When Sagaku drew back to her body, it could have been just seconds or a full lifetime later. Someone hummed tunelessly in the kitchen, echoed by the sound of a spoon scraping a pot. Sagaku opened her eyes. Everything seemed so much brighter than before-even the colors blossoming beneath her friends and families' skin. Kuwabara and Yusuke, in the same room as her (it felt like so long since she'd been in the room with everyone without all eyes on her, like some sort of monster), played card games with her sisters. Hiei leaned against the glass panes of the window, as always, his eyes trained outside.
With a start, Sagaku realized that the fabric normally tied about his forehead was clenched in his hand, dangling from his lap.
"Hiei has three eyes!" Ririshii whispered loudly to her big sister, noticing the movement from those quarters.
Hiei turned to glare at the little girl. He did, in fact, have three eyes. Sagaku wondered if she should be disgusted or concerned...it didn't match his other eyes, being somewhat rounder and an intensely dark shade of violet. It also wasn't framed by thick, beautiful eyelashes the way his normal eyes were. When he turned his eyes (all three of them) on her, she felt something tickle in the back of her head. A strand of hair found its way around her finger. She tugged it anxiously, relaxing only when Hiei turned back to the window with one last look of contempt.
"How are you feeling?" Kurama asked from the kitchen entryway.
Sagaku followed him into the room, smiling appreciatively as he piled rice and fish in front of her. She hadn't eaten well the last few days.
"Warmer," she told him around a mouthful of rice. "Not quite normal, but I can feel my fingers again. And I'm not as...stressed." Stressed wasn't the right word. It didn't convey that horrifying blend of dehumanizing urges and fear and otherness.
"Good." Kurama sat across from her, smiling in that gentle way of his. "Your scent has faded substantially."
Hiei, in the other room, sniffed the air experimentally. It was true; the scent was a fraction of what it had been the day before.
Tell Koenma, Hiei reminded his friend. The others should know.
It wasn't altogether altruistic of Hiei to remind Kurama to spread the news. If the girls were controlled, then his own sister would be safe at the temple. He didn't like the idea of his sister being put in harm's way for some stranger.
Blinded by success, Sagaku didn't consider that it may be too late for her. Night brought her easy sleep with the assumption that with her scent disguised as it was, no demons would bother them. It didn't occur to her, or even to Kurama for that matter, that demons had already staked out the position of the demoness-in-heat. Prolific though they might be, female Hanshoku were still rare. To have your hands on a breeder was to hold power over your brethren.
Shadows grew darker in the corner of the bedroom, twisting and elongating through odd puddles of black that spread on the floor. Sagaku murmured uncomfortably, turning in her sleep. The serpentine, which she'd tied to her palm with a strip of fabric and the help of Kurama, pulsed urgently. Tarento, nearest to her in bed, stirred uneasily.
Tarento's stirrings trapped Sagaku's hair, waking the older girl up with a start. In that same instant, Sagaku was aware of the danger. By then, it was too late; the shadows were swamping her, oozing like oil over her skin. There was only one thing she could do-she kicked out, hard and swift, to knock her sisters out of the way. Before she could scream, the unctuous blackness shrouded around her, fading into nothingness.
At least her sisters were safe.
Tarento woke with a yowl, landing hard on Iwaku who also screeched. Ririshii wailed loudly, a banshee in the darkness. If the sound of three girls falling from bed wasn't enough to wake their protectors, the sound of wailing was. It could have woken the dead.
Hiei reached the door first, katana unsheathed in his hand, but it was Kurama who threw the door open. Yusuke and Kuwabara followed behind him.
The girls were tangled in the blanket between the wall and bed. For a minute, the men just stared, trying to count flailing limbs. Only three girls. Sagaku was missing.
"Find her," Yusuke hissed at Hiei, shoving past Kuwabara to forcibly remove the girls from their trappings. Amidst the mewling and crying from the girls, he could scarcely concentrate. No sign in the room as to where the older Hanshoku could have gone.
Hiei unwound the bandana from his eye for the second time that day, gritting his teeth against the sudden surge of visual input (not all of it was input he could actually see-some of it was more like a ghostly imprint of impressions which was more than enough to give any man or demon a headache). There was no feel of Sagaku, no impression of her left in the room. Nothing to latch onto. A snarl rumbled up his throat. One impression was left behind, fading rapidly. A shadow, almost, barely noticeable in the darkened room.
"The two demons who escaped us," he snarled.
Maybe a small part of him was worried for the onna. It was swamped in bigger part by anger. This was his territory. His. Even if he was stuck in the Ningenkai, tied to this prison by the mission, it was his. And it had been invaded.
Hiei kept his third eye open, searching hard and harder. There was nothing there. He couldn't find her.
"Maybe…" Kurama hesitated, and stared at the corner that had drawn Hiei's attention. "They travel through some form of portal, it seems. Maybe when they stop moving we will get a fix on them." His fingers twitched restlessly, the red rose flying between them, spinning on the stem.
"Why did they take her?" Tarento asked in a small voice. She crept forward, her hands wrapping forcefully around Kurama and Hiei. Hiei jerked away, anger still rumbling in his throat. "Is she going to be okay?"
"Don't be stupid, Tarento," Iwaku snapped. "Don't you understand? Papa warned us what would happen if we left the warren. He warned us." She stomped her foot on the ground, tears streaming down her face. Ririshii cried all the harder for her sister's rage.
"Shh, Riri," Kuwabara knelt and cajoled the small child. "Don't cry," he told her. His eyes caught Yusuke's though.
"Don't yell at your sister," Yusuke snapped angrily at Iwaku. "We're going to get Sagaku back-don't you dare say otherwise!"
Iwaku sneered elegantly and then shoved past them, out of the crowded the room. The bathroom door slammed fitfully behind her. They all heard the lock engage. Tarento and Ririshii stared after her with wide, uncertain eyes.
"Call Keiko and your sister," Kurama ordered Kuwabara decisively. "They'll have to watch the girls while we hunt."
And so it was, at two in the morning, that the planning began.
A thick, oily surface coated Sagaku. No matter how many times her fingers slipped on it, it didn't rub off. Two forms were pulling from her, separating from long tendrils of gray and black shadows that fanned like roots into the room.
"Such a pretty scent she tries to hide," a whispery voice said. Hands scooped through her hair like water. She spun, but there was no solid form. Just darkness that could have been a person.
"Can't fool us," another voice whispered. "We know what she is."
The swirling shadows wouldn't stop moving, wouldn't give Sagaku an idea of who she was facing. The constant motion of them was making her dizzy, nauseous.
"We'll take what she has to offer." The grip was back in her hair, pulling and pulling until her neck was bared.
A shudder ran through Sagaku, revulsion boiling up in her throat. Was this it, then? Was she sentenced to this existence? No, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. Her voice. You can fight. You will fight.
"I offer nothing," Sagaku growled. Her voice sounded fierce to her ears, but shapeless fingers were probing down her neck, over her collarbones.
"Then we take what you don't offer," one of the whispery voices confided. Sagaku lifted her lips in a passable snarl. With more strength than she knew she had, she jerked forward. Searing pain ripped through her scalp. Long strands of brown hair, too much hair, floated around her with motes of dust. Slowly, they curled on the floor.
Sagaku's heart hammered in her chest. The inky shadows were twisting and morphing. How could she dodge or fight? Any of it could be real. And any of it could be nothing more than shadows.
Fingers brushed down her side. Sagaku spun, elbows flying. Nothing was there.
"No," she announced firmly. "You'll take nothing."
Hoarse laughter filled the room. For a brief moment, the shapes of the two demons were clear, heads thrown back in their amusement. Sagaku glanced around the room again with sharp eyes. There had to be something-an escape route, a weapon-but there was nothing. It appeared to be a solid stone cavern. There were no windows, and no doors.
Her lips pressed in a thin white line and she settled into a stance she knew well. Hadn't Yusuke practically beat it into her? How to best position herself so her balance was an asset, a weapon of sorts?
Pain pierced her right palm, briefly. As shadows claimed the room once more, the demons gaining control of their humor, she glanced down. The serpentine pulsed faster and harder against her skin. Energy was searing beneath the surface. As she watched, yellowish lines climbed up her arm, beneath the skin and veins.
Two sets of hands touched her now, and shadows slipped over her skin.
"I'm older," one hissed. "First."
"I found her," the other voice rattled like dry paper.
"Together, brother?"
"You can't have me," Sagaku warned them again.
"Can too." Air hissed in her ear. With no more warning than that, sharp claws raked her side, ripping through the seam of her shirt. It hung, awkwardly, but didn't fall. She waited, breathing deep and trying to call on Yusuke's confidence.
A grating chuckle sounded in front of her as the other demon reached for her skin. When his slick fingers slid beneath the hem of her shirt, sliding like oil over her skin, she smirked.
This. This is what made Yusuke tick. This overwhelming smugness because what could have been fear was just fuel for her fire. Her heel dug into the ground. Her palm hit forward, up. She couldn't see his face, didn't know where to aim to strike that, but his arm was connected to her. The serpentine cut into her skin with the force of her hit.
BOOM!
Yellow beams of light crackled against Sagaku's palm. The demon crashed into the stone wall. Cracks formed in fractals where he'd hit, and the shadows that had clung to her slipped away. She spun to face the other demon, but he was already backing up.
"Stop it," he snarled in his papery voice. It was higher now, tense. Sagaku pressed her lips together. Focus: that was all she had to do. This must be what Kurama mean. The serpentine burned against her skin, warming her as she hadn't been warm since her family was separated. It was a stone of connection, of awakening. She called on it instinctively; rightfully.
"I won't stop," she told the demons. A hard edge took over her voice.
Both demons were standing again. One of them swiped at her, tendrils of blackness flailing through the air. She lifted her hand, concentrated on the pulse in her palm, and watched yellow light shred her foe's hand.
As Kurama had guessed, when the demons stopped shifting their presence was no longer hidden. Hiei focused on them with his Jagan eye, or at least the impression where they'd been. His mind reached out, touching the girl's. She was in a blast of heat, caged by yellow light and rock. His eye sharpened, pain splitting his mind briefly as he focused.
There.
Finally, he found her.
"Come, fox," Hiei demanded. Yusuke and Kuwabara followed, leaving Keiko with three young girls.
The portal Hiei traced was not one of Koenma's; in fact, he doubted it could be found by Koenma or any of the reapers. It was a void, hungry and dark. Not only was it entirely illegal, it was extraordinarily distasteful as well. Black smears of oil and demonic energy stained the forest floor beneath below it, leaving brown and brittle death in its wake. Hiei passed through, hesitating only long enough to decide the others would find the spot.
Anger burned in him. Anger, but also glee. The demons were in for an awakening.
Sagaku stood in the center of the room. Grit from the floor dug into her feet, grounding her. An odd plunge in her mind distracted her. She recognized it as brief contact with Hiei, though she couldn't say how. It was just enough to bolster her confidence further. She could hold the two demons off. Her friends were coming for her.
The two demons hissed threateningly. Sagaku turned to keep both in her eyesight. Now, with pain and fear biting at them, the shadowy camouflage failed. Washed out and pale, two tall and bony men with limbs like a praying mantis slunk along the walls. Twice, they dodged forward in unison. Twice, Sagaku clutched the serpentine tighter and forced her pulse into it. Sooner or later, she would run out of energy. For now, though, the pulsing light surrounded her.
Focused as she was, Sagaku felt scuffling outside the surrounding rock. It resonated in her with an awareness the unsentient stone shouldn't have. The rock deterred the new presence, waiting for recognition. Sagaku closed her eyes to the demons' feints and lunges, feeling with her mind for the beings above her.
Spirit energy, spilling into the natural world, woke more and more of the rock. Kuwabara. More energy, both pure and heterogeneous in a way she couldn't comprehend, attacked the rock. The rock shuddered, tremors wracking the cavern she was trapped in. Yusuke was trying to use his spirit gun to break through.
Hiei's presence pulled her away from her thoughts again, tugging at her mind but pulling back when she opened her thoughts to him. Instead, she let her mind open to the rock instead. It was wise and old and so strong, a mountain in its youth. She filled it with the teasing friendship of Yusuke, the compassion of Kuwabara, the quiet concern and comfort of Kurama. She let it feel the patience of Hiei, uncomfortable but willing as he led her up the tree one branch at a time. She opened her mind to the rock.
With a deep, soundless sigh, the rock split open.
The Makai dropped her friends into the ground, tantalizing inches from roots that had bonded with the stone over a millenia. Brief flickers of yellow light flickered around Sagaku, slowly diminishing until she stood in a receding circle of yellowish haze.
Kurama stepped forward, the whip in his hand flicking back and forth like a cat's tail. His eyes flashed, daring the world to move again.
The stench of urine flooded the room. Oil oozed along the floor, shadows forming to reclaim the demons as their own.
"No," Sagaku hissed. She dodged past Kuwabara who reached out for her too late and slammed her body into the wall, hugging herself to it. The rock warmed, pulsing with her, rejecting the shadows. The demons were trapped.
"Unnatural," the demon with the papery voice cried. He flung himself at her, claws out. Kill the Hanshoku, and he and his brother could escape.
Hiei's katana drew a drop of blood, intercepting the demon's lunge. Before he could finish the job, the demon melted back into the living shadows.
Sagaku strained, focusing harder and harder on the rocks. The demons were trying to slip through. Each time either of them tried to form a new portal against the rocks, the pressure in her head ratcheted up unbearably. Dizziness tore chunks of time for her. Each time she could drag her focus back to the fight, it was like a bad game of tag. The demons would solidify just long enough to try to attack her, only to be intercepted by one of the men, forcing them to disappear into the shadows. It was a stalemate, only as long as she could convince the rock to stop them from passing through.
One last wave of dizziness claimed her. After this, she knew, her efforts would fail. As if sensing this, the demons folded together into one dark, writhing mass. Energy intensified in the room, crackling like static.
Yusuke took aim, both hands forming a pistol. And when the mass solidified into the stuff of nightmares, he let out a cry and shot them with golden energy.
The mass melted liked a candle, spreading an oily mess across the floor. Yusuke's nose scrunched in distaste. The gunk had managed to reach his shoes.