Disclaimer: I own only my OCs and the plot.

Recap: Tsukino has finally found something she can do to help the cat army. After only one lesson from Rose, Tsukino is now a healer and ignoring Kurama's warning about not using her energy. Kurama, on the other hand, has finally managed to go on a scouting mission and, with the help of Kioshi, has captured a cat soldier. Unfortunately, Kurama will not be allowed to leave the base for a month and he cannot wait that long. He and Kioshi have to leave and get Tsukino and The Fox's Rose now.

This Is How You Remind Me
Chapter Thirteen
In His Absence

Being a Healer

I had thought that my first days of being a healer would be the most difficult, but I had been incorrect. Each time I tried to summon my energy to complete the healing I felt even weaker and had less control. I asked Rose about that after my second healing day, but she assured me that I had to feel worse before I could heal better because healing took more energy than attacking did and each day I was working with less energy because I didn't recover my energy as quickly as other demons because of my lineage. She also said that I was using my energy differently, which meant I needed more energy to help that change. When I gave her a confused look, she explained that healing energy took more out of a person because you used more energy for a longer period of time. When you were attacking, it would be concentrated in a small area and only take a second for the energy to leave. However, when you were healing, you had to spread your energy over a large space and keep it spread for minutes, sometimes even hours. Slowly my body would adjust to the demand for energy and then I would be fine but until then I would have to keep practicing she said.

Not suspecting anything was amiss, I nodded and returned to the infirmary to do my job. The number of cats that were wounded has increased, and instead on concentrating on completely healing each demon (which I didn't have the energy for) I worked on sharing my energy between the demons. Those with life-threatening wounds, I healed enough that they were in stable condition. Others with simple cuts and scraps, I healed with the gels and herbs that were in the infirmary. Unfortunately, the generals were not impressed with this and sent a messenger telling me to stop my way of healing and instead just heal some demons enough to send them back into the field again. Thankfully, Neyuki was with me when the messenger spoke and told me to ignore the generals.

Unlike many of the other demons who had come from the pits of Demon World and loved violence, she and a few other demons preferred to save lives instead of destroying them. Unfortunately, the violence lovers out numbered the peaceful demons, and it were the peaceful ones who were dying. Because of that Neyuki and her family had joined something called the resistance, a secret alliance with peaceful demons on both sides who were working from the inside to try to cripple the war. As Neichi and Neyuki had told me before, they were going to attack the generals, but during the time I was working at the base, the plan was starting to change directions. A young newcomer from the dog army had suggested instead of 'dropping to the masses' violent level' they should find another way to cripple the war. Because of that and under Neyuki's order, I continued with my slower but safer method of healing which kept soldiers out of battle for longer and meant we had fewer demons to fight with.

However, during my first week I found that you can't save everyone. Neini's and Neyuki's mother and father came into the infirmary with a heavy amount of blood loss and broken spines. I poured all the energy I had since they were the only life-threatening cases and even sent for Rose who didn't appear until it was too late. That was the third and fourth time I had seen someone die because of my actions or lack of action. I probably would have stopped healing right then if not for the fact that I was the only healer in the base and if I stopped healing even more demons would die.

Neyuki and Neini were even more broken. After all, for me it was guilt on my conscience, but for them it was the loss of two loved ones. Both refused to leave their rooms for days afterwards but when they finally reappeared, Neini took to loitering in the infirmary while Neyuki threw all her efforts into crippling the war and caring for Neini.

Neichi did not seemed hurt by the loss of his aunt and uncle, but then he probably didn't know them well because of the distance between families. Unlike bats who felt all bats were family, cats' family feeling kept close to their immediate families. However, he was a comfort to have around while Neini was trying to be helpful in the infirmary. Whenever he had finished his job for the day he would come into the infirmary and help me ready to close the place for the night. Guards stood outside the doors to alert me at the first sign of trouble, but I still had to make sure that the room was warm enough, that the room was clean, that the wounded had enough food and water, and that they were able to sleep through the night. Neichi was very helpful when it came to cleaning, and slowly he was losing the playboy act and showing that he actually was quite caring.

In fact, it was he who told me that Neini had decided to become a healer. He had heard her talking to Neyuki about it and he was wondering if I would teach her. When I pointed out that Rose was the teacher for healing, he argued that Neini was too young for formal training. Shortly after that Neyuki also approached me asking if I would start to train Neini. Once again I pointed out that Rose was the trainer, but Neyuki's answer was quite unlike Neichi's.

"I don't trust her," Neyuki replied coldly.

"Why not?" I asked as I paused in wrapping a demon's arm in bandages.

"There's just something about her that seems fake." She looked around the infirmary, shivering slightly when she looked in the corner where her parents had died. "You sensed it too, did you?"

Slowly I nodded and continued wrapping. "Yes but that's different. There's no harm in putting on an act to hide your true emotions."

Neyuki looked like she had unexpectedly swallowed something sour with her eyes narrowed and her lips tight together in a glare as she watched Rose heal a demon. "Still though, she says that she was the lover of Yôko Kurama. If that was true, why didn't she go track him down when the rest of us found out at Dark Tournament?"

I shrugged and muttered a few calming words to the wounded demon before taking my first aid kit and walking over to the next bed to check another demon's temperature. "Maybe he hurt her badly, and she didn't want to see him anymore?"

I could feel the heat of Neyuki's glare on my back. "Then why does she so proudly announce that they were lovers with her name?"

Taking a pen and paper, I wrote down the temperature and walked over to the cabinet at the back of the room. "I don't know but I agree that something is off about Rose. Maybe she is still bitter with whatever happened with them and thinks that she will get over it if she faces it."

"That doesn't explain why her scent is so weird."

Looking away from the paper notes I was keeping, I tilted my head at her. "Weird?" I repeated.

She nodded. "She smells like wild roses but also a copper like smell that only raccoons have and no demon smells like wild roses unless they use it as a weapon which she doesn't."

I closed my eyes to try to block out the memory that appeared at the mention of a rose whip, his favourite weapon or so it appeared. With some effort, I changed the subject. "Anyways, about Neini-chan's training, you sure you want me to train her? I've never done anything like this before."

"If you're willing, I'm sure I want you to teach her."

Swallowing slightly, I nodded.

A small smile appeared on her face and she hugged me. "Thank you Tama-chan, you have no idea what this will mean to her."

"I think I can guess but remember I've never been a teacher before so if I can't teach her properly don't blame me," I told her before sending her off to finish her job for the day and returning to my own.

The next day Neini started her classes. Unlike Rose, I used myself as a test subject because I didn't want Neini to feel guilty about hurting a dying demon even more. Taking a small knife, I would cut my finger and encourage Neini through the steps of healing. After her attempts, I would have her bandage the cut before healing the wounded and allowing Neini to watch.

It's hard to say how many demons I healed during my first two weeks, and I can't say they were all grateful to be healed by a kitty-bat, but it was a good experience to be at the cat demon base. Even though most of the cats were wary of me, I had managed to make some good friend such as Neyuki and her little sister. I think that I would have even gotten a crush on Neichi when he wasn't acting like a playboy if it wasn't for Kurama's words.

Sorta pathetic to say it but I still thought about him and my friends in Human World while I was at the base. Sometimes I thought about the good times we had, such as 'saving' Keiko while she was expecting and returning home after the movies to see an enraged Yusuke and a calm human Kurama. Other times I would think about Kurama's and my fight, and his words. And then there were other times, usually after the evenings when Rose and I would try to think of a plan, when I would think about how my friends would be affected by the plan. They would be hurt that I had left them and to some point betrayed them by giving up my chance to return to them, but they would get over it. I was sure of that fact. Even if they weren't fake friends who would leave me to rot in the jails of Spirit World, they would be forced to forget about me because there would be no way that they could break me out.

Sometimes the thoughts would even enter my mind while I was healing and I would have to pause and recollect my thoughts. However unwanted thoughts were not the only thing that interrupted my work. After my first week of healing, a strange pain erupted in my stomach area and sometimes even appeared in my chest. I also started getting headaches. Worried that someone would notice and fuss, I tried to hide and ignore the pain the best I could.

Sadly, that plan failed when Neichi had brought me some lunch from the mess branch, and I nearly collapsed when I felt pain in my arm even worse than when I dislocated it at Genkai's during my first few days there when I was trying to get away from Stato.

Neichi was instantly at my side and demanding to know what was wrong. Feeling guilty for scaring him, I explain about the pains. He demanded that I see a healer and then realized that I was the healer. I couldn't help but laugh at that, but the laughs disappeared when he demanded to know what the fox had done to me before I met up with Neini, Neyuki, and him on the roof. Not realizing what Neichi was truly asking, I told him that the fox hadn't harmed me physically in any way.

Though this did little to calm Neichi, he did allow me to continue with my day but kept a close watch on me. The only time he really left me alone was when I was with Rose, and I almost wished he wouldn't leave me alone with her. Neyuki had a point that Rose was odd. Even though I didn't notice the scent thing, during the evening when we were supposed to be planning she seemed to ask me more questions about my relationship with Kurama.

We would start on track with listing ideas while shooting them down before she would turn the subject to Kurama, and I would find myself remembering the fight and the pain. One example happened three weeks after my becoming a healer when Rose thought of a plan that might have worked if not for my moral code. It started with us shooting down ideas like usual until Rose suggested that I talk to and explain the situation to Koenma.

To that I replied, "I don't even really know the guy. He just let me off because he thinks that Kurama-san likes me."

Rose was sitting on my bed with me and was hanging over the side allowing the blood to rush to her head turning her face red and giving me the creeps. "Speaking of Kurama," she said after nodding to my rebuttal to the idea, "you never explained how close you two got."

I resisted the urge to groan at the change in subject and answered so that we could get back on track. "It was a one-sided crush. Nothing happened, nothing would have happened, and it's over."

Rose sat up and leaned towards me, her face still red. "You still like him, don't you? His human side I mean."

I shook my head, furiously. "Human or demon, it doesn't change the fact that he only wants me for pleasure."

Rose stared at me with a determined look on her face, and I carefully moved away from her. With the red face, she reminded me of Chu when he was drunk and known to attack with hugs. "Did he actually admit to that?"

I opened my mouth to reply and then closed it. He had never said it outright but then he never said anything outright. "He might as well have," I replied as I looked away from her.

"And you are sure he only wanted you for pleasure?" she asked.

"Why else would he bother?"

She shrugged and leaned back before she looked up at the ceiling with a thoughtful frown on her face. "I don't know but you seem to like contradicting yourself. You've had been saying that it was a one-sided crush right? And nothing would come from it?"

I nodded.

"But now you say that he only wanted you for pleasure."

I turned back to face her and blinked in confusion. "You lost me. Where am I contradicting myself?"

She looked back at me. "In order for Kurama to want you for pleasure, he would be trying to get you to fall for him, right? But from what you told me, it appears that he is doing the opposite. When you finally fell for him, he suddenly became cold."

I closed my eyes and tried to end the conversation. "Probably because he realized that if he did anything then, he would still be stuck with me until the end of the mission and that if he did anything while we were back in Human World Keiko-chan and Botan-chan would have killed him."

Rose shook her head. "There's probably another reason," she muttered before saying, "Does Kurama know that you don't have a mate?"

I shrugged and wished the conversation would end. I was having bad enough headaches without questioning Kurama's motives. Probably not. He never asked, and I never told him."

Rose nodded and while her face appeared understanding, her eyes were sparkling in glee. "That would explain the sudden changes in temperature."

I stared, and she glared at me as best she could with her gleeful eyes.

"You really are dense, aren't you?" She sighed. "Kurama became cold because he thought that he was trespassing on another male's turf. That's probably why he started that fight with you in the first place."

"Or he is just a jerk and realized that he couldn't put up with me if he couldn't use me."

"Or he actually decided to grow up and get an honour code."

I was silent for a moment before I said, "Okay what?"

Rose frowned. "You didn't honestly think that Kurama was the honour-code type did you?"

I wasn't sure how to answer so I remained silent. Even though I slightly knew of his past as a thief from rumours, I still thought that he had an ounce of honour, but it appeared that Rose knew otherwise.

Rose correctly interpreted the cause of my silence and nodded. "It didn't matter to him if the demon was mated or unmated as long as they were pretty."

Before I could stop myself, I muttered, "Which were you?"

Rose looked down at her feet in appearing sadness but her ears did not move forward as they would if she was sad and her tail was moving side to side excitedly. "Unmated which is probably the reason I didn't last very long. There were two reasons Kurama was interested in a girl. Her looks and the challenge. I made the mistake of playing hard to get when I should have just pretended to fall for him."

Confused by her conflicting body language, I could only nod.

Rose didn't seem to notice though as she continued talking."I appeared to be doing fine. Lasted over a hundred years but then," she paused, "He came in with the news that my half-brother had died. I had thought that he had drunk himself to sleep that night. He looked so pitiful…" She was silent for a moment. Lost in memories I thought. Suddenly she looked up at me, her eyes seemingly dead. "The next morning I awoke to my half-brother poking me and Yoko gone." She suddenly laughed, an unusually natural sound, before falling back into her calm voice and sparklingly eyes. "At least you managed to get away. Still though, I wish he would feel regret for his actions. Maybe a bit of heartbreak," she mused aloud as she looked out the window of my room and to the plains that surrounded the tree.

I carefully backed away from her. Something about Rose seemed more off than usual, as if her mind had just seconds before it fell into the chasm of insanity. "Rose-san?" I hesitantly asked, trying to bring her back to reality.

A horrible grin appeared on her face as she looked back at me. "I think I just came up an idea that can get us what both of us want," she whispered and instantly I knew I had made a horrible mistake and maybe would not be able to fix it.

A/N: Short chapter I know but it wasn't a very long wait now was it? Anyways, I have the plot figured out for ITN and LATP so have no fear this story will not be waiting for updates because of my confusion of the plot. Other reasons may happen like me travelling but I don't think that will be a problem.

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing. Also thanks to Shea279. That story we wrote really helped with the scene with Rose.

See ya if you review or at the next chapter.

-D101