I light a cigarette and take a deep drag.
    The acrid smoke rises through my brain, clearing out what seems to be a year's worth of cobwebs, and realigning my thoughts and memories into something vaguely approaching order.
    I turn towards the closet to pick out an outfit. Today's one of the days I have class.
    I hadn't intended to go to college at all, you know. I was going to settle down, become a hairdresser, and live a life of quiet obscurity. Kazuma could carry off all the honor and fame due to accrue to our family.
    A nice, innocent profession, dressing hair. Nobody ever died of a hairdo. No one's heart was ever broken due to a hairstyle that wouldn't have been broken otherwise. One never hears of hairdressers becoming nationally famous, or mixed up in fantastic plots, or whatever.
    But the universe had other ideas.

    I was lunching at my old house, with my family, in the middle of taking the rest of my stuff over to my new apartment -- I'd taken the necessities over at once and waited till later to bring the contents of my bookshelves. I'd collected all the manga I could find that related to my... condition -- Saint Seiya, Please Save My Earth, Rasen no Kakera, Angel Sanctuary -- hoping, perhaps, for some answers, some hints, some hopes that I could apply to myself.
    Stupid of me. The only ones of those that are worth anything are the ones you find for yourself.
    At any rate, Okaachan mentioned that the local college was offering a scholarship program, and she thought I should apply.
    Okaachan and Otoochan are really good parents. Really, they are. Much better than my last set; I wonder if Haha-ue arranged for them on purpose. She could have, you know. Or it might just have been Fate giving me a break for once.
    I told her I would consider it.
    "Please do," she said. "You're such a bright girl, and it would be a shame to have all that talent go to waste."
    Then we spoke about normal things, such as new apartment horror stories (only had the mildewed bathroom to report so far), how Yukina-chan was settling in to living at the house (very well), and whether I'd met any nice young men yet (no).
    Okaachan is always a little disappointed that I haven't met more nice young men. Not that she expects or wants anything permanent or long-term-ish, but she thinks that "a pretty girl like yourself should be going out on dates with nice young men more often."
    I wonder how she'd react if she knew that I wouldn't mind if the people I were to hypothetically date were nice young men -- or nice young women.
    I don't need to wonder how chichi would react. He'd blow a gasket, for all he thinks of himself as a modern, broadminded guy.
    With luck, I'll meet some man within the next ten years who adores me and whom I can care for, and the question will never come up.
    Not that I've had much luck for a long time. For a long, long time.

    Take Hongou, for instance. Right after -- afterwards, she didn't want to talk to me. I had to sit down with her and say, "Look, Hongou, this is me. ME. Kuwabara Shizuru. Your friend. What's eating you?"
    She didn't want to tell me, at first, but I'd -- persuaded her.
    I've always been very good at persuading people.
    Particularly Hongou.
    "It feels," she'd said tentatively, "as if you'd betrayed me. But you can't possibly have. Even if you hadn't promised back when that you'd never lie to me -- "”
    "Never in this lifetime," I'd corrected. "I may not tell the whole truth, and I may slant it, but never in this lifetime will I knowingly lie to you."
    I owe her that.
    "Well, even if you had not promised, you couldn't have. There just wasn't an opportunity."
    "Tell me about it," I'd urged.
    And she had.
    And scarcely into her tale, I'd had to excuse myself, to go out into the yard and commit mayhem on the concrete wall.
    Kazuma and his friends can swear, pour out their anger and frustration and helplessness in a long stream of vituperative words.
    I can't. (And I've tried.) They're only words. Things I can use to get what I want. Things I can't use to get what I need.
    I have to break things. Before it breaks me.
    And thus I've been the audience for one of chichi's lectures so often that I could probably recite it from memory in my sleep.
    "If you broke it, Shizuru, you fix it. You have to learn to clean up your own messes. It's your responsibility, after all."
    So I do my best to fix the things I break. It would doubtless be better not to break them in the first place, but I usually can see no other release.
    "It's hard to explain, Kuwabara-san, but it was as if I'd known him for years -- as if he were an old friend whom I'd implicitly trust -- "
    "I understand, Hongou. I understand completely."
    Mine the fault, mine the fault, Majin Dead and Living mine the fault for befriending her so early --—
    Hongu's reikan is minimal and untrained, yet even she could recognize the similarity in ki --—
    She trusted the most unscrupulous, manipulative bastard in the Four Realms because he felt like me.

    And when she finished the full tale, even down to that which had happened two days previous as she denied me entry to her house, I felt an impulse to fall to my knees and thank gods I no longer believed in -- or, at least, not as such -- and hadn't for a long time.
    Of course I did no such thing. I held her and told her over and over that it was no fault of hers. By the time I left her, she'd even half-believed it.
    And then I went to Kajiwara, and thanked him with all the words I could muster for saving Hongou from herself.

    I think I'll wear the pale blue shirt with the sakura blossoms. They say -- or used to -- the dead Janyou-Majin Karlia lies dreaming among the roots of the sakura at the center of the world, against the day of the world's ending. And it goes well with my dark slacks.

    And after I'd lunched with my family and started collecting my books, Hongou, Kajiwara, and their friends the Yuuki siblings came over to help me move in. The work certainly went faster with five pairs of hands, and I was moved in well before the goal I had planned.
    "Sukunami would have come," Yuuki apologized, "but he has a discussion section today he doesn't dare miss."
    "Oh, no, it's all right," I said, smiling my best smile. "We're fine without him. Really."
    Yuuki brightened, and went over to help his little sister.
    "Do you like Sukunami?" Kajiwara asked quietly. He was wearing his sunglasses, of course. He never takes them off. It used to irritate me, before I figured out why.
    I wonder what Yomi would look like with sunglasses. Maybe I can get Kurama to have him try on a pair.
    "No," I answered, surprised.
    Kajiwara looked at me.
    "I don't like him," I explained. "I'm obsessed with him, but that's different." I lit a cigarette. "Besides," I continued dryly, "even if for some reason I did want him that way, he's got Miaka-san. I'd have better luck coming between Vega and Altair."
    We stood like that for a while, while Yuuki and the girls hung my window blind and put the chairs back where they belonged.
    "Our college is offering scholarships," he said finally. "I think you should apply."
    "Why?"
    "Hairdressers don't give much to the community."
    "They never hurt anyone."
    "Have they ever healed anyone?"
    And then Hongou commanded us to look at the window blind, and the conversation wandered.
    Yuuki stated that one of the clubs at his college was showing a foreign movie, entitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
    Miaka wondered if she should go see it.
    "NO," I said.
    "What's it about?"
    "Cheaply made science fiction movies, kinky sex, and men in spangled bustiers and garter hose."
    "Have you seen it?" Hongou asked.
    "When I was twelve. On our family vacation in San Francisco."

    In my last life, going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of my favorite things to do.
    In my last life, I had no life.
    So when chichi took us all on a family vacation to San Francisco, that summer, I said that I wanted to go see it.
    I said it before we left.
    I said it in the car on the way to the airport.
    I said it on the plane to Hawaii. (The people there pronounce it with two 'i's. It has two 'i's. Why do we pronounce it Hawai?)
    I said it at the airport in Oahu.
    I said it as we were landing in San Francisco.
    I said it as we were unpacking in the hotel room.
    So Otoochan said he'd take me to see it; it seemed to be a genuine part of American culture, which was the whole reason he'd brought haha, Kazuma, and me to San Francisco. Kazuma said he'd go too, but I told him he wouldn't like it.
    I'd made my costume for it. It was based on an anime character whose pictures I'd seen in my last life, when I was Chinese-American. Her name was Halcyon or Alcyon or some such. (I'd say Alcyone, but that's a car.) The outfit had a shiny red strapless leotard thing, cut to show my barely-existent-at-twelve cleavage off. There was a white cape, and a thing like a long white skirt with the front missing. I couldn't find the right kind of boots, so I'd made very tall spats to wear over my high-heeled shoes.
    I had to do a lot of fast talking to explain to chichi that one was supposed to cosplay to it, but eventually we got to the little theater and went in with the rest of the weirdoes. I even remembered to warn chichi not to volunteer for anything.
    And it was fun. Completely juvenile, of course -- I only remember my five previous lives in this one -- but entertaining, particularly yelling out all the fan-dialogue as chichi actually blushed. He'd already been surprised several times over during the course of the vacation by the amount of English I knew; frankly, I was surprised I remembered that much. So what was so different about this?
    And after the show, some people from one of the local newspapers wanted to interview me. (It must have been a slow week.) I accepted, dancing on a table, answering questions, and singing the fan-version of Janet's song for them.
    Otoochan didn't seem to approve. Now I wonder why that would be?
    They took a picture of me which made it to the front page of the local section. It must have been a slow week.
    I told them whether I was a typical Japanese female middle-school student (not hardly!), what my family was like (wonderful, even if my little brother does think he's Don Quixote) and who my favorite character in the movie was (Magenta. She survives).
    Of course, Janet survives too, but who'd want to be Janet? Willing participant in her own degradation, with all the moral fiber of a wet noodle. She didn't have to seduce Rocky, even if she was feeling hurt and betrayed -- although, considering Hongou, it does seem to be a human reaction. And she most certainly didn't have to let herself be seduced earlier. She had no agenda to further. She could have clawed him. She could have fought.
    I did.
    Not that it did much good, of course. Too little, too late, as I was finally shocked out of my lethargy. And then I realized that it was only what I deserved, but I still didn't want it. I didn't consent. I may have appeared to acquiesce as I waited, plotting and crafting the nemesis I'd bring; but I sang my Litany of Hate of the Nevermore Children over and over again as I hid in the place inside myself, disassociating myself from what was happening to my physical shell as I crooned you'll die, not me, never me, I dance in the wind, I dance up the whirlwind, I Dance Up The Whirlwind That Scours The World, and it'll kill you, kill all of you, and I'll shit on your graves, I'll dance on your graves...
    That will never happen to Kazuma. I swear it. I swear it by Seiryuu dev'batr and all the Majin I no longer believe in. I swear it by my own breath and blood, which have not failed me yet. I swear it by the Place Beyond whose price I have at long last found to be too high.

    The tepid water beats on my face as I tilt it back, turning to let the water cleanse my body as it cannot cleanse my soul. I can't smoke in the shower, of course; the cigarette lies in the wobbly clay ashtray Kazuma made for me, long ago.
    I know it's ridiculous of me to be touched by such a small gesture.
    I've never had a little brother before. I don't know how I ever got along without one.
    I remember his endless flow of questions, when he was small, and my attempts to answer each one.
    I remember teaching him dirty tricks to use as a last resort in a fight, and his disgusted remark that dirty tricks are for dishonorable people.
    I agree with that last. Dirty tricks are for use on dishonorable people, for they'll never hesitate to use them on you.
    I remember when he began calling me "Aneki" instead of "Neesan," as part of his image as The Tough Guy.
    I remember the day some small-minded bullies twice my then-age were tormenting him, and that I just sailed into them without considering the logic of such a reaction. He was the first one I let myself care about in this life, now that I recalled those that came before. I let Kazuma affect me before even Okaachan (haha) and Otoochan (chichi).
    No one can hurt you if no one can touch you.
    And an island never cries.
    No man is an island, complete in itself...

    When I finally chased Hongou tachi out so that I could divest myself of my sweaty clothing and take a long bath, they were discussing whose reincarnations they might be, of all things.
    "Kuwabara-san?" Miaka asked on her way out the door.
    I kept myself from stiffening.
    "Whose reincarnation do you think I might be?"
    As I had not stiffened, I did not sigh with relief.
    "You'd be the reincarnation of Son Gokuu from Dragonball."
    Hongou began to laugh.
    "But I'm a girl!"
    "What does that have to do with it?"
    Hongou laughed harder, and one by one, the others slowly joined in as they went down the hall and away from my apartment.
    Indeed, what does that have to do with it? All five of the previous lives that I can recall were male, and the difference, although more and less than people think it to be, pales in comparison to my recollections of not being human.

    I was thinking about that while lounging around in my underwear when the visitors arrived.
    "Yuri. Hinagiku," I greeted the two Sanzunokawa Mizusaki Annainin. "When are you going to use the door like normal people?"
    "The window's more convenient," Hinagiku said, shrugging.
    "We aren't normal people," Yuri said at the same time.
    "So what brings you here?"
    "Merely a social visit," Yuri said. "Updating our status files."
    "I notice you still haven't told your little brother," Hinagiku remarked, with a snap of her green -- it's really too long to be a pigtail.
    "He doesn't need to know," I reiterated firmly.
    It's an old argument. We worked through it quickly and settled down to a comfortable chat.
    "You get along well with Yuuki tachi?" Yuri asked.
    "Oh, yes. I was surprised he remembered me; we moved when he was twelve, after all."
    "The circumstances were doubtless memorable."
    "Don't remind me." I grimaced; Takemura had left a bad taste in my mouth.
    If he had even looked at Kazuma that way, I should have destroyed him utterly.
    "I think Yuuki likes you," Hinagiku said.
    "Don't be ridiculous. We're just friends."
    "Really?" Yuri's long red-brown hair fell to obscure her face as she leaned forward, fixing me with an intent gaze. "You truly count him as your friend?"
    "You two, Keiko-chan, Yukina-chan; Hongou, Kajiwara, Kurama, and Hiei; Yuuki and his sister, Kisaragi-kun, Botan, and Yuusuke; even Atsuko and Genkai are my friends. Maybe even Sukunami. Who knows?"
    "You caring about people enough to be friends?" Hinagiku’s surprise was grossly exaggerated.
    "I grew up," I shrugged. "Happens to most people, if they live long enough."
    None of us said anything for a short space.
    "Maybe you ought to do more things with your friends," Hinagiku finally said. "Go to school with them or something."
    I permitted the sudden shout of laughter to boil up past my throat. "I've been told twice already today that I should think about applying for a scholarship at their college."
    "Perhaps you should," Yuri said thoughtfully.
    "E?"
    "It would make Lady Valerian very happy."
    Dirty tricks are for dishonorable people.
    Rarely do great honor and great pragmatism dwell together.
    I am always pragmatic.
    "Third time's the charm!" Hinagiku said, quoting a saying of the first people I remember.
    And so I applied for a scholarship at Seinan Gakuin Daigaku; to no one's surprise but my own, I was accepted.

    Once in the outfit I have chosen, I re-light the cigarette, holding it in my mouth while I button the cuffs and collar, setting it in a niche in the small, lopsided clay statue on my dresser while I tie my necktie -- it is dark with sakura petals -- and brush my hair.
    Kazuma made the little statue, too. He was so proud when he brought the two of them home from first grade -- and then he tripped and dropped one.
    This automatically designated the intact one as haha's, of course. Kazuma was trying very hard not to cry as he pointed to the pieces and said, "Neesan, this was yours."
    "I think we can glue it," I told him.
    "Didn't Toosan say I had to fix the things I broke myself?"
    "But Okaachan said that we could always accept help if it were freely offered. I'm offering."
    So we glued it together with the white glue haha had bought me for school and let it dry overnight on my windowsill.
    I didn't quite trust the glue, so I -- borrowed -- haha's clear nail polish and painted several coats over the statue, waiting for one to dry before putting the next one on. Then I painted my toenails with it, so I had an excuse for using so much of it.
    Okaachan didn't even yell that much at me.
    I think those coats of nail polish are all that's holding that statue together by now; every so often I put another coat on, just to make sure.
    I was talking with Kazuma and Yukina when I last did that. Kazuma apologized again while I poked the brush into the corners of the near-shapeless thing.
    "No, no," I said. "I like this. It's just like me."
    Yukina gave me a very odd look at that. We tend to underestimate her, you know, just because she's tiny and dainty with a sweet face.
    Not so very unlike Haha-ue.

    My cigarette smoke has trailed up, diffusing between my face and the mirror on the dresser: it's dim enough at the best of times and missing its silvering in places, and with the addition of the smoke the reflection lifting the cigarette to its mouth could as easily be that of the body I wore five lifetimes ago.
    Five times reincarnated. The wolf gave me the sense of Pack; the r'gaihh, what it meant to be utterly betrayed, not only by the world, but by those I thought to be the only ones I could trust. I learned similarly from every one of them -- just not enough.
    And this time, I can remember them all. The pain. And the sorrow. And the glory.
    I think that this means that this is my last chance to put things right. To fix the things I broke, as much as it may lie within my power.
    My power, and that of those who would help me. Kajiwara. Yuuki. Miaka.
    Even Sukunami.
    Even -- Hongou.
    I don't deceive myself that they help out of any desire to support me -- well, perhaps Yuuki, but even he would not wish to aid the person I was. They help because the mending in itself is a good thing. They help for Hongou's sake. For Miaka's sake.
    I can use friendship like that, that sort of caring, but I understand it no more than I ever did. Why does Hongou care about Miaka? Why does Kazuma care about Yuusuke, who beat him up with near-regularity every day for four years? Shai, why do the entire Urameshi Team care about each other -- much as certain members (read: my brother and Hiei) would vehemently deny it?
    Why do I care about them?
    Don't quote John Donne to me. All that stuff about being a part of the human race and the sorrows of one being the sorrows of all have very little to do with interpersonal relationships.
    Many of them aren't very likable; but I know that can't have anything to do with it.
    After all, I am not likable at all -- I don't even like myself -- and yet Kazuma and Hongou and Okaachan and Otoochan care rather deeply about me, to say nothing of Haha-ue.

    Sometimes I wonder if that disgust of myself is part on the reason I eat so badly. My breakfast this morning consists of microwaved red tea (lapsang souchong, to be precise) and toaster pastries. Okaachan would throw up her hands in despair.
    Sometimes I wonder if that disgust of myself is part of the reason I keep smoking.
    The main reason, of course, is that the smoke clears the fog out of my brain, setting all five previous lives in order so that I may draw on them fully and clearly. A head filled with the jumbled memorabilia of five previous lives in no particular order is not the most comfortable place to inhabit.
    Sometimes I wonder if that disgust of myself is part of the reason I screw with Sukunami's head so much. Of course, screwing with his head is such fun to do; one of the few pleasures of mine that carry over from one of my past lives.
    I wonder how he'd react if I told him who I am?
    Correction. I wonder how much collateral property damage would result from his reaction. He doesn't like me at all, you know. The me I was five lifetimes ago.
    Sensible of him. I don't like that me either.
    And I -- after more exposure to him, I don't know if I like him. But I know I'm obsessed with him; and oh, how I envy him.
    We're counterparts. Matched in almost every way. But his life was perfect in every way, when mine was a nightmare. I don’t think he ever did anything wrong or had anything go wrong in his life until I interfered.
    A great deal of my obsession is the same as my brother’s obsession with Urameshi Yuusuke. The search for an aite with whom one can strive, fighting at the best of one's ability, with every part of one’s body and mind singing together in the doing, being forced to go beyond the limits that were thought to be impassable, and yet in the end be scarcely defeated; there are no words for the joy of finding that person. No words for the exaltation of finding the person who can thus command your respect, of matching your strength and skill against his every day and every day finding new levels to reach in that endless quest, always remaining one step behind and to his right. No words.
    It's a male thing.
    I sensed the potential for THAT in him, and fostered it. I did things that I believed were for the purpose of making him my equal in strength, although on sober reflection were for the purpose of making him my equal otherwise.
    I do regret Suboshi's actions. I told the younger boy to commit something in the nature of constructive atrocities; kill the family and arrange a display designed to hurt my opposite number as much as possible.
    Couldn't he have waited until they were dead to start getting creative? The result would have been similar enough for practical purposes.
    And as his superior, I had to take responsibility for his actions.

    The really funny thing, is that even though he's my obsession, I think I'm his.
    I know exactly what he wanted to get out of killing me, and I didn't give it to him. I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to, which I didn't; I wanted to win.
    I'd estimate that he kept turning that fight over in his mind for the rest of that life. But it serves him right: after I ruined his life, he had the insufferable gall to pity me.
    I will not be pitied.
    At least, when he's brooding over me, he's not calling out his love's name in case the city forgot it since yesterday.
    Maybe I'll ask him to spar today.

    I am not fond of mornings. Today is no exception.
    What with the morning and the musing, I got into class barely on time. I'll have to meet with the teacher, and his office hours are at the same time as the Ancient Chinese History Research Club meetings.
    The class is on the Aztecs, who lived in Mexico (which properly should be pronounced Meshiko). They believed that each direction had a color -- white for west, black for north, and so on -- and that each of these colored directions was ruled by a god, an aspect of their chief god Smoking Mirror.
    But these Azuteka believed that the south was blue, and that the east was red.
    How did they come to mix those two up, anyway? They remembered that blue and its direction were the accompaniment of the god of war. It's not as if the two are similar, after all. They aren't alike in the least.
    What were they thinking?