Kurama the yoko had been revelling in the energies of one particularly old tree when the arrow struck his side and pinned him there. He snarled at the pain and went to pull it out, knowing that this action would also hurt, but the arrow was hot to the touch of his hand. He could not remove it. With a frown, he sought the 'holy' mortal who had done this to him.
A child. Of all things, a girl of fourteen practising her archery and missing her mark! No wonder the 'holy' energy was so untamed as it pinned him there. And that was all that it was doing. Pinning him. He wasn't bleeding from the wound, wasn't being purified or even properly sealed. He was simply pinned and could not unpin himself.
Not two years later, another demon was deliberately sealed to the tree – on the other side where the people who lived in the village would be able to see his stupid red get up easily. Kurama felt no sympathy for the infant – and he was an infant, having only two decades at most. Even a half-breed should know better than to get mixed up with a priestess, even one only half-trained.
Still, the little drama that had unfolded around him had been entertaining while it had lasted. He didn't have to be able to see what was going on to know after all. He had ears, and he had a nose, and what he couldn't tell from those the plants were willing to tell him. Humans could really be very stupid about things they thought valuable.
Then again, that's why his chosen profession was to be a thief. Not because he wanted their trinkets and certainly not because he needed them, there was no point to them after all, but rather because of the thrill of taking something away that was perceived as precious for some trivial reason. Of course, that didn't mean he gave the stuff back after he'd stolen it. Even a yoko like him appreciated shiny things that made his den pretty.
It was another few years before anything interesting happened again. Kurama had long manipulated the plants in the area to provide him shelter and food as he wished them. He'd even grown some vines around the puppy on the other side of the tree so that he didn't look completely ridiculous dangling there by an arrow.
"Lord Yoko!" yelped a voice from the level of his knees.
"Jaken," Kurama greeted. "How is your worthy lord?" He was on good terms with Sesshoumaru, as he had been with his father before him. They were nobility, but they weren't the sort to take delight in the foolish things. Beauty, yes. Frivolity, not nearly so often.
"He goes to war against panther demons trying to invade us, I am seeking InuYasha to see if the unworthy half-demon would aid in this battle. I did not expect to find you here Lord Yoko," the imp explained.
The imp had a habit of referring to beings by their species unless they were Sesshoumaru. That Kurama actually was a Lord among the foxes meant he got respect as well.
"The panthers," he scowled. "Would I were not pinned here I would fight also!"
"Lord Yoko?" Jaken inquired.
"A priestess was practising her archery," Kurama explained. "She missed her target. I doubt she ever knew she had pinned me here. I cannot remove the arrow. It must be done by someone with high levels of spirit energy. I am grateful however that I am not in the same state as your worthy lord's unworthy brother," Kurama added, jerking his thumb to the other side of the tree.
Obediently, Jaken peered around the tree. The sight of InuYasha asleep with an arrow through his chest was what greeted the imp as he gaped.
"The same girl did that, on purpose, a couple of years after accidentally pinning me," Kurama told the imp, even as he manipulated his energy and the plant-life around him. "I cannot come, but I can send weapons," he said firmly, balling up leaves of cat-nip in little nets of cat-tail grass fibres. "Have these smoke gently and scatter them among the panthers, it should sedate them enough to make the kills that much easier."
"Thank you Lord Yoko," Jaken simpered, then scurried off.
~oOo~
Kurama supposed that the fight with the panther demons must have been won for Sesshoumaru to come to see him. The young dog demon (and at only three-and-a-half centuries old, Kurama still saw the pale, beautiful demon as young, if no longer a child) would not have left the battlefield if there had not been a victory.
"This Sesshoumaru never thought he would see the day when the Lord of the Spirit Foxes would be so caught," the dog demon said, smirking only the tiniest little bit.
"Stuck or not, Lord Sesshoumaru, I'm still the one who taught you to use the whip," Kurama warned mildly. "And you are surrounded by my element. How did the battle fare?"
"Your little bombs proved most helpful," Sesshoumaru allowed, conceding (for the moment) that he was not in a position to fight the yoko, even with the fox unable to move. It was a matter of experience over power in this instance, and Kurama was older than even Sesshoumaru's father by some thousands of years, though he didn't look it. "Thank you."
Kurama nodded. "It chafes that I could not join the battle. It is so very boring being stuck here. No one to fight, no one to plot against, and I can only prank your unconscious half-brother so many times before that is tiresome as well," he admitted. "And my element or not, the energies on this arrow prevent me from manipulating its wood, or the wood around the arrow-head to release me." Kurama sighed in frustration. "So your battle is won, I am glad. What is your next order of business?"
Sesshoumaru rested his hand on the sword at his side. "This one's sire left him the Tensaiga. He seeks the Tetsusaiga and the Sounga. This Sesshoumaru was seeking them before the panthers came, and has unfortunately not been successful yet. You were a friend to the late Inu no Taisho, what do you know of his plans for these swords?"
Kurama chuckled. "I know that the fang at your side, made from your father's own tooth, was given to you for a reason. I know that the fang you seek has more purpose than simply to defeat all of its foes. As for Sounga, your father would have seen it thrown once more into hell if he could. Apparently it has a very manipulative personality for such a bloodthirsty sword," he said.
Sesshoumaru growled. "Must you speak in riddles Lord Yoko Kurama?" he demanded.
"You learn so much more from riddles than straight answers," Kurama countered happily. "Because you have to think about all the possible answers."
Sesshoumaru huffed, his eyes narrowing at the fox.
"What do you seek?" Kurama asked.
"Power," Sesshoumaru answered.
"What is power?" Kurama pressed. "Think carefully, young Lord Sesshoumaru. I have lived longer than you and your father together. What is power?"
"Strength is power," Sesshoumaru said.
"What else?" Kurama insisted.
"There is no other power but in strength," Sesshoumaru insisted.
Kurama barked a sharp laugh. "And yet here am I, pinned to a tree by someone who was weak, and still you do not dare to strike me," he pointed out.
"The priestess who shot you," Sesshoumaru said. "She was not strong?"
"She had the potential to be strong. She never achieved it. She also had terrible aim whatever claims she made otherwise to your brother. She simply had something that I am unable to counter," Kurama explained. "What is power?"
"To have something that your enemy does not," Sesshoumaru said, realising what Kurama was getting at.
Kurama nodded. "In this way, knowledge is power," he said. "I suggest you educate yourself regarding the power and responsibility your father bequeathed to you, before going in search of the others."
Sesshoumaru nodded slowly, a small frown on his face that rarely showed any emotion at all, and left the spirit fox to his solitude once more.
~oOo~
The seasons came, and went, and Kurama listened to the goings on of the village he could not see, but which he could have if he'd just been pinned on the side of the tree where InuYasha was rather than where he had been. He suffered through the scent of ripe females that he would not get to bed being wafted past his nose by the fickle breeze, and took delight in tormenting his fellow captive while the boy was unaware of it – until it got boring that is. After all, what good are tricks if the one who is tricked is not awake to react in an entertaining fashion?
He was tending plants to stave off boredom when a new scent caught his nose and jerked his head up. The combined scents of innocence, purity and great spiritual energy were suddenly potent in the air. The smell was sweet, heady, almost over-powering, and at such a distance as he knew it had to be (for the scent of young human female that it also intertwined with was faint and far off yet) he knew that the scent had the possibility to be cloying when the owner was close at hand.
The female who entered the clearing was not what he had expected.
"For someone who smells so innocent and pure, you certainly do not dress as someone innocent and pure," he commented when he saw her.
The girl blushed deeply. "It's my school uniform," she grumbled. "Mother and Grandfather already appealed to the school board to make it more modest, but the board is all creepy old men who like to make random visits."
Kurama smiled a little at that. He had heard of schools. They were a new thing brought from foreign countries, currently only attended by the children of wealthy families. He somehow doubted that wealthy human lords would let their daughters wear such clothing to attend these schools, but he could smell no lie on her – and lies did have a smell.
"I am Kurama, what is your name young one?" he asked.
"Kagome Higurashi," she answered, then frowned. "Um, isn't that painful?" she asked, gesturing to the arrow in his side.
Kurama chuckled dryly. "It hasn't been for some time Higurashi-chan, all the same, if you would like to pull it out for me, I would appreciate it. Once I am no longer pinned to this tree, we can see about getting you some more covering clothes," he suggested.
Kagome's eyes went wide, and Kurama wondered if she was thinking it a bad idea to free somebody who was obviously not human – wondered if she would refuse him. But then she audibly swallowed and nodded tentatively.
"It will hurt coming out, won't it?" she asked as she stepped closer, her fingers hesitant to actually close on the shaft of the arrow.
"But it shall be over soon enough," Kurama countered gently.
Kagome nodded again and her hand went around the arrow-shaft. She gave it a firm pull and the arrow dissolved in her hand, freeing him.
"Ah, much better!" Kurama sighed gratefully. "Thank you Higurashi-chan," he said, turning his golden eyes to her, only to see her own deep brown eyes looking just slightly above him. He also noted that her fingers were twitching. Kurama wondered if she even realised what she had done or how she had done it, now that she seemed fixated on his ears. After all, arrows didn't normally dissolve just because they'd been pulled out of where they had lodged.
"Clothes," Kurama reminded her firmly. He may be grateful to her for removing the arrow from his side, but he wasn't about to let her take liberties with his body.
"Oh, yes, please," she agreed, her hands now firmly by her sides and no longer twitching except to try and pull the hem of her skirt down so that it covered more of her.
Kurama, being a fox, and a thief, and a trickster in general, took InuYasha's clothes from him, covering the half-breed's naked form with more vines. It wouldn't do for the villagers to see that after all. These clothes Kurama then rolled in jasmine for a moment before presenting them to Kagome.
Once she had them on, Kurama congratulated himself. Red suited her rather well. It was only very shortly after Kagome had dressed herself that an arrow struck the ground near their feet.
"Ah!" Kagome yelped, jumping a little and turning to stare at the projectile.
"Time to go," Kurama decided, gathering the girl in his arms and taking off through the trees.
~oOo~
"I never want to have that much fun again," Kagome said, her knees giving way beneath her when Kurama set her down on the grassy earth.
The yoko had taken them through the forest and out the other side in a matter of seconds, leaving the villagers behind and Kagome without even the breath to scream in exhilarated fear.
Kurama chuckled. "I can't think why not," he commented. "We left a foolish boy stripped naked and had a nice run through the forest on what really is a very fine day."
Kagome smiled weakly up at the tall fox. "I guess it is an improvement on how my day had been going: being dragged down a well by a creepy centipede woman who wanted some jewel from me," she allowed, shuddering at the remembered touch.
Kurama's ears sharpened. "Centipede demon," he corrected. "Those kind are chasers. She'll come after you."
Kagome whimpered and curled in on herself at the idea. "She licked me!" she moaned. "She's got more arms than me and she's huge!"
"But you escaped once," he pointed out. "How?"
"Uh... I- I pushed against her," Kagome said. "One of her arms came off and she let me go."
Kurama frowned. "You can channel your spiritual energy then," he stated. "And given how much you have, I suggest you get control over it."
"How do I do that?" Kagome asked, by now just going with the flow because way too much strange stuff was happening to and around her in rapid succession.
Kurama sighed. He wasn't a teacher. He was a thief, he was a source of cryptic wisdom if people sought him out. However, as a yoko, he also enjoyed basking in this girl's aura too much to leave her completely defenceless. He grew a wooden sword for the girl to use and walked her through the basics of channelling her energy offensively and defensively. Spiritual energy could be manipulated the same way any energy could be, and spirit foxes were undisputed experts on the manipulation of energies. Or he was anyway. There weren't exactly a lot of spirit foxes around these days. They liked to leave the physical world behind once they got enough tails, as it made finding the kinds of souls that were worth keeping around easier. Kurama on the other hand was too fond of messing with his associates to want to ascend just yet.
Kurama was just explaining about using her own energies to overwhelm the demonic energies of her enemies, an act incorrectly called 'purifying' by the humans, when Kagome's centipede demon showed up.
"Oh look, a test subject," Kurama said with a smirk.
Five minutes later the only thing left of the centipede demon was a regular centipede, which Kurama moved to a place where it could do what all normal centipedes are supposed to do, and Kagome was giggling in glee. She was going to kick butt when she got home!
~The End~