The story never ends, even if the characters are no more.

Chapter eleven Story

They found him curled up in a tight ball. He was sweating hard, and unconscious, with blood trickling from his lower lip where he had bitten through. Kurama's expression was one of pain.

A knot formed in Hiei's throat. Why this? Is Kurama dying? He wiped the blood from Kurama's face, as gently as one would with a child. Kurama stirred, just a little bit, just enough to let him know he was alive.

"His fever is broken. I can heal him now." Skye said gently. She could hear fury mounting in his mind, and was suddenly, horribly, reminded that he was a murderer.

"Why didn't you do that earlier?" he hissed with a terrible not of hatred growing in his voice. "Why didn't you help him earlier and save all that pain and suffering? Do you know that he almost died, and now has orders to kill me, all because you didn't heal him in the first place?"

"Do you know," she said coldly, "That if I had done that, all I would have done is accelerate time on his body? Do you know what would have happened if I did that? The fever would suck him dry, leaving you with nothing more than a corpse."

Hiei swallowed hard. He had not thought of that, though now that he did, the thought made him cringe. She was the only one he had ever met that he was slightly afraid of. Slightly.

Skye barked out a laugh. "You'd deserve that. Not Kurama, but you would. After all, how many people have you left with only a corpse? A hundred? More than that? Just in the past week. Pathetic, that you have that little control. Children just beginning their priestess training have more than you do." His eyes flashed angrily.

"Oh please, don't give me that look. Do you really think I am afraid of you?" her serene voice said, sweetened in the way that even Hiei knew meant fury and deception. Hn.

"I think you should be."

"Silencio, hombre insensado." she chided. Hiei suppressed an urge to glare at her. He had to admit, he had met his match in this one. He tried not to think it, knowing she would hear, but couldn't prevent it. A slight smile curving her lips served to prove his point.

"Spanish. A little rough around the edges, but at least you have the idea. I don't appreciate the insult, mind. Just the fact you bothered to learn some of the language." he rambled, worried about Kurama and trying not to show it.

"What's wrong with my Spanish?" she snapped, sweat falling from her brow as she healed Kurama.

"Well, your accent is atrocious, for one." he pointed out helpfully. She glared at him as if to say Is that all? He just gave her a small smile, hardly even there. But that was enough to see that the demon did not smile easily. "For another, I am not a man, I'm a demon."

"I don't care if you're a patch of moss."

She checked his rash, now shrunken back to his shoulder, and pursed her lips, seeing a wound she had missed before. "So now we know how the disease is carried. This wound came from an animal, possibly one being hunted. No, one competing for prey. This came from a wolf."

The gash was red around the edges and hot to the touch.

"All this time we have only been getting half the problem!" she sighed in exasperation. Would troubles never cease? "Infected, I'll bet. She sighed again. "Hiei, you should go. I may not like you, but I'll give you this chance. Koenma knows by now you're alive, he's probably back to the hunt. If you see Yusuke, I advise you avoid him." He moved his head slowly from the left to the right, and back.

"I'm not leaving until I see that Kurama is okay." he told her shortly. "I can't risk anything happening to him."

She rolled her eyes at the folly of men, but put it down to distress. He's been through a lot. He killed so many, but I truly think he regrets it now. He might not do it again because of that. I hope not, he's a spirited one. It would be a shame to see him killed. Not to mention what that would do to his colleagues, now forced to murder their friend.

Skye tied a knot in the bandage around his arm, then growled with exasperation, showing her WolfSister nature in a flash of irritation. She twitched her now wolf ears, finally noticed that she had shifted to wolf.

"So, you really are a WolfSister." Hiei noted softly. "I had thought they died out." His eyes took on a cast of sorrow, though he otherwise hid it perfectly. She listened to the thoughts the wind brought to her, and found a name.

Reyanina. Reya. Why did you have to follow so many of your clan to the next world? It isn't fair that you had to go. And what a way to go. Turned to stone. Her eyes widened in surprise, a little more yellow showing.

Reyanina, Reya for short. She had died in a legendary way, turned to stone. She still stood next to the Wolf Stone, forever frozen in that moment in time. Eternity has captured the stone flowers in her hair, even, and preserved them, keeping them from being worn away.

She had been the Miko for the generation, and her entire clan lay behind her, protected from the waiting demons only by a barrier. She had held the demons off for a full day without rest, and finally her Spirit energy failed.

In desperation, she drew on the life force within her instead, the thing that kept her alive. Trying to save all of her family, she drew more and more until she ceased to live at all, and became stone. The petrified image of her was exactly the same as it had been so many years ago.

The demons made a huge kill that night, slaughtering Reya's entire family. That isn't the way a story should go. There was no happy ending, no lesson, even her family was murdered. It was all for naught.

But a fairy tale story, such as this one seemed to be, doesn't guarantee a happy ending. If the writer dies mid-story, they grow and live on forever, spinning wildly out of control. Reya died, and now her story, the story of demon versus Miko lives on for all of eternity.

"You loved her." Skye said simply, laying a hand on Hiei's shoulder in consolation. "My great-granddam, Reyanina, you knew her didn't you?" Hiei stiffened.

"Stay out of my mind." he said quietly, coldly.

"I cannot help what tidings the winds bear to me." She told him, just as quietly. "But if Reya Moonstone loved you, then you were blessed with an honor. Her chosen Miko name was Wolfcrystal, but when her entire family was murdered, she was renamed in honor of her legendary struggle.

"The story she spun in the last, when she was struggling to keep the demons away from the ones she loved, lives on for all eternity, demon against Miko, in all of the Miko's in Makai. Because she died mid telling, we will never be free of the story that has gone out of control. Because of that, my kind is destined to war against yours."