Wild Rose

[One]

by Lori McDonald





It had been a month since anything happened anywhere. A month without disasters or monsters running amuck.


Content and happy, Kurama walked to school, his books tucked under his arm and a paper bag in his other hand. It was a beautiful day, the sun in the sky already and even better, it was the last day of school. He'd be free for summer vacation after today and, perfect student though he was, it would be nice not to have to study for a while. Still, he had to admit he was learning a lot. He was a several hundred year old Fox Spirit reincarnated into a human body, so he would have thought he knew everything, but he'd come to the realization that he didn't and school still had a lot to teach him. He'd come to a lot of realizations when he became human.


He felt a tickle at the edge of his mind, the presence of another Youkai and smiled. Hiei was following him again. Kurama sighed, not bothering to look for the little fire demon. He’d never spot him. He was, however, a little surprised that the koorime let him know he was around. Hiei was an emotionless being, uncaring about anyone, or so he seemed. Kurama had seen glimpses beyond that though, making him believe it was only n act. He also wondered how to break through that facade, and what would happen once he did, but for now, he wasn't ready to take the risk. Hiei was a dangerous demon to cross.


Ahead of him, the school came into view, a large complex surrounded by students heading in for their last day, all identically dressed in the traditional Japanese uniform; skirts for girls, tie and shirt for boys. Dressed in a shirt and tie himself, though the red hair flowing down his back was more luxurious, and his face rounder and sweeter than many girls, Kurama headed in. Girls seeing him coming sighed and he smiled at them, though he made no move to stop and talk. If he did, he'd never get away from them.


A group of boys in wrinkled uniforms, their hair unkempt and their ties undone, huddled at the base of the stairs, plotting something. Kurama hesitated as he passed them. He'd faced a hundred demons in the past, but these boys carried their own danger. They were bullies and pushers, thieves without style. One of them saw him and glared.


"What are YOU looking at?"


Kurama shrugged. "Nothing." Turning his back deliberately, he went inside. He could still feel Hiei in the back of his mind, then the fire demon was gone, headed off to wherever he liked to go. Kurama tried not to think of him and walked to his locker. He had only a half day of classes today, then the afternoon was devoted to a school party for the students in the gym, where there would be dancing and punch and food brought by the students themselves. Kurama’s mother had made him cookies to bring.


"Ohayo gozaimasu, Shuuichi-san," he heard and turned to see a girl behind him, blushing as she curtsied, several others crowding up behind her. He bowed back.


"Ohayo."


"Will you dance with me at the party, Shuuichi-san?" she asked, then they were all asking. Would he dance with them? Shuuichi looked at the increasing number of girls surrounding him, boys beyond glaring at him enviously, and tried not to wince.


"Of course I will," he promised.



Morning classes passed rather quickly and Kurama soon found himself in the gym, his offering joining the others on the tables that lined the wall as he danced on the floor with the latest girl trying to win his heart, crowded in with hundreds of other kids. It was painfully loud with the music drumming in his ears, but it was fun too. Idly he wondered if he'd ever be able to convince Hiei to come to such a dance and grinned. There wasn't a chance in either the Makai or the Ningenkai of that ever happening. Somehow, that was disappointing.


Again, he tried not to think about it as he bowed to the girl he had been dancing with and the dozen others waiting their turn. Making his apologies, he moved over to the table to get something to drink, barely noticing the school delinquents gathered near it while they sneered and giggled. Why did he keep thinking of Hiei? He was his best friend, but that was all. It had to be all, since Hiei had never shown any other interest in him. Kurama sighed as he scooped out a cupful of the punch being offered. If he was going to be honest with himself, he had to admit that the chances of Hiei treating him as anything more than an acquaintance were even slimmer than the one of seeing Hiei dancing on that floor.


Lonely in a crowd of hundreds of kids, where every girl and many of the boys were ready to throw themselves at his feet, Kurama swallowed his punch and drank another glass as well, before discarding the cup into a large trashcan already filled half full with dozens of them.


Minamino Shuuichi, known as Kurama to his teammates, was starting to feel odd.


Wondering if he were sick, Kurama excused himself from a raven headed girl who quivered every time he smiled at her and walked to the boy's room. Several other boys were there already, looking sick, and he wondered if there was something wrong with any of the food as he peered at himself in the mirror.


Green eyes looked back, large and liquid, framed by a round face and the head of brilliant red hair that swept halfway down his back. He blinked at his reflection, then blinked again as he saw a pair of fox ears peeking up through the red mane. Blanching, he reached up to cover them before anyone saw them, but felt only hair.


Kurama started to giggle, not sure what was funny, but not really caring. Turning, he grinned at the other boys and stumbled out into the hallway, where he could hear music beating and see it sway through the floor, making the tile ripple like a wave. He rode it dizzily, wondering why none of the other students in the hall seemed to notice. A plant hung from the ceiling, its leaves shiny and dark. Kurama focused on it and it abruptly bloomed, tendrils sprouting out at unnatural speeds and wrapping around the pot and the wire it hung on, reaching down to the floor and up to him eagerly. Kurama patted the green leaves and smiled. Definitely better. Forgetting about the dance, he went to see if there was anything else he could make grow.


The one thing Yuusuke liked most about school was skipping it. Humming to himself, he strolled down the sidewalk, glorying in freedom a day early. Summer was the best time of year. No worries, no responsibilities…


The payphone he was passing rang. Startled, Yuusuke stared at it as it rang again and sighed, suddenly sure that it was for him. Grumbling, he picked up the receiver. "Yeah?"


"Yuusuke?" he heard Koenma say, his voice odd around the pacifier he always had in his mouth. "It’s me. I need you at my office immediately. I’ve got a case for you."


So much for freedom. Cursing, Yuusuke hung up and ran to the meeting.


Kuwabara was already there when he arrived, munching from a bowl of peanuts on Koenma’s desk. Hiei was there as well, on time for once as he sat on the windowsill polishing his sword. There was no sign of Kurama yet. Puffing for breath and glad that he at least wasn’t the last, Yuusuke closed the door. "Hi."


Koenma looked up from where he sat behind his desk, in his teenage form though he still sucked on the pacifier. "Great, you’re here. Let’s get started."


"Hn," Hiei commented, not looking up from his sword. "Kurama isn’t here yet."


Wondering absently why the little demon cared, Yuusuke nodded. "He’s right. We should wait for him."


Koenma shook his head. "He won’t be on this mission." The three spirit detectives looked at each other.


"So, what’s the problem?" Yusuuke asked warily.


Koenma leaned back. "There’s a Youkai loose in the Ningenkai, one who’s creating a tremendous amount of damage and threatening a lot of human lives. He has to be stopped before he tears a hole between the Makai and the Ningenkai."


"Hn. They’re only humans."


Yusuuke shot a glare at Hiei, who ignored him. "Can we reason with him?" he asked. "How powerful is he?"


"Extremely powerful," he was told. "His powers have been magnified somehow. He’s operating at an S-level right now, and as near as we can tell, he’s completely insane."


Yusuuke winced as Kuwabara slammed one fist into his other hand. "So we go in and take him down hard. No big deal."


Koenma sighed. "I would prefer it if you didn’t kill this particular Youkai."


"If he’s threatening the Ningenkai and is as powerful as you say, we might have to," Yusuuke told him. "I’d rather kill him than risk losing one of the team."


Koenma’s eyes were sad, and a little betrayed. "Yusuuke, if you kill him, you will lose a member of the team.


"It’s Kurama."


The world was a wondrous, green growing thing, a living toy to play with.


Giggling, Kurama rolled onto his back, stretching his arms out above his head as he lifted his legs, kicking at the leaves over him. "Beautiful," he murmured. "Beautiful."


Hearing a whimper, he rolled onto his side, head propped on one hand, and looked at a girl wrapped up in the vines of his plant. He’d grown it through the hallways of the school, trapping his toys inside and the girl stared at him fearfully, her eyes wide.


"Shuuichi," she begged. "Help me."


"Shuuichi," he repeated mockingly. "My name isn’t Shuuichi." He rolled onto his back again, reaching up to the leaves that obediently came down to embrace him. "My name is Kurama. KURAMA!" he shouted and laughed again. Fifty of his trapped classmates winced at the shrillness in that voice, trying not to attract his attention.


Kurama ignored them, kissing the leaves that embraced him, playing with them, stroking them and reveling in them as they whispered to him of sun and water and growth. He could feel their roots pinch as they fought to push through the foundation of the school. He could feel the students trying to escape his trap as they passed by the plants in the school. Absently, he wrapped up all he could reach. Some escaped, but he’d catch them later.


"There are too many walls in this school," he decided. "I’m tired of walls." He laughed again, rising up to kneel. "I’m going to break down all the walls." Spreading his arms, he tilted his head back and laughed again, concentrating.


"Would you look at that," Kuwabara whispered, eyes wide.


Crouched beside a car down the block from the school Kurama went to, Yusuuke, Kuwabara and Hiei stared at the crowds surrounding the structure. Kids were running out of the building, crying and wailing, falling and trying to get up, while paramedics and police tried to help them. Yusuuke counted at least twenty police cars and fire trucks, ambulances as well. Hundreds of people were gathering around the school, cordoning it off as the kids shrieked and ran from it. The building itself looked quiet though.


"What the hell is Kurama doing?" he whispered to no one in particular.


"Hn. Gone nuts." Hiei fingered his sword hilt. "We take him down."


Kuwabara glared at the little fire demon. "Are you crazy?? He’s your best friend!"


"So?"


Yusuuke hissed through his teeth to silence them both. "Shut up. Let me think. We have to get by all of those humans first. And we’re NOT going to hurt Kurama. We’ll be able to reason with him. There’s got to be an explanation for why he’s doing this. Besides, how much damage could he do?"


The sound of tearing metal screamed across the grass towards them and suddenly the roof of the school exploded, pushed up by the branches of a growth that bullied its way out, wood twisting and writhing as spectators screamed, green bursting forth as it stretched up, thicker and higher, coiled and gnarled and old until a massive tree stood up through the ruins of the school, its overhanging branches large enough to roof the block itself and all the people on the street who struggled to get out of its shadow. A whisper of the scent of forest loam and wildness reached them.


Yuusuke swallowed nervously. "Forget I asked."


Languorously, Kurama stretched out, fingers idly flipping at an orchid that grew out from a vine that wrapped around a tree branch, wishing happily that it were Hiei’s hair instead. Or his face, or his… He grinned.


"No, no, no…" he said, turning his head to look at one of the girls caught in the vines, an orchid blooming at her temple like a bow. "My name is Kurama. I’m a reincarnated Fox Spirit from the Makai. It’s the spirit world. This is the Ningenkai, where humans live. I was wounded by a hunter and the only way for me to heal was to go into the fetus of Minamino Shiori’s unborn child. She was supposed to be a girl, but I changed that. It’s why I look so bishonen and you girls like me so much." He rolled over. "I stole a mirror to save her, so now I’m a spirit detective. Along with three other people. Yuusuke was human until he was hit by a car and killed. Now he has powers stronger than mine." He fingered the orchid. "Kuwabara is human too, but Hiei, ah, Hiei." He sighed. "Hiei is a fire demon." He chuckled lowly. "I’m going to make him my lover."


The girl whimpered, trying to free herself as she had been for the last hour. The other trapped students were trying to do the same, or just hanging in their bonds hopelessly. "You’re sick, Shuuichi-san," she whimpered tearfully.


Kurama looked at her in surprise. "For thinking a fire demon could love a fox spirit?" He smiled. "Maybe. I like to think not, though."


The girl closed her eyes, praying to herself. "This is all a nightmare. Someone put something in the punch. I’m hallucinating this. Shuuichi-san is hallucinating this. He’s not crazy." She sniffled.


Kurama just smiled, patted her cheek and wandered off, laughing.


Yuusuke ducked back down beside his two teammates, grimacing as he ran a hand over his oiled hair. "I snuck around some," he told them. "According to the people who got out, someone put something in the punch. Everyone who drank it is on some kind of acid trip." He sighed. "I guess that includes Kurama."


Kuwabara grimaced. "Great. So how long is he going to be tripping?"


"Depends on how much he drank. And how it affects his system. He’s not exactly human." He looked back at the crowds and spectators. "I called Koenma and told him what was happening. He says he and Botan can make it so that the plants get explained away, but we’ve got to get Kurama to get rid of them first."


"How do we do that?"


"Stupid human," Hiei growled from where he crouched in the shadows, his eyes gleaming at them with perpetual anger. "We drop him."


"We’re not going to hurt Kurama!"


"You won’t. Maybe I will." In a blur, he was gone.


"Shit!" Yuusuke hissed. "Come on, we have to get inside." Looking around for a way into the school that wasn’t being watched by hundreds of cops, reporters and civilians, he started to round the building, Kuwabara right behind him.


Hiei slipped into the school faster than the humans surrounding it could see, racing up through the foliage into the branches of the great tree, searching for Kurama’s ki as he went. He could sense it farther up and gripped his katana in one hand, his eyes narrowing under the warded bandana that concealed and bound his jagan. More wards were strapped around his right arm, holding in the black dragon that rested there in the form of a tattoo.


The simplest way to remove the plants from the school’s ruins, he knew, was to kill the Youkai who created them. Once he was dead, they would wither and die. It was the simplest solution and the one that made the most sense to him. The others called Kurama his best friend, but Hiei knew himself that he only stuck close to him to watch him. There was something about the stupid fox that made him feel weird, and he didn’t like it. It weakened him, but it was so insidious that he wasn’t ready to confront him about it yet. Instead he watched, and waited, and found himself more and more following Kurama around like a puppy dog, watching his every move….


The warrior in him said it had to stop, before he was weakened irreversibly by whatever it was the fox was doing. So he raced up the tree, far ahead of his teammates, ignoring the trapped students twitching in their own reactions to the drugs or trying to escape. He’d needed an excuse to kill Kurama, for he always found himself finding reasons not to, and there was likely not going to be a better one than this.


He hopped lightly onto a branch wider around than he was tall and sprinted to the bole where he sensed the fox. Slowing before he reached him, he crouched down, peering through the leaves, trusting that Kurama would be so affected by the garbage he drank that he wouldn’t sense his ki.


The red headed fox was standing in the centre of the clearing made by the leaves, his arms stretched over his head as he half spun, half danced, slowly swaying in time to the wind. His long hair shimmered down his back, his shirt and tie gone, his pants half undone. He was humming, almost singing to himself, his bare feet gripping the smooth bark easily.


Hiei realized he was staring.


"Stupid fox," he muttered to himself, pushing out towards the unsuspecting Youkai, his katana raised and ready to end this. Kurama wasn’t even looking at him, it would be easy.


Then the fox turned around and smiled at him.


"Hiei," Kurama purred. "You’re here." Smiling, he advanced towards the little koorime, ignoring the sword he had raised in an attack position. He walked right up to him, giggling as the fire demon eyed him warily, and dropped to his knees before him.


What was the stupid fox doing? Hiei wondered. This was no attack posture he was familiar with. He hesitated, suddenly aware that Kurama had some kind of scent lingering around him, deep, musky and tantalizing, then the taller demon dropped to his knees before him. Hiei had one instant to think that he was surrendering to the blade when he felt rose-scented lips pressed firmly against his own.


"Damn Hiei," Yuusuke growled, racing down what used to be the main hallway of Kurama’s school, but now was closer in appearance to a jungle. Vines, bushes and flowers grew everywhere, forcing him to fight his way through them, Kuwabara cursing behind him. They passed a few trapped students, but Yuusuke left them where they were. There was no time to free them if he was going to stop Hiei.


"Why is he doing this?" Kuwabara panted behind him as they reached the trunk of the massive tree and started to climb. "Kurama is Hiei’s best friend!"


Yuusuke shook his head and kept scrambling up the trunk. Nothing Hiei did made sense.


"Hiei," Kurama moaned. "I’ve been dreaming of you… Hiei…" Eyes closed, Kurama held the little fire demon close with one arm while he kissed him feverishly, his other hand pawing at his clothes. Not looking up, he missed the expression of completely stunned amazement on the other’s face, but he didn’t feel him pull away either and pushed closer, body burning with an irresistible need.


Through his shock, Hiei began to understand what it was that he felt when he was near Kurama, and what he was supposed to do about it.


Yuusuke and Kuwabara had just reached the branch they could sense Hiei had used when they heard the screaming.


"HIEI! Oh, GOD, Hiei!"


"Shit!" Yuusuke gasped. "He’s killing him!"


Kuwabara flanked him as they ran to save their friend, an energy sword appearing in his hand as his face set in an expression of grim determination. Both of them had seen Hiei fight. Stopping him might not be possible even for the two of them.


Ahead of them, the leaves of the tree formed a private clearing and they both ran into it, ready to do battle and instead getting a glimpse of pale flesh intertwined. Yuusuke skidded to a halt, face red.


Kuwabara stopped beside him. "Uh, I don’t think they’re fighting, Yuusuke."


Hiei looked up from the redhead he was mounted on, thrusting evenly while Kurama gasped and moaned. "Get out," he growled.


Both boys fled.


"I didn’t just see what I just thought I saw, did I?" Yuusuke gasped, his eyes wide and his face so red it was burning.


"Uh, I don’t think I want to talk about it."


Yuusuke nodded quickly and they both hurried to the far end of the branch, trying to ignore the very undemon-like giggling coming from the bower, or the occasional sharp cries that didn’t all sound bishonen. "Well," Yuusuke commented at last. "At least we know he won’t kill him."


Kurama shuddered, back arching with a gasp while his fingernails dug into Hiei’s back almost deep enough to draw blood. Hiei ignored that, as well as the fox’s dampness erupting between their bodies. Instead he bore down and gave a roar as he buried himself and emptied, the tension flowing out of him to dissipate into Kurama’s warmth. He collapsed against him for a moment, gasping for breath as the fox sagged against the branch, exhausted. Knots he’d had in his back so long he’d forgotten they weren’t natural eased, new strength flowing into his body.


Hiei looked down at the face of the bishonen Youkai, his face briefly tender. He’d never imagined… He didn’t know if what he’d just done was a weakness, but for now at least, he didn’t regret it. Kurama had felt like nothing he’d ever imagined, even better than the joy of a perfect kill.


"Are you two DONE yet??" Yuusuke yelled petulantly from beyond the leaves.


Hiei felt his features meld back to near stone again. "Yes," he called, disengaging and yanking a cloth out of one of the pockets in his discarded pants to clean himself and the somnelescent fox.


"You’re really twisted!" Kuwabara yelled. "I mean it, Hiei!"


Deciding he felt too good to kill the stupid human, Hiei ignored him, instead pulling on his clothes again, hunting without success for his shirt and one shoe. They were probably down on some lower branch, the way Kurama had yanked them off him and thrown them away. All he could find that belonged to the fox was his pants, and he got the sleeping Youkai into them just before Yuusuke came into the clearing, his face red.


"I’m not even going to ask why," he told him. "Can you get Kurama to pull back his plants?"


Hiei looked down at the fox. His fox. "Wake up," he ordered and slapped him.


Kurama’s eyes opened, still fuzzy. He looked around, then smiled blissfully up at Hiei. "Hiiii…." Yuusuke rolled his eyes. Kuwabara could be heard yelling that he wasn’t coming any closer until he was sure everyone had their clothes on.


Hiei looked at him intently. "Kurama, get rid of the plants."


"But they’re so pretty…"


He shook him. "Do it."


"Okay," Kurama pouted and closed his eyes.


The tree began to shrink, folding in on itself and releasing its prisoners, leaving the school ruined but bare. Students stood trembling or lay on the ground, as passed out as Kurama as Hiei gently laid him down. The sound of people hurrying into the ruins now that it was possible echoed towards them.


"Leave him," Yuusuke ordered and raised his hands at the look the little fire demon shot him. "He’ll be fine. He’s too stoned for anyone to believe he made it home on his own." Kneeling down, he pulled a ward out of his pocket and tied it around Kurama’s neck like a scarf. "This will keep him from using his powers again."


The team hurried out of there, leaving Kurama lying on his back, his face turned towards them, his eyes closed. Strands of sweat-soaked hair clung to his lips, throat and cheeks and his chest rose slowly.


Hiei paused at the corner, peered back around it at him as firemen and police came down the hall, pausing at each stunned student. One fireman knelt over Kurama, checking his pulse and breathing, then carefully scooped him up in his arms and stood. The fox looking tiny in his embrace, he turned and carried him away. Hiei watched until he was gone, then followed the others.


"Hey! There you are!"


Kurama looked up wearily at Kuwabara’s shout to see himself on the television, being carried out of the ruins of the school by a fireman. The camera focused in on his face, then pulled back as a high-pitched wail sounded and fifty or more girls tried to hurl themselves at him, sobbing and screaming his name. Police had to hold them back as the fireman laid the redhead on a stretcher and they took him away immediately before he could be mobbed. The announcer sounded amused as he informed his audience that the boy had regained consciousness several hours later and been sent home with his mother, along with most of the other victims of the spiked punch.


The announcer then went on to say that no one at all seemed to be suffering any ill effects from the airborne hallucinogen and that the boys who spiked the punch were in police custody, though they denied doing anything more than that.


Kurama blinked. "Airborne hallucinogen?"


Sitting on a chair beside his bed while Kuwabara lounged on the floor, Yuusuke grinned. "Well, after your little stunt with the fourty story tree, Botan and Koenma had to think of something fast. They spread a hallucinogenic dust over the crowd, and screwed up the cameras recording everything so none of the plants showed on tape and everyone thinks they dreamed it all."


Kurama stared at him. "What plants?"


The other two boys shot looks at each other. "Don’t you remember what happened?"


Kurama shook his head and wondered why Kuwabara immediately started snickering.


Yuusuke, to his surprise, blushed. "Uh, I think I’ll leave the explanations to Hiei." He stood. "Come on, Kuwabara, let’s get the hell out of here. Kurama needs his rest." He practically shoved the other boy out of the room.


"Wait!" he yelled, but they didn’t stop and he could hear them giggling all the way down the stairs.


Left alone, Kurama glared at the television, wondering what he’d done. A breath sounded at the window and he looked over to see Hiei standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets. "Hiei!" he called eagerly, glad to see the best friend he’d always wished would be more. He knew Hiei wouldn’t laugh at him. "Thank goodness! I don’t remember a thing that happened yesterday and Yuusuke and Kuwabara won’t tell me. What did I do?"


The little fire demon he’d never told he loved stared at him, no expression on his face. "Nothing," he told him as he turned back to the window to vanish again. "Nothing at all."


THE END




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[On to the next story: Fox Hunt]