InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter Ten ( Chapter 11 )
[ 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: 10.14.2008 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.5K | Visits: 505 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 10.14.2008 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.5K | Visits: 505 | 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: You know those instructions on a shampoo bottle that say “Rinse and Repeat?” Well, I can’t thank everyone enough for all the wonderful reviews, so here’s my Thanks and Repeat. =)
WARNING! GORY DETAILS!
Chapter Ten
Life was irony. Just a few hours ago, he had been lamenting the fact that he was always the one too cautious to just up and take off without carefully planning each action and the various consequences that action might bring. And yet here he was, literally running as his mind churned in too many directions for him to grasp at anything other than the need to catch up with the taiji-ya and stop her before she set the whole wood to riot.
Not that he had any real information to go on, just the haunting suspicion that Anei’s ignored demonic aura could somehow reach out to influence those around her.
Suspicion? No, it was more than that. Kurama was just too conscientious to discount any theory, no matter how remote, without empirical evidence to the contrary. But he knew, instinctively, that that must be it, for the detective was right. He would never have been so sharp with Hiei if he hadn’t felt the edgy irritation rising up within himself. It was only in hindsight that he could assess it with any sort of true detachment. There had been a strange vibe---as Yusuke had so quaintly put it---to the air, as if there was a poison in the very energy surrounding them, affecting their own jyaki with an insidious influence too faint for them to even be consciously aware of.
That was troubling, for he knew---also, instinctively---that it wasn’t something done deliberately. The taiji-ya had no real reason to---and he liked to think himself perceptive enough to understand enough of her character that she would not do anything so duplicitous. That was not her way. She was too forthright for that.
But he knew full well, as did Hiei, that she also had no conscious control over her demonic energy. Or she had very little. It was as if she only accepted certain parts of herself for what she was, and even then, not completely. He knew full well that dilemma, for he had had to come to terms with his own youkai and human natures. He struggled still to find his own path between balancing Youko’s wishes and his own uncertainty, but still he could not help but be who he was---human and youkai.
But for all her possession of a demon heart, it was as if she separated her self from it. And though the heart’s presence ensured a physical meshing with her own body and blood, there was no true mingling between her human chi and the demonic aura that surrounded her. How she could ignore that fact was beyond his comprehension, but it seemed that she had some unconscious use of it---for even last night she had reached out to the shadows around her, purely on instinct, to obscure herself among them. And when he had called her on it, she had been surprised enough for it to stop, completely, as if her energy had been flipped off like a switch by her own sudden awareness of it.
That was particularly insidious, and he could not even know what influences were mixed into her demon blood. For that heart must have pumped inside another at one time, and who knew what filaments of demonic awareness were attached to it. And if she had no conscious knowledge of that fact, than it could be so much worse---for then she could be reaching out to those around her to influence them as well, all unsuspecting. And that could be dangerous, especially here, in Demon World.
In Makai, demon energy existed in everything---from smallest seedling to tallest mountain. Jyaki was the life-force of this realm, and it was in the very air one breathed, the very rocks one tread, the very souls of its demonic inhabitants. Youkai were smarter than humans in that they had learned early on how to harness and use such energy, the life-force that existed in their realm. Humans had chosen to ignore that life-energy in favor of developing more physical skills. They far-outstripped the other realms when it came to such things as technology and science, but they lagged far behind when it came to what one might term psychic ability, which both the denizens of Spirit World and Demon World had developed to a fine art.
But that was neither here nor there. That was all mere speculation, and his complex mind was just working overtime as he raced through the forest, extending his senses to locate her. She couldn’t be too far ahead of them---he could even catch her scent, though it was faint, and the direction troubled him, for there was a darkening feel to the area ahead that tingled along his nerves with familiar warning.
He glanced up, seeing the shadowy blur that was Hiei as he moved through the trees. The short demon would soon pass him. Yusuke was right at his heels as they both dashed through the tangling underbrush, dodging past the trees that seemed to continually bar their way. Kurama could feel the air growing still around him, as if the whole forest held its breath, and Yusuke’s eyes were lit with an unholy glee, as if his own eagerness was rising with the ominous jyaki that now filled the air.
Pushing through the last barrier of tangling leaves, Kurama burst into the clearing with a rose between his fingers, ready to meet any threat that came forth. Yusuke landed heavily beside him, his fists curled and the wide grin that split his face particularly blood-thirsty.
But they both froze, Yusuke’s grin slowly dying as they realized there was nothing in the clearing save the girl, who had pirouetted to face them, her sword reflexively held up in defense. Her chest heaved and her black hair was in a sweaty tangle across her cheeks and forehead as she panted, having paused in the middle of a hard, physical workout. Her eyes were wide and she seemed surprised to see them.
Everything was still, ominously so, and yet she seemed unaffected by it, for she relaxed her guard upon seeing them, a single brow raising in inquiry just as all hell broke loose.
Kurama instinctively shied just as Hiei’s wordless shout gave warning. He went left as Yusuke went right, both of them jumping out of the way to avoid the sudden crushing boulder that was flung where they had stood just a scant second before. Kurama twisted in mid-air, summoning his rose-whip with a sharp command even as he raised his other arm to protect his head from the gravel that was flung everywhere as the boulder abruptly shattered, sending rocky projectiles in every direction. There was a scream of foiled rage and he ducked as a flying shadow swooped past him.
His whip was already unfurling, circling around the unknown flyer to tighten around it and split it in two against the sharp thorns. Blood and ichor splattered everywhere as the bat-winged eyeball was torn in half. Kurama was too busy to notice the second that swooped towards him, the eyeball of its body glowing with a bloody light as it squealed in frustration as the fox slid away from it at the last moment. It came too close to a pair of racking talons and desperately tried to back-wing in retreat, but was too slow. The fur-backed boar youkai howled its triumph even as it turned back to the fox, who had been its first opponent before the flying eyeball had interfered.
Having disposed of the first eyeball, Kurama had turned to find the boar snarling at him, its normally pink eyes glowing with the ruddy light of demonic rage. Standing upright, the boar youkai was hardly porcine---it had the tusked snout and coarse head of its piggy nature, but had the furry back and raking claws of a hunting cat. Its tail was long and whiplike, the end having a tuft of black hair on it reminiscent of his living world cousin’s, but hardly the same useless appendage.
Kurama had only a few seconds to spare to measure the beast before its attack was diverted by the second flying eyeball, and he was beset by a herd of squealing goats. Their curling horns were sharp, as were their small hooves. They did not have the jyaki to overcome their hircine natures, but if he fell beneath their hooves, he was dead. Their eyes, usually a mild black---for they were relatively harmless in normal circumstances---were glowing the same bloody rage that claimed every demon who descended on the clearing, attracted by the insidious aura that the taiji-ya was putting out.
For he could feel it, behind and slightly to the right of him. It was like sensing the center of an imminent strike of lightning in the swirling clouds of a gathering storm. The darkness seethed there, the anger sending out steady vibrations that edged along his spine and set the fine hair on his arms to standing. He grit his teeth, fighting back the waves of furious jyaki that beat at him even as his whip lashed out, keeping back those demons who had succumbed to the evil miasma into acting as if they were all caught up in a blood-madness of utter rage and fury.
A bear roared across the clearing, beating its chest just before pouncing on the ex-detective, who met it with a shout of pure joy. Kurama saw Yusuke’s fist connect solidly along the bear’s cheek, and the bear roared in agony before pouncing again. The fox was too busy, then, to see what happened next, for the boar youkai was back, flinging a goat aside as it squealed in angry defiance.
But the boar was pushed aside by a snarling wolf, who had launched itself on the boar’s back, its snapping jaws sinking into the soft fur of the boar’s unprotected neck as the youkai screamed and thrashed wildly. Kurama jumped away from the wolf’s brothers, who had turned their red-eyed attention from him to the boar as the first one attacked it. Kurama watched in horror as the boar disappeared beneath their swarming bodies, and then hissed as something scraped along his cheek for his momentary distraction.
He dodged the second attack, and a third, the rain of tiny darts increasing as he realized that it was leaves, turned into sharp blades by the youkai who controlled them. No stranger to using plants as his weapons, the fox demon easily dodged the tiny green spears, seeking the source. He found it, a demon dryad perched on a tree as she turned normally mild green eyes on him that glowed with unholy rage.
This one was only two feet tall, slender and lithe, her dusky brown skin and darker green hair blending with the leaves that swayed around her on the tree branch she stood upon. Normally, the wood nymphs were simple creatures, only defending their chosen tree’s territory and attracting their rodent prey with the lilting music they could summon in the twilight. The dryad’s fangs were barred and she snarled at him, her hands moving in a complicated pattern as she sent the rain of leaves scissoring back at him.
Kurama turned in a full circle, his whip swirling behind him in a solid wall of speedy defense. The thorny length shredded the sharp leaf-blades out of the air even as they fell upon him. The dryad howled and would have sent more, but a passing owl-youkai descended with open claws to try and pluck her from her branch. She barely dodged the owl’s attack, and they started fighting in earnest as Kurama slid away from them.
He needed a moment to see what was happening with his friends, but the continuous rush of angry demons was a sweeping tide that had no end. His whip snapped out, wreaking havoc among those beasts attacking him, but his opponents were as sudden to turn on each other as they were on him, and he could not know what would turn on him next in the utter chaos as the mad bloodbath continued. The anger seemed to grow, as if feeding on the very jyaki summoned by it, and he spent half his time fighting off the eerie feeling that twisted inside his gut, telling him to give in to the rage, even as he spent the rest of his time fending off those less powerful demons who had.
He caught glimpses, now and then, of Hiei and Yusuke. Hiei was a blur of death and destruction, his sword out and cutting a swath back and forth as he laid waste to his side of the clearing. He appeared now and then in a dodge or a snarl as his sword stabbed and cut. Blood rained on that end of the small field, and Kurama could only frown, his expression grim as he pushed back as many of his attackers as he could, trying to disarm or dissuade them without causing too much harm. It was not the smartest tactic---he was fighting in closer quarters than he liked, and came too close to getting hurt himself a time or two because of it, but he could not but feel sorry for the demons mindlessly attacking them. Most were of a lower level than himself, and did not have the wits or jyaki to fight off the insidious hate that was poisoning the very air around them. It was summoning them to their slaughter, and his own anger unfurled inside of him at the injustice and pure waste of it.
He was able, in short glimpses stolen as he pushed his current opponent---a large cougar youkai, who stood on two and four feet with equal ease---back, to see Hiei’s third eye glowing with a bloody light. The short demon seemed to thrive off of the angry jyaki that surrounded them, and had none of the fox’s compunctions about killing his mindless foes. Yusuke, too, seemed to delight in it, but strangely, also seemed the least affected. He was happiest when kicking ass of any kind, and perhaps his unfettered joy at the virtual insanity that reigned around them in bloody snarls and mindless, raging battle was protecting him somehow from the very evil that was infecting everything and everyone else. Kurama could see the detective laying out his foes with a single-minded intensity, his smile wide as his eyes danced and he shouted insults and bad jokes with equal abandon.
The cougar snarled, baring its bloody jaws as its red eyes glinted dangerously. It swiped at him, retreating with a sharp yowl on a bleeding hind-leg that it hardly seemed to notice. Its rage was too high, and Kurama could not stand to see the beast so senseless. With his lips set in a grim line, Kurama snapped the end of his whip just over the cougar’s head, sending it leaping back without harm, and then watched in horror as a goat charged it, knocking the cougar off balance and distracting it just long enough for a giant ogre with six eyes in its faintly amphibian face to smash its skull beneath one giant foot as it bellowed its triumph.
The ogre’s triumph was short-lived, for a sword was sunk into its back, the bloody point protruding for a moment from its chest before being yanked back violently. The ogre fell, taking the goat with it beneath the crushing weight of its falling body, and Kurama stared at the taiji-ya, whose eyes were black holes in her white face as she stared at him with seemingly no recognition.
“Anei!” he shouted, and she seemed to blink, awareness and recollection coming back for a moment before she shied away from the swooping skull that flew above her head. Her sword arced up, neatly slicing the grinning skull in twain as she turned to face the snarling advance of a pair of wild lizard youkai. They spat acid, and Kurama didn’t hesitate to decapitate them before they could strike at the unprotected slayer. His whip circled out around her, and she retreated to his side as he sent it rippling up to take out another flying bird-youkai, this time a death-crow, who screamed mindlessly as he killed it.
“Why are there so many of them?” she demanded in a hoarse breath as she lunged for another demon, this one an attacking jackal. Kurama was too busy taking out the jackal’s three pack-mates to reply, but he was stunned.
*She doesn’t even realize that she’s the one---*
His thought was cut off as one of the jackals turned in midair, managing to get under the cutting thorns of his deadly whip to launch itself for his throat. Anei’s sword was suddenly there, stabbing the snarling jackal in the heart, the blood spattering across her arm and wrist as she snarled herself.
“Damn them! Why are demons always so blood-mad!” Her anger beat out of her in menacing waves as she pulled her sword free to whirl toward yet another foe. “They constantly attack the weaker, always en masse, always hoping to defeat by sheer numbers! Well, I won’t let them!”
Kurama froze at the rage and loathing in her voice, the wretched pain that hid behind it and laced through the taiji-ya’s snarl as she landed another blow on the screaming earth demon who sent rooty tendrils shooting in her direction. A second boulder flew towards them, and Kurama shouldered her out of the way with his own body, pushing her towards the tree the demon dryad had attacked him from earlier. There was no sign of the little youkai, but there was fresh blood smeared across the upper trunk where her branch joined the tree’s bole, and his knuckles whitened around the butt of his rose-whip at the end that must have come to the little dryad.
“This slaughter is senseless!” he snarled, overcome by his own anger at the terrible pointlessness of it all. He turned on the slayer, whose brown eyes widened as he growled at her, green eyes furious, “Damn it, Anei, stop this madness!”
“What are you talking about?” she cried, completely oblivious to the fact that it was her rejected aura that was seeping out to set the entire wood insane. She kicked out at a slobbering furball with extra-long teeth, sending it sailing off like a football even as he grabbed her arm with his free hand.
“Damn it, taiji-ya, it’s you who’s causing this---” His green eyes bore into hers, his teeth gritting as much to keep his fangs from growing with the anger that stirred within him at the incredible puzzle of it---that she could be so oblivious to the angry aura that spun around her in black waves of hate.
“What? Are you---” She slipped free of his hold to chop the head off of an attacking ogre whose raised club would have taken off both of theirs in one swipe if she had let it, and whirled back to confront him with a snarl, “---crazy?”
“Can’t you feel it, Anei?” Kurama ignited his rose-whip so that red fire flared along the green length before spinning it around them to form a solid wave of shimmering light. The encroaching demons who circled around them would be burned for their pains if they dared touch that glittering bubble of defensive energy. Their attackers shrank back, offering a temporary relief to their immediate area as the fox turned back to confront the taiji-ya. “It’s your energy running wild, Anei! It’s your aura that’s reaching out to the jyaki around us and your anger that’s feeding it!”
Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open in shock as he fronted her with all the rising anger at the whole senselessness of it all making his body glow with a white, ghostly aura. Youko growled along the back of his thoughts, irritated by the girl’s stupidity in not realizing that there was a terrible price to be paid for rejecting what one was. Hers just happened to be reaching out to the world around her, sending her personal loathing for her demon side out to infect everything around them as it interacted with the demonic energy that existed everywhere in Makai. She should never have come to Demon World---and perhaps that was why King Yama had forbidden her passage from the living realm.
“You can’t be serious!” she cried, her eyes reddening slightly as her rage boiled up inside of her. “It’s not me who is making these damn youkai attack us! It’s in their very nature---”
“You fool!” Hiei suddenly appeared beside them, his sword flashing out to stab past them, where they faced each other, to take out the snapping maw of a snarling rat-demon, who had crept up on them while they were distracted with arguing with each other. The black-haired demon had lost his cloak, and there were cuts and scratches across his battle-taut muscles. The bandage wrapped around his right arm was soaked to the elbow in blood, though none of it was his, and his wild hair was splattered with it, as was half his snarling face. The Jagan eye was glowing with an iridescent shimmer, green now with the glint of his fury. “It’s in your nature as much as theirs!”
Anei stiffened, her eyes dark pools of horrified denial. “No---”
“Stop lying to yourself, hanyou!” Hiei spat, turning to take out the demon behind him with an ease that was almost too terrible in that the demon was only attacking them because of the girl he was snarling at.
“I am not a demon!” she screamed at him, her lips curling back over her bared teeth as her eyes took on the unholy glow of bloody wrath.
“Anei!” Kurama grabbed her shoulders in his hands and shook her. “Stop it! Can’t you feel the anger rising up inside yourself? Can’t you feel the center of the vortex of energy surrounding you? Your jyaki is driving this insanity, and denying it won’t make it go away! Denying your true nature---”
“I’m not!” she cried, her eyes abruptly losing the bloody glow to glare into his, the brown depths shimmering with tears of terror that it was true.
“You are!” Hiei snarled, his sword dancing to keep the attacking demons at bay as Kurama held the girl in a two-handed grip and forced her to look up at him.
“Look around you, Anei! Feel the energy---where is it coming from?” Kurama’s voice was gentle as he pleaded with her, for the look in her eyes was haunted.
“Damn you, demon---” she whispered in a hoarse refusal even as she extended her senses. He could feel the exact moment when she knew, for her body stiffened and her eyes widened with the terrible truth of it. “My god---it’s true. It’s---the energy---it’s me, it’s coming from me!”
And as if her words were a button on a remote, the vibrant anger that surrounded them in pulsating waves of insidious poison were switched off, and the strange energy abruptly disappeared.
“What the…?” Hiei whirled to face them, his crimson eyes wide at the sudden disappearance of the fitful energy around them.
“Holy crap, why’s the air feel so weird?” Yusuke hollered across the field, just before he turned back around to yell at his fleeing opponent, “Hey! Come back here! Where the hell do you think you’re going? We ain‘t done yet!”
The few remaining demons in the wood froze, their eyes blinking as the rage dissolved from their bloody pupils. A few continued the fight just long enough to end it permanently, out of instinct or just plain orneriness, but most of the others just turned and fled, as frightened by the scene of terrible carnage that lay across the blood-soaked clearing as they were by the blood and wounds on their own fur and claws. Those who could soon emptied the clearing completely, leaving the heavy silence to the dead and fallen. A crow cawed, a haunting note, before leaving the scene of grim butchery behind as the slayer turned stricken eyes toward the fox who still gripped her shoulders in his firm hands.
“Why?” she asked, her voice so terrible in its aching horror and sadness that it tore at the fox’s heart, calling to the shadowed depths of his own soul to answer that forlorn whisper of a demand.
But Kurama could only shake his head as she huddled in on herself, her haunted eyes taking in the silent field as mute testimony to the carnage she had just unleashed with her foolishness.
Five hundred years she had been thus---and never known. What had happened during those years when she denied the madness in her youkai blood? What could---would---the knowledge cost her now?
He didn’t know, and could only tighten his fingers on her shoulders with regret for her soul’s pain to come, for only she could know what it had and what it would, now.
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: You know those instructions on a shampoo bottle that say “Rinse and Repeat?” Well, I can’t thank everyone enough for all the wonderful reviews, so here’s my Thanks and Repeat. =)
WARNING! GORY DETAILS!
Chapter Ten
Life was irony. Just a few hours ago, he had been lamenting the fact that he was always the one too cautious to just up and take off without carefully planning each action and the various consequences that action might bring. And yet here he was, literally running as his mind churned in too many directions for him to grasp at anything other than the need to catch up with the taiji-ya and stop her before she set the whole wood to riot.
Not that he had any real information to go on, just the haunting suspicion that Anei’s ignored demonic aura could somehow reach out to influence those around her.
Suspicion? No, it was more than that. Kurama was just too conscientious to discount any theory, no matter how remote, without empirical evidence to the contrary. But he knew, instinctively, that that must be it, for the detective was right. He would never have been so sharp with Hiei if he hadn’t felt the edgy irritation rising up within himself. It was only in hindsight that he could assess it with any sort of true detachment. There had been a strange vibe---as Yusuke had so quaintly put it---to the air, as if there was a poison in the very energy surrounding them, affecting their own jyaki with an insidious influence too faint for them to even be consciously aware of.
That was troubling, for he knew---also, instinctively---that it wasn’t something done deliberately. The taiji-ya had no real reason to---and he liked to think himself perceptive enough to understand enough of her character that she would not do anything so duplicitous. That was not her way. She was too forthright for that.
But he knew full well, as did Hiei, that she also had no conscious control over her demonic energy. Or she had very little. It was as if she only accepted certain parts of herself for what she was, and even then, not completely. He knew full well that dilemma, for he had had to come to terms with his own youkai and human natures. He struggled still to find his own path between balancing Youko’s wishes and his own uncertainty, but still he could not help but be who he was---human and youkai.
But for all her possession of a demon heart, it was as if she separated her self from it. And though the heart’s presence ensured a physical meshing with her own body and blood, there was no true mingling between her human chi and the demonic aura that surrounded her. How she could ignore that fact was beyond his comprehension, but it seemed that she had some unconscious use of it---for even last night she had reached out to the shadows around her, purely on instinct, to obscure herself among them. And when he had called her on it, she had been surprised enough for it to stop, completely, as if her energy had been flipped off like a switch by her own sudden awareness of it.
That was particularly insidious, and he could not even know what influences were mixed into her demon blood. For that heart must have pumped inside another at one time, and who knew what filaments of demonic awareness were attached to it. And if she had no conscious knowledge of that fact, than it could be so much worse---for then she could be reaching out to those around her to influence them as well, all unsuspecting. And that could be dangerous, especially here, in Demon World.
In Makai, demon energy existed in everything---from smallest seedling to tallest mountain. Jyaki was the life-force of this realm, and it was in the very air one breathed, the very rocks one tread, the very souls of its demonic inhabitants. Youkai were smarter than humans in that they had learned early on how to harness and use such energy, the life-force that existed in their realm. Humans had chosen to ignore that life-energy in favor of developing more physical skills. They far-outstripped the other realms when it came to such things as technology and science, but they lagged far behind when it came to what one might term psychic ability, which both the denizens of Spirit World and Demon World had developed to a fine art.
But that was neither here nor there. That was all mere speculation, and his complex mind was just working overtime as he raced through the forest, extending his senses to locate her. She couldn’t be too far ahead of them---he could even catch her scent, though it was faint, and the direction troubled him, for there was a darkening feel to the area ahead that tingled along his nerves with familiar warning.
He glanced up, seeing the shadowy blur that was Hiei as he moved through the trees. The short demon would soon pass him. Yusuke was right at his heels as they both dashed through the tangling underbrush, dodging past the trees that seemed to continually bar their way. Kurama could feel the air growing still around him, as if the whole forest held its breath, and Yusuke’s eyes were lit with an unholy glee, as if his own eagerness was rising with the ominous jyaki that now filled the air.
Pushing through the last barrier of tangling leaves, Kurama burst into the clearing with a rose between his fingers, ready to meet any threat that came forth. Yusuke landed heavily beside him, his fists curled and the wide grin that split his face particularly blood-thirsty.
But they both froze, Yusuke’s grin slowly dying as they realized there was nothing in the clearing save the girl, who had pirouetted to face them, her sword reflexively held up in defense. Her chest heaved and her black hair was in a sweaty tangle across her cheeks and forehead as she panted, having paused in the middle of a hard, physical workout. Her eyes were wide and she seemed surprised to see them.
Everything was still, ominously so, and yet she seemed unaffected by it, for she relaxed her guard upon seeing them, a single brow raising in inquiry just as all hell broke loose.
Kurama instinctively shied just as Hiei’s wordless shout gave warning. He went left as Yusuke went right, both of them jumping out of the way to avoid the sudden crushing boulder that was flung where they had stood just a scant second before. Kurama twisted in mid-air, summoning his rose-whip with a sharp command even as he raised his other arm to protect his head from the gravel that was flung everywhere as the boulder abruptly shattered, sending rocky projectiles in every direction. There was a scream of foiled rage and he ducked as a flying shadow swooped past him.
His whip was already unfurling, circling around the unknown flyer to tighten around it and split it in two against the sharp thorns. Blood and ichor splattered everywhere as the bat-winged eyeball was torn in half. Kurama was too busy to notice the second that swooped towards him, the eyeball of its body glowing with a bloody light as it squealed in frustration as the fox slid away from it at the last moment. It came too close to a pair of racking talons and desperately tried to back-wing in retreat, but was too slow. The fur-backed boar youkai howled its triumph even as it turned back to the fox, who had been its first opponent before the flying eyeball had interfered.
Having disposed of the first eyeball, Kurama had turned to find the boar snarling at him, its normally pink eyes glowing with the ruddy light of demonic rage. Standing upright, the boar youkai was hardly porcine---it had the tusked snout and coarse head of its piggy nature, but had the furry back and raking claws of a hunting cat. Its tail was long and whiplike, the end having a tuft of black hair on it reminiscent of his living world cousin’s, but hardly the same useless appendage.
Kurama had only a few seconds to spare to measure the beast before its attack was diverted by the second flying eyeball, and he was beset by a herd of squealing goats. Their curling horns were sharp, as were their small hooves. They did not have the jyaki to overcome their hircine natures, but if he fell beneath their hooves, he was dead. Their eyes, usually a mild black---for they were relatively harmless in normal circumstances---were glowing the same bloody rage that claimed every demon who descended on the clearing, attracted by the insidious aura that the taiji-ya was putting out.
For he could feel it, behind and slightly to the right of him. It was like sensing the center of an imminent strike of lightning in the swirling clouds of a gathering storm. The darkness seethed there, the anger sending out steady vibrations that edged along his spine and set the fine hair on his arms to standing. He grit his teeth, fighting back the waves of furious jyaki that beat at him even as his whip lashed out, keeping back those demons who had succumbed to the evil miasma into acting as if they were all caught up in a blood-madness of utter rage and fury.
A bear roared across the clearing, beating its chest just before pouncing on the ex-detective, who met it with a shout of pure joy. Kurama saw Yusuke’s fist connect solidly along the bear’s cheek, and the bear roared in agony before pouncing again. The fox was too busy, then, to see what happened next, for the boar youkai was back, flinging a goat aside as it squealed in angry defiance.
But the boar was pushed aside by a snarling wolf, who had launched itself on the boar’s back, its snapping jaws sinking into the soft fur of the boar’s unprotected neck as the youkai screamed and thrashed wildly. Kurama jumped away from the wolf’s brothers, who had turned their red-eyed attention from him to the boar as the first one attacked it. Kurama watched in horror as the boar disappeared beneath their swarming bodies, and then hissed as something scraped along his cheek for his momentary distraction.
He dodged the second attack, and a third, the rain of tiny darts increasing as he realized that it was leaves, turned into sharp blades by the youkai who controlled them. No stranger to using plants as his weapons, the fox demon easily dodged the tiny green spears, seeking the source. He found it, a demon dryad perched on a tree as she turned normally mild green eyes on him that glowed with unholy rage.
This one was only two feet tall, slender and lithe, her dusky brown skin and darker green hair blending with the leaves that swayed around her on the tree branch she stood upon. Normally, the wood nymphs were simple creatures, only defending their chosen tree’s territory and attracting their rodent prey with the lilting music they could summon in the twilight. The dryad’s fangs were barred and she snarled at him, her hands moving in a complicated pattern as she sent the rain of leaves scissoring back at him.
Kurama turned in a full circle, his whip swirling behind him in a solid wall of speedy defense. The thorny length shredded the sharp leaf-blades out of the air even as they fell upon him. The dryad howled and would have sent more, but a passing owl-youkai descended with open claws to try and pluck her from her branch. She barely dodged the owl’s attack, and they started fighting in earnest as Kurama slid away from them.
He needed a moment to see what was happening with his friends, but the continuous rush of angry demons was a sweeping tide that had no end. His whip snapped out, wreaking havoc among those beasts attacking him, but his opponents were as sudden to turn on each other as they were on him, and he could not know what would turn on him next in the utter chaos as the mad bloodbath continued. The anger seemed to grow, as if feeding on the very jyaki summoned by it, and he spent half his time fighting off the eerie feeling that twisted inside his gut, telling him to give in to the rage, even as he spent the rest of his time fending off those less powerful demons who had.
He caught glimpses, now and then, of Hiei and Yusuke. Hiei was a blur of death and destruction, his sword out and cutting a swath back and forth as he laid waste to his side of the clearing. He appeared now and then in a dodge or a snarl as his sword stabbed and cut. Blood rained on that end of the small field, and Kurama could only frown, his expression grim as he pushed back as many of his attackers as he could, trying to disarm or dissuade them without causing too much harm. It was not the smartest tactic---he was fighting in closer quarters than he liked, and came too close to getting hurt himself a time or two because of it, but he could not but feel sorry for the demons mindlessly attacking them. Most were of a lower level than himself, and did not have the wits or jyaki to fight off the insidious hate that was poisoning the very air around them. It was summoning them to their slaughter, and his own anger unfurled inside of him at the injustice and pure waste of it.
He was able, in short glimpses stolen as he pushed his current opponent---a large cougar youkai, who stood on two and four feet with equal ease---back, to see Hiei’s third eye glowing with a bloody light. The short demon seemed to thrive off of the angry jyaki that surrounded them, and had none of the fox’s compunctions about killing his mindless foes. Yusuke, too, seemed to delight in it, but strangely, also seemed the least affected. He was happiest when kicking ass of any kind, and perhaps his unfettered joy at the virtual insanity that reigned around them in bloody snarls and mindless, raging battle was protecting him somehow from the very evil that was infecting everything and everyone else. Kurama could see the detective laying out his foes with a single-minded intensity, his smile wide as his eyes danced and he shouted insults and bad jokes with equal abandon.
The cougar snarled, baring its bloody jaws as its red eyes glinted dangerously. It swiped at him, retreating with a sharp yowl on a bleeding hind-leg that it hardly seemed to notice. Its rage was too high, and Kurama could not stand to see the beast so senseless. With his lips set in a grim line, Kurama snapped the end of his whip just over the cougar’s head, sending it leaping back without harm, and then watched in horror as a goat charged it, knocking the cougar off balance and distracting it just long enough for a giant ogre with six eyes in its faintly amphibian face to smash its skull beneath one giant foot as it bellowed its triumph.
The ogre’s triumph was short-lived, for a sword was sunk into its back, the bloody point protruding for a moment from its chest before being yanked back violently. The ogre fell, taking the goat with it beneath the crushing weight of its falling body, and Kurama stared at the taiji-ya, whose eyes were black holes in her white face as she stared at him with seemingly no recognition.
“Anei!” he shouted, and she seemed to blink, awareness and recollection coming back for a moment before she shied away from the swooping skull that flew above her head. Her sword arced up, neatly slicing the grinning skull in twain as she turned to face the snarling advance of a pair of wild lizard youkai. They spat acid, and Kurama didn’t hesitate to decapitate them before they could strike at the unprotected slayer. His whip circled out around her, and she retreated to his side as he sent it rippling up to take out another flying bird-youkai, this time a death-crow, who screamed mindlessly as he killed it.
“Why are there so many of them?” she demanded in a hoarse breath as she lunged for another demon, this one an attacking jackal. Kurama was too busy taking out the jackal’s three pack-mates to reply, but he was stunned.
*She doesn’t even realize that she’s the one---*
His thought was cut off as one of the jackals turned in midair, managing to get under the cutting thorns of his deadly whip to launch itself for his throat. Anei’s sword was suddenly there, stabbing the snarling jackal in the heart, the blood spattering across her arm and wrist as she snarled herself.
“Damn them! Why are demons always so blood-mad!” Her anger beat out of her in menacing waves as she pulled her sword free to whirl toward yet another foe. “They constantly attack the weaker, always en masse, always hoping to defeat by sheer numbers! Well, I won’t let them!”
Kurama froze at the rage and loathing in her voice, the wretched pain that hid behind it and laced through the taiji-ya’s snarl as she landed another blow on the screaming earth demon who sent rooty tendrils shooting in her direction. A second boulder flew towards them, and Kurama shouldered her out of the way with his own body, pushing her towards the tree the demon dryad had attacked him from earlier. There was no sign of the little youkai, but there was fresh blood smeared across the upper trunk where her branch joined the tree’s bole, and his knuckles whitened around the butt of his rose-whip at the end that must have come to the little dryad.
“This slaughter is senseless!” he snarled, overcome by his own anger at the terrible pointlessness of it all. He turned on the slayer, whose brown eyes widened as he growled at her, green eyes furious, “Damn it, Anei, stop this madness!”
“What are you talking about?” she cried, completely oblivious to the fact that it was her rejected aura that was seeping out to set the entire wood insane. She kicked out at a slobbering furball with extra-long teeth, sending it sailing off like a football even as he grabbed her arm with his free hand.
“Damn it, taiji-ya, it’s you who’s causing this---” His green eyes bore into hers, his teeth gritting as much to keep his fangs from growing with the anger that stirred within him at the incredible puzzle of it---that she could be so oblivious to the angry aura that spun around her in black waves of hate.
“What? Are you---” She slipped free of his hold to chop the head off of an attacking ogre whose raised club would have taken off both of theirs in one swipe if she had let it, and whirled back to confront him with a snarl, “---crazy?”
“Can’t you feel it, Anei?” Kurama ignited his rose-whip so that red fire flared along the green length before spinning it around them to form a solid wave of shimmering light. The encroaching demons who circled around them would be burned for their pains if they dared touch that glittering bubble of defensive energy. Their attackers shrank back, offering a temporary relief to their immediate area as the fox turned back to confront the taiji-ya. “It’s your energy running wild, Anei! It’s your aura that’s reaching out to the jyaki around us and your anger that’s feeding it!”
Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open in shock as he fronted her with all the rising anger at the whole senselessness of it all making his body glow with a white, ghostly aura. Youko growled along the back of his thoughts, irritated by the girl’s stupidity in not realizing that there was a terrible price to be paid for rejecting what one was. Hers just happened to be reaching out to the world around her, sending her personal loathing for her demon side out to infect everything around them as it interacted with the demonic energy that existed everywhere in Makai. She should never have come to Demon World---and perhaps that was why King Yama had forbidden her passage from the living realm.
“You can’t be serious!” she cried, her eyes reddening slightly as her rage boiled up inside of her. “It’s not me who is making these damn youkai attack us! It’s in their very nature---”
“You fool!” Hiei suddenly appeared beside them, his sword flashing out to stab past them, where they faced each other, to take out the snapping maw of a snarling rat-demon, who had crept up on them while they were distracted with arguing with each other. The black-haired demon had lost his cloak, and there were cuts and scratches across his battle-taut muscles. The bandage wrapped around his right arm was soaked to the elbow in blood, though none of it was his, and his wild hair was splattered with it, as was half his snarling face. The Jagan eye was glowing with an iridescent shimmer, green now with the glint of his fury. “It’s in your nature as much as theirs!”
Anei stiffened, her eyes dark pools of horrified denial. “No---”
“Stop lying to yourself, hanyou!” Hiei spat, turning to take out the demon behind him with an ease that was almost too terrible in that the demon was only attacking them because of the girl he was snarling at.
“I am not a demon!” she screamed at him, her lips curling back over her bared teeth as her eyes took on the unholy glow of bloody wrath.
“Anei!” Kurama grabbed her shoulders in his hands and shook her. “Stop it! Can’t you feel the anger rising up inside yourself? Can’t you feel the center of the vortex of energy surrounding you? Your jyaki is driving this insanity, and denying it won’t make it go away! Denying your true nature---”
“I’m not!” she cried, her eyes abruptly losing the bloody glow to glare into his, the brown depths shimmering with tears of terror that it was true.
“You are!” Hiei snarled, his sword dancing to keep the attacking demons at bay as Kurama held the girl in a two-handed grip and forced her to look up at him.
“Look around you, Anei! Feel the energy---where is it coming from?” Kurama’s voice was gentle as he pleaded with her, for the look in her eyes was haunted.
“Damn you, demon---” she whispered in a hoarse refusal even as she extended her senses. He could feel the exact moment when she knew, for her body stiffened and her eyes widened with the terrible truth of it. “My god---it’s true. It’s---the energy---it’s me, it’s coming from me!”
And as if her words were a button on a remote, the vibrant anger that surrounded them in pulsating waves of insidious poison were switched off, and the strange energy abruptly disappeared.
“What the…?” Hiei whirled to face them, his crimson eyes wide at the sudden disappearance of the fitful energy around them.
“Holy crap, why’s the air feel so weird?” Yusuke hollered across the field, just before he turned back around to yell at his fleeing opponent, “Hey! Come back here! Where the hell do you think you’re going? We ain‘t done yet!”
The few remaining demons in the wood froze, their eyes blinking as the rage dissolved from their bloody pupils. A few continued the fight just long enough to end it permanently, out of instinct or just plain orneriness, but most of the others just turned and fled, as frightened by the scene of terrible carnage that lay across the blood-soaked clearing as they were by the blood and wounds on their own fur and claws. Those who could soon emptied the clearing completely, leaving the heavy silence to the dead and fallen. A crow cawed, a haunting note, before leaving the scene of grim butchery behind as the slayer turned stricken eyes toward the fox who still gripped her shoulders in his firm hands.
“Why?” she asked, her voice so terrible in its aching horror and sadness that it tore at the fox’s heart, calling to the shadowed depths of his own soul to answer that forlorn whisper of a demand.
But Kurama could only shake his head as she huddled in on herself, her haunted eyes taking in the silent field as mute testimony to the carnage she had just unleashed with her foolishness.
Five hundred years she had been thus---and never known. What had happened during those years when she denied the madness in her youkai blood? What could---would---the knowledge cost her now?
He didn’t know, and could only tighten his fingers on her shoulders with regret for her soul’s pain to come, for only she could know what it had and what it would, now.