Nara's heart was sinking a mile a second, her worst fear coming to life right before her eyes. She looked for the soldiers who had been in his team and only saw three.
"Where is he?" she asked looking at them her eyes starting to fill with tears.
"We don't know, when the cats retreated we noticed he was gone. We were sent to get everyone else to helps us search."
"Let's go then!" Nara said getting up, ignoring the pain she felt as she stood. A gentle hand stopped her from getting any further.
"My lady, you need to rest first everyone else can search, you need to recover first." Nara looked back and saw it was one of the healers. Gently she pushed the hand away and walked over to the soldiers who could still stand.
"We can't waste time arguing, I'm going I won't be able to just sit around and do nothing," she said and looked back at all the waiting faces, "Let's go."
The three from Kurama's group led them to where they last saw Kurama fighting. Cat demons lay dead everywhere they looked in this area.
"He was fighting so many of them, and then all of a sudden he was surrounding them all in this white smoke. When the smoke cleared I saw that it wasn't Kurama anymore but some silver haired demon," one of the soldiers told Nara as she examined the ground, her wolf senses picking up Kurama and Yoko Kurama's sent. They all waited for some explanation from Nara but she was busy following a trail she had found so Yusuke was forced to explain.
"Kurama is Youko Kurama," Yusuke said explaining to them how he had gotten his new body. Nara started to get frustrated as she listened to Yusuke filling the wolf demons in on Kurama's past.
"Can we please stop talking and start searching?!" Nara yelled making everyone jump, "The more time we waste the less time he has, if he's seriously hurt."
Everyone began the search after Nara's outburst. They looked in tents and under bodies but they couldn't find Kurama anywhere. Nara found Youko's sent and followed it into the woods. There she spotted blood on the ground and her heart sank, she now knew that Kurama was injured and was somewhere in the forest. As she followed the trail she realized that this was the way Kurama had taken his team to attack, smelling members of his team walking in a different direction, towards the cat demons camp.
"He must have wondered off looking for me," Nara said to herself as she followed the trail of blood.
As she followed the trail she noticed the scent of Youko disappeared and Kurama's human sent returned. This was a bad sign for Nara and she began to search more frantically. Since his human scent had returned Kurama had grown so weak that he couldn't stay in his Youko form anymore. Nara continued to follow the trail of blood, seeing that some branches were broken, as if Kurama had been stumbling his way through.
"Kurama," Nara said to herself, "please be ok, I can't loose you too!"
She was of course talking about how Hideki would be dying soon no matter what Nara tried to do. The thought of losing Hideki and Kurama was just unbearable. She saw a small hill ahead of her and noticed some of the grass was flatter in one particular spot. Her heart racing she ran to the up to the hill and looked down carefully, it was pretty steep. There she saw the red head unconscious on the ground, arrows and bits of other weapons poking out of his clothes.
"I found him!!" Nara yelled knowing someone would hear her and if not Hiei would alert them, "Bring a healer quickly!!"
Carefully she slid down and kneeled next to Kurama, his face looking pale. She saw that his armor had protected him from being seriously injured, which would've mean that he would be dead by now. Carefully she rolled Kurama onto his back, his eyes fluttered open and a small smile appeared on his face.
"You're ok," he said with relief, "I thought I heard you scream…"
"I'm fine Kurama, it's you who we should be worrying about," Nara said looking over his injuries, "How did you manage to get so hurt?"
"When we were fighting, there were more cat demons than I had anticipated. They were on top of us; it was hard to tell which direction an attack was coming from. So I transformed into Youko and that seemed to help but they had archers firing poison arrows at us." Nara froze, and prayed that it wasn't the same poison that now ran through her fathers' veins. Kurama seemed to be reading her mind and said comfortingly.
"It's not that poison, I recognize this one, it's painful but there is an antidote, and it's easy to make. I don't think they were that prepared for something like this," Nara nodded and let him continue his story.
"I don't think I would have been this injured if it hadn't been for the poison arrows. The poison made me dizzy and I couldn't fight that well. I didn't have a chance of making it to a healer so I just tried to hold on. Then they all suddenly ran away, and I knew something had happened and I needed to find you…" Kurama stopped his breath coming in unevenly. Nara pulled his head onto her lap and whispered comforting words to him.
"It's ok Kurama, don't talk anymore, I'm fine and so are the others, just concentrate on staying alive until help comes."
Kurama nodded and closed his eyes, his breath ragged but coming in more evenly than when he had been talking. Nara quietly pulled out some herbs from her pouch and made a quick drug, she knew that if she didn't heal his wounds herself he might die before a real healer arrived.
"Kurama," she said quietly. Kurama moved his head telling her he heard her, "I need you to take this, it'll nock you out while I remove the arrows and heal your wounds." Kurama opened his eyes, and looked up at her.
"You are that far advance in your healing abilities?"
"Well I'm no healer but I need to do something before you bleed to death, now take this."
Kurama obeyed and took the medicine, making a face at its bitter taste, and was soon asleep. Nara began her work, slowly removing each arrow, so not to rip any muscle that the arrow might have lodged itself into. She healed each wound and started on the next one, almost finished with her task she saw some color returning to Kurama's face.
"Nara!!" Nara looked up as she heard Yusuke's voice, "Nara where are you!!?"
"I'm down here!!" she yelled back. Soon she was surrounded by her friends, her soldiers, and the healers.
"You did well my lady," one of the healers said examining Kurama's wounds, "we will take it from here, he will be fine now."
Nara sighed in relief and went over to her friends, Yusuke quickly pulling her into a brotherly hug.
"It's all over now Nara, everything is going to be alright now." Nara nodded and tears of relief sprang from her eyes as she hid her face in her brothers' chest. It didn't take long for the healers to heal Kurama, but they had to carry him on a stretcher, his legs still unsteady from his injuries. Nara walked next to him the whole time, holding onto his hand tightly. It took longer getting back home than it had getting to the battle field, the injured warriors slowing them down quiet a bit. It was a three day journey home, and the entire time Nara stayed by Kurama. As the sun rose on the third day Nara saw the castle and smiled happy to be back at her second home, she even missed Daiki and Daichi. The injured were put in their respective rooms and the dead were sent to the morgue to be buried later on that day in a beautiful ceremony.
A day or so had passed and Kurama was back on his feet to everyone's delight. He seemed happy enough to everyone but Nara could tell he was a little tense about something. Finally unable to not know what was going on in his head Nara asked him what was bothering him as they sat in one of the castles garden.
"Hm, nothings wrong I've just been thinking that I need to talk to Hideki and Yusuke about something," Nara was about to question him further but he switched to a different topic.
"Do you thinks the castles gardens a better than ours?" Nara laughed and snuggled closer to Kurama under the sakura tree.
"Are you kidding, our garden puts any other garden to shame!"
Later on at dinner Daichi and Daiki made a shocking announcement.
"Lady Nara we have seen that you have now learned how to control your powers and run the whole clan. So your training here is complete and you may leave whenever you whish. However when your poor father does pass on we will ask you to return to us once again." Nara looked at them in shock.
"Are you serious?" she asked and they both nodded, "Well I guess we'll be leaving soon, three days I think should be enough." Daiki nodded and handed her something, Nara took it and saw it was a small jewel on a silver chain.
"This jewel will open a direct portal to this castle in case you wish to visit."
Nara thanked the two and put it around her neck where it hung next to her locket, both glinting in the light. After dinner Kurama broke away from Nara, Nara pouted and Kurama couldn't help but smile at her expression.
"I'll be back; I need to talk to Hideki and Yusuke about something, before we leave."
"Fine," she sighed and went off to find Hotaru and Emiko since the two had been inseparable.
Kurama grabbed Yusuke as he walked by, saying he need to talk to him, and dragged him off to Hideki's room. He knocked on the door and was granted entrance, the great wolf Lord looked up as the two boys entered his room.
"What can I help you with boys?" he asked kindly.
"Yeah Kurama what's the deal?" Kurama took a deep breath to steady his nerves.
"I wanted to get both your blessings before we leave and I might not get a chance to ask Lord Hideki," Kurama began.
"Well what is it?" Yusuke asked impatiently.
"I want to ask Nara to marry me, and I want to get both of your blessings. It won't be right away of course, a year or so maybe less, but I wanted to ask for both of your blessing before I do so."
Both men froze, they were each very protective of Nara, which had its positive moments but sometimes they got little to protective. Yusuke sighed and slouched in the chair Nara usually occupied next to Hideki, he spoke first.
"Kurama…" he said slowly, "I give you my blessing because I know that she would marry you without it and I want her to be happy." Kurama smiled and looked at Hideki.
"I don't know you very well Kurama, but I can see that you love my daughter so you have my blessing, but I would like to be there for the wedding, maybe we could have it here."
Kurama thought for a moment and he knew he could get Koenma to modify his mothers' memories and agreed.
"Take care of her," Hideki said tiredly as the two left him so he could get his rest.
Kurama beamed as he found Nara again and hugged her tightly.
"And what are you so happy about?"
"You'll find out eventually," he said kissing her.
Three days later the gang said their final goodbye's to everyone in the castle. Nara looked over at Hotaru and smiled seeing her holding Hiei's hand secretly and Emiko standing next to her, the newest addition to the gang.
"Are you sure Genkai won't mind another person in the house?" Emiko asked Hotaru.
"She won't, she has plenty of room, and I'm sure she would love to have someone to help her around the house, because I'm sure you'll end up doing something."
Emiko smiled as the portal opened and the gang stepped through returning home at long last.
A/N: I'm going back to school on the 28th so i won't be able to update as often as i did this summer, so try to be pacient, thank you! Read and Review!!