Disclaimer: Bite me.
Story Thus Far: Botan and Jin are at Yuusuke's keep, but with strange sickness and war threatening it might not stay such a haven for long. Mika is going on a snowboarding trip, Kurama's chaperoning...oh! And Touya's back...
Enjoy Chapter 7!
Psychedelic Cinema
"Touya!" Shizuru laughed.
The Ice Master smiled, odd for him, but Shizuru presumed it the result of having to track a deadly and highly unstable demon on par with nitroglycerine. He was probably relieved to see them. She folded her arms and quirked a smile at the diminutive ice demon as he stepped from the shadowing foliage. But something seemed...missing. Wait...Wind Master? Jin's absence suddenly clicked in her mind. The hyperactive little cookie-elf usually kept himself within poking distance of his surly partner. Shizuru seldom saw the wind demon from the other shinobi's side...
...so where was he?
"Hey, Kool-Aid. Where's the carrot-top? Shouldn't he be screaming down my ear and flying in circles right about now?" inquired the demon-huntress dryly.
Touya shrugged a slim shoulder, stopping a couple yards away to think it over. "I believe he had an urgent errand to attend in Yuusuke's realm," the demon said candid as usual. "He left only this morning. Seemed in a hurry to get there."
Shizuru examined Touya a moment. The ice apparition regarded her with lucid blue orbs in return. Something set off an infinitesimal chord within her, the resonating ripples of caution fluttering through her body and spirit. The tingling sensation left in its wake nestled in her fingertips alerting her to something amiss. She frowned, unsure whether or not to throw caution to the wind. This particular demon detection technique set itself off at the hint of powerful and unfamiliar energy. However, it tended to go off sporadically and she rarely trusted the warning.
It was the spirit equivalent of that little voice in your head that says, "Eep! Fear! Be afraid!!" the moment before you realized it was your cat, Fluffy. She dismissed it with a mental wave of her hand and ran her fingers through her hair. All spiritual paranoia aside, Jin's sudden departure somewhat baffled her. Jin knew what kind of predator and assassin Karasu functioned as. Why leave his comrade – however skilled – alone to contend with something of such insidious nature?
While she pondered, Alaster smiled around the sucker in his mouth and picked up where she left off. "Thank whatever fates are watching you. I thought you guys were in some kind of trouble," Alaster said, moving to greet the ice demon. Touya's pastel blue gaze flitted to the fox-demon and he smiled wider still.
"Oh no. Jin's just fine I'm sure and I'm in...one piece anyway. Though I'm certain I didn't escape Karasu unscathed," Touya replied, speaking way too many words than could be legal in Ice Master World. Alaster paused, downy fox ears flicking thoughtfully back and forth. He smiled, albeit a shade weaker than before and tipped his head at an angle. Shizuru tugged at a stray wisp of hair clinging to her forehead as she always did in thought. Something was just...wrong. Shizuru had once watched a DVD on a badly formatted TV setting, where the perspective was off. It made every character seem out of proportion or misplaced in every shot. Now reality was out of focus and every move badly choreographed.
Touya smiled that strange, negligent smile. Open. Hauntingly open on the ice demon's usually somber features.
Shizuru's senses fluttered. Little voice of fear began to shriek profanity and smack her upside the head with something hard and lumpy. "IDIOT! Touya is EVIL! EVI-IL! SATAN INCARNATE! DO SOMETHING STUPID!!" Smack! Bam! Pow! Shizuru felt her inner self receive a nasty concussion and the not-so-little voice of fear ranted on. "Hel-LO! MOVE! Fight! Kick ass! SAVE ALASTER YOU MOTION CHALLENGED CLOD-POLE!!"
As if on cue, the half-breed moved closer to the seemingly innocent shinobi. The camera focused and suddenly Shizuru was the director of her own little cinema sequence. Close up on Touya's face. A slight quirk of the mouth, sinister, clear-cut gleam of pupiless eyes. Quick cut to Alaster, hands loose at his sides far, far, so far away from his hair and his precious seeds. Vulnerable, unsuspecting, the first victim in this psychedelic horror flick that Shizuru bore witness to. All it needed was shrieking background music and popcorn.
The knobby object hit her several more times and it the world spun, shifted a couple inches and righted the perspective. Suddenly Touya's upcoming reply seemed horribly obvious. No way! Cut! Freeze! Everything stop! Rewind! Something! Her body finally reacted to all the thoughts, memories and conclusions racing through her mind and she snapped into – Lights! Camera! - action.
"Alaster! NO!" she screamed.
"What?" the fox demon queried, perplexed by his friend's sudden outburst. Shizuru watched, mortified as it turned horror flick on her. Alaster, turned around to look at her, eyes leaving Touya. The ice demon smiled; still grinning that insane little smile at Shizuru over Alaster's shoulder. She couldn't even get out the words in time. The Ice Master hooked his left arm up in a lethal looking 'L' and ice zipped up the length of his forearm and the blade formed with a breath of glacial energy that stirred his misplaced green bangs. He didn't hesitate. He punched out his arm and drove his icy sword at the fox's lower back.
Fact: Shizuru was a bitch.
Fact: Cloud hated Shizuru.
Fact: Though all of the above were truth that did nothing to free the infuriated shadowkai from her newly malevolent grip. He could not turn away from this dark mission, leave the human girl behind and still keep his soul in tact. Though the foremost part of his mind told him he owned her nothing and though his logical side rather agreed with this argument, there existed at ever present nagging doubt. The little shoulder angel that timidly tapped him and reminded Cloud that if he did not help her she would surely die and then he knew he couldn't let that happen no matter how much he wanted to wring her neck himself.
Which was exactly why he was marching into the Dame Yume alone; to prevent himself from doing just that. Cloud could feel his body shaking in reaction to Shizuru's advance. The humiliation and hatred. His shoulders felt hot, prickling along his spine like heated needles his ire mounted in the dark angel equivalent of a wolf's hackles rising. Already his spirit energy coiled around him, slithering and slinking across his shoulders, through his unkempt hair and undulating through the folds of his trench coat. The jacket billowed out behind him in a dark wave of cloth and anger as he stormed through the woods in a rage so primal he felt he could have sank his fangs into someone's throat.
Moss smoldered and burned black as he swept past, crumbling from the surrounding bark as the Blood Oaks groaned, straining against his overwhelming darkness. Cloud stopped his furious march and spun on his heel, screaming his rage into the shadows of the surrounding forest. He whirled, twisting his body in a tight circle simply to expel his pent up frustration in the form of motion. He shouted terrible things into the trees, things spoken only by the kin of the Unlit and only to the truly deserving. Not behavior he usually glorified.
However, anything that involved Karasu pierced him, sinking cold metal deep into his soul and wrenching his conscience; driving him on this insane quest to hunt down Karasu for s girl he'd known only a couple days a century ago. It was the puppet theory all over again. Those invisible strings sunk deep into his being, tugging perpetually at his body and mind. So powerful were these compulsions that Cloud often felt his actions were not his own but those of some other, more malevolent deity. Maybe his actions had never been his own. Maybe even now he was another cat's paw?
A puppet?
Cloud heard himself growl, a deep throaty rumble more attuned to a panther than a person. He caught himself sharply and took a calming breath.
No. He couldn't let rage control his action. Think. Clear your head, Cloud. Just calm down, he thought, steadying himself. He'd have to be on guard. The deeper they traveled into the Makai the more dangerous his reactions could be.
If he wanted to live long enough to actually confront Karasu he'd have to keep himself in check. Until then, he had to remind himself that Shizuru used to be a friend. She used to have a heart and at one point his mistake with Karasu had nearly cost her and her friends their lives. He had to make up for that. He hadn't killed the crow like he'd set out to do, therefore he was responsible for making sure the monster met his end. Right. Think of it that way. He owed her this one favor, and then he was gone.
Cloud ran slender fingers through his unruly blonde hair and drew a steadying breath. Not a problem. He could do this. After all, this was real life and it was three against one. Karasu may have incredible powers of a quest demon but Cloud – had he been a gambler – would have bet heavily that the raven-haired creature stood no chance against the combined skills of a team like this. Heck, Alaster even looked like Yoko Kurama and Shizuru seemed to have picked up on demon hunting as a favorite hobby.
He was probably blowing this whole thing way out of...
"HOLY SHIT! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"
Dramatic irony laughed like a drunken clown somewhere in the background while Cloud shot off in the direction of Shizuru's screaming curses. Branches flew by him as he darted through the boughs of the twisted canopy. He sighed, reflecting that perhaps somewhere out there Lady Luck – that bitch – would cut him some slack. Surely this much misfortune all in a row unquestionably proceeded a run of good luck?
Somewhere out there Lady Luck choked up and fell on her posterior, laughing said part of anatomy right off.
Alaster ducked, yelping as a breath of frosty air stirred the hair between his flattened ears. That breath, however, belonged to the momentum of a swinging ice saber, one that had barely missed shearing his ears from his scalp. A sharp 'heh' of dry and/or insane laughter followed the assault and only by quickly rolling back and launching into a backhand spring did the dexterous fox avoid the follow-up stab that punctured the earth he'd been crouching on moments before.
Panting he stuck an awkward landing and rolled across the uneven ground, roots and lumpy earth digging into his spine. His spine. Yes. That ever important spinal column which was – Yes! Awesomeness! – intact! Woo! Sweet life shall go on! The half-breed celebrated as he lunged away from the hunched figure of Touya the Ice Master, only yards away. The ninja crouched close to the forest floor, frowning at the blade embedded in the ground in front of him and not in his victim's back.
Pouting, as if sorely cheated, the shinobi tore the blade from the ground in a sharp ch-chang! of ice and dirt to cock his head toward his stunned companions. A crazy grin lit up handsome features with something like glee and insanity as he dismissed his ice blade. In a soft hiss of frost and snow he freed his arm, slender fingers flexing away the last of the stiffness.
"Damn. You move faster than I anticipated," he chided himself casually, shaking out his wrist. He grinned evilly at the fox demon. "I'll have to make up for that."
Alaster quickly rose to his feet, raking his claws through his hair and sifting a single seed from his silvery blue tresses. He felt Shizuru shift at his side, a glitter malice and energy sparking in her gaze. Feeling reassured he let her step in beside him. The girl had her mask securely about her lower face, eyes fierce and slitted. Her fingers, sheathed in their long, supple gloves, snuck silently around her back, searching for the long well worn hilt of her favored long blade.
"What are you playing at Touya?" whispered Shizuru softly.
The slender ice demon frowned as if unable to comprehend what this might entail. Surely, stabbing one's teammates, threatening and laughing at them accounted as normal social conduct. Such strangeness.
Then he smiled again and lifted a slightly misting hand, frosty fog drifting from cold fingers as he snickered. Then the ninja began to trace inane little etchings in the air before him, letting the residual mist hang in the air after his doodling index finger. Alaster and Shizuru exchanged subtle glances. Had Touya gone completely insane? Was this Karasu's doing?
"Play? Sure. I know a great game. You ningens even know this one. Its lots of fun, but you have to be quick." Touya's eyes slowly, slowly glittered, glowed and the radiance intensified. His whole hand glowed and the misty symbols he'd been 'doodling' in the air began to shimmer. "Playing tag with demons is a high-risk sport!"
Then he attacked.
Shizuru and Alaster knew Touya well enough to evade the first terrifying move. The Ice Master, while his gift of ice in itself was not a terrible threat Touya's fluid speed and technique with the chilling element made him downright fatal. His strategy came in two waves.
First the spells – and they were spells – he'd been inscribing launched themselves at Shizuru and assaulted the demon huntress in a flurry of darting and diving creatures. A moment of shock passed and the girl realized they were, in fact, birds. Icy white birds of ice, frost and energized mist they blurred and became unsubstantial until the moment of impact, where they reformed and slit shallow cuts into her arms and snipped at her shorn hair.
She instantly whipped her two long blades from their sheathes and sliced two glittering marks in front of her, shouting a short word of power. The air pulse and hummed with neutralizing energy and the vibration swept through the cloud of streaking aviaries. The birds whined like splintering ice over a lake and shattered into tiny shards of ice and snow. She had no time to celebrate. Wave two nearly took her off guard as Touya's infamous Shards of Winter...didn't touch her. In fact, she'd been positive he'd go for the long range assault.
So in direct contrast to her thinking the nubile shinobi had darted in close under the cover of aerial assault. Only the lilting snicker and the flash of blue-green energy before his strike forewarned her. With a hiss, she veered under the anticipated attack and Touya's fingers, humming with cold energy, groped empty air as the young woman slipped away from his attack. She jumped away as the ninja launched himself off the ground like a coiled spring. Shizuru narrowly missed having a blade of ice rammed through her abdomen as the demon jabbed with his right and clawed with his left.
"Don't let him touch you!" Alaster screamed, telling her what she already knew. "He'll freeze your entire body through your spirit energy! Get away!"
Shizuru blocked swiftly with her long blades, dancing haphazardly through the smirking ice demon's lightening fast attacks. Ice ground on steel as enchantments sizzled on contact with the cold demonic aura, eating at it, fighting to protect her from the freezing energy. But while she could hold off being skewered on his sword, his searching hand quickly became the greater threat. One touch and it was over.
"Be careful!" Touya taunted as he only just missed catching her flesh with his deadly left hand. "Careful! Careful, Shizuru! Watch it! You don't want to get tagged! Then you'll have to freeze until I say the game is over!"
"Game?" Shizuru whispered fiercely, hissing as patches of frost crept up the side of her long gloves. Touya's eyes gleamed, not blue but a deep, crimson of wine and raspberry blood. A familiar glow. She recognized it in an instant and hatred pumped through her like a venom straight to her heart. Touya snickered softly as he attacked again, driving her back. Surprise, speed, technique and strategy; Touya had her ensnared in his sadistic trap.
If she drew back and the Ice Master would simply use his favored Shards of Winter attack or – more horribly – his Mists of December. The mists would suck the breath from your lungs when you exhaled and freeze your chest from the inside out if you dared breathe in. The only way to escape was run or get in close so the Ice Master couldn't use it for fear of harming himself. However, from this far back most of her attacks could be dodged and deflected by the trees. She could have blasted all the trees away but ...it was Touya. She didn't want to kill him.
"Alaster!" she screamed, backpedaling furiously to evade Touya's assault. "Use the Rose Whip! Quick!"
"You're too close to him!" he protested, over the crack of his newly formed weapon. He fretted as Touya drove Shizuru in a tight circle of ever widening frost. "I'll hit you!"
"No you won't! You can do it, Al! Just – AH!" Shizuru cried out as frostbite seared through her black under armor, blistering the skin along her collar bone. Touya made a strange laughing noise of almost childish delight. Shizuru locked eyes with him a moment and in that instant Karasu stared back at her. Her eyes widened. There was no way...
Touya snickered and drove the heel of his foot into her chest, plowing the girl to the ground and ending her thoughts. She screamed in pain as she smashed through the trunk of a tree, shattering the fragile wood and bashing to a stop against the one behind her. Her head smacked the truck, it splintered against her skull and she slumped to the ground, listless.
Touya threw back his head and laughed gales of hilarity that built into a mad crescendo. He cut off his laugh with startling abruptness. Swinging his intensely crimson eyes toward Alaster he froze an instant. His insanity seemed to spark some recognition at the sight of the half-youko. He dismissed Shizuru and turned toward the younger opponent. The fox lifted his Rose Whip and stepped back slightly, fingers gripping the un-spiked handle of his chosen weapon. He beckoned the ice demon closer if he so dared.
"I don't think so," Touya hissed. "I made that mistake with Kurama. Not with you."
The Ice Master whipped his arms straight behind his back and lashed out in a pantomime of punching some invisible opponent. Power rippled up his arms and spewed into the air as a shimmering swell of spirit energy. Alaster swerved as the wave of unforgiving frost washed over the patch of forest he'd just occupied. The fox demon felt a sharp sting on his lower ankle and landed awkwardly, skidding and toppling on his side. He hadn't even drawn a breath before that's same coldness swept across his entire body. Alaster shouted in agony as searing frost coated his skin and fur, freezing him against the ground in a cold embrace.
Touya only shrugged his shoulder slightly as the young fox demon moaned haplessly.
"Not quite as fast Yoko. But it was a nice try," he commended the dispatched fox-spirit.
"We'll see," Shizuru hissed, unexpectedly, from behind him and grabbed a fistful of his hair between glittering fingers.
The ice demon yelped as she yanked and kicked his ankle out from beneath him simultaneously. He went down and smacked his head hard against the ground, giving her a chance to drive her long blade through his left hand, pinning his palm against the dirt with extreme prejudice. She leapt away, knowing she had disabled his most potent weapon – the Ice Touch – What disturbed her: Touya didn't even scream.
Abandoning the spiked Touya she rushed toward her longtime partner.
"Alaster!" she hissed, falling on her knees beside the trapped youko. Her fingers fell on his ice-coated skin and nearly froze themselves against the fox spirit's arm. "Alaster!"
A small moan drifted up from the stiffened youko and Shizuru let loose the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. He lived still, but Alaster did not escape unscathed. His silver blue hair was completely rigid against his shoulders, his lithe body immobile, frozen. Until he thawed or Touya removed the ice the fox-demon was useless. Shivering through the frost she heard a weak murmur that sounded distinctly like 'I'm sorry, Sis.' Her fingers coiled into a fist.
There was a grinding hiss of metal on dirt and flesh. Shizuru spun and snatched, fingers snagging the hilt of her own blade before the point buried itself in her heart. Touya smiled with ruby-red eyes. He dropped his arm after having thrown her own weapon and advanced on her. Mist was gathering at his bloody finger tips, deathly and cold. Shizuru lifted her blade, letting a trickle of her power flow into the weapon.
"I don't want to kill you, Touya, but if Karasu did this to you then I know you'd want me to!" she shrieked at the approaching demon.
Touya showed no signs of slowing, only hissed something as he drew nearer, body building in energy and power. "Distinctly I remember it was the bleak December," he quoted softly.
"You can't use the Mists of December! You'll kill us all!" Shizuru shouted, feeling a surge of dread. He was almost on her. She had to strike him now if she meant to. Her arms were shaking and her fingers felt numb. The ice demon stood only six paces away. Five. Four.
Touya ignored her and went on. "And each dying ember," he murmured.
Shizuru clenched her fingers about her blade so hard she feared her nails were digging bloody little grooves in her palms. Hundreds of thoughts shot through her brain as she stood there, watching the distance close between them. Why is he attacking us? Did he kill Jin? Is Karasu to blame? What else could explain that oh-so familiar glow of violet-red in his eyes? –and most horribly- When he gets close enough...where should I stab him? Jugular? Heart? Or go for overkill and take his head off?
She couldn't believe she was making this decision. Not 'where to stab', but to kill or not to kill.
Touya need only take one more step and she would have to strike. She didn't want to take his life. His pale haunting, features looked appallingly handsome and young in that instant. Man! She'd known him for nearly a century and she just now noticed how hot he was? How vulnerable without his coldly glaring façade (not counting his new insanity). Gods! Is this what everyone else thinks before they have to kill a friend or was this just her?
He smiled and finished the – arbitrarily familiar – verse. "Wrought its ghost upon the floor."
-So...cinema moment here.
Does damsel die or deliver death, therefore living to suffer through the guilt for all eternity? Oh, what angst. What drama. Box-office blowout baby. All you dismal tragedy lovers out there go crazy it's time for a climactic inner conflict... Well, that's not going to happen. The reason? Because this conflict happens to have a 'hero' of sorts and he's about to make an entrance, but since this isn't a movie he chooses not to vent a heroic battle cry and blow his cover. Since it's difficult to describe such a stealthy action its best that you know said 'hero' is silent because the next sound – the sound Shizuru hears – would make no sense if you didn't know he was silent. Ok. Cue the action sequence!
Whoomp!
Well, that was odd... thought Shizuru avidly. And where'd Touya go? she added, blinking at the air where said ice demon had previously stood.
"BE THAT OUR WORD OF PARTING!" screamed a familiar voice, upstarting. "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as token on that lie thy soul hath spoken!"
"SHUT UP!" Cloud screamed back, pounding his fist into Touya's temple and stopping his frantic dirge. The ice demon protested the abuse with a sharp 'OW!' and retaliated by driving his foot hard into Cloud's knee, aiming to shatter the kneecap. Luckily, the dark angel jumped the kick and returned the favor by kicking Touya's in the head. Landing, he grabbed the stunned Touya by the tunic and hurled the blue-eyed Ice Master away from him.
"Just shut up!" he finished angrily.
Touya, dexterous as ever, righted himself mid-air and landed in a cat-like crouch at the trunk of a Blood Oak. His eyes glowed maliciously in the darkness and he carefully rose to his feet, entire body alive with blue energy. Cloud's breath fogged on the air as he felt frost creeping up his boots and edging the forest leaves. Touya's power spiked and the grinning ice demon snapped out of perception and struck.
Cloud let himself crumple to the ground and evaded the initial attack as hundreds of icy spines whistled through the air inches above his soft blond hair, rumpling it as they passed. Cloud spun himself on his hands and whipped his legs around in a powerful roundhouse kick. Touya, having just finished his attack, barely leapt over the dark angel's lashing feet and lunged away. Cloud curled his knees to his chest and arched his back, whip lashing himself to his feet and launching himself at the deranged shinobi.
Shizuru, using spirit energy to warm Alaster's frozen body, watched everything as it happened. Her outspread fingers hummed with energy, warm, yellow reserves of healing power soaking the fox's stiff frame. The demon huntress sighed. He had the potential, but not the planet time to be great. Right now his experience or lack thereof had nearly cost him and her their lives.
Meanwhile, Touya – using his functional right arm – summoned a quick blade of ice and coiled him legs in a cat-like posture, ready to murder his new assailant. Cloud, feeling mutual thoughts, tore both Ash and Raven from their holsters and took aim at the crouching ice demon. Touya's blood tinted eyes narrowed and a smirk pulled at his lips. Cloud bared fangs in a feral snarl and pumped the twin handguns simultaneously; firing his favored weapons at the nimble ice demon. Touya blurred and morphed into a mess of after-images and narrowly evaded the first three shots, appearing only for split-seconds wherever he changed direction.
Cloud smirked as he heard the fourth and fifth find their mark.
Touya did scream this time. Cloud knew why and could almost sympathize. The warding spells he'd placed upon the bullets and guns turned normal slugs into high velocity acid to otherwise untouchable youkai. The sensation was something like having you blood set on fire where the bullet penetrated your body. Weaker demons combusted on contact.
Returning to normal perception, the shinobi reappeared to collapse on the ground, writhing and clutching his bleeding shoulder. He groaned through gritted teeth and curled into a fetal ball of pain. A shallow wound across his thigh oozed slowly where the fourth shot had nicked him. His ragged breathing caught in his throat as he turned a Cheshire smile on the ever wary shadowkai.
Cloud sighted Raven and Ash at the ice demon's head with merciless accuracy and slowly crossed one foot over the other and side stepped, circling the demon carefully. He would kill the ninja if need be. Cloud doubted the shinobi was interested in sharing his reason for this un-invoked assault. He seemed a bit loopy to the dark angel.
"What a surprise, the angel returns..." Touya mumbled, beaming inanely up at the gun-wielding youkai. His eyes intensified in their crimson hue. "Hello, little raven."
Cloud felt himself stiffen. Synapses fired; electrodes and mental pathways snapping recall through his brain. De-ja-vu. His vision suddenly darkened and narrowed to a dull tunnel. Slow, slippery fingers of dread snaked up his spine in a sickly sensual sensation. He couldn't stop himself from shuddering, convulsing as his stomach rebelled against the sudden recollection. Two words...and all those gross impressions that came with them. Cloud's chest contracted painfully on his rapidly breathing lungs.
Touya's expression never changed as he pressed on, snickering insanely. "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming. What an enchanting thought. You dreaming?" he inquired.
His scarlet purple gaze seemed to intensify. Cloud's head felt light, his body detached. Violet red washed over him, consuming him. Shizuru, watching only yards away noticed just the slightest off-kilter slant in his gun arm, slowly slipping sideways. Her tawny cat-like eyes inched up to the blonde's face and found it far more pale than usual and his eyes more garnet that black. His pupils had contracted so far in his fear that his irises reduced them to mere pinpricks in his gaze.
Shit, was her silent sentiment.
The shadowkai jerked his head suddenly, shaking himself as if to shed some momentary lapse of awareness. Raven's barrel dipped dangerously and lost its target on Touya and Ash followed her sister's unfocused path. That moment of weakness became a cue and the ice demon leapt up in a blast of glacial power and charged the dark angel. Startled, Cloud yanked Ash back up but too late to stop the agile Ice Master. Touya struck the gun aside as he pulled the trigger. Shizuru shouted something in the background and the bullet ripped up through the canopy and the leaves it clipped burst into flames overhead.
Cloud dark attuned eyes were taken off-guard by the sudden flame of light and – for an instant – he was blinded. His pupils contracted in a ring of garnet and he blinked just as Touya drove a yard of razor sharp ice through the dark angel's mid-rift. Cloud hissed as the ice slid through his body and managed to keep himself conscious through sheer stubborn will. Touya, laughing like a child in a game, planted a foot against the slender demon's shoulder and sprang off his chest, yanking his weapon from the immortal's body and flipping backward to land on an upraised root.
"Cloud! Stop screwing around!" Shizuru snarled, looking up from her task of defrosting poor Alaster. "Just do it already!"
"What do you mean by 'it' precisely?" wheezed the dark angel, looping an arm around his wounded belly. Thank the fates Touya was too insane to strike for the heart instead of the stomach.
"It!" she repeated while slapping the thawed Alaster about the face and failing to wake him. "Use your energy or I'll finish the job for you!"
"Bitch," he muttered.
"That's right, little raven. Why don't you hit me?" Touya laughed, shameless in his goading. "Go on. Let's see some shadowkai power, or are you too afraid? Can't handle one ninja, little raven?"
"What is it with you people and calling me the wrong name?" Cloud burst out furiously, jamming Raven and Ash back in their holsters. "It's Cloud, godsdamn it! CLOUD! It's not that hard to remember! And you!" He glared at Touya (or more specifically the one behind Touya's eyes). "You just need to die."
So, pissed as hell, the dark angel swept his arms in a wide arch across his chest, crossing his hands and fanning his gloved fingers like cards, horizontal to the ground. Touya arched a brow. Cloud's posture became hunched and stiff. Inky tendrils of darkness seeped from the folds of his too-large jacket like cobras from their lairs, coiling about his slender frame and sucking the light from the air around them. The best way to describe it is comparing it to darkening the tint setting on your television. The brightness just faded from everything.
Invisible wind stirred the platinum blonde of his hair and a hellish glow leaked into his ruby irises, lending his gaze a nightmarish quality. He lifted his face to narrow his horrible eyes at the ice demon who only grinned that psycho smile.
"I won't kill you only because he would win if I did. If he has something to say to me you'd better tell me what it is, because I'm about to end this," he said flatly. Shizuru, supporting a confused and only half conscious Alaster, listened to him closely, watching the two opponents. She studied every move, seeking weakness, strength, changes in fighting style or power. This was a golden opportunity to evaluate her possible opponent for future exploitation. .
Touya seemed to agree to the dark angel's sentiment and laughed, holding up open hands in surrender. "Caught me," he confessed, beaming. "There's an epidemic, little raven. It's spreading and there's only one person who knows the cure."
Shizuru, dumping Alaster on the ground, stood up and stepped toward the chatty ice demon. "What epidemic?"
"Who knows?" Cloud countered, glaring at Shizuru for intruding.
Touya frowned suddenly in thought and clasped his chin between thumb and forefinger. "Wait. There are two people who know the cure. The person who created it and the one you must find if you want this epidemic to end."
"Oo-kay," Cloud drawled as if annoyed. "Who is the other person who knows?"
"But wait!" Touya laughed obnoxiously, delaying the answer yet again. Shizuru twitched. If the Ice Master ever returned to normal she doubted she could ever look at him without the memory of that awful laugh. He lifted his face and raised his hands as if to say 'now I remember!' "Stupid me. I know the cure!"
"You who?" Cloud snarled. "Touya? Or Karasu!"
Shizuru shot him a subtle glance in surprise. Had he read her mind or did he simply know Karasu so well it had been that easy to tell? The glow in his eyes had been a give away, but she'd confirmed it by taking a quick detour through his thoughts while he was fighting Cloud. They didn't belong to Touya. So...what did that fact, perhaps, entail? Perhaps Touya's mind had been destroyed by Karasu and he was simply insane and not the Touya she knew and...erm...love wasn't the word but you get it. Or maybe the more unpleasant option of Karasu having taken over the ice demon's mind. Then again, Touya could be only partially under his control or even influenced by him, but still himself...Ow! Headache. No more speculation! Oh, the pain...
The 'Ice Master who was not' shrugged a shoulder languorously. "Me: Touya. You see Karasu explained the disease to me before – you know."Touya pointed at his head and made a little loop-de-loo. "I was infected and went crazy. Stupid really. I may be sick now, but I'm still pretty damn smart. Mostly, Karasu claws the shit out of you, infects you and you get a whole knew perspective on death, life and all the worthless drivel. He told me to go forth and infect as many people as possible until you lot showed up so I could deliver this message."
Shizuru's head pounded with a growing migraine. "So that means what? Are you Touya or not?"
The Ice Master grinned and said the most predictable thing he could in such a situation. "Yes and no."
"Don't be coy," she sniped. "It's unoriginal."
"Fine. Be that way, but since you're dying to know. I'm still me. Just...the more suppressed version," he said with a definite nod.
Here Cloud queried a thought. "All his repressed emotion, violence, and insanity I suppose?"
"Hey, who's telling the story here?"
Shizuru groaned and pulled her mask from the lower half of her face in irritation. "So in short, he made you a crazy, sadistic, killer that adheres to his every whim?"
"Yes and no," he replied, obviously enjoying it as she squirmed in aggravation. "I wasn't supposed to know this part, but like I said, I'm smart like that and the new me likes to cause trouble so I'll help you out. The person who can cure this epidemic is in hiding but a certain three-eyed someone you know could probably find him."
"Hiei," Shizuru murmured, apparently off in her own little world drawing conclusions.
"You're point?" Cloud spat.
"Not too bright," Touya remarked, seating himself atop the upraised tree root. "Plants. Karasu. Me. Jaganshi. Think about it. Who does that all relate to?"
"Oh no," Shizuru groaned massaging her temples between slender fingers. Cloud shot her a look that appeared as disdainful as he hoped it looked. Truth was he'd made the conclusion at Jaganshi. But she must have been thinking it from the start by the look on her face. Not that it bothered him or anything...not really.
Touya smiled. "Very good," he commended her as if she'd just figured the sum of two and three. "I think I'll be on my way now. I have a couple more cities to infect nearby. Until next time!"
He leapt up and alighted on a thick branch overhead before vanishing completely.
"Godsdamned crow," muttered Cloud. "Like an old dog too set in its way to change."
"So the past, as usual, repeats itself," she spat, hands clenched about her hips. "Fan-freaking-tastic."
Alaster, with perfect timing awoke just in time to hear his partner's venomous snarl. Holding his head he winced and sat up, groaning slightly. "What past?" he asked, unwittingly dooming himself.
Shizuru, now that the threat of being murdered by Touya had passed, remained angry at the implications that his visit had prompted about her own quest. Namely that it might not be her quest anymore, but rather another dandy save-the-world-from-destruction-and-demise little escapade. Lovely. So that meant she was on the prowl for someone to blame and/or vent her rage upon. Cloud wisely remained silent while poor Alaster took the brunt force of her frustration.
"KARASU'S AFTER KURAMA AGAIN!" she shrieked.
A couple demonic birds, start into the air with that resounding conclusion and so ends this chapter.
Director's cut ain't always better....
Author's Excuses: I mean...Note. Author's Note. Heh, heh... Frankly, I blame my muse! She's totally evil! One minute she swamps me with so many ideas I can't type them all, the next she goes dry and leave on an ice cream binge. How can you blame me for that? Anyway, this chapter was lengthy and I only got around to flaunting the new powers of a couple characters, but I feel it was important and opened new exciting possibilities (no thanks to my worthless muse). Terribly sorry once again for the delay, but I had to attend to other things.
Cloud8.9: Like staring at the ceiling for hours in hopes of inspiration?
Me: Shuttup.
Cheezit: GUYS! HEY GUYS! (runs in with a tub of Ben and Jerry's) I HAVE AN IDEA!
Me&Cloud8.9: (look excited) Really?! For the story.
Cheezit: No, you dithering morons! For the Wolf's Rain fic you so sorely neglected! I've read it and it needs revision and an update! Let's go! Chop-chop! Up, up, up! We have writing to do you slacker! And YOU! (point's at Cloud8.9) Fetch me a spoon or I shall spork you to death with a chop-stick.
Cloud8.9: You can't spork someone with a – (is sporked to death by a chopstick)