Warnings: insanely long chapter ahead!
The Wielder of BlackFire:
The Legend Lives Part II-Rose's Renaissance
Chapter Thirteen: Confrontation
Kurama walked down the hall the few feet to his bedroom. He paused just outside his bedroom door, listening to the sleeping girl inside. Her breath was deep, heavy; in the very deepest pit of sleep. The faintest trace of her scent came through the door. It was mingled with blood. Startled, he unlocked the door quickly, quietly and opened it just slightly, worried. He noticed immediately that there was no one on the bed. He opened the door wider, looking around the room.
Rose sat on her heels, her head resting on her arms, which lay on a blood-smeared window sill. Her breath was drugged with sleep as he stepped into the room. He noticed some of the vines to his plant had been cut, if ruggedly, straight through. He looked down at the girl, surprise contorting his handsome features. Her hands were heavily scratched and raw, bleeding onto the wood sluggishly. She held a pocket knife in her right hand, gripping it like her last life-line. No doubt she thought it was. Its blade held the juices of the plants, its hilt traces of her blood. Shocked, the kitsune walked over quietly and gently pried the knife from her hands, although she gripped it tightly, her knuckles locked around it, it slipped through her inanimate fingers. He backed out of the room silently and locked the door.
"She tried to escape last night," Hiei said as Kurama walked back down the stairs.
"I know," he replied.
"She did something to the blade with her Spirit Energy, although I couldn't see it. No mortal blade could cut your plants," the youkai said knowingly. "She's stubborn. She just fell asleep less than an hour ago." He gave a cat-like yawn and sighed, snuggling deeper into sofa's softness and resting his head comfortably on his upraised knee.
"You watched her all night," Kurama observed as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Hiei 'hn'ed slightly, giving the smallest of hard glances to the fox spirit before closing his eyes.
"Yeah," he grunted. Kurama nodded to himself.
The two let the young woman sleep until midmorning. There was no rush. Koenma did not want to see them until the sun was high. It was best to let her get her rest before she met him. Who knew what lack of sleep could do to her.
Just after eleven, the two youkai downstairs heard a muffled curse. Kurama smiled to himself. There was shuffling, and they could hear her mutterings as she went through her bags, searching for, they knew, her knife. The sound fell silent soon after. Doors opened and closed, for Kurama, nearing ten o'clock, had unlocked the doors, water ran and creased to run until, half an hour later, she walked down the stairs. Her proud eyes were downcast, defeated. For now. She glared at both of them in turn as she entered the room.
She wore a thin, black, hoodie that molded to the shape of her lithe torso. Her hair was back, spilling over the hood in deranged streaks of blackish brown and copper from the water. Under her long sleeves, inside of which she hid her hands, they could see she wore thin, black, leather gloves that had no fingers and ran just past her wrist. She wore her usual black socks and pants, as well as a belt that held a chain that looped from it to finish the attire tastefully. She took a seat on the couch, her hair swaying just enough so they could see just the faintest glimpse of a Japanese Kanji symbol on the back of her hoodie, written in bright blue. It read: Dragon.
"Are you hungry?" Kurama asked blandly as she took a seat.
"I've lost my appetite," she said bitingly, her voice cold.
"You should still eat something," he countered innocently. Nothing. She knew his words rang true, but she did not want to release her anger quite yet. She would not admit to his rightness. He stood and walked away without a word.
She was hiding her hands in the opposite sleeves of her hoodie and Hiei could not see the extent of her injured digits. She did not want them to see. It was proof that she had tried. And failed. She was grateful her mother had packed her favorite gloves and hoodie. She hadn't worn them in a while, due to the warmer weather, but loved the feel of the soft leather on her palms and supple material gliding over her shoulders. All in all, her general look was that of a leader of a street gang off the west side. All she needed was a knife. Oh, wait, that's right, she already had one of those.
Rose was silent. She said not a word to them, even when Kurama announced that they were to go see Koenma in a few hours. She sat at the table eating when he spoke, making her chop sticks hover uncertainly, their orders confused as to continue or retreat. The two youkai saw her eyes alight, and not with joy, but anger. Her expression hardened fearlessly as she retold her hand its orders, which it calmly carried out with relief. She finished not long after, just as a knock came to their ears. Hiei stood and moved to answer it. Rose said nothing as she left the kitchen to sit in the other room, taking a seat on a chair with a 'plop' and crossed her arms.
"Hey, Hiei," came Yusuke's voice, laced with its usual cockiness. "Botan told me to help, ah, escort Rose to Koenma," he said, stressing the word mockingly. Hiei nodded and allowed him to enter. The boy took a seat on the sofa, glancing at the black-clad girl. She glared at him fiercely and he looked away to avoid the burning that raged at the points in his eyes were she had glanced. Kurama emerged from the kitchen a few moments later.
"Yo, Kurama," Yusuke greeted with a half-hearted wave.
"Hello, Yusuke. Ready to go?" he asked. Yusuke stood and the three looked down meaningfully at the girl, who seemed content to remain in her seat. She glanced at all of them, her dark eyes piercing and hateful, annoyance buzzing behind their hue. She snorted and stood moodily.
"Now that we're ready, we should get started," the kitsune said as though there had been no rebellion on the girl's part at all. There were nods from the rest of the Spirit Detectives and they stepped out of the house. They waited as Kurama locked the house before turning left down the sidewalk.
Rose watched her surroundings closely, memorizing their route. Kurama walked on her right, Hiei on her left, with Yusuke leading. Again, their posture clearly stated tight security. Not that she could blame them, after all, she had tried to escape not seven hours before.
It felt good to get out of the house and into the bright rays of the sun. Its warmth was refreshing and revitalizing, making her unconsciously lighten and energize her stately gait. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, letting it out in a slow and deliberate sigh. The air was not the cleanest, being in the city as they were, but it was invigorating all the same.
'A wild spirit like hers should not be confined as it has been,' Kurama thought as he glanced over at her. She was grim, her aura still hinting her upset demeanor, but seemingly relieved and, if one could look past her intimidating exterior, slightly happy.
The girl watched impassively as they made their way through the city and to the castle that floated dominantly in the sky, even so much as to refusing to show surprise, shock, or any emotion for that matter, but for that of smooth ice, even when they used some mysterious power to transport them into the sky. Familiarity tingled along the edges of her nerves like a breath of fingertips, causing her to suppress that instinctual shudder to rid it from its aggravating location. As for the reason why she recognized the palace, she did not know.
They walked into the giant building, passing through large corridors big enough to harbor the most giant of beasts. They passed through another set of twin doors, although these not as large as the first set they had encountered, which was overtaxed with a colorful array of monstrous ogres, which ran to and fro in the room, filling what was left of its space with commands, demands, and booms of fretful cries. The room made the castle seem more like a business than a place where a leader of a gang of demon thugs would reside. Only Rose's step faltered as surprise, although it was not visible to the eye; she was shocked. Demons. She'd seen her first real demons. You could hardly count Kurama, being in a human body as he was, and Hiei... well, he just seemed too... Human; not blood-thirsty enough to be a demon. She watched the frantic beasts as the group walked through them towards yet another set of large, red, double doors. They knocked quietly, a grunt granting them entrance.
A small boy, looking to be about four or so years old in age, looked up at them. His brown eyes were proud and stubborn, hard from the choices of finality that had passed before his critical eye. A blue pacifier trembled between his lips from below his gaze, matching the blue of his overly-large hat almost perfectly. The cap seemed larger than the toddler's head could support, but did not topple, or even sway from its resting place, as the laws of physics would have suggested. In his small right hand he held a stamp, which he planted firmly on a sheet off to his right one last time, while his left held the line which his serious eyes had been scanning, before looking up, in an old moldy book that reeked of age and dust.
The four stepped closer to the desk, Kurama moving behind Rose and Hiei moving to her right as Yusuke fell back to her left side. Their positions forced her in front of them, as if she was a prize they had captured and wanted to show to their leader in hopes to gain his approval and be upped in mutual ranking. All they lacked was the proper kneel that suggested total and utter loyalty. But she stood before the desk with a defiant rise to her chin and a daring look in her eyes.
"Hello, Rose," the boy said almost cautiously, as if weary that she might pull a fast one on him. Not that she couldn't, for she was fully able, but she wouldn't. She wanted to know what he had to say, as much as he stirred annoyance within her. "My name is Koenma." Hate and anger flamed within her eyes, alighting them a liquid jade for but a moment before being suppressed and outweighed by her vizard of cold.
"I know exactly who you are," she said, her voice hard and chilled.
"Then you know I am not here to hurt you," he said, his hopefulness retained from his voice only by sheer will power. Her face shattered as an icicle does when it falls from a great height, rendering it to useless and fragile slivers. The hate that burned in her eyes contorted the soft features of her face, making her menacing and a very dangerous force to be reckoned with. She could have grown devil horns and a speared tail with an erupting volcano suddenly appearing behind her and she wouldn't have looked more frightening to the prince.
"Don't try to fool me," she hissed, pounding her gloved fists on his desk, ignoring the sting of pain as they protested to the harsh treatment so soon after their exhausting abuse, and startling the small lord. "You tried to kill me!" she seethed, her voice hot with rage. There was a brief second of utter silence, broken only by the faint buzz of the ogres in the next room.
"I gave you back your life. I never once tried to kill you," he argued quietly, straining to keep his tone even and smooth as a prince should. It was a difficult feat with the fear and anger, born from hurt, that ran within his emotional bloodstream.
"You didn't, but they did!" She jerked her head behind her, gesturing to the three that stood at her back, who were currently gaping in their own private way. "So don't lie to me! I know! I saw that tape. All of it! It was a set up! You made it all up and planted that sword on me so you could frame me for some screw-up you made and didn't want found out by your superiors! Then you send minions out to do your dirty work so that your boss didn't get suspicious!" she ranted, her hands re-pounding the dark wood of the desk. A few of her long bangs fell around her face. The ruler stared at her, too startled to even glare at Kurama and Hiei, who seemed shocked at the mention that she had viewed all of the recording, for their failure to keep the delicate information from their charge.
"That's not true-" Koenma began, only for his words to be utterly demolished into an unrecognizable gurgle as she continued her assault.
"It is true! And its all your damn fault! You sent them-" She again gestured to the boys behind her. "After me! And here I thought they were the enemy! But its you! You made them do it! Its sickening that you would stoop to such level! You seemed like a nice kid too! I might not be perfect, but when I have a problem, I at least have the gall to take care of it personally!" Her voice grew louder, raising with her emotions. Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke stood behind her just slightly, in a bit of a stupor. There was sudden quiet, even the rumbling from next door growing dim, as though time itself had halted its natural flow to listen to the girl in her wondrous and deadly, beautiful rage. All that dared pierce the air was her angry seething.
"Its all the truth, isn't it! Admit it!" she demanded.
"I can't. I did not frame you, and it was not a set-up. Rose, you died," Koenma said bluntly. "When you died, you came here, where you regained your life, as well as took the sword. You helped us, but, I do admit that we betrayed you when I found out that you had the sword. It was a dangerous object, that sword. When I found out, I asked my team to... obtain it from you. You and my detectives fought. We lost the battle, and you disappeared. You came back and told us that you were leaving, that we should not try to get the sword back because its power would be gone and that your memories would disappear with it." She bowed her head, shaking it furiously and making her bangs obscure her eyes.
"No," she whispered hoarsely. "No. You... lie." Her voice began to crack, her fists tightening until her nails dug into the thick leather. Her legs seemed suddenly too weak to hold her and she collapsed to her knees. "Its a lie. It can't be... " she croaked. "But," she said, her voice raising a miniscule notch, enough so that her words were clear. Her head pounded with memories screaming for an escape, to show her these people meant no harm to her. "Then why to do your words sound so true?"
"Rose," Koenma said softly. "It is true. I will not lie to you." She looked up, her eyes glittering with tears that her stubborn green eyes refused to shed.
"If what you say is true, then why do you burden me now! Did I not tell you to leave me be!" she demanded once more. "I DON'T HAVE THE POWER YOU WANT!" she yelled fiercely.
"But you do, Rose," Kurama said from behind her, stepping forward, the soft tones of his voice soothing like water bubbling comfortingly over a jagged stone. She glanced back at him, forced to look up at him while he looked down at her seemingly hopeless form that grieved on the floor.
"Did you not hear him?" she asked in a growl, her voice suddenly returning to its usual tone. "You knew I had no power. He just said he knew!" The kitsune shook his head.
"You told us that you would still hold the power, only that it would lay hidden. You also informed us that you would not remember your past as Thorn and your possession of it. It is a complicated matter." She hesitated as if to argue, but instead solemnly shook her head, much to the joy of the pounding of her skull, which soon settled to a dull beating.
"I know you are right," she said quietly. "No matter how much I want to deny it. But it still gives no excuse for your actions," she said bluntly. Koenma nodded.
"I agree," the prince said. "But we need your help desperately. I ask for your forgiveness. And for your alliance in our time of need," he said, his voice humble. She stood up, her former bout of emotion discarded and replaced back within the confounds of its dark cave in her mind as her stony expression returned, the slivers of ice fitting back into place like a puzzle and melting together to complete her mask.
"I accept your apology, but I refuse your offer of friendship and alliance," she said matter-of-factly. Koenma's face fell.
"You can't refuse it," Hiei said. She turned to glare at him uncertainly. His face was stoic.
"Hiei is correct. We made a deal," Kurama reminded her. Realization dawned upon her face and her eyes gleamed with regret.
"Damn," she spat viciously, glaring at him hatefully, but without the rage she had interlaced with her words not a few minutes before. Koenma looked at them all quizzically, Yusuke's expression mystified as well. Kurama explained the details of their pact briefly.
"So we have a week and two days until we must return her," the kitsune concluded. The toddler before them thought a moment, ideas churning in his mind as his teeth churned his pacifier.
"Well, first thing's first. We'll need to find a way to bring out her power," said the young ruler confidently, happy to finally be back on familiar ground and not the hissing thin ice on which he had been treading on before when speaking to Rose. Yusuke gave a lop-sided smile.
"Gen Kai could find anything that's worth finding in her. She did for me," the boy said, pride threading its way over his tongue. Rose looked at him with mistrust.
"Yes, that would probably be our best chance," Koenma said, his voice hopeful.
"So no one's even going to tell me who this person is." Rose's question was more of a statement and filled with scorn.
"You'll find out soon enough," Yusuke said with an extremely amused grin that made her want to smack him.
………………………………...
For this particular part you must think about the first episode of the Maze Castle saga. It's where Kurama and Hiei 'float/fly' from the sky in those orby things of light when they come to help Yusuke and Kuwabara.
Authoress' Note: it's a pretty long chapter. I've been waiting a bit for my old reviewers to get their butts in gear, but it has yet to happen :P. I think I lost a bunch when I failed to update for like a month a while back. Anyway! Here's an update for ya'll and hope to see more faces this time 'round!
Reviews:
Damage145 here's more to read!
Really Dizzy:
Lol! Thanks! Here's an update for you!
Ensatsu-Kokoryu-Ha:
Wow! -saves sayings in other languages forever- :P I love that stuff! Here's a much faster update for you. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the last one! And have no fear, everything will work out for Hiei and Kurama… one day. lol, sorry about the cliffy. This one isn't as bad, ni? Wow, that's the best compliment ever! Thank ye! I really do like to make them seem real and not so distant as they have a tendency to be in the anime. Here's yer update! Thanks!
The Password:
This is just a note for all of you who think you know the password right now. I would just like to say that I will not make ANY comments in yer review replies about it. Not only would, if you are correct, it spoil it for others, but I do not wish to make you think that you are right when you are wrong, or vice versa. I've gotten comments in the past about the password as well, and that's dandy, but please just know that if you think its blatantly obvious that the password is 'Blah Blah BLAH!' please keep it out of reviews. If you would, however, like to send me an e-mail about it with questions, I would be happy to see what I can do as an author without spoiling my story. In truth, I'm going to stop giving any and all hints as to what might occur in my stories out of contexted. I think it really might be spoiling the over-all story. But I do thank you ALL for the great reviews!
Reviews help make the fat lady sing! LALALALALA!