Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Feelings for a Fox ❯ Chapter 14

I would like to give a special thanks to wackoramaco87 for Beta-ing this chapter for me and being so quick to get it back to me. Also special thanks to everyone who offered to edit for me. I got so many offers that I felt real special. And then I felt bad because I'd have to choose. >< But I'm just stupid like that so just ignore me ok?
Thanks for reviews this times goes to: CrimsonBlades16, Keala-Chick, Artemis the Goddess, Kurama and Hiei's lovable miko, DemonLady1, Houndingwolf, ColdFang, Valkyrie Nienna Helyanwe, Jayde Katt, fresh8, Delphine Pryde, dunken, Puppy, rogue solus, Dark, anonymousey226273, Lord Sesshomaru, ff, Serena SilverMoon, badgerwolf, Grimsister, Ivan's Kitsune, Arella Hallo, Angie, Aka Bara, Trina3, Lady Light, W?W?Su, Fire Pheonix1, Panther Queen, wackoramaco87, bloodbunny, ChibiKitsuneChanAtari, Sundragon, The Black Kat, Witch Child, Amethyst, kikitravel, and LLJade

{/…/= Youko's "talking"}

{*…*= Kurama's "talking"}

Kurama's POV

~~~Chapter 14~~~

There was a moment of silence while I digested this tidbit of information.

Ok what do I know? I know the escaped spirit of a demon who hates my guts and kidnapped my son may be inhabiting the reincarnation of the most malicious evil entity in the history of the world, the same hanyou that plunged feudal Japan into chaos, and who just happens to be my grandfather on the human side of the family, give or take a couple hundred greats. Check. Now the big question is- how do I feel about this?

"NARAKU?!"I screeched jerking toward Rin. Misfortunately the knife in my right hand slammed into my left hand when I did so. I gave another undignified screech and dropped the knife to clutch my now bleeding hand, and began the traditional 'pain dance'. You know what I'm talking about. That 'hopping around from one foot to another while you yip in pain' dance that you immediately perform whenever you hurt yourself, before rational thought clicks in and you realize you should do something about it besides bask in the realization that you have an owie. A similar dance is done by children who need to go to the bathroom. It should be noted that while they are comparable, the 'pain dance' should never be mistaken for the 'pee pee dance'.

This has been a bad week. My son gets kidnapped, Karasu breaks free, some demon-hanyou type guy tried to mark me but can't because of that soul-stealing corpse slut, I get interrupted in the middle of a tasty dream, find out that Naraku may be running amuck again, and I manage to embarrass myself by nearly hacking off my hand. This is all making me very cranky. And since I was cranky that also translates into particularly childish at that moment. And in retaliation for her being the cause of my pain I stuck out my tongue at Rin.

When I realized what I was doing I wheeled away and stuck my hand under a faucet to wash it out and grabbed a clean towel to try to stop the blood. I turned back to glare at the open amusement on my grandmother's face.

Bitch.

"Perhaps you should heal that instead of bleed all over the place?" Rin suggested, grinning knowingly at me before turning around to examine the guys who were watching us with expressions that clearly said, 'We are very confused and we are prepared to sit here staring at you with these insipid expressions on our faces until you answer all our questions.'

"Ok why does Koenma think it's Naraku?" I asked dangerously after I had taken a second to heal the cut.

"Because things were still being reorganized back then. You know since Onigumi was a human that's what they tried him as. They didn't actually have a good system set up for hanyous at that point. And frankly as a human he wasn't what you could call bad."

"He was a thief," I corrected her testily.

"Yeah but not a very good one. And anyways he had never killed another person while he was alive so they rather ignored the fact he was a demon and gave him another chance at life. After all, reincarnation is supposed to be a whole clean slate system so unless something happened to trigger the recovery of his memories then the world was supposed to be safe. Especially since the world was then split up into three separate realms."

"Yo, I hate to butt in-"

"Then why are you?" Rin butted in.

He ignored her.

"but who are Naraku and Onigumi? And how do you know Koenma, and what hell is going on around here?" Yusuke asked, and snagged a chair and straddling it so that he was facing us.

"Tell us more about the barrier," Hiei's eyes bore into me, "And the Shikon no Tama. And who is she?"

Kurama flicked a questioning glance at Hiei and something seemed to pass between them. Then he also spoke, "Why exactly do you have to go to Hell? And why do you have a kitsune for a son? Who is Sesshomaru?"

"Yeah, and why was the radio talking to you?" Kuwabara demanded, puffing out his chest and crossing his arms. We all turned our eyes towards the carrot topped male in bemusement.

"Baka. Everything we've seen in the past couple of days and you have to wonder about the radio?" Hiei shook his head in a disgusted sort of wonder.

"Well shorty, it seemed like you guys had asked everything else so I thought I'd ask about something I was curious about ok?" the big guy defended himself.

Rin seemed to take pity on the confused males, and decided to get the easier questions out of the way. For which I am eternally grateful. Or at least for the next couple of minutes while I started adding more ingredients.

"Oh that's my fault the radio thing is. You see I'm moving to the Ningenkai for a while, but Papa wanted to be able to communicate with me easily whenever he needs me for something. He hasn't quite grasped the concept of cell phones yet so I just told him to find my ki and then taught him how to tune into whatever electronic device is around. Like TV's, videogames, radios and so on. And just for the record, Sesshomaru is my papa."

"And Koenma is afraid of him, why?" Kurama took the risk of asking.

I answered this question.

"Because the last time Fluffy got mad at him he transformed into his natural form and ate him. Problem was Koenma's a demigod so his chemical make-up is slightly different from a regular demon's. The acid in grandpa's saliva reacted badly with Koenma's blood. So not only did Koenma make Sesshomaru-sama cranky, but then he had the nerve to blow up when grandpapa was expressing his displeasure. Sesshy is still angry at him for that, even though it was about fifty years ago. That's why Koenma's avatar is a baby still, because he hasn't grown back to his original age. And just why are you moving to the Ningenkai?" I demanded of Rin before the guys could hammer us with more questions.

"Well actually, I'm just going to hang out here because there's more to do here than there is in Makai, y'know? I'm sorta on probation at the moment so I'm trying to find new methods of entertainment."

"Why are you on probation?" I asked wondering who could actually find something that would control Rin.

"I'm not actually on probation, Kagome. See it was like this. I was vacationing in Spain, and they were having one of those nifty bull run thingies, so I stole Jaken's Staff of Heads and kicked him into the street. Problem was he didn't get out of the way fast enough and one of the bulls impaled him. When I told papa and asked to borrow Tenseiga, he let me take it, but he told me if I got Jaken killed even once more in the next five years he wouldn't bring him back to life for another twenty five."

I tried to work that out in my head. If Rin gets Jaken killed then he won't be brought back for another twenty five years. Hmm. Makes sense to me.

"Poor you," I said in mock sympathy.

"I know! It's gonna be sooo boring."

"Ok so back to original subject," the grease haired boy cut in once more before we could get distracted.

"There was a subject?" Rin asked me. I shrugged dismissively and continued to stir.

"YES there was a SUBJECT!" the boy yelled at us, starting to look annoyed.

"Where?"

The poor spirit detective raised his hands in a clutching gesture towards us as though he were contemplating strangling us both. We smiled.

I guess now would be a good time to mention that Rin and I are very much alike. This probably stems from the fact that I helped raise her and she in turn helped raise me. We're both rather difficult individuals. Since we are both difficult, together we are nearly impossible. And we have a tendency to gang up on people.

It's petty I know, but we're like that.

"Why don't we start back at the beginning?" Kurama interceded. I've noticed that he tends to be the peacekeeper of the group.

I turned off the burner and started digging around in the cabinets, leaving Rin to answer them. I grinned to myself when she started speaking.

"Well okay. In the beginning God created the heavens and the ea-"

"I don't think that's the beginning they were looking for dear," Hm… how about this old sake jug? That'll work.

"What? Oh you guys want a different story?" I laughed when I stood up and caught the looks on their faces. I carefully started to pour the antidote into the jug. She shrugged carelessly. Then her face brightened. "Alright. How about this one?"

"Long ago- unless you're not human, then it wasn't really so long after all- about 550 and some odd years really, there was a rather lovely and powerful miko named Kikyo. She was said to be kind, but distant-closed off from the people around her by the burden of her duty. She was the protector of the jewel known as the Shikon no Tama…"

I already knew this story so I left to take Shippou the antidote and the stuffed toy Rin brought him.

I walked upstairs and nudged his door open. He was jumping up and down on his bed dressed in his pajamas. I rushed over and handed him the jug, motioning for him to drink it all.

"Mama!" I zoned back in when I felt the tug on my sleeve.

"Oh what is it honey?" I brushed a hand through the hair that tumbled over my son's brow.

"Can you give these to Hiei? I wanted to thank him for saving me." I held out my hand and he dropped his present onto my palm. I raised my eyebrow when I saw what he wanted to give the dark demon.

"Shadow stones?"

"You don't approve?" he asked me nervously. I give him a reassuring smile.

"Of course I do, I was just surprised is all." He smiled at me.

"Tell me Shippou. What do you think of Kurama?"

"He's a fox. And he's nicer than Inuyasha was. And he doesn't try to grope you like Miroku did." That's debatable. "And he's silver mama! Do you know how rare silvers are?"

"Why don't you tell me?" I suggested, snatching him from the air and plopping him down so I wouldn't have to keep moving my head to keep eye contact. "They're very, very rare. And they mate for life. Few get the chance to mate at all, since they frequently get hunted down and captured by demons who want their beauty for themselves. At least that's how it was in Sengoku Jidai. Silvers were practically considered royalty among the kitsune because they were so much more powerful than any other species."

"That's all very lovely Shippou, but that doesn't tell me how you feel about it."

"Well, when I found out he was going to be my new dad I was afraid that he wouldn't like me, or that he'd try to take you away from me. But… he promised if we accepted him that he would consider me his own cub. A promise from a silver fox is practically sacred mama. They almost never give promises so when they do make a promise hey always keep it, or die trying. I like him Mama." He said what?! I sat there reeling from the casual acceptance both foxes had displayed toward each other.

"I see. Well this little foxy went to the market, this little foxy stayed home, and this little foxy went to bed before he collapsed from exhaustion okay?" His giggle became a yawn halfway through.

I settled him down in the bed and pulled the blankets up around him, then I tucked the plushy in beside him. "It's a present from Rin. She was worried about you." He gave another small smile and his eyes began to drift shut. I sat there watching my cub sleep for a moment longer. He looked so peaceful this way. I gave him a soft smile and quietly left the room.

I went back downstairs. I caught the end of the Rin's story.

"Inuyasha left to hell with Kikyo. That still left the jewel's wish which Lord Sesshomaru then used to make the three realms separate. The Western lands became the demon realm and expanded into nine layers, what is now known as the Makai. Hell corresponds to the Makai. Reikai, separated from the Ningenkai, but it corresponds to Ningenkai."

I picked it up from there, "But I still had the rest of Sesshomaru's requirements for his aide to fulfill. So I came back to the future through the well, and left my son here. Then I returned to the past and began to train my miko powers so that I could cast the spell that would prevent free passage between the realms. For the past 500 years, I have been the barrier between the realms."

"I don't get it," Kuwabara complained.

"You don't get a lot of things," Hiei mumbled in annoyance. Kuwabara pretended not to hear him this time.

"How'd you live that long? I thought you guys were humans right?"

"The Mark of the Black Dragon when acquired by demons is frequently used for the purpose of having a powerful attack, if they can handle channeling its power in such a manner. A similar mark on a human will extend their lifespan considerably, and grant them a certain amount of protection," I replied mildly. I fingered the Shadow stones in my hand thoughtfully as I spoke. I walked over to the fire apparition and placed the stones on the table in front of him. "Shippou wanted me to give you these. He thought you might be able to use them." Rin raised a brow exactly as I had when she noticed what the stones were. I shrugged off her questioning glance. She frowned at me before turning her attention back to the subject.

It was then my grandmother's turn to jump back in, "But there's a bit more to the mark than most people realize. And you shouldn't ever confuse the Mark with the Crest. Their purpose and their properties are very different."

"The Crest?" Kurama asked, looking between the two of us.

"It's basically an upgraded version of the Mark. Except it has a different meaning. Also it's exceedingly difficult to get without the proper connections. The Mark is slightly easier to get your hands on," she explained to them.

"Yeah you could say, win the mark in a poker game against a very drunk Priestess of the High King of All Evil," I snickered, casting a glance at Rin, "Unfortunately you'll be famous and your death, or rather non-death will flood the media for decades with random sightings of you."

"It wasn't my fault! I'm telling you he stacked the deck!" Rin protested her innocence. "That Elvis fellow was a tricky bastard!"

"Yeah, yeah! Deny it all you like. You just made that bet and then gave him the mark because you knew how much chaos it would cause in America when he died." She rolled her eyes at me, but I noticed she didn't deny it. Instead she changed the subject.

"So when are you going to Hell? And who are you taking to protect you?"

"I can protect myself! And it's not like anything in Hell would have the nerve to attack me anyways."

"Probably not, but you know how the males of the family get. They don't like you purposely putting yourself, and therefore the barrier, in danger."

"Oh fine!" I grumbled in annoyance. "I was planning on going as soon as we eat. And, how would you like to take a trip to Hell Kurama?" I asked my fiancé of sorts.

"I'd be delighted to accompany you," there was droll humor lacing his words.