Chapter Ten: Secrets Unfold
Koenma's Office, Spirit World
Six Years Prior
"Did you know about this!? What am I saying, of course you knew about this." Koenma paced restlessly in front of his desk, worrying his pacifier. "My dad's going to kill me when he gets back. How am I even going to explain what happened!?"
The toddler slipped his hands beneath his bulbous hat to pull at his hair and muffle a scream.
"It just doesn't make any sense! Hiei might not have any prior convictions yet in the Human World, he's started painting his name around in blood back in Makai, and Goki is a multiple offender, but there's no way they would have been able to slip past all of those security measures on their own! They're simple thugs, not masterminds! And this kid!" He pointed to one of the camera stills that'd been swept from his desk and scattered to the floor. "He's just a human boy! Barely older than Yusuke! And Yusuke has more spirit energy than him, to boot! How did he even get caught up with those two!? Tell me, Guardian, how did they do it!?"
The brown haired Kumiko stepped around the mess he'd made during his tantrum and picked up a grainy photo; Kurama's shocking red hair was blurred around the edges and a shadow obscured most of his face. He looked so young, but Kumiko knew better than to be fooled by his appearance.
"Do you happen to remember the bandit, Youko Kurama?"
Not at all caught off guard by the woman's drastic change of subject, as she had a habit of doing that, Koenma laughed. "How could I not! He was a nuisance back before Makai existed and he still managed to cause trouble for me in the Demon Realm! He had no loyalties and an infamous skillset to back up his threats. Even my dad was wary of him—which was why dad hired Shunjun right on the spot. He did the impossible and killed the ghost of a legend."
As he was speaking the Wolf demoness collected all of the files, photos, and incident reports from the ground. By the time she set them on the Mahogany desk, Koenma had scrambled up to his intimidatingly large office chair that he still hadn't grown into.
"What if I told you that Kurama hasn't been killed?" She asked him with a surreptitious glance to gauge his reaction.
Indignation quickly turned to shock, which then wilted to dread. The Spirit World prince steepled his fingers as his manner fell grave and serious. "I'd be more than a little inclined to believe you."
He didn't ask for any proof to back up her outrageous claim; she didn't need proof. The Priestess usually spoke in indefinites, guiding him to come to his own conclusions and decisions with assurances of coulds, shoulds, and mights. If she said something was so, then it was so, without question.
He put the least common denominators together.
"So that human boy?"
Kumiko nodded.
"How is that possible?"
"He preformed a soul transfer."
Koenma jolted. "He survived a soul transfer!?"
Again Kumiko nodded, determined to give him only the essential details.
The little prince groaned against his fingertips. "I just put Yusuke on the case! I didn't have much to go on, and I was in a panic—he picked up on the Spirit Gun so quickly, I thought he'd be fine. But if that's who we're dealing with, then this is far too dangerous for him. He's still just a fledgling detective, he isn't ready to face an A-Class bandit like Youko Kurama head on. He'd crush our boy like a bug!"
This time Kumiko shook her head.
"No?" He asked. "No what? No he won't bug-crush Yusuke, or are you expressing your dismay at the thought of attending Yusuke's second funeral? Please don't be cryptic right now."
"No," Kumiko said with a frown. She pushed the stack of pictures towards him with the clearest shot of the teenage changeling on top of the pile. "I think you have it backwards. Moving his soul from one body to another would have completely wiped out Koenma's demonic energy. It's unlikely that he would have recovered all of it by now. And with Yusuke, while his powers are still new, they're growing faster than you ever expected, aren't they?"
She went on without giving him time to answer. "But you're focusing too much on the surface. They both have something special that you're not taking into consideration."
He raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"
"Human compassion."
Koenma was silent for a minute as her words sank in. Then he barked out a hearty laugh.
"For Yusuke, maybe! Small it it may be, I'm starting to see it more and more in him." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the glass box sitting on the bookshelf behind him. Inside it on a little square pillow sat the golden spirit beast egg that Yusuke believed he'd sacrificed completely in order to save Keiko's life from that house fire back when he was still a ghost. Really, he'd just used up the reserves of power it had stored, resetting the beast's progress and growth back to the beginning. "But Youko Kurama? If that really is him, he'd only have been human for fifteen years! There is no way that would be long enough for a demon like him to learn compassion!"
Kumiko met him with a flat look. "I was only human for eighteen years. Was that not long enough for me to learn humanity?"
With a gulp, Koenma pulled the line taut and reeled back fast to amend his statement. "That's different." He insisted. "You were born human."
"Shuichi Minamino was born human."
The toddler grumbled and sat back into his chair. "Yes, but he has the bias of thousands of years behind him. That isn't something you just shake overnight."
"Then why continue to masquerade in a family setting for so long? He's reached an age where humans can autonomously care for themselves and he is intelligent enough to find the means to survive on his own. Why, then, would he continue living with a human woman if he didn't hold some sort of attachment towards her?"
At that, Koenma hummed and crossed his arms over his chest. He closed his eyes to think over whether or not that fact held substance—he'd already looked into the boy's home life, and he did seem to have a good relationship with his sickly mother. But the demon was a blood-hardened bandit for Pete's sake. A Kitsune bandit, on top of that. Not that bringing up his breed in defense of stigma was going to go over well with the disguised Kitsune hovering defensively in front of him. He could practically feel the woman's stare as he sank further and further into the cushions, hoping that the seat would eat him whole in order to spare him from that particular argument.
He adored and respected the Shikon Priestess as his adviser, he really did. She was an invaluable asset to his team and the Realms would have been lost five times over without her to guide him. But she had a tenacious habit of dragging him kicking and screaming in the gentlest of ways out of his comfort zone. Always with a smile.
Thankfully, The Prince didn't need to speak his thoughts out loud, because Kumiko drove the conversation down a different fork in the path when she said "There's something I need for you to do, and I know you're not going to like it."
A sheen of sweat formed on his brow. Koenma cracked open a single brown eye to dissect the Wolf. The table between them felt twice as long as she mirrored his closed off pose by crossing her own arms and stood rigid. That made him hesitate; more than he would have at hearing her ominous tone alone.
Maybe he should have brought up the Fox stereotype to deviate.
"What?" He eventually asked with a gulp.
Kumiko shut her green eyes and took a breath as if preparing to take a blind leap of faith into the black abyss with only his trust to tether her to the surface.
Okay, so it wasn't nearly that dramatic, but his nerves were sure making it feel that way.
"I know it's something you've never done before, and Enma would never allow it if here were here." She began. "But while he's away, I need you to give both Kurama and Hiei a second chance. Once this case is all said and done."
Koenma's mouth fell open. The room was so still that they could nearly hear the shuffling and frantic hollering of the Ogre's on the other side of the soundproof doors.
And then he shrieked.
"You want me to what!?"
"I want you to consider offering them parole."
His hands didn't know what to so. They gripped the arms rests, pinched the bridge of his nose, and straightened his hat before he could bring himself to speak. "You want me to—you're nuts!" The little ruler jumped up. "You're talking about pardoning two dangerous demons! You might be able to argue for Kurama. If he can prove himself. Maybe. But Hiei!? That one's got a body count higher than the hairs on his head! And now he's trying to destroy all of humanity with the demon sword!"
"He was trying to use that sword as a means to find his sister."
Koenma stumbled, almost falling into the desk. "Sister? What sister!?"
The Ookami waved her hand to brush away the slip. "I've dealt with that sword before—"
"Don't I know it! You guys were the reason why I had to fish it out of hell and lock it in the vault in the first place! Do you know how much trouble that could have caused if the wrong being—if any being—in hell got their hands on that thing!?"
Kumiko continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. "It gets into the wielder's mind and completely changes their intentions. Being stored in the Spirit Realm for so long definitely put a damper on So'unga's power and influence, but Hiei is just weak enough right now for it to affect him. His desperation is making him malleable, and he still hasn't recovered from that surgery he had to get the Jagan implanted. Once you get that sword away from him, you may just find that his motives don't stray too far from your own. More or less."
Koenma groaned. "How can you be so sure?" He asked and flushed when the time traveler raised an eyebrow in response. With a huff, he stepped up onto the top of his desk and started pacing once more. He paused long enough to pick up one of the security camera stills that had all three of the intruders circled in red marker. "What about Goki?"
"Hmm?" Kumiko craned to look over his shoulder at the picture as he fretted. The horned beast of a demon towered over the other two in the frame. "Well, he wasn't mentioned in my Guidebook, so probably isn't that important. You should have Botan keep a close eye on Yusuke, Just in case he needs help." Quickly after that she added. "But whatever you do, don't interfere when he meets Kurama. You need to see how that plays out naturally. I don't need you to decide on their parole right now, not before the end of this case. I won't force you trust them before they've shown that they're deserving of redemption. But keep it in mind."
Koenma stopped moving to stare up at the demoness. "You're serious about these two." He shifted his Mafukan from one side of his mouth to the other to soothe a new spot and sighed. "I don't know about this. You're asking me to make a pretty big gamble. l know you're doing everything to make sure the timeline stays unchanged, but that doesn't always fall in my best interests. Can you at least tell me if everything works out in the end?"
That time it was Kumiko's turn to fall quiet. From the long sleeve of the kimono she wore to sneak past the Ogres under the guise of a Spirit Guide, she pulled a folded piece of paper. it crinkled in her hands as she straightened the center crease. Gently, almost nostalgically, she brushed the image with the pad of her thumb and seemed to debate whether or not she should show it to him.
In the end it seemed that the Vixen's wistfulness won out over the clinical policy she normally carried over their every future-affecting transaction. Jaw clenched, little shoulders forward, Koenma formally accepted the proffered paper with both hands.
It was a photograph—a photocopy of a photograph, really; one that was old and nearly faded, printed out in black and white. In the photo was the entire team: Yusuke pointing at the camera, Botan holding the shoulders of Keiko, Kurama smiling pleasantly, Kuwabara grinning like a goof, and Hiei looking as if he would have rather been anywhere else in the world but there. Koenma stared at the little picture for longer than he probably should have. He analyzed every detail, every smile, every individual, in wonder.
It was the first piece of physical proof that she'd shared with him since their first encounter over four hundred years earlier, and seeing it was absolutely incredible.
Awed, the Spirit Prince looked up at Kumiko. Her forest eyes sparkled with thinly veiled excitement.
"I promise you. Everything will work out."
Genkai's Temple, Present Day
Kagome took a breath to prepare herself before looking up at the Silver Fox who was staring at her with a suspiciously
hollow expression. Their eyes had only just met when Kuwabara stormed in between them, blocking Kurama from view. From halfway across the courtyard, the human man sized her up, his cheeks blotching with redness and his eyebrows knitting ever further downward the more he scrutinized her. The dark, overcast sky above them and the frigid wind that threatened flurries matched the coldness in his words when he spoke.
"You're not Kagome." Kuwabara ground out. The ice building in the air made his voice loud in the space, even though he spoke quieter than his normal tone. "I'm not fallin' for yer tricks. Kagome doesn't look like that. I mean, it's pretty darn close, but you got the cheeks all wrong. Her eyes aren't that small. She's more like a ragdoll kitten, but you've turned her into a Turkish van. If you thought I wouldn't notice, then you thought wrong. I know what my friends look like!"
"You're right. I look a little different, but I'm still—"
"Shut it!" He fell into a wider stance and summoned his electric yellow sword to his hands. His fury curdled the wind and spit flew from his mouth as he yelled. "You're that creep that took Yukina! Admit it! You're wearing Kagome's skin just like you were wearin' Kurama's this morning!"
Kagome held up her hands in an attempt to mitigate the situation. "Kazuma, I know that you're upset, but please hear me out. Hiei, tell him—" She started to say, but by the time she glanced over her shoulder at the demon standing beside her, Hiei had already disappeared. Without warning or apology he flit up to the roof and then away again over the far eaves.
"Damnit Hiei." She cursed quietly.
The Black Fox's attention didn't get to stay on Hiei's ship jumping very long, however, because in the same breath she needed to step back to avoid Kuwabara's lunge and swing.
"Eyes on me, you Shadow bastard!"
Before he could cause any damage to the building that was less than three days old, Kagome cautiously moved off from the deck and in an arch around him until the point of his weapon faced the empty training space of the yard. He rushed her once more. Golden power raged and crackled around his form, his spirit energy fueled like ether on a bonfire by his rampant emotions.
Instead of playing along and parrying as she had done with Hiei, the Demoness went straight to making a protective barrier—she made sure it was visible, so he didn't frustrate himself attacking the empty air before realizing what was going on. Hiei's skirmish had served a purpose; he'd been testing her to see if she'd grown into her abilities and up to his expectations. Kuwabara, on the other hand, was acting on pure instinct and anger. His sixth sense told him that she wasn't the same Fox that he'd seen off a few hours before back at the bridge and his mind filled in the blanks. It would have been easier to settle him down if Yukina hadn't been involved in that whole mess.
"Kagami—the Kagemono—he can't reproduce memories, remember?" Kagome spoke calm and reassuring as the detective battered her barrier in vain. She needed to talk him down before he thought to use his dimension sword, because even her strongest wall would tear like wet paper under that power. "Back when this place was attacked, you protected me. Remember? You shielded me with a net of energy. Before that, when I came back from the Demon Realm, l was so stressed. You wanted to help me relax, so we watched movies together, you me and Shippo. But it was so late and you were so tired that you fell asleep on my shoulder not even halfway through my movie. Ask me anything about our time together, Kazuma, and I'll be able to answer it. Because I am Kagome. If you'd just let me prove it to you."
The battery of his sword didn't let up. A mixture of sparks, both yellow and pink, lit like fireworks around them with every strike.
"I don't believe you!" He nearly screamed. "If you were really Kagome, you'd be back at my house with my sister. If you were really Kagome, you'd be with us, looking for Yukina, not lollygagging around Genkai's temple just waiting for us to show up! You wouldn't have had time to get here before us! You'd be broken and talkin' nonsense, not lookin' like everything in the world was all hunky-dory!" Kuwabara's onslaught paused then so that he could take a breath. The ferocity of his swings would have put any major leaguer to shame, but they still had him sweating despite the cold. "What gives you the right to act all calm! Why the heck is no one else helping me!?"
"Because it's really her, numbnuts."
Kuwabara spun incredulously on his heels to face down Yusuke, who had just appeared on the scene and slumped against the open temple door frame.
"There's no way it's her!" The redhead refuted. "It's gotta be the Shadow guy! He has you all brainwashed!"
"Jeez, would you can it!? We're not brainwashed, stupid."
"I have eyes, Yusuke!"
"Is that right? Then look at her, Kuwabara. Look with your special eyes. "
Refusing to meet the gaze of the demoness, Kuwabara jutted his chin back to where Kagome was standing as still as a watchful heron beneath her energy field. "People don't grow like that in a handful of hours."
"No, they don't." The Priestess finally spoke up. The sound of her voice made Kuwabara flinch and tighten his grip on his sword. The flares of his power were beginning to bare threads at the sleeves of his oversized crew neck sweater. "It took me a bit longer than that."
"Man, does she have a story to tell you guys!" The lead Spirit Detective quipped.
"You're absolutely right, Kazuma. Little Kagome wouldn't have been able to make it here before you did, not without help. But she didn't come this way at all, she went somewhere else entirely."
The human man's dark eyes narrowed and he finally faced the Fox. The flaming glow of his weapon reflected off from her barrier, casting a strange light on both of their faces. "What are you guys going on about?" His glare cut over to Yusuke and then back. It was obvious that he still wanted to fight, there was adrenaline coursing through his veins and electric spirit energy lacing the air with its atmospheric scent, but something she had said gave him pause. Just enough pause to get him thinking. "'Little Kagome?' What the heck do you mean by 'Little Kagome'?"
A sound from inside the house caught Kagome's attention, her tall ears, free for the first time in hundreds of years, swiveled towards it and flicked. Right after that she dropped the barrier, took a slight step towards the boy that she'd befriended so quickly in her past, and laid a gentle hand on his wrist. The movement startled him. He released the sword on reflex.
She spoke to him in her smoothest, most motherly tone to help settle his racing heart. "Master Genkai just put a kettle on the stove. How about we go inside and talk about this over a cup of tea?"
A vein in the former thug's cheek bulged as he clenched his teeth. Hesitation began to overwhelm the anger in his scent.
"No way. Not until you prove you are who you say you are."
The Kitsune released him.
"Okay. Hold out your hand."
From a hidden interior pocket of her jacket, Kagome pulled a little drawstring bag, deep burgundy velvet with a braided white kumihimo cord. Then, from inside that bag she pulled the emerald hair comb. Once it had served its purpose in reconnecting her with Spirit World, it had become just another trinket—a fond memory in a jewelry box. It wasn't something that the Vixen had found reason to wear often, and after so many years of sitting untouched in storage the metal had tarnished and grown brittle. Miraculously, though, it still had all of its gemstones. She placed the piece in hisr reluctantly open palm.
He stared at it for a second before picking it up between his gangly fingers to inspect. His eyebrows pinched with confusion.
"An old hair pin? I don't get it."
Of course he wouldn't have recognized it right away. He never was one to pick up on the minute details. Not unless they pertained to a specific interest of his or Yukina.
Luckily, that particular trinket pertained to Yukina, even if he didn't realize it just yet.
"I stopped to look at this comb at a vendor's table on our way home one night. That day you bought one. A little silver comb with red gems. l encouraged you to choose that one because it matched Yukina's eyes. You were going to give it to her the next time we all got together, but Genkai received the warning note.
"There wasn't a good time for you to give it to her after that, and then she was kidnapped by Kagami—the Shadow Beast who is angry and vengeful because his closest friend and only other living Shadow Beast he knew had died under my watch. The child who's blood was on my hands." The Demoness found herself looking down at her clenched fingers when she quoted that part of the letter Kagami had sent her. Her smile was soft when she signed and turned back up to him. "I'll bet you still have that comb in your pocket, and that you're planning on giving it to her the moment we bring her back home safe."
At that Kuwabara reached to his back pocket and materialized the very same silver trinket from her description. He held them both up, two sister combs, and compared them in the light as the snow that'd been threatening finally began to fall in delicate flakes.
Skeptically, he said. "Yeah, but the one Koenma gave you was bran-spankin-new. This thing is ancient; there's no way it's the same one."
"She went back in time, stupid." Yusuke indelicately informed his friend when he saw that the lug was having difficulties fitting the subtle pieces together. "She's been watching us like our own personal stalker for years, dressed up as that stuck-up Wolf"
That only seemed to confuse the redhead more since he was the only one of the four detectives that never had an interaction with the Wolf General Kumiko. "Wolf? What wolf?"
Before Yusuke could go into a tirade about exactly which Wolf the Priestess had been disguised as and why it pissed him off to hell and back, Keiko nudged past him through the doorway. She'd apparently opted against the cherry red dress that Yusuke had brought her from home and changed into a more practical training gi that Genkai had stored away in the dojo closets—a pale green and yellow Vietnamese style fighting top tucked into billowy white pants.
"She was your guardian angel, Yusuke." His girlfriend scolded. "You should be more grateful."
Kuwabara's attention zeroed in on the brunette. "Keiko, you're up." He said as delicately as his throat could muster in that moment. "How's your back?"
"It's nearly as good as new." She shared a warm smile with the Black Fox behind her tallest friend. "Kagome fixed me up. There's a little scar, but I'm not even sore anymore."
"She... healed you?"
She nodded.
"Well, you can't show him like this. Your shirt's all tucked in."
A slap echoed throughout the courtyard when Keiko swatted Yusuke's hand away from pinching at her lower back. Yusuke chortled as she chewed him out for being inappropriate, and while that was happening Kuwabara turned back to face Kagome. That guarded expression looked odd on him, but she didn't comment as he took her in, really took her in. Then, when his scan was complete, he handed her back the tarnished gold comb and turned away without a word.
The Priestess watched with a heavy heart as her old friend gave her the cold shoulder. That was the exact reason why she had wanted Hiei to break the news to him first. Kuwabara was already so strained; pulled so taut and ready to bite whatever hand that seemed a threat. He should have been allowed time to let the news settle on the way over before running into her mature form. The last thing that Kagome wanted was for him to spurn her completely, like a mother cat rejecting its kitten in times of high stress. She'd grown the closest with him out of all four of the detective in the short time they'd had together as roommates, and that was a relationship that she didn't want to hurt. His trust was important to her.
But she allowed him to walk away. She gave him space as he clambered up the deck's steps, confirmed with Keiko that there was in fact tea, and disappeared into the belly of the temple. Keiko cast a worried glance over her shoulder before following Kuwabara inside.
Yusuke pushed himself from the door frame and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Hey Kurama." He called over Kagome's head. Her ears didn't know whether they wanted to perk or flatten at the name. "You coming in? Or are you just going to keep staring?"
The air around them fell still with the reminder of the Silver Kitsune's presence. Without turning to face the demon that'd been burning a hole in her back, Kagome shooed away the tactless Mazoku as politely as possible. "You go on ahead. We'll catch up in a bit."
He split a look between the two Foxes. "You sure about that?" Yusuke asked skeptically before adding, "Okay, whatever. You do what you need to. Just don't kill each other."
The Miko answered him with a grin and watched as he turned back inside and slid the door behind him. As soon as the door clicked shut, the grin fell from her face. In a habit that she thought she'd kicked ages ago, Kagome reached up to grip the Shikon no Tama at her collar bone.
That particular reunion was another big reason why she'd wanted Hiei to give the boys a heads up. But instead, Kurama had been taken off guard. Even without looking, she could tell that he'd barricaded his response behind a mask. There were no hints telling Kagome what he was thinking, no shift in the aura he had locked tightly away, no changes in his scent on the wind. Nothing.
She didn't expect anything less from the legendary Silver Fox Youko Kurama.
The breeds of Kitsune came in different rarities. There were the grey foxes, the most abundant members of their race, which could not take human form. Unlike the wolves in Ginta's pack, they lived out solitary lives in the forests of Makai like their wild counterpart in the human realm. Blonde and Red foxes like Koto and Shippo were common enough and lived out their lives in the cities among the regular folk, but they were still harder to find compare to other species of demons such as lizard Youkai or Oni. They were about on the same level as elementals in regards to rarity.
Then came Black Foxes, rare in the fact that only one Black Fox existed for every five thousand Blondes and Reds. In the years that she'd been traveling, Kagome hadn't actually ever met another like her—not that she'd exactly been looking.
But Silver Foxes? Silvers were rumors on the wind. They were so seldom documented and secretive that if Kagome didn't have the living proof standing behind her she would have been skeptical of their very existence, like many demons had been before Youko Kurama revealed his face during the Dark Tournament. He'd been famous, sure, but so few had actually seen his face throughout his past exploits; which was a compliment of his skills as a thief.
However, Kagome had known what Kurama was for a long, long time. Well before the final Dark Tournament. And she knew that when he learned just who she had been masquerading as, he would be left with just as many new questions as he had answers.
Finally, with a calming breath, Kagome released the Jewel and turned around to meet the Silver Kitsune's misleadingly blank stare. If it'd been Sesshoumaru standing there with that guarded expression, Kagome would have been able to read it like an open book. But Kurama wasn't Sesshoumaru. He was his own being. His book was written in a new, enticing language—one that she was eager to learn and decipher.
"I need to replace the barrier that surrounds this property." The demoness said to him, looking away before he could read too much into her own formally neutral gaze. She wasn't nearly as good at holding it as Sesshoumaru was, especially against a trained professional. "l don't want a repeat of last time before we get things settled."
The barrier that Genkai currently had in place had been made to keep the monsters of the Demon Forest enclosed, and to monitor the comings and goings of visitors. it wasn't designed to keep anything out. So Kagome planned to upgrade it as she had done to the ones around her grandfather's shrine, Sesshoumaru's manner, and the wolf den. The weave she'd been using to create them was a redesign of the original barrier Miroku and Kaede had taught her to create so long ago; one that kept out those with wicked or chaotic intentions. It was only recently—three hundred years, recently—that she'd been able to form them invisibly.
That skill had taken months of tedious practice to learn, and lots of hidden teacups scattered around the kitchen floor tripping up unsuspecting victims to perfect.
A barrier such as that wouldn't be able to prevent Kagami from portaling inside if he'd locked into somebody's energy signal, but it would give them warning and expel any of the lesser demons that followed, pushing them outwards through the hidden walls that were laced with her purity.
Kuwabara would be proud of her bug-zapper, she hoped, if he ever got to see it in action.
Without looking back, Kagome started down the path of stepping stones that led away from the building and front steps to the tree line, knowing that the curious Fox would follow after without prompt.
It wouldn't do to form the weave at the entrance or center of the property, because that's where they would be expected to be formed. Creating the dome in a more random place made it harder for an intruder to unravel it or bypass its weak points. That was something she'd learned from experience, so she had already mapped ahead for a good place to put it, away from the hustle and bustle.
Also, the Priestess thought as she ducked into the shadows of the Demon Forest, she'd be killing two birds with one show. If she and Kurama were bound to have a heart to heart, she didn't want it to be out in the open on display for all to see.
The big secrets were finally going to come out.
All of them.
══════ With Reason ══════
There were a few things that Kurama pieced together well before the female Kitsune across the yard had trustingly turned her back on him, inviting him to follow as she disappeared into the forest.
First and most prominent of these observations was that the Kagome that stood there now was not the same Kagome that he had been in a rush to protect earlier that morning. She wasn't the girl-child who'd shattered beneath fear and the weight of responsibility while everything was whirling around her. This being was older and more experienced, without a doubt.
He'd seen that even before Yusuke had mentioned the woman's use of time travel. Despite her attempts to seem soft and unarming for Kuwabara, she held her stance with sure feet and confidence. There'd been a spark of that same confidence beginning to grow in his Kagome—their Kagome, not his. Their original Kagome—but it was a candle struggling to flourish in the midst of a storm compared to the sun glowing from within this woman. More than the broken war hero she'd been, the demoness now moved with the grace of a skilled predator.
The second thing he'd noted was that Yusuke was far more comfortable around the vixen than he should have any right to be, considering the last encounter they'd had and the violence of it. Kurama thought Yusuke's actions to be strangely uncharacteristic at the time, and he'd had trouble justifying it. Though, it seemed he had no reason to justify it in the first place. Something drastic must have occurred between the two for their slates to have been bleached so clean, like bones in the desert sun. It was as if they had pressed the reset button on their relationship, while still giving the impression of long time acquaintances. Friends, even.
Which led to the question: how long had those two been colluding together beyond the knowledge of everybody else on their team? How long had Yusuke's actions towards the original Kagome—little Kagome, as they called her—been a complete fabrication? It explained why the detective had a habit of disappearing after any time spent with the demoness; he hadn't wanted any of the more perceptive members of their team to see through his act, had he?
And thirdly, if time travel truly did play a part in the woman's sudden and drastic change, then that meant that she must have existed in parallel to her younger self for at least some duration of time, watching them from afar. Or, perhaps, not so far. Disguised as a Wolf, Yusuke had said—a fitting role, considering how well it suited her personality and ironic considering how long he'd assumed her to be that very species. And Kurama had a feeling that he knew exactly which Wolf she'd been, even if the implications made his skin crawl the slightest bit.
She'd been Kumiko, the Ookami that the great demon Lord Sesshoumaru kept close by his side as his elusive and secret second in command. While the Sparrow took the title publicly, it was the Wolf who truly held the position. The soldier that had gathered him from Gandara and Hiei from Alaric without a single word or knowing glance to deposit back at the edge of that damned barrier in the glade of lilies when Kagome's visit with the Dog demon had come to its end. She'd avoided looking him in the eye—now he knew it to be out of secrecy, not indifference—even as he'd shifted from his natural flesh to his human Glamour right in front of her.
The Wolf hadn't commented.
She hadn't shown any recognition whatsoever, even though she knew very well who he was. She'd always known.
Even back then.
Mirroring the Wolf's prior position as the silent observer, Kurama followed Kagome to the little round clearing that she'd made in the forest with her power. He watched from the tree line as she wove her barrier in a glow of intricate threads. The process was as impressive as it was detailed. Once domed above them and across the mountainside, the structure shimmered with the sheen of an oil spill, the likes of which he'd only ever seen twice before in his life, before it vanished with one final thread of delicately embroidered energy.
When the magic and figurative dust had settled, Kagome stood, back still facing him, and raised two fingers. Held very delicately between them was a little black seed. A morning glory seed to be specific. One of the very same seeds that he had given little Kagome before she'd disappeared behind the Sparrow General and onto the Manner grounds. They'd been his promise to her that if she needed help, he'd return to her side quickly with the help of the flairs of energy trapped within. In the right conditions, those seeds would remain viable for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. They were also, it seemed, durable enough to survive travel though a rift in time itself. That particular seed was the one that held Hiei's power, he realized.
The one holding his own power was long since gone.
"Do you remember the first time you met me?" Kagome asked.
The words she chose were very specific; the first time he met her, not the first time she met him or when they met mutually. It insinuated that the occurrences happened at different points. Kurama swallowed, accepting what he already suspected to be true. He knew very well the event of which she was referring.
"I never was able to steal that sword." The Glamoured Kitsune admitted, keeping his face impassive as he stitched together their timeline.
══ Inuyasha X Yu Yu Hakusho ══
That night was unusually cold. It was winter, but the winters in that part of the Demon Realm were still fairly warm at night. There wasn't any snow on that level, save for the remote forests of the eastern edge where the Ice Maidens had produced an eternal blizzard to ward off intruders from their floating islands. Those Koorime lived modest, poor lives and owned nothing noteworthy aside from the gems they produced. And while it was tempting, and he was certainly capable of tolerating that frozen hell for a short time, he didn't care for the cold enough to step into a trade as filthy as trafficking.
The temperatures there in the rogue lands at the border of the Forest of Fools weren't nearly as low as what an Ice Maiden or Elemental was capable of producing, but it was still chilly enough for the legendary bandit Youko Kurama to see his breath as he stalked the perimeter of the oddly iridescent barrier.
The former General of the Western Lands back when the realms were one, Sesshoumaru, had taken up residence in that land some one hundred years prior—plenty of time for the lnu to settle in and grow comfortable enough to lower his guard. Behind the blockade of power and visible from the cliffs was a small ring of buildings surrounding the main Manor, where the man's most loyal of followers and soldiers lived secluded form the outside world. The barrier that protected them glistened and occasionally sparked with the faintest crackle of an energy source long forgotten.
The Fox had heard a rumor that the Lord had somehow come to control a sword capable of wielding unthinkable powers for a demon: the ability to heal wound capable of rivaling any sorceress, Miko purity able to disintegrate any Youkai with a mere touch, and the ungodly ability to bring the dead back to the world of the living. And perhaps that rumor hadn't been entirely unfounded, Kurama thought to himself as he singed his fingers on the painfully pure barrier and licked the burn.
His silver hair caught the wind when he leapt down from the tree where he'd perched to test the wall's consistency; he landed lightly where the energy field met the tall grass. The white of his clothing captured the light of the night's violet glow like snow reflecting the moon. For any other thief, wearing white was a death wish. But Youko Kurama wasn't just any other thief. He flaunted his robes with a confidence that bordered arrogance, and it was well merited. His stealth and strategy had him named one of the most successful thieves in Makai, if not the most successful, since the realm's creation.
He'd stolen from the collections of kings and the spoils of dragons. The crafty Kitsune knew that he'd even be able to steal from the private vaults of Enma himself if ever given the chance, regardless of his attire.
If the state of the Manor was anything to go by, that job was looking to be a boorishly simple one. Sesshoumaru was away from his pavilion to sign a treaty of neutrality that he had managed to secure with the masked Makuro of Alaric. The strange Bird that he kept companion, the General's widow that had been specially tailored to be Sesshoumaru's second, had left on a public relations detail in Tourin to speak with the monks about a handful of refugees that had been squatting on the outskirts of Raisen's land without pass. Both of them had taken a guard of their finest, leaving their little village pitifully underprotected, save for that barrier.
Kurama reached out again with pale, slender fingers to touch it once more. That time the energy of the barrier didn't bite back. He'd scoped that particular spot out a few days prior under the cloak of the new moon; it was where the shield was its weakest. The weave was thin there, the furthest point from the field where it had been created. The coincidence of a field or white lilies, the flower of purity, being the epicenter of a barrier made from a Priestess' purity wasn't lost on him.
The barrier itself was impressive; a piece of art in its own right crafted with delicate threads of angel hair. Somehow Kurama had trouble believing that the ruthless blood lord had the ability to create something so fine, even if there were loose ends and inconsistencies in it's structure. That made the Fox all the more curious about that supposed fang he wielded.
The Kitsune plucked at the weave like a harp and the magic came to life beneath his touch like a maestro conducting a wild composition without structure or measure. He frogged the spell until the edge of the shimmering wall before him fell away. The rest of the barrier rippled like he'd thrown a pebble into a pond before it stabilized once more. The tall, silken ears at the top of his head swiveled to catch any sounds of movement, any sign that somebody from within the compound at that late hour had seen or felt the momentary shift in their barrier. But there was nothing. The night was as still as it was cold.
He'd done the impossible;e and infiltrated the hidden compound of a Cardinal Lord.
Coast clear, Kurama became a living shadow as he made his way further and further within the property grounds. The natural forest landscaping that they used to protect the little village from prying eyes worked to his advantage; the foliage and brush bend to shield his form from the radiant moonlight until he was nothing more than a pair of golden eyes glowing from the darkness. Eventually the forest faded to the clearing that housed the central buildings. There the flora was tamed within beds and pathways. Finely sculpted plants, both of human world and demon world varieties, caressed the decks and gave shade to a small fish pond and its adjoining stream.
Kurama scanned the courtyard thoroughly, surveyed the walkways, and reached out with a chiffon thin slip of his aura to feel for any living beings. The Kitchens, normally bustling with activity, were silent in the late hour, and the bedchambers were just as empty, as he'd anticipated. The lone patrolman that passed was hardly security; the young soldier had walked so close to where the Kitsune had hidden himself that Kurama could have reached out and tore the throat from his neck.
He didn't. The thief preferred to leave behind no trace of his existence on jobs such as those. If it'd been a larger heist with the aid of the bandits that he occasionally reigned over as their ring leader and guide, the collateral may have been necessary. But it was turning out to be the farthest thing from the job of the century.
Without waiting even a pulse after the guard rounded the corner, Kurama sprang across the open clearing and pressed flush against one of the covered deck's wide support beams. It was audacious, but what was a heist without a little risk? Even so, the little horned demon was none the wiser and did not turn around to investigate the the rustling. If he had, he would have seen the blacklight glow of Kurama's garb against the wood like an iridescent bird-butterfly on display in a shadowbox.
Adrenaline ran through his veins like liquid pleasure.
There were five separated buildings there, connected only that deck that crossed the gardens to the main house. While the four along the sides were not considerably smaller, there was enough of a size discrepancy to single out the room at the end of the walkway as belonging to the Dog. It was the private room of one of the old lords—a highly classed and powerful demon by any standard—so naturally it should have been heavily warded in his absence. Kurama had prepared for that.
Imagine the Kitsune's surprise when he peered down the walk and was met with an open door.
Youko Kurama crouched low behind a dormant rhododendron and hopefully out of view. Something was wrong, and it wasn't just the flowers whispering their warnings. A more cautious look confirmed that the sliding door to Sesshoumaru's chamber was wide open. It beckoned him without guard or spell. It dared him to enter that private ground. Even in the darkness Kurama was able to make out the frame of the Dog's bed, and the outline of the sword mounted above it. The prize he sought out to claim was right there, but the experienced Fox knew better than to continue forward without further investigation.
There was no reason for that to be the only open door. Had he been spotted? Had somebody caught wind of the plans he hadn't divulged to a single soul or had somebody predicted his movements?
No, that wasn't probable. He would not have overlooked an onlooker—he would have felt the eyes of another lucking within the shadows, would have felt their aura or sensed the presence of whoever had been in that room. But there was nothing there. As far as he could tell, the bedchamber was as empty as it had been all that evening. There was no reason for him to think otherwise.
Despite that, his defenses rose. In one hand appeared the seed of a rose, ready to spring to life as his favored whip, and in the other sprouted the delicate roots of a creeping vine. The plant latched tight to the unfinished underside of the wooden deck, where it slithered like a snake along the grains and crevices. Quickly and silently, the plant worked it's way down to the room at the end of the hall. It acted as an extension of his senses, searching restlessly for the answers he sought. Yet still, frustratingly, there was nothing.
Not until a burst of raw energy erupted from within the room.
Kurama froze to solid stone. Normally his reaction wouldn't have been to impersonate a deer in the headlights, but that wasn't any normal situation that he had found himself in. That display of power didn't belong to any of the manor's residents, nor to any guests that he may have missed throughout his surveillance.
That power belonged to him.
A shock of his own energy flared from within Sesshoumaru's chamber and radiated out across the courtyard, a brilliant beacon to all who remained on the property. The vine that he had been guiding stretched towards that energy, no longer under the influence of his own hidden aura. Even the shrubs and grasses at his bare feet that usually brushed against his legs like dutiful pets waiting for a command betrayed his loyalties for the unrestrained power. His own unrestrained power.
Just as suddenly as the flare had appeared, and well before the incredulity had a chance to settle in, the silhouette of a woman appeared in the open doorway. Kurama fled without getting a too long of a look at the Wolf, but she made eye contact before he completely disappeared back into the forest as if hell itself was on his heels. Her glowing green eyes haunted him like a ghost for weeks after that.
None of Kurama's intelligence or leads he'd received before scoping out the property personally had mentioned a second high ranking demoness living alongside the Inu Youkai. He hasn't sensed the woman's power or presence at all, it was as if she had none to speak of. As if she were a specter. She hadn't even made a sound aside from the hitch of her breath on the chilly winter's air, but even then he hadn't heard it until after she'd already appeared and it was too late.
The demoness could have killed him. Or at the very least could have tried to. Yet she didn't. She simply watched him with veiled eyes and let him flee into the night without giving chase.
One week later, after coming up short on any leads regarding the Ookami female who must have run in the same circle as the Western Lord, but remained virtually unknown to any who had associated with him before the separation of the worlds, Kurama returned to see would he could discover on his own. However, when he arrived to the barrier—at a different location than before. He wasn't about to be caught meddling in the same location where he'd made the first hole, not when there was such a wide radius to work with—it had been changed. The entire barrier had been replaced by one that seemed a bit sturdier and was significantly less visible. It no longer glistened like oil in the moonlight. Rather It looked more like glass; translucent but still distinctly warped around the edges. Another change was that it no longer crackled with its purity. Although, the hairs that rose on his arms told him that the lack of crackling by no means meant that there was a lack of Miko power, only it's visibility and consistency had been altered.
That time the Fox didn't give it a test tap.
Whoever had built that new barrier—if he was a betting man, which he was not because games of chance were nothing more than a tax to prey on fools, he would have put his money on that Wolf as being the culprit as opposed to Sesshoumaru—had learned from his break in and improved in the areas that he had taken advantage of.
There were no longer fluctuations in the wall's thickness thanks to a technique in creation where the barrier is built internally instead of externally, and the thread ends that he had used to unweave the previous one were notably absent, replaced by at least one single continuous thread. Unraveling it now meant finding the fewer ends, which could have been anywhere. Considering that there could have been only two ends to the hair-thin energy and the barrier was at least a kilometer in diameter, it would have been like seeking a single pearl at the bottom of a lake.
Difficult, without a doubt, but still possible with his expertise and ample time. The prize might not even have been worth the extra effort, but those developments in that deceptively simple job made it all the more interesting, and wasn't the thrill of it half the fun?
Kurama never give up on his mark, no, he wasn't one to give up. Instead he simply put it off for another day, one where he was feeling adventurous enough to go against the wall that may have had the ability to vaporize him to ash with one wrong touch and the woman of unknown origins. The Kitsune did prefer to have all of his facts and ducks in a row before jumping into the deep end, so he waited with one ear out for any new leads. He figured it would happen eventually, but time and time again the ambitious Fox found himself distracted by other heists and promises of treasure.
After a few dozen years, the fang of the Dog Demon fell to the back of his mind.
He knew he would steal it someday. It was just a matter of patience.
═══════ Tsarashi ═════════
That day never came. He'd been hunted down by Shunjun before he'd gotten the desire or adequate information to try to break into Sesshoumaru's property again.
Kurama hadn't had reason to mention that before, not to Kagome or to the demoness Kumiko when she met him in Gandara. He'd remembered his past failure the moment Kagome mentioned the Dog demon's name and he wondered if the Wolf remembered him as well when he saw her again, but it had been such a brief transgression and the woman had been irrelevant to Kagome, so none of that mattered at the time.
All of it mattered, he saw now. Without even realizing it on his end, the two of them had gone full circle. That flair of energy that had deterred him from the pavilion back then had come from the very same seed that he had given to the younger Kagome just barely two weeks prior. All that time he'd assumed it to be a trick of his mind brought on by the Ookami's own power, and in a way he hadn't been completely wrong. Kagome had used that seed knowing it would disorientate him, and, having known him in the future, she had probably studied his habits and exploits as a demon thief to prevent him from discovering her true identity too early, so she intentionally kept herself scarce. And, of course, that lack of clues towards her own identity was what prevented him from attempting to break past her barrier a second time.
It was a mind trick, that was for certain.
Kurama couldn't quite pinpoint how exactly that knowledge made him feel. He was simultaneously taken aback and impressed. Yet at the same time he couldn't help feeling the slightest bit intimidated. Perhaps annoyed. The woman had bested him once, after all, and that failure had gnawed on his tail for years.
Because of that, the Tod had yet to drop his guard. She was Kagome, yes, but that Kagome wasn't his Kagome. She wasn't the same innocent girl that hid so many mysteries behind her Glamour like a present begging to be unwrapped on Christmas morning. The one he'd been slowing picking apart piece by colorful paper and tinsel piece for weeks. This one was new and he'd have to get to know her all over again.
"How did this happen?" He asked her, imagining the life she must have lived to get to where they were standing.
It took a moment for the Priestess to gather herself. Even though she had who knew how many years to prepare for the telling of her tale, it seemed that she had still managed to be put on the spot.
Hiei had done that, Kurama realized. Hiei had withheld the information and dangled that knowledge haughtily above the Fox's head when Kagome had requested him to share with the rest of the class. He'd known. And then, after the testy Apparition had gotten a reaction out of Kagome, he'd disappeared to watch the fallout from a distance. He might even still be watching them. Kurama couldn't tell for certain since Hiei had severed their mental link completely back in Makai and then blocked his aura with no desire to be found.
Kagome, on the other hand, had always seemed to have the uncanny ability to sense Hiei beyond the wards of his Jagan. The rigid set of her shoulders and the way her heel dug into the dirt when she spun to face him told Kurama that the little goth might not be too far down wind.
The Priestess reached to the back of her neck and unlatched the necklace that held the Shikon no Tama as she made her way to where he was standing in the treeline. She dangled it out to him and when the little treasure touched the flat of his palm Kagome began to explain.
"The Sacred Jewel was connected to a magic well back in Tokyo. It gave me the power to travel back into the past—five hundred years back, right to the end of the Sengoku Era. I'd traveled through it before countless times to fix the shattered Jewel and fight in the was against Naraku. This morning, my younger self made the decision to go back permanently to discover my powers and grow. You said yourself that I would be a better asset to the team if I were more experienced. So now I am."
Kurama scowled and pulled his hand from the bobble as if it had grown too warm to touch. "That was something that I had said, yes." He began. The male Kitsune had a feeling that particular word choice was going to come back and bite him. "While it may have been true, as it would as well be true for all of my teammates—there is a correlation between being aware of one's capabilities and victory—I did not say those words with the intent to hurt you. Rather I wanted you to better understand Yusuke's motives for his actions. Not that I truly understood them myself at the time." There was a pause as he raised a brow at the little smile growing on her lips. "However, I am starting to suspect that those motives were never truly his to begin with."
At that Kagome gave a slow, contrite shake of her head. She didn't hesitate to confirm his suspicions. "He fought with me tooth and nail every step of the way, but it was detrimental that he carried out that mission exactly as I remembered it. I—well, Kumiko—had to prove to him that I knew the future before he would even consider playing along. He's never made anything easy. But no, none of his interactions with little Kagome were genuine since the motives behind them were mine."
Knowing that Yusuke hadn't acted on his own accord when he attacked the young Vixen did not change what had happened, but did shed a new light on that entire scene. The woman he'd been cursing before Kagome arrived hadn't been the Priestess at all, as they'd all assumed. At least, not that incarnation of her. The Detective wasn't angry at the girl for the trouble she'd brought to the temple. His anger had been directed towards Kumiko, the woman plucking his strings behind the scenes who had just commanded him to assault little Kagome. He'd been furious with Kagome's elder self, as well as possibly himself for going along with her directions.
Kurama cycled back to one of his questions: how much had the half demon known?
So he asked.
"Had Yusuke known who you truly were beneath the guise of the Wolf? How long have you been working with him? Or, more specifically, having him work for you?"
She must have seen some sort of unpleasant emotion in his words, because the Jewel nearly fell from her hand before she caught it and closed her grip on the stone once more. "Kurama, please don't be mad at Yusuke for keeping all of this from you. He never knew it was really me. Actually, he just found out and I think he's still having a little trouble processing it. Yusuke is a good young man, and he is so loyal to all of you. Most of our arguments were were because he wanted to fill the rest of you in. But it was just too much risk. If anyone had slipped it to little Kagome or acted off because of that knowledge, things could have turned out very differently. I was walking a thin line with Yusuke as it was. Nobody else knew who I was."
"And yet Hiei was informed."
"What?" Kagome frowned and stuck the Jewel into her skirt pocket without looking down at it. "No, Hiei didn't know about Kumiko until just a few hours ago."
"But he had known that you were a Kitsune, well before anybody else." Why was he so snared on that? Why did he feel... jealous? It was an irrational response; there was nothing substantial for him to be jealous of. Hiei didn't even like the woman.
Mostly unaware of the inner bitterness building in his chest, the Vixen defended the Fire demon. "That was something he figured out on his own—"
"Of course he had."
"—I did tell him about the well. And I had also confided to him that I didn't know my powers because he was pestering me so much and I was so stressed that I finally cracked. As soon as I told him, all of that stopped. As soon as I told him that I had been a human girl up until a few months before you found me, his entire attitude towards me changed and I no longer felt threatened."
The growing tension inside of him popped like a soap bubble, and for once he was at a complete loss for words.
"You'd been... human?"
"Yeah." She replied. "That was the big secret at the time." Then she laughed. "I thought that you guys would look at me differently if you knew. I thought you'd pity me. Koenma built me up to be this grand warrior, and I thought that if it was known that I knew less about my powers than Shippo—than a child—then I would have had even less of a chance to live a normal life. I was also afraid that if I admitted it publicly, that would make it more real." Kagome didn't look away, flustered, or break eye contact as little Kagome would have. She wasn't ashamed of the decisions she made in her past or her insecurities. She accepted them and moved forward. "It was real, though. The Jewel wanted me to be a Kitsune and then it gave me a new job title on top of that."
That was when she began telling her tale from the very beginning, from her fifteenth birthday when she'd been dragged into the past as an unsuspecting teen.
Her being raised as a modern human seemed to be the golden puzzle piece that pulled everything together. It explained her odd mannerisms, he ignorance, her fluctuating emotions, and even her adoption of an orphaned kit, since natural born Kitsune were so solitary. Her time travel explained her broken spirit—she had only just fought against Naraku—and why she hadn't seen Sesshoumaru in so long. Answers peppered him one after another as she summarized her past five hundred years.
While she'd been speaking, Kurama looked over the older Kagome standing bare and honest before him. He took her in from the black silk of her tail, to the tips of her ears, to the blue of her eyes. There was so much life in those eyes.
No, she wasn't the younger girl that he'd stated to form a tentative friendship with. She was so much more than that now.
This Kagome was even more intriguing.
When she stopped talking, ending with a vague idea of what it meant to be the Guardian of the Realms, Kurama noticed that she'd left out a very important key character from her story.
"And the Shadow Beast?" He asked her. "What about him?"
The mention of the Kagemono finally made her smile falter.
"I met him." Was her curt reply. "I'll tell you more about it back at the temple with the others."
"I understand." Kurama didn't press her further for any more information. She had already been more than generous with what she'd given him already.
And yet she still offered more.
"Is there anything else you want to ask me before we head back?" The Priestess asked. It was an invitation to unrestrained access to the world of her mind and memories. A tempting one.
Yes, he wanted to say. There was so much that he wanted to know about her still.
Instead he said "No, I believe that you have more than answered my immediate questions." There was only so much satisfaction that he could have gained if he simply asked. The Fox decided to wait for those frivolous questions of his to be answered naturally as he became reacquainted with the once human Priestess.
Kagome nodded, almost knowingly, and smiled. "Then we should be heading back."
She moved past him and down the path they had taken to get to that clearing. When she turned back for him to join her instead of going on ahead, Kurama offered a warm smile.
"Welcome back to the team, Kagome."
Her reaction to that was instantaneous. A flush lit her nose and her entire expression blossomed with happiness. It pleased him, more than he wanted to admit. And while they walked side by side back to Genkai's temple, Kurama created a new list to replace his nearly satisfied list of questions: a list of discoveries.
His first discovery was that Kagome was still just as tenderhearted she'd always been, even if she hid it decently enough when necessary. She was still just as easily delighted as her younger self, and she brightened easily around those she considered to be a friend, even with just a few simple words.
The second was that she shared the awkwardness that he felt walking beside her. Even though she may have considered him to be a friend, and he had as well, they were once more strangers. Distant acquaintances at best. There was still so much that they didn't know about each other as individuals.
Yet despite that, his third discovery, the one that made him the most conscious of his body, was that he very much wanted to brush his hand against the back of hers. They were so close, almost close enough to feel the warmth of her skin and that mutual static tingle that he associated with her as another Kitsune.
But he restrained himself.
Kurama pushed down the urge until it was once more hidden deep within himself.
It wasn't yet time for that to come to the surface.
═════ 犬夜叉 X 幽遊白書 ════
Chapter 10: End