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Story Thus Far: Mika has landed in the company of Cloud and Veil who speed toward Yuusuke's fortress. The evil hordes of Jenny the disease apparition attack the front gates while Alaster and Botan are reunited. A lost soul has found his way back to reality and that leaves us all wondering what has happened to dear Kurama-kun. Shall we investigate?
Enjoy Chapter 16!
What Cloud Never Said
The pain…had grown…unbearable. Even to an aged creature such as himself who had suffered battle wounds, eradication and rebirth and an array of other torments most demons would cringe to think of doing much less experiencing. Yet, despite this sickening injustice, that one who had suffered so long might still yet have more terrible things in store for them, he found himself struggling to hope; still fighting with every particle of sanity not eaten away by pain.
He screamed. He couldn't help it, but he hardly cared, knowing that despite its failure to do anything to stop the agony, it provided his mind a split-second distraction to gather itself. Then his nerve endings swamped him with pain and he doubled up moaning and fighting back the desperation, the panic, the bestial instinct to live. He swayed and flung out his hand to brace himself on the stone, palm slapping the ground.
He stared at his hand, watching with morbid fascination as his own blood dribbled down the bare length of his arm, slithering down his skin to pool around his fingers in a thick puddle. The metallic scent of his own blood and sweat mingled in the subtle odors of emotional turmoil: pain, fear, anger and whatever wild sentiments his brain could concoct.
Another explosion just inches from his unprotected ribs. He screamed in pain as the blast ripped through the skin, spraying blood before the heat cauterized the wound, the force of the detonation throwing him against the wall like a rag doll. His head smacked the stone with a whip-lash motion, skull thudding against the stone with a sickening crack. He slid to the ground in a boneless heap, panting and shuddering, his whole body anticipating the next blow.
"Why don't you attack me?" crooned a gentle voice. He felt claws smoothing his burned and blood soaked hair. "Are you afraid I'll kill the little girl? Worried I'll have her dig her own heart out of her breast?"
"You would," he croaked, voice hoarse from his yelling. "You're quarrel is with me…not a girl."
A chuckle. "So right."
Another explosion, his shoulder again. Kurama loosed a tortured scream that cracked part-way through and he curled tightly on the floor, huddled like a wounded animal. His muscles went into spasms; the constant tension in his lithe body almost too much for his battered physique. Terrasuka, Touya, now Karasu; he'd fought them all to some degree. Exhaustion and trauma played funny games with his pain-glazed wits and for a moment, in a daze he wondered if he lost how Team Urameshi could possibly proceed. Hiei and Yuusuke would have to pull of something amazing and Kuwabara would have to pray for a miracle.
Then he remembered this wasn't the Dark Tournament.
He trembled, reaching up a hand to clutch an oozing wound across his forearm. Deep, bleeding gashes raked his skin in crisscrossing claw marks, crimson flowers blooming in long red stems across his once white dress-shirt. He imagined the poisonous infection breeding in his flesh, but didn't bother to worry about it, knowing that infection was the least of his problems right now. Especially for him.
Karasu, his dark jacket hiding well the dried blood that coated his body, smiled serenely. The familiar, gleeful expression, like that of a child at play and yet so cruel and psychotic that part of Kurama – the secret more human part – cringed. His lavender eyes gleamed crimson-purple as he fondled a familiar green orb of energy, tossing it playfully from finger to finger. He watched his victim's great green-gold streaked eyes, the way his gaze refused to look at the terrible green ball, locked unwaveringly on Karasu.
He flicked the orb at the fox and it exploded a foot over his battered and bleeding shoulders, the shock wave throwing him to the stone with a cry. His cheek smacked the ground and he went still, presumably knocked out with the blow…or finally passed out from the pain. The kitsune's pale, exotic features had gone slack, smeared with ash and blood, crimson running from his mouth and a gash over his right eye.
He reached delicately out and touched Kurama's temple with a spark of energy. The youko's eyes snapped open with a cry of pain and Karasu caught him under the chin, long fingers catching his jaw and turning his face up with a rough jerk. Green and gold irises burned with desperate defiance…fear kicked back into a dark corner of his mind to ignore. Karasu smirked, amused.
He still had hope.
"So you think you can still salvage victory from this?" he asked.
His question was so soft only Kurama could have heard it. The youko closed his eyes and through the blood and ash his battered lips pulled up in a smile so frail it might shatter with a breath.
"Yes."
Karasu struck him across the face and Kurama skidded across the floor on his back, stars blooming in his vision like a bouquet of white and black flowers. He felt consciousness slipping from him, ebbing like a tide from his body and he sucked a ragged gasp, chest heaving desperately to draw air into his aching lungs. He stared at the ceiling with stinging eyes, feeling wetness splashing from the corner of his eyes and cut a path through the blood and filth.
He felt his adversary grab his wrist, both of them with one hand, and pin them over his head, holding him down and kneeling over him with a small green orb between his thumb and forefinger. Kurama gazed at the ceiling, the curtains and the stone spinning and whirling together like they might become one. He felt heat against his belly, the gentle aura of the bomb resting on his abdomen.
"Do you still think you can win?" Karasu asked icily.
He closed his eyes.
"Yes!" he shouted again.
The explosion, pain, blood, screaming so ragged he might have cried.
"Do you still think you can win?"
Kurama clenched his eyes, pressing his head back, almost laughing through his pain.
"Yes! I can!"
Pain! Burned flesh and agony! Kurama screamed, but his lungs had no breath for it so he merely mouthed the cry, back arching. He sucked air, panting, gulping his cries like he could swallow them and stop them from coming right back up. He needed…to fight back…had to…defend himself. He felt his wrist pull against Karasu's hold and the seeds, in his clothing and shorn hair, react to his energy.
"Mika's still alive Kurama," said the quest demon with a smile.
His arm relaxed, his energy sank back into his soul and waited with docile impatience to be used. He couldn't…not with Mika's life on the line. He'd promised…He'd promised. He heard the indescribable noise of energy swirling into existence at Karasu's fingertips, the new instrument of torture. Kurama's thoughts plunged into his own mind, shutting out this body's physical wails,
I promised.
He felt skin tear and bleed before crystallizing, blistering shut in the heat. He writhed, knowing that as long as he didn't bleed out he could live to endure another round of the tiny explosives. He went deeper…
I promised. I promised Yuusuke.
Heat! Blood! Ash and smoke. He felt his captor's laughter as gruff fingers grabbed up a fistful of his blood-sticky hair, wrenching his head back. His neck bent back so far he had to arch his back, gasping as razor sharp nails pricked the side of his throat, claws drawing themselves across the thin layer of skin…
I promise Keiko.
Closer…closer to the arch of his exposed throat. Karasu played no game this time. He'd had his time, his fun and now he wanted to see him die, drowning in his own blood, injured, in pain…totally helpless…
I…I promised Mika! Mika! Mika wake up!
Inches, centimeters, he'd puncture the windpipe in seconds. He'd swallow his blood until it filled his lungs full. His heart raced in his chest, blood thundering through his ears, cold fear spiking through him. He'd die. Then Mika would die and the cure would die with him. He needed her to wake…to save him…to save everything!
Please! WAKE UP!
BAM!
Mika opened her eyes in reality and Kurama's hand darted up to fast it might have teleported. He seized Karasu's wrist, stopping those killing fingers and with a brutal twist he threw the quest demon away from him. With a rapturous laugh fitting only that of Yoko's olden days, he rolled onto his side. Triumph and relief ran through him so hot his blood might have boiled in his veins as all thoughts of pain and weakness fled his mind and Kurama shoved himself to his feet, staggering only a step.
He hurled a single blade of grass, not bothering to grow it, at Karasu. The demon gasped, too started to dodge, letting it puncture a bleeding pinhole in the flesh over his heart.
Karasu fell back. He scrambled quickly to his feet with a look of horror and shock Kurama hadn't seen since he'd become Yoko at the Dark Tournament. He casually flicked a familiar seed into his fingers and leveled a dark look at his long-time rival and fear. Standing there, bleeding from the chest, haggard and shocked…he didn't seem nearly as scary to the fox thief as he had to Suiichi Minnamino.
"Once you're gone, the disease will dissipate," Kurama said coldly. "The cure will be easy to administer after that." Green energy began to gather in the seed until it look like a tiny bead of nuclear acid, blazing in his fingers. The seed from the Makai…the very same seed he'd used back then in his desperation, the blood drinking plant. Karasu recognized it, sensed it breeding in that tiny seed, hungry, germinating, merciless.
Kurama held out his hand. Once it bloomed it would drain the demon dry of all his dirty and polluted blood.
"Die."
I think not, youkai!
The booming voice exploded in Kurama's skull like a stick of dynamite. He gasped, eyes wide and surprised as he fell to his knees, the seed spilling on to the floor and erupting into a tangle of writhing, half-formed vines. Karasu made a noise, a wretched, wailing sound like that of a caught animal and darted away, blasting the doorway from his path and rushing into the corridor. Kurama didn't see this happen because he'd sunk to the ground, clutching his head and groaning.
Filth! Traitorous thief! I finally have you at my mercy, you abomination! I knew that foolish quest demon would underestimate you again, but I won't!
Enma…King Enma had found him at last.
Cloud paused. He sensed something off to his left and in his distraction slowed his run to a human jog. Of course, since his grip on Mika's upper arm remained firmly held, Veil – unaware of the dark angel's sudden compulsion to stop – keep right on running. Mika only saved herself from getting an arm ripped out of joint by wrenching her limb out of Cloud's slack hold and snarling at Veil to 'slow the hell down'.
Suffice to say, neither Veil nor Mika appreciated the shadowkai's lax stare-off-into-space thing he tended to do when thinking about something distant. Presently, the blond immortal did just that, staring into the dense forest with a look of either dreamy contemplation or intense meditation. Hard to differentiate between the two.
"What?" Mika snapped, surprisingly forgiving for nearly losing an arm.
"I think…but could she have…already?" he mumbled incoherently to himself.
"What are you babbling about?" Veil growled impatiently. "Are you coming or not?"
Cloud frowned as if the very same question had occurred to him. He didn't move for a long moment, staring into the trees with an expression of deepest loathing and yet…indecision. Like he needed but didn't want to do something very, very crucial out there in the NeverNever. Maybe he'd sensed something dangerous and deadly only he could defeat. Maybe he'd remembered something dire and important that required his immediate attention.
Maybe he'd gone mad.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning to the two. "I can't come with you. I have to…tend to something."
"I'll bet," Mika grumbled.
Veil pinched her and nodded to Cloud while she rubbed her arm and scowled. "Fine. Get going."
"Thanks."
Cloud took off into the trees, flickering out of perception that way his kind tended to do and suddenly the world became a blurring mass of shadowy trees zipping past, pinpricks of light darting overhead, blood red mist of the Makai atmosphere and most of all the growing sense of power in his mind's eye…right in front of him and drawing closer, ever closer, glowing like the light at the end of the tunnel until finally he burst through a wall of foliage and landed in normal reality, air hissing as he alighted.
His ruby red orbs took in the destruction with a level head, reasoning what kind of battle had occurred here. The trees had met with some kind of unstoppable blade, trunks shorn in two at the base, split down the middle. Giant Blood Oaks bled crimson sap into the forest floor, towering Midnight Pine hissing and spewing toxic fumes and casting a gray haze on everything.
The ground had been pounded, torn, destroyed. Craters fifteen feet in diameter made pock-marks across the barren stretch of battle field. Cloud took a step into the wasteland, his boot crunching a brittle twig and grinding it into a fine dust. He pondered quietly if she had survived, if he should – maybe – blame himself for not helping. Most of him sneered at the ludicrous prospect.
The secret part despaired.
Cloud's feet left the scarred earth and he leapt gently into the air, gliding across the clearing with nary a breath from the death dirt around him. The dying Pine hissed, breathing their last of poisonous gas into the dark atmosphere and the dark angel's ebony wings beat twice, silently, the black smoke clearing away with the sweeping motion of his feathers.
He saw something rise from a crater in front of him and slowed his flight to a wary floating. The figure was undoubtedly the girl, but he could not be certain if she still maintained her sanity after a battle with the assassin Blade. The shadowkai ventured a soft question, as if not expecting a real answer…which he wasn't.
"Is there a real reason you hate me so?" he murmured.
The figure stared at him, a waning arc of spirit energy clutched loosely in her fingers. Bleeding gashes in her shirt and pants revealed neatly sliced flesh, bruises and giant scratches marring her forehead, arms and legs like patchwork. Ambrosia eyes blinked slowly, the remains of her mask – half ripped off her face and bleeding mouth – clinging desperately to her chin.
He stepped down into the crater, his ruby eyed dim and expressionless. "Why did you find me? Why do you want me to hunt Karasu? Why? Why did you…" He stopped, also halting a couple feet off, within touching distance. "Is there a reason?"
She wordlessly raised her Spirit Sword and aimed it at his chest. He smiled thinly and closed his eyes, thinking she'd probably met with infection just like everyone else.
"I'm immune," she said coldly, suddenly. "I'm still human, Cloud. Despite what you might think."
He stared at her. Her eyes had grown so cold, so angry; her blood smeared her skin like a fine paint and yet her blade didn't waver from his ribs. She seemed to be contemplating whether or not to shove it between those ribs. Cloud assumed she still harbored a grudge for his abandoning her after they left Alaster. On that note, where had he gotten to?
"You didn't keep your promise," she whispered. Cloud jerked his gaze back to her face, startled. Those honey-colored eyes had grown over-bright, glistening and wet. Her slender mouth had become a very thin line as her trembling lips fought to come apart and spill something forbidden and shameful. She held her tongue a moment, her streaming eyes locked with his perplexed blood-red. "You…were supposed to kill him. You…said you would."
The blade lowered, her eyes didn't.
"You…lied," she said.
Cloud could only stare at her with an expression so lost it must have goaded Shizuru to go on. She gulped, swallowing a shuddering breathing and she gazed mutely at her feeble Spirit Sword. Cloud noticed for the first time the burned and battered body sprawled behind her. A limp hand swathed in rainbow cotton hung lifeless over a rock, neon orange overalls ripped and torn across her breast where the blade had torn her clear through.
"I didn't think…" Cloud began his voice soft as he looked at her, "that you cared."
Shizuru's eyes blazed suddenly and she threw her Spirit Sword form her hands, the weapon snuffing itself like a candle. She leapt forward and seized the front of his jacket, hauling his forward by the lapels, eyes screwed shut so her tears dripped from the corner of her eyes like drops from a wrung towel. The demon huntress heaved what could have been a snarl or a sob and shook him halfheartedly, punching his shoulder.
"He's dead!" she screamed, clutching his shirt. "He's dead! Kazuma is dead! Karasu killed him because you didn't you lying bastard! You said, you promised and now they're all dead! Dead because of him and it's your fault all over again! Your fault! Do you hear me?"
Cloud's hands took her shoulders roughly and she turned her loathing eyes up to look at his unreadable face. Her telepathy told her nothing in that face, slid across those irises like red glass. He still stared at her, like he couldn't say anything…maybe he couldn't. Could he deny what he'd always believed about the relationship between himself and Karasu.
No. He didn't think even a liar like himself could believe that deception.
"You're right," he said softly, his hand straying to her burned fingers, seared by overuse of her spirit energy. "You're right. Everything is my fault…everything because I inspired him to do it. Even back then. Even now."
It was Shizuru's turn to look startled. "What?"
He smiled, holding her hand. "When I first came to the surface…I met Karasu and we were perfect partners. He persuaded me to give him more power, to give him access to his true potential though I sensed the deep well of darkness in his spirit. He grew obsessed with refining his techniques on the living."
"He did terrible things…with me always watching by his side," Cloud murmured, smiling a sad kind of smile that horrified Shizuru and fascinated her. Like a car accident…she could look away from this ten car stack-up of a living creature.
"After a term, we grew interested in humans, he and I. We mingled among them, killed them, learned and laughed at them. He grew fond of their literature…the darker kind. He used to often quote it to me on our lazier nights, though I had no interest in human writing. He used to always recite a poem…a poem about a Raven who came for the soul of a wretched and lonely man. A devil in the disguise of a bird."
Shizuru didn't answer, though Cloud paused, waiting for her reaction. Getting none he went on.
"Sometimes he fancied himself as the Raven…other times said I was the black bird in the poem. He called me little raven – ahh, now you see it – he said I was a demon spawn from the bottom of the Makai, send in the form of a bird to claim his dark soul. He was…fond of the dramatics…even then."
"Little raven?" she repeated. The girl pulled her hand out of his. "You…he made this nightmare disease…you…"
Cloud didn't flinch. "Yes, he made this disease after me, to taunt me or to frighten me, I'm not certain. He thinks of it as some kind of sweet sentiment, a compliment to me for all the years we worked together. I think he does this also to enact vengeance on your ally, Kurama. I think he saw something of me in the kitsune…possibly why he…took a liking to him during the Dark Tournament. So even now…this disease…it's my fault in a way."
The demon huntress stared and stared.
"When I ran into you on that cruise ship all those decades ago and went after Karasu, I promised myself as much as you that I'd make him pay," Cloud mused, looking off into the Makai atmosphere. "I wanted to kill him…for myself…most of all for you. Because I knew that you wanted me to and I did try at first – really I did – but I just never could follow through…Even for you."
Shizuru continued to back away, as if increasingly horrified. Odd. He'd thought for sure she'd be delighted to hear that all the hateful things she'd thought about him were, in fact, perfectly true. He went on without missing a beat.
"He's always had me fooled. In the palm of his hand even when my abilities surpass his." He looked placidly at the wide-eyed woman. "Do you know what I mean? Even Kurama must have shared something like that with you. The feeling that Karasu could beat him, even if he'd surpassed the monster in skill. He's good at that."
"How can you…You could have killed him! Don't say nice words to cover up your failures!" she screamed.
Her heart pumped, blood stealing the paleness from her cheeks. Could she say it? Tell him that 'yes', Kurama had told her just that, that maybe she knew exactly what he was talking about. She couldn't do that though. Because she'd held onto this for far too long and Cloud didn't deserve to get off with her sympathy. She wouldn't let his excuses – Fear! Ha! Him; scared to die. What a laughable thought. – pry into her emotions. No.
"Don't try to get out of your guilt!"
"I'm not. I failed. I was scared and I ran. I'm a coward. Are you happy?"
"NO!"
He smiled that thin, sad smile again. "I didn't think so. "
"I hate you!" she hissed. "I hate you so much…"
Cloud turned his head toward the sky, tipping his head aside as if listening for something only he could hear. He stared at Shizuru again, that same expression in place, that sad, meaningless expression like he wanted to comfort and torture her with it. The ground at his feet began to swirl, oily black energy pulsating and growing outward like a giant vortex of negative youki.
The dark angel slowly wrapped his arms around himself; wings folded at his back like the air had grown too cold. He looked at her with that sad, sad smile and suddenly she had a good idea just what that expression meant. She stared at those ruby orbs across the growing void of black energy boiling up under him, her cider-colored gaze torn and tormented like a soul split in two. She prayed…no…don't say it…
"I'm glad," he whispered. "It would have been…too much to hope that you loved me."
Sable light gathered at his chest and billowed out from his centre, filling his skin like some kind of shimmering ebony smoke until all trace of pale flesh filled with pure untainted blackness. The sheer presence of his power – no…not his power but something he'd summoned – overwhelmed her and the girl toppled back against the lip of the crater.
I knew you'd call on me one day, whispered a voice, feminine, dark and insubstantial as smoke and a butterfly kiss. I did tell you…warn you…the Surface is no place for you. Come. There is one last task I ask you perform.
"Cloud!" she shouted into the swirling black, shielding her face with her arm. "CLOUD! Wait, what do you mean by-!"
She stared.
He'd gone. Vanished. There was nothing left save a black feather, charred and brittle on the scarred battle ground.
"So you're…Jenny, is it?"
She smiled.
"Yes," she purred, stroking her precious staff and smiling sweetly. The disgusting thing undulated beneath her touch, dripping yellow eyes trained on the hovering dragon-demon. "And you're General Veil. The last of Yuusuke's strongest men and the only thing keeping me from ripping this miserable stone keep to the ground…I admit, you're a very strange and attractive kind of demon, aren't you. A shame. Would you like to get out of my way?"
He also smiled, having left Mika Urameshi on the wall top behind him, clutching something precious and frail in her sweaty palms. But he knew, without a doubt, that despite giving them Yuusuke's final message and delivering the Toushin's only daughter to…relative safety that they still needed on last service from him. One last favor before he most likely went down in a crash and burn blaze of dragon-fire and energy.
They needed time.
"No, I'm not going to get out of your way," he said arrogantly, voice unusually snide for the young dragon youkai. His pale eyes narrowed. "And for the record, I don't appreciate you stinking up my lord's kingdom. I'd like you to leave."
She pouted. "Such a pity," she hissed. "I'll make you my new toy when I've infected you."
She pointed her staff at him, violent red energy gathering at the point before a flurry of needle-sharp barbs swarmed her, piercing her through and throwing off her aim. The beam of devastating purple energy missed by meters and Veil bobbed under it, cutting through the air and rising up to watch coldly as his victim stood up, black ooze pouring from her wounds. Her lips pulled in a horrifying kind of grin, blood spilling over her chin and dribbling onto the road.
"Can't kill a disease, sweetie," she crooned. "Come here. I'll make it quick."
Veil's eyes blazed ember red and he coiled his hands, hurling a flaming orb of concentrated dragon breath. The girl screeched as the miniature sun crashed into her chest and exploded. Veil leapt back, souring high in the air overhead to evade the residual black splatter. He coughed slightly at the stench of boiling disease and blood, the smoke fading from the dirt oath until he could make out the damage.
Jenny still stood, her body torn and chunks dropping off her horribly blackened flesh, but even as he watched, the ooze seemed to slither back up her legs and squeeze back inside her flesh, reforming. Veil pursed his lips, fangs pricking his mouth as his metal barbs buzzed in the air around him. The little girl grinned again and picked up her smoking staff from the ground, tottering up and aiming at him once more.
"Let's have a kiss," she giggled.
While Veil dealt with this increasingly disturbing problem, up on the wall a frustrated Mika Urameshi tried to calm the throng of panicking soldiers and family members crowding around her. Several of the less stable men had started screaming at her to surrender to Jenny so some of them would be spared, others tugging on her T-shirt and blathering about how the 'daughter of lord Yuusuke' would save them. That last batch of soldiers had, thankfully, turned their attentions to the battle between Veil and Jenny.
Another problem she faced was the hysterical screaming of her mother, who both hugged and kissed her in mother-like ecstasy and scolded her feverishly for arriving at the worst possible time. She ignored Mika's frantic attempts to speak by bawling about how dangerous everything was right now and why she was stupid for coming and where the hell Kurama was. Blah, blah and so forth.
"Mom! Stop talking I have to -,"
"Don't backtalk me! Mika! You shouldn't be here! Why didn't you stay with Kurama?" Keiko screamed at her flustered daughter. "Get off this wall right now. To the medical tent. It's safer."
Mika protested as the Empress of the Third Realm dragged her down a long flight of stone steps, batting any slow men out of her way and hauling the sixteen year old down the stairs and toward a large white canvas tent pitched in the middle of the fortress courtyard. The stone fountains and gardens had been cleared and burned by enemy fire, only the tent stood in the desolate grounds.
"Mom! Veil brought me here. I can't just leave when he's fighting for his life!" she cried.
"Yes you can. And you will," Keiko snarled, throwing her daughter into the med-tent like a mother cat throws a kitten. "Now what is it you're trying to tell me?"
Mika started to hold up the paper but… "MIKA! Oh my gosh! What are you doing here?"
The girl groaned as a familiar bluette leapt up from the nearest bed, abandoning briefly the silver-blue youko seated there. Mika blinked at the kitsune, wondering why he looked so damn familiar as the ferry-girl began to pat her down and examine her for damage. As she deliberated, she realized this could be none other than Alaster, the other second generation Reikai Tantai.
"Botan. Not right now…this is…important…" she said weakly, waving the paper. "Dad told me…told Veil…DAMMIT LISTEN TO ME!"
"Don't curse," the two mothers chorused at her.
"Alaster!" she cried desperately. She held out the paper to him and he quickly took it from her fingers as the two maternal mothering machines wrestled the girl down and started subjecting her to extensive check-ups. Bandages and herbal salves flew rampant.
The kitsune sat down and the strange little girl, Minna, crawled up beside him and curled up on his tail, hugging it and snoozing happily. Alaster examined the drawing closely, reading quickly the familiar scrawling test of the Ice Master Touya; quick, curt strokes, neat and clear in their message to the reader of the note. He felt his stomach jolt and leapt to his feet, eyes going wide and impossibly round.
"M-mother…" he said weakly.
Botan turned away from bandaging a small cut on Mika's shin. "Yes?"
He blinked up at her. "I know the cure."
Everything stopped. Keiko and Botan and (a heavily bandaged and herbal smelling) Mika looked toward him with mixtures of disbelief, hope and relief. Mika pulled a wad of gauze from her mouth and coughed.
"That…that right there. That flower will cure everyone who's sick if they breathe the pollen," she gasped. He started digging in her pocket, desperately pulling something from her sweats and handing it to the half-breed. "Alaster. Can you bloom anymore of these flowers? It's the same. Kurama gave it to me when I was infected."
Alaster grimaced.
"Mika?"
"Yes?"
"Did…you sit on this?"
He held up the sad, withered and crumpled remained of the flora, its petals ripped out, stem crumpled, shredded and damage beyond repair or recognition. The kitsune's expression was one of both greatest apology and self-loathing and Mika kicked herself for forgetting that Al, though gifted with the art of plant manipulation, was no Yoko Kurama.
"You can't repair it can you?" Keiko asked softly.
He looked sadly up at through a curtain of ragged silver-blue. "No. I need a fresh seed." His gentle fingers cradled the dead flower Mika had tried to give him. "I'm sorry. If I was better at this, I could regenerate it and make more but…"
"It's not your fault," Mika cut in. "We'll get the seed."
"I don't know where it is."
"Then we'll find it."
"Dreaming Bell is very rare."
"Then we'll find Kurama. He'll know."
"We haven't seen my father for years. We were hoping you knew where he was."
Mika looked flustered, staring around the tent at the various expressions of hopelessness. "Well, dammit! Stop looking so gloomy! We'll get out of this. You guys just have to buck up a bit. We'll beat this thing."
Keiko smiled warmly at her daughter and hugged her tightly, kissing her forehead lovingly. "Just like him. You're right. We'll just have to start searching. No matter what."
But it was at this moment that Minna chose to pick up Touya's neatly drawn picture and grin happily at everyone, not understanding in the slightest what was going on. She giggled and waved the picture happily, running in merry circles as she rifled through her pockets for something. Alaster watched her while Keiko and the other two females began plotting escape routes under the castle to run to refuge until they could leave to hunt the exotic flower.
So it was Alaster who saw, solely, the one good thing the Fates had blessed them with. Minna dug into her pockets and pulled a large gray seed from the fold and scrunched her face. It bloomed and immediately filled he hand with brilliant white petals and the aroma of sugar cookies and frosting. Mika perked up at the scent and Alaster gaped, staring wordlessly at the bloom.
Minna handed it to him, stuffing it in his hands. "For you," she giggled. "You're pretty."