Dis/claimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, nor am I making any profit from writing this fic. I do however make a claim to all original characters that show up in this fic and any art or poetry this fic inspires in me to create (again, read, I'm still not making any monetary profit from the creation of this fic).
Overall tentative/temporary summary of this fic: See this section for Part I.
Warning(s): See this section for Part I. Um…there's a little more talk about that decapitation I noted/mentioned/wrote in Part I.
Planned overall rating: Mature
Author's notes: See this section for Part I. Also, this chapter is mostly from Jin's perspective. I took liberties with the wind blades bit as one of his attacks. There's a small argument between Jin and Touya over their enemies. And, yes, this entire fic takes place while Jin and Touya are still in the air, at least until the end…as you will see. Let me know what you think…hopefully I didn't do too bad with Jin's character. I'm always worried, when I write him, that he'll be out of character…he's so damn hard to write for.
Dedication: See this section for Part I.
The Long Memory of Water (and Demons)
Part II
by Yo
Overall story was started 9/8/16
(This chapter) is posted to ffdotnet 8/31/17 at about 1,800 words
Jin moved fast in flight, the cold wind biting. He had to keep his eyes forward, but he was still very aware of Touya in his arms. His friend shivered violently and blazed with fever—they'd scarcely been in the air fifteen minutes when Touya started showing these worrisome symptoms. Jin could only squeeze the ice demon tighter against his chest in response; it was the only way he could offer Touya any measure of comfort…the only thing he could do besides getting them to their intended destination. And they still had hours more to go before they reached it.
The distance between the mountains in the far north of Alaric and the capital city where Mukuro's stronghold was spanned hundreds of miles. Although Jin might be faster than a bullet in the air, he still didn't possess the power of teleportation. Another thing that Jin wasn't, was a healer, and he had no idea what that woman did to his friend or why Touya's body was reacting so swiftly and savagely to whatever she'd done to him. The only thing he did know was that she wasn't an ordinary demon by any means.
As the miles started to pass—too slowly for Jin's peace of mind—behind them, Jin became more and more aware of all the things he wasn't…and of how useless he felt. He'd almost lost his closest friend to that woman—for all Jin knew, her attack still might take Touya from him. If he'd arrived any later in that clearing… no, Jin didn't even want to consider the possibility.
He had to hope that Mukuro wouldn't turn down his request for aid—for one of her healers to look over Touya's wounds. He and Touya were no friends of Mukuro's, but they weren't her enemies either. If this had happened in Tourin, or even Gandara, he wouldn't worry about it. He wouldn't even have to ask for aid from Yusuke because the boy would help them no matter what. Yomi would likely help them for Kurama's sake. Mukuro was a wild card. He had to hope that they wouldn't be turned away, or worse. Jin hated leaving anything to hope, but in this case it was all he had because Mukuro's stronghold was closest.
The alarm Jin felt at Touya's deteriorating health had somewhat quieted the overwhelming rage he felt toward the two enemies who ambushed them earlier. His anger wasn't gone, far from it, but seeing that Touya received healing was more important than anything—he'd have to be content that killing the woman's partner was enough for now. She'd join her partner soon enough as far as Jin was concerned.
Jin's mind traveled back to the woman's partner he'd beheaded with his wind blades.
He and Touya had barely touched down in the snow before they were attacked by the two. Their assailants wore matching, eerie, bone-white masks and flowing, dark blue robes. Jin's first thought was that the shinobi had sent yet more operatives to assassinate him and Touya for going rogue, but that theory was soon proved false by how their assailants fought—with attacks he'd never seen, or felt, the likes of before, though that didn't mean much in Demon World. How Jin knew for certain they weren't dealing with the shinobi was in the absolute silence of their foes. Shinobi operatives would've announced their killing intentions in some way to Jin and Touya at the start of the battle, simply out of respect for the shinobi he and Touya had been, no matter that they had broken the Code of Shadows that once guided their every step, their every breath.
The two enemies had battled with Jin and Touya in the same vicinity for quite a while—there was no knowing for how long exactly—before Jin finally realized that he and Touya were slowly being divided from each other. When the one who fought Touya had thrown up a wall of something he could only describe as a firestorm, Jin was effectively cordoned off from his friend. The one who fought Jin seemed to take the wall of fire as a signal of some sort because the assailant began driving up the power and force of attacks against Jin—driving Jin further and further away from Touya.
His assailant seemed to have pushed them miles away from Touya and Touya's assailant before Jin was able to tear away the mask the demon wore—that was when he learned he was fighting a male. Jin couldn't be certain of the type of demon the male was, but the enemy was rather humanoid and plain looking, with nothing particularly striking or memorable about him—the demon had short, cropped brown hair and empty, brown eyes and lightly tanned skin; he was of average height and build. It was kind of frustrating to Jin that there was nothing extreme about the demon, not even ugliness or horns or extra appendages in weird places or something. There was nothing notable about the demon, except for his strange attacks and the bizarre ways he protected himself from Jin's own barrage of wind and physical attacks. The demon wasn't too much or too little of anything, and he wondered how that was even be possible for a demonic being. Jin would've thought he was fighting a human, if it hadn't been for the feel of the demonic aura pulsating off his enemy. Jin didn't think he'd ever been so bored in his life during a fight.
Jin learned quickly that nothing seemed to phase the demon as Jin had thrown all manner of taunts at his enemy. The demon hadn't uttered a single word during their entire fight, except towards the very end, when Jin had him pinned down in the snow, with his invisible, whirling wind blades, one in each hand, crossed in an x-pattern mere inches from the demon's throat—the position the two of them had been in had somewhat mirrored the position he'd found Touya in with that woman…
The demon had looked straight up at Jin with his nothing-brown eyes and said, "Neither of you will live past the week."
"Is that so?" Jin asked, pressing the wind blades closer to the demon's neck and actually drawing blood, before he continued with, "Well, you won't live beyond this minute."
And, true to his threat, Jin forced the blades down with all his strength and cut the demon's head off. He rose to his feet, kicked the demon's head far away from him, and finally picked up the still bleeding corpse. Jin threw it over his left shoulder and took to the air, flying in the direction he felt Touya's energy coming from…
Touya's quiet, hoarse voice, wracked with thick threads of pain, drew Jin back to the present and out of his own head.
"Promise me you won't go after that mage without me and a solid plan. She told me I was her target. She's an unprecedented threat…unlike anything we've ever faced before. We were lucky. Incredibly lucky to come out of that alive. Promise me, Jin."
Jin still wasn't able to look away from the night in front of him and down to his friend in his arms—he didn't want them to fly into something or worse, the Great Winds forbid, he lost control and sent them plummeting straight to their deaths. Jin didn't answer the ice demon right away. How could he make such a promise? He'd already decided that as soon as he knew Touya was safe and on his way to healing he was going to hunt that woman down and slice off more than just her head. He was going to rend her into microscopic proportions. A mage, Touya said she was? He didn't care. She was going to pay. A solid plan for battle? An unprecedented threat? They were lucky to be alive?
No, no, no, Touya, she was lucky I left her alive for what she did to you. I don't care what she is or how powerful you think she is. I will take her down, Jin thought to himself, but aloud he said to Touya, "You aren't going anywhere near that menace."
"Damn it, Jin, promise me! She will kill you. This isn't some game."
Jin almost smiled at the hissing anger bubbling up in the ice demon's tone, but he didn't. Nor would he promise Touya what the ice demon wanted. Jin's mind was already made up.
"I cut off her partner's head. Why the hell do you think I consider this all a game? I will slaughter her, and there's nothing you can say, or do, that will stop me from going after her," Jin said, tightening his arms even more around the ice demon.
Touya gave a withering scoff, followed by a resigned sigh. A few seconds of silence trailed in the wake of those sounds from the ice demon.
Jin suddenly felt Touya sidle closer to his neck. Soft hisses issued from the ice demon in wordless, warm puffs of air against Jin's sensitive skin—hisses of sound that indicated the depths of pain Touya was still mired within. The ice demon couldn't hold onto Jin at all because of his injured hands. How on earth did Touya think he was going to be able fight the "unprecedented threat" alongside him?
Touya's fever wasn't getting any cooler either; if anything the ice demon seemed to be burning hotter as more and more time went by—the heat, and the closeness of the ice demon's body, was making Jin sweat and grow ever more concerned for his comrade. Thankfully, Touya's violent shaking had ceased at least. He could only begin to imagine what else was going wrong inside Touya's body because of that woman's…sorcery. Had she set some kind of curse on Touya? Not that he knew anything about curses…
Touya broke the silence again and said, "She's my problem, you stubborn idiot, but I know arguing with you is pointless. Just know that in this discussion isn't over between us yet."
This time Jin was the one scoffing and sighing in response.
Nothing else was said between them, even as he felt and heard the ice demon settle into a restless sleep in his arms.
The rest of the journey to Mukuro's stronghold was uneventful, even though Touya's fever seemed to be getting steadily worse…his worry for the ice demon's health was driving Jin half insane. He finally reached Mukuro's stronghold a little after dawn, and the sun's light was starting to paint the sky from the boundless black of night to the bloody red of day. When Jin touched down with Touya in the middle of one of Mukuro's training fields—directly in between a sparring Hiei and Yusuke, no less—he unleashed total chaos.
To be continued…
