Of everyone who's guessed, Magus784 is the one who came the closest. Congrats, here's your cookie, and here's your question: yes, or no?
Kitsune Kit: Kohaku: Yikes, what happened to me being popular? Geez, chill, 'kay? You'll see what happens in this chapter.
SilverWing013: A hard task indeed considering at least three of the six-member team have excellent noses.
Shadowkitsuneonna: Mmh, that's a plot-point; sorry, but it's confidential until the next chapter. Ceremonies, huh? Sounds like what I used to do with Rainbow Girls. (Long story, just think older, more formal Girl Scouts and that's close enough).
Magus784: Hopefully this meets with your expectations. n,.,n
Asilin Kheldarson: Obsidian is pretty sweet, isn't he? Hard to believe he really is a wanted criminal—and I'm the one who wrote him!
Arano Honou: Are you kidding? Obsidian barely has the energy to run from his fan-club; it's one of the reasons neither Yusuke or Kuwabara have figured him out yet. Bouncing around like that is too exhausting for the poor guy. (I'm so mean to my characters; I should try to be nicer…nah.)
Darkspirals: And welcome back! Yes, Avalon-kun is a cutie, but he's also a fox. Mischief is practically his middle name.
Raeneflovescandy: o.O Review, hells, YOU need to update your Demon Diary story! Oh, wait, was that you or was that someone else? sounds of rummaging Oh, no, wait. That was someone else. Oopsie. I could've sworn you had a story up in Demon Diary…I'm confused now. ?.?
A/N: due to Quickedit's stubborn pain-in-the-ass-ness, the double question-marks and those used in telepathy conversations have to have an apostrophe beside them to keep them there. Please ignore the 'mark 'pins' and pretend they aren't there.
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"See, Haru-kun?" Violet eyes watch intently as the problem is worked out with slow care, his tutor making certain that he understands each step before moving on to the next. "You then take this number here, switch it with this variable there, then solve. Okay?"
"I think so," the disguised fox says uncertainly, eyes running over the algebra problem yet again as Aislin sits back against the couch and stretches. The three kitsune are gathered at Kurama's human home in their human guises so that the two experienced pretenders can educate Obsidian on things that he's missed over the last century. Like any kind of structured math.
The kit is catching on in rapid bounds, finding this 'algebra' relatively simple compared to working out timings for guard-shifts, camera sweeps, and the required space he and/or his group would need to slip in, rob a place clean, and slip out again without detection.
"Your face will freeze if you keep frowning at the defenseless paper like that," Kurama chides in gentle amusement, walking in with a tray full of tea things. Both smaller kitsune give him a quick grin before returning their joint attention back to the homework.
The reason the three are still in human form—instead of their preferred forms with ears and tail moving freely—is that none of the hanyou fox's human family has any idea that demons actually exist.
Let alone that the mild-mannered Suichi is really a kitsune in a human disguise. Now that the Minaminos have become part of the Hatanakas, Kurama has three people to hide his secret from. His mother Shiori, his stepfather Kazuya, and his stepbrother Shuichi. And the red-head still gets the sneaking suspicion now and again that his mother knows far more about him than she's letting on.
How Kurama came to be in this state is something of a long story, but can be compressed at the risk of losing details. Seventeen years ago, he was trying to steal a jewel called the Summer Stone from an especially wel-guarded fortress while Aislin had waiting at their private lair for his return. Seventeen years ago, Kurama still had his real body and the name of Yoko Kurama; a kitsune with the body and face of a god, long silver hair, alluring golden eyes, and a wicked sense of humor.
And during that robbery, he was caught, hunted down, and fatally wounded. Rather than give himself to the dubious mercies of the Spirit World's justice system, the kitsune dissolved his body and soul into a ball of energy, escaping into the Human World to take refuge in the womb of a pretty woman named—at the time—Shiori Minamino. Nine months later, a healthy baby boy who was named Suichi.
The fox had planned on waiting until her was ten, when all his energy would have replenished and the deadline for his promise of return to Aislin, but when his mother saved him from serious harm as a small boy, he changed his mind and stayed. He nearly lost Aislin when she'd given up hope of ever seeing him again, but by luck and the intervention of Hiei, he'd gotten her back.
Now he leads three lives:
Suichi Minamino-Hatakana: calm, serene, frighteningly intelligent for someone who is 'only' seventeen. A star student at Meiou High, the darling of his extensive fanclub, and a cultivator of roses.
Kurama: the strategist and referee for Team Urameshi. Still calm, but with his wicked streak showing more clearly than as his human persona. The one who usually breaks up fights between Yusuke and his friend/rival Kuwabara. The wielder of the beautifully deadly Rose Whip.
Yoko Kurama: Since this self 'died' almost two decades ago, it is the one most seldom seen. However, the human-bodied fox has always been able to resume his true form no matter what convincing lies he has spun that say otherwise. He usually assumes it on the rare visit to Demon World or when the intimidation factor is needed.
But I digress. This is not Kurama's story, nor Aislin's. Theirs has already been told in the first Tale, Winter's Rose.
Kurama sets the tea tray down on the low coffee table, pulling his own books to him in order to complete the more advanced assignment for school tomorrow. He's always found it amusing that despite having saved the world—or, in the case of himself and his youkai compatriots, robbed it blind on numerous occasions—the small band of defenders are still subject to mountains of homework.
He glances over at the concentrating kit and smiles. "Any luck yet?"
"No," comes the distracted reply, "but I'm gettin' close. I keep sensing her around, but there are so many traces of her scattered over the city I'm having trouble untangling the path. I hope I find her soon."
Mischief gleams in Aislin's eyes as she leans forward to rest her chin on laced fingers. "Hiei tells me you've taken up an interest in a girl from your class. Is this true?"
Obsidian blushes bright red, not looking up from his current math problem. "Everyone seems to just ignore her except for this little blond fireball. I thought she could use a friend. I've got her talking to me, anyway." A hidden wince as his arm twinges from a sudden twist of his hand in a reach for an eraser. It goes unnoticed, which surprises him. Even in life-or-death situations, these two have always noticed the slightest sign of pain from their band. He switches the eraser to his other hand, wondering why this cut is healing so slowly even though the fight was just yesterday—the slash from the fence was gone within a few hours.
"A shy one, hm? I was wondering when you'd get around to girl-chasing, winsome kit," Aislin chuckles, satisfied with her student's answer. Obsidian just blushes harder and is rescued from further embarrassment by the sound of the doorbell.
"I'll get it," Kurama calls as he rises from the couch, only to find that Shiori has beaten him to it.
"Oh, hello, dears. Come to join the study group?"
"Study group?" In sails a young woman, her knee-length milk-chocolate hair tied up in a sweeping ponytail streaked with bright purple and green dye. Rather unexpectedly, she is dressed in the Meiou High boys' summer uniform, which does very little to hide her gender. Hiei is trailing beside her, looking as though someone (cough, cough!) has been dragging him over hot coals, crimson eyes resigned. "Eh? Suiichi, Aislin, are you having a party without me?" She stops, blinking and flashing glittery purple eye-shadow at the sight of a black-haired boy with amethyst eyes in the Sarayashiki High blue jumper. "Ano, dare wa?"
"I'm Haru Shinkai, pleasure to meet you," he chirps. "Suichi-san and Aislin-chan are my tutors." As brown eyebrows lift at the affectionate suffix, he explains, "Aislin-chan is my cousin from my mother's side. I moved here recently and she's been showing me the ropes." A grin over at the smiling ice-fox. "Desu ne, cousin?"
"Hai, so desu."
Accepting the story, the girl plops down next to him with a smile and a laugh. "Nice to meetcha, then! I'm Kohaku Piers, lead singer to Pocky America." She says the last with pride, deflating when Hiei pops her ego.
"You're still only playing at Childe, baka ookami." Whap! Hiei glares at Kohaku, rubbing the new lump on the back of his skull. Kohaku is still smiling at Obsidian, acting as if she hadn't just reached over and swatted the fire apparition upside the head.
"We play every weekend if you want to come listen. Just tell Brawn Kohaku invited you and you'll have no problem!"
"Really? Neat!"
The wolf girl beams at her new friend, leaning over in curiosity. "So, whatcha…eeew, math homework!" She scoots away from Obsidian, glaring at the textbook in front of him with an expression that—by all rights—should be setting the thing aflame. That, or at least make it shrivel up in a little black pile of ash. "Ugh. Math. It should be dropped to the bottom of the ocean."
"It's not so bad," the black fox tells her in a voice full of noble suffering. "At least Algebra, anyway." This time, when Kohaku bumps his arm as she resumes her seat beside him, he is unable to hide his wince of pain. And this time Aislin's sharp eyes notice it.
Instantly she is at his side, pulling his uniform jacket off to reveal his left bicep wrapped in stained bandages. "Aislin-sama!" Obsidian protests, trying to wriggle away, but her cool hand clamps with gentle strength around his elbow.
"Baka," she scolds him with a vexed frown, "why didn't you tell me you got hurt?"
Hiei scowls from Kohaku's other side. "Hn. Snowflake's right. Injuries are not to be hidden without just cause."
"It's just a scratch!" comes the protest as the bandages fall away to reveal a puckering, flushed slash beneath. The smell of herbs and infection can be easily smelled by everyone in the room. "Nothing serious!"
"That," Aislin snaps as she gently presses against the skin beneath the open 'mouth', rewarded with an upwelling of yellow-tinted fluid, "is a load of dragon dung. Look at this, it's got five kinds of infection and it may even need stitching! What have I told you time and time again about any kind of injury?"
A faint yip of pain followed by a drawn-out, heavy sigh. "Get them looked at as soon as possible."
"Agreed," a sweet voice joins in, everyone looking up to find Shiori walking into the room with a first-aid kit and a frown. "With all the fights you children get into these days, I'm surprised any of you come home of a night." She hands the box to Aislin and stands there, giving Obsidian that disapproving look that only parents can use when you've done something spectacularly stupid.
Obsidian submits quietly to the third application of the dreaded peroxide he's had this week—though this time he doesn't even consider biting his lip to keep silent, what with the Look from Aislin that just dares him to so much as think about it. Instead, a long, pained whine leaks from between clenched teeth as the stuff foams, excess being caught by a towel from the med-kit.
(("Five kinds of infection,")) Aislin growls at him in Kitsune, (("and all kinds of mess. If you don't get something like this taken care of immediately next time, I am going to have your hide nailed to my study door. For the uncounted time, licking is not considered a correct method of sanitizing.")) All of this is delivered in a tone that brooks no argument and promises to enact the clear threat.
(("Yes'm,")) Obsidian mumbles, face scrunched and lips drawn back in a grimace of pain while the ice-fox carefully presses against the wound again only to come up with more liquid. A second measure of peroxide is applied, the wound tested again with no additional upwelling and wiped clean. (("I just didn't want you to be upset with me."))
Kohaku is watching the proceedings with fascination while Kurama's special healing cream is applied in a liberal dose before the wound is swathed in fresh cotton bandages. Glancing to make sure that Shiori has—temporarily at least—returned to her domain of the kitchen, the wolf leans around with a conspiratorial wink. "You know, you're acting like a child. And you smell like a fox."
Obsidian blinks at her as the scent of wolf fills his nose, eyes momentarily shifting from amethyst to gold when Aislin tightens the protective wrappings. (("Ouch! Not so tight, Boss-sama!")) Kohaku sighs and pretends to pat his head, hand flattening his silky ears back to his skull.
Aislin has a more direct method. A swift bop and the ears are quickly vanished again, those sea-green eyes focused on her task. (("Hold still, Obsidian, I'm almost done.")) Hiei betrays a wince as Kohaku stiffens at the sound of the male's name, understandable even in the liquid tongue of the foxes. Obsidian?'?
(("But it hurts!")) the koorime's victim complains, attempting to pull his arm away despite the grip she still has on his elbow.
(("Kit, either you hold still or I'll get Hiei to sit on you, so help me.")) At the potent threat Obsidian resumes his good behavior under the amused eyes of the fire apparition, the completed bandage swiftly tied off and the jacket returned to the 'traumatized' black fox.
Obsidian shrugs his way back into it while Aislin tucks the used supplies back into the first-aid kit, the soiled bandages finding their way unerringly into the waste basket courtesy of Kurama. Both adult foxes clean their hands with some sanitizing wipes from the kit before Kurama gives everyone an unruffled smile. "Now that that excitement is out of the way, what say we resume your studies, Haru-san?"
"That reminds me," Shiori says from the kitchen as Aislin resumes her seat across from her chastised student, "I keep forgetting to ask, but what is that language you were just speaking, Aislin-chan, Haru-kun? I've heard Suichi mumble in it in his sleep on some nights."
"It's a dialect from Europe, where Haru and I came from," Aislin improvises out of nowhere, mentally cursing herself and Haru for slipping into it so easily. "I've been teaching some to Suichi so I don't lose practice." Nevermind the fact that 'Suichi' already knows every nuance of said language just as well as she does!
The adult woman pokes her head around the door and smiles while mixing something in a bowl. "Well, dear, why don't you teach me some of it sometime? I used to be pretty good at Latin when I went to school."
"If you'd like," Aislin agrees readily, considering the benefits of such lessons. Should the human woman ever encounter a batch of renegade youkai, speaking a youkai tongue might give her a better chance of getting away unscathed. A phrase linking Shiori to Yoko or herself, disguised as something innocuous, would makes the woman's chances even better. After all, whether or not they've retired from a life of—ahem!—active thievery doesn't mean the Winter Rose or the Silver Thief are any less a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, as Aislin considers the beneficial possibilities, Kohaku and Hiei are deep into a telepathic argument. /Damn it, Hiei, the guy you're supposed to have hunted down and arrested has been sitting under your bloody nose! Why is he still running around?'?'/
/He escaped prison for a specific and very good reason, Kohaku. After he's accomplished it, I have every intention of hauling his ass back to prison./
/That is NO kind of excuse, Hiei Jaganshi! You…hells, I should be arresting him right this second! Why am I still arguing with you when Koenma put me on the exact same case?'?'/
/You aren't because I'm asking you to wait, koi./ Kohaku's temper calms a bit at the affectionate use of 'love', a word the fire apparition only uses in private or in mindspeech. /I'm curious to see how this turns out, aren't you?'/
/But—but—but…oh, pocky sticks! Fine, I'll wait. Damn you and my curiosity./ Murky blues and oranges color her thoughts a disgruntled, frustrated hue.
A wash of raspberry red, mint and honey, the color/scent Kohaku recognizes as her beloved's signature for happiness/approval. /I thought you'd see it my way. Besides, he's been in the darkness for almost a century. I can catch him anytime, let him enjoy the sunlight a little while longer./
She responds with lemon-lime and strawberry. /Why don't you ever show this side of you to anyone besides me, Aislin and Kurama? It's a wonderful side, if uncalled for in cases like this kid. He is a wanted criminal./
/You're the only ones who've earned it, and if you'll remember, I was a wanted criminal once./Kohaku makes a face at him, signaling that for once, he's the winner of an argument with her.
/You win, but I'm still gonna keep an eye on him./
/As will I, koi, as will I./
——
The week finishes turning, another beginning with the situation unchanged. Obsidian keeps hunting when he's not in school or at Kurama's house, learning the ways of humans and homework. In the short span of time he's been free, the young black fox has blossomed beneath the sun, tanning several shades darker and making even more girls sigh with bliss every time he smiles. Which is often, especially in the quiet company of Zephyr Uotani.
Yusuke and Kuwabara, back from their all-too-easy mission already, have noticed the attention their new friend is giving the pretty girl, and give him all sorts of advice to 'win her over'. Obsidian simply smiles, nods, and forgets it all instantly.
The others who know the amethyst-eyed boy's real identity wonder at their dense comrades, curious as to why the powerhouse and the psychic (Yusuke and Kuwabara, respectively) have not been set on Obsidian's heels. But the kit just counts his blessings and keeps searching. He's so close now. Soon.
Meanwhile, Hiei keeps throwing false information and half-truths to Koenma, delighting in this minor revenge against the child-prince for tying him to Yusuke's city during his on-going parole. It's excruciatingly boring for the fire apparition when the people he cares to be around are busy in school and cannot keep him company, and the fact that all too often that boredom is only relieved by tasks set by the toddler just irks him no end. He conveniently forgets that it is this very life he's been leading, with a demon-descendant human boy as his 'commanding officer', that has allowed him to regain his status and strength as an A-class youkai. If crises keep coming as regularly as they do, he'll make S-class again before the decade closes. Not that Hiei will admit it.
Kohaku simply keeps her mouth shut, telling Koenma that her quarry has hidden his trail with infinite care and it's taking her some time to unravel the tracks. Her favorite excuses are time-consuming school and the band practices or performances that she refuses to skip.
Obsidian takes his life of hiding in stride, the stolen sunglasses always present now on top of his head or perched on the end of his nose, absorbing every bit of knowledge he can while he can. He's even put together a sophisticated laptop from components paid for by Aislin, the ice-fox labeling the purchases as 'belated birthday gifts'. She bought him a carrying-case, too, an elegant thing made of black leather and dense foam, a gel-pad incorporated into the strap. The young renard hardly lets the thing out of his sight and one can usually catch him tapping away on the keys, playing with or tweaking programs and discovering the joys—and pitfalls—of the creation known as the World Wide Web.
When he isn't running from his fanclub, that is.
"Stupid viruses," Obsidian complains to Zephyr half-way through his second week of freedom while they sit under their usual tree by the Science Wing. "For every one I hunt down and clean out, two more seem to take its place. The eradication programs I got for them aren't even close to true coin."
Zephyr looks up from playing with her kitten Kizi-chan—the school having given the human girl special permission to bring the little cat for as long as she requires regular two-hour feedings—and shrugs as the laptop emits a sweet chime over a recorded cheer, indicating that the system is once more spotless, the virus having met a grim demise.
The black fox reverently shuts his laptop before returning it to its bag, then lying back in the grass with a contented groan. "Technology," he muses to the leaves dancing in the sunlight above him. "It's such a wonderful invention. I wonder why they didn't come up with it sooner?" By 'they' he means the humans, since demons have always had their own forms of it even when humans still lived in huts and ate raw meat. But Zephyr doesn't know that and laughingly answers his rhetorical question.
"Probably because you weren't here to suggest it." She giggles as Kizi-chan tumbles from her lap in pursuit of a large butterfly drifting past them, stalking through the short grass with adolescent clumsiness. Obsidian had found out the marmalade tabby's name just a day or so after that fight with the lust youkai, suspicion beginning to crystallize in his mind about this girl. Strange, the girl thinks to herself as she studies him from the corner of her eyes, the way he talks you'd think he never even heard of computers before he came here.
She notices his face is slightly flushed, and concern replaces merriment when she recalls he's been acting—she hesitates to use the word listless—all day. "Haru-kun, daijoubu desu ka?"
"Hm?" Violet eyes flicker towards her. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just feeling a little tired. Think I'll take a nap. Wake me if I sleep through the bell again, okay?" Considering the day warm enough, he sheds his long-sleeved, light cotton uniform jacket and balls it up as a pillow for his aching head, leaving him in his pants and a white tee-shirt. Thinking a curse at the sun for being so bright, the shades are slid down to darken his eyes once again.
Zephyr nods, watching him as he combs back his shorter hair with his left hand—Aislin had made him get the back cut close to his neck, but allowed him to keep his messy bangs—and drops into sleep. Shock tinges the concern when she spies a bandage hugging his upper arm in the same place the kitsune Avalon had gotten hurt when he'd rescued her.
Little beknownst to the silver-haired girl, the cut had been healing human-slow because of enzymes that the lust demons had had on their claws, enzymes that it appears Obsidian is allergic to. Hence the too-easy infection that had set in during the first day. Aislin doesn't dare use her healing techniques on him for fear of attracting attention from Koenma's other hunters who are undoubtedly on this case as well, and the same goes for bringing him to the temple of Genkai.
The elderly—but still irascible—psychic is Yusuke's mentor and her temple is a place of sanctuary for any of the team when they need it, as well as the current home for Hiei's twin sister, the gentle and serene Yukina. The bond between the black-haired fire apparition and the maiden with hair the color of mint sherbet is supposed to be a secret, but the only ones who don't know are Kuwabara, Obsidian, and Yukina herself. Hiei has threatened death to anyone who so much as squeaks a hint to anyone else.
Yukina has been learning reiki-based healing techniques from Genkai for almost three years now, which is why she was considered, but discarded as a choice to take care of Obsidian. The idea of taking him to a human hospital, where birth records, medical records, and proof of insurance would be requested never crossed their minds. One simply does not take a fugitive from Spirit World to such a high-risk place even when such papers have been expertly forged and presented. There is too great a chance that the place of healing would become a trap.
Hardly daring to breathe, Zephyr reaches out with a trembling hand to touch those pale bandages to assure herself that they're real, forgetting for a moment the lively ball of fluff stalking a weed. Just as her fingertips are about to brush the damp-looking fabric, her wrist is caught in a grip of iron. The sunglasses slide down as his head whips towards her, sliding enough to reveal slivers of gold just above their rims.
"Don't…don't do that, okay?" he pants, waiting until she nods mutely before letting go, head falling softly back to the grass. "That's…really not…a good idea." Concern has bloomed into fear at the heat in the skin he'd pressed against hers, and she quickly reaches out this time to feel his forehead. It nearly burns the skin of her palm, sweat beginning to shine on any exposed skin.
"Haru-kun? Haru-kun!" Zephyr gently shakes him, but the male lies in a boneless stretch at her knees. The sunglasses slip farther, and she pulls them away with an impatient sound. His eyelids flutter; he's trying to wake, but having little success. The fire boiling in his blood has burned away all of his senses so that he cannot hear the increasingly frantic calls of his 'name'.
Zephyr leans over him to lean her ear against his chest, hearing a rapid pulse as the scent of infection rises in her nose. The gash! She eases his jacket out from beneath his head, draping it over his torso as she rises to run for help. It being lunch-time, there's probably no one in the building behind them, and no one walking the sidewalk several hundred feet away would hear her shouts. She gets about five feet before a blur of black and the feeling of dangerous strength catches her attention.
She whirls back around, finding a boy almost her height, maybe a little taller, crouched over her friend with a deeply-concerned expression in unsettling crimson eyes. "Who're you?" she gasps in a mixture of fright and relief. She didn't have to yell for help to come, but she's not certain if help is what this stranger offers. She is ignored, the male's wrist moving to the damp forehead to be withdrawn again with a low hiss.
"No one you need to know," comes the brusque reply when she repeats her demand, then he adds something she hears more with her sixth sense than her ears; "Hellfires. I knew snowflake should have fixed him and the toddler be damned. Better take him to Genkai's before whatever this is kills him."
"You aren't taking him anywhere without me!" the silver-haired girl growls to that, her temper rising to the fore and stopping the spike-haired stranger as he scoops up the delirious Haru. "He's my friend!"
"He's not what you think."
"I know he's a fox spirit! He saved my life the other day! I don't care, you're not taking him anywhere without me!"
"Look," the stranger reasons in a strained voice, "I can only carry one, and you can never hope to match my speed. I swear to you he will come back but I need to take him now." Given that all she had seen of his entrance had been that blur Zephyr must take his word concerning his speed, and her own meager knowledge of medicine tells her that Obsidian's sudden symptoms are very bad signs. Reluctantly, she nods, but levels an admonishing finger at the unimpressed stranger.
"If I find out you lied, you are going to be in a world of hurt when I catch up."
"Hn. I doubt that." A faint gust of air is all that marks the dangerous stranger's departure with her friend. With concern and frustration quickening her steps, Zephyr takes off for the main building, scooping up her kitten and the abandoned laptop along the way.
——
It is a matter of minutes before Hiei is at the foot of the long flight of stairs leading to Genkai's temple with Obsidian motionless in the fire apparition's arms. The only sign the fox is still alive is the shallow rise and fall of his chest. One of those breaths later and Hiei has reached the top of the steps, striding quickly towards the main building. Sending his awareness out, he locates the circle of serene 'winter' that is his twin's energy signature then alters his course to intercept her.
"Yukina!" Startled crimson eyes that are a gentle match for his own rise from the bed of herbs, widening as he appears from around a corner, an unknown male lying limp in his grasp. Instantly the koorime maiden rises, not even bothering to dust earth or plant bits off her kimono as she rushes over in full Healer-mode.
"Who is this, Hiei?" she questions softly as she uses the 'sight' peculiar to healers that lets them see auras, finding the stranger's wreath of energy to be dangerously low and shot through with furious red lightning bolts. Not good. "Why is he like this?"
"His name is Obsidian," Hiei tells her as she leads him with his burden into the guest portion of the temple, shooing him into a room empty of all but a futon. "I don't know why he just collapsed, but something on him stinks."
Yukina directs him to place the unconscious fox on the thick feather-stuffed pad, her own keen nose locating the source of that tainted scent as being on his left arm. The sweat-soaked jacket is quickly stripped away as well as the bandages, the sight of the gash making Hiei hiss in dismay.
It's like what he saw at Kurama's, only many times worse. Thick yellow liquid oozes from the wound, the bared flesh within so dark a red as to be nearly black, the mouth puckered and red in the swollen tissue. The veins are a fine tangled web of cherry-red lines beneath the skin, spreading across his arm and up his shoulder.
"Blood poisoning," Hiei murmurs, real fear welling in his heart; that useless emotion is squashed firmly into oblivion with the remembrance that the small female kneeling by the spunky kit is someone who uses a much faster method of healing than mere herbs.
Indeed, at the first touch of the soothing pale blue youki the red lines begin to fade, the swelling to reverse, the yellow pus to simply disappear. Color starts returning to the ashen, elfin face as the muscle begins to knit itself shut under the flow of energy. A deep breath is finally taken, then another, and another as the toxins are cleared from his system. It is a matter of minutes before Yukina is letting her hands drop from their places over the vanished wound with a pleased smile.
"He'll be fine now, Hiei," she tells him in a low voice, directing that smile up at the silent male behind her. "He'll need to sleep to replenish the energy he lost fighting it, but he'll wake up without any side effects at all." Her nose wrinkles a bit. "But you might want to get him washed before he comes to, or else he's going to feel rather horrid."
Hiei just grunts and watches as she leaves him to return to her interrupted chores after flashing him another one of her sweet 'I'm not as innocent as I seem' smiles that he swears she only gives him. Somehow he's always doubted that the angelic koorime maid is as naïve as she acts—one cannot be that pure when one lives in Makai, or you don't survive.
But he turns his attention to the still form lying on the futon, and a small smile curves his lips. Why do all the work when Obsidian can do it just as well himself? The Jagan glows with violet-black energy behind the white bandanna and the fox rises slowly to his feet with blank golden eyes. This is a trick Hiei can only use on unconscious people who are lower in energy than he with poor mental shields to boot.
Using the Jagan to manipulate Obsidian like a puppet, the fire apparition strolls leisurely down the hall towards the bathing room with the entranced kit trailing along behind.
—————————————————————————————
Hmm. I seem to put my characters into life-threatening situations a lot, don't I? Oh, well! At least I gave Hiei a chance to use his Jagan, Zephyr to use her new attitude, and Shiori sounding slightly-less than a bubble-head. Not a bad day's work, I think!
Ookami: wolf.
Koi: love
Renard: male fox