Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Gates ❯ Chapter 12: Hidden Threats and Secrets Revealed ( Chapter 13 )

CHAP 12

Karyuu awoke from a deep sleep to find a dark figure looming over her.
Startled, she rolled out of bed into a low crouch, her movements faster than his eyes could follow, dagger held ready in her hand, the other gripping the handle of her sword, hidden beneath the edge of her futon as she pressed her back to the wall. Half a beat of her heart passed before her eyes recognised the dark figure and the glowing ruby eyes that shone at her in the dark for what they were, her guard dropped as she sank back to her knees, her hands dropping into her lap, shoulders drooping.
"Jumpy, are we?" A familiar deep voice asked quietly.
She raised her head to glare at Hiei as he knelt before her, his face highlighted by the faint beam of starlight that flowed through her window that lit the dark room more than enough for her inhuman vision to make out the fine details of the room.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," she sighed quietly and pointed the tip of the dagger at him. "I should stick this up you nose for scaring me like that..." She said irritably, before moving to replace it in it's sheath on the floor beside her, but in a blur of motion, Hiei surged forward and caught her wrists in a firm, grip that would have been painful if she were ayone else, pushing her back against the wall, ruby eyes blazing again with their natural red glow.

Her eyes widened in surprise and she tried to straighten, only to be held back by unrelenting hands.
"Hiei, what..." He groweled quietly and pressed his thumbs against that place that would force her her hand convulse and drop the weapon below them, the dagger making a dull thud as it struck the futon. "Hey! Hiei -"

"Shut up," he said flatly, looking hard at her, his face so close that their noses almost touched. "It's time for you to tell me the truth, Servant," he groweled in a voice so quiet that there was no chance at being overheard, even if a demon with excelent hearing was trying to eacesdrop though the rice-paper door. "Who are you hiding from?"
Her opal eyes widened a little further and she shook her head slowly.

"I... I can't... I mean I don't -"
He shoved her back against the wall, making her bounce slightly against the wall.
"Don't lie to me!" He hissed angrily, his anger making his eyes glow brighter in the gloom. "I've seen the Wards you put on your windows and doors. I know you've been expecting an attack for a long time now... ever since you came here, in fact and I was prepared to wait for you to explain it on your own, but now I want answers," his grip tightened very slightly, only enough to cause her very little discomfort, easily ignored, but it was there none the less. "The chocolate things were poisoned, but I don't think it was for the Oaf, and neither does Kurama... I need answers Karyuu, and you're going to give them to me. No lies this time!" She stared at him like a deer caught in the headlights of a car as he spoke and she looked away, her expression pained. "Tell me!" He hissed harshly.

She flinched and raised her eyes to his slowly and unwillingly, opened her mouth to speak before closing her eyes again, not able to look at him, as if she was either frightened or ashamed of the answer to the quesion he was asking.

The thought breifly flickered through his mind that if his worst fears were indeed correct, she could kill him right now with absolutely no effort at all, and he would be helpless to stop her.
But he didn't care.
His anger and the thought that this woman, whom he and the others had come to see as a good and kind teacher had betrayed them all in that trust making him absolutely unrelenting in his desire for an explanation.
"Look at me, damn it!" He groweled from between clenched teeth, her every action seeming to tell him that she was a traitor... a thought that hurt him in some undefineable way. "You've endangered Kuwabara and the others and now I want to know why!"

"It was meant for me!" She snapped in angrily at him, starteling them with the veheminant anger and guilt that slammed into him through the link they shared as her emotions got the better of her. "I gave the chocolate almonds to Kuwabara... I didn't know that they'd found me... I've put you all at risk..."
"Who found you?" Hiei demanded, looking into her opal eyes. "Who are you hiding from?"
She hesitated and bowed her head, not wanting to look at him, and he let it pass as she seemed about to speak again.
"The Council of Gaia... They didn't listen when I told them about the coming war... and they had already turned their backs on me almost two hundred years ago for disobaying their orders and for herasey," a bitter smile touched her lips for a moment. "More specificly, the Head of the Council saw me as a threat and ensured that the Council saw me in the same light... So ... when word got to them that I was doing it again, they were more than a little pissed... They sent their Hunters after me..."
"Hunters? You mean what you were when you were chasing Kurama?"
"Yes... He mannaged to free himself of their persuit by returning the sword, but I had to fake my death while under Koenma's service, and they beleived it, so I was able to continue in secret... But it looks as if the Council found out I was alive and they're trying to take me out... One of their men poisoned the the candy while I wan't looking, and I gave the chocolate almonds to Kuwabara and..." Hiei felt as shudder run through her as if her very body was apauled by what could have happened if they haddn't arrived in time, or if she haddn't had the antidote with her. "Only a Servant of Gaia can make that poison, Hiei... It was meant for me... and I don't know what would happen if... I'm so sorry..."

She leaned forward then, her forehead resting against his chest, and he froze, not knowing what to do, that action surprising him enough to make him release her wrists, allowing them to fall into her lap, starteling him even more as one raised to rest on his chest over his heart, the other remaining on her thigh. He felt another shudder run through her body, and realized in amazement that she was crying, or damn near to it, something he'd never seen her do... not for a personal reason, anyway. The waves of guilt, sadness and deep seated rage that radiated off of her were as starteling to him as the strange, almost electric effect that her touch was having on him. He raised his hands to her shoulders to push her away, but as they touched her trembeling form, the hand on his chest balled into a fist, gathering the material of his cloak with it as she clung to him, and he found himself unable to bring himself to push her away, despite the almost panicked instinct to withdraw he was desperately trying to surpress at having her seek comfort from him like that.

"I was such a damn fool," she whispered against him and she abruptly pulled back, releasing his cloak and his hands slipped from her shoulders as she did so.

Opaline eyes met his and he saw silver tears standing there, though, thankfully, none had fallen yet... He didn't know what he would do if she began to cry...
"As soon as your training is finnished, I'll leave," she said quietly, her voice firm with resolve. "It's too dangerous for me to stay anywhere near you and the others any longer than absolutely necessary..."
"You're right. You are a fool, but running away now will solve nothing," Hiei said shortly. "You act on Gaia's will, and by that will, we have become involved, whether we want to be, or not, so it's too late to run now. The only road open to you is to strike out at this 'Council', that made such a cowardly and careless attack on you," his ruby eyes narrowed to perverbial 'demonic slits'. "I don't approve of striking out against your allies for personal gain. Creatures like that deserve slow, painful deaths as payment for cowerdiace and lack of loyalty."
She stared at him silently for a moment and then matched the evil look with one equally as feral.
"I would like nothing more at the moment than to do exactly that," she murmured as the look in her eyes faded to sober consideration once again. "But it isn't possible... not yet at least..."
"Then wait," he said calmly, forming a small, glowing orb of light no bigger than a dime to appear above their heads, shedding a faint, white glow over them both as the glow in his eyes faded to small, soft circles of light dwelling deep within his ruby orbs, betraying the fact that he had taken the time to attempt training with light manipulaion in his spare time. "And while you wait, prepare and then strike when you're strong. I personally have a score to settle with the ones responsiable for what happened today."
She looked at him quizicaly mildly surprised by his deffenciveness of Kuwabara.
He saw her look and shrugged, shifting a little away from her so that she could sit comfortably on the futon beside him, watching as she replaced the dagger in it's sheath.
"The enemy of my ally is my enemy."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Are you familiar with the saying, 'The enemy of my enemy is my enemy', Hiei?"
"Hn. I've heard it before."
"Then wouldn't that make you Kuwabara's enemy?"
He caught the playfull note in her voice and for some reason he felt the need to return it with more than his customary 'Hn'.
He pretended to consider it for a moment before he replied.
"I never said I liked the baka... It's a matter of principle..."
She blinked and laughed a little and gave his shoulder a little shove with her own and he smirked at her, inwardly surprised with himself that he wasn't the least bit annnoyed with the familar gesture.
They sat in silence for a little while, listening to the night sounds outside.
Then something else that had been praying on his mind rose unbiden to the surface of his mind... The Jewel of Affliction she had formed earlier that day to save Kuwabara as he and the others looked on helplessly.
An image accompanied the memory... of Karyuu straddeling their poisoned team-mate, hands on his chest as she sealed his mouth with her own...
'Was that how it was done?' He wondered silently, one hand moving imperciveiably to the hidden pocket within his cloak where his own Jewel lay, feeling the hard little object through the material of his clothes. 'Is that how she formed my Jewel?... Was that what she did to save me?'
Another image rose unbidden to to the surface, theis time and image based on imagination rather than real memory.
An image of Karyuu stradeling him as she had done to the Oaf, her lips locked with his as she drew the poison out of him and into her own body...
But because of the difference of size between she and Kuwabara, she had been sitting half-way up the tall Human's chest, to hold him down... but with him... She would have been stradeling his waist, their hips at an embarrasingly perfect alighnment...
Hiei felt a hot blush rise to his cheeks that he couldn't surpress, and he quickly extinguished the light he had made, shrouding the two once again in the semi darkness, where even with her Serven'ts sight, she would be unable to detect the decidedly flushed quality of his skin at that moment. He saw her head turn to face him out of the corner of his eyes and then with a slight shrug she returned her attention to the shadows playing over her room that only she could see. It was embarrasing to think that she had put him in that kind of compromising possition while he was unconcious, even if he had been dieing at the time...
And then another thought occured to him.
What if she wasn't alone with him when she had done it? Had the others seen that?
'No,' he told himself some releif. 'They shared my surprise when she preformed the extraction for the Baka...'
But still... he to ask, his pride needed to be asurred that it was still intact...
"Karyuu, did you do that to me?" He asked abruptly, his voice in the same hushed whisper he had used before.
"What do you mean?"
He surpressed a surge of irritation before reminding himself that it was a very vague what to ask what he wanted to know.
"When you extracted the poison from the Baka's body," he clarified, cursing himself as his voice strained a little in his throat. "Did you do to him what you did to me? Is that how your Jewels are formed?"
The elfin woman paused and ran her fingers through her long, sily black hair absently.
"More or less," she said with a shrug, turning her head to look at him again. "It was different with you, though."
"How?"
"You were... easier, I guess... The poisons were very different and the one you were effected with put you in a coma, so you weren't thrashing around like Kuwabara was. I didn't have to sit on you to hold you down..." Hiei felt a mild and very welcome surge of releif as she said that, thankfull that his dignity hadn't suffered as badly as he had origionaly thought... until she continued. "But everything else was the same, I guess... Except that I was the only one in the room besides Yukina... the others were tearing apppart the Library trying to find a cure..."
He felt a fresh rush of embarasment as realization struck him and he blurted out the thought before he could stop himself, "Then you kissed me?"
Karyuu blinked at him and then gave an enbarassed little laugh, and angrily he suspected that she had a blush to match his own, all because of his traitorous mouth...
"Well, um... I guess you could put it that way..." she said slowly. "But it's more like CPR, than a real kiss..."
"CP-what?"
"You know when a Human is saved from drowning and sometimes they can be rescued if air is blown into their lungs to force the water out?"
"Hn."
"Well, it's more like that... And exchange of Energy to take the poison out, rather than... um.. affections..."
"But why do it that way?" He demanded, the embarassed blush still burning his cheeks in the darkness.
She paused, confused and then shrugged.
"Oh, you mean through the mouth, instead of tearing the Jewel out through your chest cavity?" Her tone made it obvious to him and he immediately regretted asking. "Demons with the ability to make Jewels of Affliction do it to kill, maim and torture their victems; servants do it to save lives, so we put up with a little embarassment that goes with it. Embarassment is a small price to save a life, Hiei... Especialy if it's that of a friend."
There was a long pause and then, without knowing why, Hiei turned to face her, ruby eyes glowing naturally in the deep gloom of her room and in a voice so quiet that she almost thought that she had imagined it, he said, "Thanks."
He saw her smile at him in the dark, watching as she reached out and patted him lightly on the shoulder before drawing away again, as if afraid of making him angry by touching him needlessly as she had in the past.
"Don't mention it," she murmured, before she bowed her head a little and heaved a sigh. "I'll tell everyone tomorrow... I promised Yusuke I would anyway... I guess I can't put it off any longer, can I?"
He looked away, releived to feel that hatefull blush fade away again as he finally managed to gain control over himself, looking out the window from which he had entered earlier.
"Hn."
The fire-demon got to his feet then, and without looking back, he slipped out of that open window and dissapeared from her view, wondering silently why he haddn't been able to bring himself to ask the last question that remained un-answered...
"Did you cry for me too, Karyuu?"
*****
Dawn came slowly for Karyuu and as she always had, she watched the bright sun of the Human Realm rise above the dark and misty forest below the Temple, the beauty of that simple and yet infinitely powerfull event bringing with it a sence of apprehension.
'I have to tell them today...' she thought silently with a quiet sigh. 'I have to tell them the truth of what I've dragged them into...'
But she didn't want to.
She didn't want to tell them the painful truth of her existance, or the truth of how she had endangered them all far more than they realized just by being there... by training them...
"Well Servant," a familiar, deep voice said to her right. "When are you going to tell them?"
The opal-eyed woman turned her head to look at the fire-demon standing on the wall not four feet from where she sat.
"It would be better to wait until the others arrive here... I want them all safe before I let them know about this," she smiled bitterly before she corrected herself. "About everything..."
"Hn. I've already woken the Kitsune. He and Urameshi should be bringing the Baka here in two hours," ruby eyes regarded her emotionlessly. "Are you ready?"
She nodded.
"Yes... but..."
"But what?"
The elfin woman shook her head and ran a hand through her hair.
"Nevermind."
"No more secrets, woman."
She laughed a little.
"It's nothing," she said reassuringly. "I' just really, really don't want to do this."
"Hn. Well you're going to," he said firmly, almost as if he were expecting her to try and talk her way out of 'coming clean' as it were.
"Yes, Sir," she replied with a little smile, making him raise an eyebrow at her before she closed her eyes and reached out to touch the minds of her team-mates several miles away, where they remained in the realitive safety of Kuwabara's appartment, getting ready to leave for the Temple.
"Good-morning commerads," she said within their minds as she herself got to her feet and stretched a little. "Did everything go well?"
"Hey, Karyuu," Yusuke's voice replied. "Yah, everything's fine... we're coming back now, so get breakfast ready for us will ya'?"
"Yah, I'm starving, and Kurama won't let us eat..." Kuwabara said sulkily, and the elfin woman could almost see the Kitsune in question give him a tired look. "Says he wants to get there as quick as we can so we can talk."
Karyuu glanced at Hiei who regarded her emotionlessly, arms folded across his chest and closed her eyes again, not really wanting to meet that gaze and the mistrust it held.
Despite her promise to tell everything to the Team, it was obvious that Hiei was less than one-hundred percent convinced that she would do so, and was waiting in that neutral way of his to see the outcome of her promise.
"Sounds like a plan," she said, leaping off of the wall to begin walking through the little side-garden toward the kitchen, Hiei following at a distance. "I'll get breakfast ready..."
"You don't have to go to any trouble on our account," Kurama said quickly. "We can just find something in the kitchen when we -"
"Shut-up, Kurama!" Yusuke cried and Karyuu chuckeled a little. "Anything's better than those damn Corn-Pops! And don't say that wasn't what you meant, 'cause I know that's what you were thinking."
"Fine, Yusuke, but you shouldn't ask Karyuu to make you food just because you don't feel like making your own."
"I do feel like making my own!" The Spirit Detective rorted, his 'early morning humour' worse than usual, suggesting that he'd probably spent the night sleeping in a chair and was stiff as a board as a result. "But you won't let me!"
Kurama's mental sigh made even Hiei smile just a little.
"It's alright Kurama, I don't mind," Karyuu said, rescuing the red-haired demon from trying to explain the subtilities of etticut to the irritable young man. "Did you want me to wake Yukina and Keiko for this discussion, or should I let them sleep?"
There was a long pause as she entered the kitchen and opened the refridgerator, inspecting the contents thoughtfully before closing it again, as she moved to a low cubboard nearby to do the same, before Kurama answered, and she knew that the unusual break in the flow of conversation was the result of the Kitsune turning over the ideas and the undoubtedly uncomfortable questions he was planning to ask her in his mind.
"No," he said finally. "I'd really rather keep it between us if at all possible... If that's alright, of course."
Hiei watched from the doorway as the elfin woman began pulling out a bag of some oblong tuberous Ningen food in a plastic bag out from cubboard and placed the bag on the counter with a muffled 'thud'.
"Whatever you guys think is best," she replied, moving to a drawer to pull out a cutting board and a pair of knives, one smaller than the other and set them out on the counter before rummaging around to pull out a large skillet, which she set on the stove. "So how hungry are you three?"
"STARVING!" Yusuke and Kuwabara bellowed in unison and Kurama laughed helplessly.
Hiei snorted from the doorway before saying aloud, "What else did you expect?"
Karyuu smiled a little at him and in her mind's eye, she watched as Kurama and Yusuke helped their orange-haired friend to feed the adorable brown and white cat, lock-up the appartment and make their way outside on their way to the bus stop that would take them to the Temple.
"Alright, I'll see you three in a bit."
"Sure thing, Karyuu."
The connection broken, the elfin woman turned her head and began to pull several of the oblong, tuberous roots from the bag and washed the dirt from them in the sink before beginning to skin and cut them into cubes, which she deposited in a large bowl and mixed them with a little oil and a sweet-smelling green herb she retreived from the cubboard.
"What are you making?" Hiei asked, his tone disinterested as he watched her efficently bustle about the kitchen, never seeming to stop to think, her movements confident and almost mechanical.
"Just something simple..." she murmured, lighting the propane stove with a burst of fire without looking at it, digging around in the refridgerator for a moment before pulling out a few lumpy-looking green and red vegetabels, and the acrid bulb that he had identified weeks earlier as an 'onion' and began to cut them into centemeter square peices and placed them in a bowl off to the side. "Spanish omeletts, hashbrowns and bacon... damn, forgot the bacon..." She moved to the refrigerator again and retreived a package containing what looked like long thin strips of meat and tossed it on the counter. "Anyway, it's pretty standard fair... in another part of the Human Realm anyway... You don't find people eating this kind of food very often in Japan..."
Hiei frowned a little at her, watching as she began to increase the speed with which she moved through the kitchen, her hand movements blurring so quickly sometimes that he had no idea of what she was doing much of the time, and honestly it made him a little nervous. The knowledge that if she ever did betray the Team, or acted against them on Gaia's will, and that they would be absolutely helpless to stop her bothered him a great deal.
'She's so fast... I can't even follow her movements and I'm sure she's moving far below her maximum speed... What would it be like to truely battle a person like her?'
Then he reminded himself that it was better that if he never knew the answer to that question.
"Why are you doing that?" He asked suddenly.
The blur of motion that was Karyuu stopped abruptly and she turned to look at him, her expression slightly confused.
"Doing what?" She asked as she lay several strips of bacon into the heated skillet, which began to sizzel loudly.
"Cooking. You said you didn't want to talk, and now you're making everyone food as if you'd planed it all along."
She paused and then shrugged, looking slightly embarassed.
"I like to cook... It's sort of my way of calming down when I'm really nervous about something I can't avoid," the opal-eyed Servant admitted with a ruefull smile. "It's dumb, I know, but I find it comforting in a way."
The fire-demon turned it over in his mind, deciding it wasn't that odd of a thing to do, he supposed, if one was used to that kind of domestic normalicy, but it still seemed strange, especially when applied to a woman who could level mountains and destroy armies of demons like himself.
"Hn."
"Oh, I forgot to ask, did you want some too? Or would you rather stick with the tea?"
"Tea."
She nodded breifly and returned to her work, and Hiei allowed her to continue without interruption until the others arrived, following her every move with his watchfull ruby eyes.
*****
An hour or so later, the three other members of the Urameshi Team arrived at the Temple, looking a little bleary-eyed, but fine, none the less, though, Karyuu noticed with a pang of guilt that Kuwabara's movements were still quite stiff and slow, his muscles protesting his movements after the strain put on them the day before.
Without pretence, Yusuke came straight to the kitchen from the courtyard in search of the elfin woman. When he found her, he clasped his hands in front of him like a man begging and fixed his puzzled team-mate with a pleading look.
"Food?" He asked in a child-like tone that was decidedly comical as he looked down at her hopefully with his big brown eyes.
She regarded him for a moment and then pointed wordlessly toward the dining room and watched bemusedly as he and Kuwabara plowed into eachother in the doorway as both tried to pass through it in opposite directions at the same time.
"Watch where you're goin'', Carrot-top!" Yusuke said irritably, rubbing the elbow he'd bashed on the door-frame on his way through. "You nearly broke my arm..."
"Aww, shut-up, Urameshi. I was just comin' to see if you were gonna' come and eat or not."
"Of course I am! Whadda' ya' think I've been talking about since we got up?"
"Well, it certaintly didn't have anything to do with why we've gathered here like this," Kurama said from his place at the table beside Hiei, who was sitting silently there with a cup of steaming green-tea in his hands.
The Spirit Detective gave him an irritable glare, but refrained from comment, knowing that the Kitsune was right, ploping down heavily on the opposite side of the table and picked up the fork Karyuu had set beside his full plate of omlet, bacon and hashbrowns, giving the peice of cutlary a skeptical look before begining to eat, his movements with the unfamiliar utencil a little awkward, but functional, none the less. Kuwabara joined him moments later, and also began to wolf down the food set out before him, Karyuu being the last to join them as she quietly took a seat at the far end of the table, sepperating herself from the rest of the group almost guiltily, not meeting the gazes of the others, who shared a look.
"Karyuu... I think we need to talk," Kurama said quietly and she nodded, not looking up at them, her slender fingers twisting a lock of her blackened-silver hair absently before releasing it.
"Yah..." she drew a deep breath and let it out, raising her eyes to look at the four. "I owe you all an explanation and an apology... especialy you, Kuwabara."
The orange-haired young man blinked at her, but remained silent, allowing her to continue.
The truth was, he was curious... very curious as to how he mannaged to get himself poisoned like that... and what Karyuu had to do with it.
"What was in the almonds?" Kurama asked quietly, his tone calm, but there was a faint hint of hostility there that had never been there before, denoting the fact that the Kitsune shared Hiei's thoughts that the poison had been meant for her, and not Kuwabara... or that the poison was an attempt on the Human's life, in which she would pretend to save him, but 'failing' at the last moment.
"It was Lambros... it's a poison that can only be made by servants, since the flower that produces it grows only in select areas of the Shizenkai... my Realm. The effects are similar to what would happen if a Human were to consume strychnine and cyanide together, resulting in muscle convulsions, pain caused from touch and noises of any kind, deep breathing without gaining much air, followed by sesuring, complete relaxation, coma... and then death."
Kuwabara nodded gravely, remembering the events that had taken hold of him just yesterday, the symptoms listed sparking fresh memories of each step the poison had taken.
"Yah, that's the stuff," he said darkly. "It works fast too... couldn't have been a couple of seconds from when I put one of 'em in my mouth before it hit me..."
"It works very fast in large doses, and they gave you a very large dose... Lambros even smells like almonds, and that's why I didn't notice it right away."
"But how'd it get there?" The tall warrior asked, echoing the thoughts of the others sitting around them, all eyes intent on her, breakfast virtually forgotten... except by Yusuke, who was almost absently eating his omlet, not really seeming to realize that he was doing it.
Karyuu lowered her eyes to the table, not meeting Kuwabara's gaze.
"The poison in those almonds was planted there while I was destracted yesterday... and obviously, it was meant for me, not you... I'm sorry I endangered you like that, Big-Guy..." There was a breif pause as the four shared a contrmplative silence before she continued, "I haven't been truthfull about everything that concerns this little training camp I've set in motion... and some of it, I still can't tell you..." Hiei narrowed his eyes at her slightly, which shifted to a look of restless irritation as she quickly moved to elaborate. "Gaia has things I was supposed to keep a secret for a while... and some things I just didn't tell you..."
"Like what?" Yusuke asked with a frown, his appitite stilled very suddenly as this his team-mate's confession was unfurled before he and the others. "Why the hell would the servants try and poison you? Aren't you working for the same side?"
Karyuu, however, seemed not to be listening, her opaline gaze directed not at him, but at the sliding screen door behind him, her expression irritated, and suddenly tired.
He frowned at her and turned a little to look over his shoulder, as did the others, missing the negligant sweeping gesture made by the elfin woman that summoned up just enough of a gust of wind to blow the door open, revealing none other than Keiko and Yukina, who had most obviously been eaves-dropping. The four winced a little and Karyuu gave a barely perceptiable sigh before motioning to the kitchen.
"There's breakfast for you in the kitchen," she said almost sadly, ignoring the guilty looks the two taller women gave her. "Get yourselves dished up and we'll talk..."
The others glanced at her and then at one another.
It seemed that their enitial plan to keep this discussion strictly within the Urameshi Team, proper had failed before it had a chance to begin.
"I thought we were gonna' keep this quiet..." Yusuke murmured, his voice hushed to avoid letting Keiko hear him.
Karyuu shrugged.
"What were we going to do? Tell them to go back to bed?"
The thought of what would happen if he dared even think of saying something like that to Keiko turned the Spirit Detective's blood to ice and he shuddered, shaking his head.
"No... I guess not..."
'She'd probably take it the wrong way and bop me one, call me a jerk and storm off...' He thought silently.
There was a breif moment of silence, in which the five ate quietly, before Keiko and Yukina returned, pausing in the doorway, and noticing the distinct feeling of sepperation between Karyuu and the others, they took the hint and sat appart from her as well, though they both looked more concerned and confused than angry or accusing.
'That will probably change, though...' Karyuu thought dully and with a sigh, she looked at the six friends. 'It isn't often a person you're supposed to be able to trust ends up being responsiable for the near-murder of a close friend...'
"The poison was Lambros, we already went over that," Hiei said, plainly, prompting her none too delicately to continue before he lost paitence. "Get on with it."
"Hiei..." Kurama murmured reproachfully, though his eyes remained on Karyuu's face, assessing and noting every move she made, conciously and unconciously. "Let her speak."
"Hn."
The elfin woman sighed and got to her feet, standing with her hands behind her back, as if she were on trial, though the stance was more absent than formal... It seemed as if it was her version of Hiei's folded arms or Yusuke's bantering.
She was protecting herself, but from what, they had yet to find out.
"I screwed up," she said bluntly after a moment. "I've put you all in danger, and I'm sorry... I was stupid to think that I could keep this a secret... I'm surprised I was able to go this long without being caught..."
"Karyuu... what the hell is going on?" Yusuke demanded. "Why would servants of Gaia try to kill you?"
She shifted a little and looked away.
"I haven't been entirely truthfull... about the circumstances surrounding what we're doing here..."
"You were lieing?" Kuwabara asked incrediously, his honest face outraged. "You mean there aren't going to be big monsters trying to kill everyone?"
"No!" She said quickly, looking up again, her opaline eyes earnest. "That was the truth! I... just didn't tell you a few things... about me..." They shared a look and then returned their gazes to her, waiting expectantly. "I do serve Gaia... I always have, and always will, but there are those of my people, the Council of Gaia, who... disagree with me..."
Kurama raised an eyebrow at her.
"Politics in the servants of Gaia?" He asked skepticaly. "Isn't that a conflict of intrests?"
She nodded, her expression betraying her anger.
"Exactly. They beleive my stories of war are a plot to overthrow the current heads of the Council..."
"Is that possible?"
"The Council isn't a designated form of government as you know it," she said, with a shrug. "At the beginning of Time, the Council was put into place as a way to organize the servants, only the wisest of us were appointed to the Council and a lot of the time, places were often exchanged when Gaia asked one of the Council members to attend to some of Her needs. But more recently, over the last two-thousand years or so, the Council has fallen under sway of one of the older families... and through political affiliations and careful manipulation of the gullible, they've mannaged to set themselves in possitions of power, swaying the concerns of my people to social-climbing, rather than the service of Gaia's Will."
Her teeth were clenched as she spoke, and the anger radiating off of her was almost palitable, even to Keiko and Yukina, who didn't share the link with her as the others did.
"You disagreed with what they were doing," Keiko murmured. "And you went against their rules..."
"So they decided to take you out," Yusuke finnished and Karyuu looked away and nodded again, her jaw tightening.
"Yes... their best hunters were after me for the better part of one-hundred years or so..."
Kurama's eyes were wide, his own persuit rising to the forefront of his mind.
'When I was in the prime of my power, it was all I could do to stay half a step ahead of Gaia's Hunters... but she remained hidden for that long? How could that be possible?'
The answer, he knew was simple, however.
Karyuu, he was certian, was the most gifted of Gaia's servants to have ever walked this Realm, or any other he knew of, and as such, she was a formidiable opponent in virtually any aspect. Even to other servants, she was most likely a mystery, and her prudent withdrawl from their midst very likely added to that, making hunting her a nearly impossible task.

"Then what?" Yusuke prompted.
"I continued on my own, working in secret... I was commanded to watch over Koenma for a time, and then, when the knowledge of my activities reached the ears of the Council, they began to hunt me again..." she laughed quietly, a bitter, pained sound that touched even Hiei in a way. "That's why Koenma thought I was dead... I faked my death to escape and faded into the shadows again, with a new order..."
"You were looking for Yusuke... and us," Kurama murmured and she nodded again, not looking at them.
"I've waited a long time to find the four of you, and after I've finally found you, I almost cost Kuwabara his life because I got sloppy... I should have noticed it! I should have known that they would find me and attack... I've put you all in danger and I couldn't even protect you against something as simple as a poisoning..."
"That's something I don't get," Kuwabara said suddenly. "How come they tried to poison you? Why didn't they just come and try to kill you with swords and Elements and stuff? You know... the normal way..."
"Simple," Hiei murmured, ruby eyes focused on the elfin woman with that same, emotionless gaze. "Karyuu is in Gaia's service, doing Gaia's work... the Council is not, and so, they would not be allowed to harm her using the Elements Gaia controls... She wouldn't allow it."
"And from what I've seen, you are considered to be quite a formidiable foe, even amongst other servants in hand-to-hand combat, and so it would be pure folley to attack you head-on..." Kurama said and Karyuu nodded, though she didn't smile, or show any hint of pride or smugness.
It was blatantly... no, painfuly obvious that the elfin woman was hurt by the memory of the life she had lead before she had met them, and was ashamed, if however illogicaly that her bretherin had rejected her for no better reason than remaining loyal to the ideals and loyalties they had abandoned as they had her. That look of abandonment and self-chosen isolation, the grim determination to do what was right, no matter the pain and lonleyness that it caused her, touched something in everyone in that room in an instant of crystaline understanding, Yusuke most of all.
"I failed you all, and I'm sorry... It's my fault you've been put in danger by the Council," she scoffed bitterly. "As if you didn't have enough to worry about, now my problems are inflicting themselves on you too..."
Keiko frowned.
"But Karyuu... it wan't your fault... It was an accedent, wasn't it? I mean... they tried to poison you, and that's terrible, but it dosen't mean they'll try and kill Yusuke and the rest of us..."
Another bitter laugh passed her lips and she raised her eyes to meet the golden-brown orbs of the young Human woman, a sad, sardonic smile twisting her lips into something resembeling a grimace.
"Yes it does," she said dully. "You six are expendable to them... the Council have taken to viewing any race other than servants as being lesser beings... Humans especially, are thought to be so far beneath them that many give no more consideration to killing you as you would a mosquito..."
"And therefore, they would think nothing of killing all six of us, just to stop you from doing what we've been doing. Is that right?" Kurama asked and Karyuu nodded, not meeting his eyes.
"Yes... I think Keiko and Yukina are fairly safe from a direct attack though," she added softly. "The two of you haven't been training with us... you don't represent a threat for them."
"Well... that's good at least," Yusuke muttered, running a hand through his hair, which was un-gelled this morning, due to the fact that he'd spent the night proped up in one of Kuwabara's easy chairs. "But what do we do about the rest of us?"
She shook her head, guilt, worry and self-blame written all over her face.
"I don't know... I placed extra Wards all around the Temple grounds and throughout the forest for about fifty miles in every direction, but that doesn't guarentee much safety. There are ways to break or buypass those Wards if the Servant is skilled enough. I've failed to protect you... I thought I could do it, but I got complacent... I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I'm a protector, a teacher... I shouldn't have let my guard down... And my mistake almost cost you your life, Kuwabara... Hell, it could have been any of you!"
'That's it...' he thought with a pang. 'That's what was so weird about her... She's alone... she's always been alone... Well, Hiei was too, but that was kinda' different, since he had theives and weak demons to beat up, and there was always Yukina to look after. But Karyuu... She's looking after everyone, and the people who oughtta' be closest to her, kicked her out and tried to kill her because she was trying to do what was right... what they ought've been doing.'
The Spirit Detective felt himself becoming angry, not at her, but because she felt that it was her fault that this had happened... He even suspected that she blamed herself for what had happened in the past to forge the gap between she and her people, and that, most of all, made his anger rise.
He and the others watched as her head bowed, hands balling into fists at her sides, knuckels going white from the strain she was putting on them, her whole frame shaking as she stared down at the floor, her eyes hidden by thick blackened-silver bangs.
'She looks so lost... so angry and so hurt...' Kurama thought with a pang, emerald eyes softening a little as he looked at his elfin team-mate. 'That's the core-cause of her self-imposed isolation... She fears that if she allowes herself to relax... to get close to the people she has been commanded to protect, then she will sentance them to share her fate, a thing that means failure of the worst kind in her eyes...'
They sat, staring at her for a moment and then, to the surprise of all, (including himself), Yusuke, on impulse, got suddenly to his feet and pulled the shaking elfin woman into the circle of his strong arms and held her tight, a thoughtfull frown on his face.
It was a strange thing for him to do, and he realized that the instant he decided to do it, but he'd done it anyway... because his friend, who had worked her butt off and risked her life to save him, Kuwabara and everybody else thought that she'd failed them somehow... She thought she failed because she let herself relax and feel like a part of a group for the first time in what he suspected was a really long time...
He felt her stiffen in surprise, and for a breif second, he wondered if she'd take it the wrong way and break a few of his ribs, but then she relaxed a little, her arms wrapping around his waist as she burried her face in his chest, not really crying, just taking comfort from the unusually kindly gesture.
"It's alright," he said awkwardly rubbing her back. "You saved Kuwabara... Without you, he would've died..."
Her grip tightened, and the others looked on with a mixture of sympathy and surprise that she had been so badly unnerved by Kuwabara's near-murder.
"Without me, you guys wouldn't have been in danger at all -"
"Without you, we'd all die!" Kuwabara said quickly, touched by the guilt she felt at having endangered him... even if it was accedental. "Me, Hiei, Kurama and Urameshi... we'd all be lost without you, so stop cry'n okay? Don't blame yourself for what some gutless jerks did..."
She pulled away slowly from Yusuke, meeting his eyes breifly as he gave her a reassuring smile and then turned her gaze to meet the honest sapphire orbs of the tall warrior.
"Okay?"
She hesitated and then nodded, he and the others smiling at her, even Hiei spared her a small smirk as if to say "I told you so."
"We'll deal with those Council-jerks when we get done with our training," the Spirit Detective said surely. "And everything will be fine!"
The elfin woman laughed a little and the others smiled at her, nodding in agreement. Whatever the Council had in mind for their newest team-mate, or for them, they would face it together.
'But there are still questions that need answering,' Kurama thought, emerald eyes still thoughtfull above his gentle smile. 'Specificaly, the questions we have concerning the information on the "Quintessence" Kuwabara and Hiei discovered... Is that something Gaia has asked her to keep secret? Or is it another of her own shadows coming back to haunt her?'