A/N: Thanks to Saya Moonshadow for the favourite and, though it's slightly late, Tempest Bound for the review :-)
Broken Arrow
Rage boiled in Kasai's mind; rage, indignation and fury, along with a profound irritation that he hadn't foreseen the demon hunter's attack.
He had felt his arrival, his appearance, the way he had shot the two guards with a single arrow to the head. He knew his intention the moment the man had returned to Nippon from Kamui, his mind dark with the thought.
He sent a single commanding thought out. They would not dispose of the body, Orochi wanted to see those the God's had picked to kill him.
And then there was the matter of the girl.
Guilt welled in some part of his mind, quickly suppressed. He supposed that when he had sent out the thought to kill the intruder, it had been the girl who had been made to answer. Her powers conducted his thoughts like a lightning rod, leaving her vulnerable to his whims.
He turned his full attentions to her.
"You will be rewarded for your loyalty, Chishun." Kyofu's voice was low, scarcely more than a babble, but the imp knew full well his Master's intentions, and with a small bow, left with the second imp in tow.
She had changed.
'The intent.' Kaminari muttered. The others turned inwards to listen. 'When it reached her, it turned her. It must have caused her powers to flare, and in doing so caused her to undergo the transformation.'
There was a weight to what he said, and the other heads nodded in agreement, all except for Doku, whose thoughts turned into a sly snarl.
'Why save her?' All turned to listen but Kasai, who bent down to inspect the damage done by the exorcism arrow. 'She has little use to us, and Kasai is fooling himself if he thinks otherwise. Or rather, we are all fools for following Kasai...'
'Quiet Doku!' Hikari snapped. 'Kasai, the girl, she is not irretrievable?'
'We will most likely have to repay her in kind, but no, she is not beyond our help.' Kasai kept his voice low but assertive.
'That settles it then.' The other head's turned to stare at Mizu, who quailed under their scrutiny. 'What I meant was that even if she does turn out to be a fish, we can still repay her for healing us.'
'You mean healing Kasai? And if she turns out to be a 'fish' as you so eloquently put it Mizu, then we'll be eating her, as we should've done a hundred years ago!' Doku growled.
'If one more word comes out of your head Doku, I swear by my name I'll rip it off!' Hikari's fury boiled over as he rounded on the head next to him. 'I've had enough of your words! Now, Kasai, before I rip the bastard's face off.'
Kasai merely nodded, and began to hum softly, a low, repetitive chant that rose and fell in cadence. It was an ancient chant, older than the words used first to speak his name, perhaps as old as his fall from the heavens itself.
He breathed upon the form, let the energy ebb and flow from his body. He drew from the curse of Nippon, from the darkness that enslaved his kingdom, and felt it flow forth.
The energy itself was blighted.
It was drawn from Yami's soul, from the darkest of thoughts, the most horrendous of fears of eastern Nippon. It was more powerful than the girl's, by tenfold. But it was cursed, it waxed and waned with its Master, rose and fell in startling crescendos and empty decrescendos until it was as hollow and as powerless as a corpse.
He felt it flow into her, watched as she began to regain consciousness and her body began to draw back into human form.
The arrow was unmoveable.
He had seen countless of the damned things, and knew enough about them to say that much. An exorcism arrow was either fatal, or marked the demon as wanted by someone, a target for anyone out for glory, or money.
The arrow could only be removed by the person who had set it there in the first place, and he knew the man was long past being able to remove the arrow lodged in the girl's collarbone.
She slowly awoke, reaching out to push herself upwards. Her other hand went to the
exorcism arrow. She touched it, and gave a sudden startled yelp at the burning sensation that shot through her hand.
"I wouldn't do that." It was Chikyu who spoke, his voice firm and stern. "Not with our power flowing through you."
She rubbed her face, her mouth slightly open with shock. "You can all talk?"
Kaminari answered her with his standard booming tone. "All of us are capable, just as all of us are individual entities sharing a single form."
"But, folklore states..."
"Folklore?" It was Hikari who answered with a snort of distaste. "Folklore is what's dictated to fools by the so-called heroes who attempt to slay us."
"Then, if you're not Orochi, who are you?" Her confusion was naive, benign. But even so, the heads murmured into their cavernous thoughts over telling her. Eventually, it was Mizu who broke the questioning silence with a customary brightness.
"Oh, we are Orochi. We are just eight parts of an Orochi. I am Mizu and I am capable of controlling water." They scowled between each other, but they were left with little other choice – Mizu had exposed them regardless.
"This is Hikari, capable of manipulating light rays. Kyofu is able to manipulate wind. Doku can breathe poison. Kurayami's specialities are cursed zones. And Chikyu is able to control the shifting of the earth. My opposite is Kaminari, the lightning rod. And, of course, you already know me. Kasai, possessor of fiery breath and fiery spirit."
Fiery spirit. It rang a bell in Lika's mind. Didn't the prophecy speak of a fiery spirit that would end their return? She had always assumed the spirit to be Amaterasu, but what if it was Orochi himself? She quickly dismissed the thought.
It would be Amaterasu who ended Orochi once again, no one else, and he certainly wouldn't be undone by himself.
Kasai bent down and held himself close to her ear. "Perhaps, it would be best if you let us be for a while, and prevented yourself from getting into any near-death situations. It would be presumptuous to say that I am capable of aiding you without their help, and I am not so sure if they will always be persuaded."
She nodded quickly. "I had no intention of being there, I just, was."
It was Kaminari who replied to her, with a low sigh. "The intent, it appears that you were more vulnerable to our thoughts than we first suspected. I would suggest that you don't transform, not for the considerable future."
"Or the considerable future might end up your last." Doku gave a growl of threat. "Now leave."
She scurried backwards, ignoring, or rather more attempting to ignore the pain that resurfaced in her shoulders where the arrow was lodged.
Chishun appeared from the recesses of the cave, and with a quick nod of the head, reappeared in the entranceway and lead her off back into the Moon Cave of the imps, into the warmth and camaraderie the imps knew, and away from the cold, glacial stare of the eight heads of Orochi.