InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Tales of Interest ❯ The Woman in the Tree ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don’t own it.

AN/ A drabble-ish, because I felt like it. Will probably become a series.

Written to: An unlabeled music box tune on my iPod. Sorry, don’t have a name.

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Tales of Interest

The Woman in the Tree

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“It’s none of your business, you know,” the young fox scowled back at the group of men following him.

“As the Reikai’s business is the protection and maintenance of the balance between the three worlds, anything with the kind of destructive power contained within the Shikon no Tama falls under their jurisdiction,” Kurama replied smoothly.

The boy ahead of him simply huffed in annoyance and turned his attention back to the well-worn path ahead.

The rumor of the Shikon was well known throughout Makai. A jewel born of a fierce battle, the combined souls of thousands of youkai and a single miko. Its power was legendary, unrivaled and unlimited. It had the potential to destroy the world.

Hundreds of years ago, the protectors of the jewel saw fit to hide it away. Demons and humans alike searched for their whole lives and never found it. Some were still searching. But they, as the Reikai Tantei, had the select privilege of being led to it.

By an unwilling and quite irate kitsune.

He was tall for his age, which was little more than five hundred years. He was a red fox, a shape-shifter. His breed was known for deception. He didn’t look more than sixteen by human standards with long auburn hair and five sunset-colored tails.

Soon, the trees began to thin out. The sounds of prowling youkai and the demonic forest grew distant as they entered a clearing.

There was a tree, a great leafless behemoth gnarled with age and weathered smooth from the elements. Unlike everything else in the Makai, it held not a single trace of youki. In fact, there was a perfect circle of bare ground surrounding the base of the tree, the demonic blue grasses refusing to grow nearer than a meter or so to the twisted roots.

The seemingly unremarkable tree was, for all appearances, dead.

The young kitsune approached the tree, running his hands over the scarred bark reverently, caringly, caressing it with all the affection one might show a lover. His expression darkened as he looked back at the team standing at the edge of the clearing.

“You must stay back. I have to concentrate,” he told them.

They remained silent, Yusuke rolling his eyes impatiently and Kurama only nodding his and the rest of the group’s compliance.

The boy placed both of his palms to the wood, aqua eyes drifting closed in concentration. He gathered his energy, his life force around him, letting it swell into a mist of blue-green vapor. It settled as a crackling fog around his own body and the trunk of the tree.

In response, the previously lifeless tree began to pulse.

B-bump.

B-bump.

The beat of a heart echoed throughout the forest, the deep thrum rumbling through the bodies of the Reikai Tantei. Instead of pushing them away with the strength of the pulse the rhythm seemed to reach out to them, to calm something in their souls.

The tree was glowing now, a soft pearlescent pink. Its branches quivered with anticipation, its stilted roots seemed to writhe beneath the bare feet of the kitsune orchestrating the strange changes.

Under his palms, the bark of the old tree melted and took on a fluid quality. It molded around his fingers like a thick wooden paste, allowing his hands to sink into the tree itself. His face was a study of focus as he seemed to be feeling around for something in the darkness of the tree, searching for something.

When his elbows were fully submerged, a light of discovery lit his face. He smiled. And began to pull back.

But with him came something.

Two thin, pale hands surfaced from the liquid trunk, pulled with labor by the young fox, his own wrapped around the slender wrists. Soon, the hands were followed by long, pale arms connected to thin shoulders and a dark head of hair.

The naked form of a woman emerged from the trunk, her steady extraction sending ripple like on the surface of a pond around the trunk. Her entire body was slick and glistening with a gooey substance. Tree sap, they realized.

A few more tugs and her feet were free of the wooden pool. She fell forward into the arms of the fox who was struggling to hold onto her slick body. He lowered them both to ground, holding her to his chest lovingly, moving aside the hair that was plastered to the sides of her face.

They moved forward, to better see this strange woman.

“Who is she?” Yusuke asked.

“She is the Shikon no Tama. What’s left of it,” the boy grinned.

Her eyes fluttered, struggling to open under the weight of the thick droplets of sap that clung to her coal black lashes. Orbs of indigo, like the night sky, were revealed.

“Shippo-chan?”

&n bsp;