InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter Fourteen ( Chapter 15 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: YoukaiFate 
Yue no Rei, thank you very much for your continued support. You've been R&R'ing since the first chapter, and I really appreciate it. Thank you!
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 01.18.2009 | Updated On: 01.19.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 503 | Status: Completed
Yue no Rei, thank you very much for your continued support. You've been R&R'ing since the first chapter, and I really appreciate it. Thank you!
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 01.18.2009 | Updated On: 01.19.2009 | Pages: 3 | Words: 8.3K | Visits: 503 | 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: This has taken longer for me to rewrite than I expected. A few weeks ago, I got a virus and lost everything. Mou---I’m still recovering all the stuff I lost, but actually the rewrite has come out better than I expected, and I’m plowing ahead. Thank you again and again for all the reviews---they kept me at the keyboard when I wanted to howl and curse the Fates instead of backing up my system…heh-heh…live and learn…grumble. =)
Second A/N: Oops. I had Kurama calling Sango by her real name. I've edited it out in this chapter. Thank you, Guyute, for giving me the heads up! I also have to thank you for reminding me of a certain Irish rascal. =P
WARNING! RUN-ON SENTENCES, PURPLY-PROSED WIND DEMONS AND A SQUEEZE OF LIME, SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND BLAH BLAH YOU KNOW THE REST…
Chapter Fourteen
A hand on her shoulder woke Sango early the next morning. She blinked up at the young man who knelt beside her, a finger to his lips as he gestured for her to follow him outside. For a brief moment she hesitated, but his lightly-glowing green eyes silently implored she trust him, and she finally capitulated with a brief nod. Flipping back the blanket of her cloak, she automatically gathered up her sword and shoes before carefully picking her way past the other two, who still slept---though she had a niggling feeling that Hiei, at least, might be faking---and followed the red-haired kitsune outside.
It was the hour just before dawn. It was chilly and dark with no moon to cast even a faint luminance behind the perpetual clouds that covered Makai. Those clouds hung low and swollen, a paler blot against the darkness of the night. Sango shivered, wishing she had thought to bring her warm cloak with her, but anxious to catch up to Kurama, who was already climbing down the hill, reed basket under one arm. Tugging on her boots, she scrambled after him with far less grace. She could not see as well as he, with his kitsune eyesight, and the darkness seemed thicker as she descended.
He caught her arm as she lurched on a bit of gravel at the bottom, and she blushed. He let go, but bent his head close to hers to whisper, “I wanted to show you a part of demon world that few know to exist. Will you let me?”
He was so close his long hair tickled her bare arm and Sango felt her skin prickle under the heat of his passing breath across her cheek. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and quickly moved away, disgruntled by his proximity and her unsteady reaction to it. Lips twisting wryly, he gestured toward the shadowy woods and led the way as they disappeared between the tall trees.
Sango carefully trailed the kitsune’s steps, surprised at the wandering path he led her. His form was but a light blur ahead, his ruddy hair a darker shadow that split the pale cast of his light green robe. They pressed deeper into the woods, he bending the rare branch or bush that swept low into their path out of her way. Glancing around her, Sango warily stepped closer to him, realizing that the shadows had deepened and the trees had grown thicker, the brush thornier. Kurama made no sound before her, and while she kept her tread light, she still scuffed the occasional dry leaf beneath her foot as she tried to penetrate the darkness with her anxious gaze.
She almost bumped into him when he paused to sweep a thick stand of ferns aside at the lee of a fallen log to reveal a small patch of mushrooms that glowed with their own ghostly aura. The jyaki within them beckoned with a gleaming radiance across their perfect, round shapes as they huddled amid others in the split hollow of the dead tree‘s trunk. Kurama crouched low and said lightly, “These mushrooms are carnivorous; they attract their insect prey with their glow.”
Sango made a face. Trust a mushroom in Makai to be some type of evil carnivore. But Kurama bypassed the glowing mushrooms for the more mundane ones beyond them. “These, however, are perfectly edible,” he said, his fingers cleverly twisting the grubby caps free. Dropping them into his basket, he gracefully stood and scanned the small glade around them.
“Demon plants often like to hide their nature among other, more ordinary, plants,” he supplied as his fingers skimmed over a thick tree’s rough bark.
“To better deceive their prey?” Sango asked, slightly soured by that fact.
“Or to protect themselves from becoming prey.” The kitsune shrugged. “That is the way of nature, even in the human world, that one who feeds on others is often food for others.”
Sango nodded, for he seemed to want a response of some kind, but she still didn’t feel comfortable in this world with its odd creatures and strange plants that resembled Ningenkai’s but were still so different, and often in ways that were more sinister than their living world cousins.
“Come, there is more I would like you to see.” Kurama gracefully stepped over the log, Sango gingerly following after. The trunk was wide---she actually had to hop on top of it to get over it. The scrape of her boot against the dead wood startled something out of the other end, and she instinctively shied, one hand on her hilt as Kurama turned his head and smiled as the small creature---which resembled a weird cross between a rat and a bunny with its long, skinny tail that ended in a puffy ball---dove for cover under a stand of strange, hairy bushes.
“Cotton-tail,” he explained as he extended a helpful hand to her. Disgruntled, Sango took his offer and let him assist her up from her crouch on the log and back down to the ground beside him. “Much like the rabbits you’ve known, but more true to the name, actually.”
She stared after the creature, trying to see if she could spy it among the low, fuzzy leaves of the brush where it lay hidden, but it had disappeared. Shrugging, she followed Kurama once more as he wove a careful path through a low stand of half-grown berry brambles. He paused to pick a few of the riper berries, passing one to her with a motion that she try it. Sango tentatively took a bite, and was surprised by the tart burst of liquid that flooded her mouth and left her lips puckered in surprise.
Kurama laughed softly at her expression. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you that the rue-berries were young yet. Their taste grows sweeter as they ripen, but many people like the tartness of an earlier harvesting.” He palmed a few with evident relish, his own mouth twisting as the tart flavor flooded his tongue. “There’s a small pool nearby, where you can wash the taste out if you want.”
Eager, for the tart fruit had left her mouth dry, Sango nodded as Kurama led the way, a half-smile playing about his lips as he ate a few more berries along their path. Sango was surprised by the easy assurance of the kitsune as he followed what seemed to be some type of deer trail through the tangle of berry bushes. There was a relaxation to him, an easiness, that seemed to come from his surroundings, as if he felt more at home in this shadowy wilderness than in any other. Usually, his expressions were so guarded, his gestures so controlled, but he seemed to walk with a lighter step, as if the forest took some unnamed burden from him.
Rounding a giant, vine-covered trunk that stood thicker than both of them put together, Kurama pulled back a stand of tall, ferny-looking plants to make a way for her to squeeze past him. Sango blushed as she did so, and then gasped as her eyes fell on the small, hidden dell that was revealed. Concealed by the huge stand of giant trees and towering ferns, as if they stood sentinel over it, the small pool and its ethereal surroundings was such a picture of sweet beauty it brought an ache to her chest.
The water bubbled to itself, laughing over the mossy stones that thrust up from its depths. Flowers were everywhere, their sweet scent languishing on the air with a heady perfume as their long, draping leaves trailed across the pool’s edge. Petals spun lazily about the mild current, pulled by the eddies of the spring below. Grass grew thick and luxuriant along the bank before the thick, gnarled roots of the giant trees interrupted their path. Ferns grew at the base of each tree, and grey moss hung from the lower branches and carpeted the lower trunks. There was an odd radiance to the small clearing, a radiance lent by the star-shaped, pale yellow flowers that grew everywhere and the dancing motes of light that surrounded them.
Sango froze, alarmed by the ghostly aura that came from the beautiful flowers and remembering Kurama’s warning about the poisonous mushrooms, but he whispered, “It’s all right. They’re harmless. They glow to attract the pixies, who feed on their nectar.”
“Pixies?” Sango’s eyes widened and she stared up at the dancing lights that seemed so much like fireflies, blinking in and out in colors of gold and orange, yellow and white. But wait---there was a red one, and a blue, and now that she looked harder, she could see other colors, all gleaming softly like paler versions of the rainbow. A green one seemed to separate itself from the others and slowly winked towards them. Sango surreptitiously edged away from Kurama as his body brushed past hers to enter the small clearing, the ferns feathering closed behind him.
She watched as Kurama, his skin lit with a golden cast as his ruddy hair was turned to darker fire by the pale radiance of the flowers around them, extended a palm to the small green light, who danced closer as he let out a low whistling sound to coax it closer.
It piped a reply, the glow brightening a little, and he answered with another low noise of reassurance. Sango’s breath caught as the pale green figure delicately settled on the fox’s outstretched fingers, its own small hands gripping his bent thumb for balance as it stared up at him with soft green eyes devoid of iris or pupil. It was a perfect woman in miniature, the translucent wings flicking lazily like a butterfly’s from between its shoulders as it stared up at him. Its---her---short hair was a green cap above a face that was missing both nose and lips, but resembled a human’s, being ovoid in shape, and was dominated by her green eyes, which glowed with a mild gentleness.
The pixie gave a trilling descant of inquiry, and Kurama smiled softly as its wings flicked rapidly, the translucent lines gleaming with a greenish hue. Sango saw another mote break off from the rest to come closer, its whistle sharp. She smiled as the first pixie turned to face it, trilling back with a scolding tone as the second circled around and just out of reach as Kurama waited patiently for it to alight as well on his outstretched palm.
The second pixie refused to land, but circled warily, calling out to the first with definite warning. It was a male, much like the other except that its wings were golden, its hair almost white and its eyes a sort of orangey-yellow that darkened as the female tittered back, hands on her hips. Sango blushed, realizing that the male was as naked as the female and as exact in detail to a man---except for the face, of course---but had to laugh when the female chittered angrily up at her arrogant summoner, taking to the air to scold him as he hastily flew back, wings fluttering in alarm.
Kurama smiled down at her and Sango unconsciously stepped forward to follow the progress of the irate female and her wary male. They flew back up towards the others, who flitted between the towering treetops, until they were lost to sight as their glowing bodies became mere blinking motes in the distance.
“They’re so beautiful,” she said in wonder, entranced by the dancing lights above them as she craned her head back to catch a glimpse of the others.
“It’s good they are cautious, for they are not that intelligent,” Kurama said, his green eyes following the lazily flickering motes as well. He turned to look down at her. “The water is fresh, if you would like to take a drink. The flowers are not poisonous.”
“They smell so sweet.” Sango paused to touch one with a single fingertip before kneeling at the pool’s edge to cup her hands and bring the cool liquid to her lips. She shook her hands dry, delighted as the drops of water twinkled like diamonds amid the softly golden radiance of the flowers surrounding her. She blinked as a single blossom filled her vision, and her brown eyes rose as Kurama smiled down at her, eyes warm as he extended the perfect bloom towards her with a coaxing twinkle.
“Uh…thank you.” She bit her lip and blushed as he casually dropped the flower into the cup of her palm, his fingers lightly trailing across hers. Raising it to her nose, her eyes closed as she drank in the sweet fragrance. She started when he lightly touched her shoulder.
“Come, there’s more,” he said, his eyes dark and unfathomable and even almost fey as he looked down at her. Sango reluctantly stood and followed him, her eyes flicking back up to the dancing pixies as they left the idyllic spot behind. She kept the star-shaped flower to her nose as she trailed the kitsune back through the wild ferns that shielded the small pool from sight, her steps slow and reluctant as they finally emerged among the towering trees that faintly reminded her of the famous redwoods she had once seen on a postcard of North America.
Dawn had crept through the forest, lightening the darkness to a patchwork of verdant growth and indigo shadows. Kurama moved swiftly, his steps sure as he retraced their path and then turned off into another part of the forest that seemed much the same to her as any other, though there were differences in each plant and tree, of course. She realized that this forest was old, even by living world standards, but there wasn’t the sense of aging to it, but of ancient life ever-renewing. Grey-green moss draped itself along the lower branches of the giant trees, thick vegetation crowding below. The grass was thick, even amid the gnarly roots, which was unusual with trees that grew so large and shielded the earth from the sun as these did. Perhaps it was the jyaki that existed in everything that allowed the plants to grow so well where normally they would not.
Kurama suddenly looked up, and Sango followed his line of sight, though she couldn’t make anything out. But a bird suddenly chirped inquiringly, and another answered it, further away. There was a stir to the forest, as if it knew the day was breaking. The light wind that blew the short hair tickling across her cheeks made the leaves whisper lightly to themselves far above her.
A whir of wings and a throaty caw had her reaching for her katana as she frowned at the three-eyed crow that abruptly swooped past her. The crow was much like the one Kagome had once shot with her arrow, shattering the Jewel of Four Souls into hundreds of pieces in the process. Sango’s fingers reflexively tightened on her hilt, but Kurama stayed her hand, shaking his head slightly when she would have drawn her blade.
“Watch,” he whispered to her, eyes following the bird as it spread its black wings wide to land in the crook of a giant oak tree not far from them.
Something was gripped in its talons, and it did a weird jump-and-flap as it landed, hopping up into the hollow of its nest as it dropped its prize. There was a raspy cheep, followed by another, and Sango blinked as the three-eyed crow crooned low in its harsh throat, croaking a gentle scold when the raspy cheeps rose in a demand to be fed. She watched in bewilderment as the mother crow fed her chicks as any normal raptor would, tearing strips from the dead animal it had brought and transferring the meat to the gaping beaks of its begging young.
Of course, she knew demon crows bred and bore young, but she had never really thought about it. But seeing the little family made her bite her lip, thinking of how she had always seen the three-eyed birds as simply vermin. Not that the demon crows could not be particularly vicious, especially when they claimed a field for their territory---she had seen them peck out the eye of a man, chasing the poor farmer off his field just because they had decided it made a perfect place for them to call their own, but this…this added a new dimension to what she had always never given thought to, and she suddenly felt a pang of regret for the birds she had slain.
Well, mostly. The ones after the Jewel shards, the ones who attacked humans, well, she would have exterminated a rabid animal just as she had exterminated them, if it had taken it into its head to attack innocent people who could not defend themselves.
Kurama was watching her expression intently and seemed satisfied with what he saw, for he gave her an encouraging nod. “Nothing is ever what it seems, Anei. Everything always has a story; truth has many sides.”
That enigmatic statement was followed by his casually turning aside to peel back a stand of feathery-looking plants to pull up a few others that grew closer to the ground and drop them inside his basket. Sango silently followed the red-haired fox as he walked past the wide oak tree, eyes intent on the growth around him. She watched as he paused here and there, picking at one thing and discarding another with a randomness that was not truly as random as it seemed, for they were making their way steadily deeper into the forest, the ground sloping slightly as they penetrated further.
She was able to pick out a few plants that she knew---wild onions, a herb whose name she could not recall but she knew was good for fevers, a thorny bush with berries too young to try and eat yet. Kurama seemed content to walk and gather in silence, and she relaxed and watched the forest around them, surprised by the quiet peace that wrapped around her even as the small residents of the wood started waking to their day. Not everything was as innocent as it seemed, but even those dangers that would normally have her reaching for her sword seemed somehow less threatening.
She warily watched a bulbous, purple eyeball with wings like a bat that perched in the lee of an upper branch of the tree Kurama was currently working around. The eyeball blinked sleepily at her, sinking further into the shadows of its chosen branch as the wan daylight of Makai seeped through the curtain of leaves, the lid finally drooping closed. She saw red eyes glowing at her from hidden hollows, and sometimes heard scurrying in the brush around her as she passed, startling those out of her path by her step. She wondered what they were, but they couldn’t pose any danger, for Kurama ignored them, and her own acute sense of warning remained silent and undisturbed. She saw a small deer pause, its soft blue eyes widened in alarm as they came upon its small meadow, before it leapt away on cloven feet, small horns gleaming wickedly sharp in the slightly pinkish daylight that sparkled down between a gap in the giant trees.
Sitting on a tree stump as Kurama picked his way through a tree of strange fruit that were a deep scarlet in color and grew between two sprouting buds, so that they looked like bloody eyes---which, of course, were their name, ugh---Sango started as she saw an ugly, little, moss-covered thing pass by, a small club over its shoulder. It stood no higher than her knee, and paid her no mind, trudging its way over a tree root and eventually disappearing. She felt Kurama’s eyes on her, and she shrugged, a wan smile flickering across her lips at the odd intrusion. He smiled back, eyes inscrutable, and reaching up, twisted a bloody fruit free to drop into his rapidly filling basket. “Just one more, and I think we’ll be done here.”
“Okay.” Sango got up from her seat, dusting the back of her pants off, and froze as something growled menacingly behind her. Eyes widening, she looked at Kurama, who had frozen as well. But his mouth was curving up at one corner, and he didn’t appear alarmed. Sango slowly turned, hand automatically going to her hilt, and was suddenly face to face with the most adorable koala bear she had ever seen, though it had a tail as long and powerful as a monkey’s, and its ears were twice as large and feathered in white down so that they almost looked like wings. Its eyes were pink, and it showed a double row of sharp teeth to her that bettered belonged in a shark’s mouth than a furry mammal’s. It was hanging upside down, glaring at her as if she was intruding on its territory, and she backed up a step, loathed to test the reach of its long claws, whose curving length looked wickedly sharp.
“Don’t worry,” Kurama was suddenly beside her, his deeply green eyes alight as he watched the demon with a soft expression. “It won’t attack, unless provoked, and doesn’t eat meat. Here---” he passed a fruit to her, one of the blood-eyes he had just picked, “offer it this. Go on.”
He encouraged her with a warm nod of reassurance when she hesitated, fingers finally closing over the proffered fruit. The koala watched her suspiciously when she turned back to it, hand cautiously extended. It did an amazing flip and hook around its tree limb, righting itself and retreating halfway up the trunk as if startled by her action. Sango giggled, for it gave her such a skeptical look, whiskers twitching madly, that she could not help but laugh at its expression. It glared at her, clearly affronted that its ferocious display had not had the desired effect of scaring her off, and chittered angrily, hooked claws tightening around its perch.
Losing all fear of the creature, Sango smiled up at it. “Come on,” she coaxed, extending the scarlet fruit that smelled like a mix of raspberries and apples, or something reminiscent of both. The kaola demon took a tentative sniff, its whiskers twitching as a long, pink tongue licked along its jagged teeth. It made a whining noise low in its throat, and Sango made a low sound of assurance in reply. It studied her for what seemed like hours to her aching arm, but was only a few moments. Abruptly reaching out, it neatly swiped the fruit from her fingers. She jumped back, startled by how quick it had moved, and it cackled at her, triumphant, before disappearing in a scrambling flurry of swaying leaves as it retreated back up the trunk with its prize.
Except its long, grey tail hung down from its hiding spot, giving it away. She laughed, she couldn’t help herself, and the tail disappeared with a jerk, the annoyed, stuffed-mouth growl making her giggle with a delightful freedom that she had not felt in far too long. She turned dancing eyes on Kurama, and he looked down at her with a strange warmth in his deep green eyes, one that warmed her straight to her toes and brought a blush to her cheeks as she automatically stepped back from him, wary of her unsettled reaction to the look in his fey eyes.
For he suddenly seemed otherworldly, the living flame of his hair wild around his beautiful face and shoulders. His green eyes, a bare shade darker than the verdant growth around them, seemed more slanted than usual, adding to the impression of a cat who watched her with an indeterminable aim and intensity that had her trembling slightly in reaction to it.
“Kurama?” she whispered, surprised by the strangeness that had descended between them.
“Do you not sense it, Anei? Do you not feel the jyaki in this wood calling out to you? Can you not feel it as part of you? This is the reason I brought you here…for you to see a part of demon world that few can even admit exists. This world…it’s not all terror and mayhem, blood and anger. It is as real as any other, with its own savage struggles and its own natural beauty.” His eyes were suddenly sad, and she felt a strange ache of sympathy for his expression, which spoke of too much knowledge, the burden of that knowledge and the weariness of spirit that came with it. His fingers reached out to feather across the rough bark of the koala’s tree beside them.
“This forest is old, old beyond reckoning, but the life within it, it’s young and wild. Reach out around you, Anei---feel the jyaki that flows through every living creature in Makai, and see what it is I can’t really explain…”
She hesitated, for he seemed almost terrifying in the urgency of his plea, his expression at once both desperate and earnest for her understanding. Her brown eyes searched his for a long moment before she finally closed them to seek out the jyaki within her, as Hiei had shown her only last night. It was there, slipping over her awareness with a welcoming feeling of rightness as she sunk herself into it. She followed it up and back as it flowed through her heart, lightly pulled along by the powerful surge of her body’s energy flows. As she neared the center of her being, she slowly sent her awareness outward, in a gesture similar to what she had used last night to fling off the overwhelming power that had flooded her stunned awareness.
What she felt made her gasp in shock, for the same energy that was inside her, pulsing life within her youkai-human body, was also outside of her, written in lines of fuchsia fire that bound and flowed and connected everything together in a giant web across the whole face of the world, from smallest rock to deepest stream, from tallest tree to wispiest cloud. It flowed through every living and nonliving thing in Makai, exploding in a powerful fountain from the strongest youkai to the merest dewdrop for the tiniest denizen that skittered beneath the leaves her feet rested upon. It knit everything around her in its welcoming embrace, joyous in the simple act of being, and it received her with an aching tenderness that brought un-fallen tears to her eyes, for she had not even realized that she had been missing that for so long, so very long…
It was the feeling of being recognized and wanted, knowing that she was both such a small part of something so much more important and vast than she could ever think to ever be a part of, and yet knowing that she was a part both needed and necessary. Knowing that her small voice among thousands and even hundred of thousands would have left an empty void in the fabric of this world if she were not there to fill it, and the tears crept down her cheeks in heart-touched recognition that she was---home.
“Can you not feel it, Anei? The world around you? You are as much a part of it as it is a part of you.” Kurama’s quiet voice was oddly accented with the growling echo of when first she had met him, when he had worn the ethereal face of his kitsune nature, as if Youko were somehow closer to him than before.
She said nothing, caught up in the wonder of it all. Her chin lifted, her eyes still tightly closed as her nostrils expanded, taking in a deep breath of the wind that suddenly stirred around her, calling to her with a song that quickened her blood and sped up the beat of heart in response to its lilting draw. She suddenly understood just how much she now was and had become, and she knew that she could never again forget that she was more than she could have ever thought to be, and wondered guiltily why it was she had ever thought it wrong…
“You cannot only accept your jyaki, Anei…” Kurama’s husky whisper was like a warm honey that flowed all around her, melting away the last shreds of her reluctance to acknowledge that she was what she had always been---herself. Youkai, human, did it matter? They were just labels---words without meaning except that which you assigned to them. Meanings that were lies of bitterness and denial. Meanings that were unworthy of who she was---wholly and fully.
“You must…” His voice lowered, growing even more rough, and Sango’s eyes flew open in surprise at the feel of him cradling her to him, his strong arms circling around her shoulders and threading lightly through her tangled hair. His head was bent over hers, his face so close she could feel the warm breath on her lips, which she parted in a light gasp at the achingly gentle way he held her, as if she were something fragile and precious. The look in his green eyes, darkened with passion and something else she could not name, made her heart skip and her breath grow shallow as strange, fluttering sensations flooded throughout her body, leaving an ache in their wake as they passed.
Not something new, this sensation. She had felt it, once or twice, with her beloved houshi, when held tenderly in his arms, but she had never expected to feel that need---that desire---again, and she was caught off-guard by how quickly Kurama evoked it. She felt suddenly vulnerable, and her eyes widened as he bent his head, his lashes lowering as his warm breath heated across her tingling lips. “You must…embrace…it…”
And then his mouth claimed hers, and she was spun up in a world of utter sensation that was entirely new and foreign, for she seemed to feel each press of his lips upon hers, each movement and each lingering nibble and caress of his tongue like it was expanded a hundredfold, as her senses had been last night. His mouth slanted over hers with a master’s skill, imprinting his heady desire across her swollen lips even as he tightened his hold on her shoulders, drawing her closer to him so that he could curl himself around her. She felt his tongue sweep across the bow of her lips and unconsciously opened up for him, moaning lightly as his tongue swept inside to curl with hers. Heated breath was exchanged as she went limp in his arms, overcome by the sheer intensity of the moment, each second of which seemed to stretch into infinity. Time lost importance, as did the world around her, as she was caught up in a maelstrom of heady sensation that left her body aching and her heart tightening inside her chest.
She broke apart with a gasp, needing air, and his warm mouth nibbled along her chin and going down her throat, leaving tiny butterflies of feeling to dance in their wake.
“Come now…I must show you…one last thing…” he whispered huskily against her throat, and Sango blinked in surprise as he let go of her shoulders to grab her hand and tug her after him into a stumbling run. Still dizzy with the suddenness of his kiss and the even more suddenness of his hauling her along after him, she staggered past the oak tree and down the hill, pushing through the tangling brush that abruptly opened up into a wide-open meadow that was blanketed from one end to the other in a snow-white drift of beautiful flowers.
Sango gasped, eyes widening in shock as she saw the white lilies that spilled across every inch of the opened grassland. Memory stirred, of a secret garden shared with her brother long ago, and tears sprang to her eyes. She lurched ahead of Kurama, letting go of his hand as she ran straight into the center of that beautiful meadow, her gasp turning into a cry of joyous surprise as thousands of white lilies suddenly took flight around her---soaring up on butterfly wings in dizzying spirals as her headlong run disturbed them into taking to the air. The wind seemed to spring up behind them, a breeze that circled around her and called for her to reach out and touch it. She did so, wrapped in the feeling of beauty and magic that sang all around her. The wind---Kagura’s wind---was a part of her, just as much as Kagura’s heart was now hers, and she breathed it in and became one with it as it danced, sending her spirit soaring up with the white butterflies as they arched over and around her in a dizzying blizzard of snowy splendor.
She opened herself wholly to that wind---feeling it and embracing it, as Kurama had told her, and the tears that ran down her face were from joy, not sorrow, as her heart took wing. This was what she had been denying---this oneness, this wholeness, this freedom. The wind filled her soul and she joined its song, dancing on airy feet that swirled around her, catching her up in it as she laughed, a sound of such pure, innocent joy and recognition it brought an ache to the throat of the silent man who watched her from the meadow’s verge.
Dizzy with the feeling of utter acceptance, Sango rode the wind as it tore around the meadow, casting discarded petals before it as the butterflies soared up above its reach. She could feel herself running wildly, her feet barely touching the ground, and suddenly she was borne a foot or two up off of the grass, the wind cradling her body on its breath as she spun in a dizzy circle of heady freedom. It could not hold her long---her power was too new, her control too slight---and so she slipped from that buoyant grasp to tumble to her knees in the grass, the beautiful white lilies rising up around her shoulders as she laughed in pure elation.
The wind was tugged from her light grasp, pulling up out of her reach even as her hands rose above her head to try and catch it back. It was pulled by another, one much stronger than she, and she suddenly froze, growing icy with dread at the knowledge. The wind was sent rushing back towards her in a fierce blast that sent her long hair streaming behind her as she bowed her head and raised her crossed arms to shield her face from the grass and petals tossed back on her by the force of it.
Eyes shut tight against the strength of the gale, she instinctively rolled aside, grasping the hilt of a knife and pulling it free as she danced back to her feet. Unconsciously feeling out where the new threat lay---there!---she flung her blade at him, releasing a second and third as she rolled back away towards the forest’s edge, where Kurama had remained standing under the thick trees. She could feel the---whoever it was---dodge her thrown knives and cursed, yanking free her sword as she whirled into a defensive crouch that was met with a hearty laugh as---whatever it was---landed right in the spot she had just been kneeling.
“Well, ain’t you a quick one.” The accent had a strange lilt and Sango blinked as the howling wind suddenly died to stillness, cut off with a wave of his hand.
Kurama, who had already drawn his rose-whip and was crouched in front of her, slowly got up to his feet, the tension dropping from his shoulders and back as if he seemed to know the youkai who now stood, arms folded and blue eyes dancing, in the middle of the meadow. Sango frowned, not recognizing the muscular demon with the small white horn in the middle of his wild crop of bright red hair, which was lighter and more orange in color than Kurama’s thick mane. He wore a bare nod to what one might consider a shirt---crossed sashes tucked into the belt of his hakama, the billowy white fabric of which were tied tightly to his lower calves in a type of wrapped shin-guard that matched those on his lower arms from elbow to wrist.
“By all the living saints who’d never step a holy toe in demon world, if it isn’t Kurama! Why, you’d be the last one I’d ever be expecting to see here, m’boyo!” The apparition gave a hoot of delight, bouncing up off the grass to flip once in the air, the wind shrieking from behind Sango to come and support him in midair as he assumed a knees out, arms behind his head sitting pose some few feet off the ground. Raking her hair out of her eyes, Sango shot Kurama a look of pure bewilderment as the fox chuckled softly.
“It’s good to see you again, Jin.”
Sango lowered her sword, recognizing the name as one Yusuke had dropped when asking if she was kin to him. Jin was a wind demon they had known---one who they thought was Irish. His accent was certainly startling, as were the dancing blue eyes and the fangs in his wide smile, which he was ever ready to share.
“It is at that---and me never expecting to see you this side o’ the barrier, especially in this forest of all places. There were rumors of a wee scuffle taking place here a few days ago and I was sent to check it out, you know, seeing as I’m Shinobi and all. And as I’m flying along, never expecting to be seeing my old tournament-buddy---or nothing much else for that matter---I feel a bit o’ the wind a’stirring, I does, and I’s wondering what might be the cause of it, and was I that surprised to see it be but a wee colleen playing among the lilies, looking like a sweet lily herself, if I might add---”
Sango could only stare at him as he tossed her a wink and a wave and went right on talking. Kurama half-turned to look back at her, an amused glint in his green eyes, before turning back to the lightly-bouncing wind demon, who floated gently on a cushion of air beneath him.
“---and here I am, never expecting to be more surprised than I was to find such loveliness a’calling my name so sweetly on the wind of a nice summer morning, than I was at finding my old friend the fox right here with her, of all places.”
He had to be a wind demon to have that much air in him, for he’d hardly taken a breath during that whole speech, and Sango was left stunned, hardly knowing how to deal with such an---exuberant---person. For even as her mind tried to play catch-up with all his words, he spun out of his relaxed seat to land right in front of her with a bow and a clasp of her hand, which he brought to his lips, kissing her upturned palm before she could react, which she did by snatching it back.
“Are you crazy?” She brought her sword up, her checks flushing as hot as her glare into merry blue eyes that only crinkled up at the corners in reply.
“I’m thinking I am, Lily, for do you see me ears?” He pointed to the wide pair of them, which were twitching with excitement. “They’d be wiggling, you know, when I’m happy or setting to roust about---fighting, mind--- and I’m one damn giddy demon right now, with both you and me friend here come to see me so unexpected-like. Now, what be your name, lass? Give it up, now, for I must know from your own sweet lips what name to put to this ache that’s started up in me chest upon sight of you.” He clasped his hands together imploringly as Sango started backing away from him, for he must be mad.
“Ah, lass, you ain’t afraid of me, now, are ya? I wouldna hurt a sweet hair on your head, Lily. I’m a little excitable, yes, but that’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I’m not scared,” Sango snapped, drawn up by the challenge. Her eyes glittered as the demon bounced forward. “Stop right there, youkai, or you’ll feel the sharp end of my blade in your belly.”
“Oh!” If anything, his eyes lit up even more. The wind suddenly sprang up to form a small tornado around him as he brought his clasped hands up in a prayer and looked heavenward. “Oh, sweet Mary, Michael and Bride---who are probably rolling over right now in their very graves for mine being the one to take their names in vain---and I thought she couldn’t get any more lovely than the fairness of my Lily’s sweet face.”
Kurama coughed as Sango’s mouth fell open.
But the fact that Jin was here, when the fox had been wondering just how he might go about training Anei in the use of her element, with what little he and Hiei might cobble together with their limited knowledge and own demonic abilities---well, it just might be that Jin’s arrival would prove rather fortuitous. If he could get the Wind Master to agree to take a few days out to show the taiji-ya just what she needed to know of the basics, at least, than it would be.
Now, how to get them both to agree? For while he didn’t think Jin would present too much of a problem---the wind demon was showing rather too much of an interest in the dark-haired slayer, actually, for Kurama’s peace of mind. He wasn’t ready to admit to just how irritated he was by it, just as he wasn’t ready to face the uncomfortable fact that he had just kissed the girl, and not deliberately, no, but purely on impulse. That made him wary, for he was not one to ever lose control over himself like that. He wasn’t prepared to answer her understandable questions right now, much less his own. Having Jin to train her for a few days might distract her enough that it would give him time to examine this new development…
Now, though, he had to figure out a way to get her to agree to the plan. From the poignant glare she was giving the wind demon, it wasn’t going to be easy. The fact that she was glaring at the enthusiastic youkai actually improved Kurama’s mood somewhat, and he even smiled as Jin dug his own grave with his tongue.
“Ah, now, lass, you can’t be faulting a fellow for speaking the truth, and the truth is that you are as intoxicating to me as a rarely aged whiskey, what with the smell of the wind fresh upon your skin---though blame me if I canna figure out how it’s on you as it’s on me, yes? But there’s no mistaking when one’s had the touch of the dark-wind upon them, when her sister the night has cloaked the world in her shadows---which are helpful, no, to be hiding one’s self in, eh?” He winked conspiratorially at her, and the taiji-ya stiffened.
Kurama had never expected Jin, of all demons, to have such a poetic bent, but he was Irish, or appeared to be, and they always seemed a bit flowery in their speech. Perhaps he had just been reading too much of it, though.
Warrior that she was, Anei ignored all the compliments to focus on what he had hinted. Frowning, she lowered her katana slightly, asking, “You can smell the shadows on me? Do you know a way for me to hide them?”
Closing one eye, Jin leaned forward enough so that their noses were almost touching. “Now, what would you be wanting to know that for, eh? ’Tis it possible that you might be wanting to learn a trick or two, and hoping that I might be the one to show you?”
Jerking back with a blush, the taiji-ya said stiffly, “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” Jin flipped right over in mid-air, his roar of laughter shaking the grass beneath him as he did a few somersaults that brought him higher and higher into the air as he shouted, “Perhaps, she says! Ah, if that ain’t the funny, than I don’t know what is! Oh, Lords above and below, you’ll be the death of me, Lily! Perhaps, indeed!”
Brows raising, Kurama watched as the irascible wind demon launched himself up into the sky, a tornado forming around him as he did a neat wingover before swooping back down in a dive that ripped the grass and flowers up in his wake as he sped past both of them. Combing the red hair out of his eyes with wry exasperation, Kurama stiffened to see the sly Shinobi now stood behind the girl, his smirk rather too devilishly shrewd.
“Well, may be it there is a thing or two that I might consider showing you, lass---and more, perhaps, if you’d like, eh?” His voice grew silky as he drawled out the end and she flushed, brown eyes widening as he leaned forward and casually propped his chin on her shoulder, ears wiggling and smile growing so that his fangs gleamed as his blue eyes twinkled.
Burying his curling fists in his pockets, Kurama’s green eyes narrowed.
Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
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: This has taken longer for me to rewrite than I expected. A few weeks ago, I got a virus and lost everything. Mou---I’m still recovering all the stuff I lost, but actually the rewrite has come out better than I expected, and I’m plowing ahead. Thank you again and again for all the reviews---they kept me at the keyboard when I wanted to howl and curse the Fates instead of backing up my system…heh-heh…live and learn…grumble. =)
Second A/N: Oops. I had Kurama calling Sango by her real name. I've edited it out in this chapter. Thank you, Guyute, for giving me the heads up! I also have to thank you for reminding me of a certain Irish rascal. =P
WARNING! RUN-ON SENTENCES, PURPLY-PROSED WIND DEMONS AND A SQUEEZE OF LIME, SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND BLAH BLAH YOU KNOW THE REST…
Chapter Fourteen
A hand on her shoulder woke Sango early the next morning. She blinked up at the young man who knelt beside her, a finger to his lips as he gestured for her to follow him outside. For a brief moment she hesitated, but his lightly-glowing green eyes silently implored she trust him, and she finally capitulated with a brief nod. Flipping back the blanket of her cloak, she automatically gathered up her sword and shoes before carefully picking her way past the other two, who still slept---though she had a niggling feeling that Hiei, at least, might be faking---and followed the red-haired kitsune outside.
It was the hour just before dawn. It was chilly and dark with no moon to cast even a faint luminance behind the perpetual clouds that covered Makai. Those clouds hung low and swollen, a paler blot against the darkness of the night. Sango shivered, wishing she had thought to bring her warm cloak with her, but anxious to catch up to Kurama, who was already climbing down the hill, reed basket under one arm. Tugging on her boots, she scrambled after him with far less grace. She could not see as well as he, with his kitsune eyesight, and the darkness seemed thicker as she descended.
He caught her arm as she lurched on a bit of gravel at the bottom, and she blushed. He let go, but bent his head close to hers to whisper, “I wanted to show you a part of demon world that few know to exist. Will you let me?”
He was so close his long hair tickled her bare arm and Sango felt her skin prickle under the heat of his passing breath across her cheek. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and quickly moved away, disgruntled by his proximity and her unsteady reaction to it. Lips twisting wryly, he gestured toward the shadowy woods and led the way as they disappeared between the tall trees.
Sango carefully trailed the kitsune’s steps, surprised at the wandering path he led her. His form was but a light blur ahead, his ruddy hair a darker shadow that split the pale cast of his light green robe. They pressed deeper into the woods, he bending the rare branch or bush that swept low into their path out of her way. Glancing around her, Sango warily stepped closer to him, realizing that the shadows had deepened and the trees had grown thicker, the brush thornier. Kurama made no sound before her, and while she kept her tread light, she still scuffed the occasional dry leaf beneath her foot as she tried to penetrate the darkness with her anxious gaze.
She almost bumped into him when he paused to sweep a thick stand of ferns aside at the lee of a fallen log to reveal a small patch of mushrooms that glowed with their own ghostly aura. The jyaki within them beckoned with a gleaming radiance across their perfect, round shapes as they huddled amid others in the split hollow of the dead tree‘s trunk. Kurama crouched low and said lightly, “These mushrooms are carnivorous; they attract their insect prey with their glow.”
Sango made a face. Trust a mushroom in Makai to be some type of evil carnivore. But Kurama bypassed the glowing mushrooms for the more mundane ones beyond them. “These, however, are perfectly edible,” he said, his fingers cleverly twisting the grubby caps free. Dropping them into his basket, he gracefully stood and scanned the small glade around them.
“Demon plants often like to hide their nature among other, more ordinary, plants,” he supplied as his fingers skimmed over a thick tree’s rough bark.
“To better deceive their prey?” Sango asked, slightly soured by that fact.
“Or to protect themselves from becoming prey.” The kitsune shrugged. “That is the way of nature, even in the human world, that one who feeds on others is often food for others.”
Sango nodded, for he seemed to want a response of some kind, but she still didn’t feel comfortable in this world with its odd creatures and strange plants that resembled Ningenkai’s but were still so different, and often in ways that were more sinister than their living world cousins.
“Come, there is more I would like you to see.” Kurama gracefully stepped over the log, Sango gingerly following after. The trunk was wide---she actually had to hop on top of it to get over it. The scrape of her boot against the dead wood startled something out of the other end, and she instinctively shied, one hand on her hilt as Kurama turned his head and smiled as the small creature---which resembled a weird cross between a rat and a bunny with its long, skinny tail that ended in a puffy ball---dove for cover under a stand of strange, hairy bushes.
“Cotton-tail,” he explained as he extended a helpful hand to her. Disgruntled, Sango took his offer and let him assist her up from her crouch on the log and back down to the ground beside him. “Much like the rabbits you’ve known, but more true to the name, actually.”
She stared after the creature, trying to see if she could spy it among the low, fuzzy leaves of the brush where it lay hidden, but it had disappeared. Shrugging, she followed Kurama once more as he wove a careful path through a low stand of half-grown berry brambles. He paused to pick a few of the riper berries, passing one to her with a motion that she try it. Sango tentatively took a bite, and was surprised by the tart burst of liquid that flooded her mouth and left her lips puckered in surprise.
Kurama laughed softly at her expression. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you that the rue-berries were young yet. Their taste grows sweeter as they ripen, but many people like the tartness of an earlier harvesting.” He palmed a few with evident relish, his own mouth twisting as the tart flavor flooded his tongue. “There’s a small pool nearby, where you can wash the taste out if you want.”
Eager, for the tart fruit had left her mouth dry, Sango nodded as Kurama led the way, a half-smile playing about his lips as he ate a few more berries along their path. Sango was surprised by the easy assurance of the kitsune as he followed what seemed to be some type of deer trail through the tangle of berry bushes. There was a relaxation to him, an easiness, that seemed to come from his surroundings, as if he felt more at home in this shadowy wilderness than in any other. Usually, his expressions were so guarded, his gestures so controlled, but he seemed to walk with a lighter step, as if the forest took some unnamed burden from him.
Rounding a giant, vine-covered trunk that stood thicker than both of them put together, Kurama pulled back a stand of tall, ferny-looking plants to make a way for her to squeeze past him. Sango blushed as she did so, and then gasped as her eyes fell on the small, hidden dell that was revealed. Concealed by the huge stand of giant trees and towering ferns, as if they stood sentinel over it, the small pool and its ethereal surroundings was such a picture of sweet beauty it brought an ache to her chest.
The water bubbled to itself, laughing over the mossy stones that thrust up from its depths. Flowers were everywhere, their sweet scent languishing on the air with a heady perfume as their long, draping leaves trailed across the pool’s edge. Petals spun lazily about the mild current, pulled by the eddies of the spring below. Grass grew thick and luxuriant along the bank before the thick, gnarled roots of the giant trees interrupted their path. Ferns grew at the base of each tree, and grey moss hung from the lower branches and carpeted the lower trunks. There was an odd radiance to the small clearing, a radiance lent by the star-shaped, pale yellow flowers that grew everywhere and the dancing motes of light that surrounded them.
Sango froze, alarmed by the ghostly aura that came from the beautiful flowers and remembering Kurama’s warning about the poisonous mushrooms, but he whispered, “It’s all right. They’re harmless. They glow to attract the pixies, who feed on their nectar.”
“Pixies?” Sango’s eyes widened and she stared up at the dancing lights that seemed so much like fireflies, blinking in and out in colors of gold and orange, yellow and white. But wait---there was a red one, and a blue, and now that she looked harder, she could see other colors, all gleaming softly like paler versions of the rainbow. A green one seemed to separate itself from the others and slowly winked towards them. Sango surreptitiously edged away from Kurama as his body brushed past hers to enter the small clearing, the ferns feathering closed behind him.
She watched as Kurama, his skin lit with a golden cast as his ruddy hair was turned to darker fire by the pale radiance of the flowers around them, extended a palm to the small green light, who danced closer as he let out a low whistling sound to coax it closer.
It piped a reply, the glow brightening a little, and he answered with another low noise of reassurance. Sango’s breath caught as the pale green figure delicately settled on the fox’s outstretched fingers, its own small hands gripping his bent thumb for balance as it stared up at him with soft green eyes devoid of iris or pupil. It was a perfect woman in miniature, the translucent wings flicking lazily like a butterfly’s from between its shoulders as it stared up at him. Its---her---short hair was a green cap above a face that was missing both nose and lips, but resembled a human’s, being ovoid in shape, and was dominated by her green eyes, which glowed with a mild gentleness.
The pixie gave a trilling descant of inquiry, and Kurama smiled softly as its wings flicked rapidly, the translucent lines gleaming with a greenish hue. Sango saw another mote break off from the rest to come closer, its whistle sharp. She smiled as the first pixie turned to face it, trilling back with a scolding tone as the second circled around and just out of reach as Kurama waited patiently for it to alight as well on his outstretched palm.
The second pixie refused to land, but circled warily, calling out to the first with definite warning. It was a male, much like the other except that its wings were golden, its hair almost white and its eyes a sort of orangey-yellow that darkened as the female tittered back, hands on her hips. Sango blushed, realizing that the male was as naked as the female and as exact in detail to a man---except for the face, of course---but had to laugh when the female chittered angrily up at her arrogant summoner, taking to the air to scold him as he hastily flew back, wings fluttering in alarm.
Kurama smiled down at her and Sango unconsciously stepped forward to follow the progress of the irate female and her wary male. They flew back up towards the others, who flitted between the towering treetops, until they were lost to sight as their glowing bodies became mere blinking motes in the distance.
“They’re so beautiful,” she said in wonder, entranced by the dancing lights above them as she craned her head back to catch a glimpse of the others.
“It’s good they are cautious, for they are not that intelligent,” Kurama said, his green eyes following the lazily flickering motes as well. He turned to look down at her. “The water is fresh, if you would like to take a drink. The flowers are not poisonous.”
“They smell so sweet.” Sango paused to touch one with a single fingertip before kneeling at the pool’s edge to cup her hands and bring the cool liquid to her lips. She shook her hands dry, delighted as the drops of water twinkled like diamonds amid the softly golden radiance of the flowers surrounding her. She blinked as a single blossom filled her vision, and her brown eyes rose as Kurama smiled down at her, eyes warm as he extended the perfect bloom towards her with a coaxing twinkle.
“Uh…thank you.” She bit her lip and blushed as he casually dropped the flower into the cup of her palm, his fingers lightly trailing across hers. Raising it to her nose, her eyes closed as she drank in the sweet fragrance. She started when he lightly touched her shoulder.
“Come, there’s more,” he said, his eyes dark and unfathomable and even almost fey as he looked down at her. Sango reluctantly stood and followed him, her eyes flicking back up to the dancing pixies as they left the idyllic spot behind. She kept the star-shaped flower to her nose as she trailed the kitsune back through the wild ferns that shielded the small pool from sight, her steps slow and reluctant as they finally emerged among the towering trees that faintly reminded her of the famous redwoods she had once seen on a postcard of North America.
Dawn had crept through the forest, lightening the darkness to a patchwork of verdant growth and indigo shadows. Kurama moved swiftly, his steps sure as he retraced their path and then turned off into another part of the forest that seemed much the same to her as any other, though there were differences in each plant and tree, of course. She realized that this forest was old, even by living world standards, but there wasn’t the sense of aging to it, but of ancient life ever-renewing. Grey-green moss draped itself along the lower branches of the giant trees, thick vegetation crowding below. The grass was thick, even amid the gnarly roots, which was unusual with trees that grew so large and shielded the earth from the sun as these did. Perhaps it was the jyaki that existed in everything that allowed the plants to grow so well where normally they would not.
Kurama suddenly looked up, and Sango followed his line of sight, though she couldn’t make anything out. But a bird suddenly chirped inquiringly, and another answered it, further away. There was a stir to the forest, as if it knew the day was breaking. The light wind that blew the short hair tickling across her cheeks made the leaves whisper lightly to themselves far above her.
A whir of wings and a throaty caw had her reaching for her katana as she frowned at the three-eyed crow that abruptly swooped past her. The crow was much like the one Kagome had once shot with her arrow, shattering the Jewel of Four Souls into hundreds of pieces in the process. Sango’s fingers reflexively tightened on her hilt, but Kurama stayed her hand, shaking his head slightly when she would have drawn her blade.
“Watch,” he whispered to her, eyes following the bird as it spread its black wings wide to land in the crook of a giant oak tree not far from them.
Something was gripped in its talons, and it did a weird jump-and-flap as it landed, hopping up into the hollow of its nest as it dropped its prize. There was a raspy cheep, followed by another, and Sango blinked as the three-eyed crow crooned low in its harsh throat, croaking a gentle scold when the raspy cheeps rose in a demand to be fed. She watched in bewilderment as the mother crow fed her chicks as any normal raptor would, tearing strips from the dead animal it had brought and transferring the meat to the gaping beaks of its begging young.
Of course, she knew demon crows bred and bore young, but she had never really thought about it. But seeing the little family made her bite her lip, thinking of how she had always seen the three-eyed birds as simply vermin. Not that the demon crows could not be particularly vicious, especially when they claimed a field for their territory---she had seen them peck out the eye of a man, chasing the poor farmer off his field just because they had decided it made a perfect place for them to call their own, but this…this added a new dimension to what she had always never given thought to, and she suddenly felt a pang of regret for the birds she had slain.
Well, mostly. The ones after the Jewel shards, the ones who attacked humans, well, she would have exterminated a rabid animal just as she had exterminated them, if it had taken it into its head to attack innocent people who could not defend themselves.
Kurama was watching her expression intently and seemed satisfied with what he saw, for he gave her an encouraging nod. “Nothing is ever what it seems, Anei. Everything always has a story; truth has many sides.”
That enigmatic statement was followed by his casually turning aside to peel back a stand of feathery-looking plants to pull up a few others that grew closer to the ground and drop them inside his basket. Sango silently followed the red-haired fox as he walked past the wide oak tree, eyes intent on the growth around him. She watched as he paused here and there, picking at one thing and discarding another with a randomness that was not truly as random as it seemed, for they were making their way steadily deeper into the forest, the ground sloping slightly as they penetrated further.
She was able to pick out a few plants that she knew---wild onions, a herb whose name she could not recall but she knew was good for fevers, a thorny bush with berries too young to try and eat yet. Kurama seemed content to walk and gather in silence, and she relaxed and watched the forest around them, surprised by the quiet peace that wrapped around her even as the small residents of the wood started waking to their day. Not everything was as innocent as it seemed, but even those dangers that would normally have her reaching for her sword seemed somehow less threatening.
She warily watched a bulbous, purple eyeball with wings like a bat that perched in the lee of an upper branch of the tree Kurama was currently working around. The eyeball blinked sleepily at her, sinking further into the shadows of its chosen branch as the wan daylight of Makai seeped through the curtain of leaves, the lid finally drooping closed. She saw red eyes glowing at her from hidden hollows, and sometimes heard scurrying in the brush around her as she passed, startling those out of her path by her step. She wondered what they were, but they couldn’t pose any danger, for Kurama ignored them, and her own acute sense of warning remained silent and undisturbed. She saw a small deer pause, its soft blue eyes widened in alarm as they came upon its small meadow, before it leapt away on cloven feet, small horns gleaming wickedly sharp in the slightly pinkish daylight that sparkled down between a gap in the giant trees.
Sitting on a tree stump as Kurama picked his way through a tree of strange fruit that were a deep scarlet in color and grew between two sprouting buds, so that they looked like bloody eyes---which, of course, were their name, ugh---Sango started as she saw an ugly, little, moss-covered thing pass by, a small club over its shoulder. It stood no higher than her knee, and paid her no mind, trudging its way over a tree root and eventually disappearing. She felt Kurama’s eyes on her, and she shrugged, a wan smile flickering across her lips at the odd intrusion. He smiled back, eyes inscrutable, and reaching up, twisted a bloody fruit free to drop into his rapidly filling basket. “Just one more, and I think we’ll be done here.”
“Okay.” Sango got up from her seat, dusting the back of her pants off, and froze as something growled menacingly behind her. Eyes widening, she looked at Kurama, who had frozen as well. But his mouth was curving up at one corner, and he didn’t appear alarmed. Sango slowly turned, hand automatically going to her hilt, and was suddenly face to face with the most adorable koala bear she had ever seen, though it had a tail as long and powerful as a monkey’s, and its ears were twice as large and feathered in white down so that they almost looked like wings. Its eyes were pink, and it showed a double row of sharp teeth to her that bettered belonged in a shark’s mouth than a furry mammal’s. It was hanging upside down, glaring at her as if she was intruding on its territory, and she backed up a step, loathed to test the reach of its long claws, whose curving length looked wickedly sharp.
“Don’t worry,” Kurama was suddenly beside her, his deeply green eyes alight as he watched the demon with a soft expression. “It won’t attack, unless provoked, and doesn’t eat meat. Here---” he passed a fruit to her, one of the blood-eyes he had just picked, “offer it this. Go on.”
He encouraged her with a warm nod of reassurance when she hesitated, fingers finally closing over the proffered fruit. The koala watched her suspiciously when she turned back to it, hand cautiously extended. It did an amazing flip and hook around its tree limb, righting itself and retreating halfway up the trunk as if startled by her action. Sango giggled, for it gave her such a skeptical look, whiskers twitching madly, that she could not help but laugh at its expression. It glared at her, clearly affronted that its ferocious display had not had the desired effect of scaring her off, and chittered angrily, hooked claws tightening around its perch.
Losing all fear of the creature, Sango smiled up at it. “Come on,” she coaxed, extending the scarlet fruit that smelled like a mix of raspberries and apples, or something reminiscent of both. The kaola demon took a tentative sniff, its whiskers twitching as a long, pink tongue licked along its jagged teeth. It made a whining noise low in its throat, and Sango made a low sound of assurance in reply. It studied her for what seemed like hours to her aching arm, but was only a few moments. Abruptly reaching out, it neatly swiped the fruit from her fingers. She jumped back, startled by how quick it had moved, and it cackled at her, triumphant, before disappearing in a scrambling flurry of swaying leaves as it retreated back up the trunk with its prize.
Except its long, grey tail hung down from its hiding spot, giving it away. She laughed, she couldn’t help herself, and the tail disappeared with a jerk, the annoyed, stuffed-mouth growl making her giggle with a delightful freedom that she had not felt in far too long. She turned dancing eyes on Kurama, and he looked down at her with a strange warmth in his deep green eyes, one that warmed her straight to her toes and brought a blush to her cheeks as she automatically stepped back from him, wary of her unsettled reaction to the look in his fey eyes.
For he suddenly seemed otherworldly, the living flame of his hair wild around his beautiful face and shoulders. His green eyes, a bare shade darker than the verdant growth around them, seemed more slanted than usual, adding to the impression of a cat who watched her with an indeterminable aim and intensity that had her trembling slightly in reaction to it.
“Kurama?” she whispered, surprised by the strangeness that had descended between them.
“Do you not sense it, Anei? Do you not feel the jyaki in this wood calling out to you? Can you not feel it as part of you? This is the reason I brought you here…for you to see a part of demon world that few can even admit exists. This world…it’s not all terror and mayhem, blood and anger. It is as real as any other, with its own savage struggles and its own natural beauty.” His eyes were suddenly sad, and she felt a strange ache of sympathy for his expression, which spoke of too much knowledge, the burden of that knowledge and the weariness of spirit that came with it. His fingers reached out to feather across the rough bark of the koala’s tree beside them.
“This forest is old, old beyond reckoning, but the life within it, it’s young and wild. Reach out around you, Anei---feel the jyaki that flows through every living creature in Makai, and see what it is I can’t really explain…”
She hesitated, for he seemed almost terrifying in the urgency of his plea, his expression at once both desperate and earnest for her understanding. Her brown eyes searched his for a long moment before she finally closed them to seek out the jyaki within her, as Hiei had shown her only last night. It was there, slipping over her awareness with a welcoming feeling of rightness as she sunk herself into it. She followed it up and back as it flowed through her heart, lightly pulled along by the powerful surge of her body’s energy flows. As she neared the center of her being, she slowly sent her awareness outward, in a gesture similar to what she had used last night to fling off the overwhelming power that had flooded her stunned awareness.
What she felt made her gasp in shock, for the same energy that was inside her, pulsing life within her youkai-human body, was also outside of her, written in lines of fuchsia fire that bound and flowed and connected everything together in a giant web across the whole face of the world, from smallest rock to deepest stream, from tallest tree to wispiest cloud. It flowed through every living and nonliving thing in Makai, exploding in a powerful fountain from the strongest youkai to the merest dewdrop for the tiniest denizen that skittered beneath the leaves her feet rested upon. It knit everything around her in its welcoming embrace, joyous in the simple act of being, and it received her with an aching tenderness that brought un-fallen tears to her eyes, for she had not even realized that she had been missing that for so long, so very long…
It was the feeling of being recognized and wanted, knowing that she was both such a small part of something so much more important and vast than she could ever think to ever be a part of, and yet knowing that she was a part both needed and necessary. Knowing that her small voice among thousands and even hundred of thousands would have left an empty void in the fabric of this world if she were not there to fill it, and the tears crept down her cheeks in heart-touched recognition that she was---home.
“Can you not feel it, Anei? The world around you? You are as much a part of it as it is a part of you.” Kurama’s quiet voice was oddly accented with the growling echo of when first she had met him, when he had worn the ethereal face of his kitsune nature, as if Youko were somehow closer to him than before.
She said nothing, caught up in the wonder of it all. Her chin lifted, her eyes still tightly closed as her nostrils expanded, taking in a deep breath of the wind that suddenly stirred around her, calling to her with a song that quickened her blood and sped up the beat of heart in response to its lilting draw. She suddenly understood just how much she now was and had become, and she knew that she could never again forget that she was more than she could have ever thought to be, and wondered guiltily why it was she had ever thought it wrong…
“You cannot only accept your jyaki, Anei…” Kurama’s husky whisper was like a warm honey that flowed all around her, melting away the last shreds of her reluctance to acknowledge that she was what she had always been---herself. Youkai, human, did it matter? They were just labels---words without meaning except that which you assigned to them. Meanings that were lies of bitterness and denial. Meanings that were unworthy of who she was---wholly and fully.
“You must…” His voice lowered, growing even more rough, and Sango’s eyes flew open in surprise at the feel of him cradling her to him, his strong arms circling around her shoulders and threading lightly through her tangled hair. His head was bent over hers, his face so close she could feel the warm breath on her lips, which she parted in a light gasp at the achingly gentle way he held her, as if she were something fragile and precious. The look in his green eyes, darkened with passion and something else she could not name, made her heart skip and her breath grow shallow as strange, fluttering sensations flooded throughout her body, leaving an ache in their wake as they passed.
Not something new, this sensation. She had felt it, once or twice, with her beloved houshi, when held tenderly in his arms, but she had never expected to feel that need---that desire---again, and she was caught off-guard by how quickly Kurama evoked it. She felt suddenly vulnerable, and her eyes widened as he bent his head, his lashes lowering as his warm breath heated across her tingling lips. “You must…embrace…it…”
And then his mouth claimed hers, and she was spun up in a world of utter sensation that was entirely new and foreign, for she seemed to feel each press of his lips upon hers, each movement and each lingering nibble and caress of his tongue like it was expanded a hundredfold, as her senses had been last night. His mouth slanted over hers with a master’s skill, imprinting his heady desire across her swollen lips even as he tightened his hold on her shoulders, drawing her closer to him so that he could curl himself around her. She felt his tongue sweep across the bow of her lips and unconsciously opened up for him, moaning lightly as his tongue swept inside to curl with hers. Heated breath was exchanged as she went limp in his arms, overcome by the sheer intensity of the moment, each second of which seemed to stretch into infinity. Time lost importance, as did the world around her, as she was caught up in a maelstrom of heady sensation that left her body aching and her heart tightening inside her chest.
She broke apart with a gasp, needing air, and his warm mouth nibbled along her chin and going down her throat, leaving tiny butterflies of feeling to dance in their wake.
“Come now…I must show you…one last thing…” he whispered huskily against her throat, and Sango blinked in surprise as he let go of her shoulders to grab her hand and tug her after him into a stumbling run. Still dizzy with the suddenness of his kiss and the even more suddenness of his hauling her along after him, she staggered past the oak tree and down the hill, pushing through the tangling brush that abruptly opened up into a wide-open meadow that was blanketed from one end to the other in a snow-white drift of beautiful flowers.
Sango gasped, eyes widening in shock as she saw the white lilies that spilled across every inch of the opened grassland. Memory stirred, of a secret garden shared with her brother long ago, and tears sprang to her eyes. She lurched ahead of Kurama, letting go of his hand as she ran straight into the center of that beautiful meadow, her gasp turning into a cry of joyous surprise as thousands of white lilies suddenly took flight around her---soaring up on butterfly wings in dizzying spirals as her headlong run disturbed them into taking to the air. The wind seemed to spring up behind them, a breeze that circled around her and called for her to reach out and touch it. She did so, wrapped in the feeling of beauty and magic that sang all around her. The wind---Kagura’s wind---was a part of her, just as much as Kagura’s heart was now hers, and she breathed it in and became one with it as it danced, sending her spirit soaring up with the white butterflies as they arched over and around her in a dizzying blizzard of snowy splendor.
She opened herself wholly to that wind---feeling it and embracing it, as Kurama had told her, and the tears that ran down her face were from joy, not sorrow, as her heart took wing. This was what she had been denying---this oneness, this wholeness, this freedom. The wind filled her soul and she joined its song, dancing on airy feet that swirled around her, catching her up in it as she laughed, a sound of such pure, innocent joy and recognition it brought an ache to the throat of the silent man who watched her from the meadow’s verge.
Dizzy with the feeling of utter acceptance, Sango rode the wind as it tore around the meadow, casting discarded petals before it as the butterflies soared up above its reach. She could feel herself running wildly, her feet barely touching the ground, and suddenly she was borne a foot or two up off of the grass, the wind cradling her body on its breath as she spun in a dizzy circle of heady freedom. It could not hold her long---her power was too new, her control too slight---and so she slipped from that buoyant grasp to tumble to her knees in the grass, the beautiful white lilies rising up around her shoulders as she laughed in pure elation.
The wind was tugged from her light grasp, pulling up out of her reach even as her hands rose above her head to try and catch it back. It was pulled by another, one much stronger than she, and she suddenly froze, growing icy with dread at the knowledge. The wind was sent rushing back towards her in a fierce blast that sent her long hair streaming behind her as she bowed her head and raised her crossed arms to shield her face from the grass and petals tossed back on her by the force of it.
Eyes shut tight against the strength of the gale, she instinctively rolled aside, grasping the hilt of a knife and pulling it free as she danced back to her feet. Unconsciously feeling out where the new threat lay---there!---she flung her blade at him, releasing a second and third as she rolled back away towards the forest’s edge, where Kurama had remained standing under the thick trees. She could feel the---whoever it was---dodge her thrown knives and cursed, yanking free her sword as she whirled into a defensive crouch that was met with a hearty laugh as---whatever it was---landed right in the spot she had just been kneeling.
“Well, ain’t you a quick one.” The accent had a strange lilt and Sango blinked as the howling wind suddenly died to stillness, cut off with a wave of his hand.
Kurama, who had already drawn his rose-whip and was crouched in front of her, slowly got up to his feet, the tension dropping from his shoulders and back as if he seemed to know the youkai who now stood, arms folded and blue eyes dancing, in the middle of the meadow. Sango frowned, not recognizing the muscular demon with the small white horn in the middle of his wild crop of bright red hair, which was lighter and more orange in color than Kurama’s thick mane. He wore a bare nod to what one might consider a shirt---crossed sashes tucked into the belt of his hakama, the billowy white fabric of which were tied tightly to his lower calves in a type of wrapped shin-guard that matched those on his lower arms from elbow to wrist.
“By all the living saints who’d never step a holy toe in demon world, if it isn’t Kurama! Why, you’d be the last one I’d ever be expecting to see here, m’boyo!” The apparition gave a hoot of delight, bouncing up off the grass to flip once in the air, the wind shrieking from behind Sango to come and support him in midair as he assumed a knees out, arms behind his head sitting pose some few feet off the ground. Raking her hair out of her eyes, Sango shot Kurama a look of pure bewilderment as the fox chuckled softly.
“It’s good to see you again, Jin.”
Sango lowered her sword, recognizing the name as one Yusuke had dropped when asking if she was kin to him. Jin was a wind demon they had known---one who they thought was Irish. His accent was certainly startling, as were the dancing blue eyes and the fangs in his wide smile, which he was ever ready to share.
“It is at that---and me never expecting to see you this side o’ the barrier, especially in this forest of all places. There were rumors of a wee scuffle taking place here a few days ago and I was sent to check it out, you know, seeing as I’m Shinobi and all. And as I’m flying along, never expecting to be seeing my old tournament-buddy---or nothing much else for that matter---I feel a bit o’ the wind a’stirring, I does, and I’s wondering what might be the cause of it, and was I that surprised to see it be but a wee colleen playing among the lilies, looking like a sweet lily herself, if I might add---”
Sango could only stare at him as he tossed her a wink and a wave and went right on talking. Kurama half-turned to look back at her, an amused glint in his green eyes, before turning back to the lightly-bouncing wind demon, who floated gently on a cushion of air beneath him.
“---and here I am, never expecting to be more surprised than I was to find such loveliness a’calling my name so sweetly on the wind of a nice summer morning, than I was at finding my old friend the fox right here with her, of all places.”
He had to be a wind demon to have that much air in him, for he’d hardly taken a breath during that whole speech, and Sango was left stunned, hardly knowing how to deal with such an---exuberant---person. For even as her mind tried to play catch-up with all his words, he spun out of his relaxed seat to land right in front of her with a bow and a clasp of her hand, which he brought to his lips, kissing her upturned palm before she could react, which she did by snatching it back.
“Are you crazy?” She brought her sword up, her checks flushing as hot as her glare into merry blue eyes that only crinkled up at the corners in reply.
“I’m thinking I am, Lily, for do you see me ears?” He pointed to the wide pair of them, which were twitching with excitement. “They’d be wiggling, you know, when I’m happy or setting to roust about---fighting, mind--- and I’m one damn giddy demon right now, with both you and me friend here come to see me so unexpected-like. Now, what be your name, lass? Give it up, now, for I must know from your own sweet lips what name to put to this ache that’s started up in me chest upon sight of you.” He clasped his hands together imploringly as Sango started backing away from him, for he must be mad.
“Ah, lass, you ain’t afraid of me, now, are ya? I wouldna hurt a sweet hair on your head, Lily. I’m a little excitable, yes, but that’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I’m not scared,” Sango snapped, drawn up by the challenge. Her eyes glittered as the demon bounced forward. “Stop right there, youkai, or you’ll feel the sharp end of my blade in your belly.”
“Oh!” If anything, his eyes lit up even more. The wind suddenly sprang up to form a small tornado around him as he brought his clasped hands up in a prayer and looked heavenward. “Oh, sweet Mary, Michael and Bride---who are probably rolling over right now in their very graves for mine being the one to take their names in vain---and I thought she couldn’t get any more lovely than the fairness of my Lily’s sweet face.”
Kurama coughed as Sango’s mouth fell open.
ooOOooOOooOOoo
Jin’s sudden appearance was rather unexpected, to say the least, but Kurama’s quick mind was already considering in what ways he might turn it to his advantage. Jin was, after all, a Wind Master of no small talent and ability. He was one of the Shinobi, the guardians of Makai, who were each powerful warriors in their own elements, trained from childhood by a single Master to replace them once they retired. He had no idea of Jin’s personal history, if the training he had received had been by his will or that of his family’s. It was considered an honor to be chosen by a Shinobi master, but the youkai himself was usually too young to have much say in the matter.But the fact that Jin was here, when the fox had been wondering just how he might go about training Anei in the use of her element, with what little he and Hiei might cobble together with their limited knowledge and own demonic abilities---well, it just might be that Jin’s arrival would prove rather fortuitous. If he could get the Wind Master to agree to take a few days out to show the taiji-ya just what she needed to know of the basics, at least, than it would be.
Now, how to get them both to agree? For while he didn’t think Jin would present too much of a problem---the wind demon was showing rather too much of an interest in the dark-haired slayer, actually, for Kurama’s peace of mind. He wasn’t ready to admit to just how irritated he was by it, just as he wasn’t ready to face the uncomfortable fact that he had just kissed the girl, and not deliberately, no, but purely on impulse. That made him wary, for he was not one to ever lose control over himself like that. He wasn’t prepared to answer her understandable questions right now, much less his own. Having Jin to train her for a few days might distract her enough that it would give him time to examine this new development…
Now, though, he had to figure out a way to get her to agree to the plan. From the poignant glare she was giving the wind demon, it wasn’t going to be easy. The fact that she was glaring at the enthusiastic youkai actually improved Kurama’s mood somewhat, and he even smiled as Jin dug his own grave with his tongue.
“Ah, now, lass, you can’t be faulting a fellow for speaking the truth, and the truth is that you are as intoxicating to me as a rarely aged whiskey, what with the smell of the wind fresh upon your skin---though blame me if I canna figure out how it’s on you as it’s on me, yes? But there’s no mistaking when one’s had the touch of the dark-wind upon them, when her sister the night has cloaked the world in her shadows---which are helpful, no, to be hiding one’s self in, eh?” He winked conspiratorially at her, and the taiji-ya stiffened.
Kurama had never expected Jin, of all demons, to have such a poetic bent, but he was Irish, or appeared to be, and they always seemed a bit flowery in their speech. Perhaps he had just been reading too much of it, though.
Warrior that she was, Anei ignored all the compliments to focus on what he had hinted. Frowning, she lowered her katana slightly, asking, “You can smell the shadows on me? Do you know a way for me to hide them?”
Closing one eye, Jin leaned forward enough so that their noses were almost touching. “Now, what would you be wanting to know that for, eh? ’Tis it possible that you might be wanting to learn a trick or two, and hoping that I might be the one to show you?”
Jerking back with a blush, the taiji-ya said stiffly, “Perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” Jin flipped right over in mid-air, his roar of laughter shaking the grass beneath him as he did a few somersaults that brought him higher and higher into the air as he shouted, “Perhaps, she says! Ah, if that ain’t the funny, than I don’t know what is! Oh, Lords above and below, you’ll be the death of me, Lily! Perhaps, indeed!”
Brows raising, Kurama watched as the irascible wind demon launched himself up into the sky, a tornado forming around him as he did a neat wingover before swooping back down in a dive that ripped the grass and flowers up in his wake as he sped past both of them. Combing the red hair out of his eyes with wry exasperation, Kurama stiffened to see the sly Shinobi now stood behind the girl, his smirk rather too devilishly shrewd.
“Well, may be it there is a thing or two that I might consider showing you, lass---and more, perhaps, if you’d like, eh?” His voice grew silky as he drawled out the end and she flushed, brown eyes widening as he leaned forward and casually propped his chin on her shoulder, ears wiggling and smile growing so that his fangs gleamed as his blue eyes twinkled.
Burying his curling fists in his pockets, Kurama’s green eyes narrowed.
Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.