Swift Wafts of…
By Keo Siph
All Yu Yu Hakusho characters are owned by Togashi Yoshihiro/Sheisha, Fuji TV, Pierrot, and FUNimation.
Shizuru knew smoke. Knew it and took it regardless of what it did to her. Or maybe because.
Maybe she really was a masochistic… insert obligatory curse here. Maybe she wanted it because it would hurt her.
And she saw it coming. It only really hurt when you let your guard down and thought it loved you.
Smoke doesn't love. Smoke hurts, with no pretense to the contrary.
That's why she let it waft over her finger tips and across her arms. Why she allowed its head to rest in her lap. Why it seemed so peaceful to let something so dangerous lay in her protection.
She saw what he'd done. She'd seen those golden eyes flash against foes. She knew him.
She saw the pain in his eyes of falling in love. Of having that love stolen.
She knew. He knew.
He had been crying in pain when she found him. Incoherent, bubbling mumbles of nonsense about who in hell knows what. Of course, that's the question, isn't it? What sort of creature would put him through that?
But she knew that, too. She'd met that creature, too.
She'd come to clean up some of the mess left behind by Urameshi and her brother.
Always more trash. But they left this one here. She wasn't sure how. She thought him loud enough to be remembered, in this painful sleep of his anyways.
But there he was. Crying and writhing against the floor. Whatever his enemy had used to hold him, whatever dire plot device had rid him of his glory, had been corrupted as Urameshi and the others destroyed their work zone, along with their foes.
But he was still here, this smoke.
She was instantly reluctant to deal with him, but as always, she paused and considered and thought herself into the circles that last broke her heart.
But she knew what this one could do, and took that into consideration.
It changed the whole formula.
Enough change that she knew he couldn't do anything to her that hadn't already been done.
Nothing at all.
His face was drawn in pain when she took hold of his head and told him to calm down. He did.
It was still longer than she remembered, this now cold, gray face. He had aged some since the last time she had seen his work. His lips dried to cracking as he breathed, and his deflated chest seemed hollow. But he lived. She wouldn't allow otherwise.
Because she wanted to see if he'd let her live. Broken soul, broken heart, only one thing left. And if it survived him, the others would mend. Because it would mean someone thought something of her. Even if it wasn't nice, it wouldn't be due to blood or necessity, it would be something. Anything. She wanted to die. To feel something new. Or not to die, break, fall apart. Something new, like mending. He'd give her one or the other, it was the only outcome. He couldn't ignore her with that false security of his. That psuedo-ability to brush everything off. She was officially a part of his life. Because she knew his nightmares. Of his brother, from before. Before the human/demon transition. Of the pain. Of the blood lust of his demon form. Of the need for care of his human form.
Of the torture. Of betrayal. Those were hers.
And when you dream the same nightmare, are not the wonderful illusions during the daylight the same?
Shizuru let her eyes fall to half-lidded and held Elder Toguro's head carefully, awaiting his wake.
This would not be a repeat. This was full-frontal masochistic need, with a plausible happy ending.