InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter Eighteen ( Chapter 19 )

[ 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 WITHINSummary: 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 was an extremely hard chapter to write. I’m not even sure that it’s any good---it’s my first attempt at a bit of limey yaoi (be warned, though I will edit the details out on ff(dot)net) and I’m not certain I dug into Kurama’s head as well as I could have. But anyway, here it is in all it’s over-written detail, LOL. (Fate)

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH BLACK AND THE THREE KINGS SAGA, SOLO WHATEVER-THEY-CALL-IT ON AFFNET, LIME VERGING ON LEMON, VOYEURISM, MM AND FM

Chapter Eighteen

Coming up the hill, basket heavy under his arm, Kurama paused as he saw Hiei duck outside the cave, his expression particularly stiff. There was stiff, and then there was stiff, and Kurama was well-versed in the nuances of each. Hiei was one who had mastered the skill of hiding his emotions early on, and his typical facial expression could only be called stony. But the look he wore now---or rather, the lack of one---could only be called deliberate.

*Now what, I wonder, has caused that?* Keeping his own expression attentive as Jin demonstrated one of Anei’s new techniques with wild arm gestures and body contortions that the kitsune could hardly equate with the quietly poised girl he had come to know, Kurama greeted Hiei with a nonchalance he was far from feeling.

He studied the short demon covertly as he made busy-work of sorting through the various contents he had collected that day in his woven basket. Tossing a pucker-pear to Yusuke---who caught it with a grin of thanks before biting into the tart fruit and making the face that gave the pear its name---Kurama watched as Hiei leaned back against the cave’s wall, his face shadowed by the lowering cast of the hidden sun’s descent in the west. Bare to the waist, the tattered bandages that wrapped the demon’s right arm were tinged a light pink to match the paling sky above, and he seemed overly tense, the line of his broad shoulders tight, although he gave the appearance of bored relaxation.

But again, there was relaxed and then there was relaxed. While Hiei never truly relaxed---except when he was exhausted to the point of unconsciousness---this pose was even more “battle-ready” than normal, and Kurama wondered why. His curiosity was piqued, and for a kitsune, that was no small thing. But he could tell from the demon’s smoldering glare it was not something he could just come out and ask. Hiei was in a mood, and a bad one, it seemed.

*I should probably leave well enough alone,* Kurama thought to himself as he carefully separated the greens he wanted to use for dinner from those he wanted to save for later. But he knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature. If he had a failing, it was that he couldn’t. He was, after all, a fox, and curiosity came part and parcel with cleverness and sly calculation.

He hid a smile; if he had another failing, it was that he was confident in his own abilities, and was not ashamed to admit them. Proud---oh, yes, he was proud, and that was yet another failing he did not necessarily count as a bad thing.

“Heh.” His faint smile was self-mocking as his eyes tilted at the corners. *I toot my own horn rather well, don’t I?*

“Something funny, Kurama?” Yusuke suddenly plopped down beside him, the pucker-pear nibbled to its core.

“Not really,” Kurama replied dismissively as he neatly twined a bunch of useful herbs together with a grass-stem he had thriftily saved for the purpose. He eyed the pear Yusuke was about to toss away, and neatly plucked it out of detective’s hand.

“Seeds,” he explained as he neatly extracted them, dropping the tiny black buds into his palm before handing the eviscerated core back. Yusuke shook his head before launching it over his shoulder.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, Jin.” Yusuke didn’t even look in the wind demon’s direction. His brown eyes were too busy squinting at the fox. “You don’t like to throw anything away, do you, Kurama? I never expected you to be such a pack rat.”

“You never know when something might prove useful.” Kurama shrugged, his eyes straying to Hiei, though he tried to keep his interest covert.

Yusuke, of course, noticed his preoccupation. Dropping his chin on his fist, eyes on the stony apparition who ignored them, he asked, sotto voice, “What’s his problem?”

Kurama shrugged again, trying to give the appearance of unconcern and knowing he wasn’t fooling the keen-eyed detective.

“Huh.” Yusuke’s brown eyes narrowed. Dropping his fists to his hips, he called out loudly, “Hey, three-eyes, what the hell’s your problem?”

Kurama closed his eyes and sighed as he waited for the inevitable death threat. When none came, he blinked over at the black-haired youkai, who had only pinned the former Spirit Detective with a flat stare.

Kurama sat back on his heels, frankly surprised as the short apparition’s lip curled. Yusuke’s eyes glittered with anticipation.

But Hiei, contrary as ever, only sneered a short “Hn,” before abruptly taking off for the twilight-ridden trees below. Within three leaps, even his aura was gone, and Kurama and Yusuke could only exchange questioning glances as Jin bounced down to join them.

“Quick little bastard, isn’t he just?” The blue-eyed apparition casually leaned over and snagged a ripe sprout from the pile Kurama had sorted. He bit off the end with a loud crunch. “Always did like these.”

“Don’t eat all of them or there won’t be any left for the stew,” Kurama warned as the wind youkai filched another. In fact, he should go retrieve Anei’s pot from inside the cave as it would take some time to simmer. Brushing the dust from his knees, Kurama stood up to do so as Yusuke groused that they were eating stew far too damn often. But it was relatively easy to make, and created a well-balanced, nourishing meal that could stretch their leftovers on days when they didn’t hunt.

Jin argued just that point as Yusuke rolled his eyes and Kurama left them behind. The dim shadows of the cave’s interior muffled the dark lump that was Anei curled up on one side, her cloak pulled up over her shoulders and her hair a dark spill around her. Loathed to disturb her, for her energy signature was low and only sleep would restore it, Kurama was quiet as only a kitsune could be. Picking up the collapsible pot, he paused. Frowning, he turned back to stare at her, nagged by something that seemed odd about her.

There was a hint of a white collar peeping under the spill of the taiji-ya’s dark hair, and a brow rose as Kurama recognized it. His head turned sharply, his gaze lingering on the patch of darkening sky beyond the cave’s opening where Hiei had gone, and his green eyes narrowed.


He was quiet through dinner, his thoughts troubled as various reasons for Hiei’s uncharacteristic altruism churned inside his busy mind. Picking apart possibilities raised other questions he didn’t really want to answer, and he just grew more disturbed by the directions they pointed him.

Sensitive to his mood, Yusuke was uncommonly good about leaving him alone. He suffered a few long looks out of the corner of the detective’s brown eye but Yusuke went out of his way to distract Jin, much to Kurama’s relief. Jin could be as perceptive as Yusuke, at times uncomfortably so, and the wind demon had less scruples about demanding rather bluntly what was what. Kurama didn’t want questions right now, he had enough already plaguing him.

Like why it was that he was so attracted to the slayer, and why it was he was so jealous of any attention paid her, by anyone, even his closest friends. Why it was that seeing such a simple thing as Hiei’s coat folded under her cheek, a mere kindness really, could make his hands tighten on his knees so that his knuckles grew white?

Abruptly aware of that fact, he deliberately loosened them, his fingers smoothing over the wrinkled fabric as his eyes narrowed. He was careful to keep the frown from his face, but he needed to be alone right now so he wouldn’t have to worry about the need to do so. Standing abruptly, he made some casual lie that he was certain fooled neither demon, and stalked off into the night-darkened woods that were such an unspoken comfort to him, just because they were what they were. The natural world had always drawn him, even as a human child who couldn’t understand why it did, or the worried mother who could always find him up in a tree, his legs dangling as he idly twirled a plucked leaf between his fingers.

Poor Shiori. His human mother had never understood him, even as a child, and he had not been easy on her. He had been rather difficult, actually, as his true demonic nature had slowly emerged without her ever knowing the cause of his slow withdrawal from the loving little toddler he had been to the moody, arrogant boy he became. Assured of his innate superiority over the mere humans surrounding him, he had rejected her love, throwing it back in her face more often than not, and made even more uneasy by her loving him regardless of that fact.

That had humbled and shamed him, even as Youko---who could not understand such unconditional love, being frankly too narcissistic and self-absorbed to ever comprehend such selflessness---had been irritated by it. Kurama, himself, was still baffled by his mother’s unreserved love for him, and the fact she did both alarmed and unnerved him, for it was not something he could readily return. He, just as much as Youko, was ever too careful to let such an---unpredictable---emotion get the better of him. It was too uncontrollable, too wild, too---emotional.

And yet it was there, somehow. Maybe not as---acute and altruistic as his mother’s love was for him, but he did have a deep regard for her, and a debt of baffled gratitude that left him deeply humbled for her care of him as a child. He did not understand it---could not, possibly---but he could accept it and the price it had for him. Though never the hold it had on him, for he chafed at such restrictions even as he knew they were not ones he could so easily discard, for he owed her too much.

But what unnerved him the most was Shiori Minamino’s simple, unquestioning devotion. She did not care, could never care, who or what he was---though he often wondered if that would actually hold true if she were to ever know who---or what, rather---he really was. He didn’t know if he ever actually wanted to test that, though, for the results might well disappoint him, and he didn’t want that particular pretense shattered.

And there was something about Anei, some undefined quality or sentiment he could not name, that reminded him strangely of Shiori. He could not pinpoint what, exactly, it was. They could not be more different in character. Anei was, first and foremost, a warrior. His mother could never be that; it was not in her nature. She was loving and kind, but also rather fragile and helpless at times. She needed protection; Anei was too independent to ever let herself---or ever admit that she might.

But perhaps he was giving his mother too little credit. She had managed to raise him on her own after her husband died. Kurama could not remember him, truly, except as a warm memory and a certain smell that triggered the phantom feeling of being held and laughing. It was an uncomfortable memory, actually, for his more logical side to reconcile with the absence of the man from his life while growing up and the struggles Shiori had gone through because of it. Diffident and shy, she had devoted all of her life on his behalf, pouring herself into being a mother and giving him all she could with limited means. She had worked overtime at the magnet school he had attended, cleaning until her fingers were red and raw so that he could go to a school equal to his worth and intelligence. She had delighted in his academic achievements, never mentioning the many sacrifices she had made so that he could go to the expensive schools his high test scores demanded. He had taken it for granted, actually, that it was his just due, never giving thought to what it might have cost her.

And then the cancer had come, a slow growth that had eventually changed their roles as he was forced to take on more and more responsibility as her frail human body succumbed to the insidious disease. He had been shocked to realize just how much he had always taken for granted, and the humbling revelation had changed him, for it had made him realize just how much he didn’t know and could never know, wrapped as he was in his own arrogance and vanity.

And while he had wrestled with his own inner demons, he had been humbled by his mother’s serene acceptance of the situation, even as everything the doctors tried eventually failed, and her vitality dwindled by the day, until she could not even get up out of her hospital bed without assistance. And even as he silently railed and despaired at the fickle whimsy of fate, she had remained ever cheerful and encouraging, revealing the true inner strength that dwelt behind her seeming fragility.

Such innocence, he had thought in weary despair as her body wasted away under the cancer’s cruel influence. And yet he cherished it even as he thought it foolish, and made his own plans to save it---and her---for there was something so achingly sweet and beautifully untouched about it. It was not something he, himself, had ever had. He was not capable of it---he distrusted too much, wondered too much, disbelieved and discarded such a quaint absurdity as sanguinity. He had too many years and too much knowledge to ever have innocence. As cliché as it was, ignorance was bliss---as shown by this human woman who had raised him and had somehow managed to keep that innocent joy bright in her soft brown eyes, even in the sunken pallor of her careworn face.

And he, arrogant, selfish, suspicious and weary of a world he knew too well the darker side of, had been so awed and humbled by that simple fact that he had been willing to sacrifice himself to preserve it, knowing that in the end she was worth ever so much more than he, bitter skeptic that he was.

And yet he had been saved by another human who had that basic faith in life’s goodness. Yusuke’s gift---a second chance---had saved both him and his mother, and gave him the chance to redeem himself, perhaps, and maybe even find some understanding of what he could not.

And Anei---he had glimpsed that same simple joy in her as he had seen shining in his mother‘s eyes, something so innocent and untouched and free. Though just for a moment, as the slayer had been awakened to the jyaki that existed within her and the world around her. Like a child, the joy that had bubbled up in her carefree laugh as she recognized it as her own and finally accepted herself---Gods, the awe it had struck in him, the pure astonishment, the complete surprise.

Acceptance, yes, he had expected that. Awareness and that sudden realization that one was connected to everything around them, yes, he had been expecting that, too. But her joy in it---that he had not. What had been revealed that day was her inner self, her true inner self, no matter how tightly she shielded herself away from it or denied what she truly was capable of.

And the fact that she had managed to keep that joy, that innocence, still intact and locked deep inside her, even while hiding it from herself, baffled and intrigued him, for she had that same weariness of spirit and burden of too many years upon her, that same suspicion and careful reserve and deliberate detachment from others that he had. But she, somehow, had managed to keep that innocence that he had never even had, even with the dark things she had seen and done through the many centuries of a rather isolated and bitter existence.

And as attractive as she was too him---for she was beautiful, though she hardly knew that, either--- the attraction of that inner beauty held even more appeal for him. And he had an overwhelming need to protect it, for it was so fragile a thing, so easily lost, and he didn’t want that to happen.

It would be like he was failing himself, somehow, if he let it.

A wind tickled its way through the branches above him, rustling the pine needles in a shivering whisper that was comforting in that it reminded him, distinctly, that no matter what deep revelations he was having, there was still life going on around him. He needed that, sometimes, to draw him from his own melancholy thoughts and inner turmoil. He tended to wander the paths of his own mind for far too long and to no true purpose than to justify or reassure himself that he had some vague control over the things around him. And he did value that control, almost to his own detriment. And at least finally understanding what it was about the slayer that called him so much, and understanding the protective instincts he had for her, well, he could then more easily understand and forgive himself his jealousy of even that small mark of Hiei’s regard for the girl.

And thus he could put it in its proper place, and dismiss it. And that was enough for now.

Except it wasn’t, not really. Which he learned all too soon, in the restless dreams that plagued him that night, where even his legendary control could not suppress the hidden desires that curled through his subconscious mind…

It had been easy enough to return, his calm geniality somewhat restored by his walk in the woods. Yusuke made no comment but took a long, hard look into his eyes. Whatever the detective had seen there, he seemed reassured by it, and had only shrugged and made some sarcastic snigger as to why the fox might like to escape into the woods by himself so damn much.

“A man has needs. I ain’t gonna fault ya, Kurama. Even I get the itch now and again, especially with a hot piece of ass like---”

“Do you ever shut up, Detective?” That icy demand had come from the darkness above them, and Yusuke’s grin had only grown toothier.

“Hiya, three-eyes. Where the hell have you been?”

“Hn.”

Yusuke had given him a wide-eyed look of mock innocence. “You, too, huh? Damn, but I don’t know what’s worse, itchy balls or itchy fingers---”

“Eh, Urameshi, lad, I think you’re getting a tad bit too descriptive there,” Jin had hastily interrupted, his hand firming on the Mazoku’s bare shoulder as he took in Hiei’s darkening expression.

Yusuke had smirked, but thankfully kept silent as they finally turned in for the night. Mercifully, the ex-detective did not have the night vision to notice Hiei’s coat still folded under Anei’s head in the dark, or there would have been hell to pay. As it was, Hiei ignored all of them to slump down against the back wall, as far away from the sleeping taiji-ya as he could manage. Since Jin sprawled lazily between them, Yusuke taking the slayer’s other side, Kurama was left to settle himself almost directly across from her. He did not expect sleep to come easily, but it had. Even as he tilted his head back against the wall, closing his eyes, it had crept upon him and it was then that he dreamed…


At first, the dream was not unwelcome, for he found himself in a forest not unlike one in living world, the trees thick and verdant but not as tall as those in Makai, the grass a soft green carpet beneath them. Mist drifted through the trees, though the air was damp and warm. There was the heavy scent of flowers on the light breeze, mixing with the earthy smell of any forest, ripe with life and the warm loam of dark earth, the faint hint of decay and the sharp scent of crushed pine. He breathed it in, delighting in the vividness of his idle fancy.

He walked slowly between the trees---though it was as if he had the sensation of it, his legs moving, his feet stepping carefully over a tree’s root, the thick grass soft underfoot---but the distance seemed far shorter than his wandering step should account for. The mist thickened, the damp warmth steadily increasing, the scent of the flowers growing heavier on the air as thick brambles and vines surrounded him. Reaching out, he touched a soft petal with a faint smile, for even in his dreams, he dreamed of roses. Their fragrance was all around him, heady and lingering, and he savored their beauty. From the shy bud that peeked open to the full blossom who flaunted her draping petals to the wilting rose weeping soft tear-shaped petals from her face as they slowly fell around her. Their colors ran the gamut from deepest red to palest blush, from a white whose water-droplets sparkled like diamonds amidst its breath-taking purity, to the almost vulgar peach who flaunted herself alongside the caught sunshine of her saffron sisters.

He could have lost himself in just this peaceful idyll, lazily bemused and entranced by the roses’ vivid beauty, but he slowly became aware that he was not alone in this pacific paradise. His head rose, and he took a tentative sniff, testing the air, but could only smell the faintly steamy quality of the warm breeze, a sulfuric undertone to it that hinted of a hot spring bubbling up from the earth’s warm core. He suddenly straightened, his skin tingling with anticipation, and he suddenly knew---though he couldn’t say how---just who it was.

Plucking a rose free, a shy, soft bud just perfect for the cup of her small palm, he hurried forward, hoping to glimpse her bathing in the steamy mists, his mind caught up by the tantalizing vision. And suddenly the brambles were parting before him, in that mysterious way dreams had, and he caught sight of her---a creamy shoulder, a tangle of black hair swirling idly across the water’s surface, the steam veiling her one moment, then teasing away the next.

He hesitated, for she seemed unaware of him, and was even moving slowly away from him and toward the far bank. Her long hair swayed sinuously behind her, pulled along by the widening ripples her own movement broke through the water’s placid calm. She gradually emerged from the steamy spring, her back to him. Her hair, black as midnight and slick with water, fell crosswise across her back like a heavy mantle, the ends still curling lazily in the water beside her left hip. The round paleness of her upper buttocks was revealed, and the curving line of her spine just before it indented into the slight vee above her firm ass. Her trim waist mimicked the line, flaring into the wider hips of a woman’s enticing curves before disappearing beneath the warm water that lapped around her. She paused, tilting her head back a little as she drew her arms up above her, stretching languorously as she arched her back and sighed.

He closed his eyes, his breath catching as he imagined how her breasts would rise with the movement, her nipples pebbling in the air even as the steam rose enticingly around her. He felt himself hardening at the mere thought of it, his hand tightening around the small rose so that he could feel the sharp kiss of its tiny thorns---though they did not, of course, break the skin in his dreams as they would have in real life. He imagined tracing the bud across her steam-drenched skin, her breath quickening even as his was now as the delicate petals caressed her soft lines, leaving the lingering breath of its scent upon her quivering flesh as prickles formed in its wake.

His tongue would follow the rose’s path, his kisses as soft and tantalizing as he swept across her skin, mapping it and memorizing it as he imprinted his mouth upon her creamy curves. She would gasp and cling to him as he drew her mouth down to his, feasting on her lips as the ardor rose between them and the mist enshrouded their bodies in wet heat…

Her soft moan snapped his eyes open, and they widened as he saw a hand slowly dipping beneath the water’s surface. With her back to him, he could only see how her shoulders tightened and her back arched even further, the soft, upper curve of her buttocks rising slightly as she pleasured herself. His body drew taut at the sight, and he stepped forward, his green eyes darkening with lust as his mouth curved in hungry understanding.

But a faint noise just to his left froze him in mid-stride, his head snapping around to stare in shock at the demon who stood hidden in the vine-draped shadows. His eyes were half-closed, a scarlet gleam glinting between the thick, sooty lines of his lowered lashes, his head thrown back as he grit his teeth on a harsh groan. He was bare to the waist, the thick muscles along his shoulders and arms bunching and tightening in sharp definition as he drew a sharp breath in to let it go on a low, shuddering sound of pure, animalistic need.

Kurama’s throat worked as his eyes traced the flat, corded muscles of the demon’s taut abdomen, drawn almost against his will to the bandage-swathed hand that was wrapped around his thick arousal. Fingers blunt and calloused slid over his flesh like the smoothest silk, effortlessly gliding over the hard length of his blatant desire. Oblivious to his audience, to anything, really, but the woman who pleasured herself amid the steamy mists with soft, quickening cries of growing intensity, his pace quickened in time to hers, the tips of his fangs revealed as he bit his lip to keep his deepening groans silent as he grimaced in pleasure-pain as his crisis neared.

Kurama stood frozen, unable to turn his eyes away as he watched the fire demon’s muscles tense and harden for that savage, in-drawing sensation of raw need as he stood on the very precipice of desire. It seemed to last an eternity, his breath haggard as his back arched slightly, the muscles of his flat abdomen sucked into sharp relief as his grip tightened around his cock, his thumb tracing lightly over the head just a second before he leapt over the cliff, his shout of white hot pleasure erupting past his control just as Anei’s softer cries rose in a crescendo of wanton abandon…

And even as he turned, trying to catch a glimpse of her lost in the steamy mists of the hot springs, Kurama came abruptly awake as his head jerked to the side. His breath was ragged and overly-loud to his ears in the thick darkness, and his heart was beating too fast in his chest. He stiffened, warily looking around to see if anyone else was awake to notice, but they still slept, their snores soft and even in the heavy shadows.

He flushed, uncomfortably aware of the bulging tent in the crease of his pants, which suddenly felt too tight and constrictive. Disturbed by the vividness of his dream and the dual desires it signified, he drew his knees up and waited for his body to lose the hot desire that flooded through it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Youko’s husky chuckle, and his eyes turned brooding and pensive as he gazed for a long, long time into the quiet darkness.