Disclaimer: Not mine!
Providence of the Divine
By: wolf demoness
Chapter Three
Shiori and Hiroshi were sitting by the fireside in the lodge talking with some fellow vacationers and sipping hot cocoa when a storm warning was announced on the lodge's loud speaker. Shiori looked up sharply at Hiroshi when she heard the warning asking all guests partaking in outdoor activities to return to the lodge. "Don't worry," Hiroshi told her wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I'm sure they'll be in soon," he assured her. Turning to the couple they'd been conversing with Hiroshi said, "Our sons are on the slopes this afternoon." This prompted a conversation on the children each of the couples had.
Shiori kept nervously glancing between the lodge's main door and the clock resting on the fireplace's mantle. After half an hour had passed and the warning had been sounded twice more she tugged on the sleeve of Hiroshi's jacket to get his attention. "I think we should go look for them," she said.
Hiroshi looked up at the clock and turned to his wife's worried face, "Okay. I'll go to the cabin. You search the lodge. Alright?" Shiori nodded and they said a hasty good-bye to the couple and stood to begin looking for the boys. However, before Shiori moved off, the woman caught her arm and asked if she could help. Gratefully, Shiori described the two boys and the woman and her husband began to help Shiori look for the boys in the lodge. After searching every room in the lodge, to no success, Shiori returned to the lobby to wait for her husband. The young couple who'd been helping her look for her sons came into the lobby a few moments after she arrived to tell her that they hadn't found anything. When Hiroshi came through the door he immediately understood that the boys weren't in the lodge with a single glance at his wife.
"They're not in the cabin?" the worried mother asked.
"No, and I asked the instructor if anyone was on the slopes before I came in," he said. "Shh, it's okay," he soothed his wife when tears began to leak down her cheeks. "We'll find them. I'm going to go talk to the lodge manager. Wait here, alright?" Shiori nodded and the young woman quickly drew her aside and found her a seat by the fire.
At the report of the missing boys the lodge staff quickly made an announcement on the loud speaker calling the boys by name and asking them to return to the lobby or phone the front desk. The announcement went to every cabin, was broadcast throughout the lodge, and on the slopes. When no response came after fifteen minutes another announcement went out asking everyone to report two boys matching the description Hiroshi gave the manager. After that Hiroshi turned pictures of the boys he'd had in his wallet over to the lodge staff and they fanned out, searching the lodge and grounds around as best they could through the storm. After an hour and a half of searching and night had fallen on the mountain, the lodge staff readied a search party. The storm had grounded any air searches they might have mounted, but they still sent out snowmobiles to search for the boys. Five hours after the boys had first been reported missing the local authorities were called in to help the staff search for the lost boys.
Kurama was pushing his brother as hard as he dared to get him off the mountain. The boy was trying his hardest, but between the raging storm and his injured ankle they couldn't walk very fast and so they weren't getting very far. Kurama himself was beginning to suffer from the cold. His human body couldn't cope with the frigid weather as well as either of his demon forms could. His fingers were numb in his gloves and he couldn't feel his feet anymore. He'd resorted to channeling youki into his limbs to ward off the numbing chill, but he couldn't risk forcing too much youki into his human flesh. His human body tolerated his demon energy, letting it swirl around in his blood and circle lazily around him, but to directly absorb the foreign energy into his very cells was dangerous and damaging to his human DNA. He began to long for the warmth the fur coat of his fox form afforded him. However uncomfortable the redhead was, his brother was much worse off, the young boy was beginning to stumble as the cold seeped into his limbs stealing their warmth and leaving the boy insensate. Kurama wasn't sure how far they were from the lodge. The snow was falling too thick and too fast for the kitsune to see very far and the wind was blowing wildly, scrambling any scents he might have followed. Kurama was growing frustrated. His human body was too weak, it dulled his senses to where, though they were well above average for a human, he couldn't find his way through the storm's rage. Inwardly the fox castigated himself for his stupidity in not noticing the storm earlier and taking this useless risk when he had his human brother with him. There was absolutely no excuse for a kitsune as old as he was to be caught in this sort of situation. His brother was counting on him! The boy was failing before the fox's very eyes and there was so little he could do about it. Inari-sama, Kurama mentally swore, he was being beaten by bad weather of all things! This was certainly an attack on his ego if he'd ever seen one before.
Determined to do everything he could to save his brother, the fox supported the human boy as he gently but firmly urged him to keep moving. Humans were, by and large, the most gentle creatures he'd ever come across. Kurama would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to this boy. After about an hour of walking Shuuichi began to become unresponsive to Kurama's occasional questions and gentle prompting for motion. The fox would help the dark haired boy up when he fell and hold him until he was sure the boy could walk on his own again. Eventually Shuuichi slipped. He fell face first down a small slide and slid about ten feet away from the kitsune and this time when he fell he didn't try to get back up. Kurama moved over to lift the boy out of the snow and was alarmed to find that he was falling asleep. "Shuuichi! Shuuichi!" he called shaking the boy awake. "You need to get up. You can't sleep right now!"
"'M tired," the boy whined groggily.
"I know. I know you're tired, but you need to stay awake for just a little while longer!" Kurama got the fragile human awake and semi alert. If he didn't get the boy to warm up soon Shuuichi was going to die on the mountain. There was nothing else he could do; he had to act fast. Kurama began to strip his clothes off. When he was done he pulled the boy's jacket and boots off and began to layer his clothing over the boy's. Carefully he channeled small portions of his energy into his brother's limbs to ward off the chill and bring sensation back to the frigid appendages. The moment he began the process of feeding the boy his youki, he felt the cold cutting through his body as if it were a knife; freezing trails of liquid cold fire blasted across his back and shoulders borne by the snow laden wind and winter chill. His human body was rapidly loosing warmth in the frigid weather. His hands were becoming stiff with cold, he was beginning to shiver, and he was loosing sensation in his skin, but the boy was becoming more alert with the added heat the kitsune's clothes and energy provided.
"No!" Shuuichi began to fight him, when he forced his jacket over the human boy's. "No! You need these! I'm fine! I'm fine!" the human boy yelled out, struggling and crying as his brother held him down and forced the rest of the clothes onto him.
"Listen to me, Shuuichi," Kurama started. "I need you to trust me. We're going to get out of here, but I need you to do what I say." He held the human boy's face in his hands and forced the boy to look into his eyes.
Hot tears froze on the boy's cheeks, "But you need them," he moaned pitifully. "You'll freeze to death. Take them back! Please?"
"Shuuichi, I swear on my honor and the lives of everyone I love that we are not going to die here!" Kurama shouted at the boy. The boy looked up at the redheaded youth, though salty tear tracks still marred his cheeks he managed to calmed himself some and, gathering his wits, he looked up at his brother. Shuuichi's dark brown eyes bored into his brother's emerald-green orbs. The young human has the most intense gaze Kurama had ever witnessed present on a human face. The irises of his eyes were so dark as to be nearly indistinguishable from his pupils, Shuuichi's stare was deep and riveting, an endless expansive void that took everything in and allowed nothing to escape. Such was the visage of the child as he found himself in the extremities of their earnest situation. Now the little boy turned his searing gaze on his brother and the uncommon level of comprehension that he witnessed in those eyes gave the concealed kitsune pause. Kurama smiled sadly, "Don't you trust me?" the redhead asked. Shuuichi nodded mutely. Kurama closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Everything he'd worked so hard to keep was about to be put in jeopardy. He let go of the boy and backed up a few paces.
Shuuichi watched as his brother's crouching form in the snow was swallowed up in what looked like a cloud of steam that tingled with flashes of blue light and crackling electricity. When the steam cleared the small boy found himself facing a rather large animal, which he vaguely recognized from drawings and pictures he'd seen as a fox. It had big golden yellow eyes, silvery fur, and was staring straight at him. Shuuichi's breath hitched and he scooted back a few paces in the snow. The fox stood and inched closer to the boy. Shuuichi was startled to realize that the fox had more than one tail, he was fairly sure that foxes only had one tail, not five! Shuuichi whimpered in fear when the animal advanced on him, but froze in his place, unwilling or unable to move for fear of the claws he could see sinking into the snow underneath the animal and the ivory fang tips he glimpsed when the fox momentarily shifted it's jaw.
Kurama, who was happy to be back in his warm fur coat, was desperately trying come up with some brilliant strategy that would get the cowering human to trust him that, most importantly, didn't involve another transformation. He'd found some months ago that he could shift back to his natural form fox form, though it required a great effort. However, his halfling humanoid form that he'd gained as a youth in the Makai was almost impossible to maintain for any length of time, if he could even attain it. It took so much youki to shift between any one of his forms. Yes, technically he had the power to take his humanoid form, but there was a barrier in place that he had to fight against every minute that he remained in that form. That barrier was Shuuichi Minamino, or rather, his human body. He was in human flesh and so when he tried to take that form that was half fox and half human in appearance he felt a pull in either direction. It was as if he was balancing on the tip of a needle and was being pulled downward in two directions. Eventually he'd fall into either of his low energy forms, the fox or the human. Once in either of these forms he could exist without too much effort, it was just the middle form that was nearly impossible to manifest and the shift between them that was so draining to his strength, physical and spiritual.
Kurama was now faced with a situation. He could not exist in this weather in his human form. If he attained his halfling form the energy drain he'd suffer would not allow him to remain conscious long enough to appreciably help Shuuichi. Therefore, he was relegated to his fox form, which had the unfortunate side effect of terrifying the human that he was trying to aid. He needed to calm the boy, but there were some problems with that; for one thing he didn't want to waste the energy with another transformation, or scare the boy further, or expose himself to that intense cold again. Deciding that his best chance lay in acting as pathetic as possible Kurama swallowed his pride, and thanked every deity he could think of that no one was around to see this, before he dropped to the ground in front of the terrified human and gave a low canine whine. Artfully he gave the boy his best imitation of what humans called "puppy dog eyes" and let his ears drop against his head. He whimpered and crawled forward on his belly until he was within a couple feet of Shuuichi's outstretched foot.
Shuuichi watched as the fox came to rest next to his right foot; he didn't dare move. Quietly the boy held himself absolutely still, fine tremors wracked his body and he was vaguely aware that he was begining to hyperventilate. For several long moments fox and boy remained motionless, each observing the other, trying to anticipate who should be the one to make the next move. When Shuuichi's breathing began to slow and his muscles lost some of their tension, Kurama slunk forward and nosed at the toe of his brother's boot, then he quickly backed off. When Shuuichi didn't respond, but continued observing him he crept forward and rested his head on the small human's shin. He huffed quietly, and whined in the back of his throat, flicking his ear to dislodge some accumulated snow. Patiently he waited until the human boy reached out to gently touch his muzzle with a gloved hand. The fox rubbed back on the proffered hand causing the boy to smile and begin lightly stroking the fur between his ears. "S…Shuu…ichi?" the human asked. Kurama yapped an affirmative and began to wag his tails. He pawed at the boy lightly, careful not to shred the human's clothes on his claws, and whined low in his throat. The kitsune kept the act up and slowly let the human acclimate to his presence until the boy began to pat his head and neck more firmly. Taking this as a cue Kurama darted in and rubbed his head against the boys cheek. He then pulled back and cocked his head to the side giving the boy his best imitation of that look that always made his mother "awww" when she saw a dog on the street do it. Kurama's artful performance was rewarded when Shuuichi started to giggle at the fox's antics.
Inwardly sighing in relief that the boy wasn't terrified of him, Kurama decided to get his brother moving toward the lodge. The young human only gave a slight jump when the fox leapt up and ran a few paces out into the snow. Kurama turned and yipped at the boy before he ran up and grabbed Shuuichi's jacket between his fangs. He tugged on the jacket to get the boy moving in the direction of the lodge. Now that he was in his natural form Kurama could smell the scent of fire and humans coming from the lodge below them. He could also tell that they were not as close to the lodge as he'd hoped and that they needed to turn slightly to the left in order to move toward where the scent was coming from. They'd been walking away from the lodge! But as long as they were going down the mountain they were still getting closer.
Kurama got the boy moving in the direction that he needed to be after some cajoling. Shuuichi walked alongside the fox, clutching at the fur on his back or his throat from time to time to balance himself as the descended the slippery terrain. Every now and then Kurama would pull the human boy to a halt and let him catch his breath and lean against the fox for comfort. They never stopped for long, Kurama still held out hope that he could get his brother off the mountain before night fell. However, that was beginning to look more and more like a fool's hope with every minute that passed. But they kept on anyway.
The boy and the fox walked until just after night had fallen. When it became appallingly apparent that they were not going to reach to lodge any time soon and that the storm was worsening Kurama decided to search for shelter. Even with Kurama's jacket and clothes layered over his own there was no way the human boy was going to survive the storm unscathed without shelter of some kind. "What are you doing?" Shuuichi asked tiredly when he noticed the fox sniffing the ground and diverging from the path they were following. Kurama was a bit miffed by that. How did Shuuichi expect him to answer? He couldn't exactly talk intelligibly like this. There were times he really wished he had Hiei's telepathy. But there again, he wouldn't ever be willing to have a jagan implanted to gain it so he chalked it up to wishful thinking and tried to forget about it.
Kurama whined at the boy and continued to sniff the ground. When he'd located a nice place he led the boy inside. Shuuichi was nervous and paused at the entrance to the cave Kurama'd found. "Are you sure?" he asked the fox eyeing the opening mistrustfully. The fox whined and gently grasped the sleeve of the boy's jacket in his fangs and gave it a light tug. "Okay," Shuuichi said. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and began to move toward the cave entrance. Once inside the cave Kurama found a dry, relatively clean spot, and lay down on the ground. It wasn't a bad cave; no rodents or other inhabitants, no filth. It wasn't warm, but it was out of the wind. It was better than other caves the fox had been forced to shelter in during his lifetime. Kurama briefly entertained the thought of starting a fire, but there wasn't any dry wood around here and he was too tired to manifest enough to start even a small fire. That and he'd have to be in his humanoid form to tend the fire. The fox directed his amber gaze to the shivering boy huddling in the cave's center. Shuuichi had been traumatized enough for one day. Kurama didn't want to frighten the boy anymore than he already had. Shuuichi crawled over to sit closer to where Kurama sat. The small human boy looked around inside the dark cave as best he could and hugged himself for warmth. "I'm scared," he murmured quietly. Kurama whimpered and moved to sit next to the human boy. He nuzzled Shuuichi's cheek with his muzzle to reassure him. The dark haired boy wrapped his arms around the fox and hugged him closely, burying his face in the fox's soft silver fur. After a while his deep even breaths let Kurama know that Shuuichi had fallen asleep on the cave floor. Kurama settled down next to him and covered the boy with his tails to keep him warm.
Yusuke was bored out of his mind. He was sitting on the sofa at home, after having pushed his mother's empty beer cans and liquor bottles out of the way, channel surfing. His mother was passed out behind the sofa, snoring loudly. Yusuke had rolled her onto her side to make sure that she was still alive in the morning and put a towel down to protect the carpeting, just in case, other than that he'd just turned up the volume on the TV to drown the sound of her snores out. There was nothing good on tonight. Yusuke was just about to shut the thing off and go to bed when a familiar face flashed across the screen. Curious as to what the fox had done to get himself on TV, he turned back to the channel he'd hurriedly flipped through. A newscaster was sitting in front of a screen that had pictures of Kurama and his stepbrother on either side. "…authorities continue to the search for the missing boys, but search efforts are hampered by gale force winds and heavy snow fall. Our prayers and thoughts are with the parents as we hope for the swift rescue of their children." The woman turned to the side and the screen changed behind her, "In other news, a storm warning is in effect for…" Yusuke turned the TV off and got up to call Koenma.
Half an hour later Yusuke found himself sitting in front of Koenma's desk watching on his viewing screen as a silver demon fox watched over the sleep of a heavily bundled human child. "Now that's something I never thought I'd see," Yusuke said.
"Yes, I quite agree," Koenma said.
"Do you want me to go get them Koenma, sir?" Botan asked.
Koenma stared at the screen for a moment more before pushing his chair back from his oversized desk and beginning to pace around the room. "No."
"No!" Botan screamed. "You can't seriously want to leave Kurama out there and what about the boy?"
"Kurama seems to have things well in hand. I'll monitor the situation from here and dispatch you if there's any need."
"Koenma," Yusuke sneered, "I think this qualifies as trouble. His family's gonna find out! You know Kurama doesn't want that."
"Actually if they did find out it might expedite some of that paperwork father's been complaining about," Koenma mused to himself.
Yusuke growled. How could the godling be thinking of paperwork at a time like this? Not to mention that Yusuke was especially leery when his teammate and his teammate's family were included in paperwork the prince of death was handling, but he'd deal with that later, if he had to, right now Kurama was in trouble. He needed help! But Yusuke was curious as to what the godling had up his sleeve. "What paperwork?"
"Ah! Hahahaha." Koenma laughed nervously. "Nothing! It's nothing. Why don't you go home, Yusuke?" the little god began to push the tantei out of the room. "Botan and I will take care of things."
"Koenma!" the young man protested as he was pushed out of the door.
"'Night, Yusuke! Get some sleep!" Koenma said as he slammed the door in the boy's face. Yusuke, never one to take a hint, pounded on the door until some onis worked up the courage to lead him away.
It was early in the morning when Kurama heard snowmobiles outside the cave. Quickly he nosed Shuuichi awake and set about pushing the boy toward the search team. When he got the groggy boy out into the line of sight of the rescue party he hid himself behind a snowdrift. Sure enough the rescue party ran toward the boy as soon as they'd spotted him. The humans pulled Shuuichi into the snowmobile and started the engine. Kurama heard the boy protest, "Wait. My brother, he's still out here. We can't leave without him." The boy's concern and loyalty touched the fox, especially since he now knew his brother wasn't exactly human, but Shuuichi couldn't have raised the issue at a worse time. Kurama was tired, he couldn't transform like this, Koenma certainly wouldn't be happy if a silver youko showed up on the six o'clock news and even if he could transform back into his human form how was he supposed to explain how he hadn't gotten hypothermia and died sans clothing? He had to hide from the search party, moving quickly he found a small patch of trees and settled behind them where he could keep an eye on Shuuichi, but stay away from his would be rescuers.
The humans questioned the boy and conducted a brief search of the area. When they found nothing they radioed another unit giving them the coordinates they were at before racing Shuuichi down the mountain. Kurama ran as quickly as he could, shadowing the snowmobile while making sure to stay out of eyesight. He was already tired from the walk, the transformation, and staying up all night guarding Shuuichi, the run took a lot out of him. He nearly collapsed in relief when he saw the faux timber façade of the lodge in the distance. Kurama watched, as his brother was loaded into a waiting ambulance at the lodge. He saw his mother and stepfather run into the ambulance and go with the boy to the hospital. Kurama waited until the crowd had cleared and crept to their cabin. Too tired to transform and reach up to turn the doorknob, Kurama grew a small weed that was clinging to life in the frozen ground by the door up into the keyhole, springing the lock and opening the door all in one smooth motion. The fox gave a toothy grin at the small trick he hadn't used in decades. Yawning widely, he vigorously shook the snow from his fur before he nosed the door open and slunk inside. He then recalled the plant, shrinking it to its original size, well maybe leaving it just a bit healthier, it had helped him after all, before he pawed the door shut and padded to his bed. Utterly exhausted and assuming that his parents would stay at the hospital for at least a few hours Kurama collapsed onto his bed and curled into a ball, wrapping his tails around himself before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Shortly after the kitsune had fallen asleep, Botan appeared in the room. Smiling at the sleeping fox, the blue haired girl walked over to the edge of the bed. Gently she prodded the kitsune's ear with her index finger to see if she could wake the demon. Kurama's ear flicked back and he shifted his tails so that one covered his face. Botan giggled at the drowsy fox, she passed her hands lightly over his body, barely grazing her fingertips through his fur, checking for injuries. The sleeping kitsune yawned and a pair of tails uncoiled from around his haunches and thumped against the bed a time or two before stilling. Botan covered a giggle with a free hand. Kurama was so sweet when he was asleep, she thought, he'd be so embarrassed if he could see this. Still smiling she prized his legs out from under him and pressed a finger to the pads of his paws to heal a few small cuts and abrasions before stroking his fur lovingly and departing to report that Kurama was safe and healthy to Koenma. They had a big job to do after that. They had to get a fake news report out saying that the boys had been found and erase the memories of everyone who was still looking for the kitsune. It would be time consuming, but they'd done it before and humans were easily pacified. So long as the danger was over they didn't really care how the situation was resolved anyway.
A/N:
1) Hi everyone! I thought I'd start by explaining the trouble Kurama has with maintaining his humanoid demon form. This is how I pictured it. Have you ever seen a free energy diagram of a chemical reaction, if not just pick up a chemistry book. They look like little hills that trace the energy needed to go from the reactant to the product side, with the hill's peak being a high-energy intermediate form. Anyway, the energy of activation is the energy needed to get to the peak, the high-energy intermediate form. Once in the intermediate form the reaction falls back down the hill to become the product or goes back to being the reactant depending on the reaction. The intermediate form is highly unstable and cannot be maintained for extended periods of time.
Complicated, huh? Well let's see if we can't simplify it any. Try to think of the intermediate form as Kurama's humanoid demon form, and the energy of activation as the amount of youki needed to get to that form. So let's say Kurama is in his human form. He puts a lot of youki into the transformation and makes it to his humanoid demon form. That form is really unstable so he "falls" back down the energy hill transforming into either his low energy human or fox form. When he goes from either of his low energy forms, human to fox or vice versa, he just has to push enough youki into it to get over the hill, then he can let himself "fall" into his low energy form. The problem he has is freezing himself at the high energy intermediate form, the top of the energy hill. He has to keep pumping tremendous amounts of energy into the transformation to stay in his humanoid fox form. Whereas if he wanted to get to either of his low energy forms he could let himself fall into the form after one initial push which gets him over the "hill." Well that's what I was thinking of when I made that part up anyway. Yatta!!! All those chem classes finally paid off!