Credits: I came up with the story idea, but Windlily
made it readable for the rest of you. The sweet, humble
Goddess that she is, she muddered through my scattered
brained text and fished a readable chapter out of it.
I will now take this oppertunity to thank her whole
heartedly for her help.
Thanks, Windlily.
{I chose purple neon lights, Windlily. Hope you like! ^_^)
The Forgotten Child
Chapter 4
by Kat Aubuchon
Kiseki bounced his baby sister, Koori, on his
knee while she made tiny snow flakes to float on
the gentle night breeze. The delicate ice
crystals drifted until they were out of the small
sphere of freezing air the two of them created for
this game, then melted into the warm night air.
Kiseki had just enough youki to make the
temperature around him cold enough to support
snow. His youngest sister was the true ice demon
of the family, being completely Koorimei, but it
was his oldest sister Fuyu who excelled in the
manipulation of ice.
Kiseki looked down at the precious child in
his lap, and smiled in to Koori's upturned face.
Koori rarely cried or complained. She smiled at
everyone and loved them all in equal measure.
Kiseki marveled at how easy it was for Koori to
bring down everyone's defenses, including their
ever quiet uncle. Uncle Hiei came to visit often
but only spoke with their mother. Uncle Kurama
was another story. He always played with them;
chasing them around the yard, playing a youko
version of hide and go seek that he always won,
teaching them about Makai plants and how they
could help and harm. When Koori was born, uncle
Hiei was the first to see her. For several months
after she was born their mother tried to make him
hold the little girl, but every time he flatly
refused.
Then on one of Uncle Hiei and Uncle Kurama's
visits Koori managed to climb into a tree while
the children were playing in the backyard. She
realized that she didn't know how to get back down
and started to cry. The adults heard her and
panicked, since she never cried and thought she
was in big trouble.
Uncle Hiei was the first one to the tree and
when he saw that her only problem was that she was
stuck, he gave a snort and told her to get down
the same way she got up and to stop crying. Her
tears had cleared up instantly at her uncle's
gruff command, and she slowly came out of the
tree. As soon as her feet hit the ground she
flung her arms around Uncle Hiei's leg. When he
bent down to try and remove her she moved her
death grip from his leg to his neck.
Poor Uncle Hiei had been so stunned he had no
idea what to do. Uncle Kurama had rolled on the
ground laughing his head off and Uncle Hiei had
muttered some choice phrase that Kiseki, even at
that age, had known was not very nice. After
several failed attempts to extract the child from
his neck he finally gave up and held her on his
right hip. Ever since that day, Koori's place was
in her uncle's lap when he came to visit.
It didn't bother Kiseki that his uncle only
showed his affection to Koori. He had seen inside
his uncle's heart, and knew the truth he hid
there. Kiseki's powers always seemed to confuse
the adults, his father and his aunt had some
rudimentary psychic powers but nothing that could
match his own. If he wished, Kiseki could look
into the mind of everyone within his sight. But
so far he had not been able to do it without being
noticed.
Koori twisted in his lap, having become bored
with her game and wrapped her tiny arms around his
neck. She gave him one of her icy kisses that
sent chills down everybody's spine, except for
their mother's of course. She giggled when he
shivered, and then crawled out of his lap. She
tugged at his hand and he knew that she wanted him
to follow her. Koori was four now and everyone
knew that she could talk, she just choose not to
most of the time. Kiseki and the other kids had
an idea of why she tended not to talk, but they
kept quiet about it, because they didn't want to
cause problems.
His oldest sister look up, brushing her bangs
of her short hair off of her face as Koori led him
to where the other kids were 'rough-housing', as
Aunt Keiko would say. Fuyu looked Koorimei,
sharing his mother's icy blue hair and warm red
eyes, but she was much taller. At eleven she was
already a full head above her mother and showed
the promise of reaching their father's height.
Fuyu pulled Koori into her lap and ruffled
the top of her hair. Fuyu was one half of the
Kuwabara twins, the other half was Arashi. At
this moment her twin was engaged in his favorite
past time, which was making Urameshi Mechiko live
up to her father's reputation. It never failed
that when the two of them came within sight of
each other, sparks and fur flew.
Arashi was a miniature copy of their father,
with curled orange red hair and beady blue eyes.
He had their father's high reiki and rough
attitude and the only thing that kept Arashi from
being a total asshole was his twin sister. Arashi
and Fuyu had a peculiar relationship. Fuyu was
nowhere near being as sweet and sappy as their
mother and baby sister. Unlike their mother's
passive nature, she choose to strengthen her
powers and learn to fight. Most people believe
she wanted to learn to protect herself from her
twin's hyperactive nature, but Kiseki thought that
she learned so that she would be better able to
protect Arashi when he got in to trouble. Right
now Arashi was in a lot of trouble.
Arashi was barely able to block the rapid
fire of punches Mechiko was throwing at him. It
had been agreed by all of their parents that they
were not allowed to use their powers against each
other for any reason. Supposedly the only time
they had an opportunity to use their powers was
when they were training with their parents, and
their uncles. None of the kids told their parents
about the 'field trips' they took into the deeper
parts of the woods to practice. Kiseki was
powerful enough to mask their extracurricular
training so none of the adults could find out.
Right now Arashi was trying to make do with just
his fists to fight Mechiko.
Mechiko kept coming at Arashi until she had
him backed against a tree. A cruel little smile
curled her lip just before she sent her fist
straight at Arashi's face. He was able to duck to
one side so, instead of flattening his nose, her
fist splintered the wood just to the right of his
ear. Arashi returned the smile and sent his own
tightly clenched fist into her stomach, just below
her sternum. Mechiko jumped back and tried to
bring the air back into her lungs as she kept a
wary eye on Arashi.
Kiseki was always surprised that Mechiko
could look so beautiful when she was having a fist
fight with his little brother. It was clear by
the way her soft brown shoulder length hair was
sticking to her sweat dampened neck and face that
the two the them had been fighting for quite
awhile. Her youkai heritage showed in the bright
sheen of her silver eyes even though she was not
using her powers. Kiseki knew from experience
that at anytime Mechiko could make razor sharp
blades of either youki or reiki, and throw them
with deadly accuracy.
Kiseki sighed, Mechiko was wonderful. The
only problem was that she was 14 and he was 13,
and she didn't even know he was alive.
Kiseki went and sat on the short stone wall
with his sisters. Fuyu had braided Koori's hair
and was placing little wild night flowers all
along the twists of hair. Kiseki took the little
yellow flower that his baby sister handed to him
and before anybody could react, Koori was between
the fighting pair trying to offer Mechiko one of
her flowers.
Mechiko was in the middle of delivering a
kick to Arashi's groin when Koori appeared in
front of her with a flower in her outstretched
hand. In wordless agreement Mechiko changed the
direction of her kick, because it was too late to
stop it all together, and Arashi picked his sister
up out of the path of Mechiko's foot. The kick
ended up impacting with his chin, sending him
backward. The jarring force of the kick made him
lose his hold on the little girl, and Mechiko had
to dive under her to break her fall. Koori ended
up on the back of Mechiko's neck, pressing the
older girl's face into the grass, while her
brother laid semi-conscious on the ground.
Fuyu started to giggle beside him and he
couldn't help but laugh with her. Mechiko and
Arashi glared daggers at each other, unwilling to
say what was on their minds because of the
innocent ears between them. Maryoku jumped from
the tree above them to land lightly beside the
silently cursing pair.
Maryoku was the most serious of the group,
and Mechiko's twin brother. He mostly sat quietly
watching others and making silent plans. He
resembled his father in very way except in
temperament, Mechiko inherited all of that. He
had spiky black hair that refused to stay down and
brown eyes that didn't miss a single movement
around him. Maryoku normally never got in the
middle of any of his sister's fights, so Kiseki
knew something must be up.
Despite Maryoku's ancestral heritage, he had
never shown any inclination for fighting. It was
easy to sense that Maryoku had great amounts of
youki flowing through him, but he only used it to
keep watch for the other people around him.
"Heads up parents." was all he said before he
sat on the wall beside Fuyu.
Mechiko sat up making Koori tumble down her
back. She quickly straightened her shirt and
tucked it back into her jeans, then ran her
fingers through her hair and pulled Koori into her
lap. The little girl giggled at this game that
they so often played and looked around for the
parent that always came out when they played it.
Kiseki had to roll his eyes at Mechiko's
pitiful attempt to hide the fact that she had been
fighting with Arashi. It didn't take a genius to
see the grass stains on her clothes or the blades
of grass still sticking out of her hair and know
that she had been fighting. Besides, if Mechiko
and Arashi could see each other they would be
fighting, everybody knew that. It wasn't long
before the parents that Maryoku had warned them
about came into the clearing.
Yukina, followed by a waddling Keiko, stepped
out into the full moon light. Kiseki smiled when
he saw his mother and she grinned back. She was
wearing a traditional kimono like she always did,
even though his father and their friends tried to
convinced her to buy more casual clothes. Keiko
was wearing what her husband called a 'tent' which
was one of her many maternity dresses that
attempted to down play her size. Kiseki's adopted
aunt had her hands some where in the vicinity of
her hips and was glaring at her daughter. Mechiko
pulled the squirming Koori in front of her face
like a shield as she tried not notice that she had
been caught and was now in trouble.
Kiseki watched his mother come towards him
and Fuyu moved to make room for her to sit between
them. He wasn't sure what she wanted but he could
tell by the serious look on her face that it was
important. She picked up his hand and placed it
in her lap. He instantly knew that she was going
to ask him to do something, and it wasn't going to
be something simple like to take out the trash.
"Kiseki, I need you to do me a favor," she
patted his hand and then ran her fingers though
his short lavender hair.
He knew that his mother must be asking him to
do something of great importance to pull out all
the 'mother-is-asking-you-to-do-something' tricks.
"I want you to look for your Uncle Hiei for
us. We know he's out there but he isn't going to
be easy to find, and it's very important that we
find him as soon as possible." Kiseki could hear
a slight tremor in his mother's voice.
He patted her hand in the same way she had
just patted his and smiled at her worried face.
"That's no problem, Mother. Just give me a
few minutes to look around for a trail, and I'll
find him. Don't worry."
She gave him a smile then kissed his cheek
with her ice kiss. He shivered and gave her a
frustrated look for doing that to him. He wasn't
a little kid anymore.
"I'll go get your Uncle Kurama, your father
and Yuusuke so that you can start looking for your
uncle."
His mother left with Keiko in the same
direction from which they had come. As soon as
the adults where out of ear shot Arashi spoke up.
"So the little twirp was right, Uncle Hiei is
going to have a baby. I'll be damned."
Arashi reached out and ruffled his little
sister's hair in compliment. The little girl
beamed with the satisfied smirk that she picked up
from her uncle.
"See, told ya," she said as she tucked one of
her slightly crushed flowers in Mechiko's hair.
"Shouldn't you get started looking for him?"
Mechiko asked as she came to her feet with a
giggly Koori slung over her shoulder like a sack
of potatoes.
Kiseki nodded his head in agreement as he
walked over to the middle of the clearing, away
from the others so that they would not complicate
the energy patterns he could sense with his mind.
He slowly shut himself off from the physical world
and let his mind's eye open to the psychic plane.
Colors blazed across his field of vision, dancing
around each other, making a collage of images. He
was skilled enough to be able to distinguish the
various colors and shapes as either humans,
animals, youkai or the plant life around him.
Kiseki looked for the familiar pattern of his
uncle's youki and after a few false starts and
cold trails, he found the way his panicked uncle
had fled. In his mind he was running the same
path his uncle had taken, following the colors
that he had left behind. When he touched those
colors with his own reiki he could feel the
distress, pain and panic his uncle had felt as he
ran. He paused the place where his uncle stopped
to fight back the pain, feeling the touch of his
youki still lingering in the bark of the tree.
His heart sank when he felt another youkai's
rei start to follow his uncle's closely. It
hounded his steps, keeping just far enough behind
not to be sensed. Kiseki stepped up his search,
knowing what he would find but hoping that he was
wrong. He with his mind's eye he followed his
uncle's youki to the hidden cave and was almost
blinded by the intensity of the youki that burned
purple and green in his vision. He recognized the
two different youki in the flames and could feel
it reforming into a new color, a new being.
He looked beyond the flames, straining his
powers and tried to reached inside one of the
sleeping minds within the cave. The intensity of
the youki flames were too much for him and he had
to give up trying to make contact. He quickly
pulled back to the physical world knowing that
they had very little time. He opened his eyes and
looked at the expectant group that had been
staring at him.
"We have a bigger problem than we thought."
Maryoku's interest was instantly peaked.
"What sort of problem? Is there something wrong
with your uncle?"
"No, as far as I can tell he may feel like
crap, but he's physically fine. The problem is
that Kitsuryuu is with him," Kiseki watched as
the others of the group realized how much trouble
they were going to be in if their parents found
out about their youkai friend.
"Fuck! I *knew* that damn fox was going to be
trouble," Arashi muttered under his breath.
Fuyu slapped the back of his head soundly and
as she glared at her twin. "Shut up, Arashi! Now
is not the time to pull this I-hate-that-fox
routine."
Arashi rubbed the back of his head and glared
back at his sister but didn't say another word.
"So, what are we going to do, Brother?" she
asked Kiseki.
"I don't know."
"I'll tell you what we're going to do,"
Maryoku said as he removed Koori from his sister's
shoulder and handed her to Kiseki. "Me and
Mechiko are going to Kitsuryuu's cave and we're
going to get her the hell out of there."
He pointed at Kiseki's chest, "You are going
to help give us a head start by leading them
around a bit before you take them to the cave."
Kiseki's eyes went wide in panic. "What if
they find out that I'm leading them on a wild
goose chase?"
"Would you rather them find out about
Kitsuryuu and send her to the Makai? Or have them
find out that we've been hiding her? If they send
her to the Makai she wouldn't last a week with
that damn collar around her neck."
Kiseki could feel the youki rolling inside
Maryoku and wondered again if his quiet friend had
more that just a passing interest Kitsuryuu.
Koori turned in his arms and Kiseki could see the
tears brimming in her eyes. She sniffled and
tried to fight them back, but one was able to make
it's way down her cheek. When it dropped off the
end of her jaw it turned into one of the tear gems
his family was known for. Both of his sisters
cried tear gems, but he and his brother didn't
unless there was a large amount of emotion behind
those tears.
"Don't let Kitsuryuu go away, Kiseki."
He knew his heart was lost to Koori's request
when she tried so hard to keep her lip from
trembling when she made that seemingly simple
request. He wiped her eyes, then stroked her
hair.
"I won't let her go away, Koori," he kissed
her head, then handed her over to his other
sister. "You two better get going. I'll try and
hold them off as much as I can, but their bound to
catch on quickly."
Both Maryoku and Mechiko nodded their heads
with understanding before they ran into the
forest. After a few minutes his father, Yuusuke
and Uncle Kurama came into the clearing. As soon
as Kiseki saw his uncle's drawn and wan face he
knew that this was going to be one of the most
difficult things he had ever had to do. He could
feel the waves of worry and stomach twisting agony
roll off Kurama's being, filling him with a sense
of dread that was hard to shake off. Kiseki took
a deep breath and readied himself for the lies he
was about to tell.
==========
end chapter 4
Here is another chapter for you people to read.
My mother is calling me to put on the mock up
of my wedding dress, so I'll talk to ys later.
As always, comment and replies welcomed and looked for.
Kat
made it readable for the rest of you. The sweet, humble
Goddess that she is, she muddered through my scattered
brained text and fished a readable chapter out of it.
I will now take this oppertunity to thank her whole
heartedly for her help.
Thanks, Windlily.
{I chose purple neon lights, Windlily. Hope you like! ^_^)
The Forgotten Child
Chapter 4
by Kat Aubuchon
Kiseki bounced his baby sister, Koori, on his
knee while she made tiny snow flakes to float on
the gentle night breeze. The delicate ice
crystals drifted until they were out of the small
sphere of freezing air the two of them created for
this game, then melted into the warm night air.
Kiseki had just enough youki to make the
temperature around him cold enough to support
snow. His youngest sister was the true ice demon
of the family, being completely Koorimei, but it
was his oldest sister Fuyu who excelled in the
manipulation of ice.
Kiseki looked down at the precious child in
his lap, and smiled in to Koori's upturned face.
Koori rarely cried or complained. She smiled at
everyone and loved them all in equal measure.
Kiseki marveled at how easy it was for Koori to
bring down everyone's defenses, including their
ever quiet uncle. Uncle Hiei came to visit often
but only spoke with their mother. Uncle Kurama
was another story. He always played with them;
chasing them around the yard, playing a youko
version of hide and go seek that he always won,
teaching them about Makai plants and how they
could help and harm. When Koori was born, uncle
Hiei was the first to see her. For several months
after she was born their mother tried to make him
hold the little girl, but every time he flatly
refused.
Then on one of Uncle Hiei and Uncle Kurama's
visits Koori managed to climb into a tree while
the children were playing in the backyard. She
realized that she didn't know how to get back down
and started to cry. The adults heard her and
panicked, since she never cried and thought she
was in big trouble.
Uncle Hiei was the first one to the tree and
when he saw that her only problem was that she was
stuck, he gave a snort and told her to get down
the same way she got up and to stop crying. Her
tears had cleared up instantly at her uncle's
gruff command, and she slowly came out of the
tree. As soon as her feet hit the ground she
flung her arms around Uncle Hiei's leg. When he
bent down to try and remove her she moved her
death grip from his leg to his neck.
Poor Uncle Hiei had been so stunned he had no
idea what to do. Uncle Kurama had rolled on the
ground laughing his head off and Uncle Hiei had
muttered some choice phrase that Kiseki, even at
that age, had known was not very nice. After
several failed attempts to extract the child from
his neck he finally gave up and held her on his
right hip. Ever since that day, Koori's place was
in her uncle's lap when he came to visit.
It didn't bother Kiseki that his uncle only
showed his affection to Koori. He had seen inside
his uncle's heart, and knew the truth he hid
there. Kiseki's powers always seemed to confuse
the adults, his father and his aunt had some
rudimentary psychic powers but nothing that could
match his own. If he wished, Kiseki could look
into the mind of everyone within his sight. But
so far he had not been able to do it without being
noticed.
Koori twisted in his lap, having become bored
with her game and wrapped her tiny arms around his
neck. She gave him one of her icy kisses that
sent chills down everybody's spine, except for
their mother's of course. She giggled when he
shivered, and then crawled out of his lap. She
tugged at his hand and he knew that she wanted him
to follow her. Koori was four now and everyone
knew that she could talk, she just choose not to
most of the time. Kiseki and the other kids had
an idea of why she tended not to talk, but they
kept quiet about it, because they didn't want to
cause problems.
His oldest sister look up, brushing her bangs
of her short hair off of her face as Koori led him
to where the other kids were 'rough-housing', as
Aunt Keiko would say. Fuyu looked Koorimei,
sharing his mother's icy blue hair and warm red
eyes, but she was much taller. At eleven she was
already a full head above her mother and showed
the promise of reaching their father's height.
Fuyu pulled Koori into her lap and ruffled
the top of her hair. Fuyu was one half of the
Kuwabara twins, the other half was Arashi. At
this moment her twin was engaged in his favorite
past time, which was making Urameshi Mechiko live
up to her father's reputation. It never failed
that when the two of them came within sight of
each other, sparks and fur flew.
Arashi was a miniature copy of their father,
with curled orange red hair and beady blue eyes.
He had their father's high reiki and rough
attitude and the only thing that kept Arashi from
being a total asshole was his twin sister. Arashi
and Fuyu had a peculiar relationship. Fuyu was
nowhere near being as sweet and sappy as their
mother and baby sister. Unlike their mother's
passive nature, she choose to strengthen her
powers and learn to fight. Most people believe
she wanted to learn to protect herself from her
twin's hyperactive nature, but Kiseki thought that
she learned so that she would be better able to
protect Arashi when he got in to trouble. Right
now Arashi was in a lot of trouble.
Arashi was barely able to block the rapid
fire of punches Mechiko was throwing at him. It
had been agreed by all of their parents that they
were not allowed to use their powers against each
other for any reason. Supposedly the only time
they had an opportunity to use their powers was
when they were training with their parents, and
their uncles. None of the kids told their parents
about the 'field trips' they took into the deeper
parts of the woods to practice. Kiseki was
powerful enough to mask their extracurricular
training so none of the adults could find out.
Right now Arashi was trying to make do with just
his fists to fight Mechiko.
Mechiko kept coming at Arashi until she had
him backed against a tree. A cruel little smile
curled her lip just before she sent her fist
straight at Arashi's face. He was able to duck to
one side so, instead of flattening his nose, her
fist splintered the wood just to the right of his
ear. Arashi returned the smile and sent his own
tightly clenched fist into her stomach, just below
her sternum. Mechiko jumped back and tried to
bring the air back into her lungs as she kept a
wary eye on Arashi.
Kiseki was always surprised that Mechiko
could look so beautiful when she was having a fist
fight with his little brother. It was clear by
the way her soft brown shoulder length hair was
sticking to her sweat dampened neck and face that
the two the them had been fighting for quite
awhile. Her youkai heritage showed in the bright
sheen of her silver eyes even though she was not
using her powers. Kiseki knew from experience
that at anytime Mechiko could make razor sharp
blades of either youki or reiki, and throw them
with deadly accuracy.
Kiseki sighed, Mechiko was wonderful. The
only problem was that she was 14 and he was 13,
and she didn't even know he was alive.
Kiseki went and sat on the short stone wall
with his sisters. Fuyu had braided Koori's hair
and was placing little wild night flowers all
along the twists of hair. Kiseki took the little
yellow flower that his baby sister handed to him
and before anybody could react, Koori was between
the fighting pair trying to offer Mechiko one of
her flowers.
Mechiko was in the middle of delivering a
kick to Arashi's groin when Koori appeared in
front of her with a flower in her outstretched
hand. In wordless agreement Mechiko changed the
direction of her kick, because it was too late to
stop it all together, and Arashi picked his sister
up out of the path of Mechiko's foot. The kick
ended up impacting with his chin, sending him
backward. The jarring force of the kick made him
lose his hold on the little girl, and Mechiko had
to dive under her to break her fall. Koori ended
up on the back of Mechiko's neck, pressing the
older girl's face into the grass, while her
brother laid semi-conscious on the ground.
Fuyu started to giggle beside him and he
couldn't help but laugh with her. Mechiko and
Arashi glared daggers at each other, unwilling to
say what was on their minds because of the
innocent ears between them. Maryoku jumped from
the tree above them to land lightly beside the
silently cursing pair.
Maryoku was the most serious of the group,
and Mechiko's twin brother. He mostly sat quietly
watching others and making silent plans. He
resembled his father in very way except in
temperament, Mechiko inherited all of that. He
had spiky black hair that refused to stay down and
brown eyes that didn't miss a single movement
around him. Maryoku normally never got in the
middle of any of his sister's fights, so Kiseki
knew something must be up.
Despite Maryoku's ancestral heritage, he had
never shown any inclination for fighting. It was
easy to sense that Maryoku had great amounts of
youki flowing through him, but he only used it to
keep watch for the other people around him.
"Heads up parents." was all he said before he
sat on the wall beside Fuyu.
Mechiko sat up making Koori tumble down her
back. She quickly straightened her shirt and
tucked it back into her jeans, then ran her
fingers through her hair and pulled Koori into her
lap. The little girl giggled at this game that
they so often played and looked around for the
parent that always came out when they played it.
Kiseki had to roll his eyes at Mechiko's
pitiful attempt to hide the fact that she had been
fighting with Arashi. It didn't take a genius to
see the grass stains on her clothes or the blades
of grass still sticking out of her hair and know
that she had been fighting. Besides, if Mechiko
and Arashi could see each other they would be
fighting, everybody knew that. It wasn't long
before the parents that Maryoku had warned them
about came into the clearing.
Yukina, followed by a waddling Keiko, stepped
out into the full moon light. Kiseki smiled when
he saw his mother and she grinned back. She was
wearing a traditional kimono like she always did,
even though his father and their friends tried to
convinced her to buy more casual clothes. Keiko
was wearing what her husband called a 'tent' which
was one of her many maternity dresses that
attempted to down play her size. Kiseki's adopted
aunt had her hands some where in the vicinity of
her hips and was glaring at her daughter. Mechiko
pulled the squirming Koori in front of her face
like a shield as she tried not notice that she had
been caught and was now in trouble.
Kiseki watched his mother come towards him
and Fuyu moved to make room for her to sit between
them. He wasn't sure what she wanted but he could
tell by the serious look on her face that it was
important. She picked up his hand and placed it
in her lap. He instantly knew that she was going
to ask him to do something, and it wasn't going to
be something simple like to take out the trash.
"Kiseki, I need you to do me a favor," she
patted his hand and then ran her fingers though
his short lavender hair.
He knew that his mother must be asking him to
do something of great importance to pull out all
the 'mother-is-asking-you-to-do-something' tricks.
"I want you to look for your Uncle Hiei for
us. We know he's out there but he isn't going to
be easy to find, and it's very important that we
find him as soon as possible." Kiseki could hear
a slight tremor in his mother's voice.
He patted her hand in the same way she had
just patted his and smiled at her worried face.
"That's no problem, Mother. Just give me a
few minutes to look around for a trail, and I'll
find him. Don't worry."
She gave him a smile then kissed his cheek
with her ice kiss. He shivered and gave her a
frustrated look for doing that to him. He wasn't
a little kid anymore.
"I'll go get your Uncle Kurama, your father
and Yuusuke so that you can start looking for your
uncle."
His mother left with Keiko in the same
direction from which they had come. As soon as
the adults where out of ear shot Arashi spoke up.
"So the little twirp was right, Uncle Hiei is
going to have a baby. I'll be damned."
Arashi reached out and ruffled his little
sister's hair in compliment. The little girl
beamed with the satisfied smirk that she picked up
from her uncle.
"See, told ya," she said as she tucked one of
her slightly crushed flowers in Mechiko's hair.
"Shouldn't you get started looking for him?"
Mechiko asked as she came to her feet with a
giggly Koori slung over her shoulder like a sack
of potatoes.
Kiseki nodded his head in agreement as he
walked over to the middle of the clearing, away
from the others so that they would not complicate
the energy patterns he could sense with his mind.
He slowly shut himself off from the physical world
and let his mind's eye open to the psychic plane.
Colors blazed across his field of vision, dancing
around each other, making a collage of images. He
was skilled enough to be able to distinguish the
various colors and shapes as either humans,
animals, youkai or the plant life around him.
Kiseki looked for the familiar pattern of his
uncle's youki and after a few false starts and
cold trails, he found the way his panicked uncle
had fled. In his mind he was running the same
path his uncle had taken, following the colors
that he had left behind. When he touched those
colors with his own reiki he could feel the
distress, pain and panic his uncle had felt as he
ran. He paused the place where his uncle stopped
to fight back the pain, feeling the touch of his
youki still lingering in the bark of the tree.
His heart sank when he felt another youkai's
rei start to follow his uncle's closely. It
hounded his steps, keeping just far enough behind
not to be sensed. Kiseki stepped up his search,
knowing what he would find but hoping that he was
wrong. He with his mind's eye he followed his
uncle's youki to the hidden cave and was almost
blinded by the intensity of the youki that burned
purple and green in his vision. He recognized the
two different youki in the flames and could feel
it reforming into a new color, a new being.
He looked beyond the flames, straining his
powers and tried to reached inside one of the
sleeping minds within the cave. The intensity of
the youki flames were too much for him and he had
to give up trying to make contact. He quickly
pulled back to the physical world knowing that
they had very little time. He opened his eyes and
looked at the expectant group that had been
staring at him.
"We have a bigger problem than we thought."
Maryoku's interest was instantly peaked.
"What sort of problem? Is there something wrong
with your uncle?"
"No, as far as I can tell he may feel like
crap, but he's physically fine. The problem is
that Kitsuryuu is with him," Kiseki watched as
the others of the group realized how much trouble
they were going to be in if their parents found
out about their youkai friend.
"Fuck! I *knew* that damn fox was going to be
trouble," Arashi muttered under his breath.
Fuyu slapped the back of his head soundly and
as she glared at her twin. "Shut up, Arashi! Now
is not the time to pull this I-hate-that-fox
routine."
Arashi rubbed the back of his head and glared
back at his sister but didn't say another word.
"So, what are we going to do, Brother?" she
asked Kiseki.
"I don't know."
"I'll tell you what we're going to do,"
Maryoku said as he removed Koori from his sister's
shoulder and handed her to Kiseki. "Me and
Mechiko are going to Kitsuryuu's cave and we're
going to get her the hell out of there."
He pointed at Kiseki's chest, "You are going
to help give us a head start by leading them
around a bit before you take them to the cave."
Kiseki's eyes went wide in panic. "What if
they find out that I'm leading them on a wild
goose chase?"
"Would you rather them find out about
Kitsuryuu and send her to the Makai? Or have them
find out that we've been hiding her? If they send
her to the Makai she wouldn't last a week with
that damn collar around her neck."
Kiseki could feel the youki rolling inside
Maryoku and wondered again if his quiet friend had
more that just a passing interest Kitsuryuu.
Koori turned in his arms and Kiseki could see the
tears brimming in her eyes. She sniffled and
tried to fight them back, but one was able to make
it's way down her cheek. When it dropped off the
end of her jaw it turned into one of the tear gems
his family was known for. Both of his sisters
cried tear gems, but he and his brother didn't
unless there was a large amount of emotion behind
those tears.
"Don't let Kitsuryuu go away, Kiseki."
He knew his heart was lost to Koori's request
when she tried so hard to keep her lip from
trembling when she made that seemingly simple
request. He wiped her eyes, then stroked her
hair.
"I won't let her go away, Koori," he kissed
her head, then handed her over to his other
sister. "You two better get going. I'll try and
hold them off as much as I can, but their bound to
catch on quickly."
Both Maryoku and Mechiko nodded their heads
with understanding before they ran into the
forest. After a few minutes his father, Yuusuke
and Uncle Kurama came into the clearing. As soon
as Kiseki saw his uncle's drawn and wan face he
knew that this was going to be one of the most
difficult things he had ever had to do. He could
feel the waves of worry and stomach twisting agony
roll off Kurama's being, filling him with a sense
of dread that was hard to shake off. Kiseki took
a deep breath and readied himself for the lies he
was about to tell.
==========
end chapter 4
Here is another chapter for you people to read.
My mother is calling me to put on the mock up
of my wedding dress, so I'll talk to ys later.
As always, comment and replies welcomed and looked for.
Kat
