InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Fire in Ice ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, etc., of Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit.
FIRE IN ICE

A/N: Can you believe it? I actually managed another chapter, haha. I’m really on a roll with this story right now. The YuYu gang is just so much fun to write. And Kurama, you fox…literally, yum… ;o)  

Chapter Six

A sandwich, Sango learned, could get messy. Mastering the technique without  the insides slithering out the other end took practice. A skill which, Yusuke reassured her, she’d learn in time. Or end up eating everything with a fork.

He brandished the odd implement, which Sango dubiously took, turning it this way and that as she eyed the four metal prongs attached to one end. Running her thumb over them, she realized they weren’t sharp. How, then, was she supposed to poke them into the gooey mess on her plate?

“Chopsticks,” Kurama murmured, and Botan nodded quick agreement. Giving Yusuke a dirty look, the ferry-girl went to fetch a pair.

“A new sandwich might help,” Genkai dryly suggested, but the plate in the center of the table was empty, the last of the sandwiches parceled out to those wanting seconds.

A jarring sound, like bricks on wood, and a new plate, sandwich untouched, slid across the table in front of the slayer.

Thunderstruck, they all stared at Hiei.

“I’m not hungry,” he growled, getting up.

“What are you talking about? You’re always hungry,” Yusuke exclaimed.

“I’m not now,” he said coldly, and left the room.

Sango blinked. Did he just disappear? Her brown eyes narrowed, calculating the amount of jyaki needed for a demon to teleport themselves. Not to mention the sheer level of skill. She shivered.

“Are you cold?” Kurama inquired.

“No. Thank you.” Sango shied away from the kitsune’s compelling gaze. Her eyes dropped to the plate the short demon had left.

“I’ll show you how to hold it,” Botan encouraged.

“And I can polish off the other one,” Yusuke volunteered, picking the fork right out of her hand and the messy plate up off the table.

“No, you can’t.” Genkai snatched them out of the boy’s hands, scraping the food into the garbage. “Training, remember? Don’t want you messing up my mountain by puking your guts out running laps.”

“Aw, Grandma---”

“Out, dimwit, and give me twenty uppy-downies. Up the mountain, down the mountain, up the mountain, down the mountain.” The old priestess used the handy fork to jab him in the ass in time to her chant.

“Ouch! Gods, you’re a pushy bitch---”

“There’s more where that came from, you ungrateful little snot.”

“Damn it, Grandma---”

Their arguing voices faded down the hall as Genkai herded her reluctant apprentice outside, Kirara watching wide-eyed from her position by the strange white box that occasionally purred to itself, like some weird animal.  

“She really knows how to handle him, doesn’t she?” Botan admired.

“A lot of practice, I imagine,” Kurama said, amused.

Sango stared at them.

“Yusuke’s…not the easiest to get along with,” Botan hastened to explain, “but he has a good heart. He has to, for Prince Koenma to give him the job of Spirit Detective.”

“Spirit Detective?” Sango asked.

“Oh, that’s right! In all the hullabaloo, we didn’t even get a chance to explain who we are. My apologies---I’m sure you have a million questions.”

Kurama raised a thin red brow, but Botan only waved his caution aside. “Oh, please, Kurama, the least we owe her is an explanation! Besides, it’s not like we haven’t already done a background check.”

She giggled, though Sango didn’t quite get the joke. The ferry-girl seemed incredibly…buoyant, as if some weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She wasn’t as guarded as earlier, and she had an infectious smile, one she liked to use, a lot. “Well, let’s see. I guess we could start with Kurama, since he’s sitting right here. He tends to be the more cautious one, though you wouldn’t expect it from a demon fox spirit. They’re known more for their curiosity than their sense.”

Kurama didn’t seem ruffled by Botan’s teasing, but Sango regarded him warily. Kitsune also had a reputation for trickery and deceit. She didn’t think he could fool a priestess as powerful as Genkai, but Naraku had taught her to be careful.

“He’s part of Yusuke’s team, you see.” Sango didn’t, but let the blue-haired girl continue. “We all are, in a way. I’m Yusuke’s assistant. Or, more like his go-between with the Spirit Realm. Though sometimes it feels more like I’m his nanny.”

Kurama’s lips twitched.

“The others---well, there’s Yusuke, of course, and Kurama. Oh, and Kuwabara---but he’s not here. He’s wholly human, and a powerful psychic. Like Yusuke, he’s still in junior high, yet unlike Yusuke, he’s actually in junior high right now, attending class.”

Like Kagome. Or like Kagome given five more years. Sango swallowed, hurriedly pushing that disturbing thought aside to focus on another.

“And the demon?”

“Hiei?” Botan said, her eyes skittering over to Kurama and then back. “Ah, well, he’s a whole other story, really. He’s…”

“Part of the team,” Kurama said, a hint of steel in his soft voice.

Botan coughed. “Ah, yes. Yes, he is.”

“But you don’t trust him,” Sango said, studying the ferry-girl.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, entirely---”

“Hiei’s always there when needed,” Kurama said firmly.

“Yes, but…”

The two stared at each other, holding some silent conversation that Sango couldn’t follow. Just that the red-haired boy’s gaze was implacable, and the ferry-girl was the first to look away.

“Spirit World has much to be grateful to Hiei,” Kurama stated.

“And you,” Botan smartly replied. “He’s not the only one on probation, after all.”

“Probation?” Sango questioned.

“Oh, ah, it’s not quite like you think. They’re just new to the team, is all,” Botan tried to qualify, but a part of Sango thought she made a terrible liar. “Still on probation, you see. Temporary trial.”

Until they messed up, or betrayed their human teammates? There was more to this situation than either were willing to let on, but Sango dropped it for now. “So if you’re all teammates, than what, exactly, do you do?”

“Slay demons!” Botan said, delighted to find something in common with the demon slayer, just as Kurama said, “Investigate questionable activities in Living World.”

Well, that was an interesting division of words. Sango’s brow furrowed.

“Well, a little of both, actually,” Botan relented. “You see, Yusuke Urameshi is Spirit World’s champion. Especially now, with the Dark T---”

“The dark forces arrayed against us,” Kurama smoothly intervened.

“That’s not what I---”

“It’s exactly what you meant,” Kurama replied, expression cool.

Sango’s eyes narrowed. It would probably be better to let the fox keep their secrets, but she hadn’t asked to be stuck here. And her trust, already shaky, was growing thinner by the minute. She decided to throw caution to the wind, and address the situation head on. She’d always been better at confrontation than strategy.

“I know you don’t trust me,” she said, voice hard, “but how can you ask trust when you don’t give it?”

“Oh, well said!” Botan clapped her hands. “I do think I’m going to like you, Sango, really I do!”

“Trust must be earned,” Kurama answered calmly.

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Sango growled, shoving her chair back and standing up. She didn’t have the patience for mincing words with a deceitful demon. It seemed some things had never changed, even after five hundred years. She needed some air.

Head high, she yanked up her droopy pants, and stalked out of the room.


“She certainly told you,” Botan said, delighted by the girl’s spunk. Then she frowned. “You know, those clothes truly are dreadful…”

Jumping up, the ferry-girl produced her oar and was off with a cheerful, “Time to go shopping!”

Left alone in the kitchen, Kurama sighed. His green eyes slid over to Kirara, who radiated feminine disapproval.

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

Kirara clearly didn’t believe him. Turning with a disdainful flick of her twin tails, the tiny neko followed her taijiya out.

Sighing, Kurama got to his feet. It seemed he had some amends to make.


The temple was like, yet unlike, others she had known. While some of the rooms were filled with strange contraptions making stranger noises, there were others that were comfortingly familiar. This included the main room, which was wrapped in peaceful shadows. Sango absently made a sign of respect as she passed, still too angry to give the shrine proper reverence. The fusuma screen leading to the outside, at least, was positioned right where it should be.

Shoving her way outside, Sango breathed a deep sigh of relief. Inside the temple, everything was strange. At least outside, the world hadn’t changed all that much. The deep forest, grown wild right up to the edge of the massive prayer gate, beckoned with green shadows. Stepping down off the deck, Sango let her bare feet take her across the lush grass. She paused at the forest’s edge, but shrugged. This close to a miko’s shrine, there shouldn’t be much danger. Most demons tended to avoid sacred places.

Still, she hesitated, not liking the idea of entering any forest without a weapon.

“Mew?”

Turning, Sango smiled as the small kitten stalked across the grass, whiskers twitching. With Kirara, she had little to fear from anything.

“Walk?” she asked the two-tailed, who showed her willingness by slipping ahead of the taijiya with her creamy tails flagged. Brushing a low-hanging branch aside, Sango entered the woods, following a trace of a trail. It was cool underneath the dappled shadows, and the trees didn’t grow so close together that they strangled the grass that softened their footfalls.

They didn’t wander far when the trees gave way to an open slope, the grass growing taller in the sunlight, almost up to her knees. Kirara was lost in the waving greenery, her passage marked by the disturbed rustle of the grass around her. The sun felt good on Sango’s skin, and she looked up, allowing the light breeze to fan through her bangs, drying them. Idly pulling the hair-tie Genkai had given her, she let her dark hair spill down her back so it, too, would dry.

Rocks dotted the field here and there, and Sango found a convenient prop against one of them. With her back nestled against the sun-warmed stone and Kirara laid across her lap, she felt the first true peace since she’d awakened. Closing her eyes, she let the drowsy warmth enfold her, the droning of bees a soothing accompaniment to the swish of the wind through leaves.

The droning of bees…

Sango’s eyes opened, and she quirked a brow at the insect that hovered not too far above her. If a dragonfly could give the evil eye, it would be this creature. An ugly navy-grayish color, it buzzed angrily at her intrusion. Or maybe it just saw her as a convenient meal. Some of the stronger varieties could sting a person to death, feasting on their victim’s blood.

A white blur launched itself off her lap and snagged the ugly bug right out of the sky with one little black paw. Making sure of the kill, Kirara suddenly raised her head, ears swiveling forward, curious but without alarm.

“You really shouldn’t be out here alone,” a quiet voice said, and Sango shielded her eyes, looking up at the tall figure emerging from underneath the trees. His eyes were greener than the pines bracketing him. “There are worse things than demon dragonflies in this forest.”

“I’m not too worried.” Sango shrugged as Kirara brought her prize over. Now her blood was up, the little neko wasn’t content to lie in the sun but went stalking more prey. Plucking a nearby leaf, Sango carefully deposited the dead bug in its curl.

“Most humans aren’t used to what lives in Genkai’s woods,” Kurama said.

“I’m not most humans,” Sango replied, voice hard. She wondered what had brought him out here, and didn’t particularly welcome the intrusion.

“This is true. Please, forgive me. I did not mean to disparage your abilities. But never having seen you fight, you must pardon my ignorance.”

He made a fair point. Still, Sango distrusted him. He was too polite. She wondered what that civility hid, and maybe that was what gave her the urge to be so rude. “Why are you here, kitsune?”

“Trust,” he strangely said. “You had justification, Miss Sango. I think, perhaps, that if we spoke a bit more, we might have the chance to become better acquainted.”

He was offering an olive branch. Surprised, Sango looked up at him. She searched his face for a long moment, trying to detect any hint of duplicity, but he showed only polite interest. Not that Kurama wasn’t capable of showing her only what he wanted her to see. But…well, he was offering when he really didn’t have to, and she wasn’t so pig-headed as to refuse.

Seeing her relax minutely, the kitsune took it as permission to sit down on one of the rocks beside her. A little to her left, he didn’t sit on the ground as she did, but perched on the rock itself, probably concerned for his odd-colored uniform. It was tailored closer to the body than the traditional haori and hakama most men wore. Mauve was actually a good color for him, setting off the deep russet of his hair and the verdant green of his eyes. He really was a beautiful man, his looks, if exotic, a little too feminine for her tastes. Perhaps it was the youkai spirit inside him that gave Kurama such an advantage over his fellows.

He was certainly at his ease in the field, his normal reserve relaxing as he gazed around him. “This is a pretty spot, untouched by the degradations of modern civilization. It’s rare, you know, for this much land to go uncultivated. Genkai has made this mountain a haven for not just wildlife, but apparitions.”

Sango’s brows rose. A priestess who purposely created a sanctuary for demons? It didn’t make sense, but then, much of what he said didn’t. How could this much land not go uncultivated, when there was so much to go around? At least, there was in her time.

“You’ll find the world much changed, Miss Sango, from that which you’ve known,” Kurama strangely echoed her thoughts. “This temple, this mountain, is really a  rare place caught out of time.”

How would he know what she’d known? It wasn’t as if he had lived for more than five hundred years. His body was decidedly human, even if his aura was that of a powerful fox demon. Again, it seemed he followed her thoughts, for he said lightly, “You may wonder why I say these things, but I have the unique perspective of the fox spirit who shares my body. I have access to his memories, and the experiences of nearly a millennia.”

A thousand years. He must be a powerful demon then, to have lived so long. Sango stared at Kurama curiously. She had never met a human who hadn’t eventually been overwhelmed by the youkai spirit dwelling inside them. Who knew what influences the powerful youkai had on the human boy, or what powers it gave him. She knew Kurama was strong---his aura couldn’t lie, though her spiritual sense had never been strong enough to discern specific talents. It had always been just enough to detect the feeling of power, and gauge the strength of it when close by. She had to rely on her more mundane skills as a taijiya to learn more.

“I don’t share this knowledge with many,” Kurama said, smiling slightly. She wondered at the trust he gave her, and if he was only manipulating the secret to gain hers.

Chagrinned, she found it really didn’t matter. “It must be hard, balancing the two halves inside you. I’ve never met anyone who could---the more powerful demon usually manages to subsume the human.”

At least, in her limited experience. Although her father had once spoken of meeting a rabbit spirit who had great skill and used the demon’s knowledge of herbs to help others. Her father held great respect for the man, who he said was a powerful healer.

“There is always that possibility,” Kurama admitted. Sango gave him a sharp look, which he met easily. He didn’t say anything, so she didn’t either.

Kirara distracted her, bringing another dead dragonfly to add to her growing collection. Sango thanked the neko gravely, and the little kitten mewed before heading back out, knowing how much they would come in handy.

“You have an unusual relationship with the nekomata,” Kurama remarked.

“Yes.” Sango watched her beloved cat slink off, her belly so low to the ground she barely made a ripple in the grass. “Kirara has been with me since I was little. She’s almost like a mother to me, my own died so young.”

“That must have been difficult.”

Sango shrugged. “I don’t remember her much. I was very young when she died in childbirth.”

“My own father passed away when I was young,” Kurama revealed. “It brought me and my mother closer, I think.”

She studied him. His face was closed to her, but she thought she detected something hidden in his eyes. His mother was incredibly important to him. That made him more approachable, somehow. Not that his charm didn’t help.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked carefully.

His raised brows were invitation enough.

Forging on ahead, Sango said, “What are you guys really doing for Spirit World? I know you said you were all part of some investigations team, but what, exactly, do you investigate? Are you guardians, then, for the mortal realm?”

Kurama considered her question. “You might call it that. There’s nothing you might compare it to in the Sengoku Jidai. There was never any central law enforcement agency---”

“Law enforcement?” Sango’s forehead wrinkled. Whose law, exactly, were they enforcing? Spirit World’s?

He smiled, somehow reading her thoughts, maybe across her face. She wasn’t as good at hiding her feelings as the kitsune. “Prince Koenma is the son of King Emma---”

“The god of the Afterlife?” Sango yelped, and then blushed. Of course he was the god of the Afterlife, if his son “Ko-emma” was the prince of that realm. And if these guys worked for him---that meant that they were a lot more important than she had yet realized.

“We work for him. Among many others,” he quantified, clearly amused by her awe.

“But, that’s…”

“Something that never happened in your time. Yes, the gods have taken a more direct hand in mortals’ lives than they did five hundred years ago. You see, demons---or I should say, most demons---” he smiled disarmingly, “were eventually removed to the demon realm, leaving the humans in peace to advance on their own.”

“Kagome mentioned that there weren’t many demons in her time,” Sango said slowly.

“No, there’s not. Not like five centuries ago. But those who are tend to be…difficult.” Again, that disarming smile. “That’s where Yusuke comes in. He’s Prince Koenma’s deputy to harry those who decide to make nuisances of themselves.”

“And the rest of you?”

“Assist him. As we can.”

“I see.” Except, she didn’t. Not entirely. It was a startling concept, even for a demon slayer who stood protection between humans and the demons who preyed on them. That helped, a bit, to put it in perspective. Maybe.


*She doesn’t understand.*

The voice was a harsh growl inside his head, and the emotion behind it was impatient, though Kurama couldn’t detect any disgust. Which was saying a lot, considering it was Hiei. The fire demon held a distinct dislike for all things human. At least, so he claimed.

*I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself, fox. This farce is annoying enough as it is.*

Kurama kept the smile from curving his lips by main will alone. It wouldn’t do to let the slayer see, and maybe wonder if there were more than just he taking part in this conversation. But without Hiei’s aid, he wouldn’t have been able to address her questions so easily. Or assess the motives and emotions that lay behind them.

*She sees the world too much in black and white,* came Hiei’s sharp assessment. *Her beliefs are simple, like a child’s.*

*Surprising, really. She seems fairly intelligent,* Kurama returned, though what was more surprising was Hiei’s lack of scorn. Normally, the fire youkai had little tolerance for what he called “typical human stupidity.”

*It’s innocence.* Again, the disgust was missing. Kurama coughed, then waved away the taijiya’s concern when she looked over at him.

“It’s nothing, my throat is just a little dry.”

“Is that all?”

They both turned at the sudden intrusion, the miko’s gravelly voice holding an irony that made Kurama shift uncomfortably. She fixed him with a penetrating gaze, as if knowing full well what he was doing.

“You should take care of that, fox. It wouldn’t be good for you to become sick before the tournament.”

“Tournament?” Sango asked.

“Time enough for that later,” Genkai dismissed. “You shouldn’t be out here. These woods can be dangerous, and you haven’t fully recovered your strength.”

The taijiya opened her mouth to protest, but the miko killed it with one glance. Genkai had a talent for those.

“Come on, gather your bugs and your cat, and let’s go. You need to rest.”

Startled, Kurama looked over to where the girl had collected quite the sizeable pile. He watched as she carefully folded the leaves over, making a neat package after adding the last one Kirara brought her. It was still twitching.

*Now, why would she be interested in keeping…*

“Yes, Genkai-sama,” she said, dutifully climbing to her feet as Kirara circled around her. She bowed to Kurama, who nodded politely, before heading back to the shrine.

Genkai fixed him with a last look, her hazel eyes appraising.

“If you two wish to play mind-games, I suggest you stick to the tournament and figuring out a way for your team to win. There’s less than two months left, and I think you’ll find that a much better use of your time.”

Kurama stared as the short figure turned away. Hiei abruptly appeared beside him, his red eyes inscrutable.

“Hn.”



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