Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.
Well, now. Sorry for the rather long wait... at least you got something, right? Well, read on after I thank my eight whole reviewers! You guys, and girls, are awesome!
Agent Dark Moose
Bluespark
Hoshiko Megami
YokoYoukai
Kuranga 108
Ilikeyaoi
YamikiofAnime
Kyolover91
WARNING:
1. This story will contain Shonen-Ai in later chapters (will be mild), if you don't like it, don't read it.
2. Rated for reasons: Language and future scenes (blood, etc.)!
You have been warned!
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CAPTURED
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Youko sat on the warm earth quietly wrapping up a minor wound on his arm. "That was... rather refreshing." He commented to Kuronue, who was watching the fox idly, a scowl on his face.
"You would know, wouldn't you Youko? You took on the Tentai and I got stuck killing normal, weak, pathetic ningens that didn't even put up a fight!" The chimera exclaimed, picking up a stone and throwing it at the youko's head. Let's just say that the Tentai "back then" wasn't as strong, cooperative, or compatible with each other as the "modern" Tentai, Yuusuke and company, are. All the same however, neither Tentai listened to poor Koenma.
The fox leaned forward and missed the rock, and turned his golden gaze to the bat, "C'mon, Kuro. You know you had some fun with those measly humans! Look, you even got a hat out of it all." The fox finished wrapping up his single wound and stood, stretching his limbs.
"Yeah, and? Your point is?" Kuronue said, standing up also, "You hogged all the stronger people! I didn't even get a challenge. And it's just a hat."
"Yeah, you're right. It's just an ugly, old, moldy, black hat." Youko said, a teasing look in his eyes.
"Dammit, fox! It is not!"
"See? You're in love with that hat."
"What ever, 'Rama. You're kiddin' yourself."
"No I'm not. You know it's the truth!"
Another stone was thrown, along with another insult too.
But hey, you've always got time to relax when your Kuronue or Youko Kurama, you know what I mean?
( Chapter Eleven - Hello Again )
Hiei flitted out of the room, or so it seemed using his inhumane speed to get away from the suffocating tension that filled the room like air and emptiness filled up Kuwabara's skull. He could sense Yukina was uneasy under all the hiked pressure, anyone who had a good sense of... anything on them could tell. You could smell it, practically see it, taste it, hear it in the voices, almost touch it in the air. It was like fog.
Hiei hated fog. The obscurity that it created... Hiei despised being uninformed about the things going on around him. That was exactly why he was going to hunt down the kitsune, who had also left the base not long before the Jaganshi himself did. What Hiei wanted to know was; What the hell is going on here? He didn't know, and that's why he was going to ask. Besides, if he ever wanted to get his gem back, he had to keep close tabs on the youko's whereabouts. Foxes are cunning, no matter what kind they are, it just happens to be that youko's are more so than your normal, average, ningen type of fox.
Disgusting, Hiei snorted at the word. Humans... why he hung out with a bunch of them in a secret hideout for Koenma's purposes, Hiei had no Makain idea. Maybe it was so he wouldn't get sent to jail for his rather numerous crimes, by helping Koenma with his stupid missions. Of course it took some bribing from Yuusuke, his female human tag-a-long didn't approve of this, but as long as he was free to roam the Makai, Hiei really didn't care. Besides, it's not like he was... friends with these... humans from Ningenkai, right?
Whatever, like I said before, Hiei really didn't care.
Anyway, it just so happens that Hiei had spotted the kitsune by the time his thoughts were over with. The fox was sitting lazily in a tree by the lake from where Hiei found him after finally seeing light after being stuck in the Kuro Mori. The fox was looking at the water running swiftly by, it wasn't the purest of lakes in the Makai, those were extremely hard to come by, but it was clear enough to see the murky brown bottom of the riverbed. The youko didn't even so much as twitch as Hiei approached him. In fact, Youko didn't even acknowledge that Hiei had joined him, but Hiei knew the fox knew that he was present.
The fox's tail hung down from his perch in the tree, slowly sweeping back and forth in a rather mesmerizing movement. The koorime/hi-youkai hanyou had the feeling that the fox was doing it without realizing it. After how many years? of being a thieving literal sex god in the Makai, Hiei suspected it came almost naturally to do whilst sitting in a tree. However, being entranced by the Youko was not Hiei's objective, so he ignored the silvery tail and looked up to Youko's half-hooded eyes.
Youko was looking at the river without really seeing it. It was obvious that he was thinking about something, caught up in his own little world where he probably wasn't attached to Hiei as if they were hand-cuffed together. The thought that who would want to be stuck to me? flashed briefly through Hiei's thoughts, but he dismissed it immediately. He didn't need complicated issues to come up and ruin the already complicated problems that they were all now facing at hand. It was one of those one-worded issue's too.
Karasu.
"What do you want?" Youko finally broke the silence, shifting his eyes to meet Hiei's. The fox hardly even blinked as he stared at the koorime who stared at him.
"What do you think? I want some answers." Hiei retorted back, walking over to the tree the fox was in and leaned against it.
"I figured as much. Well, what kind of answers do you want? We really don't have all day, Karasu likes to travel light, so he'll be here within a day or so, judging by the distance between his fortress and this hideout." The kitsune prodded Hiei on to continue questioning.
This took Hiei aback slightly. The fox was willing to share personal information with him? Was the youko truly that stupid?
"Of course, if you want to know some of my secrets, you'll have to tell me some of you own. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it?" Th fox laughed lightly, he knew he had caught the hi-youkai.
Hiei knew it too. He did not want to share his own past with the fox... the fox who was devious, cunning, all of those things! Then again, Hiei's name was rather popular in the Makai too... It was to be expected that the youko would make a deal such as this one. Hiei berated himself silently for not seeing the faults in his plan. Well, how was he to know go about this? Each demon share some past information, or just drop it and leave?
Obscurity, fog, darkness... Hiei did hate having that happen while going into a fight without fully knowing the reasons why. That was one reason for why he hated Koenma. The damned God of Hell never told them anything about the stupid little missions. Hiei would have growled at the memories, but the youko was still there so he didn't. Hiei grit his teeth, and closed his eyes to calm himself. He would do it, he would agree to Youko's terms.
"Fine." He said, his voice was low and soft. Why was he losing control? It wasn't like this was anything... bad.
But, then again, he was going to have to tell his secrets to Youko Kurama. What the hell! He was screwed.
"Fine." The fox repeated, "You go first."
"Why is Karasu after you?" Was the first question to come out of Hiei's mouth. The youko scowled, not that Hiei could see this, he was under the fox's perch after all.
"Didn't I already answer this?" The kitsune said aloud, presumably to himself, "Because he's obsessed."
"Why is he obsessed?" Hiei pushed on further.
"Why are you obsessed with knowing? Because he captured me one time, already before. However I... escaped. Kuronue dropped by and sent the crow some little... chaos to take care of. I got free..." Youko said, he realized he'd trailed off on many of his sentences. Hopefully, this didn't mean more questions.
"How did he get you?"
"Should I really tell that? It was during the time when Kuronue and I got back from the Ningenkai..." Youko smirked widely, that was a wonderful 'vacation,' "Hundreds of demons lined up by the kekkai, trying to find a way to break through it like we did. We sensed them near, so we went to a different part of the kekkai, this part was just a crowded as the other half. We went through it anyways, and got mobbed by... ugly brutes. We got separated, and Karasu caught me in all the chaos. When my guard was down. In a mass of demons. He's such a coward. A damned coward."
Hiei didn't flinch, but he would tell that Youko's hate for Karasu was thorough. Why...? That question was saved for later. "What about Kuronue?"
"Do I really care? He was lost after we split up, somehow he found me and helped me escape from the crow, but it was a while after that, trying to get past another mob of demons, with Karasu's men chasing us, that we got split up, once again. Never saw him again." The thought suddenly struck Youko. It seemed as though Karasu's men were trying to capture Kuronue instead, not himself. Was Kuronue forced into doing this?
"Why do you have Karasu so much?"
This time Youko frowned outright. "That," He said, "Is none of you business."
Hiei wanted to growl, but held his temper.
"Talk now." The fox said, "What exactly are you?"
"A hi-youkai, Jaganshi, demon... koorime."
"You don't look like a girl?"
"I'm not, baka. I got thrown from my homeland because I wasn't a normal koorime like them."
"But that... Yukina girl. You're her brother, aren't you? I can smell it, and your eyes look almost exactly alike. Her are softer, though, yours are hardened."
"Looks like you've already figured it out." Hiei spat at the youko.
"Hai, some of it. How come she doesn't know? She didn't act exactly sisterly towards you, it seemed more like she thought of you as a great friend."
Hiei glared, eyes once again following the swinging silver tail. He was going to have to spill his story. Dammit. He took a breath and began, "We both had the same mother, a koorime. Hina. 'Father-dearest' was a fire demon. Koorime only sire females so I was exiled and thrown off their damn island in the sky. Yukina knows she has a brother, but she doesn't know who he is. When I first met her, in Koenma's office after being loosely sentenced to helping Yuusuke and his Tentai, she asked me to help find her brother. She gave me the hiroseki that you have, so her brother would believe her and come back to her."
"Ah. So that's why you need this little jewel back so much. A promise to your sister. Why not just tell her?"
"What? And have her shun me? No person would ever want their sibling to be a mass murderer. You should understand that."
When Youko replied, his voice almost held a hint of sorrow in it, "I wouldn't know that. The only family I remember having would have to be Kuronue. He isn't even related to me."
To this Hiei didn't know what to say. So, in hopes that the youko wouldn't understand him he supplied his "Hn." as a reply.
This time, just as Hiei had hoped, Youko didn't decipher the hidden meaning of Hiei's words, or rather word. He was too busy concentrating yet again on a time long ago...
"Are you done asking questions?" Hiei bit out, wrenching his eyes yet again from Youko's tail. When he got no response, he flitted away through the trees to contemplate what the fox had told him.
Youko was sitting on the windowsill of the Tentai's hideout. He watched with acute accuracy for anything that even resembled Kuronue or Karasu approaching them. You never knew how fast Karasu would travel. It all depended upon how many men he was bringing with him. The kitsune guessed about fifty or so men, this depended on how serious Karasu was. Youko didn't have to guess to know that this time the crow was dead serious one getting what he wanted.
Youko Kurama.
"So... uh... Youko?" The fox heard. It was Yuusuke Urameshi. The leader of Koenma's Rekai Tentai. All the others were busy preparing underneath the house, stocking on any supplies and such that would be needed. They weren't only protecting themselves. In a way, they also had to protect Youko. The fox frowned, he could take care of himself. He didn't need any humans to do it for him.
All the same, he replied to Yuusuke with a calm voice, "Hai?"
"Why exactly... did Kuronue... join sides with Karasu?"
The fox turned his head to the detective, his hair slid over his shoulder to rest on his back. His golden eyes were hard.
"It wasn't me who wanted to know... it was Koenma." Yuusuke said, trying to get the blame off of him and on to Koenma. Yuusuke frowned, the God of Hell should have to do this himself.
"I actually don't know, detective. Maybe he didn't join sides."
"You sayin' maybe he was forced?"
Youko tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "That's not impossible, you know. Nothing's impossible. Always improbable."
"Oh... Well, I guess that makes sense."
Suddenly, the fox was on his feet, leaning his upper body out of the window, looking upwards. Yuusuke rushed over to the door, poking his head out of it.
"What? Karasu can't be hear already, can he?" Yuusuke asked, looking up just like the fox was doing.
"Don't you hear that?" The kitsune said, his ears were straining forwards. "Wings... Karasu can't fly."
"But his name means crow... never mind. Can ya tell who it is? See, I don't have extra-strong hearing abilities. I wasn't born a kitsune, you know."
"Obviously. Anyone could tell that much." The fox said, "It's some kind of demon. It smells of Karasu, but only faintly. It must be a messenger of some sort."
"Oh really now? Why? Wait... what's the supposed to mean, fox-boy?"
"It means you're lacking in a lot of things a fox has. One of them being a strategist mind." Youko pulled his head back into the house.
"Oh yeah? Well..." Yuusuke was just about to retort back to the fox when... something landed on the ground. It was a heap of black, with tan skin. This time Youko didn't just look out the window, he jumped out of it and landing neatly onto the ground beside the thing. Yuusuke looked on, his eyes were wide. "What the hell..." He murmured.
The fox was already turning over the thing, which Yuusuke now realized was a body.
"Who the hell is that?" The teen spirit detective asked, taking in the many wounds decorating the creature's body.
As Youko pulled on a piece of paper attached to the demon's arm, he replied to Yuusuke with an eerily calm voice...
"Kuronue."
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Voila! Well, it wasn't the longest chapter, but it was pretty long, right? Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Please review, as always, and check back soon! Oh, yeah, I changed my Pen Name from "Eveligne" to "Evene". I don't know why, but yeah. Just so you people know!
Eve