FicWad

After seven years of living as Akito's prisoner, Yuki was sure he'd seen every shocking, horrifying thing the world could throw at him, and he'd pretty much lost the ability to be surprised along with the right to his own body. Or so he believed.

So he was unprepared for his reaction when the intruder finally appeared. He'd been waiting on a branch near the edge of the forest, positioned directly above the path the intruder would take. The plan was simple. He'd drop down on the man and poke the twig into a pressure point at the base of the neck, one that would take away all feeling in the man's body. Another pressure point would bring unconsciousness. The pressure points granted a peaceful death if done properly, and over the years Yuki had become extremely skilled at the leap-poke-leap away tactic. Of course, he didn't always get a chance to do it on a full-grown, wildly panicking human. This intruder was lucky he got there before the monsters did.

The barriers seemed to be fighting particularly hard against this intruder, though. Normally, the barriers of Akito's realm resembled a great dark void, as if the edge of the realm tumbled right into space. The barriers did distort space; Yuki had attempted to cross them before, and he always ended up drifting in frozen darkness until the void spat him back into the forest. Attempting to cross the barriers from his end was an exercise in frustration. Attempting to cross the barriers from the outside, however, was often fatal, especially when the electrical storms came into play, as they were doing now. The black wall of emptiness crackled and swelled with every blinding arc of green lightning, and the ominous rumbling in the ground echoed every roll of thunder here in this realm. He didn't think he'd ever seen the barriers so agitated.

He felt it before he saw it. A surge of power coming through the barriers, almost as if an invisible sword was slicing through them. The air became electric, and his fur stood on end. He didn't know what shocked him more: the fact that someone was coming who had power great enough to fend off the barriers' attacks, or the fact that the power felt strangely familiar to him...

Blue and white rays cut through the void like sunlight through mist. He readied himself to pounce, twig clamped firmly between his teeth. A gap in the barriers opened up--

--and a girl burst through it, her body lit up by a corona of blue and white light. Yuki nearly fell off his branch. Her dark hair flew wildly around her as she ran through the trees, her breaths coming out in jagged gasps. From the shadows, Yuki could see several monsters already on her tail, following her as hyenas would a dying gazelle. With a jolt he realized that she'd run past him while he gaped at her, and he spun around and set off in pursuit.

She was easy enough to track; she glowed like a beacon against the forest's perpetual gloom, but her path veered erratically, as if she was running half-blind. Terror lent her wings; Yuki was hard pressed to keep up with her. He lost sight of her for a moment, although he could still hear her, or more to the point, hear the monsters growling around her. When he found her again, she was sprawled on the ground where she'd tripped on a root. Her face was a white oval of fear, her mouth open in a silent scream, but her wide blue eyes were completely blank, as though her mind had already detached itself as a defense against the coming ordeal. Yuki heard the guttural snarl before he saw the claw-bear stalking toward her on its hind legs, its fanged maw gaping wider than any bear's jaws had a right to, its massive front paws raised for the first and final swipe.

In a flash, Yuki swerved toward the claw-bear, but the girl was faster. Her arm flew up as if to ward off the claw-bear's attack, and a stream of blue-white fire exploded from her hand, hitting the bear dead-center and turning it into a smoldering heap of ash before continuing on into the forest, downing a few more monsters and incinerating trees in a wide swath. Yuki himself barely escaped. He dangled from the branch inches from the blast, and the tip of his tail stung where it hung too close to the heat. At her choked cry, he tore his stunned gaze from the path of destruction--it was the first time he'd actually seen daylight in the forest--and turned toward the girl. She was lying on her side, her body twitching weakly. The monsters drew back, not wanting to mess with an intruder who could turn a claw-bear into a pile of dust, but the girl had paid too high a price for that respect.

He dropped down, wincing as his burned tail hit the ground, and ran toward her. The blue-white flames of her aura curled around him, but instead of scorching him, the flames felt warm, comforting and maddeningly familiar. Up close, he could see how painfully thin she was. Her filthy, ragged dress hung loosely on her and her skin had an unhealthy gray pallor. She was obviously sick, even without the torture her power was subjecting her to. Her breaths came in shallow gasps, and blood trickled from a corner of her mouth. Her eyes were half-open and unfocused, and Yuki gazed into them, wondering what she was seeing.

"Miss?" He waved a paw in front of her eyes. "Can you hear me? Miss?"

Her breath rasped thinly, and that was all. Yuki scanned her worriedly. The girl was close to death, but something was keeping her from slipping away. The flames licked at him again, warm and inviting, pouring from her chest. He padded over and after the briefest moment of hesitation, pressed a paw between her breasts. Power shot through him, bright and sharp. Power he'd felt long, long ago. Power he instinctively knew he could command.

Although how, he had no idea.

"Keep her alive," he said to the power, feeling a bit foolish as he did so. "Don't let her die."

The aura throbbed brighter in response, and the girl's body twitched again. Now this was a problem. The blue fire that was protecting her was also killing her, so that the girl was being pulled between life and death by the same force. It was the forest, he realized. The power recognized the forest as a threat and was hell-bent on protecting her from it, but at the cost of her life. He needed to get her to some place safe; only then would the power release her. In any case, they needed to get away before the monsters recovered from their distress and came back.

And he knew just the place.

He moved back to the girl's face. "Miss, wake up. Please, you must wake up. We have to get out of here. Come on, look at me. Wake up!" he finally shouted, thumping her on the cheek.

To his relief, her eyes flickered and a weak moan slipped past her lips. He stood in front of her, waiting for her to focus on him. "Don't be afraid," he said, a little apprehensive about how she'd react to the sight of a talking mouse. "I'm not one of the monsters. I'm here to help."

She blinked slowly, then to his surprise, she smiled. "I know," she whispered faintly. "I can tell from your eyes." Her own eyes drifted shut, and for the fourth time in the space of an hour, Yuki was stunned to near immobility.

He shook himself. She'd slipped into unconsciousness while he was standing there gawking like an idiot, and with a muttered curse, he moved to her chest and pressed both paws over the blue light. A vague memory of a regal-looking man wielding a sword in one hand and a staff in the other drifted in his mind, and a voice out of his hazy past spoke to him. The Sun Stone responds to two things: blood and authority. Make sure you have both when you attempt to wield it.

He took a deep breath and called to the power. Reign in/, he thought, trying to inject as much authority as he could in that command. /Keep her alive. Give her strength, not fury. Reign in.

The power obeyed, and the aura subsided, draining out of her body and shrinking back to her chest until it vanished completely. The girl lay unmoving, however, and for a moment Yuki was afraid he'd killed her. He patted her cold cheek, calling to her with growing desperation. "Wake up, Miss, wake up, gods, don't give up now, /wake up/!"

Her eyes flew wide open and she gasped. He moved back as she pushed herself up on her elbow, and he was relieved to see that her eyes had lost their unfocused haze. "Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"We need to get you out of here," he continued. "I know a safe place. Can you walk?"

"I'll try," she croaked, and promptly put her words to action by standing up shakily. He watched her struggle against her own weakness, and admiration flashed through him. The girl had guts, he'd give her that.

"Follow me." He scampered forward, glancing back constantly to check on the girl. She followed him, although he could see that the burst of strength that revived her was swiftly draining away. When she staggered and slowed, he turned and spoke encouragingly to her, urging her onward. Thankfully the monsters kept their distance; he didn't want to think about what would happen if they did decide to attack.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally came to the clearing, and Yuki breathed in its clean, invigorating scent, so different from the rest of the forest. He headed toward the cave formed by the half-buried roof of the pagoda, but the girl had caught sight of the lake, and was stumbling toward it with pathetic eagerness. She dropped on her knees and crouched low, drinking her fill like a starving thing. Which she probably was, he realized.

He darted toward her and tugged at her hair to get her attention. "Enough, Miss," he said softly. "You'll make yourself sick if you drink too much." She stared at him, then at the tempting vision of the lake, and nodded.

He led her back to the cave, where she collapsed against the wall and slid down until she lay curled up on her side. He crept closer, and was glad to see the slightly deeper rise and fall of her chest. She turned sea-blue eyes clouded with exhaustion to him. "Thank you."

He shook his head. "No need. You did most of the work."

She glanced around. "I'm in the cursed forest, aren't I?"

"Yes. Don't be afraid," he said again. "You're safe here."

Her eyes were fluttering closed. "I'm not afraid. You're here...Yuki." The last word was spoken on a sigh, and the next minute she was asleep.

Yuki stared at her sleeping face, completely taken aback. How did she--? Another memory drifted into his mind. He'd seen her before, somewhere, but the memory faded away before he could pin it down. The girl knew his name. How in seven hells was that possible?

Thunder rolled again, taking his mind off his confusion. He turned and eyed the storm clouds. It was going to rain soon. He had to work fast. Using one of the broad, spiny leaves that littered the forest floor as a makeshift cart, he plucked some /amakaji/, piled them on the leaf, and dragged the whole thing back to the cave. He glanced at the girl when he came back with another leaf full of berries, and froze. She was lying exactly as he left her, but her body trembled with every hitching breath as tears seeped from her still-closed eyes and rolled down her thin cheek into her hair. He abandoned the berries and approached her cautiously. As if sensing his presence, she opened her eyes, and he found himself gazing into dark blue pools of pain.

"They're gone," she whispered. "All of them. Tsuyoshi-san--Tsuyoshi-san was the last. He died protecting me. They all did."

He said nothing, letting her empty her grief onto the earth. Her pain touched echoes in his own broken soul. Her anguish became his own, her loss his loss, and the tears she wept were the same ones he had locked in his heart. She continued to cry silently, her eyes holding his in mute desperation, and he knew that if she shattered at that moment, he would shatter with her.

"If only I'd been stronger." The words fell from her lips and mingled with her tears. "They wouldn't have had to protect me. They wouldn't have had to die. But I was too weak."

That blatant untruth pulled him from his trance, and Yuki found his voice again. "I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but I do know this: Nobody weak could have endured what you just did." She stared at him as if he'd spoken gibberish, and he leaned forward, willing her to believe him. "You're /alive/. By all rights you shouldn't be, but you are. If your life is something people gave up their own lives to protect, then you owe it to them to respect their sacrifice by believing in yourself, the way they believed in you."

Her eyes widened briefly before drifting shut again. Yuki sat back, wondering where he'd wrung that speech from, but wherever it was, he was a little surprised to find that he meant it. This girl was special. He'd never met anyone with her courage and spirit before, not even in the years before the destruction.

Anyone who could contain the Sun Stone without going stark raving mad had to be unique.

The thought made him positively lightheaded. The Sun Stone. There was no mistaking the power that surged through him when he touched her. Jewel of the King's Staff, through which the kings of Kaibara--his ancestors--wielded their magic. In the hands of a master, the Sun Stone became a weapon of awesome power, capable of leveling a city in a single blast, and that display in the forest was only a small demonstration of its abilities. His father used to create such fantastic pyrotechnics with the magic of the staff, and he'd heard tales of the staff's more destructive potential being brought to bear back in the time of the Great Wars. The Sun Stone was an artifact able to channel and increase one's own magic a hundred, even a thousandfold. And now the Sun Stone was here, right in front of him, and all he had to do was reach out and take it--

And then what? an insidious voice whispered in his mind. You don't know how to use it. Your talent for sorcery is worse than nil. You hope to battle Akito with it? You know as much as this girl about controlling the Stone. It would be useless in your hands.

Blood and authority, he tried to argue against the voice. The Stone belongs to the king of Kaibara. It's mine by right.

But there is no king, my dear Yuki, the voice intoned silkily. No kingdom, no king. And authority? You have none even over your own body.

He withered at the words, but the voice had one last thing to say. If you take the Stone from her now, the girl will die. The Stone is keeping her alive. Take it, and her blood will be on your hands.

His freedom or the girl's life.

Yuki sagged in defeat. No. He wouldn't do it, not for the dubious chance of getting his hands on a magical object he didn't know how to control in order to fight a sorcerer whose power more than matched the Stone. He'd only end up doing far more damage, and Akito would be gifted with one more weapon to add to his arsenal. No, he wouldn't waste the girl's life for that.

The disappointment at yet another thwarted escape weighed him down more than ever before. With a sigh, he turned to attend to the berries, but the girl chose that moment to open her eyes again. Their gazes met, and Yuki was relieved to see that the dull sheen of despair had faded from the sea-blue depths.

"You're right," she said softly. "I--I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry."

His own eyes softened. "Don't be. Don't ever be sorry about what you feel. Can you sit up, Miss? I've brought some food."

With an effort she pushed herself up to a sitting position as he tugged the leaves full of berries closer to her. The berries disappeared faster than he'd ever seen them, although she did make a visible effort to slow herself down. He watched her with a pang of pity, wondering what suffering she had gone through before she came to this place. "I'm sorry it's only berries," he apologized when she'd polished off the last one. "I'll find you something more substantial to eat as soon as I get a fire going."

She shook her head. "No, no, it's all right. The berries were wonderful. I don't think I've ever eaten anything as delicious before. What are they?"

His whiskers twitched in amusement. "Sweetberries. Although I'm not so sure I should trust your judgment about food at the moment."

"They're wonderful, wonderful! I love sweetberries. They're my favorite food in the whole world."

"After having sampled them only once?"

"Oh yes! Sweetberries are--are almost magical, you see. That's right, magical," she babbled.

There was something odd about her voice. Yuki peered at her closely. Her skin was still a sickly white, but two spots of color had appeared on her cheeks and her eyes were wide and bright. Too bright. With a muttered apology, he jumped lightly on her lap then onto her shoulder. She giggled as his whiskers tickled her neck, but mirth was the farthest thing on his mind right now. The heat radiating from her nearly overwhelmed him. "You're burning up with fever."

She looked at him through glazed eyes and smiled brightly. "I--I am feeling a bit dizzy." Like a felled tree, she toppled sideward until she lay on the ground, breathing unevenly through her mouth. Yuki gazed at her anxiously, bitterly aware of his own helplessness. He needed to get the fever down, but what in the world could a mouse do?

"Being able to cure fevers is better than just being nice to look at, don't you think?"

Once again, he was rescued by a hated memory of his past. He turned and scampered away to gather the little white and yellow flowers, but her voice stopped him. "Don't go," she begged. "Please stay. Don't leave me. Please, Yuki."

The sound of his name on her lips sent an unexpected stab of pain through him, but the girl didn't seem to notice. She reached out to him, and he wrapped both paws around her finger. "I won't leave you," he said quietly. "I just have to go away for a while, but I'll come back. I promise."

He met her imploring gaze steadily, until at last she nodded. He scurried out of the clearing and up a tree, picking some leaves off, then he snapped off several flowers and carried the lot back to the cave. He'd just picked up the last twig for the fire when thunder hammered against the metal-gray sky and fat, icy raindrops began to pound into the ground. He added the twig to the small pile he'd already made, but was brought up short by a problem he should have foreseen: How did a mouse go about making fire?

He stood over the slightly damp pile of wood, stumped and thoroughly annoyed with himself, and failed to notice the girl move until she spoke. "Excuse me."

He turned. The girl had raised herself on one elbow. She flicked her hand, and the twigs suddenly burst into blue-tinged flame. He gaped at the fire, then at the girl, who was biting her lip guiltily. "I'm sorry. I just had this thought--something told me I should do it--I'm sorry."

"No." He cleared his throat. "No, it's all right. It's good, actually. You're learning to control it."

She sank wearily to the ground. "It's not that. Something really did tell me I should make a fire. I--I think it was the Stone."

Now that was unexpected. A tiny spark of hope flared, despite his best efforts to quell it. The Sun Stone was responding to him. Maybe there was still a chance, a faint, traitorous voice whispered. Maybe if she gave the Stone to him instead of him taking it from her...

In that case, he had better keep her alive then.

"Miss?"

She groggily opened her eyes.

"Here. It's for the fever." She blinked at the flowers he was offering up to her. "Earth-stars. Although, I think they're meant to be boiled first, but, well--" His gaze slid away, hiding his shame at his own uselessness. "I have some more berries here, though. Chew some together so the flowers will be easier to swallow."

After a pause, she obeyed, downing the flowers along with the berries, although the earth-stars apparently didn't taste nearly as wonderful as her "favorite food in the whole world," judging from her grimace. She lay back down, and he pressed one of the leaves on her brow to cool her off. He stayed with her as the fever began to peak, changing the leaf and squeezing berries until the purple juice fell upon her parched lips, patting her hand when she began to thrash about, listening to her mutter and weep as delirium set in. She called out names in her fevered sleep--Shigure, Hatsuharu, Momiji, Uo-chan, and later Touma and Tsuyoshi. Sometimes she would speak to them, asking them what they'd like for dinner, laughing at jokes they'd told her before. Sometimes she would cry, screaming their names as tears rolled down her face. He could only watch her with aching compassion as the fever forced her to relive her nightmares, and several times he caught himself calling upon those people she had obviously loved and lost, asking them to help her get through this. The fact that he could do little else cut him to the quick.

He stayed with her through hour after agonizing hour. The rains continued to pour, the enchanted blue fire continued to light up the small cave, and her body continued to burn. He stayed with her for as long as he dared, but with each passing minute he grew more and more desperate. Her fever showed no sign of letting up, and he was running out of time. The day would soon be over, and twilight was setting in. He could already feel the choking nausea and the electric tingles that signaled his impending transformation.

His head bowed when he realized he had no choice. He had to go. If he stayed, he would be a greater danger to her than the barriers, the forest and all its monsters combined. He had to leave.

"Wake up, Miss," he pleaded softly. "Listen to me. I can't stay. I have to go. I'm sorry."

He didn't really expect her to hear him, but somehow his voice managed to reach her through the fever. Her eyes flew open and found his. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'll be back tomorrow, I swear it. Stay in the clearing at all times. You're safe as long as you're in the clearing. Wait for me, all right?" he added, sounding more cheerful than he felt.

Her lips moved, and for a moment he wondered if she was going to beg him to stay again. Instead, she smiled at him, a sweet, trusting smile that pierced his soul. "I'll wait," she whispered. "I understand now. I'm not afraid anymore, Yuki. You're here." Her eyes closed, and the fever claimed her again.

/Delirium/, he thought. It had to be. Her words made no sense. The nausea surged up again, and he swallowed against it. He had lingered too long already.

He drew near her and pressed his paws between her breasts, where the Sun Stone lay. "Keep her alive," he commanded it. "Don't let her slip away, no matter what. /Keep her alive/."

Then he turned and ran.

The rain beat down upon him in punishing blows, but he didn't feel it. He ran down the lakeshore faster than he had ever run before, trying to get as far away from the clearing as he could. The storm had turned the day into night long before the sun had set, but he didn't need to see the sun sinking into the earth to feel the effect of the curse. White and purple mist surrounded him as his body began to glow, and he stumbled and fell as the tremors overcame him. He lifted violet eyes to the shadowy figure of the tower, while within the whirlwind of white mist, his mouse body turned into molten silver, shifting outward and upward until its shape grew taller, longer, taking on human form. He uttered one last desperate prayer--

--keep her safe--

--and then Yuki was lost.