Hidoko Matsumoto

Tuesday, February 03, 19989:54:39 PM

Once upon a time, in a faraway land of Greek, there was a son of a rich merchant who lived in Mount Olympics, which was a place where people believed that gods lived there when in reality Gods lived in heaven.

His name was Kurama, and he had a long mane of bloody red hair and emerald green eyes. Every mortal who had seen his eyes would freeze and crumple otherwise their eyes would have an electrical quantity and they, too, would make people crumple.

So, Kurama was locked up in a tower where sunlight nor moonlight nor moonlight could enter, so Kurama had the skin as fair as snow and he looked like he was in his teens, when in reality he was twenty something.

However, despite the fact that Kurama said he was neither devil nor God, people began to worship him and there were even brave warriors who got to his castle, crumpled and died. Those who lived to tell of Kurama's great beauty had their eyes gouged out and taken as sacrifice to Kurama.

Yomi, the God of Beauty, was furious. People used to worship him, but now everyone, living near and far from Mount Olympics, came to worship this mere mortal. So he sent Hiei, the Lord of Love, to make a human fall in love with Kurama, so that the human would see him, and die. But this was not the best part, which was when Kurama was already in love with the human by then and committed suicide when the human died.

Hiei groaned. It was troublesome the way Yomi had things for him, and he was not without his daily list of people to fall in love with.

So he set off immediately, in case Yomi should deduct his salary for late enter of goods. Finally, when night has dawned, he reached the tower. It was made of silver, he knew, and definitely would sell well in the black market. He inspected the tower closely, through all its crystal windows and saw no Kurama. So he broke a window and entered, and climbed up all of what he saw-- a long, winded staircase made of jewels. He climbed and climbed till he finally came to a brass door. He picked the lock and opened it slightly, to make sure nobody was there to see him. Inside was a huge hall, lit by roses, which had a weird glow to their petals, for the room had no windows and Thomas Edison was not born yet. He saw a sign, which said, flames not allowed, and yet the room was warm. Hiei dodged to a side as soon as he saw a shadow walk towards the other end, obviously not aware of the dark Lord of Love.

He summoned his helper, Botan and made the poor angel get an ugly unattached human, as Yomi had instructed, which was easy since most ugly humans were unattached. Finally, she returned with an ugly idiot named Kuwabara. The latter had been knocked unconscious. "Here, Hiei-sama." 'Sama' was a term to refer to 'Your Majesty' in their system. She handed Kuwabara over and disappeared. But he summoned her back.

"I need water to revive this conveniently knocked out human, idiot!"

"Summon Koenma-sama, Hiei-sama. I'm sure he has an easier way. Plus you have already given me lots of work."

So Hiei summoned Koenma. But Koenma was nowhere to be seen, and Hiei decided to fire that latter when…

"Yaaaah!" he practically freaked out when he found Koenma behind his back.

"Hi."

Hiei decided to solve his main problem before he dealt with Koenma. "Well, wake that human up," He told Koenma, and pointed to Kuwabara.

"Sure." Koenma replied. He pulled Kuwabara's head closer and yelled, "WAKE UP, SLEEPING BEAUTY!"

Of course, being human, Kuwabara did not take too well being called "Sleeping beauty", so he woke up in a jolt and stared at his surroundings, because Hiei had hidden and Koenma had gone back to his workplace.

Seeing the grand door, which was ajar, he peeped inside. Hiei took aim and shot at Kuwabara.

Unfortunately, instead of Kurama, it was Kurama's pet dog, which Kuwabara first saw. Kuwabara rushed in to hug the dog. The dog, frightened, ran into Kurama's arms and Hiei took aim again, careful not to look at Kurama's eyes, which would not work on immortals but he wanted to make sure. He shot.

However, a loud ruff was heard. Hiei jerked and the arrow missed target. It hit a leather cushion, which made it bounce back and strike him in his left shoulder. Finally, he recovered from his shock and pulled the arrow out. The first person whom he saw was a beautiful redhead with rose red lips, wide fathomless green eyes and soft white skin.

"Are you okay?"

"Em… Yeah…" The poison was beginning to take effect and he felt his heart throb faster than ever.

"Thank God. It's only a minor wound." The redhead touched his wound and poison also got into the redhead's system, magically.

Hiei was confused, and, not knowing how to react, he fled.

Yomi was furious. He had asked Hiei to do such a simple but important job but Hiei had messed everything up. So, in his anger, he fired googols of arrows. That created a huge mess and soon everyone was after everyone. The world was in total chaos. Those who were not shot had to hide in their homes for fear of being trampled over by a horde of people after a totally ugly person.

Seeing the chaos he created, Yomi knew he was in deep trouble, so he shifted all the blame onto Hiei and Hiei was banished into the labyrinth of Hell.

Meanwhile, Kurama was also confused. Why had the assailant who was after him had been so stupid as to be caught? The more he pondered, the more he wanted to see that assailant. So he approached Yukina, the assistant Lord of Fate, who was ever so coincidentally Hiei's sister, to ask about this weird guy. Yukina had immediately known it was Hiei whom Kurama was talking about, and sadly told of what Yomi did. Kurama was determined to find Hiei, so he asked Yukina what he should do to find the little God of Love. Yukina told him, "The Labyrinth is far beneath the earth and demons lurk there. It is darker than the depths of a black hole. To go there you have to go through a thick forest where all the branches of the trees will reach out to grab you. If you get past the forest, you will come to a river. There will be a bridge across the river. Cross the bridge, but at the same time beware of the fishes, which will leap out and try to turn you to dead meat. Finally you will come to this huge tree which has grown for more than a few googols year-old. Beside it is a deep hole. If you survive the hole it leads to a staircase which leads down to Hell. The labyrinth is Hell itself, and beyond that I do not know what lies. Hell is the labyrinth of fire and ruins and where the rotting of souls that were torn apart by the Devil takes place. You cannot find Hiei there unless you're God, which is impossible to achieve unless you have really done something great. Well, all the best." Yukina did not tell Kurama of his fate-- which was to die. She gave him three things to take along the journey-- a magic whip that could cut through anything, vines which could grow as fast as and when Kurama liked, and a sword which could burn everything up in a flame.

So Kurama set off, as soon as dusk came, in the direction of sunset, and came to a jungle. It was made up of huge trees, eerie atmosphere, and small demonic carnivorous plants. He cut through the jungle with the whip, which Yukina gave him, and reached a bridge. It was one off those scary shaky bridges, and Kurama managed to dodge all the fishes, which leapt at him. Then he came to a deep hole. He could not have missed it, since the tree, which was beside it, was at least a hundred meters in diameter. The hole itself was ten metres wide, and whoever knew its depth had great powers of ESP.

Kurama made the vine grow very, VERY long and tied it to the tree. He climbed down till he reached the end. There he saw stairs leading down. For how long he did not know, but he climbed and climbed. Smells of death and eerie howls were heard. There he saw walls of fire and smelt the smell of death. He only wished Hiei had not contributed to any of the bodies and smell. The labyrinth was terrible, he saw as two demons with long claws and bat's wings flopped towards him. He tried to cut them apart with the whip but instead their long claws cut it. He tried to tie them with the vines, which could move like he willed, but the vines broke. So he used his Sword of White Fire and burnt the demons to death with its white-hot fire.

Every demon in the labyrinth tried to stop him but their fire was only red-hot.

Finally, leaving a trail of dead demons behind, he came to the end of the passage (Or so it seems). It was a vast plain of ruins, and he saw the dark angel-- the Devil himself. He prepared his sword but it was of no use-- the devil's fire was far better than his fire.

Just as he thought he was as good as skinned, Yusuke, the God of Hope, came along and struck Devil with his famous ray, which came out of his fingertips.

"Run!" He shouted at Kurama. Instead of running back into the labyrinth, he ran forwards, where the chances of finding his way out was about none. He ran and ran till he found a cave, and he ran inside. Inside was darker than the depths of the night.

"Hiei, Hiei, Wherefore art thou Hiei?" He yelled, risking all defenses. Nobody replied, but nobody attacked, either. He remembered his sword and unsheathed it. The sword glowed with its fiery flames, and he saw corpses. He shuddered and suddenly he caught the sight of a red-haired body, which looked fresh. It looked like him, but he touched his own arm and noted that it was still there. Finally, he found a hole. He wondered if Hiei was still inside the labyrinth. If he was, then he should return and find Hiei, who probably had died or was on the edges of death. Then again, Hiei might have found the hole and went inside. He debated whether or not he should go back and just as he decided to go back despite the Devil, Yusuke came along and dragged him into the hole. "Come on! He might wake soon!"

Kurama looked at Yusuke's wounds and thought about how he risked his life for his, and decided not to argue. But he knew that the chances of Hiei being beyond the labyrinth was one in a million.

Finally, they reached the light-- it was heaven, Yusuke explained. Instead of feeling extreme joy, Kurama broke down and cried. The more he thought of Hiei, the sadder he felt. Just then, Hiei appeared. Kurama embraced the embarrassed god and hugged Yusuke. "Thank you!"

"I want to know what happened," he said later when he finally calmed down. So Yusuke told Kurama.

This was what happened. Yusuke was Hiei's best friend, so when he found out that Hiei was banished into the labyrinth, he immediately got the permit to go to the labyrinth with work as his excuse. So Yusuke found Hiei trapped in a dead end and immediately went to rescue him. When they reached the end, Hiei and Yusuke gained a higher rank because surviving everything in Hell was not easy. When they saw Yukina, she told Hiei that Kurama had gone to look for him. Hiei, who was worse than badly hurt, was put to bed by Yusuke and Yusuke went over to Hell again to look for Kurama.

Yusuke also explained the body which Kurama seen, which was in reality Kurama himself. Kurama had died then in the cave because he had gone through the entire labyrinth and turned into a god. Yusuke, of course, gained another rank.

Hiei also told Kurama of the whole story, and Kurama decided that it was certainly unfair to leave things at that. So Hiei managed, under Kurama's encouragement, to sue Yomi. They went on trail, and The King of Gods decided that Yomi was guilty of verdict, so Yomi had to pay lots of fines for his shooting spree, and was sent to the labyrinth for two times--that was, if he ever managed to get out of the terrible one time, for framing Hiei and the first one, for his shooting spree. The King of Gods also decided to give Hiei, Kurama and Yusuke a gift for gaining another rank.

Hiei wanted to be bonded with Kurama forever and Kurama wanted to be a girl, since Hiei was supposedly a boy. But then he was laughed at and told that gods don't have sexes, so he wished to be by Hiei's side always. Yusuke simply wished for another rank, which the King of Gods glared at him for.

So, from that day onwards, Kurama was always by Hiei's side and, for the arrows which Hiei shot, Kurama granted some of them eternity so that their love was everlasting, like Kurama's and Hiei's.

Wednesday, February 04, 19989:43:50 PM

Hidoko

http://xz0ne.cjb.net
voidmatsumoto@yahoo.co.uk