Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The world was green.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves, attempting futilely to penetrate the dense haze of the forest. Instead, it lit the trees with a jade sheen, as though the legions of trees had once been constructed entirely out of bronze and copper, abandoned to time and the elements, only to be swathed in verdigris. It was an ancient city, the oaks like looming watchtowers, the bluish fog that lingered above the undergrowth like smoke from warming fires.

The world was green, and the world was shadows.

And there were strangers.

Four silhouettes had entered the fog, walking like specters in the murky green light. The foliage was so thick underneath that their footfall was silent; the only sound that of the distant howls of wind skimming the trees above.

She watched them, more curious than threatened. Strangers were all she could think of, but the word was strange within itself. She had never encountered strangers, not like these—beasts of all kinds, amassed with thick fur and razor claws and unquenchable appetites, she perpetually happened upon, but they were beings of the forest. No manner of creatures that resembled her reflection when peering into water had ever set foot inside this wooded realm.

Strangers.

Strange.

Her head cocked to the side, the curiosity augmenting and beginning to get the better of her, although her instincts warned that the four were possibly dangerous. The intruders, the strangers, continued further into the forest, and she slid from one tree to another, clinging to branches, to thick, twisted tree trunks, remaining in the shadows as a silent specter herself. She watched, intrigued, how the fog swirled about their ankles, how their shadows darkened the forest's shadows.

Then she heard their voices. Words, she thought, and listened. Strange. They spoke as they ventured forth, their tones hushed with caution, and she could see even from her high perch that the hairs on their necks and arms were raised. Their eyes flickered about their surroundings, and she was careful not to breach her tree's protective shadow.

They were not fools, she realized approvingly, but were wary of the forest.

She set her shoulders like theirs, stiff and ready, and listened to them.

Their sounds varied. She found herself favorable to the different pitches and timbres and how they seemed to harmonize, reminding her of all the birds that sang together only during the forest's quiet mornings.

The leader of the coven abruptly raised his voice, and she ducked her head beneath a large, olive-hued leaf, startled, and eyed him through a shaft of sunlight. She slid down the tree to attain a closer look, crouching behind a large shrubbery to watch them pass. Behind her makeshift mask, she peered through the tiny peek-hole of leaves to watch him come into view.

Strange, strange, stranger.

He wore green and a scrunched face. Scowl, she thought instantly. Another odd word, but it was fitting. Annoyed. His body was lean, shoulders squared, and walked through her forest's brambles with hands shoved insides the clothing he wore over his legs. The leader's scowl deepened, crinkling eyes that were dark and very aggressive, and she was given the impression that they had seen much more than she could ever imagine in her vast forest world.

And then, strangely, he rolled them.

She cocked her head to the side for a moment, then proceeded to roll her own eyes, curious and amused, wondering what the meaning was behind such an action.

The next in the group, however, she directly connected as the reason for the leader's eye rolling. Irritation, she mused, thinking that the leader disagreed with how heedlessly—dangerously—loud the second's voice carried throughout the forest.

Like their voices, their appearances were vastly different.

She almost palpably felt the second's exhaustion, observing the streaks of sweat that lined his rectangular face. His fists were clamped together, and once again the word irritation ran its strangeness through her mind. His features were nothing compared to the thick sweeps of hair that fell, with a tapering curl, into his eyes. Which was orange. Orange like the poisonous flowers that grew in the exiguous scattering of bogs around the woodland outskirts.

Intrigued once more, she pulled her attention to the next in line.

And was nearly blown away by the sudden onslaught of energy that emanated from him, a strange, all-together different energy that she had felt from the first two. This energy was stronger, much more controlled, but pulsated around him like an aura of pure, concentrated power. She edged closer, ducking when the leader turned his head in her direction.

This stranger, like the previous one, had hair that reminded her of the forest's flora, this time of the petals of the flower that hung in vibrant eruptions of red from innumerable tree vines. She felt a faint urge to reach out and touch the long mane, intrigued over the unruly but obedient way it fell across his forehead. He was not quite as tall as the first two, but his body was more sinuous, whose footfall, like his expression, seemed calculated. She shifted uncomfortably, not entirely due to his calm appearance, but by the innate sense that something much less composed dwelled inside of him.

His eyes were strange, too. Trustworthy, a shade of green that belonged only to the forest.

Glancing away, her eyes locked onto the last of the strangers.

And her curiosity spiked.

Instinct coursed hotly in her fingertips, alerting her of instantaneous, acute danger, and she shivered in response, involuntarily poising herself to either fight or flee. Holding a breath, she leaned closer, almost shaking the leaves of her shrub.

He was smaller than the rest, but his energy ran even more rampant, wilder than the redhead before him. It quaked around him, like the lightning storms that often struck the sky overhead, and once again she felt her fingertips burn hot with the utmost of unease. She breathed carefully, watching.

His face was a mask of detachment, smooth and sharp on his very angular face. He peered around the forest, brows low, just as calculating as the one before him. His silence, however, was different. Whereas the redhead seemed nearly serene, his silence was almost tangibly menacing, and it was evident that it was much preferred. His black attire had him fading into the forest's miasmic background, making him appear more of a specter than she was.

But when his eyes roamed near her shrub, her breath shuddering to a halt, she could see the assured, feral depth accumulated within them. And they were red. Crimson. Almost—but not quite—like fire and blood, like life and death. And as quickly as they came, they flashed away.

She edged closer once more, indiscreetly tempting fate. Strange, she thought again, suddenly wanting to test the word aloud. Biting her lips together from doing so, she peered through the flora to view upon the strange eyes.

The color stood out fiercely, especially within the midst of the subterranean smog—bright, an absolute yet deep dwelling red, and for all her recollecting she could not unite the color to anything she had ever seen within her woodland. Not the blood, thick and warm and undulating, from the beasts she killed for sustenance, not the exotic flora the forest blossomed, nor from the evenings she spent scaling the highest trees, swaying upon their crests, to look upon the scarlet hues of the falling sun.

Strange, strange.

Stranger.

It was the kind of color that the dark forest around her accepted, the color she wanted it to possess, to surround her. The kind of color that was almost not a color itself, but an entity, a living shade. He was dressed simply, but there was no color to him but the fathoms of red.

And within the next moment, again, those same eyes swept across her shrub.

She held her breath, watchful, heart beating with a kind of fear she never knew existed. But they flitted away, returning to their previous indifferent gaze, and she exhaled with deep relief. Soon, the group, at a safe distance from her shrub, passed by and trekked further into the heart of the forest, disappearing behind a cascading overhang of amaranthine-hued ivy.

With the strange pounding in her chest, she scaled a nearby tree. She smiled once catching sight of the intruders, furtively following their progress. And then more questions arose: why were they here, trekking through her spectral forest? Why start out silent and wary to speaking so foolishly loud to one another?

But more importantly: what were these strange creatures?

It was clear that they were dangerous, potential threats, emitting high levels of energy that she had never once encountered, but they tentatively walked amongst the trees, peering about as though they were within the midst of a hunt.

Her eyes narrowed. The only creatures that had crossed her path early in the day had been a pack of fissinus, omnivorous scaled beasts that roamed the forest. In the past she had killed a scavenger or two when they ventured too close to her dwelling, but more often than not the packs evaded her path if she evaded their own. They were savage and mainly infested the caves at the base of the forest's lone mountain, but were wary creatures due to their slow breeding cycles.

She was rather fond of these beasts, her jaw setting at the thought that these strangers might needlessly harm them. Once, many seasons ago, creatures with arms and legs much like her own, but with slimy amphibian flesh and faces, had hunted down the largest pack, slaughtering the newborn pups and riding the full-grown fissinus like mounted prey.

They had not been imperceptible to fire, she smiled grimly, fingernails digging angrily into tree bark at the memory. Their last breaths, screams of anguish riddled with the melting of flesh, echoed in her ears. Trespassers, she thought. Bad strangers.

The group stopped. She remained in the shadows, within the shield of leaves, watching them more closely than ever as they formed a loose circle. Their voices were much more hushed this time. Edging closer onto a branch, she ducked to remain crouched in a shroud of shadow, trying to listen to their odd pitches, trying to decipher if they had broached her woodland home for ill-intent or not.

A branch snapped.

It came from behind her, but far, far below. All the same, the group snapped their heads towards the direction of her tree. She stiffened with equal alarm, hitching her breath, but before she could move an arrow made entirely out of stone whistled past her head, piercing the airwaves towards the four strangers. It landed with a soft thud in front of the orange-haired creature, who shrieked with surprise.

She moved quickly, as silently as possible towards the trunk of her tree, but stopped when a pair of crimson eyes had pierced through the shadows and caught the movement.

Chapter Text

"Tell me, Hiei," Kurama murmured, careful not to completely breach the forest's heavy silence. "Do you have the same suspicion that we are being followed?"

He glanced at their surroundings, stepping in Kuwabara's wake, using his footpaths to tread as soundlessly as possible. All seemed undisturbed, peaceful. Quiet. But that was a lie.

The forest was so, so alive.

Above, so far above, the wind trilled amongst the treetops. Below, the forest was nothing but silence, nothing but green, and nothing but an army of shadows. The foliage, thick and abundant, from moss to hanging veils of ivy to vivid outbursts of flora, felt more encompassing than the stillness. Even the trees, Kurama heeded, were imposing—like sentinels, watching their progress, so large and numerous with trunks so ancient that time had gnarled them together.

Had the forest not felt so unnatural, he might have felt at home amongst the greenery.

But they were not alone.

Yes, I feel it.

Kurama felt the familiar weight of Hiei's brusque voice in his head and noted the familiar tone of indifference within it as well. This should have pacified him; if Hiei was bored then there was nothing to truly caution. Still, unease prickled his fingertips, and responded so quietly that his lips barely parted.

"It seems to possess a strange energy."

Hiei's responding scoff was flippant and nearly soundless, but Kurama couldn't decipher whether it was caused by Kuwabara tripping unceremoniously over a knotted tree root and squawking, or in response to his observation. He glanced behind, however, and saw that Hiei's eyes scanned the forest under a low, foreboding brow.

Hn, there is no reason for caution. Its spirit energy may be strange, but it is pathetically weak.

Strange, yes.

Weak? No.

Not entirely.

Kurama took a moment to listen to the forest's silence. He heard the soft crunch of his feet treading upon the carpeting undergrowthmbut could not perceive Hiei's following footfall. Yusuke and Kuwabara were beginning to argue, but quietly enough that it was not difficult to tune them out.

Soon, all he heard was silence ringing in his ears.

And it was...disquieting.

Unnerving.

Strange, he decided, because all his senses were pulling instinctively towards the presence that followed them. Kurama's fingertips prickled with discomfort once more. This instinct worried him, this presence, for it had begun the moment they had stepped into the forest. It was innate, energized, a pressure in his mind that he could not describe nor shake off.

Deep inside himself, something growled savagely. Warily.

His body may not be old, but Yoko was. Within his lifetime he had encountered hundreds of demons, thousands, multitudes of various races, sometimes thieving their belongings and sometimes thieving their souls. Now, however, his finely tuned intuition could not completely read this solitary demon's aura. It felt wrong. Strange. Weak, perhaps, but nearly undetectable with its wavering. It was not the full onslaught one could read from a demon, their energy feeling more like an eruption of heat than anything else. This, however, was entirely different.

It was a whispering in his mind, in a language of energy he did not know.

Perhaps it was not the forest's silence that was spectral, but originated from this whispering presence.

Kurama's gaze flitted from tree to tree, but all was quiet.

"Perhaps, though it's unlike anything I've encountered," he said, pausing as he listened to the forest. "Yet there is always reason to act with caution, Hiei, and we should be wary nonetheless. Can you see this demon?"

There was a long silence. When he spoke, Hiei's voice was almost sullen.

No, and I cannot read its feeble mind either. This forest is under a pall of magic. Dark magic. My Jagan can't see through its haze. If we should be wary of anything, we should be wary of that. All the same, whatever manner of creature that lurks behind us won't linger much longer.

The hairs on the back of Kurama's neck rose at the thought.

"Should we tell the others?"

He heard Hiei's faint snort from behind, but the derision in his tone was much more dominant.

Leave the detective and his fool to their bickering. If it's one of the demons we hunt, it won't be long before it fails miserably in its attempt to ambush us.

Kurama nearly smiled. Yusuke and Kuwabara's heated argument had progressed in abundance, leaving the former to clench his fists in white-knuckled aggravation and the later to raise his voice, octave by octave, until a flock of birds roosted in a nearby tree were spooked away. Then Kurama sighed, sensing that their own stratagem of silence was coming to an end.

If only that was all he sensed.

"Agreed," he said, taking a deep breath of the forest's earthy musk, feeling the presence following them even more closely. "It's best if we feign ignorance to bait it out."

Hn.

Kurama was about to reply when Kuwabara's fist abruptly sailed towards the back of Yusuke's head. There was a loud thwack! and Yusuke stumbled over a large plant the color reminiscent of Botan's hair, with pink stigmas to match.

"Urameshi!"

Yusuke rose slowly, turning to level a poisonous glare at Kuwabara. Through clenched teeth, however, his voice was dead even. "Kuwabara."

"Urameshi!"

"Kuwabara."

"URAMESHI!" Kuwabara barked, fists quivering.

Yusuke cracked an impish grin. "Kuwabara."

Kuwabara gurgled angrily in his throat and raised his fist again, aiming for Yusuke's head. Moving to block the oncoming attack, Yusuke's eyes widened when Kuwabara had shifted at the last moment, sending his left fist to wallop Yusuke in the chest. The detective went down, spraying fallen leaves in his wake. Kuwabara stood over him, crossing his arms together.

"Hey man, you listen to me when I say your name!"

Yusuke struggled upright, a halo of leaves sticking in his hair. He glowered at Kuwabara and shoved him back. "I was you overgrown jackal!"

"I know what you're doing," Kuwabara narrowed his eyes accusingly, then jabbed Yusuke in the chest. "You're just trying to annoy me as a distraction so that I forget to ask for a break."

Yusuke sniggered. "Really, Kuwabara? Wow. Allow me to guess which part of your anatomy that twisted logic came from."

"Shut it, Urameshi," Kuwabara growled. "I'm serious. Break time. We've been walking around in this dark, creepy forest for hours and all this walking is starting to make me all dizzy. Probably from you leading us in circles."

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Cool it, Gigantor. It can't be much further."

Kurama chuckled lightly, having stepped aside when Kuwabara was shoved behind, and could see Hiei gritting his teeth with vexation in his periphery.

"Yusuke is right, Kuwabara. The faster we find the crag demons, the faster we will leave this forest. But I agree with you as well. This forest... it is unsettling. It appears the shadows possess shadows," he said as Yusuke yanked leaves out of his hair. Then Kurama looked behind him. "Right, Hiei?"

But the fire demon had stiffed, looking out into the forest. Kurama could clearly see his muscles tense together, hard and taut and defined, one hand raised with a warrior's readiness over his katana hilt. Hiei's eyes were tapered, and before Kurama could say a word he too braced himself as a blast of spirit energy erupted from all around them.

Then, a branch snapped.

Kurama, watch out!

Hiei's eyes were locked ahead, and Kurama moved swiftly aside as a sharp whistling pierced the forest's silence, a large stone arrow landing deep into the earth in front of Kuwabara.

Kurama poised himself, alert, and he was about to speak when he sensed movement in the tree before them. But Hiei was faster, much faster, whose eyes were already focused ahead. Kurama barely heard his seethed words as Hiei glared into the hub of the tree, smiling darkly.

"Found you."

— — —

It happened within the space between heartbeats.

In that moment, all was silent. Nothing moved. Nothing but the stone arrow that quivered within its bed in the earth, though it felt like another had pierced through her chest and burrowed itself into the tree's trunk, fixing her into place.

His glare, the strange red eyes, remained locked onto her.

For a long, harrowing moment, she could not move. Then instinct coursed like fire through her veins, allowing her to crouch low onto the branch, fingernails digging deep into the ancient tree. She gnashed her teeth together, because now she could not breathe.

His glare was not wavering, and she could not look away.

Her lungs shuddered painfully under the weight of the glare. Conflicting sensations embattled each other, pulsating with each breath she labored for, something that felt reminiscent of terror and something that kindled the magnetism towards the red irises. But most of all, it was something crouching and coiling within itself, within her, ready to pounce—no matter the cost—in the act to safeguard the forest.

Breathing deeply, she returned the glare, digging her nails deeper into the bark.

The red eyes narrowed, deadly and aflame. Like the manifestation of unbridled power, like the firestorm that had once ran rampant and scorched thousands of trees into thick, grey dust. Like the forest itself, strong and dangerous and so alive. His eyes tapered again, watching her, searing and cold at the same time.

She growled deep within the back of her throat.

But then the red-haired creature spoke, and her eyes flitted towards him and the instinct to defend herself momentarily cooled from her fingertips. And, despite herself, she cocked her head to the side as she listened, absorbed once again despite the surging ire from the red eyes still on her. His voice was low and harmonious and urgent, speaking in words she could not understand, but were now—somehow—beginning to sound familiar.

"...the crag demons...level the playing field. Quick! ...return to the forest clearing..."

Her eyes widened, replaying the strange words in her head, and relished the understanding of them. But the second she took to savor the words and sound of this creature's voice was a second she did not have. Another arrow pierced the airwaves, and then another, all penetrating deep into the forest's vegetation near their feet. She dropped onto her branch, her back arching with caution.

And they ran.

Within a moment, they were gone.

She followed them as before, ghosting their progress so quietly because she was one with the forest's infinite murk. But they were fast. Surprisingly fast, blindingly fast. She grinned to herself, the muscles in her body tensing and releasing and propelling her forward, enjoying the exhilaration of the chase.

Once again, even in the height of a nameless threat, her curiosity grew.

They may have been fast, but she had memorized the forest in the way the forest had memorized her. She slid from branch to branch, familiar with the way the trees' branches twisted together to form bridges between themselves, creating thick canopies of leaves that shielded the forest from the wind above. The wind may not have been permitted, but she followed them like a silent gale, fluidly gliding from one tree to another, tracking their movement through the spaces between leaves and grinning even more wildly when she had to halt because she had surpassed their progress.

And she watched him. The energy radiating off him was like before, wild and threateningly strong, surging and quaking even more as he ran. It was evident that he was restraining himself of his true speed, and her curiosity wondered just how powerful he truly was. Her fingertips prickled at the thought.

They slowed, having backtracked to the forest clearing she had previously followed them from, and she smiled again, admiring their cunning.

She jumped from a branch, grasping a vine and swinging across towards the tree closest to them, arching high into the air before landing on the balls of her feet. When they came to a full stop, their backs to her, she clung onto the branch, waiting.

Their muscles were all taut, shoulders raised and ready, feet set apart. The leader's chest rose and fell as he panted, the orange-head clenching his fists. All was silence once more, the forest resuming its soundless, spectral tune.

And they waited.

She crouched low, breaking the line of sight behind the tree's bladed leaves when the red-head glanced behind. When her branch began to sway, she glanced above, far above, to see that the wind soared forcefully amongst the treetops, promising a leviathan of a storm to come.

And then her skin prickled.

Hot and then cold.

Familiar and strange.

She felt the heat of the red eyes before she saw them, and when she glanced back they had once again pierced through the tree's cloak of shadows and discovered her. Her breath hitched, disbelieving, and she gripped the branch tightly, but refused to break contact.

His eyes narrowed, and her nostrils flared.

Then, a different sort of menace ruptured the silence, rendering her completely immobile.

A raw, quaking roar broke throughout the forest, its echoing aftershock rippling across the trees. She clenched onto her branch as it rocked from side to side, knuckles bloodless, her heart pounding so rapidly against her chest that it nearly unsettled her equilibrium. Instinct pulled ruthlessly at her to flee rather than fight.

Fissinus, she closed her eyes with dread. Alpha.

Another roar sent the four strangers to form a circle, and she observed, more cautious now than curious, to see that each now had pulled out an apparatus to defend themselves. Her eyes narrowed. Warriors, she thought warily, watching as the leader held his wrist, pointing a finger readily as his eyes darted to every opening in the between trees.

The hairs on her arms raised, not because an alpha fissinus was near, but because the energy surrounding each of the strangers was amassing, more powerful than she had felt before, kindling like fire and searing against her own energy that she kept simmering at a careful level.

And then she sensed them—sensed them before she heard them—as it seemed the strangers did when their heads snapped towards her direction, but far below.

The horde of fissinus charged into the clearing, snarling and snapping viciously at each other's paws. They were large creatures, covered entirely in metallic blue scales, with fangs that descended far from their mouths, their claws twice as sharp. Long, reptilian tails lashed out into the air, snapping and cracking in intervals.

The forest's silence was no more.

Atop the fissinus were creatures much like her and the strangers. Their skin, conversely, was the color of storms, a dull gray, slate-like color that contrasted against the fissinus' cerulean scales. Peering closer, she realized that their skin was rock, their eyes large and glittering and entirely black. They sneered at the strangers, showing off serrated chips of teeth, and held strange wooden weapons in their grasps.

She growled, not only because these rock monsters, these vermin, rode the fissinus against their will, but that their stone-encrusted legs dug deep into their scaled sides. Seething, she watched as the jagged edges were wedging and splitting into the tender flesh beneath, drawing out rivulets of bright green blood.

There were more fissinus here than she had ever seen in one location, each mounted and each pulling against their roped constraints. One howled in pain as its rider kicked into its side.

She slowly reached up and unwrapped the bindings of her mask, glaring all the while at the monsters upon the fissinus, nearly forgetting entirely of the strangers. Anger, deep and foreboding and pure, ran rampant throughout her body, quaking her insides until her hands began to tremble. She set aside the mask, taking a deep breath, amassing her own energy into the core of her very spirit.

Trespassers, she fumed, and fought to restrain her wrath. Invaders.

Suddenly, the ground began to quake. From below branches snapped, swaying her perch, and another roar filled the clearing with tremor upon tremor. The fissinus instantly quieted, shifting upon their paws. She crouched low to her branch, ignoring another instinctual pang to flee and continued to focus her energy.

The alpha fissinus broke into the clearing below her tree, splintering the base of the trunk with ease as it galloped past. It halted in a rise of dust, spraying leaves as the creature's muscles quivered and settled, the blue fog that clung to the forest's floor swirling about its massive paws.

She held her breath, astounded at its sheer brute size, not having been this close to the alpha before.

It growled deep within its throat, a vibration that she could feel through her branch, and watched as its beady eyes rolled about in rage. The alpha roared once more, displaying rows of razor-sharp, yellowed teeth. Its fangs skimmed the ground.

Atop the alpha was the chief of the rock monsters. He, too, was a brute, a large mass of sentient stone that sat comfortably on his mount. In one hand he held a large stone club, the end encrusted in black jewels that tapered into lethal points. He was so large that his eyes looked like slits, but the packed stones of his body were littered with scars, bunched together like mounds of mountainous muscle.

She was not deceived, however. These monsters possessed a great energy, but it was nothing compared to the strangers.

The alpha stalked towards the four, ignoring the chief's kick to its side, and growled, snapping its tail with predatory instinct. It crouched low to the ground, limbs quivering with anticipation, tail coiling. But instead of pouncing forward to attack, the beast lurched to its hindquarters, roaring so deep and so high that is sounded more like booms of thunder than anything else.

She clasped her hands to her ears and gnashed her teeth against its deafening effect, watching as loose leaves shook and then fell to the ground, disappearing beneath the blue fog.

The signal had been made, and the pack of fissinus rushed forth to attack. The chief bellowed and raised his club in the air, mirth and bloodlust in his slotted eyes, as the alpha bounded forward.

As the dust rose, she could not see the battle begin.

Panic twisted inside her chest, but she did not take the time to ponder over it, but tried, instead, to penetrate through the dust and the fog, eyes flitting about the clearing. When she saw no flash of red, no incensed glare, she rumbled low in her chest and launched herself onto the branch far below her. She clung to the branch's very tip, swaying precariously, not realizing that her hands trembled with a strange, sudden apprehension.

It was not her forest's creatures that she feared for.

But then she scrambled backwards as a great, boundless energy emerged from the center of the clearing. A pinprick of bright light pulsated and then thundered, amassing until it dissolved the dust and the blue fog from its sphere of pure energy.

"Spirit gun!"

The blast was far greater than the alpha's roar. She felt the energy of it press against her face, sizzling like fresh embers against her skin, nearly blinding her and ripping away the air in her lungs. Her entire tree rocked in its place, the ancient bark creaking and groaning, and her branch shivered beneath her grasp. She gasped, astounded by the power of such an explosion.

Astounded that it had not only blown various fissinus and rock monsters to ash, but had dismounted the chief from the alpha.

As the dust and the fog resettled to the forest floor, the battled waged.

And she found him.

The result of the explosion had sent the alpha airborne. It had mewled in surprise, landing tumultuously onto a fallen tree. Now, however, it had risen to its feet, the golden strip of fur around its neck rising like hackles. It sauntered forward, claws digging deeply into the ground, muscles hard and rippling beneath its scales. The alpha growled menacingly, fangs tipped with blood.

Its bloodthirsty stare was locked with searing red eyes.

Her breath hitched. His power emanated off him in great waves, much like the leader's, but it was still different—still strange. It was scorching and blistering like the energy from an inferno, promising agony and an all-consuming destruction. His eyes were tapered, the black of his attire swathing him into the forest's shadows as he stared down the beast, on the outskirts of the clearing and far from the ensuing battle.

He was unharmed, but he bore a long shaft of silver in his hands. It glistened strangely in the forest's gloom but she knew that it was just as sharp of the alpha's fangs, tapering to a razor point and coveting death.

She closed her eyes, however, knowing that he was no match for the alpha. Her heart hammered in her chest, eyes beginning to sting. Opening them, she stared at the red, trying to memorize the shade she had never seen within her forest, trying to will him away from the beast that would toy with him and the slice him into filaments of flesh.

The alpha sauntered closer, and the stranger smirked.

Then, in one quiet moment, his eyes flicked towards her. And the red burst into flame, searing and scorching and brightening into a blistering heat. They narrowed, full of life and death and blood and power. Her fingertips prickled again, as though instinct was urging her to flee from such a blaze. But it was not that.

It was something entirely inexplicable. Something more.

The alpha had noticed this distraction, coiling and slinking toward him.

Her vision narrowed, the sound of the fight just as distant as the wind above the treetops. She growled, her senses sharpening as white-hot urgency rippled throughout her body. Inside, she was nothing more than unadulterated instinct—an instinct that was beginning to change. Tensing, amassing her energy into a swift, surging sphere of power inside of her, she leapt from the branch and launched herself towards the great fissinus.

Something quaked inside of her. All she saw was red, all she heard was blood swelling in her ears, and all she felt was a strange, absolute rage.

She landed on her feet, facing the alpha fissinus, and, crouched low, collected her spirit's power to manifest itself into a long staff in her hand. Her fingertips sizzled with energy, her insides trembling from its intensity. The bo staff glowed momentarily as a vibrant, colorless light, but settled into a hard-white wood, its grain appearing like veins of silver.

Alpha pounced, roaring.

Within a blink of the eye, she coiled and sprung, revolving the bo staff with blinding speed to gain momentum, and then thrust it towards the fissinus. The impact shuddered down her arm, the rounded point of her staff connecting at the base of the alpha's throat, halting it midair.

The beast dropped and croaked, breathing deeply as it struggled to its feet.

She remained crouched low, only faintly registering the inexplicable heat behind her.

The alpha leveled its gaze at her, the beast so large that when it shuddered, the muscles beneath its scales rippled like water, undulating from head to tail. She was barely larger than its fangs combined, which snapped upon its teeth with anger.

She seethed in response, nostrils flaring, daring the beast to move. When the alpha snarled, revealing more of its thorny fangs and nearly deafening her in the process, she inhaled deeply and snarled in return, one wild creature taunting the other, one alpha against another.

And the beast coiled itself, ready to pounce once more.

She felt movement behind her, the heat rolling against her skin, and it took everything within her not to glance behind. Instead, she allowed the heat to add to her resolve. Raw, unbridled instinct coursed through her veins again. Her limbs quivered from the sensation, and it was then that she realized what the prickling something more had been: the instinct to defend and protect. For a moment it felt as though her small body could not endure its accompanying adrenaline, that it would burst from her skin if she could not control it.

Her jaw tightened.

Before the alpha could pounce, she whirled the bo staff into a high arch, an extension of her limbs, and swiftly swept it across the forest floor to spray dirt into the beast's eyes. The alpha roared, clawing angrily at its face. Then, abruptly, it charged.

She crouched low, staff tightly gripped, eyes flitting for the alpha's remaining weak points.

But movement behind caught her off guard, splitting her concentration. For an instant, she felt warm breath fan across her back, then, suddenly, it vanished.

And it was too late.

The alpha fissinus was nearly upon her and her spry footwork was not fast enough when she pirouetted, guiding the staff to block the beast's attack. It snarled with rage and raked his claws across her back, carving deeply into her flesh with almost an artful precision.

She screamed through clenched teeth, faltering as pain racked her body. She stumbled, breathing deeply to gain control of herself, almost losing grip of the bo staff as her vision momentarily blackened.

When it cleared, and she glanced up, a spike of dread pierced through her as the alpha charged once more, its paws thundering into the ground. She struggled upright, ready to strike out with the staff, ignoring the sensation of blood pouring in thickly down her back. She gritted her teeth, twisting her wrist to arch the staff into place and pooling her energy together, pulling at her wounds as she did.

The alpha jumped. She was ready to strike when it bore down upon her, but midair it shrieked and lost momentum, its large limbs clawing into the air before it thundered to the ground before her. Dust rose from where it landed, slumped in a mass pile of scales and claws, unmoving.

Her breath shuddered. Rage and pain and adrenaline did not abate from her body, but she tensed as she saw a pool of bright green blood forming at the alpha's throat. Its eyes stared at her, already beginning to cloud over.

The dust settled, and she saw movement before her, the flash of red and the shadowy black. His power still surged around her, a familiar heat now, but it was aimed once more in her direction. Her lungs ached from enduring each pain-filled breath, but the power within her surged with urgency as the danger was far from over. Her fingertips burned.

She moved when he moved, one wild creature pitted against another, and he stopped when she stopped. He was before her within an instant, so close, so close and burning, crimson eyes locked and narrowed upon her. She held the bo staff to his throat, poised and ready, and she felt the tip of his glistening silver weapon against her own, a whisper of pain against the tender flesh.

And then it happened, happened so quickly that she didn't have time to react.

It happened within the space between heartbeats and, suddenly, it was all too late.

Chapter Text

(In which there is blood.)

Up close, she saw every shade.

It streaked in numerous veins down the length of his blade, thick and the most vibrant of greens within the wooded domain. Beyond him, the alpha laid dead, a huddled mass of scales and departed power. The blood pooled around its behemothic head, seeping into the ground like it surged towards the forest's infinite heart far below.

And it seeped from him.

A shallow gash ran across a cheekbone, marking his flesh with a sliver of red. This close, she saw every physical facet of him: sun-tinted skin and low eyebrows and angular cheekbones, with a nose that looked more severe than fissinus fangs. His lips had disappeared into a thin line. He was nothing more than serrated angles.

He glared at her, the narrowing of his eyes making their natural slant all the wider. The outward edges of his eyes tapered upward, which lessened the sharpness of his face with surprisingly long lashes. She lingered on the crease between his eyebrows, a line that seemed permanent from the glower that had no disappeared once since the moment she first saw him.

The red of his blood, however, did not possess the same brightness and depth and profusion of life as the red of his eyes. They were nearly the same shade, but, with his gaze locked onto her, she saw how his power was aflame within his irises, brightening like a kindled fire near his pupils with each heartbeat, then gone the moment between.

And saw that something very feral lived within them, like he was the wild creature that belonged to the forest, not her.

His chest heaved, grasping the hilt of his blade with a hard, calloused hand. A long slit on the cloth that covered his arm revealed the skin below, the taut muscle that was compacted together, smooth but rigid in a way that prickled her fingertips to reach out and touch him.

Instead, she closed her eyes.

This was a mistake.

She sensed him move before she felt him, the most infinitesimal of movement that sent the tip of his blade into the tender skin of her throat. When she opened her eyes, she discovered that his body was beginning to quiver, tense with readiness. But there was something else, something more, and realized it was fear. Not wariness, not suspicion, but a minute glimmer of fear that conflicted with the incensed red in his eyes.

And he spoke.

"What are you?"

And she understood.

His voice reminded her of the forest's isolated mountain: all sharp ridges and solidity and hardness, something unmoving, both very high and very deep from the passing of time, something amassed together with layer upon layer of stony detachment. Something so unlike the fiery red. Her skin crawled.

Then she froze.

She had understood his words. She had understood his words like she had understood the red-haired creature's and the leader's shout when he had made his initial attack. A moment passed, blood pounding in her ears and behind her eyes and in her chest, conflicted and confused not only because she had comprehended his words like she had known his language all her life, but perplexed by what his words meant.

What was she?

They were strangers, but was she not like them? They were creatures with limbs like her own, arms and legs, fingers and scars, soft skin and calloused hands, hair that fell from their heads, eyes that peered at the forest's inherent beauty and danger. They were strange, but they were now—somehow—more familiar to her than the trees that surrounded them.

Her thoughts halted. Her breath hitched.

They were strange.

They were familiar.

His glare narrowed, the lids of his eyes masking more of the red as his face tightened, and she offhandedly noticed that his nostrils were flaring. He growled deep within his throat, truly another wild creature, and the muscles holding the weight of his blade began to quiver, not with fatigue, but rage. The red brightened like a conflagration.

Again, he made the smallest of movements, this time furthering the tip of the blade into the hollow of her throat. It pierced through the surface, but she did not flinch, nor did she break contact of the red-hot ire of his glare.

Something shook within herself, something raw and bridling, but something within its own control. Her grip on the bo staff lessened, her own muscles beginning to quiver. When she took a deep breath, reigning in the power of her spirit that was still rampant with adrenaline and instinct, she withdrew the staff from his own throat.

As a result, he pressed harder, and the sting of the blade rung into her body.

The blade tipped further, allowing a tiny bud of pure silver blood to emerge. She watched him instantaneously still, muscles locked, blade immobile, eyes fastened onto the unsuspecting strangeness of her blood. Surprise widened, if only for a moment, his eyes.

His jaw visibly clenched together, tendons popping.

Then, as a rivulet of her blood, thick and vividly silver, slid down the length of his blade, it happened.

The silver, just a tiny drop, cumulated. It thickened and grew, a swell of silver that began to rapidly swathe over every inch of the metal blade. And it amassed in energy, pure and silent and rippling with power, tangibly felt in her fingertips and in the pinprick of her wound; her throat pounded. She watched as her life essence became its own creature, a will of its own as it covered the entirety of his weapon.

The silver then seeped into the blade, much like the alpha fissinus' blood had seeped into the forest.

And, abruptly, the blade burst into a great, blinding white glow. He did not move, eyes watching when the brightness did not abate, and she was surprised at his fortitude, his grip on the hilt not once wavering.

The eruption of light had lasted for all of a moment, but with its strange white light, a colossal swell of energy had also ruptured forth. It struck silently, like a tremor of lightning that jolted from the base of her throat.

Then, it vanished.

In the distance, in her periphery, she saw the battle between the strangers and the rock monsters had halted, stunned by the radiating glow.

His glare snapped back onto her, pressing the blade further into her neck until rivulet after rivulet of silver descended onto his blade. The red of his eyes brightened, the glimmer of alarm more prevailing than the heated anger. For a mere moment, she saw his chest shudder as he exhaled.

"Answer me, creature," he growled, clenching his fist. "Speak."

She opened her mouth, no longer feeling the pain of the blade, no longer feeling her spirit energy revolving within her core; something felt...strange within her, a calmness that circled around itself, a calmness that felt pressured, like the familiar calmness before a storm raged above the forest.

She opened her mouth, but movement behind him caught her attention.

It happened within the space between heartbeats, but it was long enough.

The rock chief rose from behind his shoulder, struggling to stand upright, but moving more smoothly than his hulk of a body should allow. Its glittering black eyes stared at her like malicious beetles, contorting its pebbled lips into a grin that revealed notches between its teeth; blood, an azure blue like the sky far above the treetops, dribbled out of the chief's gaping maw.

Its head was colossal and round, a sentient boulder, but it abruptly swung back, making a grating and victorious shout as it did. Before she could move, before he could react, the rock chief thrust his arm forward, centering all his brute strength into its attack.

Consequently, three long and razor-sharp gems pierced through his chest, the blunted tip of the club having been slammed into his back. He stumbled forward from the impact, red eyes open wide with surprise, and she scarcely moved in time before his blade impaled her straight through the throat.

He fell, his blade fell, both lying inert on the forest floor.

And there was red.

Like the alpha, it spilled from the deep punctures in his back, pooling from each cavity onto the forest's undergrowth in streams of crimson. It gushed, red, red, red. She stood, just as unmoving as he, watching life seep into the forest.

She watched the red, eyes locked, until it was the only thing she saw.

It was the only thing she saw when she slowly moved her head, body beginning to tremble with the same ire that was within his sweltering eyes just moments before, until she locked her gaze with the chieftan. The red pulsated in her vision, tingeing the corners until it enveloped her entire line of sight. She felt the blaze. She felt the fire that was in his eyes, creasing his brow, moving through his blade as he had wielded it with masterful precision. The red was more than strength or power, but it was immense, quaking like an inferno within her chest, searing in her fingertips, sweltering beneath her skin.

This red, this bloodlust, was unlike anything she had ever experienced.

It was not instinct. Nor was it familiar, nor strange.

It simply was.

She clenched her fists, the bo staff long since disappearing back into energy, and she stepped to fully face the rock chief. Her feet were parted, ready, her head tilted down as she leveled her eyes, the red, onto him. Her teeth gnashed together, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring like the wild fissinus of the forest.

The rock chief met her gaze, chuckling deep within its chest. It swung its club, the jewels glittering dangerously, and blood, his blood, so red and deep and thick, coated the spikes.

It charged.

And the red vanished.

Instead, it seeped into her energy, awakening it like a new sort kindling, fanning it like flames that would burn and burn and burn. Each pounding step that the chief took, the more her energy amassed, grew, blazed into a sweltering new aura. It shook within her, quaking her insides until it hurt to breathe, the power and fire beginning to fuse together until it was more than an inferno, it was a firestorm that would burn all.

She closed her eyes, letting it consume her.

She felt the red, the fire, and her own spirit energy boiling just beneath her skin. She felt it beginning to glow, much like the silver blood had on the blade. The energy of the forest rushed to her, seeping into her flesh, illuminating it until the power within nearly ruptured her into pieces.

When she opened her eyes, they were nothing but orbs of pure white.

The rock chief halted, a shriek of fear escaping its jagged lips, and turned to pivot on his heels.

And she let the power and energy that ran rampant within her, the fire, the essence of the forest, burst forth. As the wave of spirit energy erupted, she quickly dove over him, pressing her elbows and knees into the earth, covering his body with her own.

The energy quaked and rumbled and howled, a thousand times more thunderous than the alpha's roar, and enveloped everything into a blinding bright sphere of light, pure and utterly white. The energy thundered, hungry and powerful and enfolding upon everything that it touched. There was no escape.

And there was no control.

What she could manipulate with her aura, she had locked onto the remaining rock monsters, each strand of energy quaking like white hot fire, and seared them into ash. It took her breath away, the devastation of the power, how ultimate the energy was.

At the apex of the attack, however, she heard a shriek—strange, familiar—like that of massive bird, one that was burning and raining its own destruction down, one that knew the white energy, the red. She heard it trill one last time, a piercing shriek that resounded into her bones. And then…

Nothing.

Slowly, the energy began to dissipate. Everything remained in white light, but aftershocks rolled through the forest, uprooting trees that could no longer remained tethered to the ground. She wondered to what extent the attack had done to her home, but refrained from attempting to penetrate through the white glow, instead opting to press her body harder against his; every instinct within her told her to protect.

And then the white light began to fade.

The dust began to settle.

She blinked her eyes, looking around at the devastation in the forest clearing. And it was cleared. The clearing that had once been full of flora, carpeted in undergrowth, blossoming in green and with vigor, was now completely cratered into the earth. Instead of the foliage she had clutched, there was dirt in her hands. Various mounds of black dirt littered the clearing, evidence of the rock monsters—and the fissinus, sadly—were now nothing more than ash. The trees that had been uprooted from the initial wave of the attack had been thrown back, having crashed into other trees, leaving a wide radius of destruction.

In the distance, she could hear the last of the shock-waves echoing into an end.

In the clearing, the world was no longer green.

But everything was once again silent. It was a heavy silence, one full of death and emptiness. She breathed deeply, heavily, fatigue spreading throughout her entire body, the pain from the sticky wound on her back beginning to thrum. The spirit energy within her was very faint, quiet, a murmur from being nearly spent entirely. And she grieved, deeply and with all she had, at the pain she had caused the forest.

She sighed, burying her face into the mound of cloth before her. Then she stiffened as the scent of blood and sweat and wind and of something very strange and not familiar at all filled her nose. Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest, adrenaline making another round as she sat upright. A ringing filled her ears.

There was red on the strip of cloth that covered her, having soaked entirely through, sticking to her flesh.

Blood.

His blood.

She bit her lip, unsure of what to do, afraid to move him, afraid to see the red ire having clouded over like the alpha fissinus. Instinct, however, once again reared its head, coursing hotly in her veins and diminishing the fatigue, and forced her to carefully roll him over to see the extent of damage he had acquired.

He was deathly still. Fear and panic and apprehension all struck a jolt deep inside her, stinging her eyes, and each breath she took was a heavy thrum, a wanting to do something, needing to do something to rekindle his life. She clutched the dark fabric of his shirt, smoothing it out, careful not to breech the gaping wounds in his chest.

And then sorrow—such an unexpected, strange emotion—overtook her, slow and settling like the dust within the clearing.

His body was unmoving beneath her. There was even a strange tranquility to his expression, like he had not departed in pain. His eyes were closed making him look much less severe, less angular. Handsome, she thought, though she did not know the meaning.

But then she reached out, unable to quell the sorrow, and touched his face.

And he moved.

He moved like a shock was coursing through his system, abruptly beginning to shift beneath her as he took deep breath after deep breath. His eyes opened, and they looked at his surroundings deliriously for a moment, the red holding more alarm than fire. But when they caught her gaze, they became aflame, immediately returning to the heated glare she had become almost familiar with.

She leapt off him, settling instead at his side, careful now not to touch him.

He was, after all, another wild thing.

He struggled upright, clutching at his chest, gnashing his teeth in pain. Then he blanched, gasping, his face contorting as the blood left him frighteningly pale. When he clenched his teeth together, body quivering as he fought the agony of his wounds, she saw that his quick movement had opened them further; blood dripped onto his lap, onto the forest floor, trailing towards her.

Instinct shrieked at her again—help him!—and she did not take a moment to ponder it.

Swiftly, she reached out and touched his shoulder. He jerked away from her touch with a growl and peered at her through incensed, agony-ridden eyes. The tendons in his jaw were popping; each muscle she could see in his body was tensed as he fought to move, fought to fight. He even attempted to speak through his clenched teeth, but succumbed to silence when another wave of pain visibly racked his body.

He was bleeding out too fast, too much.

She reached out again, but he did not regard her touch this time; too focused on the pain and the blood that was coating his clenched fists. When she moved to kneel before him, however, his glare met her gaze, narrowing with such hate she almost recoiled. The heat that came off him was astounding, like the rays of sunlight that sometimes penetrated the forest's foliage, but a thousand times more intense.

And he watched her. Watched her, observing and analyzing, glare focusing in on her face and each facet of her feature, as though if he turned his mind elsewhere from the pain, it wouldn't be so excruciating.

But he bridled when she picked up his blade. She disregarded the curiosity that bloomed within her over the object, knowing now wasn't the time to indulge her whims. Instead, she took it carefully in her grasp mid-blade, keeping the hilt always in contact with the earth. Guiding the tip towards her left palm, she sliced herself down the center. Her blood seeped through the cut, not like the crimson seeping out of him, nor the crimson that stained her front, but once again the bright silver.

He watched her, eyes narrowing, as the silver blood pooled in her palm.

When she inched closer to him, holding out her hand, he retaliated by grasping her wrist with a shaking hand, keeping her at a distance. His teeth gritted in pain, but his grip tightened, eyes dangerous and deathly red and locked onto her face.

She returned his gaze, and nothing more.

A moment passed, and then another.

Then another.

Each moment calmness settled over her, enveloping the fire the same way the white hot energy had enveloped over the forest clearing. This time, however, as each moment passed the calmness grew more and more serene, more cooling, like a light rain that aided the forest's growth. The calm serenity flourished within the moments until, little by little, his grasp loosened and the heat in his eyes was a little less sweltering.

Then, before he could respond, she pressed her palm to his chest. She squeezed into each wound, watching as the silver and the crimson mixed, swirling together, splattering her arm and his chest, until one wouldn't know whose blood was whose.

He hissed with pain, too much in agony to move and push her away.

But the calmness never abated, with each second that passed, with each drop of silver that went into his wounds, the more his body relaxed. Soon, his muscles were no longer quivering under the duress of pain, the extra heat that it had brewed in his eyes vanished, and his hands uncurled from their bloodless fists. He began to breathe evenly.

When she withdrew her hand, his wounds fully healed, she peered up to meet his gaze.

Now, there was a moment of stillness. Not silence. Not calmness. Instinct still rushed through her veins, thumping in her eardrums, something so much hotter than adrenaline or rage. She breathed quietly, if a little heavily, through her nostrils.

There was still a glare in his red eyes, but, now, it had lessened.

With effort, even though his skin looked fresh and anew, he moved as though the muscles around his healed wounds ached, and he slowly reached out to her. He raised a trembling hand towards her face, his expression almost apprehensive, (cautious, she decided) his brows still low and foreboding, but the line of his lips was set with determination.

His glare had almost softened completely.

She felt his fingertips, calloused and rough, skim across her cheek, and almost shuddered at the sensation. But then, abruptly, the glare returned, and the red rekindled its flame.

Before she had time to stumble back in alarm, his face hardened, seizing her chin and squeezing hard. With the other he quickly snatched his blade. In one swift movement, he raised the blunt end and rammed it against the crown of her head.

And everything went black.

— — —

"Uh, guys, why is there a half-naked, wild chick lying unconscious on Hiei's lap?"

Kuwabara panted heavily, momentarily pulled away from his grumblings, and even cocked his head to the side in bewilderment. The moment Kurama's protective barrier vanished, the trio had rushed over to Hiei's aid on the far outcropping of the forest clearing.

Taking the opportunity to race Yusuke in the process and deflate his much-coddled ego had sounded like a worthwhile endeavor. Losing didn't. His chest heaved as he nursed a stitch in his side, grumbling to himself when Yusuke shot him a smug grin.

Kurama smothered an amused smile, looking unfazed by their battle with the posse of crag demons.

The destruction of the clearing, however, sat ill with Kuwabara, who had initially looked around with stunned horror, flabbergasted by the sheer power of the attack. He blinked rapidly at the thought, still trying to clear his vision from the burst of black dots that had been a result of the blinding white light.

Now, however, his mouth was beginning to gape.

Hiei moved the girl in question from his lap, but to Kuwabara's immense surprise, he did so with much more carefulness than he thought the demon was ever capable of. Kuwabara, however, was not surprised when the shrimp utterly disregarded his existence.

"Watch it, Kuwabara," Yusuke muttered through the corner of his lips. "Or you'll start catching flies."

Kuwabara whacked him in the ribs. "Shut it, Urameshi."

But when Hiei had laid the girl down, lying amongst a soft mound of dirt, Kuwabara's mouth began to unceremoniously gape once more. He nudged Yusuke, causing him to hiss when Kuwabara touched the spot he had previously hit.

"Dude, look at her," he said, blinking owlishly.

"I am looking at her, moron," Yusuke responded, bristling. "And you'd best stop looking at her like that, or do I have to say the magic word?"

Kuwabara frowned. "What magic word?"

"Yukina."

"My beloved!"

"Yeah," Yusuke snickered. "That's what I thought."

Kuwabara glowered at the spirit detective, but returned his gaze towards the girl. She was stranger than anything else. Eye-catching? Yeah, he thought, but not in the beautiful, eye-catching sense that his red-eyed, warm-hearted ice demoness embodied. He grinned doltishly at the thought of Yukina, but stopped when movement from Hiei caught his attention again.

The fire demon had grabbed her arm, repositioning it across her stomach, as though he was ensuring her comfort although she was unconscious. Kuwabara's eyebrows spiked towards his hairline, looking from her to Hiei, back and forth, from one to the other, mild to severe with something akin to puzzlement because Hiei Jaganshi was the poster child of emotional constipation when it came to acts of kindness.

"Wait," Kuwabara blinked again. "Where did she come from?"

"She was following us from the very moment we stepped inside this forest, Kuwabara," Kurama said, eyes never leaving the girl. His brow was furrowed, and his tone held its own level of mystification, mind legions away.

This did not sit well with Kuwabara, and he shifted uncomfortably, his shoes digging into the dirt. "But I have the highest spirit awareness out of all of you guys, so how is it possible that I couldn't even feel her spirit energy?"

This time Hiei regarded him, peering up with contempt in his eyes. He scoffed. "It was a ruse, fool."

Kurama merely nodded, still analyzing the girl. "Yes, she was protecting herself. Hiei and I barely felt it—she must have made it too weak to detect. Not unless you tried, of course."

"But..." Kuwabara faltered. "Why would she do that?"

"You truly are an idiot, aren't you?" Hiei bit scathingly. "She was protecting herself. We are strangers in this forest, which happens to be her home. It's a miracle she did not try to protect it from us."

Before Kuwabara could respond, Kurama abruptly stepped forward, the color draining from his face, green eyes widening with disbelief. His hands were clenched together, forming bloodless fists. It was unsettling to see the fox demon's perpetual mask of composure begin to crack so unexpectedly, and so abruptly.

"A miracle, maybe. Strange, even more so," he said quietly, then, more urgency: "Hiei, push back her hair. I need to see her face."

Hiei did so running his fingertips across her forehead, leaving his hand in place to keep the strands from falling back into her eyes. Kuwabara gawked again, and even Yusuke's head cocked to the side with curiosity.

She was a small thing, compact and wiry and in dire need of some ramen, Kuwabara thought, eyes lingering on how her skin clung too tightly to her ribs. The color of her skin reminded him of his mother's tea when it was milky, but scars littered her body, some old and silvered with age, others newer and still a healing pink.

Her clothing, however, did not leave much to the imagination, which made Kuwabara blush. A simple band of cloth covered her chest, clearly not out of prudishness, but it acted as a buffer for the gnarled, heart-like tree vine that she had wrapped across her chest—a vine that hooked around her neck to keep it in place, as though it was still alive and growing across her body. Below, she wore something reminiscent of a sarong. Loincloth, however, was what Kuwabara had initially thought, and grinned to himself as the Tarzan yell instantly echoed in his head.

The girl's hair was long, cut unevenly and was even starting to form thick coils of dreadlocks. Even more strangely: it was very white. Pure white, stark white, like the light from the bright burst of energy. Kuwabara blinked rapidly again, beginning to gawp.

On her face, now that it was uncovered, were markings. They too were white, which made them stand out in contrast against the shade of her skin. The markings were both simple but intricate, the result of a talented artist's hand, and the largest was below her right eye, curling around the curve of her cheekbone and ascending artfully towards her ear. The other marking, however, was a simple spiraled circle at the corner of her left eye, like an afterthought to the complexity of the other.

It was unlike anything Kuwabara had ever seen.

Kurama's breath hitched. "She's Okuda."

Kuwabara blinked again, ignoring how Hiei had immediately stiffened, withdrawing his hand from the girl's face. Yusuke raised a brow.

"A what-what?" Kuwabara asked, befuddled.

Kurama glanced towards him, and then back at the girl. Kuwabara followed his gaze, both lingering on the swath of blood covering her chest, but she breathed too easily for there to be anything truly wrong. Kuwabara noted the bright glimmer of silver on one of her palms.

"Okuda," Kurama repeated quietly, so quietly that Kuwabara had to strain himself to hear. Kurama shook his head, clearly disbelieving himself, and then stated so. "I don't know if I believe it, but it appears the myths are true."

Yusuke cleared his throat, his eyebrow still raised in question.

"Care to explain, Kurama?" he asked impatiently, crossing his arms over his chest. "You know, for those of us who didn't take Demonic Races 101 back in apparition high school."

Before Kurama could explain, however, Hiei scoffed. His eyes were bright and tapered with incredulity.

"You cannot be serious, Kurama," he derided, peering down only once at the girl, and only with his natural brand of scathing indifference. "This creature cannot possibly be one."

Kurama disregarded Hiei, turning to Kuwabara and Yusuke. He cleared his throat, obviously unsure of where to start. Hiei snorted, glaring off into the forest with a clenched jaw.

"The Okudas were an ancient race. Demon race. They very first, as it's said. There is lore about them still, but bound in dusty tomes that very few demons care to read," he smiled faintly. "Most of us are not very scholarly, but there are few who are, you see. These tomes are rare, very rare. So rare that many disregards them as the journals of a mad, rambling demon. Apparently, however, the Okudean myth is true."

"So," Yusuke hedged, feigning interest, though Kuwabara knew he was just as curious as he was, and glowered at him for trying to play it cool. "What's their story?"

Kurama's gaze fell back onto the girl.

"Their origin had once been legends, something that demons long ago believed was real. But it has been so long since anything about the Okuda was discovered that many have given up the pursuit in unearthing the truth of their extinction," he said, biting his lip momentarily, lost in thought. "Theirs being a dead language does not help the matter. Only a handful of relics, mainly those tomes in their dead script I mentioned before, prove the that they once roamed the Makai, or ruled it, as few have dared to believe. Unfortunately, these archaeological findings are too few, and too cryptic, that I'm afraid the Okuda are considered nothing more than demon mythology."

Yusuke tapped his foot. "You seem well informed on the subject."

Kurama smiled again. "As Yoko I spent many years trying to uncover Okudean artifacts, believing them to be the ultimate treasure."

"Did you find any?" Kuwabara asked.

"I have to remind you that many demons believe them myths, Kuwabara, and the number of unearthed relics linked to their history is staggeringly low," Kurama stated, then shrugged. "It was mainly a fruitless endeavor. No leads. No knowledge. Ultimately, no treasure."

Kuwabara glanced at the girl, who breathed deeply, looking like she had been born from the forest soil, wild but enchanted. "Then how do you know she's Okuda?"

Kurama was silent, remaining so for a long time. The forest's silence settled around them, his gaze locked onto the girl. Even Hiei's eyes flitted down toward her, fists clenching and unclenching, the tendons popping along his jawline when he looked angrily away. Kuwabara shifted uneasily, hating this forest more and more with its creepy shadows and dark, twisted trees that loomed like super-sized gargoyles in the distance.

Then, Kurama spoke.

"Because," he began, very quiet, very somber. "I once stole one of those tomes. I vainly tried to decipher it. I spent months attempting to, desiring nothing more than to understand their language, to track down their mounds of wealth and hidden treasure. In the end, however, I returned it to the demon that I had stolen it from."

Yusuke balked. "You? As Yoko Kurama? The Legendary Bandit? Why not sell the damn thing if no one could read it?"

Kurama chuckled lightly. "I never said I was pleasant about it, but returned it I did. And selling it would have been counterproductive towards my reason of returning the tome. You see, those months staring at the words I could not read, the markings that were so foreign and real and ancient, I became obsessed with the legends, thirsty for more knowledge."

"Oh?" Yusuke hedged.

"It was counterproductive, Yusuke, because the demon I had stolen the tome from was the only one alive to aid me in my venture. The demon regards herself as an Okudean linguistic extraordinaire, the only being in the three worlds who has dedicated their life to translating the language. And translate she did." Kurama then shrugged, "Or so she boasts."

"Hn," Hiei interrupted scornfully. "Answer the question, Kurama. Why do you believe she, of all things, is okuda?"

"Simple, Hiei: I have seen that marking on her face before. Not once, but dozens of times, hundreds. Dare I say thousands," he replied, peering at the white marking on her face, eyes bright with intrigue. "That marking had been etched onto the leather of the tome I had stolen, had been drawn uncountable times inside. Also, there is one—just one—mural depicting the Okuda race in a cavern close to my linguist friend's dwelling. The Okudas in the mural were white-haired like she, also bearing markings of their language on their faces. It is said that the markings depict a characteristic that the Okuda would then epitomize in their society."

"What does her marking mean?" Kuwabara asked, feeling the thrill of curiosity in his fingertips, his eyes following the swirling pathways and curves of her marking's design.

Hiei sneered. "Hn. What do you think the words dead language mean? That should make it glaringly obvious, fool."

"Hiei is correct, it is a dead language. In all my undertakings to do so, I never learned much about the it. Only one should be able to translate its meaning, one fluent enough to speak it."

"Okay," Yusuke began, joining in on peering down at the strange demon girl. He hesitated, eyes narrowing as he thought. "Okay, so, what exactly is an Okuda? What makes them so different from demons now?"

Kuwabara nodded in agreement, needling, "Yeah, what powers did they have?"

Kurama took another moment of silence. When he spoke, his eyes flitted towards theirs.

"Those who once knew," he said, "are long dead. Only theories remain, only those words in forgotten tomes. But it looks as though we may discover what they were firsthand."

The thought did not sit well with Kuwabara, who looked around at his friends with an amassment of discomfort.

"Well," he said, peering down at the girl. "What should we do with her?"

Kurama chuckled good-naturedly.

"We clearly can't leave her unconscious on the floor of a haunted forest, can we?" he queried, then sobered up quickly, adding: "If she truly is Okudean, then it is best we bring her to Koenma, or Genkai even. I will look into contacting Skata about the marking she bears."

Chapter Text

ONE HOURS AND FIFTY-NINE SECONDS

Two hours.

Genkai faced away from her remote mountain compound, watching the storm unfold. Before her, a legion of trees spread out in every direction, as far as her old eyes could see. They were black and indecipherable in the windstorm, undulating like inky waves, rippling back and forth like a raging sea during a tempest.

She stood at the topmost stair, the tips of her toes pressed against the edge. Hours passed. The storm waged its war, the sky darkened until she could barely decipher the treetops from the wrathful night sky.

And she watched.

SEVEN HOURS AND FIFTY-NINE SECONDS

Eight hours.

Genkai rocked on the balls of her feet, hands clasped tightly behind her back; it was a gesture that helped keep everything attuned—her body to her mind, her mind to her spirit's core. Every few seconds the sky was lit with the crooked fingers of lightning, allowing a glimpse of embattled black clouds and treetops. Every few seconds she caught sight of the long, unswerving stairs of her temple, and clasped her hand tighter.

She stood, watching the stairs, protected from the onslaught of rain in a luminous sphere she had conjured from her spirit energy. The storm's war had yet to cease, and she ignored the ache in her back, the innate, unsettling feeling that the weather's change had nothing to do with nature, and everything to do with demonic energy.

And she waited.

TWELVE HOURS AND FIFTY-NINE SECONDS

Thirteen hours.

"Genkai, there you are. What are you doing out here?"

Her eyes snapped open, pulled from her meditation. It wasn't a pleasant sensation, mainly because it pulled at her nerves like a rubber band being stretched to near breaking point. She eyed the newcomer cantankerously, peering up into glimmering pink eyes and sighing at the concern within them.

"Quiet, girl. Watch."

Like the hours before, the storm was still fulfilling its course.

Thunder boomed, reverberating throughout the compound and trembling beneath her feet. Botan squeaked and hurried beneath Genkai's sphere of energy when a powerful gale swept across the treetops and towards the temple mouth, peering wide-eyed at the relentless storm that surged and thundered and pitched everything back and forth.

Lightning quaked.

But the sun was rising far off on the horizon, smearing the dark clouds gray and the treetops into a ghostly green-black hue. Soon, the sky turned red, the color of life and death, the color that possessed no in-between.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," Genkai muttered. "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, that's not creepy at all."

Genkai snorted, and was about to reply, when, suddenly, the storm ceased.

Everything went still as death. The treetops, the rain, the dark as night clouds all halted, frozen as if time itself had stopped. Genkai's breath hitched, eyes alert and flitting about her temple's surrounding ocean of trees, small hands curling into white-knuckled fists.

"Genkai," Botan whispered, eyes wide with fear. "What's going–"

"Quiet."

And then there was an implosion. The forest rippled inwardly, trees pulling at their roots like they were being sucked towards some invisible vortex in the distance. The rain clouds shuddered in descent, the sky brightening and reddening the strangest of reds with every second.

Genkai braced herself, grabbing hold of Botan, reinforcing her protective sphere with more energy.

Then, once again, everything ceased.

And an explosion of sheer, unrestrained spirit energy occurred. It nearly knocked Genkai down, nothing but a pure invisible force with the greatest magnitude of power she had never once encountered, not with Yusuke, not with Toguro, not with herself as one of the most powerful psychics alive. It left her hunched over from its colossal impact, breathless and nearly gasping, jarred straight through to the bones and feeling her skin begin to warm and then sizzle.

For the first time in a very long time, Genkai felt a tinge of fear. A fear of the unknown, the inexplicable, something that her years of extensive training, of the most painful of meditations and regimens, could never prepare her for. Genkai gritted her teeth.

As quickly as the energy came, however, it vanished.

There were no aftershocks. All was silent, eerie, but it was the mere calm after the storm, that empty, weightless silence left in catastrophe's wake. The silence felt stagnant after the warring winds and clouds, after the implosion, after the explosion of spirit energy, but at least now this silence was natural. The red sky, she eyed with tetchy disbelief, was not.

Now able to gather her bearings, Genkai's lungs began to ache, realizing then that she had been holding her breath all along. Something clutched at her forearm, supporting her when she began to pant heavily.

"Genkai!" Botan gasped, bent down at her level, appearing completely unaffected. "What's wrong? Are you all right? What happened?"

Genkai furrowed her wizened brows. "You didn't just feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Genkai opened her mouth to reply, but before she could do so, a bright white orb manifested itself to her left. For a moment the two were blinded. Botan shuffled and helped Genkai quickly to her feet while the orb expanded further and further, a stark illumination that offered no brief glimpse to the other side. This, at least, was expected, a more normal and welcoming sight that had Genkai nearly sighing with relief.

Time seemed to finally continue. The red sky brightened into sunrise hues, streaking shades of pink and orange above the treetops. Genkai, despite herself, cracked the smallest of smiles.

Yusuke Urameshi waltzed out of the portal, eyes perpetually lit with mischief. Behind him the rest of the gang appeared, Kuwabara's orange head popping through like a sunlit beacon. His brows were furrowed in something more synonymous to confused than surprised—which, frankly, was not surprising.

Botan stifled a gasp.

Hiei appeared, and once again Genkai found herself unnerved. The fire demon was holding himself with extreme care, his movements much more deliberate than usual, and upon seeing the multitude of scattered lesions across his chest, revealing heavy swathes of blood and a strange silver beneath, she understood why. The pain in his movements, however, did not breech the normal expression of aloofness on his face. He clutched his sheathed katana like a vice, eyes locked into a glare and looking no less deadly than usual.

The portal zapped within itself, disappearing once Kurama had stepped through.

Genkai stiffened, gaze narrowing onto the form of a small, unconscious creature—a girl, of all things—draped carefully in his arms. But before she could step forward for a better view, feeling an unsettling, familiar amassment of spirit energy radiating quietly like some dormant volcano from within her, Yusuke was bounding towards his former master, grinning broadly.

"Yo, grandma, guess what?" he said, shoving his hands into his jeans and raising both arched eyebrows with devilish mirth. "We brought you a souvenir!"

— — —

Yusuke watched Hiei through narrowed eyes. Hiei, in turn, watched Kurama through narrowed eyes.

Honestly, the spirit detective was more amused than suspicious. Stunned a bit, because the last time he saw Hiei coming this close to completely losing his shit had been when the detective discovered Yukina was Hiei's long lost twin sister and accidentally blabbed about it to Kurama and, damn, the vein that had protruded from the fire demon's forehead as he threatened him over and over and...

Well, it now was making a reappearance.

He frowned. Sure, Hiei chronically had a stick up his ass and made his katana look like a butter-knife if one compared their sharpness, but he hadn't been this crusty before their mission in the forest. Then he shrugged, knowing that trying to make sense of Hiei was a waste of time; Yusuke hated puzzles more than he hated Kuwabara's breath, both of which gave him instant headaches.

In tandem when it came to creepy stares, the fire demon was still eyeing Kurama. For the past ten minutes Hiei had paced the length of Kurama's immaculate room like some prowling, caged animal, scrutinizing the fox demon who was meticulously storing supplies into a rucksack. His eyes betrayed the aloof expression on his face, which were glinting like freshly honed blades. His fists clenched and unclenched.

Yusuke suppressed a smirk, envisioning the fire demon raising his hackles and hissing like some crazed wet cat on crack.

Still, the sight soon had pressure building behind his eyes. It'd been years since Hiei was this prickly. He was unpredictable and moody and elusive, with a moral code so intricate (and somewhat twisted) that it constantly caught Yusuke by surprise. Sometimes it was difficult to tell what would make him tick or not, and now was no exception.

Yusuke rubbed his temples. And here we were having such a dandy ass day, too.

Then he saw it: the red flash of Hiei's eyes towards the open door, the blindingly swift glance that only someone with demonic blood could detect towards the stairs, towards the room that held the unconscious, strange, white-haired girl.

The demon with the silver blood.

The supposed Okuda, the first demonic race to inhabit the Makai, who possessed inexplicable powers and wealth, whose history was so shrouded in mystery that their existence had been deemed more myth than veritable truth because their reign had been chronicled into forgotten, archaic tomes written in a dead language.

Or whatever the hell Kurama had droned on about earlier as they summoned a portal.

To Yusuke, the girl was no different than any other demon he'd encountered, and he'd encountered many since becoming Spirit Detective and altruistic defender of the human world. Was she strange? Sure. Deadly? Clearly. But the Ningenkai was a large place inhabited by a diverse populace. The demon world was no different, only that survival rates were drastically lower and being knocked down a few pegs on the food chain was a common occurrence.

No big.

He'd dealt with worse.

She was no threat that they couldn't handle, and if she really was the sole survivor of an ancient, extinct race? Kudos to her. Someone give her a cookie. To him, she was the shadow that trailed them in a haunted forest, who had a righteously impressive spirit energy and weird ass tattoos.

And who had also saved Hiei's life.

For now, that was enough. Kurama wanted answers and Yusuke wasn't about to believe anything without seeing it firsthand, which he thought was rather mature of himself.

Grinning smugly at the thought, Yusuke glanced to his right at Kuwabara, whose arms were folded over his chest and had a leg propped against the wall he was leaning against. He looked just as uneasy as he had when Kurama first theorized about the girl's racial identity, an expression that was soon joined by Genkai when she first set eyes on her.

Yusuke snorted. Suspicious, big-headed worrywarts. They should start a club.

Looking away, however, he caught it again. The abrupt, lightning-fast glance towards the doorway. Hiei's angry red eyes flashed towards the stairs as he stalked past the threshold, unaware that Yusuke had yet again noticed the brief flicker. The fire demon's jaw tightened every time he passed the opening, his aura tangibly bridling with an intense, fiery heat with each passing moment.

Ah, Yusuke thought, stuffing his hands into his jeans. And here I thought Hiei was beginning to play well with others. Leave it up to him to be pissy when someone saves his life.

Then he caught Kuwabara shake his head in his periphery, looking even more troubled. Or constipated. Yusuke couldn't decide.

"So that's the plan, huh?" Kuwabara inquired, nodding towards Kurama, who was neatly tucking a canteen of water into the rucksack. "Why not take one of us with you? You know, as backup. Sounds stupid to go alone."

Yusuke muttered, "Anyone taking you as backup is stupid."

"Because," Kurama began, unaware of the withering glare Kuwabara shot Yusuke. "Genius and madness are two sides of the same coin and in some cases, it is better to deal with such alone. She may not be inclined to help, if she is inclined at all."

"Sounds like a real basket case to me," Yusuke said. "Are you sure about this, Kurama?"

"Completely. Skata is a renowned anthropologist, specifically when it comes to the Okudas. Not to mention the only one in the three worlds. No one else will bring better aid," he replied. Then he sighed, pulling the strings to the rucksack closed. "Still, it won't be a pleasant reunion."

Yusuke smirked. "You can thank Yoko for that. It takes some big balls to steal something, return it, then return again for information on what you stole."

"Precisely," Kurama smiled faintly. "It's fortunate that her intellect is vast, but unfortunate that her savant memory is flawless. I doubt she will have forgiven me. Still, I must try."

"Why don't you just take her with you?" Kuwabara asked, frowning.

"Skata won't let logic be misguided by anything personal." Kurama pondered his next words, "Her logic differs from our own, which makes her unpredictable. Her insatiable thirst for knowledge has long ago whittled away what conscience she once possessed, which also makes her dangerous. I would not trust her around any creature that is not conscious to defend itself."

"And they say chivalry is dead," Yusuke muttered, then he finger quoted mockingly, "What else can you tell us about the 'Three Worlds' Only Living Okudean Anthropologist Extraordinaire', or whatever the hell she calls herself."

"Skata," Kurama reiterated, chuckling without mirth. "Let's just say she has a special skill set, one that I would not wish performed on my greatest foe."

The silence of this revelation had the desired dramatic effect on Kuwabara, whose orange eyebrows spiked into his hairline. Yusuke raised one of his own, letting curiosity sink in and the undertone of danger in Kurama's words flair into a challenge.

It was then, however, that Yusuke noticed Hiei had halted from his incurious pacing. Instead, he stood in the threshold of Kurama's room, a black, smoldering speck within the simple elegance of the white-walled decor. His eyes, glimmering and turbulent, flickered from Kurama to Kuwabara, landing on Yusuke and tapering, but he did not speak.

Yusuke frowned, wondering abruptly if the meaning behind the fire demon's behavior ran deeper than mere irritation of his life being saved by some wild chick in a leaf bikini, and was about to ask when Kuwabara spoke.

"So, what are you hoping to gain from all this?"

Kurama's eyes flickered from Hiei to Yusuke, having caught the exchange. "I'm hoping to borrow the tome I mentioned in the forest, or at least a translation. Skata had been in the midst of translating it when I first stole the tome. I am betting that she has finished."

"Sure, translating a dead language," Yusuke shrugged. "That shouldn't take long at all."

"Yusuke, I stole that tome nearly 900 years ago."

"Wow. Hey, looking good, man."

Kuwabara frowned. "And if it's not translated? What then?"

"Dude, Kuwabara," Yusuke quipped. "You're being uncharacteristically smart. Stop it."

"Shut up, Urameshi," Kuwabara replied, glaring. "You dumb-dumb."

Yusuke grinned. "And you're back."

Kurama cleared his throat. "We leave her fate in the hands of Koenma, which may be the result regardless. Still, this is a chance to gain further knowledge into the Okuda. Never in my life would I have guessed that one would be discovered alive. It is...remarkable," Kurama's voice drifted off, until he snapped to attention and swung the rucksack across a shoulder. "Until then, it's best if you four keep an eye on her."

"Three," a rough voice announced from behind Hiei, making both Yusuke and Kuwabara jump in surprise. Genkai appeared in the threshold once the fire demon moved aside, looking tense and tired. "I can't dawdle any longer."

She strode into the room, hands clasped behind her back, brows furrowed. Her lips were pinched together, something Yusuke noticed she only did when something was truly unsettling her. As was his natural reaction when someone around him was troubled, Yusuke adopted a cockeyed grin.

He folded his arms across his chest. "Those old bones still shaken from the disturbance in the Force this morning?"

Genkai's entire face pulled together as she gave him a withering look, striking out a hand with abrupt, blinding speed and conking Yusuke over the head.

"Dimwit," she grumbled, eyeing the four and raising a brow at Hiei before turning back to Yusuke. "What I'm saying is that I'm leaving. Don't miss me too much. This girl's presence in correlation to the blast of spirit energy earlier is no coincidence. I need to have a chit chat with that nappy-wearing leader of ours."

Kuwabara smothered a grin. "Aw, c'mon, Genkai. No need to talk about Yusuke in front of him like that."

Yusuke glared, about to unleash his own wisecrack when Genkai whacked him in the shin as she strode towards the door.

"Don't do anything foolish," she said, eyeing Yusuke. "I'll be back by this evening."

"This right here," Yusuke replied, gesturing to his face. "This is me waiting with bated breath."

Genkai ignored him, turning to Kurama. "She's locked down in the guest room. Botan volunteered to tend to her wounds since you're leaving and Yukina is currently returning from Hyouga. And as difficult as it may seem to you, Yusuke, it's best if you all remain as quiet as you can. That girl is no shrinking violet. She's got thorns, even in her sleep."

Yusuke noticed the mentioning of Yukina had Hiei's head snapping in attention. When he strode forward, glaring heatedly at everyone in turn, something churned warily within the pit of Yusuke's stomach, something that instinctively readied itself for danger. The red-hot intensity surrounding the fire demon was far from friendly, and suddenly Yusuke was reminded of when he'd first encountered Hiei, of what sort of chaos he was capable of, that he could still be just as relentless.

Hiei's eyes locked onto Yusuke and, finally, he spoke.

"You think it wise to cage her?"

He knew it wasn't a question. The fire demon's voice was hard as granite and accusatory. His face was nothing but sharp corners, eyes lit with something hotter than dragon's fire. Yusuke kept his voice cool, more concerned for than wary of his friend.

"Hiei, chill man."

"She is far from caged, Hiei," Kurama said quietly, and Yusuke had the inkling that the fox demon could read Hiei far better than he could, that only he knew what was truly amiss.

Hiei's eyes flashed towards Kurama.

"Fools. We've just cornered a savage demon," he said viciously, "What do you think she will do when she wakes? What do you think a wild creature cherishes most of all?"

"Urinating in bushes?" Kuwabara offered.

Hiei's nostrils flared, glaring so fiercely that Kuwabara shrunk back. Then his eyes settled onto Kurama, then Yusuke. "Freedom, idiots."

Kurama smiled faintly. "And to think you initially believed she was weak."

"Whatever strange energy she has, she hides it well," Hiei replied caustically. "Has it entered into your thick skulls that we are all prey? Why do you think she tracked us down in that forest?"

"Concerned, Hiei?" Yusuke raised a brow.

"Yeah man, I've never heard you ask so many questions," Kuwabara considered. "Color me impressed."

"Kuwabara," Yusuke snorted, "It doesn't take much to impress you."

"Then why did she protect us?" Kurama asked. "Protect you?"

Hiei growled, and the hairs on Yusuke's arms prickled at the sound. It was deep and guttural and reminded him that Hiei was the master of the flames from the Makai, the master of the dragon he formed with them, the only master in existence. They were all dangerous, but this danger radiating off him was different, something inexplicable. Something new.

Yusuke frowned and took a step forward, but stopped when Hiei rounded on him.

"That doesn't matter," he seethed, then pointed at Yusuke. "Release her, detective. Now. Take her back to her forest."

"She is littered in scars," Kurama continued. "Perhaps she has been looking for a way out."

"Does she look like she belongs amongst us?"

"Hiei, are you not at all curious about her nature? Her powers are unheard of. Extraordinary. It is not your decision when it comes to her fate."

"And it's yours?" he snarled.

"Hiei, she may be wild, but she is also sentient. Capable of introspection, intelligence, and emotions that a feral creature is not."

"Unlike some," Kuwabara murmured to Yusuke, who elbowed him in return.

Hiei scoffed. "Unbelievable. You want to tame her."

"Hey, man," Kuwabara said, pointing at him. "You weren't exactly braiding friendship bracelets when we first met, either."

Yusuke almost laughed, disbelieving how adamant and wrathful and so close to losing his cool Hiei was. Despite the anger and inherent sense of danger that loomed around him like some raging, fiery storm, it was almost refreshing to see the fire demon concerned over something other than Yukina remaining ignorant of his blood relation and the strict swordsmanship regiment he put himself through each day.

Hiei's attention snapped on him, glare narrowing upon seeing the crinkling of Yusuke's eyes, whose train of thought had him beginning to smirk. In return, Hiei growled again.

"Listen to yourselves. She is a demon of an unknowable class, unknowable energy, more powerful in a way that we don't understand. I was the one that fought her and I—"

"Died," Kuwabara amended.

"Yes, while she resurrected you back to life," Kurama continued.

"And healed you with her blood," Kuwabara rejoined.

Yusuke nodded, "Her silver, Okudean blood."

Hiei's eye twitched, his fists clenching and unclenching. Yusuke could see that even though Hiei Jaganshi held the crown for being the three worlds' most stubborn jackass (which was probably why they got along so well, Yusuke surmised), it was clear that he was epically losing this argument. One telltale sign was that Hiei's right hand kept involuntarily fluttering towards the katana hilt at his side, which he only did when feeling the need for some serious therapeutic beheading.

Hiei closed his eyes, jaw locking for a moment. Everything about him was coiled, quavering anger. When he opened his eyes, the fire demon exhaled sharply through his nostrils.

"Hn. I hope you know what you're doing, detective. She may look pleasing to the eye," he said, each word dripping with menace, "but don't forget that you've all just caged a wild creature."

There was a moment of silence, then Yusuke snickered.

"Dude, did Hiei just say that she's hot in an odd, inadvertent way?"

Hiei's expression turned murderous, but even Kurama indulged in a smile. Kuwabara guffawed and high-fived Yusuke, who turned towards Genkai to do the same. Yusuke's smile, however, only grew when his old, crotchety master rolled her eyes, muttered something darkly to herself, and disappeared through a portal she had opened moments before. Kurama followed suit, face returning to its mask of equanimity and nodded to Yusuke in farewell.

Then, just as the portal zipped shut, it occurred.

An implosion, and then an explosion, and the three stumbled beneath the force, the shock of being caught off guard. Abruptly, Yusuke felt the strangest heat surge against his spirit energy, sizzling beneath his skin with the strangest familiarity. It had the intensity of a thousand suns, nearly buckling his knees by its abruptness, and then there was a star-burst of light in his vision that turned everything white.

He blinked repeatedly, hitching his breath against the onslaught. It felt like being struck with pain that held no pain, like being pitched back and forth under a sea of sheer power, rendering him unable to properly think or move. That pissed him off, and he fought against the sensation, scowling as he opened his eyes.

And then it stopped.

The first thing Yusuke heard after the ringing in his ears ceased was the crashing of glass upstairs, and he saw Kuwabara huddled over, trying to catch his breath. His face was ashen, whiter than the walls of Kurama's bedroom, and was now trying to blink away the haze in his eyes.

Hiei, however, had a hand clutching the frame of the doorway for support, tendons popping along his arm, the wood creaking and splintering beneath his vice-like grip. His other hand was pressed against his chest, where hours before had been fatally impaled with the glittering black spikes of a rock demon's mace.

A colorful curse was on the tip of Yusuke's tongue when Botan stumbled onto the stairway landing, looking stricken and panting heavily.

"Um, guys," she said, pink eyes lit with panic. "She's awake and, well, let's just say that she currently does not play well with others!"

Chapter Text

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."