Chapter Fifteen- Healing Water

"Here…" Asa lifted a cup of water up and held it to Yusuke, who took it with a raised eyebrow.

"What is it?"

"Something that'll help you, so you can get back on your feet and get back to assaulting your girlfriend so I can watch her beat you up some more," Asa replied, grinning.

"…I don't trust you."

"Why not?" she asked, looking hurt.

"Because you were all pissed off at us earlier and looked about ready to kill someone. This could be your way of getting revenge." She smacked him upside the head, resulting in a loud, "OW!" followed closely by, "What the hell'd you do that for!"

"You. Are. An. Idiot," she supplied in short growled-out syllables. "If I'd wanted to kill you, trust me, I wouldn't go to all the trouble to poison you. I'd just strangle the hell out of you. And then slit your throat." He was staring at her blankly, taken aback by the streak of violence she showed. "…What? You think I won't?" Shaking his head quickly, he took the water from her and downed it. "Good boy. Now, you will feel weird – "

"I knew it!"

" – but only because I put a special medicine into the water," she finished, glaring sharply at him.

"Oh."

"Get some rest. You should be on your feet by morning." She left him in Keiko's good hands then, moving onto Kuwabara's room. "Hey, Catty," she said flatly, kneeling down beside him. "How are you feeling?"

"As long as I have Yukina by my side, I'm fit to conquer the world! Watch out, Napoleon Dynamite!"

"…Catty, Napoleon Dynamite was a movie made in Utah, in the United States," Asa informed him, raising an eyebrow. "I think you mean the French emperor, Napoleon."

"Oh, yeah! Him!" Kuwabara pumped a fist, and winced with a whimper. Yukina was instantly leaning over him, asking him if he was alright, and he took advantage of the moment, taking her hands in his and saying, "Yeah, baby! Like I said, with you around, I'm fit to conquer the world."

Yukina smiled, giving Asa a quizzical look. She shrugged in reply. "Catty," she said, drawing his attention back to her as she took a bottle of water and poured it into a mug, then mixed in some medicinal herbs. "You're going to need to drink this, that way your wounds heal more quickly. Then Yukina's going to change your bandages, and you're going to sleep for a long, long time. Understand?"

"Sure. You're gonna make me drink that stuff, though?" Kuwabara turned up his nose at it, giving her a disgusted look.

"I'm sorry, but you have to," she sighed patiently, watching the water turn a purplish color. "Here, it's ready. Drink it while it's fresh or it'll only start to sour and taste really crappy."

"Why're you being all motherly?" Kuwabara asked, just as suspiciously as Yusuke had suggested the non-existent poison.

"Catty, I really don't wanna kill you. Just drink it before I get angry, okay?" He eagerly took the mug and chugged the flavored-water, not even wincing until he swallowed it.

"That was nasty."

"I know. I'm sorry, but it had to be done. Don't you feel a little better already?"

"Yes, actually, now that you mention it." He tested a muscle in his arm, mostly showing off for Yukina, who sent another quizzical glance to Asa.

"Alright," she said, completely ignoring him as he tried several muscle-man poses. "Yukina-san, if you'd be so kind as to take care of this bozo, I'll go tend to Hiei."

"Of course, Asa-chan." She left the two of them as she had the first couple, and entered the next room to find Hiei and Botan glaring at each other angrily, the fire demon trying to sit up, the deity trying to make him relax.

"Um…what's going on in here?" Asa asked mildly, raising an eyebrow at the two of them, as they glanced her way with a slightly-relieved look on both their faces. "Botan, he can sit up if he likes. He's not so badly injured as the other two – they're only human, after all."

"Hai, but !"

"Don't worry. I'm going to give him a tonic that makes him better." She kneeled down, pulling yet another bottle of water out of her bag of medicinal tools. "Better today, Hiei?"

"Hn."

"I'll take that as a "yes." Are your wounds healing properly?" At his glare of death, she rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'll rephrase – have you let anyone look at them?"

"No. I don't need any onnas telling me whether I'm healthy or not."

"I'm not going to kill you for that remark simply because you're probably hurting and frustrated with yourself for getting your butt kicked." He moved toward her predatorily, but winced and stopped. "See, I'm separating the pain from the person. Or in your case, the demon. Now, will you please bear with me and cooperate a little?"

"Hn!"

"Thank you." She stirred the concoction a third time until it turned the light lavender she'd expected, and handed it to him. He took it slowly, sniffing it and offering a face. "That's the same face I got from the other two – you're letting your humanity show, Hiei. I might have to give you a nickname if you don't stop it."

"Like what?" Botan asked from the other side of the grumbling demon as he drank the medicine.

"I dunno," Asa posed thoughtfully. "I might call him "Fluffy," because of his hair being all aerodynamic. Or maybe I'll call him "Ruby," because of his eyes, or Kit, short for katana, because of his sword. Or, I might just call him wiwwle baby Hiway," she exaggerated the baby sounds of the words so badly that Hiei was tempted to throw his katana at her head – but restrained himself, offering her a smirk.

"You're only doing this because I can't get you back – but wait until I'm better," he warned her.

"I'm sure you'll give me a good beating when you get to train me. In fact, I have no doubt about it. Just wait until then, okay?" He nodded, giving her a smirk which she returned with a steadfast, "Then again, maybe I'll surprise you, and you'll be introduced to the ground?" Trying not to giggle, she hurried on to her next target.

She'd been trying to avoid this for as long as she could. But, it had to be done. And she wouldn't let him suffer just because she was trying to avoid him – she wouldn't let any of them suffer because of her own feelings. She had long since admitted that the secret they kept – the secret he kept – had broken her heart. Then, she admitted that she didn't care about the others keeping the secret – they'd been doing it at his request, so it was his betrayal. And soon after that, she'd sunken into the painful realization that it wasn't his fault – he'd been trying to protect her. It didn't keep her from being angry – but she wasn't so much as angry at him as she was at herself, for being too weak to be able to handle such a weight as the secret. And after she had begun to sink into this depression, all this priestess business had happened, and she hadn't really gotten another chance to think about it until she'd arrived in Japan, but of course, her grandmother's words came back to haunt her. (This is completing the little thing from the last chapter…)

"I have yet to tell you this reason," she sighed. "Asa…a part of the training to become a priestess is within your own soul…until you do gain your full powers, you may not…feel, as normal humans do. Your emotions could ruin all the training you've received, and soil your powers, tainting them with evil. Without any emotional constrictions, your soul is free to fully accept the training it will be put under. Until then, you cannot show any physical signs of your emotions – I think you know what I'm talking about."

"Um…like, no fighting people out of anger?"

"Yes. And?"

"And…uh…no, um…hitting things?"

"And no hugging your father or your friends, although they may certainly hug you. No crying, even though you're going to want to. No shouting, no impatient sighs. No kissing, young lady," Edna took on that grandmotherly tone that was partially scolding, partially playful, and Asa glared at her as she giggled. "And Asa, try not to become so serious that you forget who you are. That is the worst price to pay for this training, and I would hate for you to pay it."

She couldn't express those sorrows of hers openly. It completely sucked, to say the least. And while she couldn't express emotion, she was dealing with people who made her emotions react strongly – one in particular. Her heart throbbed every time he was around, and now she had to go see about tending to him, for although Genkai was supposed to, the old psychic was nowhere to be found when she was deemed useful. Of course.

She stopped short just outside his door. She could hear his breathing, quiet, practiced, calm, on the other side of the rice paper wall, and knew that he was either sleeping, or awaiting her with such anxiety as she had about seeing to him. She dragged in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, before tapping gently on the door once. She heard the acknowledging sound from his throat, something between a sigh and a word, and slid the door aside, padding inside.

After the full weight of the experience the day before had caught up with him, Kurama had been beating himself with guilt, both for his foolishness and rudeness, and had been thinking about how to apologize to Asa all morning, knowing that she would be coming to see him sooner or later. When he saw her standing in the doorway though, her eyes avoiding his, the words left his mind.

"Um…I…how are you?" she finally asked, stammering.

His voice found its way out of a dumb mouth, miraculously, and he heard himself say, "I'm fine, thank you." She offered a weak, timid smile, and hesitantly joined him at his side. He knew she was still pretty angry with him, and after everything he'd put her through, he didn't blame her. He'd been kicking himself ever since the day she left him in Japan with a sore cheek and a broken heart, his name leaving her lips in a completely different manner than he was used to.

He almost sighed as he remembered it, watching her start to mix the ingredients together into another mug. When she'd spoken his name, as if it were an evil omen, his heart had clenched, and engraved upon its surface that poison in her voice. He had remembered all the other times, when she'd known him as "Shuuichi," and spoken his name softly, as if it were a sacred word that needed to be honored with gentleness. She'd said it like a prayer. And it occurred to him that the last time she'd actually spoken to him and used his name was that day when she left for Ireland. Sadly, he turned his eyes upward to gaze at her face, and found, to his surprise, something there.

She was hiding something from him.

"Asa - …" he started, only to be silenced when she held the mug up to him.

"Drink it – it'll help you," she told him, staring at her hands that were now folded in her lap uselessly. He hurriedly downed the drought, and continued.

"Asa, I'm sorry."

"Don't." She glanced upward at him, then away again. "You don't need to apologize. Alea iacta est."

"Nani?" he asked in surprise. Her lips quirked upward for a moment, verging on a smirk – but it was only for a moment, and the smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"Alea iacta est," she repeated. "It's Latin." He stared at her stupidly, and she sighed. "Hai, hai, I'm a multilingual idiot. Leave me be. "Alea iacta est" means "the die has been cast." It's a cliché for what's done is done, you can't go back. Understand?"

"What's done is done," he repeated slowly, staring at her. "Then, you're not angry?"

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't. But I can't change it, I can only learn to accept that you lied to me all that time, that you're…not really who you said you were, and that it was probably more my fault then yours."

Surprised, he spoke, "How so? If I remember correctly, it was I who kept the secret, Asa-chan."

"Aa, but it was because you thought you had to protect me – because I was naïve and innocent," she replied, crestfallen.

"But that's one of the things I like most about you, Asa-chan…your purity," he responded sincerely, giving her a strangely comforting look. She would have smiled and blushed on any other occasion, but on this one, her pale cheeks blanched further.

She rushed back to her feet, stammering. "I-I have to go. Get some r-rest, Kurama. You all should be a lot better by tomorrow."

She rushed from the room, leaving him in a mixture of confusion and awe. She'd spoken his name again…and her voice had held in it that same silky texture as it had before she had discovered his secret. She'd been caring in that moment, and he'd seen it. He looked from the door as it closed after her departure, to the empty mug she'd left behind.

It had dawned on him that she was hiding something from him, but he hadn't been quite sure what. In this brief interview, however, it seemed to him that something might have happened to her, or that she might be keeping a secret of her own that was punishing her as his had him.

Thoughtfully, he lifted the mug, looking at it, then his eyes rested on the soft rice paper walls that separated him from the view of Asa hurrying down the hallway nervously. His voice was also thoughtful, and tender, as he spoke, "Perhaps we are not the only ones who need some of this healing water of yours, Asa-chan…"

Sakai opened his heavy eyes, looking about himself curiously at first. His movements were sluggish, but he raised his hand before his face to look upon it. No different. The bright light surrounding him, what was it?

Where was he?

He couldn't exactly remember, but he knew why he had come here – there were things he needed to do. In this world…this world he was trying to get to. He'd entered…a portal! That was it.

His fist clenched as he tried to remember the rest of his reasoning. He'd entered a portal, and was now in a place of light. The interverse, the space between two portals. He was here because…

Because he had to be purified, or…made human, as human as he could possibly get. He was going into the Divine World. He was going there to become something that no man nor demon could defeat.

He was going to become a god, and he was going to destroy those damn fools who separated his world from the human's once and for all.

He was going to have that girl, too. That Asa.

-

Okay, wow. That was a lot shorter than usual! But now we have another part to the secret laid out, don't we? Um…people?

(crickets chirp)

………..Guys?

(YYH boys appear, looking around at the emptiness sadly)

Kurama- How…solemn. We've been forgotten, Meka-chan, and it's all your fault.

How's it MY fault?

Yusuke- Well DUH, you don't update enough!

Hiei- Aa, baka onna. Now you've done it.

Kuwabara- Aww, leave her alone! She made Asa nickname me Catty, and that's a cool nickname! (gives Asa a teddy bear, still holding disclaimer)

……(sniffle) Thank you, Kuwabara. (sniffle sniffle) It just feels so…lonely…guys, can I have a hug?

(all YYH boys shrug, and let her give them hugs)

Thank you. I think I might go…write some more now…so lonely… ;.;

Yusuke- Um…should we be worried?