Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Her Spirit ❯ Consensus ( Chapter 7 )

Kurama's head snapped up at the angry aura that flared and danced at the top of the stairs they had just started to descend. The younger brother stood there, his fists clenched at his sides and his dark scowl directed at their group. His aura was visibly flaring; the dark blue and pale green dancing like fueled flames.

“Don't come back.” There was force behind the words, and any protests or yells were stopped short at the power behind them. “I don't care how much you need to pry, I don't care how much you think you need to know; don't - come - back.”

The boy's eyes were bright with an ethereal light and Youko paused in his contemplation to view the maelstrom he was gifted with. “This is my sister!” The tears fell to his cheeks, his wet lashes darkening with his emotions. He took in a shaky breath and stubbornly jutted his chin out. “I don't know how…but your presence hurts her. Tell your Reikai boss-” He took a deep clear breath and closed his gently before he snapped his eyes open “-that he can back off and stay there.”

Yusuke rose to protest, his mouth staying open but no sound coming out when the boy's gaze was directly on him. “My sister is fine. She is healthy and the doctors told her as much. The only reason you want to come again is to figure her powers out.” He spat on the ground at their feet. “Disgusting. She's my family, not some lab rat.”

Hiei's eyes flashed and his hand left the pommel of his sword. He backed off from the boy, silently giving him the argument.

Youko's mouth dropped open in shock.

`Hiei?'

Hiei's voice was calm and unhurried as he replied via their connection, and Kurama wondered at the abrupt change in emotion from his friend. `The boy is within his rights, we have no validation to interfere with this family.'

Souta took in a shaky breath as his fists clenched tighter- the knuckles turning white in the face of his fury. His head was lowered and his unruly bangs covered eyes that Kurama knew were staring up at them in rage. “You are not welcome in this shrine.” Whatever the young man had wanted to say was cut off by the arrival of a tall lanky man. He glanced over their group of friends before turning to the Higurashi.

“Is your mother in?” Souta scowled deeply and nodded. The man nodded as he walked past, but paused just as he reached the threshold of the Higurashi dwelling. “See to it that you behave, I'm sure your mother won't be pleased to hear you threatening shrine guests.” The man walked in.

The dark scowl on Souta's face left no question as to what he thought of the man at this moment, and his face only darkened when he turned to look back at them. “You should probably leave and tell your boss that you shouldn't be coming back.” His sister came out of the house, looking behind her at the silhouette of the man and a woman - most likely their mother - as they conversed before the door closed and blocked them from their view. She shook her head and smiled at them before turning to her brother and pulling him under her arms.

Kurama was struck by how powerful they looked, like ancient gods coming forth to judge the wicked. He shifted uneasily- for their whole group had suddenly somehow become the wicked.

Kagome had her hair bound in that trailing braid Souta seemed to favor, and the clothes she was wearing were whipping about in an unseen wind, the hard look in her eyes had a more curious edge to it, but Souta's eyes made up for all the openness in hers.

Despite his unimpressive size, and the fact that he actually gave off no power signals whatsoever, her little brother was glaring at them with all the force of a Kami's glower. The malice in those eyes was from one who was innocent of all taint, had no experience with the actual pains of living, but there was something there…

Kurama looked at Kagome to see her gazing at her brother, ignoring them and focusing on Souta with all the attention any kit would crave. Her arm was wrapped around his shoulder, and Kurama could almost see the energy they shared- although it was all the girls.

He glanced at Kuwabara to find his gaze respectfully turned down, and he felt the shock vibrate along the bond he shared with Youko that such a thug-like man would demonstrate that amount of respect- to a modern day woman nonetheless. He shook his head to clear his vision, sending a feeling of gratitude along his bond to Youko when their vision enhanced to aid him.

He couldn't see the bond anymore.

But he did see her eyes.

The blue-brown of her gaze settled on each of them in turn, sizing them up and moving onto the next member of their team before shifting to her house and then her brother. The gaze hadn't been patronizing or malicious, instead, it had been the eyes of a warrior; one who was assessing the weaknesses and strengths of a possible ally…and those eyes had held a longing.

He watched how it clouded her vision with pain, and looked at Souta as he scowled at them and gripped his sister's hand tighter to his. He too saw the pain and longing, and Kurama wondered how such a young child could easily tell it apart from all the other emotions that usually danced in her eyes.

`I think it's that bond we keep on seeing. Heck, even Kuwabara sees it.' Youko shifted around on his feet, keeping his head at the odd angle he had to use to see from the position they were in. `There's something about these two - about her - that we are missing.'

Kurama nodded his head in agreement and watched the young man under his sister's arms. `I don't think even he knows about it; he said he didn't understand why she grows sorrowed when she sees us.'

Youko tilted his head and regarded the siblings before them, taking his time to watch the boy longer and look harder than he had before. Before…he had just been dealing with a young man that loved his sister and was devoted enough to watch over her during her comatose stay in the hospital- a young man who had no power. Now…Souta was proving to have a bond with his sister that seemed to overcome all he had even heard of before.

`It's true he doesn't know the cause, but I am willing to bet anything that he will be able to pinpoint it soon enough.' Youko paced on spot, turning his head this way and that as if it could somehow aid the direction of his thoughts. `If he can sense her emotions, so much so that he understands them before even we can see them, then he'll be able to discover the cause of these feelings much faster.' Youko pouted in his mind, jealous of the boy's ability to discover something that was so crucial to their solving of the puzzle.

Kurama sighed and stepped back from the siblings, gesturing with a simple head movement for his friends to follow. They left quietly, feeling the gaze of the siblings at their backs even as they reached the end of their descent down the many stairs the shrine contained.

Their gazes were still felt as they turned the corner, and to Kurama's surprise their gazes were still felt as they continued walking down the street out of the shrine's sight. He glanced over his shoulder to check, and sure enough, Souta was standing on the street accounting for one of the stares Kurama felt at his back…but the other…

He strained his senses to detect it, and when he found it he stopped dead in his tracks. His companions stopped as well, looking at him with worry as he whipped around to face the actual shrine. “It's the shrine.” He whispered to them.

Hiei walked up beside him, glancing up into his face before he too faced the shrines direction. Souta had left his post, but the powerful gaze on their group remained. Yusuke came forward, and Kuwabara joined them. “The watcher, the being watching us…it's the shrine.”

Kuwabara looked down at him in confusion and Kurama shook his head at being inarticulate. “You're telling us that the shrine is watching us?”

Kurama nodded weakly, not understanding it even as he tried to explain it to his comrades; it was just …there.

Hiei shifted uneasily beside him and kept his gaze on the shrine grounds. “Those grounds stretch for miles behind the main holy grounds, are you sure it is not just a being that was hidden from our perusal by the magic inherent in such a historically powerful ground?”

Kurama shook his head to clear it of the useless thoughts that were jumbled around- nothing was making sense to him. “That can't be right- even with the powerful shrine barrier, a being that had the strength to overcome the barrier and watch us outside its realm would register on Reikai scales.”

He felt the confusion practically tangible off of his comrades, and he shook his head again as he turned to continue walking away from the Higure Shrine. They were quiet as they left, and Kurama could only wonder about what went on in that family when no one was around to catch the unorthodox happenings.

.x.

Kuwabara groaned and rubbed his hand down his face in an effort to pull himself into some semblance of alertness. He had been working at odd jobs all day and now his friends were, by some coincidence, all converging on the park. They had not talked since this morning at the Higure shrine, and Kuwabara knew that everyone was itching to piece together what little information they had recovered.

He sighed with a yawn as he scratched his head- `A very difficult thing to do let me tell you' - and he settled himself into a bench to watch the people walk on by, and to wait for his friends to arrive.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back to rest his neck, and he took in a deep breath of the park air to settle his nerves and hopefully wake up. He could feel the families and couples passing him, their auras content and bright. And he felt the occasional late-worker rushing past with a flurry of cloth and leather and a frantic and pulsing aura.

Whoever said that humans had weak auras was stupid.

Kuwabara could actually sometimes feel the brightness of a human's aura when he wasn't really paying attention. It changed with a thought or emotion, with the happenings in a life and struggle and the aura of a human was anything but weak.

It just had an altogether different strength.

…this brought him around to the Higurashis. The young boy, Souta, had the average soul of any other human, if you took away the thin wrappings of his sister's soul and the brief flashes of empathy the boy could use with his sister, there was no extraordinary power. But the boy…his aura, his plain everyday human aura pulsed with life and emotion whenever he shifted his mood or thoughts.

The possible empathic powers there was astounding, but they only came to light when he was around his sister. Kuwabara had to wonder at this, even as he had to wonder at his sister's aura. It was so…strange.

He shifted on the bench to get more comfortable, and with a quick glance around the park he settled back to some serious thinking.

Kagome didn't have a set power or element, like Koenma had told them, Kuwabara could tell because her aura had no distinct feel to it. There was no down to earth feel like Kurama's earth, or no passionate and angry feel like Hiei's fire or the icy and foreboding feel of Hiei's ice. Not to mention that icy but refreshing feel of Yukina's ice. Her aura didn't fold to her form like the warriors aura of Yusuke, and it didn't impose a feel of snobbery and political power that engulfed Koenma's figure.

No her powers and aura wrapped around her like the ocean, and moved along her path like the wind, her spirit as stable as the earth and it engulfed like the flames. He didn't know what to classify it as, so he just shrugged to himself - rather awkwardly given his position - and continued on with his train of thought.

Even though she had no set base for her power, her power was centered within her spirit. It never faltered on the path she set along her brother's soul, and it seemed to wrap around her form in the controlled manner he had seen in the apprentices- En, Ryo, and Kai. But they had specific attacks, and the element of their souls had taken on the ethereal plane they used most of the time.

Kagome though…her soul seemed to call out to everything around her. He always felt the whispering of her spirit as it shifted between her thoughts, and the rush he felt as it allowed him to feel it was unlike any he had ever experienced. It refreshed and invigorated him, then it left him with this drowsy feeling of contentment that made him want to curl up and close his eyes much like he had seen Souta do- just not in her lap.

Kuwabara laughed at the thought of what her brother would do if he actually did that. He could just picture his shocked and indignant expression before he turned to rage and bodily removed him from his sister's person.

He settled down again and let his thoughts drift to his training. He remembered talking with his sister late into the night, she was very spiritually aware and she could help him understand what he was seeing. She had helped him practice his telepathy and empathy, but she had never told him about things like Kagome seemed to experience.

Maybe….

Kuwabara opened his eyes and lifted his head to perhaps follow up on his thoughts and talk to his sister, but he was surprised to see all his friends around him quietly waiting for each other to finish their thoughts.

Kurama smiled at him as he startled, and Yusuke smirked up into the sky as he never bothered to look up and watch him and his quirky movements. Hiei was silent and staring off into the park as he leaned against the tree in all his silent glory and Kuwabara had the fleeting irritation that although Hiei was short and stoic he still got his share on the dark and mysterious department.

He shook his head to clear it of the useless thoughts and saw their shortest member glance up to him out of the corners of his eyes with an amused smirk before he pushed himself of the tree and walked over to stand with their group. They were all near the bench now, and Kuwabara watched with some amusement as Yusuke eyed the bench with distaste. He had a very amusing experience with one a while back…well, amusing to Kuwabara anyway, not that Yusuke would think so.

He laughed as he pulled himself away from his distracting thoughts and joined his friends to find Yusuke sitting on the ground and Hiei leaning against the back of Kurama's seat on the bench beside him.

“So,” Kurama stretched out his long legs in front of him, “does anyone want to be the first to contribute?” He gave them all a welcoming look- `he has information, he just wants to see what we have so he can verify his, or add more to it.'

Kuwabara nodded his head in deferral to the other two, and Hiei turned his head away once again to face the forest, the ball fell to Yusuke.

He sighed and cracked his knuckles, not in an intimidating gesture as Kuwabara knew but from sheer force of habit. “Her brother is the key.”

Kuwabara nodded his head and looked to Hiei as he snorted and sneered slightly at them. Kurama noticed as well and turned a curious expression to him. “You have something to say Hiei?”

Hiei glared at them harder and sighed angrily as he turned to face them all. “We have no need to figure their family out, as we have no need to decipher her power. Reikai hasn't ordered us to, and even if they did we have no right to.”

Kurama made a small sound of understanding. “You are just as curious as us. I think even if we have not been told to inspect the family and Kagome, we could use with an ally of her powers- though we know not what they are.”

Hiei snorted, unable to argue with his observation, and he looked up to the sky with a snarl. “I do not like this.”

Kuwabara nodded his head in agreement and Yusuke looked at him in surprise. “This is a family we have barged into. It's a family. The siblings share a bond and they understand each other and it feels awkward when we leave.” Kuwabara shook his head slightly in amazement with a glazed look in his eyes. “While we are in their property we have such a feeling of being welcomed that we don't question it but when we leave…when we leave it hits us that it wasn't our place to be there.”

Yusuke slowly shifted in his seated position, drawing all their attention and making them wait for his response. “I like it there.” He shrugged at the confused looks he was getting. “I'm not going there to uncover her power or investigate the family; I'm going there because I like it there.” He nodded his head firmly: “Simple as that.”

Kurama chuckled: “As we enjoy it there- there can't creditably be a reason to stay away, and there is no harm in trying to figure out their power as we visit.”

Hiei's face never shifted into the calm stoic expression that would tell that he somewhat agreed with the point, but he made no protest. Yusuke grinned in excitement and rubbed his hands together before he placed them behind his neck and leaned back into the grass.

Kuwabara found he was agreeing with this conclusion, even as he wanted to stay away out of respect for the family he couldn't bring himself to vow to keep himself away. Kurama spoke up from the silence. “I think we have gotten off topic.” He leaned back in the bench to tilt his head up to the warming sun. “I for one found something very interesting about that family. Did any of you catch anything unusual about them?”

Yusuke shrugged casually in his awkward position and rubbed his nose with a finger. “They are a very tight family, like you guys said. The only thing awkward about it is that she has been gone for a while, and she still moves like….” He trailed off as he couldn't find a word to describe it, and Kuwabara found himself sympathizing with his long-time friend.

“She moves like an experienced warrior.” Hiei's blunt statement drew their gazes to him, and Kuwabara smiled oddly as he recognized the gleam in those eyes. Hiei had found something he knew shouldn't be, and he would try to find out how it had come to be- no matter the obstacles.

Kuwabara supposed it had something to do with him actually being something that shouldn't be….

He shook his head and leaned back heavily. “Yeah she does. Almost creepily moves like a trained warrior, there's no sign of muscular dystrophy or any normal weakness.” He almost smiled as he glimpsed their surprised expressions - `It's always fun surprising them with his `big words'' - his hand mopped down his face again, this time to hide his grin. “And her family is eerily close. Even with that man.”

Kurama latched onto that topic as if it had been what he was waiting for, and Kuwabara thought detachedly that Kurama should just start the conversation instead of waiting politely for an opening all the time.

“That's it.” The simple statement got him confused countenances, so he elaborated. “Despite how close they are together that man seems to be…not so loved by the children of the house.”

Hiei's gaze sharpened on his friend and Kuwabara watched the wheels turning in his gaze. “That man has no respect for the younger Higurashi, treats them like children…and I saw him greet their mother like he was courting her. If there was a man courting my mother that I didn't like, I sure wouldn't keep my peace like those two seemed to do.”

Kuwabara wondered at the family's relationship again, but he dropped it with a sigh as he stretched and felt the aches and pains in his tired body. It had been a very tiring day…. “Look guys, we all have had a long day; we'll get together another time to delve. I just might need to talk to my sister too, and Genkai might have some information for me.”

They seemed surprised at his admission, but they gradually accepted his truth and nodded in agreement as they all shifted into more alert positions and readied themselves to leave to their respective homes.

Amidst the calls of parting and general well-wishes of his friends- his comrades and allies - Kuwabara stuffed his hands in his pockets and set off for his house at a slow slouch. He had much to think about before he got home, and he was certain that if he was near the comfort of his bed he'd be too tempted to think deeper into the subject.

He sighed and took in a large breath of air to awaken his senses into some form of alertness as he let his mind wander into the puzzling feel of one aura and the confusing relations of one family.

It was shaping up to be a very long walk home.

.x.X.x.