Disclaimer: Recognizable characters belong to their respective creators. I'm just playing with them for a while...

Chapter 6: Living Myth

After dispatching the last of the latest enemy attack, Kaito knelt on the unreal ground, trying to catch his breath. Something was wrong with these corridors. He had been fine at first, but now it was difficult to breathe on ythe short walks between worlds, let alone defeat creatures who fought by dodging, weaving, dancing, and flailing. (He was increasingly tempted to liken the things to air-breathing ysquid.)

He was agile, but agility required oxygen.

"Damn it." Curious. Inflection implied a sense of remembrance, as if Ansem was only just now recalling relevant information and very, very aggravated for having forgotten something so important in the first place. Footsteps sounded behind him, but he made no move to look up. Too much effort involved.

How are you not winded? Close combat requires more movement than long-range, and you've been traveling like this a lot longer than I have.

A gloved hand gripped his shoulder.

"Get up. You need to get out of here." If he didn't know better, he'd say that the urgency of Ansem's tone also held an underlying hint of worry.

"No, really," Kaito drawled as well as his lungs would allow. In his ears, it sounded more like a wheeze. Ansem hauled him upright and half-carried, half-dragged him towards their apparent exit from the corridor.

So tired… why is it getting hard to keep my eyes open? Ooh, look at the pretty black spots. Isn't that a sign of something important? Something that could be bad? Mom's a nurse, so she would know…

The world went dark.

Ansem trudged through a rustic countryside of hillocks, rocky ground and fields. Mountains loomed in the distance in one direction, and a forest stretched away in another. Kaito draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, still unconscious. Kaito was lucky Ansem stood well over six feet tall and had stamina to spare, or he would never have been able to carry so much dead weight.

As it was, he felt himself tiring and growing increasingly annoyed. He could see a small settlement not too far off, hopefully with some people capable of helping Kaito because there was literally no other civilization around for miles. He had already been walking for almost an hour, and likely had that far to walk again before they arrived. Shortening the distance with a corridor would be both a waste of power and potentially dangerous to Kaito.

Maybe a traveling companion wasn't such a good idea after all, especially one who couldn't even travel the dark corridors on his own. Letting Kaito tag along in the first place had been against all common sense, given Ansem's current state and occupation.

But he had been so tired, and the desire to hold a conversation with a decent, human-shaped being felt so overwhelming that night, he hadn't been able to keep from responding to Kaito's spoken-aloud thoughts. Then the thief had followed of his own free will, and the prospect of someone to keep him grounded had been irresistible. Someone else who walked that fine line between light and darkness, and seemingly with more success.

He sighed. Kaito did more than make him grounded; he had, occasionally, made him feel almost normal for a few moments. He didn't know if that was a good thing. Not only could it be potentially dangerous, but when he temporarily let whom he used to be come to the forefront of his personality, remembering how abnormal he was in truth hurt the more for having pretended otherwise.

Was it worth it?

The possibility of returning Kaito to his home world stretched out before his imagination. Back to traveling and fighting alone almost 24 hours a day on minimal food, water and sleep, avoiding human contact whenever possible so that it would hurt less to leave them behind, stuck exclusively in his own head with the thoughts that whirled and accused and attacked and would never be quiet unless someone else was filling the silence…

A shudder rippled through his tall frame. Not again. Please, not again. For now he couldn't return to face the friends he had once known and cast aside, not the way he was, but he loathed the thought of going back to being alone in the dark. He needed no one—never need, never depend, never be able to let someone else down—but the benefits of having Kaito around outweighed the possible inconveniences.

Keep telling yourself that it's a matter of advantageous use of resources, a sardonic voice in the back of his mind declared. Maybe eventually you'll believe it.

Ansem very deliberately made no visible response to the traitorous thought. Talking to air was not generally considered sane behavior, and he had just reached the edges of the village. A trio of young children paused in their game of tag and gawked at him.

"Hey, Uncle, are you a youkai?" The question earned the youngest boy an immediate thwack on the head from the older boy, and caused the older girl to put a protective arm around his shoulders.

"I'm sorry, sir, he didn't mean that," she said hastily, "We're always trying to teach him better manners—"

Ansem cut her off with a gesture. "Who can help me with my—" not quite friend, not yet, especially not if he's going home, "—companion?"

The children's eyes widened at Kaito's limp form. As one, they turned and scampered through dusty streets towards a small hut on the opposite side of the village. "Kaede-obaasan! Kaede-obaasan!"

Bemused, Ansem followed in their wake, aware that he garnered not a few stares from open doorways and various villagers outside their houses. Maybe Kaito had been right about him sticking out like a sore thumb. Of course, in this place Kaito's clothing stuck out as much as he did. They weren't going to be anywhere long enough for assimilating to be worth the effort. He still wasn't sure how Kaito had convinced him to do so even that one time.

An old, hunched, gray-haired woman with wrinkles and an eye-patch exited the hut and met the calling children, a worried frown on her face. "What is it, what's wrong?"

Wordlessly, the children pointed at Ansem. She looked up, scrutinizing him with wary curiosity. Her eye narrowed when it met his, but she made no comment. Apparently satisfied that he posed no immediate threat, she allowed her attention to pass to what she could see of Kaito, and abruptly moved the children out of the doorway.

"Hurry, bring him inside. That level of taint could potentially be dangerous." She turned to the oldest boy. "Thank you, Maro-kun. Go on and play, now. I have things that need tending to."

Ansem followed her inside, laying Kaito on a bed made mostly of straw under Kaede's direction. She ran a hand over Kaito's face, brow knitting. He twitched slightly under her ministrations, but remained asleep. Their travel pace must have been harder on Kaito than Ansem had thought, if bone-deep exhaustion still held him in sway.

"I have done a little for him, but he should have Kagome-chan's help." She looked up at him, eye glinting in a way he wasn't sure he liked. "The faster she can be fetched here, the better. Now, I don't know who you are, or what you are, but if you're a youkai you obviously care more about helping your friend than killing or eating humans. And your friend is most certainly human."

Ansem wondered briefly what exactly she was referring to, but let it pass. There were more important things to consider than the possibility of more non-human sentients beyond those he had already met.

Kaede continued: "That's enough for my help, but Inuyasha doesn't think much of strangers. Do you think you can play transport for an old woman?"

Ansem closed his eyes for a moment. This was not a part of his job description. Fight enemies? Yes. Work behind the scenes in support of Sora? Absolutely. Act as a human courier? No. Many times, No.

He looked back at Kaede.

The trip wasn't too hard—the old lady was at least a head shorter than Kaito, and nowhere near as heavy. All he had to do was stay balanced. Ansem navigated his way around the forest to a massive tree, where he set Kaede down. She strode into the nearby clearing without looking to see if he would follow.

"Inuyasha!"

A crouching red bundle on the edge of a box-like wooden structure uncurled into the form and features of a teenage boy. Ansem raised an eyebrow as he found himself staring into molten-gold eyes outside of a mirror. He raised the other eyebrow when he realized that dog's ears poked through the white hair on top of the boys head, nearly flattened in wary disgust.

"Who the hell is that with you, old crone?" Inuyasha growled. "He reeks of something damn close to Naraku's miasma, even if he doesn't have Naraku's scent. And what are you doing here, anyway?"

Kaede ignored the questions. "When will Kagome-chan be returning?"

Inuyasha blinked, caught off guard. "She said three or four days, two days ago," he groused, scowling. "And told me not to follow this time. Who is he?"

"Later, Inuyasha. I know you can sense no inherent danger from him. I need you to fetch Kagome-chan. If she protests, tell her the summons are from me, and are somewhat urgent. A young man would greatly benefit from her purifying powers, the sooner the better for it."

Inuyasha visibly brightened at having an incontestable excuse to bring Kagome back. The scowl returned, however, when he glanced back at Ansem.

"When we get back, you had better be damn well ready to tell me who and what you are. You smell wrong in too many ways to count. And if you hurt anyone, especially Kagome when I bring her, I'll rip you limb from limb."

Ansem inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment, and the odd-looking boy turned and jumped behind the wooden slats. Mystified by his behavior, Ansem looked inside the square wooden frame, which he belatedly realized was the outer supports of an old, dried-up well. The fact that the boy had voluntarily jumped into a deep and empty well was unusual in and of itself. The fact that within the confines of the old stone walls there was nothing but air and sturdy vines, no flashes of white-red-gold to be seen, was even stranger.

And when Inuyasha got back from wherever he had just vanished, Ansem was going to have to convince him that quartering strangers was an unnecessary extreme.

Why was it that ever since he met Kaito, he was continuously being forced to interact with people and explain away whatever about him didn't fit into their definition of normal? The thief had to be a people magnet, and it apparently worked even when he was unconscious.

…Maybe that was why he had talked to Kaito in the first place. He drew people in like—well, like Sora. Insofar as Ansem had observed, people instinctively liked them both. He still didn't know how they did it.

A sudden impact against his shoulder made him whirl, reflexively summoning a dark firaga against the threat. A split-second later he registered that the apparent attack had come from Kaede wielding a fallen tree branch, and he quickly let the purple-black flame dissipate just before it released in her direction. Kaede seemed to purposefully ignore his reaction, and his spate of cursing when he realized what she had just risked for no apparent reason.

"Pay more attention to your surroundings, young man. There are many dangers in this countryside, and few are polite enough to give their prey a warning. It's a good sign when you have control enough over your reflexes to recognize friend from foe, however. Now, if we want to return to the village before Inuyasha arrives there, we had better be on our way."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Ansem headed back towards the village. The old lady was completely crazy if she went around antagonizing strangers with unknown abilities like that. Oddly enough, however, upon further reflection he felt relieved. He hadn't really known he was capable of suppressing his more dangerous reflexes until she had provoked him. He refused to believe she had done that for those reasons, though—some things were too far-fetched to even consider.

True to Kaede's word, they arrived mere minutes before Inuyasha literally leapt over several of the village's small houses on his way to the old woman's hut, carrying piggyback a dark-haired girl slightly younger than Kaito. Had Ansem not seen six impossible things before breakfast on a regular basis for some time, he might have been more surprised. As it was, he concluded that the inhuman speed and strength were a corollary to whatever genes gave Inuyasha dog ears, slit pupils, and yes, those were claws.

The girl spoke first, climbing off of Inuyasha's back. Now that she stood in close range, Ansem was tempted to shield his eyes. If he hadn't already met the seven princesses of light, he would have wagered anything that this girl could have been one of them. Only very faintly, almost too weak to detect, could he sense the residue of darkness previously purged.

"Kaede-obaasan, what could possibly be so urgent that you sent Inuyasha to kidnap me from my after-school tutoring session? I failed my last three tests, and I need to graduate!"

Kaede, at least, had the decency to look repentant. Inuyasha's too-loud Feh! earned him a baleful glare that promised pain at some later, more convenient time.

"Come inside and see, Kagome-chan. Inuyasha, why don't you try catching something extra for dinner? Three more mouths to feed, tonight. And find Shippou-kun while you're at it, I know you chased him off to entertain himself somewhere away from the well."

Kagome disappeared inside the hut, but Inuyasha growled at the dismissal, shooting a glare at Ansem.

"It can wait, Inuyasha," Kaede said dryly. "Interrogate him over dinner tonight, since I admit I'm curious as well. We need enough food for there to be dinner, first."

Inuyasha bared his teeth, then vaulted away on his errands. Kaede ushered Ansem inside the hut, where Kagome had already knelt beside Kaito's sleeping form.

"What happened to him? It's like he's been… infected by something similar to Naraku's miasma. He even has a fever!"

"Our path was infested by it," Ansem offered, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm—immune. He seemed all right at first, but then…" he shrugged.

"You can purify him, can you not, Kagome? It shouldn't be much different from how you helped Kikyo."

"I think so. I hope so." She frowned. "Do you see that? Even without the miasma, his energy feels different from anyone I've seen. White and shades of silver, all laced through light blue. I've never seen anything like it, not even in Miroku's..."

"Leave it be," Ansem interjected, somewhat harsher than he meant to. He looked away when both women's gazes focused on him. "It's who he is. His strength. He walks the shadows, staring into the darkness but always knowing light guards his back. Do you understand?"

Kagome nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. "It makes a peculiar sort of sense. I'm not sure who I could liken him to, but that doesn't matter so much right now. I'll purify the darkness from him as well as I can."

"Thank you." Ansem turned. "I need to find a friend. He should be able to help him after he wakes back up."

"You mean that someone else was traveling a path infested by some evil youkai's miasma? What—"

"We were separated," Ansem lied smoothly before Kaede could work her shocked indignation into a full-blown tirade. "I don't know exactly where he is, but he didn't wander onto that old lost pathway with us. I doubt I could find that way again, regardless, but I can find him. When your friend Inuyasha comes back, be sure to tell him that I'll be returning and didn't simply disappear."

Before they could protest, he ducked outside, skirted around the hut to the side out of sight of anyone in the village who might care enough to watch, and entered a dark corridor.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, groggy and aching, voices filtered into Kaito's half-dreaming state.

"The ones who helped him are eating just outside here. I want you to see him before dealing with them."

"Why're you still using your old sword?" High-pitched and slightly nasal, but not quite the voice of a child. "Don't think I didn't notice when we were fighting the enemy on the way here."

Silence.

"I chose the twilit path, but right now, all that I have, all I am, is darkness. A dark form wields a dark sword. Perhaps when I step back onto that road towards light, I'll receive another blade. Until then, this is enough."

"Well, I can't say I completely agree with you there, but if that's what your heart tells you to do I won't say otherwise."

A mirthless chuckle. "Ironic, isn't it? Even after I defeated my darkness and made it my own, I still didn't have the power to compete with him. I had to resurrect the dark completely just to beat half of him. And now I can't banish or defeat the darkness anymore without destroying myself."

"I told you this when you first showed up with that money pouch for Sora, and I'll tell you again. Only your form is of the darkness you used to hold. Deep down inside, your heart is of the light, R—"

"Ansem." The interruption, though said calmly, carried a hint of ice that left no room for argument. "I may not have always been this way, but this is who I am right now. Unless you know how to rectify that, I am no longer who I was before."

Softly, regretfully: "I don't. Not yet. I'm sorry."

"I chose it. The exchange was necessary and worth the price. There's no time for regrets. Now…"

Muted footfalls approached Kaito's bed in tandem.

"Can you help him?"

A soft whistle. "The darkness did a number on him. I can still see the scars where his aura hasn't wholly repaired itself yet. How many times did he travel the corridors?"

"...Half a dozen?"

"Gosh, that's still some amazing endurance. To travel the dark without a ship, the protection of darkness, or the protection of light… it's a miracle he lasted so long."

"It didn't cross my mind." Was that… remorse? "I never thought he might not have defenses; it's been so long since I didn't have them I nearly forgot what it was like. And he didn't act like he was fighting anything off..."

"Not your fault, Ansem-kun. You can't blame yourself."

"Mmm. Are you going to wake him?"

"Not unless you want him to be hurting while I try to teach him. Give his heart time to recover. In the meantime, can you show me who helped him? I've never seen anything like it!"

"If this is a plot to force me to rest as well, I'll have you know I slept and ate recently."

Quiet, high-pitched laughter. "I hadn't even thought of that. I won't say it's not a good idea, though. I'm positive you need more rest than you've been giving yourself. Now come on, introduce me."

"Just be aware that you're probably going to be called a youkai. And I've put off explaining anything until now, so you can do that, too. One of them can sense my darkness, and it puts him on edge. He's more likely to believe what you say."

"Well, let's see what I can come up with that convincingly places us as inhabitants of this world. The less worlds meddled with, the better."

The voices faded, moving farther away, then muffled completely. Kaito let himself relax again, knowing that Ansem wouldn't leave him where it wasn't safe. Probably. He didn't fight the wave of sleep as it washed inexorably over his senses.

"Are you awake, boy?"

At the unfamiliar voice, Kaito transitioned from drowsy to electrifying alert in less than a second, though he knew better than to suddenly fly upright. He tried to relax his unconsciously tensed muscles, eyes still closed.

"Ah, there you are. You might be a bit confused, but rest assured you're safe."

Kaito risked opening one eye into a cautious slit. A silhouetted form approached slowly, cautiously, until the person's features resolved in the dim light into that of an old woman.

"My name is Kaede. You were being slowly overwhelmed by darkness when your friend brought you here for help. Kagome has purified you, but your energy is likely still low."

Kaito inched his way upright with the same care he put into disarming 5-star security systems. Parts of his head were threatening to start World War III with his pain sensors if he didn't go smooth and slow. Kaede handed him a cup of water, which he drank slowly, though all his instincts were clamoring to down it in one gulp and ask for more.

"I have a tea for your headache, when you are ready, and I believe Kagome-chan sent some ramen back with Inuyasha when he took her home, if you feel hungry."

Kaito's stomach growled in response, eliciting a chuckle. "I thought as much. I'll go make sure they leave enough for you, and tell your friends that you're awake."

He nodded gently. She disappeared and a few minutes later Ansem entered, bearing a cup of tea and, against all probability given the rustic surroundings, a cup of instant ramen. Kaito was too hungry to comment on the seeming anachronism, and gladly ate and drank. Ansem stood by the bed, silently waiting for Kaito to finish.

"Okay, now that my head isn't threatening to fall off, what happened? And where are we?"

"Where we are… is better experienced than described. As for what happened, you nearly fell prey to the dark, but a girl of this world with some power over the dark managed to purify you. I've also brought a friend here who can help keep it from happening again."

So, the man does have friends. Or at least, a friend.

"Not DiZ-san?"

"No. Someone who's less likely to draw you from shadows into darkness."

"Um." Kaito considered that for a moment. "DiZ-san would?"

Ansem's smile held no humor whatsoever. "People who aren't strong enough in themselves turn to the darkness for power. Then it's a battle of strength and will to keep your heart from being devoured by the dark. DiZ-san always offers people a choice they can make… but if I know him, your choice would have been between fighting the darkness as you are now, with it eating away at you, or embracing the dark and holding it captive within you as you use it to traverse the outer dark. Like him."

"Pass."

"I thought you might. Someone I know did neither, however, and still traveled the way we do for some time. I brought him here to teach you, if you want to stay on this road. If you'd rather go home now, you can."

The implications of what you're not saying mean you took one of the methods other than your friend's way. Which means at some point in the past, you must have embraced the darkness like DiZ-san if you can travel through the dark. Hoo boy. I think we just brushed the edges of the untold 'complicated and personal' part of your history again. You still haven't given me enough pieces for it to make sense, though. Drat.

Kaito reluctantly pushed the puzzle-solving part of his thoughts to the back of his mind. "I already chose this, and I'm going to see it through." Had he been paying enough attention, Kaito would probably have been shocked to see an expression akin to relief on Ansem's face. "Where is this guy, then?"

In response to his question a figure entered and approached the bed, illuminated by the morning sun shining into the hut. Kaito stared.

"Hi, there. Glad to see you're doing okay." The high-pitched voice from his earlier waking dream. Kaito stared some more, unintentionally ignoring the outstretched white glove.

"Ansem, I'm being talked to by a mouse."

Wearing a child-size version of your creepy organization's coat. Why? He seems less likely to be a member of their group than you are.

A rueful smile. "I guess your world didn't have animorphic people, huh? Sorry to surprise you. Most people's minds just accept the differences between worlds if they ever wind up among people outside their world. Your power probably exposes things for what they really are, instead of glossing over them."

"Great."

Somehow, that's not comforting. I'm talking to a two-and-a-half-foot-tall mouse. In black.

And I have been hanging around with Hakuba far, far too long if I want to call him an MiB. Him and his American movies… and I'm going to kill him for rubbing his sense of humor off on me. Or at least heavily, heavily embarrass him next heist night, if I make it back alive.

"Anyway, I'm King Mickey. Kaito-kun, right?"

"…Yeah." Kaito hesitantly shook the humanoid mouse's hand.

A mouse with his own kingdom, even. Ansem seems to accept it, though, so he's probably not suffering from delusions of grandeur. This is still disturbing.

"You can call me Mickey. I'm not sure exactly how this is gonna work, because I'm still learning about the nature of the shadows, but I want to help you get a hold on your power. It's dangerous to travel untrained, especially when you have a strong heart's talent. The darkness tries to absorb strong hearts."

"Why am I not surprised?" Kaito responded dryly. "By now I should be used to diving headlong into mortal danger with no guidelines or known precedents."

"Oh, there's precedent of a sort—"

"But not one you'd want to emulate." Weariness had crept into Ansem's tone.

Definitely no. Not when you're apparently the only precedent around, and talk as if you gained the shadows by traveling though the dark and coming out the other side.

You and DiZ-san both told me that I hold the shadows, but as if they're my natural habitat, or my playground. You also happened to warn me that spending too much time in the dark might mean eventually losing important things of the light.

I don't like these odds.

I really don't like the idea of darkness being attracted to me like Dobermans to a slab of steak.

"Right," the king continued, oblivious to Kaito's internal monologue. He cracked his interlaced hands, stretching child-like arms out to their full length. "Let's get started. To those with powerful hearts, the darkness should have no hold on them or be a source of fear."

Kaito emerged from the hut some time later, blinking in the sun's glare. He felt slightly disoriented from the other details Mickey had provided while explaining about what had happened to him, and from the training itself.

Mickey had once traveled safely through the dark corridors protected only by his own light, and then by the key-shaped blade he wielded. Which was indeed a keyblade, like the one Sora was supposed to wield, and the term made a lot more sense now that he'd seen one. A blade found in the dark, it opened corridors of darkness between worlds even though Mickey bore it for the sake of light. Kaito had somehow had the impression that Sora's keyblade was the only one, but that was evidently not the case. Kaito still wasn't sure how Mickey's experiences reconciled with his own abilities, but they managed to innovate (i.e., make things up) as they went along.

By the time Mickey was satisfied with his progress, Kaito could at least use the raw shadows to protect himself from any encroaching dark. To Mickey's surprise, though the king quickly caught on and explained his discovery to Kaito, apparently being a child of the shadows meant that his magic remained malleable while he traveled through the worlds. A child of light like Sora or Donald brought their magic with them and forced a world to mold its power around their shape; a darkchild merely took their original magic into the taint of darkness with them. Kaito seemed to adapt to the way a world expressed power like a chameleon, or a mimic.

The king had speculated about whether or not Kaito could remember those old imprints, and if necessary fight with the form of any world he visited. Surreptitiously fingering a stack of cards that opened his mind to faint sensations of power and shadow and master—call!, Kaito gave no more than a non-committal shrug. Ansem never stayed in any world long enough for him to really adjust to the newest power-channel, and using them against the natural flow of another world would take more mastery than he currently held. Maybe he would admit to something once there was anything worth admitting to.

Mickey had also suggested the possibility that Kaito could eventually open a corridor on his own. Kaito loathed the thought.

Strong heart or not, power kinda like a distant-cousin-who-never-writes to the darkness or not, I'm not touching the stuff to try and manipulate it until I can use what I've already got.

Kaito's musings were unpleasantly disrupted by an unknown entity landing on his shoulders, almost knocking him off his feet.

"Gah!" Recovering his balance, he plucked the thing away from where it seemed to be burrowing in his unruly hair, and held it at arms length.

Impossibly large blue eyes stared out at him from under a thick fringe of rust-orange bangs, set in an innocent, pouting face. The appendage held in one hand felt soft and silky and bizarrely like… fur.

What the—?

Tiny fists beat the air, his captive squirming and struggling against his grip.

"Cut it out! That hurts, ya know!" Young, but definitely male. Not even Aoko could have made the growl bubbling out of the boy's throat.

Kaito opened his hand reflexively, letting bright-colored clothes and fur drop to the ground.

"Ow!"

The boy dusted himself off, glaring. Kaito realized that the sensation of fur had come from the bushy tail currently waving about in an irritated manner. White-tipped rust—a fox's tail.

"What—who—are you?"

"I'm Shippou! Haven't you ever seen a kitsune before?"

...Here myths are real.

"What, are you from through the well like Kagome-chan? She didn't know what I was, either."

Kaito raised an eyebrow at two and a half feet of disgruntled fox-spirit. "Maybe."

"Hmph. You don't seem like much. I bet Inuyasha could pound you in two seconds flat, let alone what a full-blooded youkai would do to you."

Youkai. Old Japan's spirits, magical creatures, demons. Inuyasha—Dog demon? If this guy is a canine youkai, his parents had no imagination.

"What was that, shrimp?" An irate white-and-red blur pounced on Shippou from a short distance away, and a scuffle of growls, yips, curses and yelling ensued.

"Hey!" Shippou skidded along the dirt for several seconds before he ran out of inertia. Back on his feet, he launched into the air, landing on Inuyasha's shoulders. Small, sharply pointed fangs zeroed in on very sensitive dog ears.

"K'so!"

One powerful swat later, Shippou sat on the ground nursing a sore head and a bruised ego. The two glared at each other, arms crossed. "I can take down a full-blood any damn day of the week, brat, even that bastard Sesshoumaru."

Well, those ears are a dead giveaway for some youkai blood, but apparently not a full-blooded one like Shippou. Half-blood, then?

Sharp golden eyes met Kaito's as he observed the interaction, and narrowed. "So you're the one Kagome had to purify. Are you an idiot for not recognizing the miasma for what it was, or just suicidal?"

"Let's stick to 'inexperienced.' It shouldn't happen again."

"It'd better not. Your two friends might be right about Ansem not having a personality to match his miasma, but I don't want you guys hanging around this place any longer than you have to be."

"Ansem-san and Mickey-san had some stuff to talk about, but then we planned to move on. We've still got a long way to travel, it looks like. I just figured I'd find out for myself where I ended up, being unconscious and all when we arrived."

"How did you wind up traveling with a youkai and a cursed human in the first place?"

Kaito glanced at the newcomer, absorbing in an instant dark hair and eyes, a gauntleted arm and rosary-bound hand, several earrings, and traditional robes of a Buddhist priest that could have been pulled from a history book back home. Beside the man a similarly dark-haired girl stood in a traditional, informal kimono, unremarkable except for a massive bone-colored boomerang strapped to her back.

Not bone-colored, Kaito realized. Bone. I think I should be creeped out by that.

She spoke when he didn't reply right away, taking his distracted silence for confusion. "Mickey-san explained how Ansem-san was cursed by another youkai a year ago, so strongly that his entire aura has been changed. It is unusual for youkai like Mickey-san to associate with humans, however, even the good or kind ones. How did you meet?"

A youkai curse? Intriguing thought. I wonder how close to the truth that is…

"Some days I'm not even sure myself," Kaito admitted, trying to be as honest as possible. The most believable lie holds an element of truth. "I met Ansem-san when he passed by my hometown a while ago and decided to follow him. Curiosity is one of my failings."

He grinned disarmingly, and was rewarded with a smile from the girl. "When he realized I had tagged along, he decided not to send me packing for the time being. I only just—" such a wonderfully vague term "—met Mickey-san. I'm not sure what the story between them is, but they seem to be working together to help some people that need it. What about you? A youkai child, a handful of humans, and a…" he paused, still unsure. "Half-blood youkai?"

"Hanyou, yes," the man confirmed, ignoring Inuyasha's snarl at the term. "We all found a common ground in an enemy we'd like very much to see dead."

Erk. These people are completely serious about wanting to kill someone. None of them look over twenty. This is definitely a long way from home.

Though a lack of indoor plumbing should probably have been my first clue.

"Kaito-san." Ansem ducked outside through the nearest doorway, cutting off further conversation. "We're leaving."

"Thanks for all your help," Mickey added cheerfully. "Good luck with your fight against Naraku. I wish we could stay and give you a hand—"

"We don't need it," Inuyasha interrupted gruffly.

The priest promptly dealt him a jingling staff-thwack, and continued smoothly, "What our rude friend is trying to say, is that wouldn't want to needlessly endanger people who have no stake in our battles."

"Our thanks for the offer, though," the young woman added.

"Well, there's still a lot of daylight left and even more ground to cover before we stop," Mickey said after a pause. "Take care of yourselves."

"Thanks for everything," Kaito said, and really meant it. Mickey had filled him in on some of the details regarding his collapse and the steps necessary for his recovery. "Please tell Kagome-san I'm very grateful, and I'm sorry I can't tell her so in person."

A grumble that sounded suspiciously like an "I'm not," drifted from where Inuyasha stood.

Add 'territorial' to the canine attributes of a dog-youkai. That would explain why Ansem-san annoys Inuyasha-san so much even beyond his darkness—Alpha males don't get on with each other.

…Getting out of here sounds like a really good idea right about now. If he's gone this long without actively challenging Ansem, I don't want to take my chances on what would happen if he finally snaps and can't help it any more.

After a final round of goodbyes, the unconventional trio headed off into the sunset.

Or would have, if not for the fact that the sun had barely passed mid-morning.

Surprisingly, the king kept up with Ansem's long stride without difficulty until they reached a ravine offering shelter from most prying eyes or ears. Mickey then said his farewells and left through a path opened by his keyblade, searching for a man reputed to have understood the phenomena of heartless and nobodies plaguing the worlds.

Who is also named—surprise!—Ansem.

"How many Ansems are there, anyway?" he muttered to himself. He neither expected nor received an answer from his taciturn companion.

Something is seriously wrong here, but I can't figure out what. Not the least of which is how an unknown, sentient force can grant certain people a blade with strange power over the laws governing the universe. How does job-screening work for that one?

"Out of curiosity, how many keyblades are there? Sora-kun's got one as champion of the light, but that obviously doesn't define the position because Mickey-san's got another one, and he's, um… researcher for the light? Are there any more of them floating around?"

"We don't know much more about keyblades than we do about the heartless and nobodies. That's part of what the king is trying to find out."

"Why does he wear a cloak like you do? Are there any more people out there who wear those things but aren't members of that organization either?"

"He has his own reason for wearing that cloak, but anyone else who bothers is exceedingly unlikely to be friendly."

As Inuyasha-san would say, Feh.

"I'm assuming that since we didn't stick around, their big bad evil is homegrown?"

"Yes. Almost on par in nastiness to the dead Ansem from what they described, but not involved with our sorts of creatures born from the dark. Strong hearts seeking the darkness can sometimes draw the heartless to their worlds, but he hasn't. No one else seems likely to breach the worldwalls. They'll be fine, so long as he doesn't kill them."

"So optimistic."

"Harder to be disappointed that way."

Ouch.

Dark flame blossomed into a doorway. Kaito eyed it uneasily, wary of exposing himself again despite Mickey's reassurances. Inuyasha's bad mood seemed to have rubbed off on Ansem, however, because either didn't notice or didn't care. He stepped through and left Kaito with the choice of following, or being essentially stranded.

"Sometimes you're really annoying," Kaito muttered, despite Ansem's inability to hear him, and ran through before the way could close.

The Inuyasha timeline is from the later volumes of the manga, though you probably have to squint to see the specific references. Sora is still on his first round through the worlds, being shiny and optimistic and heroic.

Wielders of a keyblade and their companions seem to receive the magical equivalent of a babelfish, given that Sora communicates just fine with worlds like China or an animal kingdom. Isn't instant-translation handy?

Non-Kaito perspective was odd to write, even if somewhat necessary. I'm not sure if I'll do it again. Anyone have an opinion about that?

I'll gladly take thoughts, critique, ideas, etc for the rest of the chapter (and fic) as well. Review, please?

11/06