The Storm Shelter

by Mezi Matsuki

Chapter Three

Author's Note: I'm having fun with a fanfic! Wow!! ^____^;;; I didn't know I could have fun writing... lol.


          The girl sat there, listening to the man's story. He said something to her, something she assumed to be his name. She was pretty sure he had said 'Kuronue', but she really wasn't positive. She also knew that he was telling her some sort of story, but she once again didn't understand him. She didn't quite understand the point of telling her things; it wasn't as if she understood them. Mostly she just sat in front of the fire and listened to it, staring into the fire, but she nodded occasionally to make Kuronue keep telling the story. Despite not understanding any of it, it was comforting to have something alive talking to her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

          Kuronue paused in his story for a moment, long enough to re-stoke the fire and think as he was doing it. 'Why am I telling her this? She doesn't get it... So that really doesn't make sense, cuz I don't like telling it period. Maybe I just think it's ok to tell her, since she definitely can't tell anyone else. How can you tell someone something in a language you can't understand?' He thought. 'Whatever. I like telling it... strange... oh well...' Finishing with the fire, he stepped back and sat down on the ground in his spot again. A few minutes later, he began to tell the story again.

          "Later on, after I introduced myself and explained to the youko what I wanted, he introduced himself. He said his name was Kurama, and that he wasn't looking for a partner. He just happened to be working in that area. I still didn't quite believe that he was the famous thief I'd heard about, since he didn't look any older than me. I wanted proof that he was the thief I'd heard so many rumors about, just because I was tired of hi smart mouth. I bet that I could do better on a job than he could. I think, in my annoyance, that my exact words were 'I can steal better than you any day, pretty-boy! I'd love to see you lose, just to shut you up!'. This, as I later learned, is a stupid thing to do. Or rather, it's completely stupid to challenge Kurama to anything. The egotistical idiot will go along with any dare, just to prove he can. That's his only weakness."

"Anyway, when I challenged him, he got this strange glimmer in his eye, which at the time I thought nothing of. Now, I'm afraid of him when he gets that glimmer in his eye. So he answered my call with 'Alright. Tonight work for you, Bigmouth? I'll cut you down to size, easy. This won't even cause a sweat.'. The next few hours wasn't anything really important, but later that night I found myself in front of a castle, a huge castle with lots of towers. Now, in truth that scared the crap out of me, since I hadn't ever done a job like this before, but there was no way I was gonna let him win..."


*flashback*

          "Now then, Batboy, first one to get back out of there, with the mirror, wins. And that means you have to get out ALIVE. Getting yourself killed and thrown outside with the mirror doesn't count. And I don't plan on saving your ass, so don't bother me. You attack me, and you're screwed. Just letting you know that." Said Kurama, stretching his hands into the air over his head. Rolling my eyes, I just turned towards the castle. "On the count of three, we go in. One, two, three!" With that, we were both off. He took of in one direction, while I went the other. I got in and was going smoothly, nothing attacking me, for at least twenty minutes. By that time, I wondered how Kurama was doing, and turned to go back. I turned, and moved too quickly, with my wings flying out behind me. When they fly out, it's harder to control them, and they hit some wards that I didn't notice on some trees. When they touched the wards, and stinging feelings shot through the sensitive skin and muscles. I sunk to the ground, kneeling there on my hands and knees for a few minutes until the pain stopped. By the time it did, however, there were guards surrounding me.

At this point, I did what came natural: I summoned my scythes. I tossed a chain up into the tree, hopped, and swung myself up there. I was careful not to touch anymore of those wards, and I began moving branch to branch, tossing my scythes and knocking out guard by guard as I went. I got to the last tree branch, but there was still two guards left. Jumping off the branch, I opened my wings and let myself flip over to land behind them. As I landed, I tossed both scythes out, hitting one guard, killing him, and the other scythe kept going. The second guard saw the first one fall, and he moved aside in time for my second scythe to miss. It kept going long enough to lodge itself in a tree, stuck enough that I couldn't pull it out with a quick flick on the chain like usual. Getting frustrated, I dropped the chain on that one and tossed the other one, which had come back when I pulled on it.

          This scythe also missed, and I pulled it back in time to prevent losing it too. Suddenly I heard a laugh, and saw a bit of silver go behind the guard, and without thinking, I threw my scythe straight at the silver. I missed it, however, this time, I didn't miss the guard. I pulled the scythe back, looked around for a second, and then went over to work on dislodging my other one. A few minutes later, I heard a yelp and a roar, the roar sounding too strange to be an animal. Grabbing both scythes, I ran towards the sound. As I broke through the brush, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had found what made the roar: it was a giant red plant with fangs. I didn't believe my eyes, and I stepped forward a little more to get a better look. Suddenly I heard a yell, and I snapped out of my daze.

          "Don't go any farther! If it sees you, it attacks!" Looking away from the red plant, I noticed it was wrapped around Kurama's arm. I knew he could control plants, because he'd attacked me earlier with one, but I didn't know that he had things like the plant wrapped around him arm. "It goes after blood and fear, so don't step forward! I dunno if you're bleeding, but I know you're afraid of this thing! It's scared the crap outta me when I first saw it!" As I watched Kurama and the plant, he began to get it back in check. He fought with it for a few seconds, and then it let out a whine and shrunk back into a seed in his hand. He pocketed the seed, and then looked at me.

          "Why are you staring at me?" he asked.

          "I'm not. I was looking at the plant. What the hell was it?"

          "A Makai bloodsucker. As I said, it attacks blood and fear, but it doesn't notice them until you get in range. I just recently got it, that's the only reason I had to struggle with it to turn it back. I haven't gotten to use it." Looking at the bloody remains of the guards that attacked him, he continued. "Once again, you have more reason not to attack me." He seemed to have a strange fear that I was going to attack him. He glared at me, and said 'Well, I'm off. Later!' and took off running towards the castle again. This time I had no choice but to follow him, since I was also headed towards the castle.

*end flashback*


          "He still is like that. I think I'm the only person he's ever trusted to fight back to back with him. He's afraid that people are going to betray and attack him. Even then, he didn't trust me though. That didn't come until later either. Most people think he's a cold asshole, but he isn't. He's just afraid of working with people and trusting them."