Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Guardian ❯ The Guardian's tale ( Chapter 2 )

Yuhara placed her chopsticks down and leaned back in char, thoroughly satisfied. She looked up to see Kurama smiling at her from across the table, three empty bowls of ramen between them. She looked away.

“What?” “Nothing, just good to see you finally relaxing.” Her eyes widened “Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go visit the restroom.” He said standing and walking past her. She sat completely still until she couldn't hear his footsteps. She leaned her head against the back of her chair and stared at the ceiling.

`What am I going to do…it's just a matter of time till he finds me.' She thought with a heavy sigh.

Kurama returned a short time later and together they headed out into the night air, the full moon shining down on them as they walked down the now vacant street. Her breath suddenly caught as a shiver ran down her spine, she stopped along side Kurama, who had gone ridged.

“Demon...” she breathed “Indeed, and quite powerful ones at that.” He replied as he scanned their immediate area. “It seems to be coming from the park;” he looked at her “Are you strong enough for this?” she nodded and followed her senses to the park.

As soon as she stepped into the grass a hand shot out of the darkness and pulled her off balance, sending her crashing into the grass with it grasping her hair and dragging her further into the dark.

Yuhara barely recognized the demon, `no…so soon?!' she thought as she struggled to get free from the demons vice like grip. `Damn! If only I had some spirit energy left!' she thought as she began scratching at its claws.

Suddenly blood burst from the demons arms and it fell to the ground completely severed. A boy dressed in a black cloak, red eyes and black spiked hair appeared before her, his silver katana extended.

Her memory from the arena flashed through her mind at the sight of the katana, `Great, as if I didn't have enough problems.' She thought as she got up and removed the severed arm from her hair.

The demon which was almost dog like looked at the boy with malice in his eyes then turned his attention to Yuhara. “The master will reward me for bringing you back to him, guardian!” he said charging towards her.

She jumped over him and landed in his original spot, he turned towards her again but stopped in his tracks. Blood splurged from his head as he suddenly fell to the ground, dead. The boy stood nearby and sheathed his sword; Yuhara narrowed her eyes at him. He just looked at her and with an “Hn” he disappeared.

She felt another demon nearby so she ran in that direction, only to see Kurama finishing it off with a thorned whip. With its last bit of strength it said, “More will come, so long as the guardian is alive we will continue to hunt her.” It said as it died.

The wind blew as Kurama's whip began glowing and returned to a crimson rose, “Hiei, I know your there.” He said as the boy appeared next to him. “How annoying, demons have been coming out spouting the same bit of nonsense.” Hiei said placing his hands in his pockets. “Do you know what this guardian could be?” Kurama asked. Hiei just shrugged, Yuhara leaned against the tree was behind. `This is not good.' she thought

At the thought of him the invisible marks on her body glowed red, sending waves of pain throughout her body. She wrapped her arms around herself as if to hide the marks, each one a testament to his power. Pulling her knees up towards her she sat on the ground attempting to even out her breathing.

Slowly the marks faded and she got up, only to come face to face with Kurama. He attempted to catch her by grabbing her arm only to have himself pulled down along with her. “I'm so sorry. Are you alright?” he said as she rubbed her head, that's when they both took in their current situation.

He was lying completely on top of her, his legs spread out beside her inclosing her waist. They both blushed and quickly got up, another “Hn” was heard from behind Kurama, standing there was Hiei, a bored look evident on his face.

“Oh please excuse me, Hiei this is Yuhara. You remember yes?” Kurama said a smirk crossing his face. “We've met.” Both Yuhara and Hiei replied unanimously. “Well then, why don't we head home then?” Kurama asked, Yuhara walked ahead of them. “Whatever, I'm your `Guest' after all.” She said the word with as much malice as she could muster.

The walls were getting closer; it must have been from pure exhaustion that she fell into this particular dream. He was standing above her, chains binding her arms and legs. He reached down and cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were black and he reeked of blood, “I will get you, you and the power only you can grant me!” NO!! She screamed, he laughed as images of that horrible video played over in her mind, as all she could do was scream in terror.

A loud scream ripped from Yuhara's throat as she jerked up in bed, loud banging footsteps could be heard pounding towards her room, as Kurama burst through the door. “Yuhara? What is it?” The worried eyes of the red head quickly took in the girl before him. Yuhara sat there, looking down at her clutched hands, trembling, and eyes wide with shock.

Most disturbing of all, was the red glowing marks that looped up and down her body, `A curse!' he thought.

He went and sat by her, her bottom lip quivered and fresh tears were already pouring over, “Yuhara are you-?” And it happened. She wrapped her arms around the red head's neck and pulled him down completely on top of him. Their lips met in a gentle way as Yuhara was desperate to forget. Forget about the bad dream and the bad person in it.

Kurama was shocked, though he was not complaining. Their lips moved slowly against each other, Yuhara opening her mouth to allow Kurama in. that's when he pushed her away, she landed back on the pillow unshed tears flowing from her icy blue eyes. “Yuhara…” he said as he caressed her cheek with his thumb.

He shushed her, after what seemed like an eternity, she finally fell into a peaceful sleep. Kurama wondered what could have been so terrible to cause that kind of reaction, but more than that was the curse marks on her body. Who put them there? Why?

Slowly he got up and quietly left the room, intent on finding out, but in the morning.

Yuhara awoke the next morning her eyes stinging, but surprisingly well rested. `I remember… I had that nightmare…then Kurama came in...' the memory of their kiss filled her mind and she blushed a deep crimson.

As she sat up in bed she heard voices coming from down the stairs, getting up and quickly getting dressed she went down the stairs. Sitting in the main room was Yusuke, Hiei, a tall boy dressed like a student, and another teen. But this one was strange; he wore old looking clothes and was sucking on a pacifier.

Kurama came into the room with a tray of tea, “So what's the reason you called us here Kurama?” asked the brown-haired teen with the pacifier. “Well, we encountered some demons late last night and each of them talked something about `hunting the guardian.'” Yusuke groaned, “What the hell is that binky breath?”

The brown-haired boy cleared his throat, “The guardians are nothing more than a spirit world myth.” He stated. Yuhara continued to watch from the top of the stairs, “Demons and humans alike who have heard of this myth go searching for them, none of them succeeded.” The tall student stood up, “That doesn't exactly tell us what they are ya know.”

Hiei obviously didn't tell them what that demon said towards her, she realized. She took this chance to speak up, “The guardians were the first.” They all looked at her, instead of joining them on a chair she sat on the bottom stair. “The first what?” Kurama asked, “The first beings on the planet, you could even go so far as to say they were gods.”

The one with the binky interrupted, “That's why it's just a myth, and everyone knows my father was one of the first.” `Ah, so this is Koenma.' She thought as she shook her head. “So there's something even the prince of Spirit World doesn't know.” She smiled “The guardians were very much real, as was their incredible power.”

“Could ya at least tell the story for those of us in the peanut gallery?” asked Yusuke, she sighed and leaned back on the stairs. “As I said, the guardians were the first, at the time. There were only four of them, one created the human world. Another, the demon world, and the third the spirit world.”

“How could they do that?” asked Kurama, “it's easy, when you hold the power of life itself.” “How the hell can someone have the power of life?” she sighed again, “Spiritual energy, demon energy, both of them combined make life. Neither good nor bad, now after creating these worlds the guardians gave one more gift to each of these worlds. Free will.”

The tall boy spoke up again, “But wait, you said there were four! You only named three, what happened to the fourth.” She rubbed her neck, “The fourth guardian took pity on the humans when the demons invaded their world, and gave some of them the gift of spiritual energy. Doing that caused him to lose a great majority of power, it's said that he fell from the heavens. From there a women found him and nursed him back to health, he ended up falling in love with that women. But it was forbidden to meddle in the affairs of the worlds, so the other three guardians came down to punish him.” She took a long slow breath, suddenly finding it hard to breathe.

But she felt she had to tell them, “The guardians intended to kill them both but to save the love of his life he took on all three of them. Due to his loss of power he was no match for the others great powers, instead as he was defeated he took the power of all three and sealed it away, half of it went inside a crystal pendant. The other half into their unborn child, it's said that each descendant of this guardian will inherit both the pendant and a mark on their left shoulder blade signifying their birthright.”

She stopped attempting to breathe evenly, “well what happened to the pendant? Or the kid?” Yusuke asked. Yuhara shrugged “who knows, neither have been seen for millions of years.” She replied between shallow breathes; to hide her distress she got up and walked out the door leading to the balcony and leaned against the railing. The wind was blowing nicely so that would be her excuse if they noticed.

She didn't think they would as she heard sounds of Yusuke and the student fighting.

Even as she cleared her thoughts her breathing didn't return to normal, as if someone were strangling her. Footsteps were heard behind her, “Yuhara, I think we need to talk.” the voice sounded far away and her vision was blurring, she felt her legs buckle and finally she hit something hard. She was gasping for breath as her neck burned like fire.

She saw shapes above her, heard muffled voices, and she knew…this was her punishment.

Her hands were pulled away from her neck and a blinding light hit her then the burning stopped as her world turned black.

Kurama inspected the place on her neck where the curse had appeared; thankfully Hiei and Koenma were able to break it before she suffocated. “How the hell could someone get a deadly tattoo like that?” Yusuke “I did feel a lot of anger and malice emanating from it, could it be the Yuki-guy?” asked Koenma.

“No, whoever placed the curse is incredibly powerful in demon magic. That man couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.” stated “Hiei from his place on the window sill. “ Due to the position of the curse, it's safe to assume that's why she refused to answer our questions.” said Kurama from his place by the couch, where Yuhara laid.

“Huh? Then why did she blab today?” Yusuke asked as Yuhara groaned and slowly sat up. “Geeze, do you have to talk do loud?” Yusuke scoffed; “If it gets you to answer our questions, then yes.” he said sticking his tongue out at her.

She blinked a few times as something inside her bubbled up until finally, she laughed. It was a great feeling to laugh again and brought back memories she had long forgotten. “Do you know how long it's been since someone stuck their tongue out at me?” she sighed “how childish.”

Kuwabara laughed as well, “Boy Urameshi, she's got you pegged!” “I'll peg you ya idiot!” he replied as they launched themselves at each other. She smiled as she watched them fight like brothers.

Someone touched her hand then, it was Kurama. “Yuhara, are you alright? That was quite a scare you gave us.” he said giving her one of his signature smiles, looking at his lips made her think of their unintentional kiss, she blushed. “Y-yeah. I'm fine.” she replied.

“Now that you're feeling in the talking mood, how about you answer our questions.” stated Hiei obviously annoyed. `Gee this guy's all smiles and butterflies.' she thought as she waved her hand. “Fine, fine as thanks for taking that thing off I shall grant your request.” she replied doing a genie bow just to piss him off.

It worked; he turned away and looked out the window with his signature “Hn.” She rolled her eyes and sat back down, “First question.” “Why were you at that underground arena?” asked Yusuke. “My parents sold me to Yuki to pay off their debts. Next?” Koenma was next to speak.

“What is DEVIL?” she ran a hand through her hair “Think of it as another branch of the Black Black club, next.” Kurama, “What were they planning to do with those demons?” Oh geeze, stop using past tense please!” she sighed again “When Yuki found out that I had spiritual powers he ran and told his boss, Mr. Hideyoshi. Boy was he thrilled, so he brought in those demons so people could pay to come watch and place a bet or two. Of course when he found out…something else, he had his most powerful demon place a curse on me, as you have seen.”

Yusuke again, “What something else?” she shrugged, “That is something I can't tell you.” Yusuke fell backwards, “What do you mean can't?! Either you can't or you won't damn it!” Yuhara shrugged again “can't, won't, what's the difference it's not something you need to know right now.” she said as she got up and walked towards the kitchen.

“Hey we aren't done yet!” Yusuke said “Yeah, yeah… but I'm starving!” she said as she opened the fridge to look inside. “Besides its not good to interrogate on an empty stomach.” She added as she took out ingredients. They all looked at each other then shrugged, they were getting hungry.

Kurama got up and walked into the kitchen, “why don't I cook lunch?” he asked, “How bout we do it together?” Kurama smiled and nodded. In no time they had finished cooking and were serving their completed dish, Chicken Currie with rice. They all looked at her before staring at their plates.

“It's not poisoned dummies.” The student was the first to eat, his eyes lit up as he swallowed the first mouthful, before proceeding to shovel the rest into his mouth. Yuhara smiled as she sat down to eat her own plate, it was actually quite good. `Still, this won't keep them occupied for long, sooner or later they are gonna get to the questions about Mr. Hideyoshi.'

Just thinking about him made her skin crawl, `And to make matters worse, he's coming after me and with my spirit energy still so low I don't have a way to protect myself.' the thought alone made her a little depressed, she was actually starting to like these guys a little. A voice brought her from her thoughts, “Yuhara? Are you alright, you seem pale.”

She couldn't look him in the eyes, “Of course, just thinking is all.” Kurama didn't seem convinced, “Is there something your hiding from us? Something important that this Hideyoshi would want?” there it was the question she was dreading with all her being, she heard her mothers voice in her head “Your whole life is a sin! You don't deserve to live happily!” “I-“she was shaking slightly “I don't want to answer that…” `From the minute I was born I knew someday I was going to die, for what? So I could fulfill some quota…'