InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter Twelve ( Chapter 13 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

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 realized that I have botched a few of the details---like Hiei having his cloak with him in demon world. Oops. But I like it too much for him not to have it. =) Anywho, thank you very much for the continued support. Every review gives me the warm and fuzzies, and thank you for taking the time out to type them. (Fate)

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND THE THREE KINGS SAGA!

Chapter Twelve

“You can sense the jyaki of others---can you sense your own?”

Closing her eyes, Sango tried expanding her senses. She could feel the fox demon standing just in front of her, caught the spark that was Hiei where he leaned against the tall tree that stood alone in the open meadow where Kurama had led them this morning to begin her training. Yusuke crouched by the fire demon under the tree’s shade, watching with interest as she concentrated. She could feel the odd mixture of spiritual and demonic energy that wrapped itself around him and was surprised anew by the raw power of it.

*He’s strong. Almost as strong as Kagome.*

He might even be stronger, with the demonic energy that swirled through and blended easily with his spiritual chi.

Gathering her scattered thoughts, Sango turned her attention inward, searching for the demonic aura that should be swirling around her as it did Yusuke. She could feel something, but it was not quite the same. Ruthlessly centering her focus, she arrowed in on it, and felt the faint beat of her heart speed up. The demonic aura she sensed was concentrated right in the middle of her chest---it was Kagura’s heart. This was what she had always felt. Now was no different.

“I feel the energy centering around Kagura’s heart.”

“Your heart,” Kurama said.

Sango’s eyes snapped open, and her focus slithered away. She frowned.

The kitsune waited patiently, his arms folded across his chest as he stood easily. A breeze tugged lightly at the ends of his red hair, playfully tousling his bangs.

Sango cleared her throat, and began again. “My heart. The energy centers around my heart---I‘ve always been able to sense it.”

“Only around your heart? Can you sense it flowing around you?” The green eyes grew thoughtful as she shook her head, slightly frustrated that he expected anything different.

Kurama bowed his head slightly, deep in thought. He nodded slightly, as if to himself, and said, “You can sense the center of your jyaki---perhaps if you follow the pathways of your blood, you might be able to find your chi.”

“I know the pathways of my chi,” Sango advised, though she obediently closed her eyes and concentrated, sinking her awareness into her own body. She could feel her nerves tingling and the tension building along her shoulders. Deliberately deepening her breath, she relaxed into the easy meditation stance the sage had taught her long ago. She followed the paths of her bloodstream, lightly grazing her awareness across the energy she knew well before turning her attention back to the center of all human energy---the heart. Deepening her concentration, she focused on the aura that pulsed itself like a darker shadow against the lighter feel of her human chi.

“Concentrate on your heartbeat. Feel it pumping the blood through your veins, pulling your jyaki through your body just as it does your chi.” Kurama’s voice was quiet, his cadence matching the throb of her heartbeat as she melded with it until it was all she could hear. The outside world slipped away until the steady drum of her heart filled her consciousness. She could feel the chi pulling through her body, but could not find the darker demon energy that she should be feeling as well. She battled frustration, strengthening her will into a sharp focus to dig it out, determined to reach it. She concentrated until a thin line appeared between her knitted brows and her head started to hurt. Her shoulders were tensing up and a knot was forming on the back of her neck as she tried to force herself to feel the demonic energy inside her.

She was so deep in concentration that she nearly jumped when Kurama lightly shook her shoulder. “Anei---stop. You’re trying too hard.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Isn’t that the point?”

He smiled. “Yes---and no. You need to feel it, not force it.”

Her impatience was a sharp exhale that blew her bangs restlessly across her forehead as she let the inner frustration spill out in order to let it go. She forced herself to relax into the easy resting stance she had been taught as a warrior, weight balanced lightly on her toes and ready to move at a moment’s notice, but Kurama shook his head.

“Anei, you need to relax. I mean, really relax.” His green eyes were earnest as she looked at him, baffled.

Kurama pursed his lips. “Heh. Well then---come, let us sit.”

He suited action to words, and Sango followed after hesitating a brief moment. There was an amused grunt from the tree’s direction and she scowled at the fire demon before dropping into the knees-out, ankles-crossed, Indian-style position Kurama had taken across from her. The edges of his long red hair just brushed the yellow belt of his mint green robe, which he had donned once more this morning, and he gave her a smile of encouragement as he directed, “Now, relax into the position---”

Sango nodded, suddenly remembering how the old sage she had met had resorted to much the same tactic when first teaching her, for he had explained that she was too well-trained as a warrior to rest in a “ready” stance on her feet, and that was not something that could be easily undone. One could retrain themselves, but she had never seen the need, and neither had the sage. Sometimes it was better to take the expedient path.

Letting the line of her shoulders drop, she closed her eyes and took a few minutes to release the tension from her body, all but slumping into the easy pose the kitsune had asked of her. She breathed deeply, taking the measure of each breath before finally opening her eyes to see Kurama regarding her with some satisfaction.

“Okay, then. Now I want you to listen---just listen---to your heartbeat. You know how to find it---now, just feel it.”

He directed her, in the haunting déjà vu of the sage’s teachings long ago, to find her center. Her mind floated, just feeling her body’s blood moving, her heart the center that flowed life through her limbs. She could automatically pick out the paths of her human chi, as the old sage had taught her, but she knew that wasn’t what Kurama was wanting her to find. So she waited, just letting the beat of her heart fill her consciousness until she could sense that darker energy that lay around it, beneath the lighter chi, that was the jyaki she knew was there, hovering around Kagura’s---her---heart.

Time became insignificant and Sango truly relaxed into the feeling of simply being. The darkness seemed to expand, a purple-tinged mist that swirled through the lighter blue of her chi. She felt a stir across her mind, a tingle along her limbs, and she gasped. Her eyes popped open and she said excitedly, “I feel it---the jyaki---”

And just as suddenly as it was there, it was gone, and Kurama frowned as she blinked at the sudden withdrawal of that energy. It was gone as if it had never been, and it was her turn to frown.

“It’s gone. What happened?”

Kurama sighed. “You’ve been rejecting your aura for so long that your conscious mind is reflexively pushing it away. It’s going to take some time to change that behavior and overcome the reflex of centuries.”

Sango was disgruntled. She heard Yusuke let out a long sigh and ask the fire demon, “We’re going to be here awhile, aren’t we?”

She ignored the answer as Kurama gave her an encouraging smile. “Come, let’s try it again. Remember, you did feel your energy. Let’s see if you can hang on to it longer.”

Nodding, Sango closed her eyes and pushed the others away to try once more. And try she did, over and over, but she never even got so far as she had the first time, and her unspoken frustration built and built until she could no longer ignore it, and Kurama finally told her to stop, for she could no longer relax into the emptiness of mind needed for the simplest way he could discern on how she could recognize her jyaki.

“Sango---enough.”

She nodded, frustrated that she was frustrated and not too happy about it. She refused to meet the kitsune’s eyes and he sighed.

“Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way.”

Sango looked up, interested.

Kurama looked thoughtful. “Just how is it that you use your energy now? What can you do now, that you couldn’t then---when you were human?”

“Hn.”

They both ignored the derisive snort from the peanut gallery as Yusuke chuckled.

Sango shifted her position, drawing her knees up so she could wrap her arms around them. She thought, hard, on what he asked and finally said, “Well, I can sense demonic energy now---in others---much more strongly than I could before. I had enough spiritual sense to occasionally feel a demon’s aura---if it was strong and close by. I can now feel the energy further away, and I found a sage who taught me how to use it to measure an opponent’s strength and pinpoint their location. He’s the one who also taught me how to find my chi.”

“Hmph. A human,” Hiei scoffed as he strolled from under the tree’s wide branches.

“Heh. You have a point, my friend.” Kurama cast a smile back over his shoulder as the other two came to join them in a rough circle on the grass. Yusuke sprawled while Hiei sank into a knees-out position, sheathed sword across his lap and still managing to somehow convey an air of aloof boredom even as he turned his intent gaze on Sango.

“I don’t get it.” Yusuke rather handily asked her own question. “Who cares if the guy was human?”

“A human, no matter how learned, cannot teach a demon how to use his power---only a demon can do that. The energy of human world and demon world are just too different,” Kurama patiently explained.

Yusuke looked as if he wanted to argue, even mouthing a name Sango did not recognize, someone called “Genkai,” but the kitsune ignored him and hurriedly changed the subject.

“Anei, what else can you do?”

“Hn.”

Pointedly ignoring the fire demon’s skepticism, Sango shrugged. “Injuries heal faster---”

“Naturally.”

“My strength and stamina are better.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m certainly faster.”

“Ha.”

She rounded on the spiky-headed jerk with a fierce glare, her deep brown eyes reddening slightly with anger. “Do you mind?”

“Woah!” Yusuke jerked back from the sudden swirl of angry jyaki that flared around her. Kurama’s eyes widened in surprise at the sudden return of it.

Hiei smirked, job done and point made.

Taken aback by their reactions, Sango blinked in confusion and the jyaki disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

“Well, damn.” Yusuke scrubbed the back of his head in surprise.

“What?” Sango gave him a sharp look.

Kurama just shook his head in wry amusement as Hiei looked impatient with her obliviousness.

Sango was annoyed, but Kurama quickly distracted her by asking if there was anything else she could do. She nodded reluctantly, not sure how to explain it. She didn’t like the scornful look in Hiei’s eyes or the amusement in Yusuke’s, as if they knew something she didn’t. She ignored them to answer Kurama as honestly as she could. “I can use the wind a bit. I can lighten my body weight---though it’s more like I use the air around me to hold myself up, I guess. Like when we fought the banshees the other night---the tree I was in couldn’t hold my weight, so I used the air to lighten the burden of my body so the branch wouldn’t break.”


*Child’s play,* Hiei sent scornfully to Kurama, who shrugged.

*Yes---but at least she can use her jyaki to some extent.*

Hiei let his sour silence speak for him.

Kurama cleared his throat, turning his green eyes back to the slayer. “Are there any other ways that you use the wind?”

She shrugged her shoulders, which were tense. Her fingers were laced together around her knees and she replied, “I can sometimes feed my energy into the wind and summon it. I can only do it once---like when I put out the fire that night---and it makes me tired, afterwards.”

Kurama raised a single brow in surprise and Hiei’s gaze sharpened with interest.

“Your energy?” Yusuke sat forward, also interested.

Sango shrugged. “My chi.”

“But you are able to somehow use it to summon the wind---which is a part of your demon heritage,” Kurama said, encouraged by that fact. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together so that he could set his chin on them while he turned this new information over in his mind. His green eyes grew distant as he contemplated how it might help. Wondering aloud, he asked, “If you can feed your chi into your demonic aura, I wonder if the reverse holds true, and you can feed your aura into your chi?”

“Why shouldn’t it?” Yusuke didn’t see why it wouldn’t work both ways. He had never really needed to think about how he called up his own energy, it just came when he needed it. True, his teacher Genkai had had to show him how to focus it, especially when using stronger attacks like the Spirit Wave, but it had always just been there, a part of him.

“I would like to see for myself. Anei?” Kurama asked, eyes refocusing on the taiji-ya, who shrugged, game to try anything at this point.

“Okay.” She got to her feet and walked a bit away from them. Yusuke made a motion to get up as well, but Kurama just shook his head, so stayed where he was. They all watched, Hiei closing his eyes and concentrating with the Jagan to see how she manipulated the patterns of energy around her. The demon’s third eye glowed faintly and Kurama wondered what he saw, but didn’t break the apparition’s concentration by asking.

He could see for himself as her human energy flared slightly, a paler echo of the blue-white energy Yusuke could call. The darker purple tints of her demonic aura were all but swallowed by the lighter energy of her human chi, and then both flared slightly, joining for one moment in a mixture of swirling color before flinging outward as a sudden wind tore through the meadow, sweeping across the open field to send his long hair dancing over his shoulders. The giant oak tree behind them creaked and groaned, branches swaying in the sudden gale, the thick grass rippling around the meadow in a pantomime of sea waves as fallen leaves madly danced away on a wind that died as abruptly as it came.

Kurama could tell the slayer was tired, for her shoulders sagged slightly before she straightened, looking back at them.

“Hn.” Hiei’s eyes opened and the faint glow dissolved from around the lavender iris of the third that rested above them. “She has no control---she’s just forcing it out, like a child would.”

“Did the Jagan show you anything other than her chi twisting around her jyaki and then suddenly flaring out?” Kurama asked.

“No.” Hiei’s red gaze flickered to his friend’s before shifting back to the slayer, who was walking towards them.

“They were one, though, just before she called that blast of wind---which was stronger than I expected.” Kurama raked his fingers through the tangled ends of his hair, distractedly patting it back into place.

Yusuke rolled his eyes at the kitsune’s fastidious fussing. “So, let me get this straight. You didn’t learn a damn thing by having her do that?”

Hiei’s teeth flashed in a rare smile as Kurama grimaced, chagrined. “Nothing we didn’t know already.”

“Well, then, why don’t we just try and trigger her jyaki again---like Hiei did when he pissed her off?” Yusuke demanded, impatient. “It sure flared up then.”

“Getting her angry is not the point, Yusuke,” Kurama sighed. “We’re trying to control her demon anger, not unleash it. Remember what happened just yesterday.”

The Mazoku made a face, remembering all too well, but persisted. “Well, then, what else summons demon energy besides the desire to attack? Defense?”

Kurama straightened, turning a look of surprise on his friend, who only grinned as Hiei dryly opined, “You’re not always as stupid as you appear, Detective.”

“Damn straight---I think.” Yusuke smirked, then looked up as Sango stopped in front of them, her brown eyes questioning. He just shook his shaggy black head and bounced to his feet. “So, taiji-ya, looks like we’re going to try this shit another way. Kurama wants to see if your jyaki reacts to being attacked, and I don’t mind volunteering.”

She shot the kitsune a startled look, and then eyed the eager ex-detective as she said cautiously, “If you think that will work…”

“Can’t hurt.” Yusuke brushed caution aside, eager to be doing something besides sitting around watching her not accomplishing much. He brought his fists up and leaned back slightly on the balls of his feet as the slayer drew back, reflexively dropping into a defensive stance as she eyed him warily.

“Yah!” Yusuke leapt towards her, trying a neat roundhouse as she jumped back, neatly backing out of the way and retreating two steps as his other fist came in from the left. He pressed forward, making her retreat again and again as he kept up the attack. She was quick, easily dodging his myriad punches, but he wasn’t using even half of his strength or speed, loathed as he was to actually hurt her. They danced around the meadow for a good bit before Hiei growled in annoyance.

“Damn it, Detective, if you’re going to do it---do it.”

Sango shot the short demon a dark look, but caught Kurama’s slight nod. She turned back to Yusuke, who shrugged, and then pounced with more determination than before. He smiled when she had to twist into a back-flip to avoid his sudden attack of flying fists. He followed, opening up his speed as she barely dodged his next punch, and then slid right under him to avoid the next. He felt a sharp jab to his knee and hissed, nearly toppling as she jumped back, unwilling to press the advantage either, just as reluctant as he to really put too much into the fight.

Both demons continued to watch impassively as Yusuke regained his balance and stood there, a thoughtful look on his face. The taiji-ya regarded the half-demon warily, but made no move to attack, knowing they were testing her defensive reflexes, not her fighting ability. When Yusuke came back to life, she was startled, though, by the ferocity of his attack. He kept her dancing in a continual pirouette as he circled around her, his hands flying in lightning-fast moves almost too quick for her to counter. She caught one punch on her braced arm, grunting at the impact, and he grinned at getting in a hit, and then really opened up. She tried every passive trick she knew to keep him away from her, and still he came on and on until she finally lashed back, turning a defensive kick into a sharp punch to the same knee she had hit earlier, only to miss it as he sprang away.

Yusuke’s grin only widened. He loved sparring, and his blood was just starting to warm up as he doubled his efforts. He quit trying to hit her, for she was like an eel, always slipping out of reach, and tackled her instead. She landed on the ground with a loud “Oof!” but managed to plant a foot in his belly and send him sailing over her head as she sprang back up to her feet. Yusuke landed none too gracefully, but was soon rolling back up on his feet as well. They circled each other, she warily, he with growing elation. This was starting to be fun, and he chuckled when she suddenly went on the offensive, sending a series of sharp kicks and lightning-fast flat-handed chops his way which he blocked with some effort before turning the tables again. He grazed her stomach with his curled knuckles, her having barely avoided the strike by sucking in her gut at the last minute before punching him on the shoulder. His elbow caught her as she spun aside, and she hissed as his other fist punched her in the side. It wasn’t as hard as it could have been, though. He was still holding back, for he didn’t really want to hurt her, and she seemed to know it, for her hits weren’t as hard as they could have been, either.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Hiei growled, impatient as the two fighters obviously continued to pull their blows at the last moment.

Kurama sighed. “She knows he won’t really hurt her. This isn’t quite working out as I thought it would. I hadn’t figured in that she would instinctively know that.”

“Hn.”

Kurama scrambled to his feet as the fire demon suddenly disappeared from his side. He reappeared in the air just above the two combatants, drawn sword glittering with deadly malice as he swung for the taiji-ya’s unprotected back.

She froze, feeling the length of bared steel suddenly resting lightly upon her lower spine, but only stood there as Yusuke did a double-take. “Hiei?”

Kurama’s green eyes widened---but not from the suddenness of the demon’s attack, but from the slayer’s reaction to it. What should have sent her diving out of the way---she was too well-trained not to have felt the sweep of split air behind her and known the danger it signified---had her only standing there, breathing heavily as she turned her head to look back at the demon, who scowled.

*She knows he won’t hurt her. She---trusts him.*

Well, maybe not consciously; for even as he had the thought she was twisting away with a glare and pulling free her own sword with an angry jerk. Hiei smirked and her brown eyes narrowed. They then joined in earnest, exchanging a flurry of blows almost too fast to follow. Yusuke planted himself to one side, crossing his arms and watching with a faint smile as the two warriors cut and clashed, their blades clanging with an almost musical chime as their bodies moved in a complicated dance until Hiei finally managed to knock her blade out of her hand, sweeping his own to rest along the side of her unprotected neck.

Again, she only stood there, her swirling aura hardly changing as it should have if she felt herself to be in any real danger. She panted, clearly tired, and she was flushed and clearly furious that the demon had bested her, but only glared when he turned away with a contemptuous flick of his sword, sheathing it and turning his back.

The chance was clearly too good an opportunity for her to pass up, and Yusuke laughed outright as she launched herself at the demon, who whirled back around with a wide-eyed growl that she would dare. She managed to push him off-balance with her shoulder, and they both fell in a tangle of limbs and went rolling through the grass as Yusuke unabashedly cheered them on.

She managed to claim temporary victory by coming up on top, pinning the fire demon’s shoulders to the ground and scissoring his legs with her own, but Hiei quickly snatched it back by rocking his hips and rolling them back over. She managed to get a knee bent between them, but it was awkwardly placed, Hiei being more protective of his family jewels than last time, and she didn’t have enough leverage to try the same trick she had used on Yusuke earlier. Hiei took the expedient path of shifting his stronger weight onto her knee, turning it under to an awkward angle so that she couldn’t use it as he pinned her arms to her sides and simply forced her down with his heavier strength.

Kurama’s breath held, waiting for what the taiji-ya would do next, but she just went limp, reluctantly admitting defeat with a dark glower. Red eyes mocking, the fire apparition nodded once and then vanished, reappearing just past Yusuke, calmly walking away with his arms folded as he returned to Kurama’s side.

“Didn’t work,” was all he said, expression unreadable.

Kurama just looked at him.


Yusuke extended a hand down to help the winded slayer up. She looked at his open palm, and then looked at him, and he winked. A strange expression crossed her face, and then she shook her head. To his surprise, she actually took hold his hand and he braced his weight as she clambered back up to her feet. Her hair was a sweaty tangle that stuck to her cheeks and forehead and she looked really sexy, actually, with her chest heaving like that and her cheeks all flushed.

She didn’t look too happy, and went and reclaimed her fallen sword with a grimace. Unconsciously rubbing her side, where his own fist had caught her a good one, Yusuke trailed behind to watch her behind as she trudged back toward the others. Man, that girl had a nice ass.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, and he snapped his eyes up, an expression of baffled innocence crossing over his features. She looked suspicious, but said nothing. Yusuke caught Kurama’s narrowed green gaze and grinned cheekily, delighting in how both demons wore matching glares that could fry a man’s balls off if he weren’t too careful.

This day was turning out not to be so boring after all.

Now, if he could only find a place that served real food---instead of this catch-your-own crap. He didn’t like that shit one damn bit. And he was starving. They sure skipped lunch a lot, and the afternoon was almost gone. His stomach growled, reminding him of how empty it was, and so he brought the matter up plaintively as he and Anei joined the others.

“You guys ever heard that a growing boy needs three square meals a day?” He unselfconsciously rubbed at his aching belly, and Hiei sneered.

“Humans,” he growled in disgust, and abruptly disappeared.

Kurama only shook his head when Yusuke arched a brow at him, and turned casually to Anei, asking not so casually as the kitsune would like to pretend how she was feeling.

“Tired.” She sighed, looking it, before straightening into that “I’m fine” lie of hers by smoothing out her features and stiffening her spine. Wow, if ever there was a case of denial not being just a river, there she stood. Yusuke’s mouth twitched but he held back a laugh as Kurama again narrowed a green eye on him. He shrugged, turning the motion into an outright stretch of his arms as he lifted them up above his head and arched his back to crack his spine, rolling his shoulders back and then dropping them as he jauntily put his hands in his pants’ pockets.
“Can we go back home, now?” he demanded, thinking of the cave and Kurama’s reed basket, which always seemed to hold something relatively edible. The kitsune had scrounged up some not-so-heinous fruit this morning for breakfast, though it hadn’t gone so well with the cold stew left over from last night. Yusuke hoped there would be something more substantial for dinner tonight. A cheeseburger would be great right about now. He wondered if there were such a thing as a cheeseburger demon, and if he could catch it and eat it.

Kurama frowned. “Yes. I think we’ve done what we could for now---”

“But---” Anei protested, clearly concerned that they hadn’t accomplished what they had set out to do, and find a way for her to tap into her demon energy.

Kurama took her hands lightly in his---Yusuke saw her jerk slightly, as if she might withdraw them, but that strange look crossed her features again, and she deliberately relaxed---and said earnestly, “Don’t worry, Anei. There are a few other ideas I would like to try, but they will have to wait for nightfall, and you will need time to recover your physical energy.”

“All right,” she reluctantly agreed, but had no other choice. She didn’t have to like it, though, and Yusuke hid a grin at her rather pathetic attempt at hiding that fact.

“Hey, Kurama, do you have any more of those apple-pears we had for breakfast? Those weren’t so bad.” Yusuke deliberately caught the kitsune’s attention, and Kurama reluctantly let the slayer’s hands go as he answered with a distracted nod. The slayer blushed, for some reason, and so did Kurama, looking slightly surprised by that fact.

God, Yusuke loved it. It wasn’t often the fox was caught so off-balance.

Sidling in between the two, he flashed a cheeky grin and stirred the pot. “Wow, it must be hot. You two sure looked flushed.”

They both glared, and he held up his hands. “Hey---I’m just making a comment. Why are you guys getting so upset all o’sudden?”

“Yusuke,” Kurama warned, voice dangerously low as Anei abruptly turned and stalked off through the grass.

Man, she had a sweet ass. Even sweeter was the death-glare Kurama shot him when he couldn’t resist mentioning it.