TheHeartsPath: Ok people I finally have it done! This chapter kept running in circles in my brain so I ended up writing a part here and a part there. Then I had to figure out how I was going to make all the parts fit just right! I actually got dizzy trying to put this thing together! LOL So here it is! The 20th chapter of this story! Please read and review! Hope you like the chapter! Enjoy!

F3ARTH3RIPP3R asked a question about what Ayla is as a druid. An Oak Seer or the ancient Irish form which means Sorcerer. All I'll say for the time being is that Ayla is kind of a mix between an Oak Seer and Sorcerer. I will try to explain what I mean exactly at a later date. (I need to figure out how to explain it so I don't confuse people...or myself.) If you want to know what either of those are I suggest looking them up online.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of it's characters. They are owned by Yoshihiro Togashi. I own only Ayla, her family, and any other characters that do not show up in the series.

"Talking" Thoughts ~Telepathy or mind-reading~

Chapter 20: It Can't Be...Can It?

Koenma's POV

How in all the levels of hell did so many upper B to A class demons appear in the Ningenkai without anyone noticing? With all the precautions that were being taken by Enki and himself, it should have been downright impossible! But from what Kurama had reported there had been over three hundred of them!

They needed to figure out how this had happened and prevent it from doing so again. The faster, the better!

"George, quickly get an investigation squad sent to the clearing in Ningenkai. I want them to look over the bodies of those demons. There might be a clue on one of them that can tell us how they got there and why." I ordered.

"Right away Koenma sir!" George ran out the door.

I hit a button on my desk, causing a television screen to come down from the ceiling. Pushing another button made it turn on and connect to Botan's communication mirror. "Botan, I need you to come to my office immediately. This is of the utmost importance."

Botan nodded, "I'll be right there Koenma."

The connection ended, turning the screen black once more. Unconsciously I pressed the same button that had brought the screen down, thus returning it to the ceiling. I sighed as I stood up and walked around my desk so I could pace while I thought.

Over three hundred upper B to A class demons in Ningenkai. All of them with their energy disguised as C class. Even with all of them disguising their energy they should have been noticed during the time they were in the city.

Kurama told me that he keeps track of the amount of demon energy that is in the city. He can't keep track of an exact number, not for lack of trying on his part, but at least an estimate. It's gotten to where he is able to tell if a demon is suppressing their energy to make them seem weaker. Even if they don't want anyone to know. But with these demons he couldn't do that. As if something or someone was preventing him from doing so.

Those energies he sensed were not there the day before. Hell not even an hour before they attacked Ayla and Hiei.

Hearing the door to my office open brought me out of my musings. I stopped pacing and turned to Botan as she was shutting the door.

"I came as quickly as I could Koenma. What's going on?"

"I received a communication from Kurama a few minutes ago. Apparently over three hundred upper B to A class demons attacked Ayla and Hiei in the forest that's outside of the city." I informed her.

She gasped, "But...but how is that possible? So many demons of those classes shouldn't be in Ningenkai! At least not without permission and something or someone to monitor them!"

"They disguised their energy while in the city. Made it appear as if they were C class demons instead. What's more Kurama said that the energies of the demons weren't in the city for even an hour before attacking." I resumed my pacing while continuing to explain. "It's quite obvious that they managed to get to Ningenkai without anyone noticing. Which leads to two questions. How did they get there without anyone noticing? And why did they come in the first place?"

Neither of us had an answer to either question.

Before anything else could be said the door opened and George came inside, closing the door behind him. "I take it that the investigation squad has left for the clearing George?" I asked.

George shook his head, "I'm afraid not sir. I told them what you wanted done, but just as they were about to gather what they needed for the job, Captain Otake showed up."

"What did the captain of the SDF want?" Botan asked.

"He said that King Yama forbid them from following Koenma's order. That investigating the clearing was neither important or necessary in any way. And that King Yama had already sent a cleanup squad out and they had taken care of the clearing." George finished explaining.

"This doesn't make sense! Why would my father do something like this? This is something that should be investigated to the fullest extent, in order to keep it from happening again!" I exclaim, both confused and annoyed. Why would father do this? There's no reason for something like this to be done.

Unless...No...It can't be...can it?

Unless he was the one behind all of it.

I quickly pushed the button on my desk that would open a portal to Ningenkai. "George stay here and keep an eye on things. Contact me at once if anything happens. Botan you're coming with me to Genkai's temple. We need to talk with Yusuke and the others. I fear things are about to go from bad to worse."

"Yes sir." both answered.

As I walked through the portal with Botan beside me, a terrible thought ran through my mind.

Father knows about Ayla.

Ayla's POV (Ayla's Mind)

Sitting beside the lake where I met the panther and jaguar I stared at the water. The wind was blowing just strong enough to cause tiny waves and ripples to dance across the surface. Sounds of tree branches full of lush leaves rustling, the water of the river flowing, and the different animal calls filled the air. It was unusually peaceful here in my mind considering what had happened that caused me to retreat into myself. None of my injuries from outside my mind were present either.

It seemed so strange to feel safer here inside my mind rather than outside of it. My family and friends are outside. I know that my family wouldn't hold the fact that I've killed someone against me. Especially since it was in self-defense. My friends probably wouldn't be bothered by it either. Hiei obviously wouldn't considering I saw him fighting and killing demons a little while ago.

My eyes narrowed in thought. It has only been a little while ago right? Or does time move differently in my mind? Faster or slower? Oh who the bloody hell knows...

I sighed and shook my head. I was doing it again. Every time I tried to think about what I had done in The Clearing my brain would distract me with a random thought. The Clearing was how I thought of that place now.

Rationally I knew that I needed to come to terms with the fact that I now had blood on my hands. I wouldn't be able to move on in any kind of way if I didn't. Wrapping my mind around what happened and convincing it that it was the only thing I could do was...Simple isn't exactly the right word. Because acknowledging and accepting that you killed someone sure as hell isn't simple.

My heart was another matter entirely.

Tears were pouring down my face. There was a weird...I guess you would call it 'ghost feeling' of another set of tears doing the same thing on my face. I was betting that 'ghost feeling' was an echo of the tears going down the face of my outside body. It wouldn't surprise me at all if once I was out of my mind, I discovered that I had indeed been physically crying.

Speaking of 'ghost feelings', I also felt as if I was being carried...no...more like cradled in someone's arms. As if I was being held by someone who felt I was important. I felt safe.

Hiei...

That's right, I could vaguely recall Hiei picking me up to carry me before leaving The Clearing. The death filled clearing where I killed that demon.

An image of the dead demon looming over me took over my sense of sight for a moment before I quickly shoved it away. I fought to keep from throwing up after having seen the image again for what had to be the millionth time. That's definitely going to be revisiting me for a long time. Particularly in the nightmare department.

I hugged myself tighter, unconsciously fearing that if I didn't do so I'd break and shatter into pieces. That wasn't what I wanted to happen. I wanted to get out of my mind and be with everyone. I needed someone that could help me come to terms with the events of The Clearing.

I need Hiei.

All of a sudden there was this...sensation...of something tugging at me. Not in a way that hurt though. It was like the feeling you get when your instincts are telling you to do something. And yet at the same time it wasn't like that at all.

Without knowing it I had gotten up from where I had been sitting beside the lake and was walking into the surrounding forest. I stopped for a moment wondering if I should really be following this strange sensation. Just as I had decided to ignore it and turned back around pain hit me throughout my body.

The pain was so intense that I ended up collapsing on the ground and resisting the urge to scream. It was as if everything that made me who and what I am, was being broken and ripped to shreds all at once. I tried to push the intense pain I was feeling away when I realized something that both shocked and horrified me. Someone else was feeling the exact same pain I was. I could sense their confusion as to where the pain was coming from and why it was happening.

Suddenly I heard a double-voiced yell coming from the surrounding trees.

~Foolish kitling! You must not ignore that which you feel! Ignoring it will only result in pain for the both of you! Rise kitling! Rise and follow that which you tried to ignore! Follow it and see what lies at the end of this path! To do otherwise is to cause great suffering for you both! You must go quickly kitling! Your foolishness has caused IT to begin unraveling! If you do not hurry IT will do so completely! If that happens IT can never be restored!~

I recognized the voices belonging to the panther and jaguar. While they may not have ever given me straight answers about anything, they have never lied to me. Laying here on the ground, writhing in pain was only wasting precious time. Gritting my teeth, I got to my feet and forced myself to run as fast as I could towards the source of the tugging and the pain.

Colors blurred as I weaved around trees, shoved through bushes, and jumped over logs, rocks, and streams. Different animals screeched, howled, and screamed at me as I passed. Every single call made perfect sense to me. I could understand what each and everyone of them was saying. They were urging me to hurry before it was too late.

Finally after what felt like hours and yet was mere minutes, I came upon the place to which I was being called.

A clearing with a single tree at the center. The tree was enormous in its size. Signifying that it wasn't just old, but extremely ancient.

It was an oak tree.

All that I was in the past, all that I was in the present, and all that I would be and could be in the future resided here. This was the very axis of my being. I knew all of this instinctively.

I came up to the oak, my oak, and rested my hand on the bark. The pain I had been feeling intensified and I dropped to my knees, with my hand still touching my oak's bark. There was what sounded like a scream of pain coming from above, up in the branches. Moments later something extremely large fell from them and hit the ground not far from me, whimpering in obvious pain.

Something that looked almost like a ribbon made of energy connected my oak and the creature that had fallen from it. The ribbon was literally fraying right before my eyes. Strands were snapping left and right. And for every strand that broke, the creature would cry out in pain and I would flinch as I felt the same pain. This ribbon had to be the 'IT' the cats were referring to earlier.

Not caring that I might end up in more pain with what I was about to do, I threw myself at the energy ribbon. Grabbing it with both my hands I screamed as even more intense pain shot through me. It was fighting me trying to continue what it had been doing. Refusing to allow the ribbon to keep tearing apart I did the only thing I could think of. I poured my energy into the ribbon, focusing on putting it back together. Focused on mending it back to being as it was before I caused it to shred itself.

The ribbon continued to fight against me for a time, until it finally accepted that I truly wanted to heal it. Once it stopped fighting me it actually began to repair itself. Even though it was doing so I didn't stop using my healing ability until I knew it had returned to what it once was. Once it was restored it faded out of sight. I could sense that it was still there, just that it no longer needed to be visible in order to remain existing.

Turning around I went over to the creature from before. It wasn't a part of myself in the sense that the other animals and creatures in my mind were, but it was a part of me by the ribbon connecting it to my oak. From the way its body moved as it breathed I assumed it had passed out after the pain stopped. I knelt beside it, gently placing my hands upon its hide. Closing my eyes I focused on healing the creature that had suffered because of my stupidity.

As I healed it I noticed that not only did its energy feel familiar, but its scent was as well. Both were extremely familiar. Although it wasn't until I had finished healing it and opened my eyes that I made the connection on why it was so damn familiar.

Staring right at me was a creature with a very long, graceful, and powerful body covered in shiny, black scales. Two large feet with four extremely sharp claws. And a pair of eyes that reminded me of another.

It can't be...can it?

That question echoed repeatedly in my head as a large pair of crimson eyes stared at me.

Hiei's POV

Once we were in the onna's room I noted that Kira was sitting at the foot of the bed, clearly waiting for us. Nodding at the girl, I then sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard and cradled Ayla in my arms. Yukina didn't say anything about what I was doing, she just smiled and started healing Ayla.

Laying Ayla on the bed is what Genkai would have wanted me to do. But I couldn't bring myself to let go of her. Something inside of me knew that she needed to be held. To feel safe.

Yukina was still in the middle of healing my onna's injuries when Genkai and the others came in the room. The others being Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Kurama. Apparently the infant had not arrived yet. I didn't bother looking up as I was completely focused on Ayla.

As much as I wanted to use the Jagan and bring her outside of her mind, I knew that doing so while she was injured like this wasn't a good idea. I had used the Jagan to quickly check how she was doing in her mind, but that was all. From what I managed to glimpse she was at least trying to deal with what had happened earlier on her own. It hadn't appeared to be going so well, though it did mean I didn't have to worry about her withdrawing from everything.

"I've healed all of her injuries. She'll need to rest for a day or two though. Her body isn't used to using demon energy and since she used so much at once her body is exhausted." Yukina explained.

Genkai nodded, "Two days of rest sounds right. Though we're gonna have to keep an eye on her to make sure she actually rests. Ayla has never liked being confined to bed rest in order to recover from anything."

I laid Ayla on the bed beside me and opened my mouth to speak when the pain hit. It was so sudden and intense that I couldn't keep from crying out from it. My entire body, hell it felt like every single part of my being was in the process of being tortured and destroyed. I had no idea where the pain was coming from or why it was happening in the first place.

My sense of my surroundings dulled, but I was able to tell that someone had moved me away from Ayla and onto the floor. A moment later I realized there was an echo of the pain I was feeling. The second I realized that I knew it meant that Ayla was feeling the same thing. I have no idea just how I knew this, but I did.

A scream sounded from almost right above me. It was one that I had heard not very long ago in a certain clearing. I tried to throw whoever was holding me down off, but the pain was making me too weak to do so.

The voice of a young girl managed to break through the fog the pain caused in my mind. "Stop keeping them apart! Put Hiei on the bed next to sissy! They need to be next to each other! Please! Can't you sense IT? You're just hurting them more!"

I could hardly feel myself being moved from the floor to the bed with all of this damn pain. But the moment I was laid next to Ayla the pain wasn't quite as intense.

Suddenly the pain disappeared, causing me to be on the brink of passing out. I felt Ayla's hand grab my own and her spirit energy wrap around me, healing me of the pain I had gone through. Part of me wanted to yell at her for not taking care of her own pain first. But another part of me was touched that she was more worried about me than herself.

Before I fell into unconsciousness, I used the Jagan to try for another glimpse inside her mind. What I saw was much more than a glimpse.

Inside the mind of Ayla, my onna, was the dragon that was the very axis of my being.

And it was connected to the largest oak tree I had ever seen. The axis of her being.

Just before I slipped from her mind and into sleep a single thought ran through my head.

It can't be...can it?