Title: Trust
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or Inuyasha.
Author's Notes: Spoilers of the whys and hows of Yusuke being a majin. And, also, spoilers here: A majin, people, is, in YYH, a human who has turned into a demon, due to a recessive gene from a demon ancestor. There's a nice essay with tons of information done by a fellow author on my Yus/Kag group. If someone wants the information, but can't be bothered to join even for a few minutes to download it, I can e-mail it to anyone who asks.
Chapter 3 - Shattered
It had been a long chase, a longer chase than the pursuers had thought. The human boy must have had practice running. Still, once they caught up to him, the three low class demons sent after him were confident that their job was done and it would be a simple thing to drag him back to the castle. That was, they were confident until the boy began to glow.
"This wasn't mentioned," A wolf demoness hissed to the two elementals in front of her. The two males didn't bother replying, the self-designated leader of the three stepping forward with a patronizing smile.
"Really boy, just because you have a bit of power doesn't mean you can beat us. Sesshoumaru isn't stupid, he wouldn't have sent us if we couldn't defeat you." The head demon stepped forward, silver eyes gleaming maliciously at the teenager.
Souta didn't answer in words. He lashed out with his right fist, the blue glow around it striking the demon and spreading. There was a shriek as the demon turned to ashes. Souta shifted back into what was now obviously a defensive position and tried not to show how even destroying one low class demon without using a conductor for his energy drained his energy.
"Pathetic human scum! How dare you!" Before the female demon could stop her companion, the blue haired ice elemental launched himself forward. This time the boy rolled to one side away from the ice flying toward him ahead of the demon. The wolf noted a wince and grinned as the smell of blood hit the air. Perhaps they had underestimated him, but not anymore.
Souta reached frantically around on the ground until his hand hit a stick. It was, unfortunately, not totally dead and still held a bit of demon energy and purified beneath his hand. It was a bit useless to try again, so Souta resigned himself to using more of his energy as he kicked out, trying to control the flow of power this time, like Kagome and Shippo had been attempting to teach him before.
The demon was hit in the face as he had been coming near to do the boy more damage, and screamed in anguish as his face burned with sudden intensity. The ice demon scraped at his face, attempting to cool off the burning sensation that wasn't from fire.
Souta's lips quirked up in satisfaction before he screamed as a clawed hand sliced down his back. His legs were kicked out from under him and the mystically powered boy scrambled away, trying to stand only for a foot to slam into his ribs and send him flying. "Stay down, kid. Smart, aren't you? Better than even Sesshoumaru knew."
Souta glared up at her as the wolf came to stand over him. Impassive green eyes stared down at him. "Don't give me that look boy. If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. And if I was bringing you back, you'd be unconscious, not just bleeding."
His mind wasn't working properly it seemed, because Souta couldn't fathom any reason he would be bleeding besides either of those two. The boy gathered his energy inside him and channeled it to his hands, lunging toward her desperately. When she moved faster than he could see and held his hands behind his back, keeping her own hands away from his palms, he realized something. "You're not low class. You have to be a B class at least."
"Good. Very good. But no one knows that. Well, maybe Grandmother, but no one ever knows what she really knows anymore. She likes to pretend to be crazy now." She paused and he rolled his eyes at her sigh of disappointment. "Is this a family thing? Do all of you have to be so god damn stubborn? You could at least pretend to be interested. Here, while icey writhes in pain over there - good job, by the way - how about we discuss a deal."
Souta turned his head warily. "What kind of deal?"
The demoness slowly let herself give into a smirk. "One that will be beneficial to both of us - and get you to your sister and hopefully save all of our kami forsaken existences. Interested?"
Souta jerked his arms away when she loosened her grip and turned to glare at her, reluctantly saying, "Let's hear this deal."
Kagome's eyes had been half closed in semi-exhaustion as she stumbled back to the building they were using as a safe haven. Another day of meditating and then training. She knew she shouldn't have exhausted herself but after the whole thing with that majin yesterday and Kuronue using oden as a way to get back in her good graces she needed to exhaust herself. The oden part hadn't been bad. It was that after getting back in her good graces he had attempted to speak of staying in Genkai's home for a couple of weeks while they trained. There was no hurry to him.
Her eyes opened wide suddenly as the tantalizing odor of her favorite food teased the air around her. She didn't have enough energy to be suspicious of why it was being made or by whom. Kagome knew there was oden nearby and she was hungry. Her favorite food always managed to relieve her just a little. It smelled like a home she could never have again. It smelled of her childhood and teasing fight and that first night back from the feudal era when Inuyasha had come to get her for the first time. Most of all, it smelled nice.
She was in the door and staring at the pot of oden before she realized that her hand was reaching toward the doorknob. When her hands reached for the pot and one of the two bowls there, a familiar and annoyingly smug voice taunted her. "Hey now, who said I was sharing?"
Kagome's eyes narrowed dangerously. Him again. "Yusuke."
"Amazing, you do know my name." The pot was moved away from her hands when she reached forward slowly. "I didn't give you permission."
On the one hand, he was being annoying and attempting to be clever. It would do him a wealth of good if she deflated his ego a bit by refusing to play. On the other hand, Kagome was hungry. And she really liked oden.
"What do you want?" She was too tired to argue with him today. He sat down on the other side of the table and started spooning oden into his bowl. She glared at him in exasperation. She might as well just leave if he was going to be like this.
"What did they do? These people who betrayed you? And you can sit down. Have some oden." The toushin looked entirely too triumphant when she actually did sit down and began putting oden into her bowl.
She ate a mouthful of the oden and gazed at the young demon thoughtfully. Had he made this? She shook her head before considering the question. She was sure Kuronue would eventually tell Kurama anyway, so he would learn eventually. "A few things. They had lied to us, been using us, and basically planned to kill us once their plans were complete. Another friend knew of this, but it was hard for him to tell us without someone watching. When we finally did figure it out, things blew up and we had to run. I at least was too shocked to do more than stare at the time anyway."
Her smile was bitter as she remembered her heart shattering in her chest. Only Kuronue's hands pushing her along had kept her moving. She had trusted him, and all of them, so much. "And you, majin? All I've heard are their obviously biased stories. I know what you are, a human who became a demon, but not how or why, and why you can still use reiki."
"Hey, this is my interrogation!" He protested. But right now he was unwilling to really break the good mood the strange girl was in. She was usually either snapping icily at him or blowing up in their faces. If she wasn't fighting him every step, he was bound to get more information about this threat in the long run. "I died. Again. Turns out millennia back I had an ancestor who fell in love with a human. My ancestor passed down an S-gene into his descendants who were all human. They all had passive S-genes. Mine was active, so he was able to wake me up again. I was just a bit different. I was a demon. As for using reiki... I just can. It's part of what I was."
Kagome was pretty sure that was actually the condensed version and that there was more to it than that, but he had answered her question. So she sat back and took another bite of oden. She knew eventually he'd get to questions she didn't want to answer and if it had been a few hours previous she would have been made of angry glances and tense anticipation. Instead she kept a firm grip on her temper actually hummed lightly and off key under her breath while she waited for him to catch up an realize it was his turn to ask a question. Because they were taking turns now. She would make sure of that.
If she had still had enough energy to really be angry, she would have chosen that over oden and this conversation. But she was tired, and he took too much energy to fight with, even in words. Eventually Kuronue wouldn't be there interfering and she was going to get herself hurt, if not by him then by some other demon more powerful than her who she pushed all the wrong buttons on.
"So... What happened to that other person who got betrayed?" Yusuke knew he had hit a nerve when she tensed and the spoon halfway to her mouth lowered slowly. She licked her lips slowly and stared into her bowl with every appearance of being wholly engrossed in her food.
"She died." The girl stood up suddenly, her bowl of oden left behind as she left the room with nary a glance in his direction. Kagome could feel the startled glance on directed at her back and smiled grimly. She was a bit glad he had asked that question. It had reminded her she didn't have any time to waste socializing with any of these boys.
She had wasted too much when she had hunted for shards in the feudal era. She wouldn't do that again. One hand rose and slid beneath her shirt to grip the simple silver necklace hidden under her shirt, the Shikon no Tama resting gently against her skin. Kuronue was wrong. They could have been his allies, but never hers, not when they found out what she was guarding. All had a bit of darkness about them. Despite his tendencies toward fighting, Yusuke was probably the only one who didn't have flashes of something more.
How ironic that the one she was fighting with the most would be the only one of the bunch she would ever trust with this secret. But not even he would know.
After all, not even Shippo knew she hadn't actually destroyed the Shikon no Tama.
The great blue bird stared down at the wolf demoness carrying the exhausted human and tilted his head, cooing questioningly. She glanced up and raised an eyebrow. "Guess I'm in the right place. You're that toushin's bird, right? If anyone will know how to find her, they will. Well, they're the best that would be willing in this world, you see? This is Souta."
"I can introduce myself," The boy muttered as he slipped off the demon's back. She shrugged. "Remember to tell your sister what I said. The white wolves are behind her. All of the whites are. Remember that. Every single white."
Souta glanced at her sharply, wondering what hidden meaning the demoness was trying to put in her words. "Sure. When I find her, I'll tell her. Verbatim if I can. But, why can't you? And how can I find her?"
The wolf eyed the kid with a blank expression, inwardly shaking her head. The poor kid needed a bit of leadership right now. One day he would be a leader in his own right, but he needed some guidance now. She wasn't a good guide. " This bird will lead you to some people who can help you. I have to go. There are more places in the human word that have a few demon families holed up than Reikai knows about. Some of them are branches of mine. So, I have to go meet some relatives. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," Souta muttered as she sped off. He turned brown eyes up to the bird that cocked its head before seeming to give a mental shrug. The long sinuous neck reached down and plucked the boy up, turning to place him on the overly large back.
"Hey, wait a second! No, don't do that!" The phoenix like bird spread wide wings and with great sweep of his wings was in the air before Souta could think of slipping off. "Oh kami-sama. I'm going to die. I'm dead. I have to be dead. Too high up."
The bird tried to give him a soothing look but the boy had his head buried in Puu's feathers and it was impossible for him to even meet the boy's eyes when he was like that. Puu circled a few times higher in the air before gliding toward the front of the large piece of property he lived on now. There was another moan from the boy on his back and the bird sent out a loud call as he landed, sure to get a few people out here. He immediately put his head down to Yusuke's level when the toushin appeared.
Yusuke chuckled and patted at the bird's head a bit before Puu himself pulled away to pull something from his back. "What the...? Puu, is that a person?"
The bird made an affirmative sounding coo through the boy's shirt before dropping the startled teen in front of his other side. Two pairs of brown eyes met before the younger one scrambled up from his seat on the ground and settled in a defensive position, despite how much he was swaying and obviously off balance and tired. "Who are you?"
"Hey, you're the one trespassing. Who the hell are you, kid?" Yusuke smirked as the kid flushed a bit guiltily before a strange expression came over his face and he straightened and closed his eyes, frowning. Yusuke raised an eyebrow. "What the hell? Something wrong kid?"
Yusuke could've sworn he heard him mutter, "Kagome...?" before he was shoved aside by a girl he could've sworn was not the same young woman he had been seeing this whole time. "Souta!"
The boy grinned and opened his eyes. An instant later strong arms were around him, squeezing him tightly. He could barely breath, but he didn't care. "Kagome!"
It seemed the only word he could get out now was her name. He felt himself tremble slightly and passed it off. She was alive and well. He wasn't going to cry now that he had found her, no matter how much his eyes stung right now. Kagome had no such qualms. She was sobbing her eyes out and clinging to her brother who was in turn clinging to her. "I'm so glad... I'm so sorry..."
"Souta?" Kuronue gaped from the edge of the forest. Beside him, Kurama jerked his head around to look between them. "Is that the-"
"Souta!" Kurama was interrupted as his friend bolted for the pair and the winged being crashed into them roughly. Somehow they all kept their balance and Kagome and Souta managed to entwine one arm each around the bat youkai. The relief radiating from all three was palpable.
"Someone want to explain? Anytime this century would be just great." Yusuke waited a beat. "Or you could just stand there like a bunch of weeping women."
"I am a weeping woman, stupid," Kagome half sobbed from her place in the collective embrace.
"Well I'm not, so enough hugging of the little brother. We've got to get to what's what, right?" Souta actually bounced slightly on his toes, his eyes gleaming as he backed away from the two. They blushed and also backed off from him and each other.
"And I need a helluva a lot more training. Oh, and we only have a couple of days. Ya see, they've got one of Rin's descendants. Some girl, about your age. I don't know her name, but I think her family is dead. Shippo's still in Makai with her and these white wolves say they're behind you and actually she said all the whites and she seemed to think it was very important that it was all so here I am repeating it and I'm so glad you're all right!" Souta bounded forward again to clasp his hands around his sister who still had suspiciously watery eyes.
Yusuke gaped at the three and wondered just what the hell was going on. "Who... What are you...? Fucking hell! I give up! When the world makes sense again, someone come find me! I'll be killing a few mountains!" The majin stomped off, looking more like a petulant child than an angry warrior.
"That was...?" Souta asked after a moment, tilting his head a bit childishly. He couldn't keep his grin off of his face. It continued to grow as his sister ruffled his black hair and smiled down at him. She looked... very happy to see him.
"Urameshi Yusuke. A pain in the ass but probably the best of the lot. The only one who doesn't have that darkness crawling underneath." Souta's eyes widened at the name and even more so at her description. Kuronue huffed impatiently. "I never know what you two are talking about when you do that. Darkness? I never see it."
"You're not us," They said, both grinning impishly at the flicker of anger before he tried to pounce at them. Squealing like small children the three began to play some strange version of tag, each forgetting their own troubles for the moment in the joys of being reunited with another piece of their family. The sunlight danced across the yard and for the first time since this whole mess had begun, Kagome felt that she could just dance right away with it.
And then reality came crashing down around them in the form of two pale-faced humans asking to see Yusuke.
"Kazuma? Shizuru?" Yukina stepped out of the doorway where she had been watching the three take their brief moments of happiness before they were taken again by the worries in their mind. "What's wrong?"
"Uh... Is Urameshi nearby?" Kuwabara fidgeted, his eyes darting away from all of them and stopped for a moment to stare curiously at the bat youkai and two siblings staring right back. "It's kinda important."
There was a slight movement in the branches above and a flash of black as Hiei dropped from the trees. The three outsiders started, unaware of his habit of lurking in trees. "He went for a walk."
Hiei's flat voice seemed to jar something in the two humans and they began moving. Shizuru moved toward the door, and Kuwabara moved toward the forest, set on finding his friend. Souta stared after them and felt a shiver run up his back. Beside him, his sister echoed the feeling and they glanced at each other, the worry echoing in their eyes. Somehow, in ways they couldn't imagine, this tied into there battles. Things had just gotten much worse.
Shippo nudged the girl into wakefulness and sat back as she began to twitch into the waking world. One leg extended out to lay flat while his other curled up until his knee was almost even with his chin. He gave every impression of being relaxed and carefree instead of tense, angry, and worried.
The girl opened brown eyes and wished she hadn't as she saw an all too familiar ceiling. She glanced around, hiding the hurt in her eyes as she stared at the kitsune sitting there. "You let them capture us."
"I wouldn't say let. I did fight. A couple demons were even shocked so much that a human girl would dare to slap them that they made very easy kills. That was a bit dangerous. If it had been you alone, they would have ripped you to shreds." Shippo was glad he wasn't one of the types of kitsunes with animal ears. They would have given him away by flattening in guilt.
"I..." She stopped and tried again as she sat up, "You didn't seem surprised. It was all a trick, wasn't it? You were just pretending to help me, laughing at me behind the scenes."
The kitsune stiffened at the accusation and she didn't even have time to blink before he was crouched in front of her. Her head jerked back and the tangled strands of brown hair brushed the demon's suddenly furious face. He spoke softly, but with such intense anger that she couldn't help but shiver. "I did expect them to catch us. But the attempt was the best I could have made. I knew they would catch either Souta or us, and that it was more than likely us, but it was not a trick. Do you think the blood I shed protecting you when you fell was for my own amusement? Do you think that I would risk Souta on a simple trick? I am not sadistic enough that I would play such an elaborate trick for giggles, little girl."
He had leaned in until she could feel his breath fanning her face as he spoke in a dark whisper. She was frozen from guilt and fear and barely stuttered out her apology. "I'm s-sorry. I meant no offense."
She breathed a sigh of relief when he backed off to the opposite side of the cell before remembering that out of everyone, this kitsune was the only one to have shown even the slightest hint of kindness toward her. And she had just antagonized him. She was truly alone again. No one but him could help her get back to her life.
She turned to face the wall, hiding the tears trickling from her eyes. She wanted to go home. She didn't want to be here anymore. She didn't want the mocking stares and the knowledge that sooner or later that silver-haired demon was going to come down here and take her to use her for his own nefarious purpose.
Something nudged her elbow and something soft brushed her fingertips. Watery brown eyes darted to look and she gasped in surprise. There was a fox by her side with mottled fur of red and gold. "Hello little guy. How did you get here?"
The fox gave her such a look of utter disbelief that she blushed as she noticed the green eyes. "Oh. Sorry."
Shippo snorted but nudged her hand again. She patted him, idly musing that this was very strange. "Why didn't you stay in you normal form?"
In answer the kitsune turned his head and tugged at his fur. "It's warmer?" He hesitated, and then the head bobbed up and down slightly. "More to it?" Another nod.
"I doubt I'll be able to guess." Shippo seemed to agree as he sat down beside her and curled up, looking much like a cross between a content cat and a happy dog.
"But I kind of am a bit curious." She glanced down, noting for the first time the numerous tails attached to the fox before Shippo gave an annoyed yip and transformed into his normal and much taller self.
"Sesshoumaru has a mystical... Let's call it a net... over this cell and it is preventing me from healing as fast as I normally would. I can heal at an almost normal rate in my fox forms and the small one is the one that actually fits. I only have a couple of days before Sesshoumaru makes his final move and I don't want to be injured at that time." His eyes narrowed and she cringed slightly. "Don't cry anymore. It won't do any good anyway."
So, that was why he had momentarily been trying to comfort her. He simply disliked her crying. She couldn't get angry because guilt quickly followed. She hadn't even noticed he was injured. She didn't remember much of that battle, having been knocked unconscious pretty quickly.
"Hey... Why aren't you more shocked by the existence of demons anyway?" Startled brown eyes sought out the green she was sure to find. They were carefully blank and she wondered when he had first noticed. She shifted away and tried to think of an answer that he would believe. She certainly couldn't tell him the truth. If he had heard of the story before, there was no way to predict his reaction.
"I could tell if you lied. I wouldn't even have to use my nose, your body language would give it away, is giving it away. If you aren't going to give me a straight answer, don't give me one at all." She felt him move away and huddled on the cold floor, regretting that she had no way to make him come back.
The silence quickly enveloped them both and the girl couldn't help but feel that the air around them was trying to smother her. She glanced over to see that he was still in his humanoid form, though he seemed to be moving around some blankets in a circular fashion, just the right size for him to sleep on when he transformed. She summoned up a bit of courage and decided to break the silence. "Why was your coat two colors like that? Red and gold, in patches?"
"It's a sign of my age. Most kitsune breeds have some sort of sign to show their age and their power. My tails show my level of power. My coat is about half gold and half red now. It will be totally gold when I reach one thousand. Past that, the only way to tell a kitsune's age is to be a very good guesser." As if anticipating the next question, he continued on, "I have eight tails. I won't get my ninth until I'm at least as powerful as Sesshoumaru, if not more so. Nine's the most any fox gets, even if their power grows a bit more. There isn't much room to grow past nine."
Shippo slid his eyes over the girl and pushed down the anger he still felt. It was a useless emotion. He had been angry for centuries now and it never did him a bit of a good. In fact, it led to him doing some rather stupid things. He couldn't be angry at this last remnant of one of the best parts of his past.
He grinned as she looked shocked to find herself with a thick blanket around her shoulders. "Apparently they decided beds were too good for us, but we do have some blankets. You're bound to be freezing once you stop thinking so much."
"...Thank you. I was getting cold." He smirked when she blushed prettily and briefly wished that net of Sesshoumaru's didn't keep him from using his powers as well.
"Well, in that case..." Shippo was delighted at the high pitched squeak she made when he sat down next to the wall and pulled her sideways to him. He couldn't do anything until Sesshoumaru was ready for his precious ceremony, and it was rare he ever got to exercise his natural sense of mischief.
"Um... What are you doing? Shouldn't you be in your fox form?" She asked hesitantly.
"Small fox form. I have a big one you know," He said absently, fixing the blanket around her. Her left side was leaning against him and he could feel how tense she was. In an effort to relax her he wound his arms around her on the outside of the blanket. "I should, but if I'm honest, it won't make much of a difference. I'll get healed either way, and either way I'll end up defeated. Sadistic bastard that he is, Sesshoumaru will probably keep me conscious just so I have to watch."
"What... What's he going to do, exactly?" She wasn't even sure she wanted to know. She was pretty sure she wasn't going to enjoy it.
"Use your blood to get a hold of his dreams," Shippo said cryptically. When she opened her mouth to ask for clarification (How much blood was he going to need? Where would it be from?) He shook his head. She could feel the motion as his head hovered above hers and sighed. Obviously he wasn't going to answer her if she did ask more.
"Just go to sleep. It will sort itself out. We both still need it."
She wanted to, but there was still something she needed to ask. "Are you angry at me?"
"I'm always angry at something." She flinched and he waited a beat before elaborating, "But it's not your fault you thought that. I can forgive you. Besides, I'd be beaten on by at least two females once I reach the afterlife if I don't."
She felt a bit unnerved by his easy mention of the afterlife and had to wonder what was going on in his head.
And then, she realized she probably didn't want to know.
End part.
I'm sure within a couple of chapters the pairing and the triangle will both become clear. Well, 2/3 of the triangle is already clear. Anyway, everyone, please review!
Thanks to Sukera, tbiris, and Ryokotsusei for reviewing.
Dark Inu Fan: Well, I think the majin thing is clearer now, if it still isn't, about what he is, there's the essay I mentioned in the author's note. As for what would happen if Kagome purified him... She couldn't. Or, she could, and can, hurt him, but she can't take him one on one. Spoiler He's class S-superior(S+) and in certain instances above. I've put a timeline blurb in the first chapter now as to make it clearer when this is. After the end of the anime version of Yu Yu Hakusho.
Foxylilraven: Your faith in Sesshoumaru is admirable, but sorely misplaced. He's off the deep end. /grins/ Because Sesshoumaru was always a bastard, even in his good moments(besides with Rin), and now with all these circumstances and Kagura as a mate? He's definitely gone nuts.
Winged Knight: You're very close with the sword thing at least. As for Kagura and the other dog demon, that's just something Kagura did. The dog demon isn't important to the plot besides the fact that Kagura cheated on him at one point.