Immortality Comes With a Price ~ Chapter 3


You awoke to the sound of a heart monitor beeping a sound and steady pulse. You slowly opened your eyes to see a white ceiling above you. You jerked up and looked around. It looked to be as if you were in a hospital. You put your feet down on the ground and started to stand up, but felt a pain in your arm. You looked down to see that you’re no longer wearing your tank top, but a gauze wrapping tightly around your chest and breasts, and a series of wires hooked up to your chest and an IV in your arm. You quickly ripped them out and heard a gasp.
          A woman came running up to you. “Please, don’t get up, ma’am. You just got here not even ten minutes ago. You need to stay lying down.”
          You glare at the woman and grab her by the front of her nurse-like outfit. “I have to pee!” you growl through clenched teeth. The lady gets a scared look on her face and points to a door across from the two of you. You nod and quickly dash to the bathroom and close the door. About five minutes later, you walk out, looking a LOT happier.
          The nurse-lady seems to have waited for you by the door to the bathroom and tries to usher you back to the bed you awoke in.
          You look at her with an icy stare. “I’m in Rekai, aren’t I?” She nods quickly and you let out a sigh. You walk to a set of double doors and open them. [Let’s see if I still remember my way to the diaper-king’s office] You walk down the long and winding corridors until you find yourself at a pair of huge dark double doors. You push open both doors and shout, “Honey! I’m home!”
          Everybody just stops what they’re doing and stares at you like a dragon had just walked in. You look around to see the four boys from earlier just standing off to the sides, their mouths hanging agape. You walk up to the desk to see a very pissed looking toddler sitting there. There’s only one toddler in Rekai who could look that pissed to see you; Koenma.
          You hop up onto the desk and smile at him. “You didn’t tell them, did you?”
           “No…” growls Koenma.
           “You didn’t toss me into your deepest and darkest jail cell, either,” you say in sing-song kid of way.
           “No… I didn’t,” he growled again.
          You give him a pouty look. “Hey, Koenma?” you ask rubbing a finger on his cheek. “You remember that stick I told you that you had up your ass, last time we saw each other? It’s sideways, isn’t it?”
           “I told you to never step foot in Japan again!” yelled the lobster-red baby. “You know the consequences! So why are you here?!”
          You let out a sigh and a shrug as you hop off his desk. “You know why I’m back. I don’t chose where I go, and you know I can’t defy orders.”
          Koenma opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by the slamming of the door.
           “Aria!”
          You turned around at the sound of the nickname you hadn’t heard in centuries. Running towards you is the energetic, blue haired Botan. “BOTAN!” you scream as you’re pushed to the ground in a giant bear hug. After you pushed her off, you stood up and her smile disappeared.
           “Oh… I meant to get here before you did. You already pissed Koenma off, didn’t you?” she asked with a nervous look. She glanced towards the fuming toddler and her face grew more worried.
           “Yep!” you said happily.
           “OKAY!” shouted one of the boys. “What in Kami’s name is going on here?! You said you’d explain when she awoke and she’s awake, though I have no clue how. So start spilling.”
          You turn around and see the guy with slicked back, black hair standing up with an angry look on his face. “Oh, hush! Don’t poop a brick.” You look back at Koenma. “Do you want to tell them, or me?” You didn’t even wait for an answer. You turned back to the four guys and smiled happily. “I’m Koenma’s wife! It’s very nice to meet you!”
          All of the guys’ faces go blank and suddenly pale. The idea of Koenma having a wife seemed to have overloaded there brains. You walk up to them and wave you hand in front of them. Getting no reaction, you turn back to Koenma.
           “Honey! I think we broke your toys!” you yell.
          The one who yelled, asking what was going on, seemed to have snapped out of it first. “Wow… so you and Koenma are really married? How’d you meet?” he asked, obviously interested.
          You let out a soft sigh. “I like to think it was love at first sight,” you answer dreamily.
           “Don’t believe a word she says, Yusuke!” yelled Koenma. “We’re not married! We’re not even together!”
          You smile and look back at him. “Oh, come on, Koenma-kun. I know you’ve had the hots for me since we first met.”
          Koenma looked like he was about to explode with fury his face was so purple. “Do you mean when my spirit detectives dragged your half dying body in here? We saved you!”
          You start laughing. “You know I would have lived even if all my arms and legs were chopped off. Besides. That was, what? Four, maybe five hundred years ago.”
           “Four hundred and twenty-six,” he mumbled wearily.
           “Um, I’m sorry to break up your lover’s spat, or whatever, but what is going on here?” asked the kid with slicked back hair, Yusuke.
          You turn back to Koenma, raising an eyebrow. He quickly sighs and sits back down in his chair. You go back to his desk and sit on it in front of him and face the others. “Well, what’s going on is that Koenma’s pissed at me like usual because I absolutely love to get him all riled up, Botan’s happy because she hasn’t seen me in ages, and I’m wondering if everyone knows that the little grade-schooler and Shuichi are dating?”
           “Ikeike!”
          You’re suddenly tackled to the floor by Hiei as he is currently trying to strangle you. Shuichi quickly runs over and pulls him off of you as Botan helps you up. Hiei has his sword drawn and is currently trying to get at you so he can kill you with it.
           “Just let him go, Shuichi. He’ll feel better if you do,” you answer nonchalantly.
          Shuichi looks at you like you’re crazy. “If I do that, chances are he’ll kill you. I was trying to tell you at school that you misunderstood on Wednesday. We’re not like that. We’re just friends.”
          You nod. “Oh, okay. Sorry. But still, let the little egg roll go.”
          He looks at you and you give him a reassuring smile. He let’s go and Hiei charges at you, driving his sword through your stomach, splattering blood all over Koenma’s office. You lean over his sword, an expression of extreme pain on your face, and grab a hold of it. Everyone gasps, except Koenma, and runs over to you as you spit up blood.
           “Hiei!” yelled Shuichi.
           “What?! I didn’t think she’d just stand there!” Hiei yelled back.
          You quickly lean back up and smile at a very confused crowd. You pull the sword out of your stomach, covered in blood, and pull back your other arm. You quickly punch Hiei square in the nose, hearing it break, and drop his sword at his feet.
           “That was for stabbing me through the chest earlier,” you reply coldly.
          Hiei looks up at you, holding his nose, which is bleeding profusely, with a mixed expression of shock and anger.
           “Infirmary! NOW! All of us!” shouts a very pissed Koenma. He looks at you and glares. “You’re cleaning up the mess you made in here.”
          You smile and say, “No, I’m not,” You start walking back towards the door so you can go to the infirmary, but stumble a bit. “Oops. I guess I lost a lot of blood so far, between the hole in my chest and the one in my stomach,” you say with a stupid grin.
          Botan walks over to you and puts an arm around your chest to help you. You smile your thanks and the seven of you start your walk to the infirmary. When you arrive, the lady who was in there earlier screams at the site of you and rushes you over to the bed you were on earlier.
           “What happened?” she asked desperately.
          Well,” you smile, “He,” you say pointing at Hiei, “was the one who stabbed me through the chest. I then called him gay because I thought he was, so he ran me through. I then punched him in the nose for stabbing me in the chest earlier and broke it.”
          The lady looked to see Hiei still holding his gushing nose and back at you. She then rolled her eyes. She lifts her hands to heal you but you push her away.
           “No!” you yell. Everyone looks at you in surprise. “I don’t want you to heal me,” you said defensively.
           “But you have a hole in your stomach,” she said, aghast.
           “And I never would have consented to you healing the hole in my chest had I been conscious. Koenma knows that!” you growled. “Heal his nose and then you can just wrap me up to go.”
          The woman looks from you to Koenma, who silently consents. She walks over to Hiei and starts working on him. While she does that, you run to the bathroom. About a minute later, you emerge, wiping a trickle of blood from your mouth, your face ghostly pale.
           “Serendair-san? Are you sure you don’t want to be healed. You don’t look too good,” says Shuichi.
          You give him a reassuring smile. “I’m okay. Just had to expel some of the blood from my lungs and stomach.” You walk back over to the bed and sit down. The lady’s finished up with Hiei and starts wrapping up your abdomen,
          Yusuke looks at you and Koenma. “Will someone please tell us what is going on and who she is?” he asks pointing to you.
          Koenma sighs. “Guys, this is Antaria. She’s one of the most wanted criminals in all three worlds. And has been for over four hundred and twenty six years.”
          All of the guys just stare at you in shock, unable to say anything.
          You glare at Koenma. “I’m not a criminal!”
          Shuichi looks at you and then to Koenma. “So she’s a demon?” he asks, obviously confused.
          You glare at Koenma and then look at the floor. “No. I’m neither demon nor human. I’m someone whose soul has permanently been condemned between life and death.”
           “Oh, drop the drama,” muttered Koenma. He looked at the guys. “Antaria is an Immortal; someone who can live as long as eternity itself. Though, she was born a human.”
          The group is silent. You sit there waiting for somebody to say something, but nobody does. You decide to lighten the mood a little and start rocking side to side, singing, “Silent Night. Holy Night. All is cal- OW!”
          Koenma brings down his hand from throwing a book at you in the back of your head.
           “So how old are you?” asks the tallest one.
          You look up at him. “We don’t know how old I am… I don’t remember. I do know I’m twenty-seven hundred years old, though, because I lived in Sparta, Greece for a time. I’m even older than the diaper-king here,” you say, jabbing a thumb in Koenma’s direction.
           “So what happened?” asked Shuichi. “I mean, Koenma said you were born human, so how’d you become an Immortal?”
           “Back when I was a child, demons weren’t beings of myths. They were a real threat; coming into towns and wiping them out all in the course of a night. One day, I was approached by someone, asking if I’d like the chance to kill some demons. We were desperate back then, so I obviously said yes. What I didn’t know was that I was becoming a slave to this person, being forced to live forever and kill the demons I was told to for all eternity. When I’m told to kill a demon, or demons, like tonight, an image of them just pops into my head, along with a general location or land marker to tell me where to go.” You sigh, putting your head down on the pillow of the bed you’re sitting on. You’re suddenly feeling very tired.
           “And four hundred and twenty-six years ago, she came to Japan to kill her marks. Unfortunately, she kept ending up interfering with the work my spirit detectives back then were doing. I told her if she ever came back, I’d toss her into the deepest and darkest cell we had.” Koenma glares at you. “Apparently, that wasn’t a severe enough threat, because here you are!”
           “What can I say? I missed your melon of a head,” you say drowsily. “You know very well I can’t defy a mark.”
          Koenma calmed down at this remark. “But you’re here. You know I can’t defy our issues, either. I don’t want to toss you into jail, but I can’t defy our laws and make special circumstances for you.”
          You sighed again. “I know.” [Maybe then I can finally rest again, before…]
           “However,” he said loudly, “I have an alternative to being locked up for all eternity.” You looked up at him, listening. “You can join my team of Spirit Detec-“
           “NO!” you roared. “I work alone. I always will.” You sat up and glared at Koenma. “Being immortal, as well, you should know perfectly why. I’d rather have you clap me in irons and through me in a cell for all eternity now.”
          You didn’t mean to sound harsh, but you had told Koenma all about your past the last time you met. He should remember why you work alone. Why you keep your distance from everyone. Because, eventually, everyone dies. After you came to this realization for the first time when your friends grew old and died while you stayed the same age as always, you sort of made a vow now to get too close to people. If you keep your distance, you can’t be sad when they’re gone.
          Koenma let out a sigh. “Very well.” He snapped his fingers and a pair of shackles appeared on your wrists. He turns around to look at the boys. “Will you escort her to the dungeon? Tell the warden there cell H-83.”
          The room is silent, but you notice a slight nod come from the boy called Yusuke. You stand up off your bed and walk to the door, followed by the four boys. The five of you walk down the halls in morbid silence. You can tell that they want to ask a question, but none of them will say so.
           “Go ahead. Ask.”
          The boys look at you in surprise. “Well, is the idea of joining us really so terrible that you’d be willing to spend all eternity in a cell?” asked Shuichi.
          You hunched your shoulders and looked at the floor. “You have no idea.” [Not like it’ll actually let me stay here for all eternity…]
           “Hn. What do you mean by ‘it won’t let you stay here for all eternity’?”
          You looked up, glaring at Hiei. [Telepath!] You notice his smirk and roll your eyes. “You guys don’t know anything. Cell block H is for the most dangerous criminals they have. It has the strongest security in all of Rekai,” you answered monotonously. “I’m being stuck there because Koenma knows that my master won’t just let me stop working. It killed the last people who tried to have me stop in a most gruesome manner.” Your face goes white and your eyes bulge out. [Oh, Kami] You make a dash around the corner.
           “Stop her! She’s trying to run!” yelled Yusuke.
          The guys run after you, chasing you down the twist and turns. After about a minute, they catch up to you with your head bent over a trash can.
          Your stomach heaves and blood comes pouring out of your mouth as you continue to through up the blood in your stomach. You sit there for a few minutes, making sure that that’s all of it and finally stand up. You wobble back over to them and smile.
           “I didn’t think you wanted blood all over the hall way,” you say, explaining your mad dash. You smile at the stunned quartet and walk past them down the way you came.
          The five of you continue back down the hall way to the dungeon. You notice as you walk that the four of them keep shooting you nervous glances, like they’re afraid you might eat them. It starts getting annoying so you stop and look at them.
           “What?!” you demand. “Why do you keep looking at me like I’m going to eat you or something?”
          The boys give you a hesitant look, but it’s Yusuke who finally says something. “Antaria, you don’t look to good. You’re extremely pale, and that’s saying something since you have a tannish tint to you.”
          You sigh. “Well, since the human body only carries five quarts of blood, and the fact that I’d say I’ve lost at least half of that, I’d say I probably don’t look to good,” you snapped, not really meaning to. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine though. Trust me when I say I can’t die from loss of blood. I’ve tried.”
          The boys look at you like you just said you had a second head, but you ignore it and keep on walking. It’s true. When you first found out what you were, you tried to kill yourself numerous times out of fear, and then again later on in life.
          You finally arrive at the dungeon, and are handed over to the warden. After he looks you up in your cell, you sigh. You close your eyes and try to block out the sound of the person in the next cell over singing “98 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”, and slowly but surely drift into a recuperative sleep.

~ 3 Days Later ~
           “Koenma! Get your diapered ass down here!” you scream, trying to yell over the continuous song of “98 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”. The person next to you had been singing the song nonstop the whole entire time you’ve been here. And it was Driving. You. Crazy! You had hit the wall, hoping to break it down so you could kill the person in the cell, but you didn’t think about the fact that they’d have the cells shielded. Needless to say, you hit the wall and it more-or-less hit back, sending you flying across your cell.
           “Get me outta here!” you yell, grasping the bars to your cell.
           “So, you’ll accept my offer and join my team?” asked Koenma, as he walked up to your cell.
          You rolled your eyes with a glare. “Like I have a choice. It’s either join or be driven insane,” you muttered. You looked over at the next cell and looked at it as if you were hoping it’d burst into flames. “Shut up in there!”
          Koenma snapped his fingers and a radio popped up in front of him playing “98 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” He got a cocky smirk on his face like he actually outsmarted you.
          You glared daggers at him. “Ooooh… that’s evil.”
          Koenma smirked behind his pacifier. “You must be rubbing off on me.” He snapped his fingers again and your cell opened up.
          You put an arm out, making sure the shield was gone, and then walked through. You followed Koenma all the way back to his office and sighed when you saw the boys already in the wall.
           “You had a bet going on about how long it’d take before I cracked and gave in, didn’t you?” you asked quietly, all the while, glaring at Koenma.
           “Heheheh… not really,” he answered nervously.
           “So who won?” you asked turning to the boys.
          They all looked at each other when Yusuke finally stepped forward. “Well, Kuwabara, here,” he said pointing to the tall guy with orange hair,” bet half a day, Koenma said one day, Kurama and me said two, and then Botan and Hiei tied with three or more.”
          You nodded thinking it over then turned to Koenma, fire blazing in your eyes. You pick him up by the scruff of his shirt. “You only bet one day?!” you growled. “You know me better than the shorty and he won over you!” you yelled, pointing at Hiei.
          You drop Koenma when something hits you. “Wait, who’s Kurama?” you ask looking around for this ‘Kurama’ fellow.
          Shuichi steps forward. “I’m Kurama.”
          You look at him, your face blank. “No, you’re Minamino Shuichi,” you answer like it was the most obvious answer in the world.
           “Yes, but I’m also Kurama. In the Ningenkai, I’m known as how you know me, but everywhere else I’m known as Yoko Kurama-“
          You burst out laughing. Everyone stares at you like you just came from another planet while you slowly try to compose yourself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just- it sounded like you said Yoko Kurama.”
           “I did.”
          You look at him now like he’s crazy. “Noooo,” you said walking up to Kurama. “I’ve met Yoko Kurama. He’s taller, with silver hair, and is a sore loser. You’re not him,” you answer defiantly. “You’re too nice.”
          Kurama chuckles and your eyes widen. “OMG! You are Kurama!” you yell, pointing wildly at him.
           “Yes. And Yoko still thinks you cheated him at that game of Shogi,” Kurama chuckles.
          You quirk an eyebrow and look up at him. “Is that why you were so willing to get close to me? Because you recognized me.”
          Kurama shrugged. “Sort of. Yoko and I aren’t exactly the same people. We’re like two different people stuck in my body, but we share all the same memories. When I saw you, I thought I recognized you, and even though you no longer go by the surname of Shiomi, you still have the name of Antaria. Besides, who could ever forget an odd set of eyes like yours?”
          You smirked. “Be careful. Yoko’s trait of being a flirt is rubbing off on you.” You watched as Kurama turned the same shade as his hair and burst out laughing. After you finally calmed down, you turned to Koenma. “So, what now?”
          He looked up at you, a slightly confused look on his face. “Huh?”
           “What now? I said I’d join, so what now?”
           “Oh, yes!” cried Koenma. “Well, for starters, I guess we should have you move in with the boys at the training mansion-“
           “No.”
           “What?” asked a befuddled looking toddler.
           “I said no. I said I’d join, but I am not moving in with them,” you reply sternly. “Besides… I don’t think I’d be able to give up my apartment…” you said looking down at your shoes as you rubbed your toe into the ground.
           “Hn. What’s so great about your apartment?” mumbled Hiei.
          You smirked and turned around with a huge smile plastered on your face. “Ever hear of Wakamura Towers?”
          Yusuke’s and Kuwabara’s mouths drop open as they stare at you. “Wooo! Party at Antaria’s place!”
           “Uh… no,” you say, stopping them before they can get started. “I am not letting you two anywhere within arm’s length of my apartment.”
           “ANYWAYS!” shouts Koenma, snapping you all back to the matter at hand. “You have to live with them. If you don’t live with them, then one of them has to live with you,” he states looking at the five of you.
          This time, your mouth drops open. “What?! Why?” you ask, demanding an explanation.
           “Because,” Koenma says, “to be honest, I don’t trust you. Until you prove yourself, someone is to remain with you at all times.”
          You glare at him. It’s not like you were going to take over Rekai. You just had a simple job of slaying demons. If anything, that was a good thing for them! “Oh! I get it! I see what this is about. This isn’t about you not trusting me, it’s about the fact that you’re afraid of me. And this is your one chance to learn all about me, right?” You shake your head. “You want to know more about me and my ‘master’, don’t you?”
          Silence.
           “Whatever. It’s late. I already missed school today because of you. Give me a portal and my stuff back,” you whisper, just giving up.
          Koenma nods and gives you back your key, jacket, and sword. After that, a portal opens up in front of you. Before anyone else can say anything, you disappear through it and head home.