*skipping to the story today...enjoy*
Chapter 16: Tears of Horror
"KISHO!"
A limp thud met the father's terrified cry, the bluette lost of feeling and consciousness. His sapphire hair spilled disheveled over the grooves of the dense stone floor, his brow tense. Sweat caught in the nooks of his gnarled expression, pain riddling him from the surface world.
A presence skid lopsidedly for his side, breaking from speed to his knees. Kurama propped the boy against his chest, fear pulsing his blood in bitterly cold streaks through his upper neck. "Kisho! Kisho wake up! Kisho?! Kisho!"
Detective and Dragon sped to the Fox's side, worry smoldering their senses. The youngest of their nephews, slipping of color to an eerily solace pale. He jerked every so often against his father's chest, spurts of redness curdling in the depths of his slender throat. A single ruby streak broke from the curl of his lips and rolled all too smoothly for his chin.
"Kisho! Please Kisho, please! Wake up, son! Kisho! Please!" Kurama was caught in his cold hysterics, composure stripped from his reach as he nudged his son in gentle shakes. The bluette allowed slip a tender groan, and the Fox felt a shiver rack his boy's tense arms.
Emerald jerked to ruby stained thrashes against ivory platters. Kisho's wrists were torn and seeped of slim scarlet streaks, as was his ankles. His tail sprawled limp beside his leg, dead of motion. Kurama was almost himself to a state of unconsciousness. His expression stunned, limp of it's signature composure...his voice was utterly weak and eerily gentle as he spoke the first thought to strike his mind. "Must my whole family...suffer...for this...this beast...to satisfy himself...and his utter thirst...for pointless vengeance...?"
Silence wove spidery between the companions...Ryooki stood aloof, unable to see the pain his blood nephew was in...his brother's Kisho...and his own Taro...they were too much alike for him to bear.
"I will KILL him!" Kurama roared, stunning Dragon and Detective slightly in his rage as he cradled his son's fragile head. His arms fell corrupt to shivers as he tightened his defensive brace against the boy. "...he kidnaped my wife...and he DARES to drag my very CHILDREN into this meaningless fray...will ever he die?!"
Hiei's ruby eyes pressed shut, stabbing the cavern free of their brilliant luster. A pain beat at his heart. His daughter's dearest friend...now lay half-dead in the bowels of the demonic world.
"Ryooki...!" Kurama snarled, whipping sternly over his shoulder. Yusuke took hold to the unconscious bluette as the angered red-head jerked to a stand and faced his stifled brother. "This is your arrow, isn't it?!"
Silence met the rowdy accusation, Ryooki's corrosive emerald eyes stinging aside from the humanoid's equally corrosive ones. Kurama's glare burned intensely, unable to fathom how his own kin could attack another of their family. "Ryooki!"
The older of the fox-wolfs whipped his poisonous glare in lock to his younger brother's. "Ryooki the scent of that arrow remnant mirrors your fingers!" Kurama roared...almost in desperation.
"You accuse me of attacking your boy, Yoko?" Ryooki snorted, clicking his attention away. "Hardly...that boy pains me to look at him...let alone harm him."
"You son of a bitch he's only FIFTEEN!" Yusuke kicked against the floor, racing to Ryooki in his senseless rage. The Detective curled his tense grip into the demon's collar, shaking him firmly. "He's only fifteen!!"
Ryooki calmly shut his eyes, unable to absorb the anger swelling his brother's ki. Hiei examined the youth's injuries, sensing taints in his young blood. 'Dear God no...' he thought softly as he caught whiffs of demonic poison. "What type of archer allows the deadliest of his hoards to be violated?" the Dragon glared dangerously at the tired, guilt-ridden, yet guilt-free Ryooki.
"Could it be helped?! Hardly, you punks..." Ryooki countered with stunningly thin eyes, ripping the Detective's grip from his shirt front and shoving him straight for the angered Kurama. The humanoid kitsune instantly bound against Yusuke, jerking him from his fall and flashing an almost golden glare for his brother.
"How could it not be helped?! You guard your arrows with you very life, Ryooki!" the humanoid spat in vicious return. Ryooki's mane ruffled in his rage, unable to set the words and screams to his spiteful tongue.
"Dare you accuse my defense skills, LITTLE brother?! Grapko himself stripped me of my arrows!" Ryooki seethed bitterly in return, the conscious comrades pricking in realization. "He obviously supplied my most lethal of my hoards to his little bastard shadows..." he cursed himself for having ever left his beloved mate, his mother...and his dear little Taro.
Kisho pulsed violently against Hiei's chest, spitting a large clot of gel-like blood. Hiei pricked, awkwardly trying to soothe the youth awake. Shadows painted over Kisho's shut eyes, stabbing intimidation to his young face...a glaze of intimidation only known to strike Kurama under a veil of bangs.
Kurama whirled around in desperation to embrace the boy, dragging him from the Dragon's loose hold against his own front. His right hand cupped about the boy's scalp and held it tenderly against his chest, his left arm draped about Kisho's limp shoulders. "Ryooki...by what means can we heal him?!"
"He must bleed the poison tainting him," Ryooki sighed faintly, meeting intense gapes of rage and fear from all three of his companions.
"He's already half-dead from the blood loss!" Kurama countered in desperation, a cold sensation plaguing his neck as he jerked to gape over his shoulder. "...if he keeps bleeding he'll die!"
"I'm not the doctor you are, Yoko," Ryooki growled slowly. "...but the only means of saving your dear son is to bleed the poison from his circulation."
Kurama pricked, staring wide-eyed at his cold brother. He gently cradled the boy into Hiei's hold yet again, the Dragon binding to him defensively. The humanoid quickly stood, approaching his sibling with his lost senses.
"The poison has pulsed all through him! He cannot bleed it all out, he'll die, brother! Please, there must be another way!" Kurama collapsed to his knees, grasping hold to Ryooki's arms and pressing his forehead to his insensitive hand. The humanoid's eyes burned as tears threatened to break against the glorious emerald of his morbidly desperate glare. Ryooki blinked awkwardly at his emotional brother.
"...Yoko..." he breathed softly, realizing Kurama wasn't about to let any of his immediate kin to die before his father was annihilated. The older pulled away in thought, and threw a glance for the unconscious bluette. The question to break against his lips seemed more a tired statement. "...is his immune system stable...?"
Kurama pricked, jerking up to eye the fox-wolf in utter, pure hope. Hiei and the Detective did likewise, yearning for his lighter tone to signal a means to keep hoping for Kisho's recovery.
"Yes...yes he's the healthiest of his generation," Kurama nodded quickly, shifting to a stand beside his brother.
"Hmm..." the hybrid breathed reluctantly, examining the youth with a glare so unbearably intense, the Dragon felt Kisho stir with an icy sensation under his uncle's inspection. "...perhaps...he, could...survive it..."
Kurama pricked, jerking wide-eyed for the currently calmer of the siblings. "Survive what?!"
"Perhaps...if we were to sew his open wounds together...his own system would be able to kill the poison afflicting him...maybe even build him a life-long immunity against demonic poisons targeted for animal breeds..." Ryooki was deep within his thoughts, trying to calculate the chances.
"Why didn't you suggest that before, you dick-wad?!" Yusuke nearly lunged at the fox-wolf in blind rage, before Kurama bound at his arm, stifling the overgrown-punk's attack. Kurama threw an intensely narrow glare for his brother to take as stern note.
"Indeed, Ryooki...why did you wait?"
"If his immune system isn't strong enough, sewing the open wounds shut will cut off access to extra oxygen for his thrashed circulation and the poison will be trapped within him to kill him faster," Ryooki countered gravely. The Detective pricked in fear. The Dragon grunted in frustration. And the Father's eyes pressed shut in despair as he too calculated the chances of his son's survival.
Coming up with a solution a tenfold quicker than his demonic brother, Kurama breathed the almost sinful words through parched, saddened lips. "...he's only a 12% chance of survival against untimely death of poisoning...the amount to pump through him was connected directly to the vital organs..."
"...and with four of my arrows to pierce into his system," Ryooki murmured.
"...direct links to the heart and brain were tainted with heavy concentrations of poison..." Kurama sighed in grief. "...and despite his impeccable health..."
"...his waste of Spirit Energy in his reckless escape...narrows his chances from a might-have-been 30/70 ratio-"
"-to 12%."
Silence hazed them in haunting thickness. Hiei looked down at the youth with pain striking the glorious ruby of his glare. 'He's too young for a near-death experience...' the Dragon thought painfully, denial blocking him from admitting...that a near-death experience would be an utter miracle at this point.
This boy brought out the deepest of the former generation. He was the most original of any, and he knew it. He wasn't too alike with a parent to scare outsiders of the tight-knit families. He was the youngest...the most reckless...the newest to the violence to haunt his father and elders for their entire lives.
Only fifteen...funny for the Detective to have said so in such a way...he was but fourteen when he died...his life was cut short, severed in one second's fraction of blinding, skull-crushing pain. He drowned in blood that heartbeat's time, his nostrils sponged in redness beyond breathing. And yet, despite the pain he endured before even his fifteenth birthday...he still saw this boy, with both parents, a sister, and a group of friends to watch over him, as too young to die.
Kisho could always dig deeper into their souls and thoughts...unlike his dearest friends, Ryuu and Kane, he did so with his wolf-like senses, not an overdeveloped mind privileged with a third glare. He wasn't a genius like Ai...he wasn't intimidating like Yukio...and he wasn't violent like Gakilei.
He was Kisho, his own take on his own personality...his pain struck numbness to his father's tongue...and struck tears to his father's eyes. Any of those children could have brought Kurama to his knees in begging for their lives to be spared...but the only other one let Kisho to have made him done so with such intense desperation would have only been Ai.
Kurama slowly caught to Kisho's thrashed wrists, examining them with low, gentle eyes. His velvet touch had yet to compute in his son's limp mind, and he continued with mercury grace and silence. The skin bubbled from exposure, the blood crusted around the edges of the gashes. The cores of every wound pumped with scorching redness, heat pulsing within him in rabid strokes.
Kurama almost winced at the sight of his snagged, corrupted wrists. The humanoid slowly motioned for the Dragon to lay the boy's head against the ground and examine his ankles to check of their state.
Hiei did so reluctantly, setting the bluette's skull against the bushiest mass of his own sapphire mane. The Dragon then blurred for the youth's legs, and slowly went to examine them. Alike the wrists in damage, both corrupted with bubbling edges and intensely heated blood.
Yusuke watched on earnestly, unable to help by any means. Ryooki stood aloof, unable to approach this accursed boy...this human-demon youth to look so identical to Taro.
Kurama stroked a sprawled hand against the roughness of his bushy mane, and retracted a delicate root, thin with length enough to stitch the wounds from exposure. Along with it he snagged loose a needle-like thorn, thin enough to penetrate the ivory of his boy's skin without leaving too large of snags.
The humanoid paused, and with delicate eyes, looked over his son a last time before their potentially vain attempt to rescue him. "Kisho.........forgive me." He begged with a slow, calm voice, before stabbing against Kisho's flesh with a treaded needle.
'This root can absorb taints in circulatory systems for humans...' the father thought as he threaded the gaps in the skin together. '...perhaps a good amount of the poison in his system will be sponged out of him, at least enough so that he can kill off the rest of the poison that would still lock to his system...' Kurama's eyes slowly went grave as sincerity of the situation kicked in. '...but this hybrid plant-root I developed was designed for human use...Kisho's demonic as well as human...a 50/50 ratio exists it won't work, and his system denies it............Kisho...'
A slight wince caught to the boy's fragile face, crystalline beads pulsing to his temples. Kurama worked steadily, sensing stings to strike the youth with every pause the humanoid took in his work.
Hiei watched on with cold eyes, unable to fathom emotion to the surface. Yusuke leaned against a far wall, fear zapping his energy. Ryooki stood beyond sensing Kisho's flinches...but the heavy scent of the youth's mut-blood haunted his hybrid lungs.
Twenty minutes, and the four wounds were seamed shut. Blood stained the stitches, and caught in the grooves of Kurama's slender fingertips. The red-head examined the youth intently.
"Kurama?" Yusuke piped meekly.
"Too soon to tell..." Kurama countered...almost in a coarse, quiet bark. He watched over his son defensively, cursing himself for having ever left his family alone in the human world without his protection.
"My beloved Botan...my dear Kisho...will Ai fall victim next?...or will her training...be enough...?" the humanoid stated slowly, flavor in his tone distinct to only a few pitches.
Hiei and Ryooki closed their eyes, Ryooki of grief, and Hiei of respect.
Yusuke was the only one to counter his partner's lacking faith. "Kurama, Ai's gonna be fine...she can totally hold her own...in fact, I bet she's gonna try to help us."
Silence met Yusuke's dare of a statement. Fear ran the Detective's blood cold...he realized what he said all too late...and what scared him was Kurama's response...or lack thereof. Yusuke meekly stifled himself and his crude tongue, allowing Kurama to study the pained Kisho in silence.
Suddenly, a prick ran their spines, and the four jerked to face the newest opponent...male...Ryooki's height...a breed unlike any of mortal demons...Hiei grunted slightly, a snarl distorting his grit teeth.
The concentration of the Shadow's aura was stunningly dense, his strengths pure and true. He smirked through the darkness, the distinctions spraying visible with his cockiness...but cockiness well supported.
"I see you found the nuisance Reaper," the newest villain sneered, glancing corrosively at the unconscious bluette. Kurama, by now standing, dove in a defense stance in front of his motionless son, glaring emerald daggers in the Shadow's direction.
"You leave my son alone," Kurama's voice nearly matched that of his demon counterpart's. The threat curdled in the depths of his throat, and stung narrow glares to his eyes. The emerald glinted viciously, the rabid intensity of his wolf ancestry racking through.
"Oooh..." the Shadows smirked. "...Daddy Dearest is a tad defensive, isn't he?"
"Shut up!" Yusuke lunged whole-heartedly for the Shadow, lost of any scrap of composure his character could ever muster. "Just shut up, you asshole!"
He sped with a rabid intensity, and stabbed blow after blow for the Shadow. The Elite was obviously, for once, worthy of his title, melting against air as he smoothly avoided the Detective's every attempt. He jerked from side to side, ever smirking, ever stifling ridiculing laughter. Yusuke pounded harder with every passing second, never faltering, and ever stubborn.
The creature whipped in mad positions, sneering smugly. With his fist gnarled tense, he struck upside Yusuke's head, denting into the skull and racking the punk from consciousness. His eyes were stunned wide, taut in stricken pain. He fell limp, collapsing to the floor with a clatter of his limbs to stone. His hair fell disheveled over his tight expression, slapped in pain. The Detective lay, defenseless...unconscious.
Kurama and Hiei pricked instantly in sync to the creature's swipe at their partner. The Dragon blurred against air, stabbing his form in a sprint for his fallen comrade. He slit his leg into the air, about to link his heel to the villain's jaw...when the demon jerked away, and thrust for Hiei's midriff.
His taut knuckles stabbed against the Dragon's tense abs, Hiei growling in frustration. With a blur of his bandaged arms, he snapped the hilt of his trademark weapon against it's raven sheath, ripping it fresh and exposed. It's glossy pearl surface blinded the Shadow, who snarled a dreadful snort and tumbled for the darkness of a rock's crevice.
Hiei raced against time with his demonic sprint, blurring into the air with an insanity about his footing. The silver glare of his weapon slit the air, driving a mad glint of heinous platinum about the Shadow's blinded expression. Hiei stabbed for the ever vulnerable region between the eyes, thrusting with a spurt of ki to jerk all the more power in his attack.
Suddenly, he jerked back, a sense having swelled his Jagon dramatically. His spine curled, his midriff just grazed with slicing attempt. Kurama whipped to face Hiei's new attacker, a twin Shadow, and holder to a raven-pearled Katana. Hiei had barely escaped a true injury, and was left with a senseless graze against his flesh. A slight twinge of redness escaped the gap, sponging greedily to the fibers of his now torn shirt. The Dragon growled, thrusting his spine in a distorted curve as he jerked in a flip from the twin attackers.
"Ganging up on me? How honorable," he smirked sarcastically.
Silence as the duo lunged for the Dragon. He jerked and whipped in mad positions, his spine racked in such a way only seen by felines. "Kitsune! Get Kisho and the Detective out of here!"
Kurama paused, his tail ruffling sternly.
"Do it!!" Hiei barked, stifling a Katana swipe with one of his very own. He struck to the opponent's hilt with the blunt edge of his blade, the flash of brilliance in its surface soaking intensely in the single blink. The Dragon whipped his Katana in mad directions, each swipe to stifle and counter the armed Shadow's attempt. The twin clawed for the Dragon's stomach and heart, Hiei forced to defend twice and offend none.
Kurama flashed a last emerald saturated glare for his partner, struggling against two Hell's Shadows, and, with a silent eye-lock against Ryooki's tense leer, he hoisted Kisho against his shoulder, and prepared to drag Yusuke from his limp position against the floor. Kurama sprinted for the darker bowels of Mount Shiverku yet to be violated by his presence, two flaccid persons gripping to their last threads of life strung over his sturdy shoulders.
Ryooki's ears pinned against the crown of his head, and with a final snarl, he lunged against air for the Dragon's side, instantly stabbing a tense kick for the first Shadow's darkness-veiled jaw. Ryooki and Hiei subconsciously pressed their backs together as they prepared their opponents' coming attempt. Both smirked, both waited...both glared threatening daggers for their assigned demon. Though their partnership was temporary, and their fighting styles didn't mesh in such a way as Kurama and Hiei...they seemed fit to battle with only the other as their backup.
The duo Shadow's dove for the two smirking demons, a black blade piercing for Hiei's slender throat, and a set of claws for Ryooki's collarbone.
"Ready?" Ryooki smirked over his shoulder, his tail slapping against air and ruffling at the deepest core of the roots.
"Hn," Hiei sneered in return, his smirk gloriously deep and his eyes lustrously thin with flaming auras of their very own. The duo stood calm, composure about their limbs and eerily solace gleams about their eyes. Each attacker slit against time and air for their target, ripping the wind to shreds with severed fibers.
Hiei and Ryooki bowed low in stance, and stood ready for anything.
The armed of the twins lashed a stunningly well-placed slice of his Katana for the Dragon's shaggy spikes, and swore he felt Hiei's skin penetrate and skull fall corrupt under his attack. With a prick, he found his hope and expectation a lie...and with a blink...found the solace of death.
Hiei, blurred against reality with no more than jags of aura to show for his timely absence, was in midair in sync to his opponent...behind him. The blade of his Katana snagged against flesh, bone, and tissue, and with a jerk of the hilt, the corpse fell to a clatter against the stone floor.
Ryooki too handled the threat with simplicity and ease, sprawling his animal-like hands brisk and wide, and catching the attack in each broad palm. The creature's claws snapped on impact to the hybrid's flesh, Ryooki having pulsed his hands with extra throbs of intense ki. The Shadow merely pricked in fear, before Ryooki stifled the sensation short with a single blow against his sternum. The Shadow collapsed just as limp as Hiei's toy, and the two smirked in silence, each impressed with the other's ability.
Suddenly, a jerking sense caught to their noses, and the acute scent of roses burst against the dank caverns. The duo whipped for the aroma, and with even their dagger eyes, they just barely caught the sight of a defensive Kurama, lashing with all his zestful might against the dank air with a stunning whip, snagged with diamond-tip thorns.
A target hit, where the darkness couldn't cast a silhouette. A scream snapped against air with the precision and intensity of Kurama's lash, and with a jerk of his slender wrist, he ripped a triplet from hiding, into the only slightly distinction of light between his crevice to the exposed cavern. Frantic pulses pumped cold chills of frozen blood through his upper neck, the last thing in his sight being Kurama's ferociously merciless countenance.
The fox tore his victim through the air, the Elite snagged to his weapon by loose flesh. Fear bubbled in his eyes as he ripped against the air, jerked from his spot to the ceiling...and piercing straight for a Kurama pulsed with rabid rage.
Hidden in his recessive hand...lay a shard of bamboo, nestled comfortably to his smooth palm. Kurama's stance bowed low as the creature was dragged through midair straight for potential impact. The glorious whip surrounded him on all sides, the thorns grazing against his mane. A breath's distance was the triplet Shadow, and Kurama caught the final whiff of cold blood within his neck. The fox lunged his free arm in a jerk, pulsing a violent throb of ki into the bamboo shard snug to his hand.
Flesh tore, ripping in blood-boiling silence. Veins popped...tissue unraveled...and blood cracked loose, spraying into the air and playing in ribbons as it burned with exposure. Kurama's hands fell victim to stain, redness coursing in spurts to his knuckles and fingertips. The fox glared stolid daggers of emotionless, stark emerald, flicks of platinum snagging at their color.
Kurama jerked free, watching in disgust as the disgraceful corpse collapsed flaccid against the floor. With a spurt of ki, his aura concentrated for his hand, the energy sprayed the blood from his ivory flesh, and the redness staining his skin disintegrated against reality.
Hiei and Ryooki blinked awkwardly to their keen, cold-blooded partner...and smirked. Kurama's expression remained solid with sincerity. "I do wish to rescue my mate and sister before the day is out and they fall victim to insanity," he practically growled, flashing eyes unlike those of Suichi for his comrades...flecks of gold stained in their deepest cores. "...let us go."
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Damn! Long chapter...phew...okay review please and tell your fav part...oh, btw...I LOVE LONG REVIEWS!! lol like REALLY long!! haha with that in mind...venture forth and review my ingenius *yeah right* work lol...latr!!!
Chapter 16: Tears of Horror
"KISHO!"
A limp thud met the father's terrified cry, the bluette lost of feeling and consciousness. His sapphire hair spilled disheveled over the grooves of the dense stone floor, his brow tense. Sweat caught in the nooks of his gnarled expression, pain riddling him from the surface world.
A presence skid lopsidedly for his side, breaking from speed to his knees. Kurama propped the boy against his chest, fear pulsing his blood in bitterly cold streaks through his upper neck. "Kisho! Kisho wake up! Kisho?! Kisho!"
Detective and Dragon sped to the Fox's side, worry smoldering their senses. The youngest of their nephews, slipping of color to an eerily solace pale. He jerked every so often against his father's chest, spurts of redness curdling in the depths of his slender throat. A single ruby streak broke from the curl of his lips and rolled all too smoothly for his chin.
"Kisho! Please Kisho, please! Wake up, son! Kisho! Please!" Kurama was caught in his cold hysterics, composure stripped from his reach as he nudged his son in gentle shakes. The bluette allowed slip a tender groan, and the Fox felt a shiver rack his boy's tense arms.
Emerald jerked to ruby stained thrashes against ivory platters. Kisho's wrists were torn and seeped of slim scarlet streaks, as was his ankles. His tail sprawled limp beside his leg, dead of motion. Kurama was almost himself to a state of unconsciousness. His expression stunned, limp of it's signature composure...his voice was utterly weak and eerily gentle as he spoke the first thought to strike his mind. "Must my whole family...suffer...for this...this beast...to satisfy himself...and his utter thirst...for pointless vengeance...?"
Silence wove spidery between the companions...Ryooki stood aloof, unable to see the pain his blood nephew was in...his brother's Kisho...and his own Taro...they were too much alike for him to bear.
"I will KILL him!" Kurama roared, stunning Dragon and Detective slightly in his rage as he cradled his son's fragile head. His arms fell corrupt to shivers as he tightened his defensive brace against the boy. "...he kidnaped my wife...and he DARES to drag my very CHILDREN into this meaningless fray...will ever he die?!"
Hiei's ruby eyes pressed shut, stabbing the cavern free of their brilliant luster. A pain beat at his heart. His daughter's dearest friend...now lay half-dead in the bowels of the demonic world.
"Ryooki...!" Kurama snarled, whipping sternly over his shoulder. Yusuke took hold to the unconscious bluette as the angered red-head jerked to a stand and faced his stifled brother. "This is your arrow, isn't it?!"
Silence met the rowdy accusation, Ryooki's corrosive emerald eyes stinging aside from the humanoid's equally corrosive ones. Kurama's glare burned intensely, unable to fathom how his own kin could attack another of their family. "Ryooki!"
The older of the fox-wolfs whipped his poisonous glare in lock to his younger brother's. "Ryooki the scent of that arrow remnant mirrors your fingers!" Kurama roared...almost in desperation.
"You accuse me of attacking your boy, Yoko?" Ryooki snorted, clicking his attention away. "Hardly...that boy pains me to look at him...let alone harm him."
"You son of a bitch he's only FIFTEEN!" Yusuke kicked against the floor, racing to Ryooki in his senseless rage. The Detective curled his tense grip into the demon's collar, shaking him firmly. "He's only fifteen!!"
Ryooki calmly shut his eyes, unable to absorb the anger swelling his brother's ki. Hiei examined the youth's injuries, sensing taints in his young blood. 'Dear God no...' he thought softly as he caught whiffs of demonic poison. "What type of archer allows the deadliest of his hoards to be violated?" the Dragon glared dangerously at the tired, guilt-ridden, yet guilt-free Ryooki.
"Could it be helped?! Hardly, you punks..." Ryooki countered with stunningly thin eyes, ripping the Detective's grip from his shirt front and shoving him straight for the angered Kurama. The humanoid kitsune instantly bound against Yusuke, jerking him from his fall and flashing an almost golden glare for his brother.
"How could it not be helped?! You guard your arrows with you very life, Ryooki!" the humanoid spat in vicious return. Ryooki's mane ruffled in his rage, unable to set the words and screams to his spiteful tongue.
"Dare you accuse my defense skills, LITTLE brother?! Grapko himself stripped me of my arrows!" Ryooki seethed bitterly in return, the conscious comrades pricking in realization. "He obviously supplied my most lethal of my hoards to his little bastard shadows..." he cursed himself for having ever left his beloved mate, his mother...and his dear little Taro.
Kisho pulsed violently against Hiei's chest, spitting a large clot of gel-like blood. Hiei pricked, awkwardly trying to soothe the youth awake. Shadows painted over Kisho's shut eyes, stabbing intimidation to his young face...a glaze of intimidation only known to strike Kurama under a veil of bangs.
Kurama whirled around in desperation to embrace the boy, dragging him from the Dragon's loose hold against his own front. His right hand cupped about the boy's scalp and held it tenderly against his chest, his left arm draped about Kisho's limp shoulders. "Ryooki...by what means can we heal him?!"
"He must bleed the poison tainting him," Ryooki sighed faintly, meeting intense gapes of rage and fear from all three of his companions.
"He's already half-dead from the blood loss!" Kurama countered in desperation, a cold sensation plaguing his neck as he jerked to gape over his shoulder. "...if he keeps bleeding he'll die!"
"I'm not the doctor you are, Yoko," Ryooki growled slowly. "...but the only means of saving your dear son is to bleed the poison from his circulation."
Kurama pricked, staring wide-eyed at his cold brother. He gently cradled the boy into Hiei's hold yet again, the Dragon binding to him defensively. The humanoid quickly stood, approaching his sibling with his lost senses.
"The poison has pulsed all through him! He cannot bleed it all out, he'll die, brother! Please, there must be another way!" Kurama collapsed to his knees, grasping hold to Ryooki's arms and pressing his forehead to his insensitive hand. The humanoid's eyes burned as tears threatened to break against the glorious emerald of his morbidly desperate glare. Ryooki blinked awkwardly at his emotional brother.
"...Yoko..." he breathed softly, realizing Kurama wasn't about to let any of his immediate kin to die before his father was annihilated. The older pulled away in thought, and threw a glance for the unconscious bluette. The question to break against his lips seemed more a tired statement. "...is his immune system stable...?"
Kurama pricked, jerking up to eye the fox-wolf in utter, pure hope. Hiei and the Detective did likewise, yearning for his lighter tone to signal a means to keep hoping for Kisho's recovery.
"Yes...yes he's the healthiest of his generation," Kurama nodded quickly, shifting to a stand beside his brother.
"Hmm..." the hybrid breathed reluctantly, examining the youth with a glare so unbearably intense, the Dragon felt Kisho stir with an icy sensation under his uncle's inspection. "...perhaps...he, could...survive it..."
Kurama pricked, jerking wide-eyed for the currently calmer of the siblings. "Survive what?!"
"Perhaps...if we were to sew his open wounds together...his own system would be able to kill the poison afflicting him...maybe even build him a life-long immunity against demonic poisons targeted for animal breeds..." Ryooki was deep within his thoughts, trying to calculate the chances.
"Why didn't you suggest that before, you dick-wad?!" Yusuke nearly lunged at the fox-wolf in blind rage, before Kurama bound at his arm, stifling the overgrown-punk's attack. Kurama threw an intensely narrow glare for his brother to take as stern note.
"Indeed, Ryooki...why did you wait?"
"If his immune system isn't strong enough, sewing the open wounds shut will cut off access to extra oxygen for his thrashed circulation and the poison will be trapped within him to kill him faster," Ryooki countered gravely. The Detective pricked in fear. The Dragon grunted in frustration. And the Father's eyes pressed shut in despair as he too calculated the chances of his son's survival.
Coming up with a solution a tenfold quicker than his demonic brother, Kurama breathed the almost sinful words through parched, saddened lips. "...he's only a 12% chance of survival against untimely death of poisoning...the amount to pump through him was connected directly to the vital organs..."
"...and with four of my arrows to pierce into his system," Ryooki murmured.
"...direct links to the heart and brain were tainted with heavy concentrations of poison..." Kurama sighed in grief. "...and despite his impeccable health..."
"...his waste of Spirit Energy in his reckless escape...narrows his chances from a might-have-been 30/70 ratio-"
"-to 12%."
Silence hazed them in haunting thickness. Hiei looked down at the youth with pain striking the glorious ruby of his glare. 'He's too young for a near-death experience...' the Dragon thought painfully, denial blocking him from admitting...that a near-death experience would be an utter miracle at this point.
This boy brought out the deepest of the former generation. He was the most original of any, and he knew it. He wasn't too alike with a parent to scare outsiders of the tight-knit families. He was the youngest...the most reckless...the newest to the violence to haunt his father and elders for their entire lives.
Only fifteen...funny for the Detective to have said so in such a way...he was but fourteen when he died...his life was cut short, severed in one second's fraction of blinding, skull-crushing pain. He drowned in blood that heartbeat's time, his nostrils sponged in redness beyond breathing. And yet, despite the pain he endured before even his fifteenth birthday...he still saw this boy, with both parents, a sister, and a group of friends to watch over him, as too young to die.
Kisho could always dig deeper into their souls and thoughts...unlike his dearest friends, Ryuu and Kane, he did so with his wolf-like senses, not an overdeveloped mind privileged with a third glare. He wasn't a genius like Ai...he wasn't intimidating like Yukio...and he wasn't violent like Gakilei.
He was Kisho, his own take on his own personality...his pain struck numbness to his father's tongue...and struck tears to his father's eyes. Any of those children could have brought Kurama to his knees in begging for their lives to be spared...but the only other one let Kisho to have made him done so with such intense desperation would have only been Ai.
Kurama slowly caught to Kisho's thrashed wrists, examining them with low, gentle eyes. His velvet touch had yet to compute in his son's limp mind, and he continued with mercury grace and silence. The skin bubbled from exposure, the blood crusted around the edges of the gashes. The cores of every wound pumped with scorching redness, heat pulsing within him in rabid strokes.
Kurama almost winced at the sight of his snagged, corrupted wrists. The humanoid slowly motioned for the Dragon to lay the boy's head against the ground and examine his ankles to check of their state.
Hiei did so reluctantly, setting the bluette's skull against the bushiest mass of his own sapphire mane. The Dragon then blurred for the youth's legs, and slowly went to examine them. Alike the wrists in damage, both corrupted with bubbling edges and intensely heated blood.
Yusuke watched on earnestly, unable to help by any means. Ryooki stood aloof, unable to approach this accursed boy...this human-demon youth to look so identical to Taro.
Kurama stroked a sprawled hand against the roughness of his bushy mane, and retracted a delicate root, thin with length enough to stitch the wounds from exposure. Along with it he snagged loose a needle-like thorn, thin enough to penetrate the ivory of his boy's skin without leaving too large of snags.
The humanoid paused, and with delicate eyes, looked over his son a last time before their potentially vain attempt to rescue him. "Kisho.........forgive me." He begged with a slow, calm voice, before stabbing against Kisho's flesh with a treaded needle.
'This root can absorb taints in circulatory systems for humans...' the father thought as he threaded the gaps in the skin together. '...perhaps a good amount of the poison in his system will be sponged out of him, at least enough so that he can kill off the rest of the poison that would still lock to his system...' Kurama's eyes slowly went grave as sincerity of the situation kicked in. '...but this hybrid plant-root I developed was designed for human use...Kisho's demonic as well as human...a 50/50 ratio exists it won't work, and his system denies it............Kisho...'
A slight wince caught to the boy's fragile face, crystalline beads pulsing to his temples. Kurama worked steadily, sensing stings to strike the youth with every pause the humanoid took in his work.
Hiei watched on with cold eyes, unable to fathom emotion to the surface. Yusuke leaned against a far wall, fear zapping his energy. Ryooki stood beyond sensing Kisho's flinches...but the heavy scent of the youth's mut-blood haunted his hybrid lungs.
Twenty minutes, and the four wounds were seamed shut. Blood stained the stitches, and caught in the grooves of Kurama's slender fingertips. The red-head examined the youth intently.
"Kurama?" Yusuke piped meekly.
"Too soon to tell..." Kurama countered...almost in a coarse, quiet bark. He watched over his son defensively, cursing himself for having ever left his family alone in the human world without his protection.
"My beloved Botan...my dear Kisho...will Ai fall victim next?...or will her training...be enough...?" the humanoid stated slowly, flavor in his tone distinct to only a few pitches.
Hiei and Ryooki closed their eyes, Ryooki of grief, and Hiei of respect.
Yusuke was the only one to counter his partner's lacking faith. "Kurama, Ai's gonna be fine...she can totally hold her own...in fact, I bet she's gonna try to help us."
Silence met Yusuke's dare of a statement. Fear ran the Detective's blood cold...he realized what he said all too late...and what scared him was Kurama's response...or lack thereof. Yusuke meekly stifled himself and his crude tongue, allowing Kurama to study the pained Kisho in silence.
Suddenly, a prick ran their spines, and the four jerked to face the newest opponent...male...Ryooki's height...a breed unlike any of mortal demons...Hiei grunted slightly, a snarl distorting his grit teeth.
The concentration of the Shadow's aura was stunningly dense, his strengths pure and true. He smirked through the darkness, the distinctions spraying visible with his cockiness...but cockiness well supported.
"I see you found the nuisance Reaper," the newest villain sneered, glancing corrosively at the unconscious bluette. Kurama, by now standing, dove in a defense stance in front of his motionless son, glaring emerald daggers in the Shadow's direction.
"You leave my son alone," Kurama's voice nearly matched that of his demon counterpart's. The threat curdled in the depths of his throat, and stung narrow glares to his eyes. The emerald glinted viciously, the rabid intensity of his wolf ancestry racking through.
"Oooh..." the Shadows smirked. "...Daddy Dearest is a tad defensive, isn't he?"
"Shut up!" Yusuke lunged whole-heartedly for the Shadow, lost of any scrap of composure his character could ever muster. "Just shut up, you asshole!"
He sped with a rabid intensity, and stabbed blow after blow for the Shadow. The Elite was obviously, for once, worthy of his title, melting against air as he smoothly avoided the Detective's every attempt. He jerked from side to side, ever smirking, ever stifling ridiculing laughter. Yusuke pounded harder with every passing second, never faltering, and ever stubborn.
The creature whipped in mad positions, sneering smugly. With his fist gnarled tense, he struck upside Yusuke's head, denting into the skull and racking the punk from consciousness. His eyes were stunned wide, taut in stricken pain. He fell limp, collapsing to the floor with a clatter of his limbs to stone. His hair fell disheveled over his tight expression, slapped in pain. The Detective lay, defenseless...unconscious.
Kurama and Hiei pricked instantly in sync to the creature's swipe at their partner. The Dragon blurred against air, stabbing his form in a sprint for his fallen comrade. He slit his leg into the air, about to link his heel to the villain's jaw...when the demon jerked away, and thrust for Hiei's midriff.
His taut knuckles stabbed against the Dragon's tense abs, Hiei growling in frustration. With a blur of his bandaged arms, he snapped the hilt of his trademark weapon against it's raven sheath, ripping it fresh and exposed. It's glossy pearl surface blinded the Shadow, who snarled a dreadful snort and tumbled for the darkness of a rock's crevice.
Hiei raced against time with his demonic sprint, blurring into the air with an insanity about his footing. The silver glare of his weapon slit the air, driving a mad glint of heinous platinum about the Shadow's blinded expression. Hiei stabbed for the ever vulnerable region between the eyes, thrusting with a spurt of ki to jerk all the more power in his attack.
Suddenly, he jerked back, a sense having swelled his Jagon dramatically. His spine curled, his midriff just grazed with slicing attempt. Kurama whipped to face Hiei's new attacker, a twin Shadow, and holder to a raven-pearled Katana. Hiei had barely escaped a true injury, and was left with a senseless graze against his flesh. A slight twinge of redness escaped the gap, sponging greedily to the fibers of his now torn shirt. The Dragon growled, thrusting his spine in a distorted curve as he jerked in a flip from the twin attackers.
"Ganging up on me? How honorable," he smirked sarcastically.
Silence as the duo lunged for the Dragon. He jerked and whipped in mad positions, his spine racked in such a way only seen by felines. "Kitsune! Get Kisho and the Detective out of here!"
Kurama paused, his tail ruffling sternly.
"Do it!!" Hiei barked, stifling a Katana swipe with one of his very own. He struck to the opponent's hilt with the blunt edge of his blade, the flash of brilliance in its surface soaking intensely in the single blink. The Dragon whipped his Katana in mad directions, each swipe to stifle and counter the armed Shadow's attempt. The twin clawed for the Dragon's stomach and heart, Hiei forced to defend twice and offend none.
Kurama flashed a last emerald saturated glare for his partner, struggling against two Hell's Shadows, and, with a silent eye-lock against Ryooki's tense leer, he hoisted Kisho against his shoulder, and prepared to drag Yusuke from his limp position against the floor. Kurama sprinted for the darker bowels of Mount Shiverku yet to be violated by his presence, two flaccid persons gripping to their last threads of life strung over his sturdy shoulders.
Ryooki's ears pinned against the crown of his head, and with a final snarl, he lunged against air for the Dragon's side, instantly stabbing a tense kick for the first Shadow's darkness-veiled jaw. Ryooki and Hiei subconsciously pressed their backs together as they prepared their opponents' coming attempt. Both smirked, both waited...both glared threatening daggers for their assigned demon. Though their partnership was temporary, and their fighting styles didn't mesh in such a way as Kurama and Hiei...they seemed fit to battle with only the other as their backup.
The duo Shadow's dove for the two smirking demons, a black blade piercing for Hiei's slender throat, and a set of claws for Ryooki's collarbone.
"Ready?" Ryooki smirked over his shoulder, his tail slapping against air and ruffling at the deepest core of the roots.
"Hn," Hiei sneered in return, his smirk gloriously deep and his eyes lustrously thin with flaming auras of their very own. The duo stood calm, composure about their limbs and eerily solace gleams about their eyes. Each attacker slit against time and air for their target, ripping the wind to shreds with severed fibers.
Hiei and Ryooki bowed low in stance, and stood ready for anything.
The armed of the twins lashed a stunningly well-placed slice of his Katana for the Dragon's shaggy spikes, and swore he felt Hiei's skin penetrate and skull fall corrupt under his attack. With a prick, he found his hope and expectation a lie...and with a blink...found the solace of death.
Hiei, blurred against reality with no more than jags of aura to show for his timely absence, was in midair in sync to his opponent...behind him. The blade of his Katana snagged against flesh, bone, and tissue, and with a jerk of the hilt, the corpse fell to a clatter against the stone floor.
Ryooki too handled the threat with simplicity and ease, sprawling his animal-like hands brisk and wide, and catching the attack in each broad palm. The creature's claws snapped on impact to the hybrid's flesh, Ryooki having pulsed his hands with extra throbs of intense ki. The Shadow merely pricked in fear, before Ryooki stifled the sensation short with a single blow against his sternum. The Shadow collapsed just as limp as Hiei's toy, and the two smirked in silence, each impressed with the other's ability.
Suddenly, a jerking sense caught to their noses, and the acute scent of roses burst against the dank caverns. The duo whipped for the aroma, and with even their dagger eyes, they just barely caught the sight of a defensive Kurama, lashing with all his zestful might against the dank air with a stunning whip, snagged with diamond-tip thorns.
A target hit, where the darkness couldn't cast a silhouette. A scream snapped against air with the precision and intensity of Kurama's lash, and with a jerk of his slender wrist, he ripped a triplet from hiding, into the only slightly distinction of light between his crevice to the exposed cavern. Frantic pulses pumped cold chills of frozen blood through his upper neck, the last thing in his sight being Kurama's ferociously merciless countenance.
The fox tore his victim through the air, the Elite snagged to his weapon by loose flesh. Fear bubbled in his eyes as he ripped against the air, jerked from his spot to the ceiling...and piercing straight for a Kurama pulsed with rabid rage.
Hidden in his recessive hand...lay a shard of bamboo, nestled comfortably to his smooth palm. Kurama's stance bowed low as the creature was dragged through midair straight for potential impact. The glorious whip surrounded him on all sides, the thorns grazing against his mane. A breath's distance was the triplet Shadow, and Kurama caught the final whiff of cold blood within his neck. The fox lunged his free arm in a jerk, pulsing a violent throb of ki into the bamboo shard snug to his hand.
Flesh tore, ripping in blood-boiling silence. Veins popped...tissue unraveled...and blood cracked loose, spraying into the air and playing in ribbons as it burned with exposure. Kurama's hands fell victim to stain, redness coursing in spurts to his knuckles and fingertips. The fox glared stolid daggers of emotionless, stark emerald, flicks of platinum snagging at their color.
Kurama jerked free, watching in disgust as the disgraceful corpse collapsed flaccid against the floor. With a spurt of ki, his aura concentrated for his hand, the energy sprayed the blood from his ivory flesh, and the redness staining his skin disintegrated against reality.
Hiei and Ryooki blinked awkwardly to their keen, cold-blooded partner...and smirked. Kurama's expression remained solid with sincerity. "I do wish to rescue my mate and sister before the day is out and they fall victim to insanity," he practically growled, flashing eyes unlike those of Suichi for his comrades...flecks of gold stained in their deepest cores. "...let us go."
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Damn! Long chapter...phew...okay review please and tell your fav part...oh, btw...I LOVE LONG REVIEWS!! lol like REALLY long!! haha with that in mind...venture forth and review my ingenius *yeah right* work lol...latr!!!