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Genres, a Hiei/Kurama fic series

Genre 2: Cyberpunk

Author's Apologies: I'm soooorrrrry for the delay T_T I should have known better than to give a time estimate on the next chapter because when I do that, I never end up meeting it. As you've probably guessed, I didn't manage to finish this at camp like I'd hoped, mostly because I was occupied with other things, like drawing, which I never feel like doing, so I wanted to make the most of it; and also because I didn't have access to the internet to refer to some episodes of the anime that I needed, like the Three Artefacts Arc (I've based the plot of this fic on that arc, as you'll see). That should have been solved as soon as I got home, but… I'm lazy. x_x And I got out of the extreme YYH obsession that compelled me to write this series in the first place and fell in love with other things, such as House. HOUSE! Words cannot describe my love for that adorable jerk… but I won't go on about him here xD

Anyway, a couple of days ago I suddenly started getting back into it; reread all my old favourite Hiei/Kurama fics and found some new ones, and got down to finishing the chapter. I hope that a nice, long update (5,359 words WTF) will make up for the delay. Special thanks is owed to apoptoxin4869 of the Gaia guild 'The Official Hiei and Kurama Fan Guild' (if you're a member, look it up! It needs more fanfiction!) for helping me find a certain anime episode with a flashback that helped me write this fic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, although I suppose I do kind of own the urban dystopia-type setting that I have created for them here. Even though that was largely inspired by the original creations of other users, so not much of it is actually mine. xD

Part 1

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Hiei slouched in his seat in the darkest corner of the dingy tavern as he waited for his contact to arrive. Why the hacker had to pick this venue for their meeting-place was beyond him. The darkness suited him very well, but the patrons were a group of illiterate morons and their chatspeak, together with the horrible faux-mediaeval outfits their avatars were wearing, was giving him a headache. He’d set his filters to block out other users’ conversations, but he couldn’t prevent them approaching him directly.

Like this one for example. A female avatar slid into the seat opposite him. With long blonde hair and ridiculously oversized cleavage straining the front of her corset, she was every pixel the slutty tavern wench. And Hiei was not in the mood.

In reply, Hiei sent her one of his standard viruses: an email with an attachment entitled ‘Love Note’. Seconds later, the amorous girl’s avatar disappeared as she was abruptly logged out from the system. All other programmes she currently had open would also be closing down, and for good measure, her desktop background and screensaver would be replaced by a black and white flashing message reading ‘NASTY LITTLE WHORE’. Harsh, perhaps, but Hiei’s patience was worn to transparency. It would teach her not to open attachments from complete strangers, anyway.

Rid of this latest annoyance, Hiei was afforded eleven more minutes of silent brooding before, on the dot of midnight, a young male avatar stepped into the inn.

Hiei glanced over the avatar, noting that it was dressed rather conspicuously in modern clothes when the rest of the venue was themed around the Feudal Era – and did a double-take as he saw the username. Then he did a triple-take, because the user was heading his way.

‘Kurama’ dropped into the seat opposite him and smiled pleasantly.

This couldn’t really be him. And yet the email address registered for this account was the one Hiei had been communicating with: shuukitsune@spirit.wrld. What kind of a joker had he teamed up with?

Hiei roused himself and typed a response.

Kurama’s expression remained frozen in the same pleasant smile, but Hiei could feel that his next words, without being spoken aloud, carried an undertone of steel.

The smile on Kurama’s face disappeared, to be replaced with a stiffly neutral expression. Hiei felt a small amount of satisfaction in having finally managed to piss the user off enough that he got rid of that damn smile.

Hiei scowled at the display in front of him, though the expression wouldn’t be mimicked by his avatar unless he keyed in the relevant command. If the idiot intended this to be a test of his skills, it was a very poor one. While the information wasn’t technically available to the public, even the least talented of hackers would be able to get their hands on it. Hiei could easily bring up a log of every conversation Kurama had ever held on this account, every Private Message he’d sent, and the personal details of everyone on his contacts list. In fact, why not?

A few minutes later, Hiei was scanning through the log of Kurama’s conversations, which appeared to him as a floating window above his table, invisible to anyone else. It made surprising reading. Sure enough, the account was created several years ago – about the time that Youko Kurama had begun to make his presence known in cyberspace – but hadn’t been used, had barely even been logged into, until a little under a month ago. Then, abruptly, he’d begun logging in daily and holding various conversations. Apart from a few suspect ones, their content was largely uninteresting; small talk and banal pleasantries. He appeared to be attempting to make friends, and not even for the purpose of hacking into their accounts. That didn’t seem like Youko Kurama, who was notorious for gaining the confidence of users – particularly women – before stealing from their accounts. Everything else, however, checked out; Hiei couldn’t deny it.

Hiei allowed a smirk to cross his avatar’s face at that.

Both users logged out and their avatars vanished from the tavern. Minutes after removing his headset, Hiei received a text message.

“Stupid smug fox,” Hiei growled, and didn’t reply. But sure enough, within an hour he had received two ‘applications’ by email from brute force hackers wanting in on the job, and found several more waiting in his Private Message inbox the next time he logged into SpiritWorld. They all sounded like morons to Hiei, and their attempts to be discreet were laughable, but like he’d told Kurama, subtlety was optional.

There was also a PM from the SpiritWorld administration in amongst the messages from hackers: a warning against ‘discussing actions which, if carried out, would constitute a breach of the SpiritWorld Terms and Conditions’. What an understatement. In other words, they were covering their asses – they weren’t sure whether or not to take the conversation seriously, so they sent along a deliberately vaguely-worded warning in place of any real action. The flip-side of discussing hacking business in public was that some goody two-shoes was bound to report you to the authorities, but it didn’t bother Hiei. The admins rarely did anything concrete; just look at how long it had taken them to ban Youko Kurama, and it hadn’t stopped him from coming back with another account.

If they had truly wanted to hold a private conversation, a virtual tavern in the middle of SpiritWorld would not have been the place to do it. Eavesdroppers were rife and, as Hiei had proven, it would be pathetically easy for anyone who wanted to to access the log of their conversation at any time. But when advertising for a third party member in an illegal venture, it was ideal: secluded enough to give the illusion of a private conversation, but public enough to ensure that they were overheard. So to speak.

It hadn’t been completely staged. Hiei had been sceptical about the truth of Kurama’s identity ever since the hacker had contacted him via email a week ago regarding a lesser project, and claimed to be Youko Kurama. That was a job outside of SpiritWorld: a small matter of revenge against a programmer who’d crossed Hiei. It was how he knew that the fox – so nicknamed by Hiei because of his email address, and the fact that he was fucking crafty – was competent, but a master thief?

He wasn’t about to just believe that without proof; and so evolved their little act in the tavern for the dual purposes of recruiting a third conspirator and giving Hiei the chance to verify Kurama’s story for himself. It hadn’t answered everything, but Hiei was beginning to work out the other stuff on his own – like why the fox hadn’t immediately gone round telling everyone that he was Youko Kurama. Rather than face continual challenges from disbelieving users, he chose his target carefully, allowed the rumour to spread (as it undoubtedly would be doing after their exchange in the tavern), and then he would pull off a hacking of such magnitude that no one would ever have cause to doubt his identity again.

Not to mention that so far, it had given him considerable leverage over Hiei, and allowed him to pull the strings in their relationship, something which Hiei intended to rectify as soon as possible. Whatever else that fox might be, Hiei had to admit he was clever. He was also not completely trustworthy, but then, who’d ever met a trustworthy thief? Hiei was confident that he would see the SpiritWorld job through, and after that, he could do whatever he damn well pleased.

“Koenma, sir, we’ve just received an urgent report that I really think you ought to take a look at.”

The teenaged CEO of SpiritWorld Corporation, Japan’s largest computer-related company and a world pioneer in virtual technology, looked up grumpily from his pile of paperwork.

“This had better be important, George,” he said. “It’s almost time for my nap, and I wanted to get through all this paperwork first.”

George refrained from rolling his eyes. Sometimes, he could swear his boss was a toddler in a teenager’s body – doing an adult’s job. It really was an odd conundrum. Koenma could be very mature when the occasion called for it, such as during a meeting of the Board of Directors, but he thought George didn’t know about the dummy* in his right-hand desk drawer which he sometimes sucked when he was stressed.

“It’s very important, sir. One of our moderators overheard two users in a Feudal Era tavern talking about hacking into the SpiritWorld top security vault.”

“You call THAT important?” said Koenma as he signed an official-looking document. “We get a thousand of those kinds of reports a week! It’ll just be a pair of jokers. People are always talking about hacking into the vault.”

“Wait, sir, there’s more,” said George. “One of the users claims to be Youko Kurama.”

“Then he’s definitely a joker,” stated Koenma, without looking up from his paperwork. “Youko Kurama’s account was terminated over a month ago: I saw to it myself. I had to, because he kept evading our attempts to deactivate him and I was the only one with enough authority. We even banned his IP address, so unless he’s somehow changed it…”

“Youko Kurama was a hacker like no other,” George reminded him. “If anyone could find a way to do that, it would be him. With the kinds of ventures he used to conduct, he had to know he might get banned, and have a backup plan ready.”

Kurama finally deigned to stop signing forms and give George his full attention. “Well, if that’s true, we’ll never get rid of him,” he sighed. “I had hoped he might have moved onto other things after being banned from SpiritWorld. Nevertheless, I am confident that not even he could hack into the vault – not even with an army of accomplices.”

“So… I shouldn’t inform your father?”

“OF COURSE NOT!” Koenma exploded. “Are you CRAZY?! That is the LAST thing you should do! If he even thought that Youko Kurama might be back, there’s no telling what he might do. I’d get a hundred spankings at the very LEAST.”

George shuddered as he imagined the rage of Koenma’s huge and imposing father, ‘King’ Yama (as he was nicknamed by his employees, in whose opinion he could give the real King of Hell a run for his money).

“So I should do nothing, sir?”

“Increase security a little if you want, but don’t spend too much extra or my father will start asking questions. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my nap.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll… go get that done,” said George, and left the office. Koenma put his head wearily down on his arms and closed his eyes.

They settled on a hacker by the username of Gouki as their third man. He was vaguely notorious in the virtual underworld, in the sense that both Hiei and Kurama thought they might have heard of him at some point. He was stupid and violent like all brute force hackers, but marginally less stupid than many, and he had an impressive arsenal of destructive malware at his disposal.

Most of it had been obtained at a price from designers far cleverer than he was, but there were a couple of crude worms of his own creation which he emailed to Hiei and Kurama as samples of his ability. Hiei opened the message and watched dispassionately as the worm spread itself across his system, interrupting processes and corrupting files. It was destructive, but incredibly obvious. In the past, it had taken skill to make one of these, but now any moron with a bit of computing experience could get hold of the code and put one together.

It was never very resilient though, Hiei thought as he eliminated it with a simple anti-malware bot.

Just as Kurama and Hiei had wanted proof of Gouki’s credentials before they agreed to work with him, Gouki wanted proof of theirs, too; specifically, Kurama’s. The possibility of working with the legendary Youko Kurama had been enough to attract him into contacting them, but he wasn’t about to take their word for it.

Hiei supposed the moron had a few more brain cells than he had originally given him credit for. If he were Kurama, he would have simply emailed Gouki back with the most destructive virus in his possession and let the decimation of his computer system speak for itself. But Kurama, he was beginning to learn, had a little more showmanship than that. He didn’t just destroy things; he did it in a way that would leave an impression on people. It irked Hiei, who wasn’t in the habit of throwing CGI sparkles around when he hacked into a system, but he supposed that a hacker with Kurama’s prodigious skill could afford to be a little bit showy. That was how he’d got his reputation, after all.

So he arranged a little rendezvous in a rarely-frequented part of SpiritWorld; not just with Gouki, but with Hiei as well. The more spectators, the merrier. Hiei waited at the meeting-point, a forest clearing, with amused anticipation, wondering what stunt Kurama would pull to prove his identity.

Gouki arrived next, which meant that he and Hiei were now waiting around for Kurama to arrive. Of course; he had to make a dramatic entrance.

Hiei rolled his eyes and was about to point out that Kurama wouldn’t have bothered to arrange a meeting only to ‘chicken out’ of it, when Kurama’s avatar stepped from the shadows between the trees.

This hadn’t slipped past Hiei’s notice, either, during that meeting in the tavern when he first saw Kurama’s avatar, but appearance was a minor consideration, and this was a different account. Nevertheless, this slim, effeminate-looking avatar with the long, red hair and bright green eyes was a big change from the Youko Kurama he’d heard about who towered above all the other avatars, with waist-length silver hair, piercing golden eyes, fox ears and a tail. He waited to see what answer Kurama would give.

There was a pause, as Kurama presumably began activating a programme of some sort. Gouki waited with folded arms and a cocky smirk on his avatar’s face. Their surroundings flickered slightly, as they always did when malicious code interfered with the system; it was a tell-tale sign that warned when someone was using spyware or trying to hack into the database. It would have happened in the tavern too as Hiei accessed Kurama’s data, although he had been too busy doing the hacking to notice.

Hiei was waiting for Gouki to make some wisecrack about a programme gone wrong, when a rose materialised in Kurama’s avatar’s hand.

Hiei waited, eyebrow raised, for Kurama to dispense with the theatrics and get to the point.

Kurama’s arm flicked to the side, slightly jerkily since his avatar wasn’t designed to move in that way, and suddenly the rose morphed into a long, thorny green whip. He lashed out with the whip, and a beam of red light (another signature mark of malware interference which appeared when the system couldn’t convert what was happening into any recognisable graphics) coiled around his avatar and then sliced across each of the surrounding trees. One by one they disappeared in bursts of red light, leaving strings of interrupted system code and flickering visuals in their place.

Gouki didn’t need telling twice; the coward logged out as quickly as he could. Hiei and Kurama, however, lingered.

Two weeks after the incident in the clearing, Kurama signed out of the instant messenger he was using and shut down his computer. He’d been finalising the details of the SpiritWorld job with the hacker ‘Jaganshi’. Like most cyber-criminals, they used various different forms of communication both on- and off-line, so that no-one outside of their little group who might be trying to track them could build up a complete overview of their intentions. But by unspoken agreement, all the forms of communication revolved around text: text messaging, instant messaging, emails, Private Messaging on various websites.

Gouki didn’t care one way or another how they contacted each other, and most of the planning was done without him anyway. For Kurama and Jaganshi – Kurama was positive that the feeling was mutual – it was an aversion towards making this association too personal. They’d have to meet up eventually to carry out the hacking, of course, but that would purely be on a professional basis. Until then, there was no need to bring the real world too much into this.

The sound of a coughing fit from his mother’s room jerked Kurama out of his thoughts. Except that the real world has a habit of intruding, he reflected ruefully as he rose from his computer chair. And that is why I’m doing this, after all.

He made his way swiftly to his mother’s room, where she lay confined to her bed, her face almost as pale as the pillows she was propped up against. The doctors claimed there was no cure for her illness, but Kurama knew better. In recent years, SpiritWorld Corporation had begun expanding into other innovative areas besides virtual technology – one of which was medicine. They’d just finished developing a medicine dubbed the ‘Elixir of Life’ by those who knew about it, which was rumoured to be able to cure various terminal diseases. It was one of three unique treasures which were locked inside the SpiritWorld Corporation vault, and which Kurama, Jaganshi and Gouki intended to steal. The treasures were the subject of hundreds of online rumours, and not everyone believed that they existed. Kurama did. From his research, which had involved obsessively trawling the entire internet and interviewing several contacts on the wrong side of the law (the ones who always knew about confidential goings-on, and if not, they would find out for you) Kurama was confident that the Elixir was real and could cure his mother. Along with thousands, if not millions, of other needy people. And there was SpiritWorld just sitting on it, probably looking for a way to make as much money as possible out of it. Corporate dogs, thought Kurama bitterly.

But he didn’t let his bitter thoughts show on his face as he pushed open the door to his mother’s bedroom. Shiori smiled her usual gentle smile upon seeing him, even through her obvious pain.

“Is there anything I can do for you, mother?” Kurama asked, concerned.

“A glass of water, please, Shuichi,” she requested, her voice hoarse.

“Of course,” he replied, turning and walking to the kitchen. Strange though it was, he went so often by the alias of ‘Kurama’ or ‘Youko Kurama’ that he thought of it as his real name, and it was odd to hear his mother calling him Shuichi. His classmates and teachers at school did too, but he didn’t interact with them an awful lot, and spent most of his lessons thinking about other things. His teachers had no idea, since he still managed to get the top score in most of his tests, and second-to-top in all the others.

Kurama returned with a tall glass of water, complete with ice to cool his mother’s swollen throat. Shiori smiled again as he handed it to her. “Thank you. You’re so attentive, Shu-” She broke off with another small fit of coughing.

“Don’t talk,” Kurama urged her, concerned. “Do you need any more painkillers?”

She shook her head. “You should-” She coughed again once, but held up a hand to stave off his protests. “You should be in bed, Shuichi. It’s very late.”

“I’m worried about you,” Kurama told her truthfully, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “I wish there was more I could do to help you.” He felt extremely guilty where his mother was concerned. For most of his life he’d ignored or disdained her, convinced that there was nothing she could teach him because her intelligence was beneath his own (which lay well within the ‘genius’ realm, even from a young age).

Instead, the fact that he didn’t know everything was something that Kurama had needed to learn from Shiori, along with some very important lessons about love and kindness. There was also the nagging guilt he felt about his less-than-legal exploits, which would surely horrify Shiori if she ever found out about them. In Kurama’s mind, he was simply rectifying the huge imbalance that existed between the rich parasites of society and the poor, whom they were intent on sucking dry. But Shiori could never see things that way; she had a strong and unwavering moral code, and Kurama loved her for it.

Shiori gave him a fond smile, reaching out with a thin hand to touch the side of his face. “Not even your brain can solve everything, Kurama.” She paused and sipped the water, ice-cubes clinking against the rim of the glass. “I’m sure the doctors will find the answer. Now go to bed.”

“Well…” Kurama glanced around the room, but there was nothing else that needed his attention. On the table beside Shiori’s bed were several boxes of pain-relief medication, most of them unopened (she’d still been taking a lot, though; he’d only put those there two days ago) whilst on the floor below was a stack of magazines and books for her to read while he was at school during the day. One of the books had a marker halfway through; the rest were untouched. “All right, but let me know if you do need anything. Use the intercom.”

Kurama had put together an intercom system from parts he’d bought cheaply or found in his school Design and Technology workshop (the DT teacher, Mr. Sawada, let him take whatever he wanted, only too keen to encourage Kurama’s technical genius), with a corresponding speaker in his own room. It would allow Shiori to wake him if she needed anything during the night, without her having to strain her voice by calling out.

“I will do,” Shiori assured him. In reality, she had no intention of disturbing her son unless it was a dire emergency, but having the intercom put his mind at ease a little, and that was a good thing. If he wasn’t careful he would worry himself ill over her illness, and that would be terrible for both of them. Shiori knew that Shuichi felt guilty over the way he’d acted towards her when he was younger, but she could never blame him for that. Child geniuses were always difficult to raise; Shiori had done her own research at the time. She was just delighted that Shuichi had grown up into the caring, considerate and hard-working young man that sat by her bed. If she did die from this mystery disease… she could at least be thankful for that.

“Goodnight, then, mother,” said Kurama, getting up and bending to kiss her ashen cheek.

“Goodnight, Shuichi.”

Back in his own room, Kurama undressed and finally climbed into bed. He couldn’t help but think about his own plan to cure his mother, and the irony that it would be achieved using methods of which she would most definitely not approve. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past her to give up her own life rather than have her son turn into a thief… but it was too late for that, in any case; and he didn’t intend to let her know what the Elixir was or where it came from. He would just call it ‘medicine’, and then they’d both be surprised and delighted when it miraculously cured her. He’d feel bad about deceiving her, but not nearly as much as if he were to do nothing and let her die.

Satisfied with that conclusion, Kurama turned over onto his side and let his mind wander onto other things. He found himself contemplating the mysterious hacker Jaganshi, and wondered what his motives were for what he did. Was it a sport, as for so many other cyber-criminals, who were really just intelligent, bored young people with internet access and too much time on their hands? No, that would put him almost at the same level as Gouki, and Kurama could tell that there was a vast difference of character between the two hackers. Jaganshi used punctuation, for one thing. Instead, Kurama liked to think that in spite of his abruptness and cynicism, Jaganshi was a good person, and had good reasons for doing what he did. Maybe he had a family member he was looking out for, too.

Gradually, Kurama drifted into sleep, but it didn’t last for more than an hour before he was suddenly awoken.

There was a voice calling his name. At first Kurama thought it was part of his dream, but then he opened his eyes and found he could still hear it. After a second he realised it was coming from the intercom beside his bed, and rolled over so quickly to speak into it that he almost fell out of bed. “Mother! Mother, what’s wrong?”

“Shuichi-” His mother was coughing harder than ever before; it sounded as if she could barely breathe. “I feel- dizzy- can’t see-”

Kurama bolted out of bed and dashed to his mother’s room. He banged into the door painfully as he ran in, but didn’t even notice. He was by her bed in seconds. Shiori looked like death itself; even her lips were colourless, and dark rings stood out starkly underneath her eyes.

“Mother, mother!” Panic was overcoming Kurama’s usual calculated reasoning, but some logic still remained. “Don’t talk. Save your breath. I’ll call an ambulance.”

He ran to the telephone on the wall and frantically dialled 119. A voice on the other end asked if he wanted the fire services or medical services.

“I need an ambulance!” Kurama cried. “It’s my mother, she’s very ill, please come quickly!” He rattled off their address, hung up and returned anxiously to his mother’s bedside. Her condition had not improved in the few minutes, but nor had it worsened. He took hold of her hand, and received a very, very faint squeeze in return.

By the time the ambulance came, Shiori had fainted from lack of oxygen and not revived. Kurama watched the paramedics lift his mother’s limp form onto a stretcher and place an oxygen mask over her face to assist her breathing. Numbly, he answered a few questions about her condition, more focused on what was happening to the only person he had left in the world.

The paramedics strapped her down so that any jostling wouldn’t injure her, and carried her carefully from the room. Kurama followed behind the procession, still answering questions, vaguely aware of inventing some family friends who would be able to take care of him during his mother’s hospitalisation. Eventually the medic who was questioning him was satisfied and went to supervise Shiori’s transferral from the room. Kurama followed a foot or two behind in order not to get in their way, especially as they negotiated the narrow stairwell in the block of flats in which they resided. Luckily their neighbours seemed to be too deeply asleep to come out and gawk at what was going on.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs and Shiori was carried to the waiting ambulance. The outside air seemed to be what was needed to revive her, and her eyes fluttered open.

“Mother!” Kurama exclaimed in relief. She’d been so still that he’d feared the worst… Shiori couldn’t speak through the oxygen mask, but he took hold of her hand again, and held it tightly all the way to the hospital.

He was even more determined, now, to carry out the SpiritWorld job. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be too late.

*Dummy = British English for 'pacifier'

Author's Ramblings: Aaaand… that's a wrap! Finally! xD Originally I was going to write that Shiori had a seizure (I have watched waaay, WAY too much House. Everyone has seizures on there) but I couldn't bring myself to write such a scary and depressing end to the chapter. My best friend had a fit once in an English lesson, when I was the same age as Kurama in fact (well, his human body x3) and I was terrified. She's not epileptic or anything; it seems she reacted badly to a jab we'd been given earlier. So yeah, I decided just to have Shiori faint instead, which seemed plausible considering how much she was coughing and all. I need to be consistent with this illness I've invented xD

Sorry about the relative lack of romance as well. ^^; I'll try to work more into later chapters.

Part 2

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Author's Notes: I'm back, baby!

*crickets chirp*

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, although I suppose I do kind of own the urban dystopia-type setting that I have created for them here. Even though that was largely inspired by the original creations of other users, so not much of it is actually mine. xD

"Minamino-san? ... Minamino-san?" Slightly louder, "Shuichi-san?"

Finally, the redhead dozing in the chair by his mother's bedside stirred and met the sympathetic gaze of the nurse.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but visiting hours ended some time ago," the nurse explained with a smile. "You should go home and get some proper rest."

"Oh… yes…" Kurama yawned and stretched out his cramped muscles. He had an ache in his neck from being slumped to the side like that. "I'm so sorry," he apologised to the nurse, standing up. "I didn't mean to encroach on your hospitality like this."

The nurse's smile widened. What a polite young man Ms. Minamino's son was.

"There's no need to apologise, really. You must be very tired and worried," she said as Kurama bent to pick up his bag from beside the chair. "But I promise you we're taking very good care of her."

"I am sure you are," said Kurama with a smile of his own. He bowed to the nurse, then turned to his mother's sleeping form and gave her one last kiss on the cheek, whispering, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Kurama stepped from the warmth and light of the hospital into the cool, neon-lit city night and checked his watch. It was nearly eleven. He really had stayed a long time; visiting hours ended formally at ten, and most relatives were ushered out before then if they didn't leave of their own accord. Kurama was lucky that the night-shift nurse was so accommodating.

He really was tired, and nothing seemed more inviting than crawling into a warm bed and sleeping until mid-morning – school be damned – but that luxury was to be denied him tonight. A power-nap would have to do, until midnight, when he was due to meet the other two near SpiritWorld Corporation headquarters in Tokyo's main business district. Kurama felt a thrill of mixed anticipation and fear as he thought about the hacking job which was now so close after all that planning. If he succeeded, he might just have the answer to those worries that the nurse had mentioned. If not… it was possible Shiori might not live to see the shame of her son in jail. Kurama shuddered with horror at the thought of his mother, dead. She might prefer to die rather than have a convicted criminal for a son. But I mustn't think like that. She's not going to die!

By running to the bus stop, he made it there just in time to catch the next Bullet Bus back to his apartment. The new, state-of-the-art bus service was just being introduced, was more expensive and ran less frequently than conventional buses; but on the plus side it was almost twice as fast, and the pollution from the buses' electric engines was minimal. There was great clamour amongst the Japanese public to develop a line of cars using the new technology. Kurama didn't doubt that the very richest had already managed to acquire the technology for their own personal use, in spite of the claims that it was not yet sufficiently developed.

Kurama got off the bus at the third stop after only ten minutes or so, walked quickly through the dark and forbidding streets to the block where he lived, and ran up the stairs to the fifth floor. He let himself into number 506, still unused to the sensation of coming home to an empty flat. Although unchanged in appearance, it felt so wrong without his mother, still and empty and sinister. He kept his eyes forward as he walked to his room, not wanting to look at the dark, deserted corners of the flat. He clicked his fingers and the light flickered on, reluctantly, guttering. It would need replacing soon, but ordinary electric bulbs were so hard to come by these days since almost everyone had the more expensive eco-friendly upgrades. It was ironic how the government-sponsored adverts on TV bleated that the environment was the equal responsibility of every citizen, and yet their environmentally-friendly products were not equally available to every citizen. Clearly, an environmental conscience was the privilege of the well-off. And in spite of all the government's efforts, nothing seemed to lift the polluted smog that hung over the city and made everyone at ground level cough and splutter. Only the richest businessmen, safe in their sleek glass towers, were above it all – literally.

Kurama went to his narrow wardrobe, opened it and ran his fingers over the clothes inside, picking out a black shirt and sweatshirt with matching jeans. He would need to blend into the darkness as much as possible. He had a black overcoat with a hood that would cover his distinctive hair. It had been his father's before he passed away ten years ago, and was still a little big for Kurama. He quickly changed, and then adjusted the settings on the alarm clock by his bed so that it would wake him at ten minutes to midnight. Then he lay down on the bed and tried to will his exhausted body into sleep.

Kurama slept fitfully for forty minutes. He had a series of strange almost-dreams about the upcoming theft. At one point he could have sworn he got up and went to meet Gouki and Jaganshi, who in his imagination appeared exactly like their online avatars; but they were standing outside the door to his flat, not in the city centre where they'd arranged to meet, and when he opened the door and let them in, Jaganshi unleashed a deadly worm that looked like a black dragon, which ate holes in everything and then went inside Kurama's stomach.

When his alarm went off, Kurama woke with a gut-rending jolt, like he'd been punched. He sat up, adrenaline coursing through him. Time to go. He grabbed the satchel that had been packed with the necessary equipment for a few days now: his notebook, a collection of various discs and flash drives containing his best malware, a small palmtop computer, a few spare wires and an external hard drive. It was all he could afford to carry; if he needed anything else, he'd have to improvise, or rely on the other two to provide it.

Kurama pulled on his father's overcoat and locked the front door behind him. It took exactly seven minutes for him to reach the Central Business District, arriving as a nearby clock was chiming twelve. They had agreed to meet on the green facing the dominating building of SpiritWorld Headquarters, the most elaborate and impressive glass tower of them all.

The other two were already there waiting for him. Kurama guessed the massive figure reclining on a park bench to be Gouki, whilst the much smaller figure standing off to one side had to be Jaganshi. It fitted with what Kurama knew of his character that he wouldn't be able to let his guard down for a split second. Gouki stood up as Kurama approached. His size was surprising, since Kurama would have thought basketball, amateur wrestling or perhaps a job as a professional thug (there were plenty of those around these days: bullies in their high school years, now paid to do what they did best by some of the biggest corporations in Tokyo) a more profitable venture than cyber crime, but some people just liked to cause destruction in whatever fashion they could. Besides, that wasn't to say one of those things wasn't his day job.

The three of them stood silently in a group for a moment or two. Both Jaganshi and Gouki were wearing dark coats with hoods, similar to Kurama's. Well, this doesn't look suspicious, he thought dryly. Throw in a few pentacles and we could be Neo Druids or members of a satantic cult. I knew I should have brought my rune stones.

Jaganshi silently unslung a small rucksack from one shoulder and withdrew two mobile phones, handing one to Gouki and the other to Kurama. These were cheap and basic devices, the kind that you could get for a few hundred Yen at any electronics store, only useful for making calls and sending text messages; but more importantly, they were brand new and unregistered, thus making them impossible to tap or monitor. Kurama accepted the phone from Jaganshi, and the group dispersed. Kurama took up his pre-arranged position at a bus stop a few yards away. The others similarly located themselves in inconspicious places within a hundred-metre radius of the SpiritWorld building. It was a cool night, so hopefully no passers-by would find their wearing hoods suspicious.

Kurama opened his satchel and withdrew his notebook, opening it on his lap. Their plan had two phases: electronic attack to break through the building's defenses and open the vault, and retrieval of the items. Kurama wasn't worried about the first part. The second one was more risky.

As he powered up his notebook, he noticed that his hands were no longer shaking and he felt much calmer than he had been feeling earlier. He was well within his comfort zone, about to do what he did best. He knew he shouldn't feel so at ease with breaking the law, but in spite of the strong code of ethics instilled in him by his mother, Kurama had little problem with using his hacking abilities to target the corrupt and immoral. Sort of like a cyber Robin Hood.

Kurama's first job was information gathering. He hacked into the SpiritWorld wireless connection with relative ease and then accessed the company intranet, an internal network designed for company employees. It didn't take long for him to locate the company archives, and a simple dictionary program provided the password. It's amazing how little some of the biggest corporations seem to know about security, including some of the most basic rules like not choosing a password which is contained in the dictionary. No matter how uncommon the word, if it contains no numbers or punctuation then it's easy to hack.

After a few minutes of searching, he found blueprints which gave the building's layout, including the various vaults and restricted areas. It also featured a few architect's notes on the exact type of security system used, which was extremely useful. Kurama copied the files onto his external hard drive and quickly slipped back out of the SpiritWorld system. If his computer was hit with some kind of counter-malware during the break-in, he didn't want to risk losing the files. It would also make incriminating evidence harder to find.

Next Kurama sent encrypted copies of the files to Jaganshi and Gouki. At the same time he brought the blueprints up on his own screen and studied them, trying to work out which vault held the items they were looking for. It would be a waste of time trying to open all of them. In theory, the vault with the highest security level should be the one they were looking for. Altogether the SpiritWorld headquarters had over seventy floors, and there was nowhere near enough time to examine them all. However, a top-security vault wouldn't be kept just anywhere, so most of the building could logically be eliminated. Kurama began by examining the underground floors, starting with the lowest one, since these things were typically kept underground. But as he worked his way up to ground level, he found no vaults, safes or areas with an above-average level of security.

I'm wasting time… Think, Kurama, think. The way these kinds of buildings usually work… the higher up you go, the greater the level of authorisation required, as the upper-floor offices tend to belong to the higher-ranking personnel. So what if the vault is on the very top floor – in the CEO's office?

He scrolled quickly through the blueprints until he came to the 74th floor. The layout was simple and it didn't take long to spot what he was looking for. Just then, the phone in his pocket began to vibrate.

"Yes?" Kurama answered.

"Have you found it yet?" This had to be Jaganshi, straight to the point as ever.

"Yes. Top floor, upper-right hand corner."

Jaganshi tutted in annoyance. "Then we'll have to hack the elevator too since it's card-activated." There was a moment of silence as he brought up the blueprint. "Hn." He sounded amused. "We're going to need a master thief to break into that one. Think you can manage it?"

"Yes."

"Fine. I've opened the front doors."

"And Gouki?"

"He should have disabled the ground floor alarms by now. I'll tell him to do the top floor. But there's still their patented VR security system to take down."

"You and I can do that one together."

"You think I can't handle it on my own?" Jaganshi sounded a little annoyed.

"On a mission of this magnitude, we can't afford to take stupid risks out of pride," Kurama replied.

"Hn. And what of the elevator?"

"We'll handle that last. It will be minor compared to the vault security."

"Fine. We'll speak again once the security system is down." Jaganshi hung up.

Now begins the real challenge, thought Kurama. He began to dig deeper into the SpiritWorld network, bringing up a list of machines that were connected to it. He scanned the list of names, looking for anything that could be related to the security system. Here we are – SECUR001, SECUR002… you can't get much more obvious than that. But there are eight of them, and no one machine appears to be more important than the others… This will be difficult.

The SpiritWorld security system was made up of several layers. The topmost layer was comprised of ordinary security measures, the kind that you'd expect to find in any important building: burglar alarms on each floor, card access to the lifts, fingerprint access and retinal scans for individual rooms on the upper floors, and laser-activated alarms for the vaults, which also had their own layers of security besides. But the main core of SpiritWorld security lay in their revolutionary Virtual Reality system.

Of course every member of SpiritWorld Corporation had an account in the SpiritWorld virtual game, even if most of them didn't play it as an adventure roleplaying game. Because of the sheer size of SpiritWorld, it also had its uses as a social networking site for netizens of all ages, especially if you wanted to keep your real-world identity a secret. In any case, all SpiritWorld employees or visitors were required to access their account upon entering the building, and if they had employee-level clearance or a guest permit, there were no further problems. Well, after retinal, fingerprint and voice verification anyway. If there was no clearance, then the security system would attack in an attempt to expel the intruder, at the same time activating alarms in the homes of SpiritWorld's CEO and administrators. You might think that it would be easy just to walk into the building without signing in, but no; the entire structure was absolutely crawling with sensors. They knew exactly the number of accounts signed in and tallied it with the number of bodies in the building – useful for if a fire broke out – and the level of clearance assigned to each. Every inch of it was alive with them, and Jaganshi and Kurama knew it would take far too long to try and disable them all. This needed to be a quick in and out job, and the only possible way to do that, if you even dared, was via the VR system.

It might have been a little easier for Gouki, Jaganshi and Kurama to perform the operation if they had been SpiritWorld employees; but only marginally. Most ordinary employees didn't have Night Access Clearance on their accounts (unless they obtained a Night Access Pass), and even if they were important enough to have it, it only granted access to one or two specific floors. And to even access the higher floors of the building, you needed to be one of SpiritWorld's very top, most trusted administrators. In short, SpiritWorld Headquarters was composed of layers upon layers of paranoia, but at the same time there was an inherent overconfidence in the infallibility of their precious VR system, and that would ultimately be their downfall.

Time to get hacking. Kurama took a deep breath and signed into his SpiritWorld account. After a moment's loading time, his avatar materialised on his desktop in a crouching position and straightened up. Kurama rapidly hit 'mute' before the avatar's voice could sound. Its digital mouth moved and a speech bubble issued from it, reading,

For the moment, Kurama minimised his avatar so that it shrank down to the size of a fingernail and sat on top of the Start bar, swinging its legs. So far, the act of signing into SpiritWorld didn't appear to have activated the security system, maybe because he hadn't physically entered the building, even though he was using its network. It gave him time to implement the programs he needed. He reached into the satchel beside him and felt around for the flash drive he needed, a smooth, oval capsule about half an inch long. It was the smallest device but ironically had the largest memory. He pulled the two halves apart and plugged it into the side of his notebook. A window popped up displaying the contents of the flash drive, all executable files with names such as seed.exe, ojiki.exe, foliage.exe, poisonivy.exe and so forth. These were Kurama's weapons of choice for system infiltration, though admittedly he'd never attempted anything on this sort of scale. He hoped they would be up to the task.

Kurama restored his avatar to its original size and selected 'Jump into SpiritWorld virtual roleplaying game'. At once, his avatar performed a literal jumping motion, appearing to fall through cyberspace as the desktop behind it disappeared and was replaced by blackness and decorative strings of meaningless code. Kurama waited for the loading screen to clear. After another moment his avatar 'landed' in the same crouching motion as before and straightened up. Now it was standing in what appeared to be a hotel foyer, the server selection screen.

"Choose a server to play on," said his avatar, and held a hand out to one side, palm facing upwards. Floating above it appeared the names of the available servers, some universal (you could choose to play in HumanWorld, DemonWorld or the eponymous SpiritWorld) and some dependant on location. There was the Tokyo local server, and beneath it, a new server named 'SWHQ'.

Now I see how this works, thought Kurama, and he selected the SWHQ server. Once more his avatar jumped through cyberspace. For an instant its feet touched the ground in what appeared to be a virtual office cubicle, and then the animation froze as the surroundings began to flash red. An error message appeared on Kurama's screen:

Kurama quickly pressed ESC to cancel this action. With a swift key combination he brought up the window full of executable files on his flash disc and activated the one labelled rosewhip.exe. This was the very same malware that he had used in his demonstration for Gouki, and just as he had said, it was designed to 'slice' through security programs such as the firewall that was currently preventing him from entering the SWHQ server. Kurama's frozen avatar suddenly moved, its arm performing that same jerky flick to the side, and a thorny green whip uncoiled from his hand and slashed across the screen. The red flashing abruptly stopped, and for a moment the office cubicle backdrop was visible once more before it dissolved into a blank white screen with only Kurama's avatar half-crouched in the middle of it.

Then the whiteness gave way to a different scene, and Kurama's avatar found itself standing in the middle of what appeared to be a huge stadium. Beneath its feet was an arena made up of slabs of square white stone, circular in shape. Stands full of blurry, pixellated 'fans' rose on every side, and on the other side of the ring stood Kurama's opponent, the security account: a hulking, towering figure wearing heavy armour reminiscent of samurai dress and wielding an axe of what could only be described as epic proportions.

But Kurama was not alone in the ring. To his right was a diminutive avatar with a head of spiky black gravity-defying hair, dressed all in black – Jaganshi. Kurama felt warm reassurance spread through his stomach: he knew that the other hacker had his back. He had always worked best with a partner.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Jaganshi. Without regard for Kurama, without even appearing to notice his presence at all, his avatar ran at their opponent, a sword materialising in its hand. Kurama could only watch in frustration as Jaganshi leaped into the air and performed a jerky downward slash, only to be effortlessly blocked by the security account's massive axe. It was odd to see their opponent lift an object five times its size so easily, but of course, rules of weight and gravity did not need to apply in a virtual world. Deflected, Jaganshi's avatar disappeared and then reappeared in its original position.

Kurama pressed a few keys and discovered he could move his avatar around using the same controls as in the normal SpiritWorld game. He took a few steps forward, but was too late to prevent Jaganshi from rushing forward again, attempting to attack the security account with the exact same manoeuvre as before. Kurama identified it as 'Sword Slash', one of Jaganshi's most basic program. But what does he think executing it again is going to achieve? He wished he could address Jaganshi through text chat, but unsurprisingly, SpiritWorld did not make provisions for hackers attacking their system to communicate with one another. Still, if he continues to attack in this manner then I'll have to call him and talk to him, thought Kurama. He is capable of strategy, but it's never his first instinct.

Predictably, the security account blocked Jaganshi's slash by simply raising its axe again. This time, however, it followed up with an attack, lifting the axe above its head and slamming it down into the arena floor. Kurama was confused until the massive warrior raised its axe again, this time bringing one of the stone slabs with it. Unlike Kurama and Jaganshi's jerky movements, the security account moved fluidly, having been designed to move in this way. Turning, it swung the axe, and the stone slab flew through the air in the direction of Jaganshi's avatar. Jaganshi quickly turned tail and ran; Kurama also made sure to move out of range, both of them realising that if the attack made contact with either of their avatars, it would be enough to infect their computer with a destructive worm or virus. Kurama had never encountered a security system quite like this one before, which attacked as well as defended.

The security account launched into full-on attack mode, moving so fast that it became a blur, sinking its axe again and again into the stone arena and hurling blocks of destructive malware at Jaganshi and Kurama. Kurama's breathing quickened and his heartrate accelerated as he stabbed at the directional keys, desperately dodging the attacks. Stone blocks went flying into the stands around them, which dissolved upon contact into strings of blinking red code. It was like an incredibly dangerous video game. He tried not to think about the fact that, judging by the number of machines which made up the security network, they would have to fight seven more such battles after this.

It was extremely difficult to try and mount a counter-attack when all his concentration was taken up by simply surviving this battle with his processes intact. Kurama ran frantically through a mental list of malware he could use to defend himself. His 'Rose Whip' virus was designed to eliminate security programs, not other viruses or malware, and he didn't know whether making contact with the stone blocks using the whip would be enough for the malware to enter his system. He didn't plan on risking it. Unfortunately, all of his programs, too, required virtual contact to activate, so that he could plant their 'seeds' inside the other user's system. The 'Poison Ivy' program was a worm that could quickly spread through another user's system and interrupt system processes; Roses and Thorns was a similarly rapidly-spreading virus which could corrupt or delete vital system files. There was also his infamous 'Ojiki' program, designed to attack and destroy security programs like their current opponent the minute they were activated. However, it was too late to use it in this battle; he would need to seed it before any given battle in order for it to be effective, and he wasn't sure whether he could afford to activate it more than once, given how much memory it consumed…

Whilst Kurama's mind was busy going a mile a minute trying to find a way out of their situation, Jaganshi was formulating his own plan of attack. Dodging around flying blocks like some kind of killer game of Tetris was not his idea of an interesting fight. Kurama gasped as Jaganshi suddenly stopped running around and stood still in the middle of the arena, directly in the line of fire. I know he has a reckless attack style, but this is ridiculous! Kurama ran towards Jaganshi's avatar as the security account hefted another stone slab into the air and threw it straight at Jaganshi. Just then, Kurama noticed that Jaganshi's left fist was glowing as if alight with a flame, and he understood. Jaganshi had chosen to execute 'Mortal Flame', an infectious malware similar to his own 'Poison Ivy', but with twice as much destructive power. Kurama had no doubt that Jaganshi could make it work, but he wondered if Jaganshi's system would be able to cope with activating many such powerful programs.

Kurama backed away again, reassured that Jaganshi knew what he was doing (to an extent), and watched as Jaganshi ran forward. He dodged the block that the security account threw at him, not willing to risk touching it even with the Mortal Flame. He wove left and right around the flying blocks until he was running right at the gigantic samurai. Jaganshi drew back his flaming fist and punched forward at the same time that the security account swung his axe up to meet it. Fist clashed with metal blade, and lightning crackled all around the two combatants. Kurama knew an opening when he saw one, and ran forward. Before the security account had time to spin around and swing its axe at Kurama, Kurama had lashed out again with his Rose Whip, and it made contact, snapping across the warrior's massive torso and leaving a bright red line behind. Jaganshi and Kurama stood back and watched as the security account fell to its knees, its system assaulted simultaneously by fire and thorns, a destructive worm and a deadly virus. It was too much for the account, and it fell to the floor and then dissolved into code.

Kurama sat back and breathed a sigh of relief. He became aware of his surroundings again as a strong wind threatened to blow his hood back from his face. Looking around, Kurama was almost surprised to find himself still sitting on a park bench in the middle of Tokyo instead of standing in a virtual stadium. He jumped as his phone vibrated in his pocket.

"Yes?"

"I might as well take the next few by myself," said Jaganshi smugly. "My Mortal Flame is enough to take care of whatever they might throw at us."

Kurama rolled his eyes. One win and his partner was already getting cocky. "You and I both know you don't have enough memory to execute the worm that many times," he replied evenly. "And I thought we weren't going to talk again until the system was down? Though while you're here, maybe we can actually discuss strategy for a change."

There was no reply. Kurama looked at his phone and saw that Jaganshi had ended the call. Or not, he thought with a smirk.

But in spite of Jaganshi's refusal to discuss strategy, he and Kurama dealt with the next seven security accounts without too much difficulty. Kurama had to admire the time and effort that the SpiritWorld programmers had put into designing each different account. One of them took the form of a painter or calligrapher, whose brush daubed ink onto Kurama's avatar and temporarily froze his system processes. Another attacked by hurling fireballs made of malicious code, similar to the stone blocks used by the first security account. Still another took the form of a thin, pale man with long, black hair, the lower part of its face covered by a mask. Its appearance chilled Kurama to the core for reasons he couldn't put his finger on, quite apart from the fact that it attacked with floating bombs that were invisible and thus impossible to avoid making contact with. The bombs rendered Kurama's Rose Petals program completely ineffective, and Kurama was forced to frantically try and eliminate the virus that was spreading through his system, whilst Jaganshi dispatched the security account using Darkness Flame, the most destructive malware in his arsenal.

In total it took them a little over three-quarters of an hour to take out all eight of the security accounts. After the last battle was finally over, Kurama found himself breathing as heavily as if he'd been fighting physically. It was just after one o'clock in the morning and his eyes were prickling with tiredness. Kurama rubbed them vigorously, knowing that everything hung on this last step of the operation.

With the VR security system down, overriding the remaining security in the building was a walk in the park. In spite of the billions of yen to its name, SpiritWorld had only invested in one security guard to patrol the building's perimeter. Gouki knocked him out with a thumb to a pressure point and dropped him to the ground, smirking, then kicked his lifeless body for good measure. Kurama's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. He couldn't stand thugs like Gouki.

"Gouki, that's enough," snapped Jaganshi. Kurama stared at him in surprise. In the short time that he had known Jaganshi, the man had neither shown any concern over right or wrong nor over another person's well-being. But Kurama was slowly beginning to realise that Jaganshi had his own code of honour, albeit a complex one. He was unusually pleased by this unexpected side to Jaganshi's personality.

They trooped into the foyer, past the banks of silent computers waiting for the morning sign-in. Gouki had been thorough in disabling the ground-floor security, and since the sensors were all linked to the VR system, hopefully they had been brought down along with it and wouldn't detect three unauthorised bodies entering the building. Kurama pressed the button to call the elevator, and the doors immediately slid open. Gouki keyed some commands into a palmtop computer, and the elevator began to move, rising smoothly to the top floor. The doors opened a few minutes later. It was only when Jaganshi laid a hand on the door to the CEO's office that alarms began to shriek in their ears.

"Unauthorised access detected," announced a female security voice. Jaganshi rounded on Gouki.

"I told you to disable the top floor security!"

"Hey, I did my job," Gouki snarled. Kurama hadn't heard him speak before this. His voice was not the voice of someone you ought to cross. Kurama could imagine him threatening vulnerable young women in dark alleyways at night.

"We don't have time to stand here arguing," he told them. "There must have been a separate sensor system independent of the VR network. Now come on." He rammed into the door with his shoulder and forced it open.

Koenma was woken from a deep sleep at twenty past one in the morning by his phone ringing. This wasn't unusual, but it never failed to annoy him.

"What is it?" he answered irritably, but instead of a person, a computerised voice responded.

"Unauthorised access to SpiritWorld headquarters," it informed him. "All levels of VR security breached."

"Whaaaat? That's impossible," said Koenma, but the voice continued to repeat its message. Koenma put the phone down.

"Sounds more like an error in the system to me," he said. "All levels of security breached… that's impossible…" He turned over and went back to sleep.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang again. Koenma didn't even bother to lift his head from the pillow as he felt around for the receiver. "This better not be another stupid security breach announcement!" he said into the handset, and jumped as George replied,

"Well, yes and no."

"Damn it, George, I thought you were a computer again!" said Koenma. "What the hell do you want at this hour?"

"It's about the security breach." George's voice was solemn. "Sir… You need to come and see this. The three artefacts have been stolen."

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?"

Fifteen minutes later, Koenma was standing in his own office in pyjamas and a coat, staring in disbelief at the empty safe and its wide-open door. "Oh, my dad is gonna kill me…"