Chapter Five: "Awakening"
Something was wrong.
The forest was dying, and urgency propelled her forward. She climbed higher than she ever climbed before, higher and higher, the bark beneath her hands both rough and storm-smoothed, the tree strange and familiar. Each grasp as she scaled the tree did not last for more than a heartbeat. Green blurred at the edges of her vision, her lungs shuddering as she pushed herself higher and higher and higher.
Something was so, so wrong.
Her muscles screamed, she choked on the raw panic in her throat, the fear. She was a part of the forest, a specter that belonged to it shadows, its stationary, sentinel trees. She knew each curve in the bark, each curl of the leaves, and they knew her. Swifter and swifter, she ascended towards the treetop in blinding fast grace, clutching one branch to another, digging her feet into the tree-flesh with her own.
Breaking the skyline had her quivering in terror, in horror. The turbulent wind was its own wrathful god, instantly pushing her forward and then back, blinding her, seizing her breath and having her seize the wavering tree beneath from a fatal plunge. She had never been inexplicably afraid before, but now she was. She could not see the sky, the ocean of treetops, the lonely mountain in the distance. The forest was screaming and dying, and the wind wanted not a descent, but a death.
She opened her eyes, and the sky was red.
Something was wrong.
— — —
Botan sat alongside the tatami bed, her brand of bubbly optimism beginning to quaver. She muttered to herself, focusing her spirit energy into her outstretched hands, which trembled and began to warm at the fingertips.
"Sure, Botan, volunteer to heal an unconscious, feral demon who is capable of vaporizing you into a pile of ash with a simple flare of her spirit energy. It's not like you have a death wish or anything."
Before her, the strange girl lay motionless, hands having been carefully folded atop her stomach, head sinking into two plush, lavender-scented pillows. Botan initially eyed this, having an inkling it was Kurama who had taken these thoughtful measures, because Yama knows that the other boys were too mentally dense or emotionally indifferent to care. Botan snorted at the thought.
Still, the girl looked utterly tranquil at first glance, chest lightly rising, her aura radiating the most soft and opalescent of glows. There was a certain magnetism to it that had soothed Botan's nerves when she had first tip-toed into the room, not knowing what to expect.
But it was also misleading, too powerful to be passive. Botan had ferried thousands of souls to face their final judgement, and she knew a sleeping tiger when she saw one.
Up close, she had been taken aback by the myriad of scars brushed across the girl's body, some old, some new, appearing more than anything like the renderings of a blind calligrapher's inkstick. One ran particularly deeper than the others, a faded single track scored into her flesh from collarbone to navel. Botan shivered, because it was a testament that she was more ferocious than the creature who'd created such a grisly wound—not because she had attained it, but because she had survived the encounter.
Botan shifted uncomfortably. "I'm seriously having second thoughts about this."
She eyed the girl again. She was so small, possessing more sinuous muscle than fat, so unbelievably thin that if Keiko were present, Botan knew that she'd be cramming the girl's mouth with ramen like the mother hen incarnate she was. But then questions arose, because it was evident that the girl was savage, Okuda or not, but was it possible that she'd once been a part of a demonic coterie, left deserted to turn barbaric in a forest reputed to be haunted by spirits of ages past? Or had it been the only life she'd known? Hardened by survival instincts, wilder than the wildwood around her?
An inexplicable sadness filled Botan at the thought, something that her fraying nerves soon banished because there was still something otherworldly and ancient about the girl. Something that in Botan's years of existence and experience with demons and deceased souls had never once encountered.
The thought once again sent shivers up her spine, goosebumps prickling her forearms.
Yet she remained resolute in her task, feeling the familiar sizzling in her hands as she slowly—very, very slowly, because she did not possess the intrinsic healing abilities of Genkai or Yukina—tended to the girl's injuries. Botan exhaled sharply through her lips, fluttering her blue bangs aside, hands hovering over the girl as she made gradual progress.
"Please don't wake up, please don't wake up," Botan chanted quietly, heart hammering in her chest. "Please, please, please don't wake up. Just wait until Yusuke returns, then feel free to go forth and conquer."
The girl was swimming within Botan's bright healing aura, heedless, and soon the fresher lacerations marred on her skin dissolved from maroon scabs into little fissured streaks of pink. The swollen knot on the crest of her head began to diminish in size. The more effort she put into the process, however, left Botan jolted with paranoia, eyeing the girl in fear in the case she sensed the fluctuation of regenerative energy mending her body and awoke.
And just like when she was comfortable and not in immediate danger of being nuked from unworldly spirit energy, Botan did what she did best and continued to perfect the art of jabbering.
"I should have waited until Yukina arrived. There's no way Hiei would ever let his sister near her without his supervision. Way to think things through, Botan."
Soon, the deep scar across the girl's chest filled in infinitesimally, more silvered and less harrowing. Botan flinched, incessantly wondering if the girl could somehow feel the sensation of healing in her unconscious state.
"This is way above my pay grade," she muttered to the eerie silence of Genkai's guestroom.
Botan eyed her face, hands trembling from fear and exertion. When a gash below a sharp cheekbone soon diminished from view, the girl twitched. Botan hitched a breath, nostrils flaring like a frighten foal.
"I'm too pretty to die!"
She waited the longest minute of her life, wide eyes scrutinizing the girl for further reaction. When receiving none, Botan exhaled shakily. Then quirked a brow.
"If she kills me," she mused. "...am I going to reap myself?"
Then another consideration occurred, and Botan felt the familiar indwelling surge of optimism momentarily trump her fear, and said as much.
"Look on the bright side, Botan, if she doesn't kill you and you both become the best of friends, maybe she has a diary you can read," she said offhandedly. Then blinked, glancing toward the girl's lack of clothing. "Never mind. If she does, I don't want to know where she keeps it."
Then Botan's eyes fell upon the girl's hands, which were small and calloused, but bloodied. The rings of her fingernails were stained with crimson, which had long ago dried. On one hand, however, the skin was entirely dyed in the strangest silver.
At the sight, Botan inhaled sharply, feeling hysteria bubbling up inside her chest.
"Buck up, girlie," she said with forced cheer. "You've dealt with worse. Remember the Makai insects? Or when Yusuke threw a pair of Kuwabara's crusty red briefs in with your delicates? You can handle anything if you put your mind to it."
Soon, Botan's buoyant idealism began to fray, feeling each thought become edged and deranged and desperate. Suddenly, each of the girl's scars seemed to burst forth in illumination before fading away, instilling more and more trepidation until Botan's instincts shrieked for her to flee.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face, which she dutifully ignored.
"So, you live in the Forest of Dirges?" Botan continued, voice quavering. "Impressive. Must be nice this time of year. Bet the rent's cheap. But if we both get out of this unscathed I'll personally introduce you to the wonders of shopping. On Koenma's card, of course."
She was on the brink of her composure completely unraveling. The danger she had foolishly volunteered to undertake abounded, and Botan's imagination went on over-drive, picturing the sleeping tiger to rise from its slumber and circle her like some archaic predator with the intent of fileting her into tiny ribbons of flesh and then–
The door opened behind her.
Botan shrieked through clenched teeth, wide, panicked eyes darting to the doorway. She immediately clasped her hands to her mouth, halting any further healing measures, and stifled each palpitating gasp. The girl did not awaken.
Instead, the small, serene visage of Yukina entered the room, the silken folds of her powder blue kimono sounding like the fluttering of wings with each step. Relief washed over Botan, who pressed a hand against her heaving chest.
"Hello, Botan," Yukina greeted, voice perpetually soft. She tilted her head to the side. "Who, um, who were you talking to?"
Botan waved a trembling hand, a casual gesture that didn't have its desired effect.
"Oh, you know, just the standard pep talk I like to do when in the face of unknowable danger. Of course, Yusuke would say that I'm being a motormouth again and then I'd whack him upside the head for being an inconsiderate jerk and–"
Yukina kneeled beside her, filling the room with the scent of alpine flora, wintry and sweet, resting a hand on Botan's arm. Her smile was light, possessing an ethereal calming effect that only someone purely kind-hearted could have.
"You're trembling," she said quietly.
The warm concern in the ice apparition's voice settled Botan's nerves, nearly veiling all thoughts of the strange demoness lying inert before them. Yukina's crimson eyes flitted across her face, and the delicate eyebrows beneath her mint-green hair rose little by little with each passing second. It always amazed Botan how deep Yukina's care dwelled for those she loved, how attuned she could be to other's emotions but still possess so much naivety towards Kuwabara's flirtations. How her golden, chaste heart had shared a womb with Hiei.
And then Yukina's eyes fell onto Botan's patient. Her petal-soft aura became an inscrutable force, and Botan recognized the look of instinctual wariness set upon Yukina's face, that she was reading the girl's dormant energy—how iridescent it appeared on the surface, but how it quaked like lightning below.
Yukina frowned, so harmoniously calm that Botan felt a prickle of envy over it. The ice apparition remained silent, eyes slowly trailing across the girl's listless body, analyzing much further into each detail than Botan had, her frown deepening with each passing moment. Soon, her small hands were balling into fists, and Botan could almost tangibly feel the fathomless sorrow that was washing over her.
"Botan," Yukina said, turning to her, the corners of her mouth lifting. "Please don't be afraid. There is reason to have faith."
She snorted. "Faith that this nameless, racially cryptic demon chick is going to kill–"
"Botan, please."
"Sorry."
They both sat in a moment of quiet, watching the girl's chest rise and fall, listening to the very faint hush of her breathing. Slowly, Yukina reached out and pressed a palm to the girl's arm. She immediately tensed.
"You can sense her strange energy too, can't you?" Yukina breathed in awe. "Sense it, feel it, but cannot truly grasp it. It's like a tempest, but, somehow, it's been caged."
Botan quirked a brow. "Caged?"
Yukina was silent, withdrawing her hand. "It feels just like when I was captured by Tarukune."
Botan read the icy undertone in her words, evidence that she was reliving the memory of being enslaved by a gluttonous, greedy human for years, tortured heinously into producing priceless hiruseki stones. It was a rare occurrence when the gentle ice apparition mentioned this black time in her life.
Still, curiosity flared within Botan, who still eyed the girl with uncompromising caution. "Maybe she was being held in the Forest of Dirges against her will."
"The Forest of Dirges? They found her there?" Yukina's eyes grew wide, shining with shock and compassion. "No wonder she's covered in scars, the poor thing. But it is possible, Botan. Though let's keep in mind that some things are caged to be preserved, protected, even if they're thrown amongst wolves to be sheltered from the lion's den. Still, there is something ruptured within her, something ancient. Something I've never encountered before."
"Kurama believes that she's Okuda."
Rather than appearing incredulous, or laughing in her face like Botan had at Kuwabara when he'd told her this revelation, Yukina shook her head and smiled.
"Life always amazes me," she said, eyes lit like rubies. Then her tone turned pensive, "But she's also just a girl. She hardly looks older than Keiko. She is quite lovely, isn't she?"
Botan wouldn't exactly describe her as lovely. Exotic, maybe. Rocking the tribal look? Sure. Unlike anything she'd ever seen, and she'd seen legions of demons and humans come and go. But Botan had been so preoccupied with wrangling the fear of being disintegrated by the girl's immense spirit energy than to really take stock of her appearance, other than the occasional freak out session over her innumerable scars.
She cocked her head to the side, letting Yukina's contagiously serene presence to further quell her uneasiness.
The girl's hair was white as snow-capped mountains, piled around her head in thick strands, coiling along her chest in matted locks and looking like she'd come straight out of a jungle survivalist documentary Botan had once watched with Keiko.
More striking, however, were the tattoos. The ones that Kurama believed marked her as Okuda. The intricate knotwork of swirls below her right eye seemed thoughtfully placed, because the artistry highlighted the contours of her face, but were currently half-veiled by the unruly sweep of overgrown bangs. It was so detailed that the longer Botan looked at it, the more ornate it became, and, soon, different renderings appeared and then disappeared. It was as equally mystifying and frightening as the girl herself.
Everything else about her seemed an afterthought. Her clothing, which was scant—from the band across her chest with its creepy, dead vine strapped in the middle, to the skirt-like sarong (which Botan did not want to know what animal the hide was taken from) that clung to her knees—indicated unhindered movement. Even her features paled in comparison to her extrinsic markings, her face small and heart-shaped, with heavily lashed eyes and a nose that bore freckles between wide nostrils.
Even after this inspection, Botan had difficulty looking past her scars, even though many had disappeared when healing the girl's wounds.
She cleared her throat. "Um, yes. Very, uh, wild."
Yukina did not reply. Botan then noticed how unmoving she was in her periphery, who seemed to have abruptly withdrawn from their conversation while she'd taken heed of the girl's appearance. The young ice apparition sat quietly, hands folded like petals on her lap, eyes peering at the wall ahead. It was evident that her thoughts were legions away, and troubled by the way her lips were turned downward.
"Yukina," Botan nudged her gently. "Are you all right?"
She flinched, then shook her head, her eyes focusing once more to the present. Yukina's cheeks reddened, smiling shyly.
"I'm sorry, Botan. Returning from Hyouga has left me a little fatigued."
"You should have had Koenma open you a portal."
"I didn't want to be a bother," Yukina replied. "Besides, it was nice having time alone to think."
"Oh?" Botan needled, ever the busy-body. "Think about what?"
Yukina shook her head again, her smile a little too forced to be completely genuine. Even her bright red eyes seemed shadowed.
"Nothing, no need to worry, Botan. You know how difficult the Koorime have become," she said, then turned her attention to the girl, diverting her gaze from Botan. "I look forward to when she wakes up."
"Well, that makes one of us," Botan deadpanned, the straightened, wondering abruptly, "Um, Yukina, where's Hiei?"
Yukina's expression turned bewildered, but before she could reply, the ice apparition's previous statement began to transpire. Abruptly, the girl moved. Botan and Yukina locked onto the movement the instant it occurred, their breaths simultaneously hitching, the former riddled with an overwhelming surge of horror, the later tensing with wide, glinting-eyed wonder.
The girl's breath had shuddered, causing the tree-vine strapped to her chest to pulse like a gnarled, thorny heart. Soon, her fingers began to twitch like they were being prickled back into feeling. Her lips pressed together, then a moment later, the girl inhaled a deep breath of air, looking like a corpse being reinhabited by the spirit of some primordial entity.
Botan braced herself, unable to look away, and had the distinct, out-of-body, slow motion experience one has when they're about to witness a catastrophe. Disbelief jolted her bones, then heart-rending panic, then a dread that filled every crevasse within, then, finally, she was utterly paralyzed with the fear.
The dormant spirit energy within the girl began to smolder, and the more acute it became the more Botan knew she was gaining consciousness.
Her eyes snapped open.
Yukina clutched Botan's arm, also unable to look away. All the blood within Botan slowed to an agonizing crawl, and she clutched Yukina's arm in return, both too stunned to move.
The girl's eyes were large and oblique, the irises blacker than her pupils, which made them appear rounder than they were. All within the moment between heartbeats, Botan detected the instantaneous confusion and panic register within her eyes, realizing that while the rest of her was scarred and hardened, each black iris were windows to the girl's instincts; they flashed and changed like strikes of lightning.
Which was nearly as frightening as her spirit energy, which spiked like a cataclysmic event the moment her eyes opened.
And then she saw them.
Her eyes flitted from both their faces, and within a millisecond she was all coiled tension, fingers curling into the bedsheets until her knuckles popped. Abruptly, the girl's aura surged and tangibly undulated around them, causing their eyes to sting from its intensity. And then Botan realized it was a defense mechanism, a universal sign that demon's use to warn others to keep their distance.
It was a realization that not only had Yusuke and the others brought back a demon from a haunted forest, but they had also just cornered a wild creature.
Yukina has sensed it as well, who raised her hands, palms forward.
"Please, it's okay," she said with voice softer than velvet. "Don't be alarmed, no one will hurt you here. Please, calm down. We're friends."
At the sound of her voice, the girl growled lowly within her chest, a harrowing sound that was more feral than any demon Botan remembered crossing paths with. Her skin prickled, heart hammering like it was trying to escape her chest. The girl, however, merely locked her eyes onto Yukina, expression becoming less menacing and more intrigued.
It was clear that there seemed to be something about the ice maiden that captivated her, because the girl stared unblinking at the ice apparition's red eyes.
For the briefest moment, her spirit energy wavered.
"Yes," Botan agreed cheerfully. "We're completely civilized. No threats here!"
Her eyes snapped to Botan, and with a speed that defied physics, the girl was suddenly crouched atop the bed, eyeing her with the utmost of distrust and nostrils flaring like some wildcat about to pounce. Instead, in another blur of agility, she leapt to the ceiling's lone rafter above.
The girl clung with ape-like ease to the beam, never once looking away. High up near the ceiling, hunched low, the shadows veiled half of her face from sight. Her white mane hung past her chest, still waving from her display of speed. For a moment Botan had to admire the raw strength the girl possessed, the undomesticated power, the undaunted grace that many demons would kill for.
She was once again affixed onto Yukina, watching at a wary distance.
But then something caught Botan's eye, and despite all shrieking instinct not to do so, she glanced at the tatami bed. There, centered where the girl had been unconscious, was a coagulated pool of silver. Botan hitched a breath, realizing that it was a form of blood, blood that had seeped from a wound on the girl's back.
The silver gleamed like mercury in the dim lighting of the room.
"Yukina," Botan whispered, grabbing the ice maiden's arm. "Loo–"
Botan never finished her sentence, but was instead besieged with a tremendous tidal wave of spirit energy. Knocked onto her back, her lungs shuddered from the impact, head colliding with the hardwood floor. The force of it was nearly too much to endure. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She couldn't think. But she was still alive.
Still alive, but something radiated beneath her skin and then, finally, after a handful of languishing and slow moments, she realized that it was aftershocks of the energy. Then the image of Genkai came to mind from only that morning, how the cantankerous, iron-willed old psychic had buckled under the weight of an energy only she could sense. How helpless and confused Botan had been, but now she understood.
The red sky, the demon's ungodly aura, was all interwoven somehow.
Once recovered enough to stand, Botan's heart stuttered when she realized that the girl stood before her, a look of rage upon her face. All warmth left Botan's body.
The girl was much smaller than Botan, but her presence was too fierce to overlook, like a deity of time long lost. Her black eyes were unwavering, a snarl on her lips, and it was then that Botan recognized the coiled, readied stance she was in.
She stood in front of Yukina, bristling with protective intent.
Botan blinked, mind embattled between bewilderment and terror. Then, in an act of bravery, Botan made her move. The girl's eyes tapered when she inched towards the door, and each step Botan took a growl became more pronounced from her chest. She did not move, but shifted once to keep Yukina shielded from view.
Tapping further into her cache of courage, Botan reached blindly behind her in attempt to locate the door, but instead knocked into a stand and sent a decorative vase to shatter against the floor. She flinched, but the girl did not waver.
Grasping the door frame, Botan launched herself out of the room, skittering on legs that propelled her too fast to gain any ground. When she hit the stair landing, she felt like her nerves were visibly sparking around her head and frizzling her blue hair like some drunken madwoman.
"Um, guys," she yelled, clutching the bannister like a lifeline, seeing through Kurama's open door that the boys, too, had experienced the tsunami-force of spirit energy. "She's awake and, well, let's just say that she currently does not play well with others!"
Yukina! she then panicked. Oh, please be safe. Don't be nuked by the crazy Okuda demon jungle chick.
Hiei was at her side in a moment, sending a strike of explicit fear through her chest at his sudden arrival. Then she inwardly shrieked upon seeing the ominous glare he sent her way before vanishing from sight with his incredible, demonic speed.
Oops. I think he heard that.
When Botan hotfooted into the guestroom a moment thereafter, she gasped, skidding to a halt. Then blinked. Then cocked her head to the side in confusion.
Before her a portal zapped within itself, and the body of the strange, feral, white-haired girl lay unmoving before Genkai. Hiei stood near the door like a small, fiery sentinel, muscle contracted together in readiness, katana unsheathed in one hand, the other grasping Yukina's.
Protectiveness bridled from his blue aura, which reminded Botan immediately of the girl's safeguarding stance not a minute before, all wrathful resoluteness and wild instinct.
As if reading her thoughts, Hiei stepped closer to Yukina, shielding her line of sight.
Botan glanced from Genkai to the girl, then the girl to Botan, then to Hiei, then to Yukina, and decided finally to settle upon Genkai once more. Her head cocked to the side again, and she ignored how inherently bird-like she felt at that moment.
"Wha..." Botan said, aghast. "What happened? I was gone all of three seconds!"
Genkai did not reply. Her customary scowl (or turtle face, as Yusuke called it) etched into her features was deeper, more troubled, than Botan remembered seeing it that morning. She remained vigilant in her silence, instead reaching into her red keikogi and producing two thin silver, unmarked bracelets. Turning to the girl who looked like a broken doll on the floor, she dutifully slipped them on her wrists. They glowed blue instantly, locking both wrists together.
In Botan's periphery, Hiei's shoulders tensed.
"What are those?" she asked.
Insufferably cryptic as always, Genkai answered, "Security measures."
"Security measures!" Botan squawked indignantly. "Well, thanks for enforcing them in the first place."
It was then that Yusuke and Kuwabara rushed into the room, panting heavily and looking ashen faced. Their reaction to the scene before them mirrored Botan's, which included the doubletakes and cocked heads and bewildered expressions. They looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then both locked their attention onto the fire demon close to them.
Yusuke shoved his hands into his jeans, his raised brow transforming from confused to smug at the sight of Hiei, which confused Botan. Kuwabara, however, had yet to break the loop of glancing between the girl and the katana in Hiei's hand. Then, coming to some internal conclusion, the orange-head scowled.
"Really, Hiei?" he accused, "Hitting girls with your sword is ungentlemanly, especially twice."
"Shut up, fool," Hiei's glare said he was a predatory species. "I did not strike her down."
"Quiet, nitwits, or do you want her to reawaken?" Genkai barked. "I came as soon I felt her energy erupt. I need to get her to Koenma's—soon. We can't wait for Kurama to return with answers. It was foolish not to take precautions the moment she was brought here."
Genkai sighed in aggravation, who then raised her left hand, palm out, before the girl. Soon it radiated a bright glow and she was carefully elevated off the floor by the old psychic's energy. Her hair fell away from her face, swaying like some spectral wind ran through the room, arms dangling at her sides.
Her expression, so unlike her awoken aura, was serene. So much so that everyone in the guestroom was pulled by its innate magnetism, silently watching her float alongside Genkai, who summoned another portal.
Yusuke was the first to recover, who crossed his arms over his chest petulantly.
"Whoa, whoa, grandma, wait up. What the hell happened?"
"She attacked me," Botan answered, clearing her throat. "I grabbed Yukina's arm at one point and then the next thing I know, her energy went utterly ballistic. It was extraordinary and baffling and terrifying, but I think she was protecting her."
"You're lucky she didn't kill you," Genkai said.
As silence fell upon the room after this loaded statement, Yukina raised her free hand at this opportunity, lightly tapping Hiei on the shoulder. He glanced sharply down at her, to which she responded with a gentle smile.
"Mr. Hiei, you can let go of my arm now."
He did so immediately, stepping away from the ice maiden without further thought and fixing his attention to the spirit detective at his side. Botan sighed at his reaction, knowing that he would never allow himself to truly bond with his sister.
Then turning an ear towards the fire demon and Yusuke, Botan eaves-dropped on their hushed, albeit rather harsh, conversation. Then she sighed. Rivals to the end, no matter how much they respect the other. They're like adult-sized toddlers! Well. Maybe not Hiei...
"Hn. I was right, detective," Hiei growled, red eyes flashing. "She was cornered and defended herself."
"Sounds to me like she defended Yukina," Yusuke countered with a cocked brow. "Something you both have in common, I might add."
The temperature in the room suddenly became stifling, something that had everything to do with how Hiei's expression turned utterly savage. Which was surprising, because it took a lot for Hiei to lose his finely honed, haughty composure. Botan shifted uncomfortably on her feet, really not liking where this conversation was going, especially if she was caught in both their crosshairs for listening.
"Release her. There are those that aren't meant to be caged."
Yusuke smirked. "Ah, I get it now. You like her. Must have made a good impression when, maybe, I don't know, she saved your life."
There was a moment of silence, their eyes never faltering from the other's glare. Then, with a tendon-popping clenched fist, Hiei pivoted on the balls of his feet and left the room, more silent than a wraith, until alarming Genkai as she filed through the portal with the girl in question, and Kuwabara, who was fussing over Yukina, when crashing his fist into the wall on his way out.
Yusuke eyed the crater left behind, then shrugged. "I'll take that as a yes."
— — —
Author's Note: So, a few things.
First: I like cliffhangers. A lot.
Second: I've read the manga, I've watched the anime. The storyline of the later is somewhat altered from the former—side-stories occur, side-stories don't occur, random facts of one don't jive with the other, as significant or insignificant they may seem. However, this story will include non-confusing, mostly-harmonious factoids and nuances from both.
Third: I love the YYH characters. Writing in their POV is me having a revoltingly copious amount of fun, so I'm aware that a certain leading lady is being a little neglected. This is intentional. Mostly.
Fourth: I'm (finally) revealing her name in the next chapter.
Fifth: I'm going to be working exclusively on this story until I hit around ten chapters (I need to play nice with my other fics, too), so the next five are in the pot and stewing nicely. But with life having to be lived, food to be eaten, sleep to be slept, there will be a waiting period in between. So, we wait.
Sixth: Reviews will probably get chapters dished out earlier. /hint
Seventh: Yeah, okay. I'm done with the food quips. Clearly the tiny food god residing in my stomach needs to be appeased.
Eighth: Thank you for reading!