Disclaimer: I own the plot and if you steal that I will hunt you down and kill you
Story Thus Far: Yuusuke is infected, Touya is a statue, Jin and Keiko fight to protect the fortress against overwhelming odds while Botan tries to calm an oddly antsy Minna. Veil and Cloud have met and Marionette is giving them hell to pay and Kurama…we'll see about that.
Enjoy chapter 14!
The Politics of Genocide
-blah-
"Look out!"
Shizz-iiit!
A guttural curse leapt from the dark angel's tongue as that deadly whip of energy licked his ankle, tearing through flesh and spraying blood, before instantly cauterizing the wound with the heat. Something else tore through his left wing, not hurt so much as yanking him to the side and knocking his wings out of sync. The winged demon spun mid-air, plummeting awkwardly toward the earth in a blizzard of tattered black plumage, dizzy with the pain.
A strong hand seized his shoulder and yanked him back up and around, righting him in the air while tugging him to safety. He blinked muzzily, feeling strangely warm and somewhat fuzzy and unable to really figure out why. He recognized the dragon demon he'd recently saved cursing something dreadful, yanking him out of Marionette's deadly range.
"Wake up! Hey!"
He groaned. "My…head…"
"Damn! You're useless when you're poisoned!"
"Huh?"
"Marionette hit you with a poison dart remember?"
"Oh yeah." The blond demon blinked, his eyes slowly clearing as his body neutralized the would-be fatal toxins. "Can…you let go of me?"
The dragon demon's reply dripped sarcasm, his acid yellow eyes slitted and aggravated. Cloud and he had found themselves locked in deadly combat with the high-class youkai killing machine for almost fifteen minutes now. In that time Cloud had managed to forcibly remove one of Marionette's mechanical arms, but paid the price when the assassin blindsided him with a poisonous dart. The effect was something like getting really, stupid drunk.
"I don't know. Will you fall out of the sky if I do?"
"No." He frowned. "I'm good now."
"I thought Marionette poisoned you."
"He did…shadowkai are immune to poison."
The dragon said nothing for a long, envious moment. "Damn. Some demons get all the luck."
Cloud replied by grabbing the slender youkai's flaming red head and shoving it down as Marionette's lightening whip snapped through the now vacated air. The two demons hovered there a moment, watched at the gray-skinned automaton glided through the air toward them, alabaster eyes unfeeling, totally emotionless as he readied his weapon for another round of blinding whip-work.
Veil released the blond and hurled his arm at the machine, his swarm of metal barbs sweeping around to arrow down toward the enemy. Cloud followed suit, launching several transmogrified feathers at him, hoping to pierce that metal exterior and puncture some kind of critical mechanism inside the puppet creature.
Marionette raised a glowing arm and the first couple rows of metal barbs disintegrated before Veil withdrew. Cloud's feathers fared better, punching through the arm…but doing absolutely no damage to the final assassin despite. The two demons drew close combat weapons and lunged at the living doll, trying to get near enough to do some serious…
That deadly whip crackled and they both narrowed dodged the hungry whip. Veil cursed as the snake-like weapon bit into his chest, slicing a shallow cut across his torso and exposing his blooding skin. His heavy black wings pumped, sending him high into the air, clutching his body in pain. Cloud used his feather saber to defect a vicious attack, refusing to let himself get struck again.
"Give up," Marionette said tonelessly.
Cloud glared. "No."
Sable energy swirled down his arms, funneling across his pale skin like black snakes until they pooled in his fingers. He rolled the energy between his palms like he would a ball of clay. It grew and grew, crackling in his hands, spitting black sparks, humming with power. Marionette watched him, sensors picking up the levels of dark energy in the sinister looking orb. Cloud finished rolling it and hefted it like baseball.
Marionette, so focused on taking in data on the super-powered shadowkai, actually didn't see Veil's attack until a giant, flaming globe of magma splattered over his left thigh, hissing and eating into the metal. The living doll turned blank eyes to stare up at the dragon demon, almost irritated, then wiped the glowing yellow ooze from his grayish skin. It hardly looked blackened.
But then Cloud popped up right next to the machine and crammed the black orb deep into the mess of wiring and artificial flesh where the robot's arm had been. Marionette lashed the shadowkai with his whip, ripping a chunk of black feather from the demon's wings and sending the waifish youkai plummeting for the dirt. Everything became a blur of whirling colors, blood red sky, charred earth, explosions of dragon-fire overhead, and his own ebony plumage. He closed his eyes, waiting for impact.
Nab!
Veil had him by the arm again. Cloud smiled dizzily.
"Crazy-ass, shadowkai," grumbled the dragon demon. "That things still alive, but I don't think it'll be coming after us."
Cloud blinked. "Umm…good."
"Come on. I'm getting back to the castle before I get myself infected. That front gate won't last very long if we don't get them some reinforcements," he said, hooking a thumb toward the tall, stony towers and ramparts of Yuusuke's fortress. Below him, Cloud spotted the sparking remains of Marionette, his metal torso exploded from the inside out, twitching pieces of gray material scattered everywhere. But the head and face continued to watch them, cold and unfeeling.
Cloud pulled his eyes away, gaze draw to movement on the side of the clearing…someone was coming through the foliage. Cloud started, leaping higher in the air as a thick wave of power washed over him, the sheer overpowering aura filling the clearing with S-class power so potent that even the dark angel, who grew up among S-class demon felt a chord inside him tremble.
Then, a familiar, ragged, spiky-haired demon-boy stumbled through the trees, falling clumsily over a dead limb and cursing colorfully. Veil's ears pricked at the sound and he glared down at the edge of the clearing, spotting the battered Toushin immediately.
"Yuusuke! You slug! Where have you been?" he growled angrily. He flew down and landed beside the cursing Toushin. "I thought you'd be back in a couple minutes, not a couple hours. What happened to you?"
The former Spirit Detective sighed and sat down hard, laughing without mirth. "I ran into Touya."
Veil's expression didn't change. "Is he dead?"
"Somewhere in between, but he managed to tell me something important," the demon lord said soberly.
He reached up suddenly and grabbed the dark-skinned demon, seizing his slim wrist and pulling the winged youkai down next to him. He slapped something into the dragon demon's palm, curling his fingers about it like a treasure. Cloud blinked, feeling awkward as the two comrades spoke softly. Veil stared down at the pale, crumpled object in his hand, a sheet of scroll paper by the look of it. He seemed…somehow less fiery than before.
"Then…you won't be coming back to the castle?"
"No. You have to tell them."
Veil clutched the paper. His expression remained rigid, totally emotionless, but Yuusuke smiled at his second in command, knowing better. The dragon stood up and turned back to Cloud, who waited, feeling out of the loop and not caring. For the last couple days his entire life had consisted of waiting for other people to lead him, use him, or order him around about affairs he only half understood. At least now he didn't have to listen to Shizuru.
Yuusuke caught sight of the shadowkai suddenly, eyes lighting up with recognition.
"Hey…I remember you," he said, sitting up straight. "Back on the cruise ship with Shizuru…"
"A long time ago," Cloud said shortly. "She's around here somewhere. We heard you were in trouble."
"Is…Alaster with you guys?" he asked tentatively.
The dark angel nodded. Yuusuke looked withdrawn for a moment. "Promise me you'll get him to Botan before all this is over."
Cloud blinked. "Sure."
Veil caught his arm. "We've got to go. Yuusuke doesn't have much longer. They need us at the gate."
Cloud stared at the Toushin, so changed from the last time he'd seen him, a fourteen year old human boy with exceptional spiritual powers, now an Emperor of the Third Realm. The exhausted demon leaned back against a broken piece of rubble; Cloud could sense the disease stirring in the young lord's blood, seeping into his energy, his sanity. Fate had their back on this one. If they hadn't arrived in time to receive the information from him, Yuuske's message would have never reached the castle.
Cloud and Veil took to the air, wings pumping and pulling the two winged youkai into the blood-red skies. Lightening striking and illuminating the nightmare, stretched out forever before them…
…stretched out forever before them.
Shield hit the ground…and Alaster tumbled over right after.
The young fox demon groaned, pain eating away at his senses, red hot lines of pain crisscrossing his bruised and battered body like tires tracks across his pale flesh. His once clean white robes hung off his slender frame like rags, shredded, stained with blackened dirt, charcoal and blood, both his and his opponent's. He lay there in the dirt, panting, sensitive ears flat against his skull and whined softly, hugging himself and just sitting there, regaining his breath.
I'm infected.
The thought brought tears to his wine-red eyes. The sickly sweet tang of infected blood clung to his clothes, his hair, his skin and the ground around him, Shield's final trump card when he realized Alaster's superior battle strategy would eventually win out. Shield cut his own arm and threw himself on the youko, smearing him with the deadly fluid until the fox looked more red than silver.
The silver-haired hanyou managed to roll onto his side, his body aching, his head reeling. Hot tears cut glistening paths through the blood and filth slathered across his usually ethereal face. He couldn't help it. The young demon hugged his knees and buried his face in his arms, letting himself sob, slim shoulders trembling with every gentle cry. He didn't care how weak it looked, how pathetic.
If he was about to die anyway…what did it matter?
He hiccupped. Lifting his face out of his bleeding and battered arms, he wiped messily at his cheeks, trying to wipe away the wetness. Something inside him steeled itself, hardened and suddenly the young kitsune refused to just sit down and die. Alaster gritted his teeth and shoved himself to his feet, staggering a moment before clutching the heavy gash on his left arm.
He glanced down at his defeated opponent, unconscious, wrapped from head to foot in creeper ferns from Shizuru's potted plants back home. He momentarily thought of home, the familiar pit in his stomach reminding him how much he wanted to get all this over with, find Shizuru and go back to the shinobi.
Then he immediately thought of Touya and shook it off. No! He would not sit idly by and hope someone could make everything better! His father wouldn't Shizuru wouldn't and gods damn it, even Cloud wouldn't so neither would he! The kitsune stumbled forward, moving with a long, gentle lope through the forest, heading toward the fortress with the vaguest of plans to somehow help them hold their own.
He didn't have to do anything dramatic like throw his injured, battered body into the middle of the enemy camp, or run head into the evil horde leader or anything stupid like that, but he had himself convinced he could at least make some subtle sneak attacks on the unwary and diseased enemy. No risk of getting infected himself right? After all, despite having Shield's blood in his veins, he still felt pretty darn goo-
Thud!
"Oof!"
"Owie!"
Alaster blinked, wondering what or who on earth he'd just crashed into. He sat back on his knees, moving one clawed hand up to rub his aching head, ears flicking back in pain. Something small and warm punched his knee with little affect and the youko blinked down at a pair of big, girlish acid green eyes staring up at him from the dirt. There, sprawled under him lay a small girl of about seven years old, her pigtail messy and lopsided due to their collision, her freckles bright orange against her pale skin.
She'd gone white with anger, her presumably cute face contorted in rage so deep it positively twisted her little face into a horrific mask. The girl raised her fist and pointed at him, shrieking intelligibly. For a moment, Alaster couldn't figure out why a little girl was on the battle field of the Makai or why she seemed to have an A-class aura and the scent of a pure disease…like her entire being consisted of nothing but the sickness.
"It's him! It's him! Kill the fox!" she screamed, gesturing wildly at him. "What are you waiting for you fools? Kill him!"
Alaster looked up and felt his stomach drop into his toes, his ears flicking back against his skull in horror. Standing in a giant ocean of lumbering, drooling, bloody and diseased glory behind the little girl, the horde of Enma's infected victims began to act upon the girl's wild commands. A quick look over his shoulder revealed the giant, iron gates of Yuusuke's fortress, hundreds of haggard, wide-eyed faces gaping down at this mad, silver-haired fox-demon single-handedly attacking the child warlord and her thousands.
He swallowed as the demons advanced.
So much for not being dramatic, he thought.
"So…" Kurama said slowly.
The candles burned lower about the two contrasting diners, casting long, creepy shadows across the walls and haunting features of the speaker and listener alike. Kurama ran a long fingered hand through his ragged copper tresses, sighing as if exhausted by the sheer effort of listening to his companion. Karasu watched his captive with an admirable kind of calm, waiting for the kitsune to remark.
"All this trouble merely for the sake of keeping the Tantei under control," he murmured thoughtfully. He drummed a finger against the table top and smiled a bitter, yet self-satisfied kind of smirk. "I never realized Enma hated us so."
"And why not?" Karasu chuckled. "He brought me back to make you my – and in essence his – tool. What he never considered I suppose, was you becoming stronger and escaping to further make a nuisance of yourself."
He plucked up a crystal wineglass and swirled it slowly, sensuously watching the violet-red liquid slosh about. The light refracted through it, throwing dark, bloody colors about the room and staining the walls in the suggestive crimson hue. Kurama glanced at the newly painted walls and narrowed his icy green-gold eyes; a cat-like gesture for a fox demon. The hidden threat in the wine did not escape him; Karasu, twisted mind that he possessed, was probably picturing what Kurama would look like covered in blood.
"With Yuusuke openly claiming his father's throne Enma grew anxious and with his old tormentor and mocker, Youko Kurama slipping into mysterious obscurity where he couldn't keep an eye on you it's no wonder he got antsy," laughed Karasu, gazing at the ceiling overhead in amusement. "The suspicious old bastard had his mind absolutely made up that the lot of you had treachery planned."
Kurama pursed his lips, training his face carefully blank as he went on to ask his next question.
"If we were a threat…then why, pray tell, did he order you to kill Kazuma Kuwabara? Surely he presented no threat," whispered the kistune softly.
Karasu's violet eyes snapped back to Kurama, as if sensing a hint of delicious pain in those words and like a vulture he drew himself back to the source of the bleeding question. "Physical threat no, I guess he didn't…but Koenma shouldn't have over estimated the human's ability to keep a secret."
The kitsune tightened his fingers a knot beneath the table.
Karasu smiled sadistically, savoring the moment before the kill as Kurama drew his own conclusions. He took in with pleasure the almost invisible shifting of the fox's hypnotic green-gold eyes, the lightening fast theories growing, discarding and redrawn behind those eyes as puzzle pieces fell into place. He paused still, sipping his sweet wine and waiting for the lovely creature to finish his conspiracy dot-to-dot.
"You killed Kazuma…" whispered Kurama. "He knew all about the scheme because of his position under Koenma. You framed Hiei for Mukuro's murder and then killed Kuwabara to make sure he never could speak against it in Spirit World Court. You had Hiei exiled to make sure he never took Mukuro's throne!"
Karasu threw his arms wide, smiling gleefully…totally insane.
"Now you know everything except what can save you," he gloated. "It seems I've been ruining your lives forever and you never knew. Framing the Jaganshi was the most fun I ever had, save fighting you of course. The politics of it all mean nothing to me, but the pleasure…I can do this for the pleasure anytime."
Kurama closed his eyes, fighting his bloodlust even as his mind summoned up the forbidden memories, the savory taste of hot blood coating his tongue like fire wine, slicking his throat, setting his own blood aflame with desire for more. His most ancient and primal wants called to him, fueled by his righteous fury against this…monster!
"You won't get away with it," Kurama began. "I won't let you. You're going to die, here Karasu."
"And what? The Grim Reaper girl will drag my spirit down to hell?" leered the quest demon, startling the kitsune with his venomous tone. His lavender eyes burned like acid.
Kurama could only stare.
"What a disgusting thing for you to subject yourself to Kurama," Karasu snapped, showing the first real hints of anger since the moment Kurama sat down. "I remember that twit of a girl and was mortified to learn you'd chosen her of all creatures. You could have a far better mate than a mere boat-girl and yet despite all the rules, the laws and the politics you threw away your favor in Spirit World law to have your prize."
He laughed acidly, the sound burning the kitsune's ears.
"What a pathetic thing to do; only to have her stripped from you the moment Enma learned of it. Almost as sad as your gung-ho leader taking that human as his consort. At least she consented to become a demon. We got rid of Mukuro before she could start anything damnable with the fire-demon at least."
"You!" spat Kurama leaping to his feet suddenly. His feral eyes blazed with primal desire…desire to taste blood, his demonic aura billowing about his slender frame like a great silken curtain, his skin heating with the flames of his hatred.
He bared fangs at Kurama.
"What a gift for your wedding day: The loss of two teammates at once. The Jaganshi might have cried if he wasn't such a cold-hearted bastard. Now that precious little Mika girl is infected while her parent's fall under my disease and the whole of the Makai goes mad. Would you like me to tell you how I plan to murder your half-breed son? It's delicious."
"Enough!" Kurama roared.
He slammed his hands against the table top and every dish, glass, and entrée exploded, whipping themselves against the wall or disintegrating all at once. Brilliant emerald green energy crackled like snakes of lightening bouncing across the youkai's pale skin. Kurama's face had gone white with rage, his eyes filled with blinding green light that lit up his human features like twin suns.
Karasu leapt gently backwards, flipping neatly over his chair and landing a safe distance from the table as his seat, the table and his well-used wine-glass burst into tiny grains of burned nothingness in Kurama's power. The kitsune's loose button-up shirt fluttered and flapped in the wake of his energy, his shorn hair rippling in the electrified air. Karasu watched with morbid fascination as the red-head raised his eyes to lock on the quest demon.
Die! -they said
Suddenly, a flurry of rose petals burst from the kitsune's body, hidden from whatever secret pocket and hurled themselves at the black-haired murderer with the speed of hatred. Karasu laughed and the petals burned away, disintegrating in his corrosive aura.
Sick, violet-red energy coursed through his frame and radiated from his skin like a second layer of clothing. His eyes too filled with his individual energy as he lifted his clawed hands to Kurama, inviting his attack. The kitsune growled deep in his throat and gratefully took the invitation. He flicked four fully bloomed ningen roses into his hands. Too quick to follow, he darted forward, shoving through his opponent's energy and hurling the flora at the demon.
Karasu dodged three, the fourth lodging itself in his shoulder. Blood splattered on the stone and smoldered.
Kurama landed opposite the darkly clothed youkai, spinning to face him, another rose already in hand as the demon slowly turned to face him. Karasu's lavender eyes gleamed with a kind of angry insanity as he reached up to rip the flower from his body, crushing it in his destructive claws.
"You'll regret that," he said.
"I regret nothing," Kurama replied.
Karasu thrust his hand at the beautiful red-head and in an instant a dozen grotesque little orbs of gray flesh materialized in the air. They convulsed suddenly and sprouted dripping bat wings, all opening a single slitted eye, yellow and diseased to fix upon their kistune target.
"You remember these," he purred, stroking one affectionately. He smiled. "Kill him."
Kurama reacted instantly, he threw his arms up like a shield and immediately the swarm threw themselves like hornets at him, arrowing eagerly for his vulnerable body. The thief never even flinched as they came, instead he closed his eyes and a glowing shroud of green energy billowed open like a curtain before him. The flying bombs, simple minded as they were, hurled into the shield and detonated.
The smoke cleared and Karasu's eyes narrowed angrily, cheated. In place of a broken and bleeding Kurama, a giant, five-point leaf stood erect like a green shield in the centre of the room. From behind it, Kurama's expressionless face leaned around. He then smirked and hurled a handful of something at Karasu.
Tiny black seeds, hundreds in a single handful.
The demon snorted and reached up to burn them into nothing with his energy but the moment the tiny seeds met his power they erupted not into flames…but vines. Thousands of thin, snakelike vines covered in thorns blew up from the tiny plant pods and ensnared the snarling quest demon. Instantly his arms and legs fastened themselves together and Karasu collapsed, bleeding and trapped to the ground the vines constricted about his body.
"Struggle all you like," Kurama offered coldly, tossing the giant leaf aside. "They grow with your energy."
He reached beneath the collar of his shirt and pulled a small green splinter from the fabric. It flashed and grew until Kurama gripped not a splinter but a long, razor sharp blade of simple human saw grass. His expression held nothingness as he raised the weapon, intending to strike dead the sadistic demon who'd tortured his friends and family. He'd make sure the quest demon had no chance of coming back this time.
But, to Kurama's anxiety, the youkai merely snickered madly, a high and grating strain of insanity.
"Ah, ah, ah, little Kurama-kun. Remember little Mika girl? Unless you want her to die right now I suggest you lower than blade and dismiss your plants," he laughed his eyes glittering in anticipation. Kurama paused, his eyes flickering. "Hurry up, fox. I haven't all day. Or do you want the child to perish?"
Kurama bit his lip until a bead of ruby blood gathered beneath the fang. Finally he threw his blade aside, the weapon petering off to a tiny, harmless seed of grass. He stepped away from Karasu, dismissing his vines, so the energy eating vines dwindled away into mere husks, floating in the pool of smoking blood that dripped from Karasu's torn flesh. The demon in question stood with some difficultly, his bloodless lips pulling back in a triumphant smile.
"Still…so soft…Kurama," he taunted, panting through his pain. "Still compassionate. The flaw in your perfection that makes you so vulnerable."
Karasu seemed to draw strength from his words, his lavender eyes growing bright as he studied Kurama's rigid, emotionless façade. A strand of his long sable hair hung like a curtain across his face, lending him a more controlled and deadly visage. He staggered toward Kurama who to an instinctive step back, his green eyes flickering with a familiar fear of one seeing a childhood nightmare.
"Hold still or I'll make it so much worse for you," he promised sweetly. "Mika too."
Kurama went so still then Karasu almost felt insulted that the kitsune could gather the bravery to do so without second thought. No matter. Karasu reflected upon the irony of all that had come to pass as he stepped close to the immobile kitsune, reaching up a clawed hand, dripping his own blood to place it gently along the fox's pale neck, thumb running a velvety trail down a vulnerable slope of his throat.
The King of Thieves never even flinched.
The pulse beneath his fingers didn't race like that of a wild animal, but it did quicken. He pulled the kitsune intimately close, their faces so near if one moved carelessly his nose would run into the other's. The sadist noted with a distant kind of delight that Kurama had grown tall enough to do this without bending down to him. The former thief's wiry shoulders trembled with barely concealed rage, his hands clenching and unclenching as Karasu studied his expression inch by inch.
Karasu's mad, amethyst orbs held Kurama's cold green gaze, emerald speckled with gold. Like twins from the other side of the looking glass, they captivated one another with the sheer distinction between themselves. They gazed at one another with death's promise silent between them. Kurama gritted his teeth, his eyes fighting to remain without fear, hatred or any other emotion Karasu drew pleasure from. Karasu's sought the emotion in those deep orbs.
"All so years ago…I gave you power to defeat even Yomi," Karasu whispered breath smelling of copper blood, death and spices. "And I still hold you helpless."
Kurama refused to speak, fearing to open his mouth. Karasu ran his claws teasingly across the young man's neckline, his razor sharp nail threatening to open the delicate skin and mix the diseased DNA into the kitsune's. With his free hand he tipped Kurama's chin up, exposing the fragile arch of his throat, ultimate submission for any animal demon.
Kurama's breath quickened with rage.
His teeth ground, fangs threatening to open new wounds on his bleeding lip.
"You know," Karasu remarked, tapping his claw against the soft skin beneath the kitsune's chin, making the former thief go taunt with hatred, fear long abandoned. Bloodlust dominated every thought in his mind, fueled by cold logical calculation that only barely kept him from abandoning his strategy and attacking Karasu on the spot. "Once this is all over I think I'll go find your little ferry-girl and punish her for ruining your perfection. Would you like me to tell her anything for you?"
"Of you're going to kill me…best do it," Kurama murmured.
"Not yet," Karasu chuckled.
He suddenly ran a rough thumb across the red-head's abused lower lip, wiping the blood off the youko's mouth and running his tongue earnestly across the bloody digit. He smiled a gory smile, looking particularly vampirish as he did. The kitsune stared at the demon in a moment of dumb horror, unable to believe what he just... Karasu seized Kurama's wrists and jerked the slighter youkai forward, practically banging foreheads with the enraged kitsune.
Kurama planted his hands against the quest demon's narrow shoulders and leaned back, grimacing in disgust as his enemy forced the contact between them, auras writhing and contrasting as opposite energies came together like oil and water. He bared his fangs, crimson blood smeared from the corner of his mouth where Karasu had wiped it off his lip.
"You've tormented me by living for far too long!" his captor spat, hatred boiling in those purple eyes. "You'll die when I see fit, kitsune! No sooner!"
"Release me!" Kurama hissed, eyes blazing molten hatred.
Karasu laughed. A cracked and broken crescendo of madness that spiraled into the high ceiling to echo like a shattered laugh track over and over again. Kurama growled and shoved the quest demon away from him, shattering several of the monster's ribs as he tore himself free of the twisted hold falling backward in a smooth backhand spring to escape him.
"The end is near," leered the psychopathic youkai. "Your friends' defenses are failing. I hold the only means of cure here in my hands and Mukuro's assassins are ridding the Makai of the only other three creatures who know the truth of this. Soon Enma will control this realm and I will have what I came for."
Kurama stared silently at the mad youkai, his internal clock ticking down the minutes…the seconds.
Mika, he thought silently. Wake up Mika.
"Oh kripes…"
Keiko sighed. "Whenever you say that, someone usually dies in a violent manner, Jin."
The wind demon simpered apologetically. "Sorry, lass, but there's bein' a giant herd o' nasty demon-blokes trundlin' fer th' front gates and they dun look very 'appy t' meh," said the redhead told her with a heavy kind of smile.
He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward the front of the fortress grounds. The Empress of the Third Realm grimaced and slowly levered herself up on the haft of a spear, using it as a crutch to limp her way over to the equally battered looking shinobi. She peered over the ramparts and moaned in despair and irritation at the sight of what looked like an ocean of glittering beetles.
But she knew better. The glitter was armor glinting up at her and the ocean an endless army of dangerous, mind-washed plague-carriers. The stench of oversweet, rotting flesh wafted up to them on the stale wind, that never improved in quality no matter how hard Jin tried to manipulate the currents.
Jin's lamp-ish blue eyes squinted at the front rank. "Looks loike there's a wee lass out front…she'd carryin' a long black scepter thingee." He blinked over at Keiko and several of the remaining fighters huddled beside their mistress. "I think she's leadin' th' horde."
They remnants of Yuusuke's loyalty waited, watching with silent, bated breath as the thundering, uneven rumble of clumsy feet, armor and weapons rolled ever nearer, like the tide of the merciless black ocean slithering closer to the fragile walls of their little sand castle. Keiko's nails dug into the stone, small chips of rock chinking out of the wall to crumble to the ground. Jin gnawed his lip, ears rigid, practically quivering, his giant blue eyes taking up more then their usual room on his face.
By the time the horde came to halt, not more and a hundred yards from the front gates, all those watch could indeed see the leader, a small black-haired little girl in a simple black haori and pig-tails. In her tiny hand she carried a mean looking black scepter of black flesh, dripping filth and what everyone knew without really knowing…was infected blood.
She grinned gleefully up at the exhausted last line of defense.
"I'm Jenny!" she called up to the walls. "I'll be killing you all today!"
Minna chose this moment to poke her head over the wall and waved energetically before anyone could stop her. "Hi! I'm Minna! Want to be friends?"
Jenny grinned evilly and pointed the perverted rod at the other child. Several slitted yellow eyes, oozing pus and dribbling, quivering with fever squinted open at the end of the pole. Minna made a face, disgusted by the sight, even as the feverish orbs began to lock on her and glow with dangerous lavender light.
"Sure."
She fired.
Jin tackled the child off the wall just in time. The sickly colored beam shot away into the sky and vanished. Jin shoved Minna hastily into a panicked Botan's arms, the toddler shrieking all the while about how mean Jenny was. The shinobi sighed and moved back to the front of the walls, sitting down beside Keiko and staring blankly at his bloody knees. She sighed and tipped her aching head on his shoulder, tears rimming her eyes.
"So…th' liddle monster out there talkin' 'bout how she's gonna be killin' us all dead then is she?" Jin asked with a mirthless grin.
Somewhere in the background Jenny droned on about how pointless resistance was and blah, blah, blah…
Keiko smiled. "Yep. She started her monologue a couple seconds after you took Minna back to Boton. We're safe until she get bored of hearing herself talk."
Jin sat up and turned to squint down at the front gates. "Aye…Keiko…" he said slowly. "Some crazy youko demon is tacklin' that Jenny-lass. Hah! He's sittin' on 'er loike a football, 'e is! Hah hah! You get 'er yu' crazy fox!"
Keiko leapt up. "Fox? Is it Kurama?" she cried looking wildly down at the road. Sure enough, a silver youko had tackled Jenny into a ditch in the middle of her victory speech. The girl was screaming and pointing at him, but without her scepter it seemed the horde didn't know what to do. They lumbered toward the lone kitsune who looked up like he only just noticed them there.
The youko seemed…familiar.
Then a scream pierced the silence. Everyone there spun to stare at Boton who'd almost plunged down the side of the wall, eyes brilliant raspberry eyes fixated upon the silver-haired kitsune. Her face looked like paper, her mouth hanging open in a silent gasp of horror.
"A-ah," she sputtered. "Oh my gosh! That's Alaster!"
Author's Note: Okay. Not as quick or as good an update as I'd like but I'm starting to see a conclusion some time in the next couple chapters. Buh hahaha. As soon as I finish this one, I'm due for a couple sequels to begin. Hee hee…
Cloud8.9: And to all the people who asked, pocky sticks are long, thin stick-like cookies dipped in chocolate. Yum.
Cheezit: (cracks knuckles) Either get this fic done or die, Syco. I've got a bucn of other fics to start but we can't do that until you wrap this one up.
Me: (whimpers) Why are you so mean? PS: I reposted this chapter because I accidentally up up the last chapter and had Alaster fighting Blade instead of Shield. My bad.