InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 2 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: YoukaiFate 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.04.2008 | Pages: 5 | Words: 6.7K | Visits: 713 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 07.04.2008 | Pages: 5 | Words: 6.7K | Visits: 713 | Status: Completed
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.
THE HEART WITHIN
Summary: She has carried vengeance in her shadowed heart for 500 years, sacrificing her self for that dream. Now, Sango just might get her chance… (IY/YYH crossover)
A/N: I took the script in bold below from the animated English version of YYH episode, “Sensui‘s End.” None of those words are mine, nor is the action, though I’ve used my own words to describe it. I interrupt the scene at a certain point, and take off from there. Thank you for the reviews, they gave me the encouragement to continue. I’m not certain who the pairing will be in this story, though I have some idears knocking about inside my head. Thanks, Fate
(Sidenote: I was reminded of a certain wind demon by Guyute24, who has one awesome IY/YYH crossover called "Of Pride and Absolution." I absolutely adore it, and it's worth a look-in. You'll find her on my favorites on ff(dot)net. I really encourage you to check it out.)
WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND THE THREE KINGS SAGA!
WORD DEFINITIONS
Anei - shadow
Ningenkai - human world
Reikai - spirit word
Makai - demon world
Chapter One
The grassy clearing was quiet, but for Hiei’s light snores, as a tense silence descended on the group who had stood on edge since Yusuke had revealed that it hadn’t been he who had finally finished off Sensui, but someone else who had been controlling his body like a puppeteer. Exchanging pensive looks, their attention was jerked back as Yusuke growled, “Let’s go.”
“Uh…” Kuwabara’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Go where?” Koenma asked the question they were all wanting to.
“If my ancestor’s still here and still alive, than we have to find him.” Yusuke stared out toward the distant mountains as if he could pull the demon from out behind them.
“No!” Kuwabara protested with a shout. “C’mon, Urameshi! We closed the case and saved the world. Can’t we at least take a nap?”
“I’m not going to rest until I get to the bottom of this!” Smacking a fist into the palm of his other hand, he snarled, “My ancestor’s got in the way of my fights and I can’t let him get away with that, no matter who he’s related to.”
Lightning flickered across the ominous sky, piercing the dark blue and purple clouds with a wan, yellow light as everyone stared at their angry friend, who glared at their indecision. “If you aren’t with me, fine, then I’ll just stay and find him on my own!”
Koenma paused, his brown eyes grave. “You know, Yusuke, you may want to give this decision more thought. The SDF have no doubt been busy little beavers while we’ve been gone, damming up the tunnel on the human world side. Now those toadies may be many things, but they are not inefficient. That hole will be filled in like a cavity in a matter of days.”
“Wait a minute! If the hole is sealed up, then we---uh---” Kuwabara bit his lip, thunderstruck at the terrible thought.
“Won’t ever be able to return to Human World again.”
“That’s not true.”
They all turned to stare in shock as a dark figure emerged from under the trees, calmly walking toward them as if there was nothing to fear. Wrapped in a long black cloak, the hood drawn down so only the bottom half of their face was revealed, they paused as the group responded with a defensive straightening of their casual stance.
Raising his fists, Yusuke shouted, “I don’t know who the hell you are, buddy, but you better start explaining just what you’re suddenly doing here, or you’re going to feel my fist in your face! I don’t take too well to surprises!”
“Yeah! Same here!” Kuwabara yelled, shaking a fist in the stranger’s direction as Kurama and Koenma stared in more patient curiosity. The giant blue bird behind them twitched its feathers and stirred restlessly from one foot to the other, the draping form of the oblivious fire youkai still snoozing across its back and shoulder, undisturbed by the hostility in the clearing.
“Just who are you, stranger?” Koenma asked, eyes narrowing as if he could see something past the surface of the concealing cloak. “And why do you think it’s not true that if we don’t return to human world now, than we never can?”
“Because you are mistaken, sir.” The voice was soft, almost deferential, but that didn’t ease any of their tension.
“Explain yourself!” Yusuke shouted. “Who are you?”
“I am called---” Casually reaching up to push back the draping hood, the person finally revealed themselves. “Anei.”
Lightning suddenly cracked across the sky, leaving spidery tendrils of yellow brilliance against the dark purple clouds as thunder rumbled.
“Well, that was theatrical,” Kurama commented dryly, his voice roughened slightly by the heightened presence of his other self, the fox demon Youko.
“A girl?” Kuwabara’s mouth fell open. She seemed far less dangerous, with her black hair spilling across her shoulders and her delicate features revealed. She was pretty, maybe even beautiful---though no one could ever be as beautiful to him as his Yukina---with an almost elfin face. Her chin was pointed and stubborn, her lips a little thin, perhaps, for true beauty. Her nose was a little upturned and her thickly-lashed brown eyes were half-way covered by the thick feathers of her bangs, which stirred restlessly in the rising wind. She was rather short and slight, the draping folds of her long black cloak wrapping themselves to one side as they flared out on the other. There was something not quite right with her, though, and it had his sixth sense buzzing like crazy, though he couldn’t quite tell why.
“That doesn’t really tell us a whole helluva lot.” Yusuke brushed at the long brown bangs that covered his eyes. “Damn it! Stupid hair!”
“Anei,” Koenma drawled her name out thoughtfully, trying to wrack his brain for the nagging worry that wiggled just out of his reach. “Where do I know you from?”
“Who cares!” Yusuke shouted, folding his arms across his bare chest and glaring at her with disdain. “She’s just a stupid girl.”
Brown eyes narrowing, the girl responded with an icy rejoinder, “Don’t underestimate me, demon. It was I who was sent to kill you.”
Lightning lashed across the sky again, thunder snarling behind it.
“Woah! What was that?!” Kuwabara roared as Yusuke smirked.
“Really? Is that so?” Raising a fist, he pointed it in her direction with a cocky smirk. “Now that’s what I need---a fight. Though I don’t expect you’ll put up much of one. I’m a S-class demon now, don’t you know.”
“I didn’t come here to fight you, Yusuke Urameshi, much as you would like me to. I came here to warn you of the danger you are now in. I felt it was the least I could do, seeing as you are the one who allowed me to finally cross the barrier.” Her eyes were dark, unfathomable, and Kuwabara almost flinched at the cold disdain in them.
“Anei---I got it!” Koenma suddenly shouted, drawing their startled attention as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “You’re her---the demon assassin! Some call you the Shadow---but no one really knows who you are. You’re one of the strongest fighters in my father’s employ, but you never show any true loyalty to the Reikai. Your skills are legendary, but my father would never have let you come to the demon world, even to kill Yusuke, unless he was desperate. Tell me---did my father, King Yama, send you?”
“Yes---and no,” she replied, her stance almost relaxed and easy amidst the angry tension surrounding her.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Yusuke shouted. “If you’re here to fight me, than let’s do it, ’cause I’m ready! I just gotta warn ya, I ain’t ready to die again today, and I won’t go easy on you, just because you’re a girl!”
“Urameshi!” Kuwabara automatically protested, his sense of honor ruffled once again by his friend’s callous disregard for the Rules.
“Stow it, Kuwabara. I’m not in the mood to let anyone threaten me and get away with it!” Yusuke snarled, fists clenching as he squared his body to face the girl. He blinked as he saw a slight smile curve her lips, her eyes softening for a moment as she shook her head.
“Is he always this dense?” She directed her question to Koenma, who nodded with a wan smile.
“I’m afraid he is.”
“Hey!” Yusuke shouted, then gagged as some of his sudden new hair decided it would try to get in his mouth as the wind picked up. “Damn it!”
“You still have yet to explain yourself, miss,” Kurama pointed out, his voice slightly husky from the strain of having his demon energy drained so fully from the fight with Sensui. It seemed like ages ago, and had yet just happened. Things had a ways of hurrying along where Yusuke was concerned, and he should have grown used to it by now.
“I was not the one King Yama intended to go,” she said, her slight smile vanishing as quickly as it had come. “But I decided to take advantage of the situation for my own reasons.”
“And they are?” Yusuke growled, tugging at his hair with two fists of frustration.
“None of your business,” she replied sharply, her eyes narrowing.
“Ha! Hit a nerve, there, did I?” Yusuke abandoned the futile struggle with his hair to put his hands on his hips and grin sarcastically at her.
She ignored him, turning back to the more intelligent members of the group. “You should know, Prince Koenma, that the King has written out a death warrant on Yusuke Urameshi. Reikai considers his new, demonic power to be too great a risk to allow back into human world.”
“But that’s…that’s…wrong!” Kuwabara protested at the top of his lungs. “How could they do something like that?”
“Something we’ve already known,” Koenma interrupted. “The SDF captain told me and Yusuke on the other side of the tunnel that part of their mission was to kill Yusuke. He’s considered too dangerous a demon now.”
“Heh. Got ’em all scared, do I?” He rubbed his knuckles against his muscled chest with pride.
“Why are you telling us this, Anei? And what did you mean when you said that it wasn’t true that unless we return to human world now, before the breach in the barrier is closed by the SDF, and we’re stuck in this realm forever?” Koenma demanded.
“Yeah!” Kuwabara hit on that second question. “What’d you mean? I don’t want to be stuck here in this godforsaken place any longer than I have to!”
“I’m telling you because it’s only fair to warn you. The Reikai will not rest until they have captured or killed Yusuke Urameshi, and there are more assassins than just me at their disposal.”
“Ha! Bring ’em on!” Yusuke tossed his hair back, his smile cocky and confident. “I can take on anyone, any time.”
The girl remained silent.
“Why have you gone against my father’s wishes? Why bother? Even if you don’t intend to kill Yusuke yourself, why warn him?”
“Because it’s not right to turn on one of your own.” Her voice grew suddenly angry, her eyes darkening to a mahogany hue. “Especially when he’s done nothing to deserve it. The Reikai often consider themselves morally superior to mere humans, but just because they are from spirit world doesn’t give them the right to pass judgment on a half-demon just because he is what he is. It’s not his fault.”
There was a wealth of anger and passion in her words, and she turned away to gain control over the boil of her emotions. They gave her that, respectful of her feelings, and said nothing when she turned back to them, her face an unemotional mask once more. “Look, my reasons do not matter. Just take my warning---and my advice. If I were Yusuke, than I would stay here, in demon world, where the SDF think he will be trapped forever, when he doesn’t have to be.”
“How?” Koenma asked, eager to know how the kakai barrier could be breached once sealed.
“If you, Prince Koenma---and you---” she pointed at Kuwabara, who pointed at himself and then mouthed, “Me?” in surprise at her nod, “go back to human world, then you could open the kakai barrier at any time you wanted to. Once your spiritual power is restored, Prince Koenma, than you could open a passage at any time to the Barrier, and Kuwabara, with his spirit sword, could cut through the kakai net once more.”
“Wouldn’t that just allow other demons to pass through?” Kurama asked, his white hair rustling slightly in the faint breeze. “It would be the same situation as we have now.”
“Not so,” Koenma said slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “I had forgotten that any SDF can open a window, so to speak, to the barrier from the human realm. It just takes spirit energy.”
“I have that!” Yusuke yelled, his smile growing as he enthusiastically turned the possibility over in his mind. “That means I can go home any time I want to, right? I can stay here, find that ancestral creep who stole my fight and took over my body, off him, and then go back home.”
“I’m sorry, Yusuke, but it doesn’t quite work that way.” Koenma shook his head sadly.
“What’d you mean, baby-face, it doesn’t quite work that way?” Yusuke growled, his dark brows drawing down as he glared.
“A portal to the barrier can only be made from the human side, Yusuke,” Koenma answered gravely. “It doesn’t work on the demon side---a precaution created to keep demons from exhorting a captured SDF agent to open a gateway to the Ningenkai.”
“That’s stupid!” Yusuke shouted his opinion of the whole idea.
“But necessary,” Kurama said gently, his light golden eyes straying across the hilly landscape. “There are many demons who would be eager to use such a way to cross over to the human realm.”
“Very true,” Koenma agreed with a grave nod.
“So, what does that mean?” Kuwabara demanded. “That only me and Koenma can open the barrier back up, and only from human world?”
“Tell me,” Kurama turned back to the girl, who had watched them silently the whole time, “what of the barrier? If Kuwabara cuts another hole in it, to allow us to pass through it and return to human world, what happens then? Isn’t the SDF trying to close the barrier now?”
“That’s where I would come in,” Koenma answered, his tone a little rueful. “With my spiritual power restored, I can close the barrier back up in a matter of minutes. I am King Yama’s son. I have a little more power at my disposal than those SDF toadies.”
Yusuke stomped over to the seemingly brown-haired teenager and grabbed the front of his shirt in one fist so he could pick him up and shake him. “Are you telling me, brat, that you knew this the whole time and didn’t think to tell us? What was all that doomsday crap earlier about us never being able to return again to Ningenkai? Huh?”
“Well---” Koenma blushed even as he kicked feebly a foot off the ground, “I forgot.”
“You forgot?!” Yusuke dropped him like a stone, sending the prince sprawling. “You got to be kidding me! What the hell else did you conveniently ‘forget’ to tell us, huh?”
Puu crooned at his spirit-brother’s agitation, his head bending down to regard them all with a concerned eye as Koenma picked himself back up and dusted himself off.
“You’re acting like a brat, Yusuke, when all we’re trying to do is help you.” The prince glared.
“I’m acting like a brat?” Yusuke laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. “Well, maybe I got my reasons, pacifier-junkie! I just had some stupid ancestor demon take over my body and kill off my opponent and I don’t know when he might try and do it again!”
“Well, now you can have your chance to find him, Yusuke,” Kurama pointed out, his husky voice amused. “Without being trapped in demon world forever.”
“Ah---” Yusuke glared, finger pointing angrily at his friend before he froze, his face suddenly cracking a wide smile. “That’s right! I can now go find that ass hole, kill him, and still return to Kei---I mean, school. Wait---come to think of it, who the hell wants to return to school?”
“Urameshi!” Kuwabara protested. “Don’t you want to graduate?”
Yusuke rolled his eyes, wiping his long hair back away from his brow with an impatient gesture. “First, I’ll need a hair cut. This mop is driving me crazy!”
“Then you’ve decided to stay?” Koenma asked, pursing his lips.
“Hell, yeah, I’m staying!” Yusuke rounded on the other boy. “I gotta go find that jerk who took over my body and killed Sensui. He’s got some explaining to do!”
“I understand.” Koenma nodded. “Then the rest of us will return to human world---”
“I’m staying,” Kurama said suddenly.
“What?” Yusuke turned around, a grin growing. “Thanks, fox. I could use the help.”
“My pleasure.” The fox demon bowed slightly. “I feel there is something here that can also help me answer some questions I have of my own.”
“Yusuke could use the help---if only to keep that hot head of his under some type of cool control.” Koenma sighed.
“What was that?” Yusuke shouted.
Ignoring him, Koenma turned to Kurama. “Then I guess, Hiei will be staying, too.”
“I know he would prefer it,” Kurama replied. Glancing up at his friend, who still snored across the spirit-bird’s shoulder, he smiled fondly. “He has missed Makai. It’s his home. I think he deserves to stay for all he has done for us. He’s more than worked off his sentence, I should think.”
Koenma frowned. “Yes…”
“Then, it’s decided. Hiei and I will stay in demon world for now and help Yusuke find this ancestor of his so we can question his intentions---”
“Who says anything about question?” Yusuke slammed a fist into his other hand. “I just plan to smash his face in for what he did to me!”
“Hey!” Kuwabara shouted, his hands curling into frustrated fists at his side. “What about me? Huh? Don’t I count for something?”
“Er…” Koenma looked slightly nervous, not quite meeting the other boy’s eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What aren’t you telling me, diaper-boy?” Kuwabara snarled. “I ain’t stupid!”
“Much,” Yusuke added, his eyes warm as he looked up at his friend.
“Damn it, Urameshi!” Kuwabara shook a fist at him.
“Kuwabara---” Kurama laid a gentle hand on the tall boy’s shoulder. “We will need you to return to human world with Koenma, to open the barrier back up for us when we’re ready to return. Only you have the power to open the kakai net, and you can only do it from the other side.”
“But---that means---” Kuwabara looked haggard at the thought.
“That you’ll have to go back, you big lug, and let me go do this one on my own,” Yusuke said, punching the boy lightly on the other shoulder.
“Not on your own,” Kurama gently interrupted, and Yusuke flashed him a grateful smile.
“But---that’s not fair!” Kuwabara protested. “How come they get to stay when I don’t?”
“Because, you numbskull, I need you to go back and protect everyone while I’m gone.” Yusuke knocked him upside the head, causing the big man to fall on his ass in the dirt so he could stand over him with his arms on his hips to smile down at him. “I’m depending on you to take care of things while I’m stuck here doing what I gotta do. I don’t want my mom or Keiko to worry, and I don’t want any punks getting any bright ideas about moving in on our turf. Besides, now that I’m officially fired, there’s no Spirit Detective back there to defend the city against any bad weirdo’s who think they can just run over the humans.”
Kuwabara looked distinctly unhappy, but was disgruntled by Yusuke’s sound arguments. “But we’re a team, Urameshi. You need me.”
“I do need you, idiot. But I need you back there, so I don’t have to worry about anything. I know you’ll take care of everyone while I’m gone, and make sure nothing happens to them while I’m stuck down here. That takes a big load off my mind.”
“Not to mention, Kuwabara, that you’ll be needed to re-open the barrier with me when Yusuke decides to return,” Koenma added.
“Damn it,” Kuwabara sulked, shoulders slumping in defeat. Yusuke lightly punched him, and he grinned wanly as the other boy helped him back up to his feet. Suddenly pointing a finger in the ex-Spirit Detective’s face, the redhead growled, “You better take care of yourself, Urameshi! Got that? ’Cause if you don’t, I ain’t gonna be there a second time to come save your ass!”
“Got it, you big clown.” Yusuke grinned, and then flew across the grass as Kuwabara’s heavy fist crashed against his noggin. “Hey! What the hell was that for?!”
“You better not do anything stupid, Urameshi, and make me worry! I’m gonna do what I gotta do, and make sure everything stay’s okay back in human world, but you better make sure you come back, ’cause if you don’t, than I’m going to come back here and---” Wiping a tear from his eye, the big man glared as he pretended that he didn’t really care. His act wasn’t fooling anyone.
Kurama touched the redhead on one shoulder. “Don’t worry, Kuwabara. Hiei and I will make sure Yusuke doesn’t do anything too stupid.”
“Hey!”
Kuwabara sniffed. “You better, Kurama. And tell that pint-sized runt that I’ll be looking for him if anything happens to Urameshi. He better take care of him, if he knows what’s good for him!”
“I will,” Kurama assured him.
“Hey! You all act like I can’t take care of myself!” Yusuke yelled, jumping back up to his feet.
“Just do it, you big dummy.” Kuwabara suddenly squeezed the other boy in a bear hug, lifting him up a good foot off the ground.
“Ow! Damn it, you stupid bear!”
“You better get a hair cut, Urameshi.” Kuwabara let him go. “You look like a girl with all that hair.”
“What?!”
“He does, a bit.” Koenma looked at the hairy detective with an assessing eye.
“Excuse me?!”
“Heh.” Kurama looked amused.
“Well, I guess we should go.” Koenma looked back towards the distant horizon, as if he could see the portal closing. “We’ll have to take Puu to make it in time.”
The blue bird made a low sound, not liking that fact but not arguing either.
“What’ll we do about Hiei? He’s still sound asleep!” Kuwabara scowled up at the black-haired demon, distinctly perturbed by how sound a sleeper he was.
“We all, actually, need to rest.” Kurama looked at Yusuke. “Kuwabara’s idea of a nap is a good one.”
Yusuke scowled. “I guess so.”
“Hiei and I will need to recover our demon energy, and even you, Yusuke, could use the rest. Hiei is probably the smartest of all of us for taking the first quiet moment to fall asleep.”
“Pass out, you mean.” Kuwabara grinned at that weakness.
“I suggest you find somewhere a little more safe than this open clearing,” Koenma said, glancing around him with a jaundiced eye.
“Hey! Where’d that girl go?” Kuwabara looked around wildly. The wind stirred the grass lightly, and the only sound was the trees swaying in the breeze. Lightning continued to flicker silently among the heavy clouds above them, but did not strike like it had earlier. There was no sign anyone had ever been there, and they all looked at each other in puzzlement.
“Did anyone even see her leave?” Kurama asked, slightly worried by that fact.
“Now, that’s creepy. I don’t like it,” Yusuke growled, holding a hand over his eyes so he could look around the silent clearing with a glare. “I don’t trust that damn bitch. Why‘d she come all the way here just to warn us that she was sent to kill us, and then tell us how we can stay, and then just up and disappear like that? Something smells about the whole thing.”
“You worry too much.” Koenma shook his head, dismissing their concern. “You don’t have to worry about her, Yusuke. She already told us that she only came to warn us because she thought it was wrong not to. You should be grateful that she did, because she also reminded me of how you can stay in demon world long enough to find your ancestor and still be able to return to the human world.”
“That is true,” Kurama conceded. “Perhaps we should be grateful. She didn’t have to go out of her way for us.”
“Heh. An assassin with an honor code. That’s rich,” Yusuke sneered, unfazed by their arguments.
“She does have an honor code, though it’s as much a mystery to anyone as anything about her.” Koenma frowned.
“What do you know of this Anei, Koenma?” Kurama asked, wiping a tired hand across his face. He wasn’t good for too much longer on his feet. He was as exhausted as Hiei, and could have slept like the dead as the fire demon was doing, but felt he needed a few more answers before he could allow himself the luxury.
“Not much,” Koenma admitted, nonplussed at Yusuke’s derisive snort. Ignoring the boy, he turned to speak to the fox demon, who still looked rather strange in his Youko Kurama form, rather than as the elegant, red-headed boy Shuichi Minamino he was more used to. “She was hired about a hundred-fifty years ago, during the Meiji period of Japan, and no one knows anything about her past. My dad might, but he’s always been really evasive about it. I know that there was an official order sent out, under the most top-secret clearance, that she must never be allowed to even get close to the barrier, let alone cross it, and that was weird, because we occasionally send the assassins out into demon world to take care of someone for us. They’re the best of the best---they make the SDF look like a bunch of pathetic weaklings.”
“What is she?” Kurama asked. “Her energy was strange. She felt almost like me, but not quite the same. She has a demonic aura, but feels entirely human.”
“Hey! That explains the weird feeling I had about her.” Kuwabara suddenly interrupted, eyes lighting up. “My spiritual sense was going crazy, but I didn’t know why. I just thought it was all the weird energy in this evil place.”
“She is human.” Koenma nodded as Yusuke made a face. “But she’s part demon.”
“Is she a Mazoku descendant, like me?” Yusuke demanded, loathing the idea. He wondered what his own aura now felt like.
“Not quite.” Koenma smiled. “As far as I know, she was born a human, sometime in the distant past, and somehow gained the heart of a wind youkai. At least, that’s what the records say.”
“A wind demon?” Kuwabara blinked. “Like Jin?”
“Hey! I remember him. I fought him during the Dark Tournament. It was a draw.” Yusuke grinned at the fond memory, before planting a fist in his other hand. “Come to think of it, he was a little strange, a bit off in the head, I’d say. Maybe that explains how weird she is.”
Kurama just shook his head as Koenma scowled. “You really are dense, Urameshi. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long. Some people are just born lucky, I guess.”
It was Yusuke’s turn to scowl as Kuwabara laughed. “Ha, ha, Urameshi! He’s got you there!”
“Shut up,” Yusuke growled, fists clenching.
“Awn, whatcha gonna do to make me, little girl?” Kuwabara taunted, relishing the return of their easy banter. He hated to admit it, but he didn’t want to leave Urameshi back here where he couldn’t help him. He needed the reassurance that Yusuke was going to be all right, that he was still the same jerk he had always known, that he was going to be okay, even as this half-demon-whatever-it-was he had turned himself into.
“You’re going to pay for that, oaf!” Yusuke launched himself at the taller boy, who laughed in delight as they went down in a tumble of flying fists and feet.
“Heh.” Kurama looked on the wildly swinging pair with tolerant amusement as Koenma rolled his eyes.
“Will they ever learn?”
“Probably not,” Kurama replied.
“I’m going to kick your ass, Urameshi!” Kuwabara shouted behind them.
“Is that so? You and what army?” Yusuke’s shout was lost as Kuwabara hollered as he landed a nasty punch on the other boy’s chin.
“Take care of him, Koenma,” Kurama said, nodding to the gleeful redhead, who was busy punching his best friend in the gut.
“And you take care of him, Kurama.” Koenma nodded at the other boy, who was cursing loudly as his long hair got in the way.
“You not only look like a girl now, Urameshi, you fight like one!” Kuwabara taunted, groaning as a fist glanced off his forehead and another hit him in the ribs.
“I do not!” Yusuke roared, fists flying faster as Kuwabara ducked away. “You’re going to eat those words, meathead!”
The two watchers could only shake their heads as Hiei continued to snore and Puu crooned softly to himself, settling down to wait. This might take awhile.
She stared about her in some surprise, for it was not as she had expected. She had thought the demon world would be some dark pit of hellish fire or a grisly landscape of dead trees, barren rocks and grey dirt. Maybe even something like Naraku’s castle had been back in the day, with a thick miasma of heavy evil hanging over it in sullen anger. The sky was a strange color---not blue, as in the living world, but rather a dark indigo and purple, though it could be the low clouds that still hovered across the landscape, lightning occasionally flickering in their depths.
The thick grass under her feet and the tall trees that surrounded her on all sides felt like any others she had known, and the wind circled around her with a faint touch of dampness. The smell, which at first had seemed to carry a faint, sulfuric hint of rotting flesh and charred remains, now seemed cleaner to her, as if she had learned to sense the air beneath the first layer. Perhaps she had just gotten used to it, but she felt slightly dizzy as she breathed deeper, taking in great lungfuls of fresh air without the stench of auto exhaust or pollution. She hadn’t breathed air this clean and pure since long ago, when the living world had been far less mechanized than it was now, and she smiled at the memories it recalled for her, for she smelled the faint hint of flowers on the breeze.
She froze, smelling something else, and quickly jumped up and out of the way as a thick club smashed into the ground she had been standing on but a moment before. Flipping over in mid-air, she landed lightly on the balls of her feet, one hand on the hilt of her hidden sword, though it was unnecessary, for the dagger she had sent spinning through the air as she jumped away had found its target, and landed hilt-deep right in the center of the one-eyed demon’s forehead.
It fell on its face with a startled, gurgling cry, its huge body twitching feebly before finally laying still. She watched, waiting for any others that might lie hidden, and was rewarded for her patience when a second one-eyed ogre burst out from the trees with a roar.
“Damn you, human!” His bloody eye glinted with rage, its dull awareness seething with hatred. “I’m going to kill you and enjoy eating you for that!”
Raising his club, he started to swing it with all his might for her head, but the action was suddenly arrested as his body spasmed, the club falling from his loosened grip as his headless body abruptly fell over with a crash. The head sailed cleanly across the small clearing until it disappeared among some thick bushes.
Flicking the blood off of her sword, Sango calmly went and retrieved her knife from the other ogre’s forehead. Wiping the blood off in the grass, she made a face at the stench that rose from the bodies. Demon insects were already flocking to the fresh kill, and there would soon be other carrion-eaters attracted to the opportunity thus presented. She’d be better to leave and avoid any others who might take it into their dull heads that she might be an easy meal.
She should actually take some time to sit down and think of how she should proceed. She knew little of the terrain, and had no idea how she might go tracking down one demon among thousands. It would be like searching for a single piece of grass in a field of them, and she was a little annoyed at herself for not having thought too much past the point of actually getting here, to the demon world. It was rather humbling, actually. One would think after five hundred years, she would have learned to think a little more ahead than this. She was acting more like Inuyasha right now, in just leaping ahead half-cocked, than she was her more careful self. She smiled sadly at the memory, and looked up at the strange sky, the breeze tickling the hairs along her cheeks and forehead as she wondered if he were back there, now, in human world, with Kagome, at her family’s shrine. She might never know---for the burden of her promise to Shigure in exchange for Kagura’s heart prevented her from ever finding them again.
It was the price for her revenge, and while it had seemed okay at the time, as anything would have, it sat heavily upon her now, when she might have been able to actually go and see them, and be welcomed by the family she had surrounded herself with after her own had died.
Her heart tightened in her chest, and she felt the wind whisper to her faintly, its touch eerily familiar. It had been like that, ever since the horrific operation, when the demon chirugeon had implanted her with Kagura’s heart. She had felt as if she were somehow a part of it, and she could use the winds in small part, although she didn’t have nearly the same power and control as Kagura had had over them. She could manipulate the air around her self, even lighten her own body or feed her own energy into it to make a stronger breeze, but it was harder for her to do, and cost her more strength than she was willing to expend. Her physical gifts of enhanced strength, speed and agility were more than enough for her to be grateful for, not to mention the healing properties and longevity imparted her mortal body.
The cost would be worth it, in the end, if she were able to find Naraku, finally free her brother and kill that disgusting parasite. It would all be worth it---the pain and the loneliness, the seething anger and the betrayal of all that her clan had held dear. She would give anything, do anything, to realize that dream, and she had already sacrificed her humanity and her life for it. She was the shadow who slipped across the edge of life, never taking a part in it. Always traveling her road alone, and always knowing that she could never find peace until she finished the task she had set herself. Then she could be free, and that desire, so strong in Kagura’s heart, which was now a part of her, cried out in the darkness of the empty night, hungering for that wisp of hope, that one day, she would be…
THE HEART WITHIN
Summary: She has carried vengeance in her shadowed heart for 500 years, sacrificing her self for that dream. Now, Sango just might get her chance… (IY/YYH crossover)
A/N: I took the script in bold below from the animated English version of YYH episode, “Sensui‘s End.” None of those words are mine, nor is the action, though I’ve used my own words to describe it. I interrupt the scene at a certain point, and take off from there. Thank you for the reviews, they gave me the encouragement to continue. I’m not certain who the pairing will be in this story, though I have some idears knocking about inside my head. Thanks, Fate
(Sidenote: I was reminded of a certain wind demon by Guyute24, who has one awesome IY/YYH crossover called "Of Pride and Absolution." I absolutely adore it, and it's worth a look-in. You'll find her on my favorites on ff(dot)net. I really encourage you to check it out.)
WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND THE THREE KINGS SAGA!
WORD DEFINITIONS
Anei - shadow
Ningenkai - human world
Reikai - spirit word
Makai - demon world
Chapter One
The grassy clearing was quiet, but for Hiei’s light snores, as a tense silence descended on the group who had stood on edge since Yusuke had revealed that it hadn’t been he who had finally finished off Sensui, but someone else who had been controlling his body like a puppeteer. Exchanging pensive looks, their attention was jerked back as Yusuke growled, “Let’s go.”
“Uh…” Kuwabara’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“Go where?” Koenma asked the question they were all wanting to.
“If my ancestor’s still here and still alive, than we have to find him.” Yusuke stared out toward the distant mountains as if he could pull the demon from out behind them.
“No!” Kuwabara protested with a shout. “C’mon, Urameshi! We closed the case and saved the world. Can’t we at least take a nap?”
“I’m not going to rest until I get to the bottom of this!” Smacking a fist into the palm of his other hand, he snarled, “My ancestor’s got in the way of my fights and I can’t let him get away with that, no matter who he’s related to.”
Lightning flickered across the ominous sky, piercing the dark blue and purple clouds with a wan, yellow light as everyone stared at their angry friend, who glared at their indecision. “If you aren’t with me, fine, then I’ll just stay and find him on my own!”
Koenma paused, his brown eyes grave. “You know, Yusuke, you may want to give this decision more thought. The SDF have no doubt been busy little beavers while we’ve been gone, damming up the tunnel on the human world side. Now those toadies may be many things, but they are not inefficient. That hole will be filled in like a cavity in a matter of days.”
“Wait a minute! If the hole is sealed up, then we---uh---” Kuwabara bit his lip, thunderstruck at the terrible thought.
“Won’t ever be able to return to Human World again.”
“That’s not true.”
They all turned to stare in shock as a dark figure emerged from under the trees, calmly walking toward them as if there was nothing to fear. Wrapped in a long black cloak, the hood drawn down so only the bottom half of their face was revealed, they paused as the group responded with a defensive straightening of their casual stance.
Raising his fists, Yusuke shouted, “I don’t know who the hell you are, buddy, but you better start explaining just what you’re suddenly doing here, or you’re going to feel my fist in your face! I don’t take too well to surprises!”
“Yeah! Same here!” Kuwabara yelled, shaking a fist in the stranger’s direction as Kurama and Koenma stared in more patient curiosity. The giant blue bird behind them twitched its feathers and stirred restlessly from one foot to the other, the draping form of the oblivious fire youkai still snoozing across its back and shoulder, undisturbed by the hostility in the clearing.
“Just who are you, stranger?” Koenma asked, eyes narrowing as if he could see something past the surface of the concealing cloak. “And why do you think it’s not true that if we don’t return to human world now, than we never can?”
“Because you are mistaken, sir.” The voice was soft, almost deferential, but that didn’t ease any of their tension.
“Explain yourself!” Yusuke shouted. “Who are you?”
“I am called---” Casually reaching up to push back the draping hood, the person finally revealed themselves. “Anei.”
Lightning suddenly cracked across the sky, leaving spidery tendrils of yellow brilliance against the dark purple clouds as thunder rumbled.
“Well, that was theatrical,” Kurama commented dryly, his voice roughened slightly by the heightened presence of his other self, the fox demon Youko.
“A girl?” Kuwabara’s mouth fell open. She seemed far less dangerous, with her black hair spilling across her shoulders and her delicate features revealed. She was pretty, maybe even beautiful---though no one could ever be as beautiful to him as his Yukina---with an almost elfin face. Her chin was pointed and stubborn, her lips a little thin, perhaps, for true beauty. Her nose was a little upturned and her thickly-lashed brown eyes were half-way covered by the thick feathers of her bangs, which stirred restlessly in the rising wind. She was rather short and slight, the draping folds of her long black cloak wrapping themselves to one side as they flared out on the other. There was something not quite right with her, though, and it had his sixth sense buzzing like crazy, though he couldn’t quite tell why.
“That doesn’t really tell us a whole helluva lot.” Yusuke brushed at the long brown bangs that covered his eyes. “Damn it! Stupid hair!”
“Anei,” Koenma drawled her name out thoughtfully, trying to wrack his brain for the nagging worry that wiggled just out of his reach. “Where do I know you from?”
“Who cares!” Yusuke shouted, folding his arms across his bare chest and glaring at her with disdain. “She’s just a stupid girl.”
Brown eyes narrowing, the girl responded with an icy rejoinder, “Don’t underestimate me, demon. It was I who was sent to kill you.”
Lightning lashed across the sky again, thunder snarling behind it.
“Woah! What was that?!” Kuwabara roared as Yusuke smirked.
“Really? Is that so?” Raising a fist, he pointed it in her direction with a cocky smirk. “Now that’s what I need---a fight. Though I don’t expect you’ll put up much of one. I’m a S-class demon now, don’t you know.”
“I didn’t come here to fight you, Yusuke Urameshi, much as you would like me to. I came here to warn you of the danger you are now in. I felt it was the least I could do, seeing as you are the one who allowed me to finally cross the barrier.” Her eyes were dark, unfathomable, and Kuwabara almost flinched at the cold disdain in them.
“Anei---I got it!” Koenma suddenly shouted, drawing their startled attention as he pointed an accusing finger at her. “You’re her---the demon assassin! Some call you the Shadow---but no one really knows who you are. You’re one of the strongest fighters in my father’s employ, but you never show any true loyalty to the Reikai. Your skills are legendary, but my father would never have let you come to the demon world, even to kill Yusuke, unless he was desperate. Tell me---did my father, King Yama, send you?”
“Yes---and no,” she replied, her stance almost relaxed and easy amidst the angry tension surrounding her.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Yusuke shouted. “If you’re here to fight me, than let’s do it, ’cause I’m ready! I just gotta warn ya, I ain’t ready to die again today, and I won’t go easy on you, just because you’re a girl!”
“Urameshi!” Kuwabara automatically protested, his sense of honor ruffled once again by his friend’s callous disregard for the Rules.
“Stow it, Kuwabara. I’m not in the mood to let anyone threaten me and get away with it!” Yusuke snarled, fists clenching as he squared his body to face the girl. He blinked as he saw a slight smile curve her lips, her eyes softening for a moment as she shook her head.
“Is he always this dense?” She directed her question to Koenma, who nodded with a wan smile.
“I’m afraid he is.”
“Hey!” Yusuke shouted, then gagged as some of his sudden new hair decided it would try to get in his mouth as the wind picked up. “Damn it!”
“You still have yet to explain yourself, miss,” Kurama pointed out, his voice slightly husky from the strain of having his demon energy drained so fully from the fight with Sensui. It seemed like ages ago, and had yet just happened. Things had a ways of hurrying along where Yusuke was concerned, and he should have grown used to it by now.
“I was not the one King Yama intended to go,” she said, her slight smile vanishing as quickly as it had come. “But I decided to take advantage of the situation for my own reasons.”
“And they are?” Yusuke growled, tugging at his hair with two fists of frustration.
“None of your business,” she replied sharply, her eyes narrowing.
“Ha! Hit a nerve, there, did I?” Yusuke abandoned the futile struggle with his hair to put his hands on his hips and grin sarcastically at her.
She ignored him, turning back to the more intelligent members of the group. “You should know, Prince Koenma, that the King has written out a death warrant on Yusuke Urameshi. Reikai considers his new, demonic power to be too great a risk to allow back into human world.”
“But that’s…that’s…wrong!” Kuwabara protested at the top of his lungs. “How could they do something like that?”
“Something we’ve already known,” Koenma interrupted. “The SDF captain told me and Yusuke on the other side of the tunnel that part of their mission was to kill Yusuke. He’s considered too dangerous a demon now.”
“Heh. Got ’em all scared, do I?” He rubbed his knuckles against his muscled chest with pride.
“Why are you telling us this, Anei? And what did you mean when you said that it wasn’t true that unless we return to human world now, before the breach in the barrier is closed by the SDF, and we’re stuck in this realm forever?” Koenma demanded.
“Yeah!” Kuwabara hit on that second question. “What’d you mean? I don’t want to be stuck here in this godforsaken place any longer than I have to!”
“I’m telling you because it’s only fair to warn you. The Reikai will not rest until they have captured or killed Yusuke Urameshi, and there are more assassins than just me at their disposal.”
“Ha! Bring ’em on!” Yusuke tossed his hair back, his smile cocky and confident. “I can take on anyone, any time.”
The girl remained silent.
“Why have you gone against my father’s wishes? Why bother? Even if you don’t intend to kill Yusuke yourself, why warn him?”
“Because it’s not right to turn on one of your own.” Her voice grew suddenly angry, her eyes darkening to a mahogany hue. “Especially when he’s done nothing to deserve it. The Reikai often consider themselves morally superior to mere humans, but just because they are from spirit world doesn’t give them the right to pass judgment on a half-demon just because he is what he is. It’s not his fault.”
There was a wealth of anger and passion in her words, and she turned away to gain control over the boil of her emotions. They gave her that, respectful of her feelings, and said nothing when she turned back to them, her face an unemotional mask once more. “Look, my reasons do not matter. Just take my warning---and my advice. If I were Yusuke, than I would stay here, in demon world, where the SDF think he will be trapped forever, when he doesn’t have to be.”
“How?” Koenma asked, eager to know how the kakai barrier could be breached once sealed.
“If you, Prince Koenma---and you---” she pointed at Kuwabara, who pointed at himself and then mouthed, “Me?” in surprise at her nod, “go back to human world, then you could open the kakai barrier at any time you wanted to. Once your spiritual power is restored, Prince Koenma, than you could open a passage at any time to the Barrier, and Kuwabara, with his spirit sword, could cut through the kakai net once more.”
“Wouldn’t that just allow other demons to pass through?” Kurama asked, his white hair rustling slightly in the faint breeze. “It would be the same situation as we have now.”
“Not so,” Koenma said slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “I had forgotten that any SDF can open a window, so to speak, to the barrier from the human realm. It just takes spirit energy.”
“I have that!” Yusuke yelled, his smile growing as he enthusiastically turned the possibility over in his mind. “That means I can go home any time I want to, right? I can stay here, find that ancestral creep who stole my fight and took over my body, off him, and then go back home.”
“I’m sorry, Yusuke, but it doesn’t quite work that way.” Koenma shook his head sadly.
“What’d you mean, baby-face, it doesn’t quite work that way?” Yusuke growled, his dark brows drawing down as he glared.
“A portal to the barrier can only be made from the human side, Yusuke,” Koenma answered gravely. “It doesn’t work on the demon side---a precaution created to keep demons from exhorting a captured SDF agent to open a gateway to the Ningenkai.”
“That’s stupid!” Yusuke shouted his opinion of the whole idea.
“But necessary,” Kurama said gently, his light golden eyes straying across the hilly landscape. “There are many demons who would be eager to use such a way to cross over to the human realm.”
“Very true,” Koenma agreed with a grave nod.
“So, what does that mean?” Kuwabara demanded. “That only me and Koenma can open the barrier back up, and only from human world?”
“Tell me,” Kurama turned back to the girl, who had watched them silently the whole time, “what of the barrier? If Kuwabara cuts another hole in it, to allow us to pass through it and return to human world, what happens then? Isn’t the SDF trying to close the barrier now?”
“That’s where I would come in,” Koenma answered, his tone a little rueful. “With my spiritual power restored, I can close the barrier back up in a matter of minutes. I am King Yama’s son. I have a little more power at my disposal than those SDF toadies.”
Yusuke stomped over to the seemingly brown-haired teenager and grabbed the front of his shirt in one fist so he could pick him up and shake him. “Are you telling me, brat, that you knew this the whole time and didn’t think to tell us? What was all that doomsday crap earlier about us never being able to return again to Ningenkai? Huh?”
“Well---” Koenma blushed even as he kicked feebly a foot off the ground, “I forgot.”
“You forgot?!” Yusuke dropped him like a stone, sending the prince sprawling. “You got to be kidding me! What the hell else did you conveniently ‘forget’ to tell us, huh?”
Puu crooned at his spirit-brother’s agitation, his head bending down to regard them all with a concerned eye as Koenma picked himself back up and dusted himself off.
“You’re acting like a brat, Yusuke, when all we’re trying to do is help you.” The prince glared.
“I’m acting like a brat?” Yusuke laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. “Well, maybe I got my reasons, pacifier-junkie! I just had some stupid ancestor demon take over my body and kill off my opponent and I don’t know when he might try and do it again!”
“Well, now you can have your chance to find him, Yusuke,” Kurama pointed out, his husky voice amused. “Without being trapped in demon world forever.”
“Ah---” Yusuke glared, finger pointing angrily at his friend before he froze, his face suddenly cracking a wide smile. “That’s right! I can now go find that ass hole, kill him, and still return to Kei---I mean, school. Wait---come to think of it, who the hell wants to return to school?”
“Urameshi!” Kuwabara protested. “Don’t you want to graduate?”
Yusuke rolled his eyes, wiping his long hair back away from his brow with an impatient gesture. “First, I’ll need a hair cut. This mop is driving me crazy!”
“Then you’ve decided to stay?” Koenma asked, pursing his lips.
“Hell, yeah, I’m staying!” Yusuke rounded on the other boy. “I gotta go find that jerk who took over my body and killed Sensui. He’s got some explaining to do!”
“I understand.” Koenma nodded. “Then the rest of us will return to human world---”
“I’m staying,” Kurama said suddenly.
“What?” Yusuke turned around, a grin growing. “Thanks, fox. I could use the help.”
“My pleasure.” The fox demon bowed slightly. “I feel there is something here that can also help me answer some questions I have of my own.”
“Yusuke could use the help---if only to keep that hot head of his under some type of cool control.” Koenma sighed.
“What was that?” Yusuke shouted.
Ignoring him, Koenma turned to Kurama. “Then I guess, Hiei will be staying, too.”
“I know he would prefer it,” Kurama replied. Glancing up at his friend, who still snored across the spirit-bird’s shoulder, he smiled fondly. “He has missed Makai. It’s his home. I think he deserves to stay for all he has done for us. He’s more than worked off his sentence, I should think.”
Koenma frowned. “Yes…”
“Then, it’s decided. Hiei and I will stay in demon world for now and help Yusuke find this ancestor of his so we can question his intentions---”
“Who says anything about question?” Yusuke slammed a fist into his other hand. “I just plan to smash his face in for what he did to me!”
“Hey!” Kuwabara shouted, his hands curling into frustrated fists at his side. “What about me? Huh? Don’t I count for something?”
“Er…” Koenma looked slightly nervous, not quite meeting the other boy’s eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What aren’t you telling me, diaper-boy?” Kuwabara snarled. “I ain’t stupid!”
“Much,” Yusuke added, his eyes warm as he looked up at his friend.
“Damn it, Urameshi!” Kuwabara shook a fist at him.
“Kuwabara---” Kurama laid a gentle hand on the tall boy’s shoulder. “We will need you to return to human world with Koenma, to open the barrier back up for us when we’re ready to return. Only you have the power to open the kakai net, and you can only do it from the other side.”
“But---that means---” Kuwabara looked haggard at the thought.
“That you’ll have to go back, you big lug, and let me go do this one on my own,” Yusuke said, punching the boy lightly on the other shoulder.
“Not on your own,” Kurama gently interrupted, and Yusuke flashed him a grateful smile.
“But---that’s not fair!” Kuwabara protested. “How come they get to stay when I don’t?”
“Because, you numbskull, I need you to go back and protect everyone while I’m gone.” Yusuke knocked him upside the head, causing the big man to fall on his ass in the dirt so he could stand over him with his arms on his hips to smile down at him. “I’m depending on you to take care of things while I’m stuck here doing what I gotta do. I don’t want my mom or Keiko to worry, and I don’t want any punks getting any bright ideas about moving in on our turf. Besides, now that I’m officially fired, there’s no Spirit Detective back there to defend the city against any bad weirdo’s who think they can just run over the humans.”
Kuwabara looked distinctly unhappy, but was disgruntled by Yusuke’s sound arguments. “But we’re a team, Urameshi. You need me.”
“I do need you, idiot. But I need you back there, so I don’t have to worry about anything. I know you’ll take care of everyone while I’m gone, and make sure nothing happens to them while I’m stuck down here. That takes a big load off my mind.”
“Not to mention, Kuwabara, that you’ll be needed to re-open the barrier with me when Yusuke decides to return,” Koenma added.
“Damn it,” Kuwabara sulked, shoulders slumping in defeat. Yusuke lightly punched him, and he grinned wanly as the other boy helped him back up to his feet. Suddenly pointing a finger in the ex-Spirit Detective’s face, the redhead growled, “You better take care of yourself, Urameshi! Got that? ’Cause if you don’t, I ain’t gonna be there a second time to come save your ass!”
“Got it, you big clown.” Yusuke grinned, and then flew across the grass as Kuwabara’s heavy fist crashed against his noggin. “Hey! What the hell was that for?!”
“You better not do anything stupid, Urameshi, and make me worry! I’m gonna do what I gotta do, and make sure everything stay’s okay back in human world, but you better make sure you come back, ’cause if you don’t, than I’m going to come back here and---” Wiping a tear from his eye, the big man glared as he pretended that he didn’t really care. His act wasn’t fooling anyone.
Kurama touched the redhead on one shoulder. “Don’t worry, Kuwabara. Hiei and I will make sure Yusuke doesn’t do anything too stupid.”
“Hey!”
Kuwabara sniffed. “You better, Kurama. And tell that pint-sized runt that I’ll be looking for him if anything happens to Urameshi. He better take care of him, if he knows what’s good for him!”
“I will,” Kurama assured him.
“Hey! You all act like I can’t take care of myself!” Yusuke yelled, jumping back up to his feet.
“Just do it, you big dummy.” Kuwabara suddenly squeezed the other boy in a bear hug, lifting him up a good foot off the ground.
“Ow! Damn it, you stupid bear!”
“You better get a hair cut, Urameshi.” Kuwabara let him go. “You look like a girl with all that hair.”
“What?!”
“He does, a bit.” Koenma looked at the hairy detective with an assessing eye.
“Excuse me?!”
“Heh.” Kurama looked amused.
“Well, I guess we should go.” Koenma looked back towards the distant horizon, as if he could see the portal closing. “We’ll have to take Puu to make it in time.”
The blue bird made a low sound, not liking that fact but not arguing either.
“What’ll we do about Hiei? He’s still sound asleep!” Kuwabara scowled up at the black-haired demon, distinctly perturbed by how sound a sleeper he was.
“We all, actually, need to rest.” Kurama looked at Yusuke. “Kuwabara’s idea of a nap is a good one.”
Yusuke scowled. “I guess so.”
“Hiei and I will need to recover our demon energy, and even you, Yusuke, could use the rest. Hiei is probably the smartest of all of us for taking the first quiet moment to fall asleep.”
“Pass out, you mean.” Kuwabara grinned at that weakness.
“I suggest you find somewhere a little more safe than this open clearing,” Koenma said, glancing around him with a jaundiced eye.
“Hey! Where’d that girl go?” Kuwabara looked around wildly. The wind stirred the grass lightly, and the only sound was the trees swaying in the breeze. Lightning continued to flicker silently among the heavy clouds above them, but did not strike like it had earlier. There was no sign anyone had ever been there, and they all looked at each other in puzzlement.
“Did anyone even see her leave?” Kurama asked, slightly worried by that fact.
“Now, that’s creepy. I don’t like it,” Yusuke growled, holding a hand over his eyes so he could look around the silent clearing with a glare. “I don’t trust that damn bitch. Why‘d she come all the way here just to warn us that she was sent to kill us, and then tell us how we can stay, and then just up and disappear like that? Something smells about the whole thing.”
“You worry too much.” Koenma shook his head, dismissing their concern. “You don’t have to worry about her, Yusuke. She already told us that she only came to warn us because she thought it was wrong not to. You should be grateful that she did, because she also reminded me of how you can stay in demon world long enough to find your ancestor and still be able to return to the human world.”
“That is true,” Kurama conceded. “Perhaps we should be grateful. She didn’t have to go out of her way for us.”
“Heh. An assassin with an honor code. That’s rich,” Yusuke sneered, unfazed by their arguments.
“She does have an honor code, though it’s as much a mystery to anyone as anything about her.” Koenma frowned.
“What do you know of this Anei, Koenma?” Kurama asked, wiping a tired hand across his face. He wasn’t good for too much longer on his feet. He was as exhausted as Hiei, and could have slept like the dead as the fire demon was doing, but felt he needed a few more answers before he could allow himself the luxury.
“Not much,” Koenma admitted, nonplussed at Yusuke’s derisive snort. Ignoring the boy, he turned to speak to the fox demon, who still looked rather strange in his Youko Kurama form, rather than as the elegant, red-headed boy Shuichi Minamino he was more used to. “She was hired about a hundred-fifty years ago, during the Meiji period of Japan, and no one knows anything about her past. My dad might, but he’s always been really evasive about it. I know that there was an official order sent out, under the most top-secret clearance, that she must never be allowed to even get close to the barrier, let alone cross it, and that was weird, because we occasionally send the assassins out into demon world to take care of someone for us. They’re the best of the best---they make the SDF look like a bunch of pathetic weaklings.”
“What is she?” Kurama asked. “Her energy was strange. She felt almost like me, but not quite the same. She has a demonic aura, but feels entirely human.”
“Hey! That explains the weird feeling I had about her.” Kuwabara suddenly interrupted, eyes lighting up. “My spiritual sense was going crazy, but I didn’t know why. I just thought it was all the weird energy in this evil place.”
“She is human.” Koenma nodded as Yusuke made a face. “But she’s part demon.”
“Is she a Mazoku descendant, like me?” Yusuke demanded, loathing the idea. He wondered what his own aura now felt like.
“Not quite.” Koenma smiled. “As far as I know, she was born a human, sometime in the distant past, and somehow gained the heart of a wind youkai. At least, that’s what the records say.”
“A wind demon?” Kuwabara blinked. “Like Jin?”
“Hey! I remember him. I fought him during the Dark Tournament. It was a draw.” Yusuke grinned at the fond memory, before planting a fist in his other hand. “Come to think of it, he was a little strange, a bit off in the head, I’d say. Maybe that explains how weird she is.”
Kurama just shook his head as Koenma scowled. “You really are dense, Urameshi. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long. Some people are just born lucky, I guess.”
It was Yusuke’s turn to scowl as Kuwabara laughed. “Ha, ha, Urameshi! He’s got you there!”
“Shut up,” Yusuke growled, fists clenching.
“Awn, whatcha gonna do to make me, little girl?” Kuwabara taunted, relishing the return of their easy banter. He hated to admit it, but he didn’t want to leave Urameshi back here where he couldn’t help him. He needed the reassurance that Yusuke was going to be all right, that he was still the same jerk he had always known, that he was going to be okay, even as this half-demon-whatever-it-was he had turned himself into.
“You’re going to pay for that, oaf!” Yusuke launched himself at the taller boy, who laughed in delight as they went down in a tumble of flying fists and feet.
“Heh.” Kurama looked on the wildly swinging pair with tolerant amusement as Koenma rolled his eyes.
“Will they ever learn?”
“Probably not,” Kurama replied.
“I’m going to kick your ass, Urameshi!” Kuwabara shouted behind them.
“Is that so? You and what army?” Yusuke’s shout was lost as Kuwabara hollered as he landed a nasty punch on the other boy’s chin.
“Take care of him, Koenma,” Kurama said, nodding to the gleeful redhead, who was busy punching his best friend in the gut.
“And you take care of him, Kurama.” Koenma nodded at the other boy, who was cursing loudly as his long hair got in the way.
“You not only look like a girl now, Urameshi, you fight like one!” Kuwabara taunted, groaning as a fist glanced off his forehead and another hit him in the ribs.
“I do not!” Yusuke roared, fists flying faster as Kuwabara ducked away. “You’re going to eat those words, meathead!”
The two watchers could only shake their heads as Hiei continued to snore and Puu crooned softly to himself, settling down to wait. This might take awhile.
ooOOooOOooOOoo
*So, this is Makai.*She stared about her in some surprise, for it was not as she had expected. She had thought the demon world would be some dark pit of hellish fire or a grisly landscape of dead trees, barren rocks and grey dirt. Maybe even something like Naraku’s castle had been back in the day, with a thick miasma of heavy evil hanging over it in sullen anger. The sky was a strange color---not blue, as in the living world, but rather a dark indigo and purple, though it could be the low clouds that still hovered across the landscape, lightning occasionally flickering in their depths.
The thick grass under her feet and the tall trees that surrounded her on all sides felt like any others she had known, and the wind circled around her with a faint touch of dampness. The smell, which at first had seemed to carry a faint, sulfuric hint of rotting flesh and charred remains, now seemed cleaner to her, as if she had learned to sense the air beneath the first layer. Perhaps she had just gotten used to it, but she felt slightly dizzy as she breathed deeper, taking in great lungfuls of fresh air without the stench of auto exhaust or pollution. She hadn’t breathed air this clean and pure since long ago, when the living world had been far less mechanized than it was now, and she smiled at the memories it recalled for her, for she smelled the faint hint of flowers on the breeze.
She froze, smelling something else, and quickly jumped up and out of the way as a thick club smashed into the ground she had been standing on but a moment before. Flipping over in mid-air, she landed lightly on the balls of her feet, one hand on the hilt of her hidden sword, though it was unnecessary, for the dagger she had sent spinning through the air as she jumped away had found its target, and landed hilt-deep right in the center of the one-eyed demon’s forehead.
It fell on its face with a startled, gurgling cry, its huge body twitching feebly before finally laying still. She watched, waiting for any others that might lie hidden, and was rewarded for her patience when a second one-eyed ogre burst out from the trees with a roar.
“Damn you, human!” His bloody eye glinted with rage, its dull awareness seething with hatred. “I’m going to kill you and enjoy eating you for that!”
Raising his club, he started to swing it with all his might for her head, but the action was suddenly arrested as his body spasmed, the club falling from his loosened grip as his headless body abruptly fell over with a crash. The head sailed cleanly across the small clearing until it disappeared among some thick bushes.
Flicking the blood off of her sword, Sango calmly went and retrieved her knife from the other ogre’s forehead. Wiping the blood off in the grass, she made a face at the stench that rose from the bodies. Demon insects were already flocking to the fresh kill, and there would soon be other carrion-eaters attracted to the opportunity thus presented. She’d be better to leave and avoid any others who might take it into their dull heads that she might be an easy meal.
She should actually take some time to sit down and think of how she should proceed. She knew little of the terrain, and had no idea how she might go tracking down one demon among thousands. It would be like searching for a single piece of grass in a field of them, and she was a little annoyed at herself for not having thought too much past the point of actually getting here, to the demon world. It was rather humbling, actually. One would think after five hundred years, she would have learned to think a little more ahead than this. She was acting more like Inuyasha right now, in just leaping ahead half-cocked, than she was her more careful self. She smiled sadly at the memory, and looked up at the strange sky, the breeze tickling the hairs along her cheeks and forehead as she wondered if he were back there, now, in human world, with Kagome, at her family’s shrine. She might never know---for the burden of her promise to Shigure in exchange for Kagura’s heart prevented her from ever finding them again.
It was the price for her revenge, and while it had seemed okay at the time, as anything would have, it sat heavily upon her now, when she might have been able to actually go and see them, and be welcomed by the family she had surrounded herself with after her own had died.
Her heart tightened in her chest, and she felt the wind whisper to her faintly, its touch eerily familiar. It had been like that, ever since the horrific operation, when the demon chirugeon had implanted her with Kagura’s heart. She had felt as if she were somehow a part of it, and she could use the winds in small part, although she didn’t have nearly the same power and control as Kagura had had over them. She could manipulate the air around her self, even lighten her own body or feed her own energy into it to make a stronger breeze, but it was harder for her to do, and cost her more strength than she was willing to expend. Her physical gifts of enhanced strength, speed and agility were more than enough for her to be grateful for, not to mention the healing properties and longevity imparted her mortal body.
The cost would be worth it, in the end, if she were able to find Naraku, finally free her brother and kill that disgusting parasite. It would all be worth it---the pain and the loneliness, the seething anger and the betrayal of all that her clan had held dear. She would give anything, do anything, to realize that dream, and she had already sacrificed her humanity and her life for it. She was the shadow who slipped across the edge of life, never taking a part in it. Always traveling her road alone, and always knowing that she could never find peace until she finished the task she had set herself. Then she could be free, and that desire, so strong in Kagura’s heart, which was now a part of her, cried out in the darkness of the empty night, hungering for that wisp of hope, that one day, she would be…