Inugurlz: Thank you very much, and I'm glad I haven't confused you. As for the odd mix of serious/humor, it's why I left the genre as general. It gets too mixed up to be classified. :)

L33tnoran3ko: They both call each other Mirror because they are alike in almost everything--the exceptions including gender and primary element. And the story will get to Yusuke in about three/four chapters, I think. Just be patient. :)

Gourry-Gabriev610: 'proportions' ;P

Winter's Rose, Chapter Four

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Hiei left not too long after that, claiming that the growing heat between Yoko and I was making him itch and he needed to leave before he turned as' sickeningly domestic' as we seemed to have done. I still didn't quite understand what was happening to the soul of--if not ice; then very cold water--that I had been trying to build for the past century or two since Hiei had left the first time. It seemed to have disappeared, and I found myself beginning to fall in love with the arrogant and strangely gentle thief that had managed to steal his way past my inner walls to my heart. In the first year alone in our new relationship, I went to more bar-crawls and bacchanals than I had gone to in my entire life, and I was actually enjoying myself. I even gave Yoko my actual name about six months after I bit him, and until the very last day we were together he wore the scar I left like a promise ring and called me aisuhana as his pet name for me. But I get ahead of myself in my old age. Heh. Old age. Does such a thing truly occur to the demon-blooded? Old as I am, I still look no older than a very young sixteen, and I have no idea how Hiei looks nowadays. The only thing that has really changed is my attitude towards existence.

Back in my younger days--don't I sound like a granny at the fireplace!--I couldn't give a flip for anyone else besides Hiei, really. But as I grew older, and I like to think wiser, I stopped being such a little selfish brat and started paying attention. I suppose one could say that I grew a conscience. My targets for thievery grew more picky, and started to focus on those who made a profit on the poor or those unable to defend themselves. Women. Children. The hopeless causes like Mizu--I mean, Merc Guild Master Mizu. I became their defender while still indulging in my hobby and livelihood of thieving.

And after two centuries, after I had moved from Pridesholt that had once been Baggit's Town and into my own complex of caves in the lair of Yoko Kurama, I suppose that's what got me caught. I don't have too many memories myself of what happened at that time--I've lifted from the minds of Koenma and Yoko the events from their points of view to supplement what I remember. Though if you ever meet either of them don't mention this little detail; they don't know I read their minds--but what I do remember I did not like in the least.

It happened when I was in a vault belonging to a particularly powerful ambassador of Koenma, one that I knew was corrupt and unchecked. I was doing it for a family not far from the Lair, an honest, dirt-poor family that had chosen against all reason to farm out in the middle of nowhere. What made me want to help them was the fact that they were succeeding at fighting back the carnivorous plants, the dangerous feral demons, and the power-sharks that would inevitably gather around such a weak morsel, carving out a decent sized territory to claim as their own under the protection of my Thief King. That, and the protective black-berry bushes he and I grew around the boundaries of the farm actually liked them--they didn't try to hack away troublesome canes, they asked one of the other foxes or us to reason with it; they also tended the canes and turned their berries into some of the best desserts I had ever tasted. Damned sweet-tooth.

But they were slowly going broke buying new tools to replace worn or broken ones and new seeds to replace the ones that the pests of this world kept eating. So I had decided, in secret, to raid this vault and steal a few things to help pay for expenses in hopes that this rare glimmer of decency wouldn't have to leave. And that is where I made my mistake.

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The silence of a warm summer's night is broken by the klaxons of alarms screaming that someone is here that should not be, bringing the compound to sudden life and flooding the area with brilliant lights and rei detectors.

A blur of motion streaks past the authorities and guardsmen swarming the vault of one Ambassador Sokkenai, only to be tackled by several and wrestled bodily to the ground, resolving into one slender female dressed in dark grays with pure-white hair accented by two wine-colored streaks. Kicking, biting, and shrewd use of several ice weapons gains her temporary freedom, but that is abruptly curtailed by the arrival of several more strong fighters and one lone human that practically shouts 'professional' without saying a word.

It is the human that corners her and brings her struggling to the ground after a ferocious battle, locking power-dampening cuffs around her wrists and ankles, a special collar around her neck. When the last is snapped in place, she lets out one heart-rending howl and collapses, knocked out by the sudden sealing of her energy and powers.

"Kami's sake," the human man pants as he slings her over his shoulder with care and staggers towards the main police force, "if I ever have to fight this girl again Koenma's gonna get a piece of my mind. Little wildcat!"

/Fox,/ a voice whispers at the edge of his thoughts. /Not just a cat, a fox./

"Awake already, eh, Whiteout? You really are a piece of work. Didn't think I'd catch you in a million years."

/First time for everything, I suppose,/ is the weak reply, and the voice falls silent until the human stands in front of a teenager with the letters 'Jr' on his forehead and a blue binky in his mouth.

Grinning triumphantly, the man turns so that the teen can get a good look at the face of the captive. "Koenma-sama, I'd like to present the Whiteout, grand-master thief and burglar extraordinare. Whiteout, this is Koenma-sama, Prince and pro-tem Ruler of the Spirit World and this part of the Demon World."

"I know who he is, idiot," she mumbles, pulling away as best she can when Koenma reaches to tilt her chin up. "And he can go fuck off for all I care."

"Pretty confident for someone who can't use her rei or weapons," Koenma says softly, a trace of steel beneath the silk of his voice. Her reply to that? A glob of mucus on his shiny shoes and a raucous bark of laughter.

"One way or another, toddler, you aren't keeping me! I'll freeze the entire world for a decade before you can execute me, I swear it." Sighing, Koenma gestures and the man walks off, making sure to bounce particularly hard with every step. With a bloodthirsty grin she times the bounces and waits for the correct angle and moment to present themselves. Which of course, they do.

The Spirit Detective howls in pain when her sharp fangs connect with his side and rip away a piece of fabric and his hide, causing him to drop her in order to clap both hands to his brand-new injury. Spitting out the wad of flesh and cloth, Aislin grins with his blood running down her chin and takes off a second time, aiming for the dark sanctuary of the forest just beyond the compound. Bouncing against her hip is a bulging pouch that would be jingling if is wasn't so full, a present she fully intends to get to its new owners.

"Crap! Even without powers she's fast as an oiled mink!" the Spirit Detective curses as he takes off in pursuit, praying that he doesn't lose her in the darkness.

"What's the matter, Detective?" she calls mockingly from many yards ahead, "Can't keep up with your quarry?"

"Get back here, Whiteout!"

"Several pairs of words, detective: you suck, fuck off, and fuck you! And my personal favorite: Bite me!"

I'd probably be poisoned if I bit you, snake-eater, the man thinks angrily as he stretches his resources to the limit just to keep the fleet woman ahead of him in sight. With all the grace of a gymnast she bounds from tree to tree, laughing occasionally at his comparative clumsiness in the darkness beneath the trees. She leaps over a thick hedge of high blackberry canes, the tiring man never noticing the heavy pouch being dropped into the deepest part of the brambles, too busy just trying to keep up.

She laughs as she leaps over the other boundary hedge, only to smack into what feels like several feet of solid steel. "Owww…Who would put a damn tank in the middle of…" She breaks off and looks up at several feet of very tired, very pissed Spirit Detective, his gold aura sparking red and wrapping him in a shroud of light. "Well, I'll be damned," she says in a literal tone of voice as his fist plummets onto her skull.

====

Several hours later, Koenma wearily strides up to the newly-bandaged Spirit Detective standing guard outside a very heavy door. "Any luck?" he asks quietly, aware that even through the metal and the various power-muffling devices and restraints the prisoner beyond could probably hear them.

"She won't say a damn word about anything except a list of our various dubious pedigrees, Koenma-sama. I know I didn't scramble her brains with that last blow; I've hit eggs harder than that and they didn't crack." A muffled shout is barely heard on this side of the door, and the child-ruler--in his actual form that, any way you look at, is babyish--cocks his head to one side in query.

"Any idea what that was?" The black-haired man rubs his face with one hand in exhaustion.

"Sir, if it's what I think it is, you don't want to know." The voice turns singsong, goes on for a couple of minutes, and then stops. Then the banging begins. Very heavy banging, as of feet getting embedded into rock wall. The singsong resumes, keeping time by the bangs, and an ogre with blue skin and a tiger-print loincloth sprints up with a near panicked expression.

"Koenma, sir! She's actually stressing the restraints to their limit! I don't know how much longer we can hold her, sir!"

"Damn it all, this facility is supposed to be equipped with restraints capable of holding a double-S-Class demon! One A-class koorime shouldn't be this much trouble!" A serious of loud and grim-sounding cracks and explosions can be heard from the other side of the wall, the faint sound of fabric ripping, and then a moment or two of alarmed silence.

Even through the wall and reinforced titanium door the captive's cursing is audible, at least at first. Koenma puzzles at to why the swearing would be getting weaker, and then remembers one very important piece of information his recently-installed information-network had given him. He whirls to the Detective and pins him with a dangerous look.

"What temperature is that room set at?"

"I don't know," the man replied in startlement, "somewhere around sixty degrees?" Koenma goes pale and the binky threatens to drop from nerveless lips.

"For heaven's sake get her out of there! That temperature will kill her!"

====

It is nearly a week later by the time Koenma can return to the case of Aislin Moors, aka Whiteout, and he is horrified by what he encounters when he enters the iced-down cell where she had been under questioning. Four guardsmen lie dead in various positions, nary a scratch on them, thin trickles of blood leaking from their ears, eyes wide in shock at the suddenness of their collective demise. Huddled in one corner, hissing and spitting like a cornered cat--or fox--is a severely battered koorime female with once snow-white hair now begrimed and filthy.

The child-ruler claps his hands over his ears at the furious sounds the female makes, a new range of subsonics threatening to burst his eardrums and leave him to the same fate as these four fools. Backing quickly from the cell, he poofs into teenage form and latches onto a passing ogre with a look of fury on his face.

"Who gave the authorization for the use of torturing methods on Moors?" he demands in a cold, cold voice devoid of anything but that chilly bite. The ogre, properly terrified at the uncharacteristic display of fury, quickly babbles something about a courier arriving yesterday with revised orders covering the interrogation of one Aislin Moors.

"She was supposed to be interrogated, not inqusitioned!" Koenma yells at the tops of his lungs. "We now have an unstable A-class apparition with newly discovered subharmonics manipulation cowering like a whipped dog in that cell with four of my men dead! I want to know who gave those orders and why, and I want to know yesterday! Understand me??"

"Yes, sir, Koenma, sir!!" the ogre yelps, saluting and sprinting off down the hallway. Slumping against the door, Koenma peers through the special acrylic viewplate at the wild creature hesitantly beginning to investigate the still bodies of her new cellmates with a proprietary air.

====

"Here, kitty kitty," Koenma's best psychic, the wind-apparition named Shikyo, coos to the frightened and over-stressed ball of puffed white fluff that is all that is visible of the abused koorime. A rising growl emanates from beneath the table, her current hiding place, a trace of her newly discovered subharmonics ability making that growl much more effective as a deterrent that it would normally be.

It is two hours after Koenma's discovery of the unauthorized abuse of Aislin, and those two hours have been spent in trying to calm her down enough to possibly tranquilize her and transport her to a rehabilitation facility. No dice. No matter how many soothing mind-waves Shikyo sends at Aislin, every overture of friendship has been rejected with an accompaniment of voice or teeth. The Spirit Detective, Yuuki, is currently getting his various new bite marks treated down at the hospital wing.

"Lord Koenma, none of my abilities seem to work on the koorime woman," Shikyo says softly, all of her attention trained on the pale scraped hand reaching hesitantly towards a plate of cooked and cooled meat chunks set just beyond Aislin's range of motion that would keep her under the low table. The few people in the room hold their breaths when that white head, hair still fluffed but not so much as before, pops into view, the reaching hand falling just short of her desired prize. "Her mind is completely blank of anything but the most base of instincts."

Startled, wide turquoise eyes regard them over the meat bits, and Aislin catches sight of Koenma. Instantly she goes from frightened feline to territorial wolf, baring her teeth over her prize and once more beginning to growl.

"Mine!" she snarls in a voice hoarse from screaming. "Mine!"

"Yours," the child-ruler agrees calmly. "All yours."

"Mine?" she says again experimentally, looking over at the other tidbits and toys that had been offered as possible lures and which now littered the floor around the table. The painful sound waves are nearly absent in her one spoken word, but no one mistakes the danger of the rest of her. Even with the numerous restraints that she hadn't been able to chew off, it didn't mean that she wouldn't be able to use some of her abilities. "Mine."

"Yours." More confidently, she slips up to Koenma on all fours and sticks her face directly in front of his, studying him carefully with both eyes and nose, which wrinkles after a few quick sniffs.

"Pah! Not mine!" And she stalks back over to the meat bits and hauls it back under the table.

"That was interesting," Koenma observes shakily. "Now what, Shikyo?"

===

She waits until they're gone before emerging once more from the makeshift den she'd made underneath the thing they call a 'table', a predatory grin spreading across her bruised face and baring long canines. In all their excitement over trapping her, they'd forgotten to lock the door--she'd never heard the knob-thing click. It is a matter of seconds to finish chewing off the rest of the weird furs they'd strapped on her somehow, ignoring the buckles and straps that stink of danger when she sniffs at them and wriggling free of the whole lot. A few luxurious stretches and she pads on her back legs to the door, listening with all her might to whatever lies beyond. Nothing. Pure silence.

That grin gets a little bigger and she reaches for the knob, batting at it carefully to make it turn like she'd seen them make it. A faint click and the door swings open, the clever ice-fox slipping through the thin opening and into the hallway beyond.

She darts back inside a second later, shivering and curling her lip in a silent snarl, regarding the door with utter disgust. It's so cold beyond that door that she wouldn't survive for more than a few minutes, and what's left of her higher thought processes wonders at how her captors can walk so freely beyond. Meh. Now that the odd furs are gone, she can taste her own strength and that gives her an idea. If her own skin isn't enough to protect her from the cold, she'd just have to grow her own fur. Besides, this form is nearly useless for sneaking around in, anyway--too many hurts to move properly as she knows it can.

A few seconds later she regards her new body in pleasure, flicking her numerous tails and letting new muscles roll under heavy white fur. She pricks her rounded ears towards the door again and sniffs, hearing and smelling no one there or coming, and slips out again in silence.

Strolling down the hallway with the appearance of having somewhere very important to go to, the oversized Arctic fox keeps her eyes, ears, and nose scanning for trouble or danger. The sounds of footsteps reaches her and she leaps upwards, claws extended. Koenma and several ogres pass beneath her, deep in discussion and never noticing the large fox clinging like a spider to the ceiling. Deciding that the ceiling makes a perfectly good walkway, she continues traveling, always following the fresher currents of air passing through the long corridors towards the exit.

The klaxon of alarms going off right next to her ear makes her jolt and flatten herself to the ceiling, fur bushed out and teeth bared. Realizing that the alpha-kit must've noticed her no longer in her lair, she drops to the ground and takes off in a dead run. Ogres shout and drop papers on top of her when she eels past them in her sprint, people making grabs for her find themselves with bloody holes in their hides to deter them from following in pursuit, and the wisest choose to just get out of her way.

A man blocks her path when she finally locates an exit door, arms crossed over his chest and white as her own fur from bandages. Scowling, he tells the running fox, "Forget it, Whiteout. You ain't gettin' past me."

With a fierce gape-grin she proves him wrong, launching herself at such speed that her feet impact his chest before he has a chance to react and guard, using the momentum to bounce off and onto the door at full speed. With a scream of abuse, the hinges snap and she bolts for the freedom beyond, howling gleefully when she looks over her shoulder to find the trapper sprawled on the ground and coughing to get the breath back into his lungs.

Posing artfully on a firm cloud-hill, she grins back at the startled male before racing down the other side, heading for the scent of water and complete escape.

Less than fifteen minutes later she stops dead in her tracks, staring in dismay at the very long drop to the landscape below. Memories surface in her mind and she tilts her head to capture them better. This is the escarpment for the Spirit World Palace, they tell her. Below is the main part of Spirit World and the River Styx, which is heavily guarded because of all the spirits that gather there on the far bank.

Well, the fox thinks to herself, then I'm just going to have to make sure I don't go there. Remembering her old shape, another thought comes to mind, this one regarding something she can do to get down without killing herself. Admitting that she is not full-blooded fox is her first step, and the second is calling on a specific thread of her varied bloodline.

The sounds of pursuit get louder and stop suddenly, making her turn her head to look back. Several ogres, the trapper, and the alpha-kit stand there, gaping at her new appearance.

"Bye-bye," she tells them coldly, and leaps off the edge. Ice forms a slide beneath her feet, helping her to gain speed outwards from the cliff. An involuntary yowl of exhilaration breaks from her lungs at the strength of the wind rushing past her, and then the feeling of freefall when the ice ends. After savoring the feeling for a second or two more, the massive white wings sprouting from her shoulders and armored in heavy scales snap open, catching their own winds and carrying her safely above the possibly dangerous terrain and the blue ribbon of the Styx far, far below. Ahead of her gleams a portal, the energy signatures labeling it as a path for the Death-vixens the alpha-kit has working for him, and one to the Demon World at that. How terribly convenient, Aislin thinks as she flies through.

===

Yoko collapses into a tavern-booth in a town nearly fifty miles north from his thieves'-lair, tired, sore, and deathly afraid for his beloved. Kuronue had come in nearly two months ago, full of reports on Aislin's capture by Koenma and his latest Spirit Detective, the human Yuuki Mayami. His informants had then told him a week later that a kitsune had been seen fleeing from the child-king's palace prisons, missing several lines of fur over her right shoulder.

That last bit of information, and the fact that the subspecies of the kitsune had been Arctic fox, told him exactly who that escapee had been. Aislin has a small complex scar on her right shoulderblade, something he has been in the position to know, that was from the impact of a trap they'd accidentally sprung during a heist. If she hadn't pushed him out of the way, the thin wires would have taken his head instead of a few pieces of her shoulder and heavy coat. As it was, a starburst-like scar had been carved into her skin and stayed there.

The fact that she had escaped had assuaged some of his worry, but not much of it. For Aislin to use an alternate form, even one so natural as her fox-form, meant that she had to have been in serious pain and unable to move much in her real body. The fact that she hadn't sent any kind of word to him in all this time was the reason he had gone looking for her.

And so, here he sits, waiting for some bit of useful information to reach his questing ears while he sips at the half-decent brew the rather cute waitress had served him. He'd tracked some rumors to this general area, far from his territory, that told of a new demon that had taken up residence by a river near here. No real value, except that the rumors had said it was some kind of ice demon. And ice demon could equal Aislin.

As the sun sets his patience--what's left of it after two months of waiting--is rewarded by two gossiping demons in the next booth over.

"Hey, didja hear 'bout that new demon tha's taken o'er Grip's ol' territory?" the blood demon asks his buddy, a pallid darkness demon, poking him roughly in the shoulder.

"Who ain't?" comes the rough reply. "I ain't just heerd abou' it, I seen it."

"Really?" the blood demon says excitedly. "Was it as deadly as they say it is?"

"Dunno," the darkness demon replies. "I just saw it drinkin' some water at the river. Rumors ain't lying--that hasta be the biggest white fox I ever seen."

"Huh." The blood demon sits back and takes a swig of his drink. "Scuttlebutt says this one's mighty picky about who it goes after. My cousin's sister walked right on through without so much as seein' it, but that liddle bandit-gang got pretty chewed up when they tried passin' through. That teacher for the kids got 'em lost on a field-trip last week, and keeps tellin' how it just showed up and led 'em out to the road. Guess it's pretty…wha's the word I'm lookin' fer? Like those ol' human knights, yanno?"

"Chivalrous," Yoko tells them, getting to his feet and laying a copper down on the table to pay for his ale. The blood demon nods enthusiastically.

"Yah, yah, tha's it! Chivalrous! Real chivalrous, this new demon is." The thief-king simply leans against the divider to his booth and theirs and gives them a patient smile, speaking to the darkness demon quite politely.

"Where did you say you saw the kitsune again?" The demon shrugs and gestures towards the north-east.

"Saw 'em 'bout ten miles that-away, along the river. Careful, though. It ain't got the calmest of tempers."

"If it's who I hope it is, I know very well what her temper is like," Yoko mutters to himself as he nods his thanks and leaves. "Aislin, what are you doing?"

Ten miles later, he still doesn't have his answer, and all the traveling and worry is taking its toll. There's no sign of the rumored demon, not so much as a whiff, and he is utterly exhausted. The last time he'd gotten more than two hours sleep was the night she'd disappeared and he kept forgetting to eat despite having had Kuronue nagging at him every five minutes when he'd been at home. So, heart-sick, weak, and worn he stumbles over to a nearby tree, heaves himself onto a solid branch, and wraps the memory of Aislin around him as oblivion claims him completely.

He wakes up three hours later according to the moon, the scream that woke him still tingling along his spine. Another scream, this one male and even more terrified than the first, echoes across the forest. Somewhat recharged, Yoko swings from his branch and takes off running towards the sound. Two bramble-thickets and a strangle-vine later he bursts into a clearing and stares.

A female cat demon lies huddled on the ground, astonishment and fear making her tail-fur fluff on end while a short distance away a ball of white fur and bloody flesh roils in close combat. Angry snarls nearly drown out the terrified shrieks of a male in extreme pain, and it becomes clear that the fight is less than combat and more along the lines of a male trying to escape and not being allowed.

"Are you all right?" Yoko asks the neko-girl quietly, coming up alongside her and crouching down. Startled emerald eyes jerk to look at him, but relax when he offers her no violence.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm not so sure about my would-be lover, though."

"Was it a mutual tryst?"

"Hell, no," the cat-girl snaps. "I was walking home and he jumped me!"

"Ah. That explains that." No need to clarify just what he means. "Think he's had enough?"

"Prob'ly. First thing she did was bite his piece off."

"Vindictive little vixen, yes, she is," Yoko agrees, and stands up while putting his fingers to his mouth. One good, piercing whistle stops the fight, the oversized Arctic Fox regarding him with surprised turquoise eyes while the mauled wolf demon makes good his escape, running off with his tail literally between his legs. Before Yoko can do anything else the kitsune vanishes, and a moment later sixty pounds of living stole plops onto his shoulders and dangles legs on either side of his neck.

"Mine," a familiar voice, rusty with disuse, purrs in his ear. Eight tails lazily brush against his arm, and a cool tongue happily swipes against his cheek.

"I was praying it was you, Aislin. Where the hell have you been?" Yoko demands, responding to the kiss by stroking the snowy paw draped down his front.

"Here. My territory?" Her uncertainty turns the statement to a question, and he can feel her pressing herself against him even further. "Not mad? Please?"

"Aisuhana, why would I be mad? I was just worried, that's all. You've been gone for a while." He pats the paw gently before looking over at the relieved cat-girl. "Sorry, but I'm going to be taking your defender back home, if she lets me. I've got a whole band of thieves worrying about how many pieces she might be in."

"Thank you very much for saving me, honored kitsune," the girl replies, bowing deeply before trotting off, presumably in the direction of home. The silver fox heaves a huge sigh of relief before reaching up and pulling the calmed Aislin off and then setting her gently down.

"Aislin, are you okay?"

"Fine. No hurts." Concern furrows the male kitsune's forehead and he crouches down to be on eyelevel.

"Aislin, I want you to say a full, complete sentence telling me exactly how you got here." She fidgets before admitting, "Can't." "Why not?"

"Forgot words."

"How did you get like this, koishii?"

" Sokkenai."

"Sokkenai did this to you?"

"Gave orders. Alpha-kit not know. Got mad when found me." Alpha-kit? Oh, Koenma.

"What did those orders say?"

A shrug. "Alpha-kit told ogre, 'interrogation, not inquisition'." Yoko feels his blood go cold.

"Aislin, did they torture you?" A growl, layered with a range of subsonic tones, is his answer. Wincing, he claps his hands over his ears and takes several very fast stumbling steps backwards. Instantly the growl stops and a cool body presses against his leg, vibrating with remorse.

"Sorry."

"Aislin, change back. I can't do what I want to do with you in that form."

"Forgot how." Taking a deep breath to keep himself from screaming in frustration, he again crouches down.

"You can feel your power?"

She looks thoughtful and then pleased with herself. "Power? Yes, power."

"Reach for it, and give it a twist, picturing your two-legged form. With good, warm clothes." Cocking her head to one side, Aislin shuts her eyes and follows his directions. A few moments later, Aislin crouches there in her human form, blinking as her vision, nose, and hearing readjust themselves, thin body clad in white wool from neck to toes. Instantly Yoko scoops her off her feet and wraps his arms around her in a fierce hug, lips finding hers in an equally fierce and relieved kiss. She returns them both with feeling until they both have to stop and take an unwilling breath, still wrapped up in each other.

"Gods, but I missed you," Yoko breathes, setting her down but not letting go and shaking her lightly. "Don't ever scare me like that again! I was worried sick about you!"

"Not my fault," Aislin mutters rebelliously. "Stupid Detective."

"Not just his fault, aisuhana. You're the one who snuck off without any backup of any kind! You know you were supposed to let someone know you were going on a heist. How could you just run off like that?"

"Don't have words," she replies guiltily. "Need words." He scoops her up again, despite her wordless protest that she could walk, and sets off for home with a much lighter step than what he came here with.

"Then we'll find someone who can give you yourself back."

=============================================================================================================================

In case you're worried, nothing happened besides a thorough beating. Not even ogres under orders would be THAT stupid…I think.

Shikyo: Death

Yuuki: (from several) courage, bravery

Neko: cat

Koishii: beloved