Author's Note: I am very much enjoying writing this. I hope people enjoy reading it!
Traditional Song Sung During Tanabata, the Japanese Star Festival
The bamboo leaves rustle,
shaking away in the eaves.
The stars twinkle
on the gold and silver grains of sand.
The five-colour paper strips
I have already written.
The stars twinkle,
they watch us from heaven.
Secret and Strange
.
The morning's joviality had faded, frozen into something new, and dangerous. Hopefully, their painstaking job of scouting the perimeter and sizing up the defenses of the underground castle remained unnoticed. Kuronue was out of the reach of sight, sound, and smell, his familiar ki blocked with the expertise of a thief. Still, Kurama was following his movements through the bamboo, obliquely warning him of traps, guards and alarms he passed, making sure he stayed safe. Kuronue radiated confidence, even at this distance: he hardly needed Kurama's protection. A strange thing, Kurama reflected, that such foreign instincts should be aroused in him. Everything he felt for Kuronue, in fact, was foreign. He was not called the whore of the Makai for nothing—lovers and victims abounded—but what he felt for this impetuous, handsome bat demon was not analogous to any part of his life before their partnership. It was more than the respect earned by a worthy comrade, more than the complex painful ecstasy of a good fuck. They'd built intimacy and trust together, and though one of them managed to rend it apart every so often, it always, somehow, rebuilt itself.
Ahead of him, clearly visible from his perch clinging to the tip of a tall bamboo shoot, was the massive, gaping mouth of a stone guardian, arching up as though frozen in the act of eating the earth, rising at least three jō into the air, more than thrice Youko's height. Roughly hewn, with teeth as long and sharp as any sword jutting from its square lips, it had dull eyes carved from flat dead obsidian in need of polishing, watching all that passed by it. The door down into the underground fortress stood guarded by sentinels inside the statue's maw, where a throat would have been, were it alive. It was surrounded on all sides by whispering groves of bamboo, secret and strange, which had soaked up Kurama's ki and helpfully whispered the location of traps and alarms to their new master.
Youko hoped Kuronue would find a better way inside. The stone mouth appeared to be the only entrance or exit, and it reeked of old magic. Youko knew they could get inside without awakening its protections, but getting out and away was another matter. Enchantments like that knew no master, and given a task, would perform it even onto slaughtering its own maker. It could be tricked, but not disabled.
A despotic lord ruled the stronghold of Kal Ad'dhun, a man renowned for his cruelty and avarice. He was paranoid, sadistic, and for the most part, his gold didn't interest Youko. There was one item, however, that had caught the Legendary Bandit's eye: an origin mirror. There were few of those artifacts left on this plane of existence. Powerful receptors and amplifiers for divination, they came from the days before time, when the Gods ruled in a state of constant flux, and the three worlds were shapeless and malformed. An item of that rarity would normally be hard to unload, but a nobleman of a rival house had promised riches beyond imagination for it, a fourth of which had already been delivered into Kurama's hands.
One item, even one that carried such risk, was well worth such a glorious commission.
Youko turned sharply. Control your scent, he signed to Kuronue, who crept up to his perch from between the bamboo's long shadows, a worried look transforming his handsome face.
No weak points that I could see, Kuronue signed back. Only one way in or out.
Kurama frowned, beginning to plan their infiltration. Pure stealth wouldn't achieve this: so few were allowed access to the stronghold that disguises were out of the question. They had no choice, as Youko had already known from previous, long-distance reconnaissance. They'd have to hit both fast and accurate, taking out the guards, slipping through the main entrance, and getting as far in as quickly and quietly as possible. There would be a fight, but hopefully they'd have reached and abandoned the secret chamber containing the mirror and be back through the entrance before the strong opponents were roused. By the time anyone dangerous was chasing them, they'd be well away, disappearing into the night as though all they'd ever been were ghosts.
They'd have to hit it tonight. Every moment spent near this place was dangerous; they could be discovered at any time.
All he signaled to Kuronue was tonight, but he was sure his partner understood. It was all in the grin he flashed him.
They settled in, tight with tension and anticipation, to wait.
