The days in the ice cell with Kotone seemed to blur together. Izo had tried to count the days, but he found himself to weary to do so. The wards on the door drained their energy. The more energy they each exerted, the wards drained them of equally the same amount of energy. Everything they did took twice as much energy. That, and the little food they received once a day made even trying to communicate exhausting.
The ice maidens locked them up in a cell together since Kotone claimed he was the father of her child. It was a punishment for him for raping her and a punishment for her for not fending him off.
Izo recalled when he had first been woken up after being knocked out. He had been bound to a chair with fire wards and draining wards around him. Being half human, they did not work as well on him as they would a full blooded demon, but he was not about to give that away. The ice dragon could not handle the fire wards though, which was precarious for it and him. He could not use it without risking its destruction.
The leader, the elder of the ice maidens, the eldest one, had stood before him. Other ice maidens surrounded him. The elder had asked him endless questions, but he refused to answer or even look at her. He trusted silence, he wanted to be silent since he did not know what had happened to Kotone beyond what he learned from the five minutes he knew her. He did not want to risk giving away the lie she told about him, lest she be punished for it. Even that he was still unsure what to think of it. She had saved his life with her lie, but doomed him to possibly die with her if they did not escape or were not rescued.
"Speak!" the elder shouted in his face. "You have a tongue. Kotone lost her for refusing to tell us what happened." Izo skipped over the desire to breathe a sigh of relief at that thought. No story to mess up. "Or shall we remove yours as well?"
He still refused to speak, even after she ordered a warrior ice maiden to hit him until he spoke. The warrior hit him, and hard; without mercy. He took that in silence as well. He resolved not to crack.
When that did not work, the elder ordered for Kotone to be brought to them to see if she could get him to speak.
"No," Izo hoarsed out, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. He winced as speaking hurt his face. She was pregnant and likely had suffered enough from this.
"So the beast speaks," the elder said. "Tell us. Who are you?"
He shook his head. "No one."
The elder had reached the end of her patience. "Go get Kotone," she said with a snap of her fingers.
"No," Izo said again, voice weak. His ice dragon wanted to come up and fight, but the fire ward around his neck prevented it.
One of the ice maiden did the elder's bidding anyway. He did not want her dragged into this. When he saw her dragged into the room, his heart broke. She was thrown roughly between him and the elder. Her hands came protectively down around her middle. He looked down at her tangled hair. He could have sworn he saw lice or fleas combing about it. He felt a burning rage alight in him. He strained to get his hands free so he could get the fire ward off his neck.
"Hit her," the elder ordered.
The warrior brought her fist down upon Kotone's shoulder. Kotone whimpered, hands staying fast around her middle.
"Stop it," Izo ordered, cold fury in his voice. A perverse desire rose up in him. He would kill them all. Wanted to kill them all. Kotone looked up at him, a silent and disparate plea to help her. He did not want her hurt anymore than she already had been.
"Will you answer now?" the elder asked him.
"Yes," Izo resigned, trying to think up what lies would both protect him and her at the same time.
"Every time you refuse to speak, she will be struck," the elder informed him sternly. "Who are you."
He sighed, ready to speak. "Izo... a half demon, half human."
Murmurs of 'human' echoed in the room from the other ice maidens.
"You lie," the elder said, spitting in his face a little. "A human could never survive the cold here or in the mountains below."
"I'm half ice demon," he spoke clearly, fighting to keep his face stoic. 'And fire, and wind, and who knows what else,' he thought to his ice dragon.
'Get the ward off your neck, and I can show her,' the ice dragon stirred. It wanted to do some killing now, too.
The elder gave a sharp inhale. "Impossible." Izo shook his head, not speaking. "What demon would deem to lay with a human to create a beast?"
'My father,' Izo thought. He kept his head downcast, not looking at the elder nor Kotone. "My mother."
The elder hissed under her breath. "Who is your mother?"
The thought of Mother made his eyes prick. 'Nanashi Urameshi.' He answered, "Yukina."
More murmurs. These ice maiden either knew her or knew of her. He caught one murmur about how his eyes did look familiar. That made him want to smile. Father and Aunt Yukina had the same eyes, which backed up his lie.
"Impossible!" the elder shouted. To the warrior, she said, "He lies. Hit her."
The warrior seemed to hesitate for a second before slapping the back of Kotone's head.
"I'm not lying!" Izo growled up at the elder, daring to look her in the eye without blinking. She was studying his eyes. "Yukina was born here. An elder like you had her twin brother thrown from island to his death after he was born. When she found out about him and the possibility that he could have survived, she left. Left you behind. Left all of you behind." He paused to look around at all of them. He turned back to look at the elder. "She saw how heartless you all were, so she left. She met my father," 'uncle,' "fell in love, and was both married and mated."
"She wouldn't have dared," the elder hissed.
Izo took a deep breath and spoke loudly, "my father is the human psychic Kazuma Kuwabara." He looked the elder in the eyes, refusing to blink. Internally, he willed her to believe him.
The elder looked suddenly confident. "I know you're lying."
He blinked first, unwillingly. "My grandmother was Hina," he said truthfully. "I don't know what my uncle's name was. Nor who my grandfather was."
More murmurs. The elder looked irritated. "An ice maiden cannot have a child with a man without birthing a fire demon for a son," she said smugly.
Izo sat up straighter. "Mother is not a pure ice maiden. Who knows how much of her father is in her?" He smirked the way his father did. Right at her, all nice and cocky. "Who else would give me these eyes?"
The elder said nothing, but stepped over to Kotone. She raised her face up and slapped her hard.
"Stop it!" Izo roared at her. The elder struck her again, temper dissipating. "No wonder my mother left you all. If that's how you treat your kin."
The elder shoved Kotone away from her. "You're the one who ruined her life. She will die for what you did to her. So will her child. And so will you."
'Not if we escape first,' he thought to himself. He looked down at Kotone, silently promising, 'I will save you. And your child.' Kotone looked back up at him. He felt as if she knew what he promised.
The elder noticed their moment. "Why did you rape her?"
Izo looked away from Kotone, not wanting to answer that. 'I didn't.' "Because she's kin. And seemed strong. She was strong enough to escape me, even after I try to take her with me. I came back to try to take her with me once more." He had already thought up that basic lie while being questioned. If owning that crime kept him alive, even with a death sentence on the rise, then he was going to say it.
It was after that false confession that the elder ordered they were to share an ice cell. Only two meals were brought a day for the countless days that passed. That was the only time they ever had contact with anyone else. Izo lost count after a week or so. The meals were small, barely suitable for one person. The elder meant for them to starve them to near death until the child was born. If did not escape soon, they would not have the energy to with the lack of food and the draining wards.
Izo hated when the food arrived because of how tempting it was. Each time he would insist she consume it all since she was pregnant. Sometimes she would insist back that he have a few bites.
He was growing weaker, both from hunger and the wards. His ice dragon could not handle exposure to the wards. Izo had still combed over the door, the walls, and the floor, but he could not find a way out for them. He tried to rip down the wards, but the pain and weariness hurt him so bad, he had passed out from the attempts.
He asked Kotone how she had escaped, but only got signed what he assumed meant the person who had brought her a meal once forgot to lock the door. He figured they would not be that lucky again. The impending feeling of hopelessness grew heavier and heavier.
With Kotone, he had come up with a rudimentary sign language to try to communicate with her. Sometimes he would just talk to her in a whisper, lest they were being monitored and overheard. He try to learn more about her, but felt so worn out that he hardly made the effort to comprehend what she was signing.
He was laying down on the frigid ground half way between the two meals, noticing the cold was starting to get to him. He was beginning not to enjoy being in it anymore. He fell into a fitful sleep, too tired to fight against it.
'Oh, finally!' a voice echoed in his head in the dream world void. 'Do you realize how long we've been looking for you?'
He look over between the void to see Father, his real father standing over him, arms crossed and Jagan Eye exposed. 'Father!' he thought, almost waking himself up in relief. He took a steady breath as the events of what had happened to him since he went searching for Haru and Airi wash over him. Father was reading his mind over, trying to figure out what had happened.
Father said nothing, but his face took a hellish look. 'I'll get you out of there as soon as I can.' Father promised.
'Both of us,' Izo required.
Father snarled. 'She's the reason you're imprisoned.'
'They would have killed me outright had she not lied. I owe her my life,' he responded. 'Besides, I promised her.'
'Hn,' Father sighed. 'Be ready to go in the middle of the night.'
'Tonight?' Izo said in surprise.
'We could wait a few days, if you would prefer that?' Father joked.
'Get us out of here, please,' Izo begged.
'A few more hours. Hang in there,' Father promised.