The Wizard of Reikai
Chapter 1
By Kristin Huntsman
Here... a completely silly and irrelevant YYH story, written on my break from _Kurama 1/2_ and _Dreams of Shadows_. Hope you like it, and I'm _not_ sorry that it's not a musical. I don't write musicals. _You_ can imagine all the Judy Garland references in here you want. Have fun making the youkai sing, if that's your kick. I now present to you...
Keiko took a lick of her ice cream, and looked over at Yuusuke. He was looking up at the sky with a worried look on his face. "What is is, Yuusuke?" she asked.
He frowned. "I don't know," he answered. "But something's not right. The sky's red."
Keiko glanced up. The sky looked as blue as ever to her, then, she didn't have Rei sight the way Yuusuke did. "Are you sure?" she asked.
Yuusuke frowned even more and didn't answer her question. He seemed to be studying one section of the sky in particular. Keiko followed his gaze and gasped. "Yuusuke, that's a tornado! Do you think it'll touch down here?!"
"I don't know," Yuusuke replied. "But I don't think it's natural. You should get to shelter, just in case."
"And leave you here all alone to take on a tornado?!" Keiko demanded. "That's crazy, even for you, Yuusuke! You're coming with me!" She clamped her hand down onto his arm and dragged him away before he could protest.
Fortunately, the Yukimura restaurant wasn't too far away, because the wind was picking up fast as the funnel of the twister lowered to the streets. Keiko hurridly closed and locked the front door of the restaurant behind them, following Yuusuke to the stairs that led to the rest of the building. She paused as she heard a loud roaring, and a sudden crash.
Keiko screamed as the house moved upwards, and the floor started pitching and rocking violently beneath her. "Keiko!" Yuusuke said, lunging for her. He caught her as she fell, and they huddled together in the darkness as the house twisted and tumbled about, the wind shrieking and cackling insanely outside. Keiko was sure she was going to die, whether Yuusuke was there to protect her or not, and no one would ever know what had happened to them.
She was just wondering if Botan would come to guide them to the Reikai or not, when everything suddenly settled and silenced with a bone-jarring THUMP!
Keiko cautiously opened her eyes and found herself looking at Yuusuke.
"Do you think we're dead?" she whispered, afraid to break the pervasive silence.
Yuusuke considered, then shook his head. "This doesn't feel like dead," he replied, standing up. "Come on, let's find out where we are."
Keiko accepted his helping hand and they made their way over to the door. "Mom and Dad are going to kill me--" she muttered, noticing the damage that the restaurant had sustained.
"Don't be a moron," Yuusuke retorted. "The tornado did this." He tested the door and turned to Keiko. "You locked it. Where's the key?"
Keiko searched her dress pockets, then shook her head. "It must have fallen out."
"Great." Yuusuke looked at the debris on the floor and sighed. He turned back to the door and attacked it with a fist full of Rei power. The door dissolved into a cloud of dust that left Keiko coughing and waving her arms around, trying to clear the air. Yuusuke took her hand and they stepped through the doorway.
Keiko winced at the bright sunlight and looked around. They were in a village of some kind, but it seemed awfully deserted. And it was painted in unusually bright colors and built for very tiny people. The plants that lined the streets weren't familiar, either.
"Yuusuke," Keiko whispered, clutching his arm, "where do you think we are?"
"I don't know," he replied, scanning around. "The Reikai? Or maybe-- the Makai?"
A silvery giggle interrupted what Keiko had been about to say, and she looked around for its source. A large pink bubble floated towards her and Yuusuke, carried on a soft breeze, and gently vanished as it touched the ground.
"Botan-san?!" Keiko gasped. <I knew I was dead....>
Botan cocked her head to the side and inquired, "Are you a good human, or a bad human?"
"What?" Keiko was confused.
"I said, 'are you a good human, or a bad human?'," Botan repeated.
"What's going on here, Botan?" Yuusuke demanded, stepping forward and grabbing her by the hair.
"Ow! Not the ponytail, Yuusuke! Not the hair!" Botan squealed, extracting herself from his grasp. She glared at him. "Honestly! Some people! All I need is for her--" she said, pointing a glittering pink-and-silver wand at Keiko, "to answer if she's a good human or a bad human!"
"I'm a good human," Keiko said. "What's going on, Botan-san?"
Botan shrugged. "You've killed the evil Toguro."
"_What_?!" Keiko gasped. This was getting too weird. She suddenly noticed what Botan was wearing, and tried to figure out where it was familiar from. Instead of her usual pink kimono, Botan was dressed in a fluffy pink dress that made her look like a fairy princess. She even had a silly little crown perched on her head that looked ridiculously off-balance with her ponytail.
"You've killed the evil Toguro," Botan repeated, gesturing with her wand. "Your house fell on him and freed all the youkai he was terrorizing."
Keiko turned and looked at her house. Sure enough, under it was the slightly squashed form of the younger Toguro. Botan walked over and knelt down by him, tapping him on the shoulder with her wand. "Yep, he's dead," she pronounced. She turned around and stood up. "You can come out now!" she called. "You can all come out! He's dead!"
Keiko and Yuusuke watched wide-eyed as dozens of youkai came out of the woodwork. They slowly milled about Botan, the two humans, and the house with the dead body under it. One of them cautiously moved closer to Toguro. When he showed no sign of being alive, the youkai knelt down and examined him more closely, then stood up and held his arms out for silence. "The evil Toguro is dead!"
All the other youkai burst into loud cheers and started dancing around Yuusuke, Keiko, and Botan. It was all very loud and racous and happy. Amidst the snatches of song that she heard, Keiko managed to sort out "--let the joyous news be spread, the evil younger Toguro at last is dead!" <Where have I heard that before?> Keiko wondered. It was awfully familiar.
A loud, insane burst of laughter broke into and through the youkai's celebration all of a sudden, as a noxious cloud of poisonous yellow smoke suddenly plumed up out of nowhere. The youkai ran shrieking back to their hiding places as the cloud dissapated to to reveal the elder Toguro hidden in its embrace. Keiko and Botan both gasped and hid behind Yuusuke.
"Well, now, what do we have here?" Toguro-oni asked, walking over to the fallen house. "And who killed my brother?" he demanded, rounding to face Yuusuke and the two girls.
"Umm... well...." Botan hedged.
"I did," Keiko timidly admitted. "But I didn't mean to! There was this tornado, and the house got carried away, and--"
"_You_ killed my brother?!" Toguro shrieked, moving towards her. Keiko squealed and hid behind Yuusuke, squinching her eyes shut. Yuusuke tensed and prepared to fight Toguro.
"Now wait a minute," Botan said, stepping out in front of Yuusuke. Her eyes flashed indignantly, and her hands were on her hips. "Aren't you forgetting something? The Magic Sunglasses?"
Toguro paused, then whirled back towards his brother. "Yes, the sunglasses," he murmured, reaching for them. "I'd forgotten about them...." The sunglasses shimmered and disappeared before he could touch them. "Where did they go?!" he shrieked, turning to Botan.
Botan smiled sweetly. "There," she replied, pointing with her wand at Keiko. Yuusuke turned around to look at Keiko and gaped. Keiko opened her eyes.
And blinked.
"Hey, what's the bright idea?" she demanded of Botan, pushing the sunglasses back to rest on her head.
"Give those to me!" the elder Toguro shouted, moving to snatch the glasses from Keiko's head. He shrieked and fell back as a kekkai of sparkling, snapping energy surrounded Keiko and burned his hands.
"What the hell--?!" Yuusuke demanded.
"They must be very powerful, or he wouldn't want them so badly," Botan mused. She waved her wand scornfully at Toguro. "You have no power here, so get lost, before someone drops a house on you, too!"
Toguro glanced up at the sky nervously, then cackled insanely again. "I'll get you, my pretty," he warned Keiko, as the cloud of smoke returned to surround him, "and your stupid boyfriend, too!"
"Who's stupid?!" Yuusuke yelled angrily as Toguro vanished.
When he was gone entirely, Botan gave a sigh of relief. "I'm afraid you're no longer safe here, either of you," she said, turning to Yuusuke and Keiko.
"So how do we get home, then?" Yuusuke demanded.
Botan chewed on her lower lip for a minute, then shrugged. "I don't know. I guess you'll have to go ask the Wizard, at the Gates of Judgement."
"How do we get there from here?" Keiko asked.
Botan smiled brightly. "Follow the Thousand Step Road, of course!" she answered.
"_WHAT_?!"
"There," she said, gesturing to a path that led away from the village. Yuusuke and Keiko walked over to it, and saw that it led down the hill in a series of steps, then back up over the next-- in effect stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Well, good luck!" Botan said, waving her wand cheerily as the pink bubble encased her again and she floated away.
"Hey, wait!" Yuusuke yelled, running after her, but the bubble just soared higher into the sky and vanished.
"Chi!" Yuusuke swore, and turned back to Keiko. Together, they proceeded down the first hill, which, oddly enough, seemed to consist of 99 1/2 steps.
Behind them, Toguro's body vanished and the house fell with a loud thud to the ground, scaring the timid youkai who had just started to come out of their hiding places back into them.
A while later, Keiko and Yuusuke stood in confusion. The road before them split into two directions. One veered off sharply to the right and led into a deep forest, while the other ran past more of the endless fields that had surrounded them for hours. Unsure, they sat and rested while trying to decide which road to take.
"So which way do we go?" Yuusuke asked.
"The correct way, of course," someone replied.
"Huh?" Yuusuke looked around in confusion, but saw no one.
"Who's there?" Keiko called. Her only answer was a soft peal of laughter.
"Wait a minute - I know that voice!" Yuusuke exclaimed. "Kurama, where are you?"
"Here." There was a faint stir in the plants in the field the split in the road bordered, and a silver fox with five tails came into sight.
"Kurama?" Yuusuke asked, kneeling down and looking into the fox's alert eyes through the fence surrounding the field.
"In the flesh," Kurama replied. He was using telepathy, Keiko realized. The fox cocked its head and looked beseechingly at Yuusuke. "I don't suppose you could let me out of here?"
"Whaddaya mean?" Yuusuke asked, standing up and looking at the fence that surrounded the field. "Don't tell me you can't jump that!"
"Not with demon wards and bindings on it, I can't," Kurama replied, his voice chargined.
Yuusuke laughed and opened the gate. Kurama dashed out, his fox body spinning into a silver whirlwind and becoming human the second he was free of the field. "Thanks," he told Yuusuke. "I thought I'd be in there forever."
"What were you doing in there, anyway, Kurama-san?" Keiko asked.
"Toguro shut me up in there with the wards keeping me in kitsune form," Kurama replied, frowning. "I was supposed to scare the crows away from the plants."
"How long have you been here?" Yuusuke asked. "Your hair's practically down to your knees."
"I lost count a long time ago," Kurama replied. "I don't suppose you have a pair of scissors, Keiko?" he asked.
"Umm...." Keiko dug into her pocket and pulled out a set, handing them to Kurama. "Here."
"Thanks." Kurama quickly and deftly applied the scissors to his hair, trimming it to its normal waist-long length. "There," he said, handing the scissors back to her. "I feel like less of a scarecrow now."
<Scarecrow?> Keiko wondered.
"So which way _do_ we go?" Yuusuke demanded.
"Depends on where you want to end up," Kurama replied. "Where're you going?"
"The Gates of Judgement," Yuusuke replied. "Botan told us to see the wizard there."
"The Wizard of Reikai?" Kurama asked. "That's where I'm heading, too."
"Really? Why, Kurama-san?" Keiko asked.
"I want to ask the Wizard if he can help me think better. If I'd been smarter during that last theft, Toguro would never have caught me."
"So we're looking for a way home, and you're looking for a better brain...." Keiko murmured to herself.
"Cool! So we can travel together!" Yuusuke exclaimed. He turned to face the fork in the road. "But which way do we go?"
"The correct way, of course," Kurama replied. "The RIGHT way." He gestured to the right-hand path.
Keiko groaned at the terrible pun and followed the two of them onto the road that led directly into the deep, dark forest.