Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Trembling Roses ❯ Fire, Fire Burning Bright... ( Chapter 4 )

Stretched out across his bed Yusuke rolled the padded ball between his forefinger and thumb. Sometimes he would let it drop on the covers and push it slowly over the dips and folds of the indigo fabric before plucking it back up again. A faint smile tugged at his lips.

"Dream a little dream and I will show you tomorrow.

Pray a little prayer and I will show you God.

Worship me alone and I will elevate you above all others."

His eyes gleamed in the light like black diamonds.

"Whisper not to me of betrayal my beloved,

Or I will cast you out into the dust beneath the world."

With a delighted laugh, he pocketed his paper treasure once more and slid out of bed.

In a rusted cage sitting dejectedly in the corner of the room, terrified eyes watched him depart.

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Suffused in an unearthly violet glow of purest youki, two clawed fingers descended towards the stationary plant. Shippo watched with a breathless expectation he hadn't experienced since he was a child waiting to see what new and wondrous toy Kagome had brought for him.

Only he had a feeling that while wondrous, what he was about to see would not be a toy.

Verdant leaves quivered beneath the twilight energy like eager flesh beneath a lover's caress. The stem expanded and stretched like warm taffy, sprouting new greenery as it did so. Humble before, the flower produced wicked thorns and serrated edges that sliced through the corner of the table as though the wood were no more substantial than paper.

Emerald blades fitting for the hellish warrior of armored vines and toxic perfumes.

With a cry of alarm, Shippo shot away when one of those deadly leaves swung in his direction. Not finding any prey awaiting it that way, the monstrous flower whipped around to descend upon the still seated Kurama.

The alarm magnified into a shout of warning. "Sensei!" Summoning a ghostly ball of azure flame, Shippo rushed forward to defend his master.

A dark brow rose over almond eyes stilled him in his tracks.

One unlit finger rose up to press against those maddeningly quirking lips. "Shush and learn Little Tail." Still holding the youth's attention, Youko raised his other hand fully into the air where it shone like a black sun within a nimbus of its own undulating, darkling light.

The gargantuan sunburst face of the flower twisted around towards that hand like a devout supplicant would worship a god.

Gaping openly at the casual display of power, Shippo could only imagine what the turgid flow of youki could do to him.

"Observe closely Little Tail and you will see that like any living thing, this flower yearns to be more than it currently is." Hooded and dark with concentration, Youko's eyes continued to hold his gaze.

"Everything that lives, wants. These desires and compulsions drive us to become more than the limited sums of ourselves. Sometimes those yearnings lift us up to heights of greatness undreamt of by mortal man."

Full and passionate, Youko's voice wound a sinuous spell around the room, accentuating everything inside. Each shaft of light that poured within became a spotlight of unequalled luminosity and each hollow of darkness lurked as it huddled in distant corners.

That familiar fluttering renewed itself in the pit of Shippo's stomach when he heard it.

"But that is not always the case Little Tail." The dusky lids lowered, severing a part of the spell but that impassioned voice easily strengthened what had been lost.

"Sometimes a yearning can compel us to commit acts of such atrocity that we scarcely dare to look upon our own reflection for fear of glimpsing the damnation that must surely lurk beneath the skin."

Shippo didn't know where he found the ability to string two coherent thoughts together in the presence of that enthralling speech, but he actually formed sounds that resembled a sentence.

"Have you sensei?"

Why was he suddenly so breathless again?

An electric hum inundated the very air, tickling the fine russet hairs covering his legs and tail with invisible fingers. "H-have you ever been compelled to do something like that?"

Without a word, Youko brushed his fingers over the velvety petals of the flower, which instantly shrank back to its original state. Getting to his feet, he slowly walked up his student. "Which do you mean Little Tail? Have I ever committed such acts myself or have I ever contemplated acting on them?"

Once again, supple fingers cupped the younger man's chin. Shippo couldn't hold back a shiver at the memory of what he'd just seen that hand do. It placed a tremor in his voice.

"Were you ever tempted sensei?"

Closing the distance between their differing heights, Youko lowered his face towards Shippo's, halting a hand's span away. His breath was warm and feathered lightly across the sweeping cheeks under darkening cerulean eyes. "Yes I was once tempted Little Tail."

Shippo swallowed hard as his pale pink tongue darted out to wet hip parched lips at the husky tone. "By what sensei?"

A slow blink hid and revealed the metallic eyes looking down at him. "By a trifle thing that I fear has destroyed all that I thought I knew and understood of this world."

The verbal entrapment was rapidly waning but it still hampered all rational thought. "What was it sensei?" Even suppressed he could still feel the heady ebb and flow of his master's ki. "What could it have been?"

When that slender face closed the distance of those final few inches and the warm hand slipped around to cradle the nape of his neck, Shippo felt his eyes close of their own volition.

They flew open at the thick whisper that trickled into his ear. "I was tempted Little Tail, by temptation itself."

"Whu-what?" Shippo felt an alarming sense of disorientation when Youko moved away to resume a seat at the table. Once seated, the clawed digits steepled before those unreadable eyes and he heard his master say lightly, "Now I believe we were in the midst of a lesson?"

Unsure of what just happened, Shippo stumbled back to his seat as well. Still attempting to sift through what had transpired, Shippo realized that something else within the Training Room had changed.

He no longer felt uneasy

Within the room were only ordinary lights and mundane shadows. No ominous presence and no slight of hand with which to bedazzle the senses.

It was just a plain room with dark doors.

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A/N: That's it.

I'm hunting that fox down and shooting his ass.

He's been cryptic with me for the last bloody time.