FCL64: Chapter five already?
Kiyoshi: What are you doing? You don't have any idea what comes next.
FCL64: I don't have to. I'm not the one writing this story. You are.
Kiyoshi: I don't know what comes next either!
FCL64: So you say. You (the readers) know the whole complicated situation with the ownership of Ayaka. Here we go.
"Shuichi?" Ayaka was awake the moment Kurama muttered the words to himself. Awake and totally sober. She even remembered not to call him by his name.
"It's not morning… but I think I'm ready to talk. At least, I'm as ready as I'll ever be."
She nodded and sat up, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed. Kurama walked over and sat next to her. "I know what you mean," she told him. "I'm sorry I gave you no warning. That wasn't really fair."
"Tell me about it…"
"I said I'm sorry."
"Yes. I'm just having trouble dealing with this right now. My past is haunting me. You know, I really wanted the past to stay buried, but lately, it's been refusing to cooperate. Or some part of my subconscious doesn't want it buried." He sighed.
"Lately?"
"Yomi sought me out for the Tournament. Not the other way around. And when he sought me out, there was no tournament. Just a potential war that would have split the demon plane."
Ayaka was slightly confused. "How is that bringing up your past?"
Kurama looked at her. "Even after two hundred years working with you, I did not trust you with everything. You have seen many instances of my cruelty. But not everything of which I am capable."
"You mean to say that some of the things I've seen… they're not the worst?" Ayaka remembered all too well how cruel Kurama and Kuronue could be when they were angry. If she were being honest with herself, how cruel she was capable of being, since she was a willing participant.
"Yes. Yomi was my partner before Kuronue. He could see back then."
"What happened?" She immediately registered the fact that Yomi's blindness was somehow relevant.
"Our personalities clashed. I was content to wait, to plan, and I needed to know all the details. He was headstrong and impatient. I hired an assassin. Needless to say, the killer failed, and Yomi was only blinded. Until he summoned me, I did not see him again. He had caught the person I hired, who revealed everything to him."
Ayaka's eyes were wide, but she couldn't say she was completely surprised. Kurama had always been a paradox she'd never been able to understand. One moment he was the cruelest of demons; the next he was laughing and the best friend anyone could want. But betrayal? She'd never thought he'd be as treacherous as that. She tried to hide the horror she felt, but as was usual, Kurama saw through it. She could never hide anything from him. Occasionally she came close, but she was never successful for long.
"Don't worry," he told her. "My partnership with Yomi was never anything more than business and ambition. Nothing on which you can really build trust. What I had with you and… what the three of us had was more than a mere partnership; we were friends. We would have done anything for each other."
"I'd still do anything for you," Ayaka told him.
"And I for you." Then Kurama added, "But so much has changed. Things will never be as they were."
"But we must try and make them right."
"They will never be right." Kurama said it sharply, but Ayaka knew the slight anger was directed at himself and not at her.
"It wasn't your fault. And you know I don't mean that it can ever be fixed; just that we might find some closure."
"Closure… maybe." Kurama looked skeptical, as if he wished such a thing were possible but could not make himself believe it.
"It's possible, Kurama. You have to believe that," Ayaka pleaded. "Please, at least—"
"Shhh," Kurama hissed.
She stopped speaking, listening for whatever Kurama might have heard or sensed. Kurama's fox ears grew to enhance his hearing. She followed suit. "Someone's here." She could feel it too, but she couldn't identify it. Then suddenly, it vanished.
Ayaka relaxed, but Kurama remained tense. "He's gone, Kurama."
"But how did he find us? And why now?"
Kurama had lost Ayaka. She was intelligent, but Kurama still often left her feeling confused. He made intellectual leaps Ayaka could rarely follow. "What?" she asked.
But Kurama was on a different planet, in that place he went when he frantically wanted to understand something but could not. It made him oblivious to nearly everything. She took his shoulders and shook him. "Kurama," she said, rather loudly. "Snap out of it."
"He's come back," Kurama said. "Good night Ayaka." Then he went back to his room, leaving Ayaka bewildered, and they both fell into an uneasy sleep.
animegrlsteph: Glad you're still enjoying the story. As for there not being words to describe it... that's probably because, overall, it is a rather odd story. Dangerous things happen when we work together.
racerabbit: I'm glad you think Kurama's in character; I was a bit worried about that. As for his relationship with Ayaka, they hug a lot, but they're nothing more than friends and I don't see it developing into anything more than that. I'm glad you like it that way, because in a situation such as this, people have a tendency to want romance (which I can't write). As for Kurama and Kuronue's relationship not being yaoi... never. The only time I would ever write a yaoi fic would be to annoy animegrlsteph and then the likelihood that it would be posted is very, very slim.
Foxgirl Ray: I'm glad you are still enjoying my story, and that you like the way I am writing Kurama. Sorry, but we don't get to see how the raid goes because the weird flashbacks start next chapter (is this a good thing, or a bad thing?). Yes, I really like having the switch of having Kuronue as a main character. I don't remember what led us to that decision, but as a result, I had to go watch YuYu Hakusho: Poltergeist Report on YouTube. I don't watch the anime, I only read the manga, so that was unusual, but I needed to know who Kuronue was and the basic nature of his relationship with Kurama for this story to work. Which makes me particularly glad you're pleased with it.