands and all the apparitions ceased in their chanting. “Bothers, I shall be concise. After five centuries of diligent search we have finally collected the final spells and completed the Book of Tricks and Charms. And now our plan may come to fruition!” The demons in the crowd cheered.

“So your plans weren’t limited to turning powerful heads into stone,” Hiei spat weakly in his direction.

“Means to an end,” Gareth shot back over his shoulder, “I needed the spells they had, nothing more. Any relation they had to each other and you are pure coincidence-- or synchronicity. I was just thinking we could use another powerhouse, and here, you came to us. Confused? Oh, you‘ll catch on. Bring forth the avatars!” He called out.

Hiei turned his head on the slab to see a precession of large demons dragging large carts up onto the raised dais. As they neared Hiei could see that they carried masses of clay with exotic glyphs curved into their surfaces. Once they were in place, another group stepped forward, each bearing a chain with an oddly glowing charm. They placed a chain round each lump of clay and, to Hiei’s astonishment, they moved. They wiggled and pulsated, and yes, Hiei could sense energy in them, as if they were alive!

“The Sprit Drain Incantation, the Second Life Charm, and the Double Doll,” Hiei gasped putting it together in his mind. When they attacked Reikei they didn’t just steal the Sprit Drain Incantation, they used it too, on King Enma and the others. But they didn’t just let the energy defuse into the ether, they captured and stored it with the Second Life Charm they took from Mukuro. All so they could seed it into these mindless lumps of clay which were no doubt derived from the Double Doll enchantment they pilfered from Yomi. They stole the power of the gods and trapped it in vessels with no wills of their own. “They’re batteries!”

“Yes, batteries to run an engine that will move the stars into the right alignment,” Gareth boasted, “And once I add your power to it, the tides will turn and the seas will part and then R’lyeh will rise. Cthulhu will walk the Earth and our new world order will begin! Now Brothers, we shall create the engine!”

At that the brothers raised their hands and commences a slow drowning chant. Their power washed over to the foot of the dais with deadly propose, as if of one single mind. Hiei didn’t need it to be explained to him what they were doing. He remembered the Dark tournament; he knew what the quest class demons could do. They could create real objects from nothing but their energy and imagination. The power rose around the dais, but did not reach it. It was concentrating, becoming solid. Hiei could see dull red sparkles starting to form in the in the air around him. They were rubies and they were forming a dome!

“Using a god’s power to move the stars and release some wicked evil onto the world,” Hiei snorted from where he lay, “I think I’ve seen this episode before. And uh, I don’t think you’re going to like how it ends.”

“Oh and how’s that?” Gareth sneered in Hiei’s direction.

“Like this jerk-wad, Spirit Gun!” Yusuke’s crass voice roared over the crowd, at the same time a massive blue ball of energy ripped through the air to catch Gareth full in the face. The force of it lifted the Aeon off the dais and flung him to crash into the far wall.

In the next second, masses of stocks and vines shot up from the floor, tripping, grappling, and wrapping up any demon at stood too close to them. Somebody screamed. A few people panicked and tried to run. Some were stunned to immobility. Others readied themselves to fight. The result; complete loss of order and unity in the group. The shinning rubies that they were forming, fell to the ground and shattered like cheap glass.

“No!” Gareth roared as he climbed back to his feet, finding the source of this chaos; a handsome young man with slicked back black hair and a wild sneer, and a beautiful creature with flaming red hair and a deadly cold look in his eyes. Then Gareth smiled as if they were of no consequence, “I hope you enjoyed your lives, because they end now.”

He raised his arms, his wings stretched out behind him-- they even seemed to grow in size as the light within them burned brighter and the sharks arched up off of them. He moved his hands in front of him and the power gathered there. Hiei could sense the deadly intent in that power and sprang. With all the power he could muster surging in his hands. Hiei reached out and grabbed those wings. It hit him right away, like grabbing a live electrical wire. He yelled as the power rushed painfully through his limbs. But Gareth was screaming too as Hiei’s power collided with his own. The Jagan opened on a will of it’s own to try and channel some of that power away that was tearing its host apart.

Then Hiei was suddenly in different place, seeing through the Jagan. It was loftier than most birds could fly and far colder than most men could bear. In a mazy manse. He knew somehow it had just been completed, but already the doors were sealing from the ice and the halls were shrinking with frost. Not that it mattered these halls were never meant to be lived in. It was to be a tomb. There was door in front of him, one of three, and a pounding came from the other side as a muffled voice cried out, “The doors have malfunctioned! Quick, get me out of here!”

Then Hiei hear another voice, Gareth‘s voice, “I’m sorry, my friend, but there is nothing wrong with the doors. I triggered the mechanism.”

“Why?” The one on the other side demanded.

“It will not matter to you soon,” Gareth told him.

“WHY?” He pounded on the door and sobbed, “At least tell me why!”

And then Hiei’s vision exploded in a flash of light and shower of sparks as he was sent tumbling in space.

“Hiei!” Yusuke was suddenly beside him, trying to gather his trembling body off the floor. Hiei was shaking from electro shock, not nerves. Yusuke called him again, “Hiei, speak to me.”

“I… I’m all right,” Hiei breathed when he was able to hear himself over the ringing in his ears. And then he shook the blurriness out of his eyes, he saw Yusuke and Kurama hovering over him looking worried, relieved and cross all at the same time. He noticed that they were not being disturbed by any vexed cultists and asked, “Where’d everyone go?”

“They ran away,” a deep and familiar voice came from behind his lovers, “That is, the ones that the fox’s plants didn’t eat.” It was Bui.

“What the hell are you still doing here, you--” Hiei cut off his own rant to cradle his throbbing head.

“I wanted to make sure you regained consciousness all right,” Bui told him.

Hiei gapped, “That’s not what I meant… You’re one of them!”

“Easy now,” Kurama placed a soothing hand on the demons shoulder, “Bui explained everything to us while you were out. You see, for the past few years he’s been working for Spirit World as an undercover operative. Unfortunately, he’s been unable to report back for some time at the risk of blowing his cover. Things were looking grim for him, but then he found you out on the moors and saw his opportunity and arranged to have you clash with Gareth.”

“By teleporting me into that stinking hole with those things?” Hiei narrowed his eyes skeptically.

“I knew they wouldn‘t be much more than a nuance for the likes of you,” Bui shrugged, “So get over it.”

“Right,” Hiei sneered, “But if you were on our side then, why did you allow that… maniac to attack in our world?” Why did he let him do that to Mukuro, was what he was really asking.

Bui nodded seriously, “Gareth called us his brothers, but he never trusted us. He played things real close to the vest, never told us more than we needed to know and never gave us a look at the big picture. It was one of the reasons why I left this dump in the first place. The five guys who actually staged the attack probably didn’t know about it until they were halfway there to do it.”

“You weren’t there? But you had the green one,” Hiei said and somehow Bui understood.

“I have a green one. There’s about forty or fifthly of us that carried the same charm on our compasses,” Bui told him.

“But you know the spells they used right,” Yusuke interjected, “So, can’t you, like, tell us how we can undo them?”

Bui shook his head, “That spell came from the Book of Curses and Maladies, to fix it you’d need the Book of Cures and Reverses. Gareth said he hid that long ago. Only two people knew the location. One was Gareth.”

“And the other?” Kurama pressed.

“Is dead next to it,” Hiei muttered and the three turned to look at him. “Before we… exploded, I think I got a glimpse at Gareth’s memories… Shit!”

“What is it?” Yusuke and Kurama flew to him as one.

Hiei pressed a hand to his temple and licked his lips, “I… I think I know where it is.”
* * *
TBC…
A/N: We’re nearly to the end, makes me a bit sad though. This could be my last fic, if I’m not able to get this thing sorted and be able to upload new stories. Moving on, I’m so shocked to see how many reviewers were sad to see Ianto left behind… never to be seen again, yep. (Smirks) Well, with any luck, see ya next time!