Rin growled at the approaching Yuri, any attempts to look for Suzume and Makato were forgotten. The yuri launched itself at Rin, latching onto her shoulder blade. The spirit buried long black nails into the flesh of the kitsune and Rin cried out in pain, thrashing backward and forward trying to dislodge the leech upon her.
Kaito cast his gaze about, looking for some sort of weapon. Noaki and Tsuki both had swords but they were too far away to be of any help. A pile of firewood was nearby. Kaito grabbed a thick log off the stack to use as a bludgeon. It wasn't the most elegant weapon but it would be suitable. He rushed toward the yuri and Rin swinging his make-shift weapon. The yuri had drained Rin of her spiritual energy, and the kitsune was limp in her arms. Her eyes met Kaito's and she let out a small whimper that sounded like a warning.
It did not deter him. The dragon swung his weapon at the yuri, who dropped Rin to the ground without ceremony. His stick slammed into the yuri's shoulder, which had completely solidified with the absorption of Rin's energy. But the spirit did not react at all and simply smiled, revealing pointed canines like a kitsune. She grabbed onto the other end of the wood and yanked it from his hand and tossed it behind her. A trio of ghostly fox tails flickered behind her and a pair of translucent ears were on her head.
Kaito, deprived of a weapon, swung with a fist at her face, but vines rose up from the ground and wrapped themselves around his ankles, trapping him in place. She threw her head back and laughed as he struggled. Her face was something like a cross between Tsuki and Akira, and on her hip was a blade made of golden light. She had absorbed all of their power along with their energy.
"Come to me, lover," she crooned. The vines lifted him up and brought him closer to her.
Kaito pulled his head back away from her as she opened her arms to him in an embrace. There was no fighting the vines as they constricted him, pinning his arms to his sides. As he got closer to her she wrapped her arms around him, her hands sliding into his flesh with no resistance. There was no way of saying where one of them started and the other stopped.
"Do you not recognize me, dragon?" she whispered in his mind, her voice had the edge of an ancient, something powerful.
He searched her face but could only see an ever-shifting visage of his companions: at first Noaki, now Makato, then Rin and finally Akira and Tsuki. Suzume's face was conspicuously absent from the myriad of faces.
"Should I know you?" he growled.
"We were lovers once, before you chose that human woman and forsake your own kind."
Kaito frowned and stared harder at the creature in front of him. He could not remember ever having relations with a yuri, but he was starting to suspect this was not some angry spirit after all.
"That horrible woman. She sealed your power and has kept you like a pet." She shook her head. "I will free you, and then you can never leave me." Her hands sank deeper into his flesh and pain rippled through his body.
"No thanks," he said through gritted teeth. "I've decided to be single for a while."
She only smiled. "You cannot fight me, you belong to me." She dipped in low to give him a kiss. Kaito pulled his head away before she could give him a deadly kiss.
"I'll pass."
Her eyes flashed red and he saw a glimpse of a familiar face. "You would choose that human over me? I am the guardian of this forest. You belong with an equal not an insect."
And then he felt it, the echo of the past. A forest guardian who had pursued him relentlessly, making threats against Kazue before she disappeared one day. He had thought nothing of it at the time, but now it was clear what had happened. Kazue had taken care of the problem herself. How had he not seen the signs before? Kazue's desire for power had predated even his sealing.
The one-time forest guardian lifted him up off the ground, holding him in a mockery of an embrace. "I will break this seal and then drink of your lifeblood. It will be days, but you will come to love me for it, and worship me." She removed one hand from his back, and ran it over his chest, caressing and probing until she found the wound on his chest. Her nails plunged into his injury and he cried out from the pain.
She brought her bloody fingers to her lips and licked them clean with a black tongue. She smirked at him. "I will force you to watch as I torture that woman who stole my body from me and sealed my soul, then you will know who it is you are destined for." She sighed wistfully.
The yuri leaned in to press her lips against the dragon's, but before she could something slammed into the back of him. The yuri dropped Kaito and he crumbled to the ground like a rag doll.
The angry spirit turned toward her attacker. Kaito followed her gaze, and was shocked to see Suzume standing in between two trees. Each of her hands burned with balls of flame. But there was something different about her, a new sense of confidence he had never seen before, a certain aura glowed around her. As if she was lined with red light. The fog parted around Suzume's feet as she strode toward them.
The yuri's lips pulled back into a snarl and she glided toward Suzume with hands raised, as if she was going to rip her apart with her bare hands. The yuri opened her mouth filled with sharp teeth and lunged for Suzume who tossed the balls of fire at the creature. The fire collided with her chest and stomach, burning holes through the newly formed flesh and exposing the fog behind her. The yuri paused only for a moment to look at her wounds.
She threw her head back to laugh. "You cannot stop me. I am too powerful now."
Though it was Suzume, it was as if a different person stood before them. An aura emanated from her in a way he had seen back on the mountain when Kazue had used Suzume's body to stop Hisato.
The yuri moved too fast for a human eye to follow. She lunged for Suzume but before she could grab a hold, Suzume leaped out of the way, leaving the yuri to collide with the ground.
It rose up with a hiss and then turned back toward Suzume who had two new balls of fire in each hand. Something Suzume had never been able to do before. The wounds to the yuri's flesh had healed as if she'd never been blown apart by fire. The creature latched onto Suzume's shoulders, clawed hands digging into her flesh, and Suzume, likewise, grabbed onto the yuri's shoulders. The flames caught along the yuri's sleeve and fire spread across her flesh like kindling. At first the yuri only smiled in triumph, but then she threw back her head in a blood-curdling scream, before falling onto the ground convulsing as flames consumed her.
Suzume stood over her burning and writhing corpse. Her expression nothing like Suzume's but not Kazue either. This was the face of a killer. The light from the fire danced in her eyes and Kaito could see the hunger there as well — a consuming desire for power. A song rose from her lips, one that left the hairs along Kaito's neck rising on end. It was a song of binding, one that Suzume had no way of knowing. The same song Kazue had used to seal him in the stone for five hundred years. As the flames died away on the burning creature, all that remained was a single stone. Suzume scooped down to pick it up.
She turned to Kaito, holding the stone in her hand. The flames had died down but the unfamiliar aura around her remained. Their eyes met and Suzume's grew wide.
Her mouth started to form his name, he could see it. Kazue was trying to reach out to him from somewhere deep inside Suzume. He reached out for her, despite how much he wanted to hate her and wanted to put the love they shared behind him. When he saw even the smallest hint of her his resolve crumbled. He crossed the space between them and grabbed her by the shoulders. Already the light was fading from Suzume's eyes, the ghost of Kazue leaving her gaze. He thought about crying out to her, but that might be too revealing. It was too late anyway. Kazue was gone, back to the ether from which she emerged.
Suzume blinked and then stared up at him. Their eyes met and for a moment, he thought she might have been conscious that entire time, perhaps not in control but at least aware. She paused. Her expression shifted from confidence to sudden confusion. She shoved him backward.
"Why are you holding me?" She looked around, in
wide-eyed panic. "What am I doing here? Where's that thing?"
The fog was rolling away as if it had never been. Suzume held up her hand as if realizing something was in it for the first time. The stone looked like nothing out of the ordinary, just a rock.
Kaito tried to close the distance, desperate for one more glimpse of Kazue. He grabbed her by the shoulders again. Suzume looked up at him, at once both wary and angry.
"You don't remember?" he asked — there was an unflattering note of desperation in his voice. But he didn't care, he knew what he saw, Kazue was inside her, not gone but living inside her body.
26
"What happened?" Suzume gazed at the smoldering fire that scorched the ground where the balls of fire she had shot had gone astray.
"Kazue took a hold of your body and sealed the yuri." He gestured toward the stone she was holding in her hand. Suzume uncurled her fingers and stared at the rock for a moment before dropping it to the ground as if it burned her.
He should have known once he spoke Kazue's name it would put distance between them. She took a few steps back, and hurt painted her face before it was hidden behind a mask of anger. Flames danced along her body. The heat radiating off her forced him to step back. As he recoiled from her, fearing the damage her flames could do to his already weakened body, her expression hardened further.
The pair of them stared at one another for a moment and distrust warred with desperation within him.
"I'm not Kazue!" Her voice shook through the forest around him. It rippled with power. Power that did not belong to her, but to Kazue.
A new tension settled between them. They'd never completely trusted one another, but they'd had a mutual understanding and a common goal forged by Kazue's influence on both of their lives. Suzume had always been a wild card, lacking control of both her power and her emotion. Now the two were so heavily entwined they reacted together. Before he had been stronger than her and it didn't matter, anything she could throw at him, intentionally or otherwise, he could handle. For the first time, he felt weak. And that made him angry.
"How do you explain the stone? The burns on the ground? You don't have that kind of power yourself. She possessed you!" he snarled. Under normal circumstances he would have felt the rise of his spiritual energy with his temper, but it remained just as dormant as before.
"Why can't you just believe it's my power?" she snapped back.
Her eyes flashed red and for a moment he saw a hint of that same power he had glimpsed when she was sealing the yuri, he felt it roll over his skin. Raw, untamed power. If she attacked now, she would destroy him. He was already losing his grip on their group, and the cracks in his authority were showing. Even Rin suspected his fragility. If he didn't assert his dominance now, he'd lose all control entirely.
"Because you're just a temperamental brat. If you were taking your training seriously you'd have gotten control of this by now." He growled.
"I can control it!" As she said it sparks shot off her hair, nearly catching onto nearby branches.
"That's enough," Akira said, gliding in between them. It seemed she had regained consciousness after the yuri drained her and her brother.
"Don't interfere." Kaito growled at her too.
"You prodding at her is only making things worse," Akira said. Her voice calm and even, which was even more infuriating. Could none of them see what a liability Suzume was?
Kaito glared at her, not wanting to hear reason. "She's a menace. She woke that thing that almost killed us. What are you teaching her? How to become a human torch? Her powers are out of control."
"It's not my fault. It's her heart," Suzume blurted.
They swiveled to look at her. Suzume's face was red and her hands were balled into fists at her side.
"What do you mean it's the heart? Kazue's heart? It shattered into pieces," Kaito said, taking a step toward her unconsciously.
Suzume glared at him. "Are you hoping to bring her back to life?"
"What about the heart?" he ground out, not rising to her bait.
Suzume turned her head away from him to watch Noaki as he approached with Makato leaning heavily on his shoulder. Rin had woken as well and was rushing over to help Makato. Suzume ignored him to pretend to watch Rin fuss over the priest who declined her assistance with a small smile.
The other three joined them and the group settled into a half circle facing Suzume. There was some unspoken understanding that she was dangerous. Perhaps it was the sparks that continued to fly off her at random intervals. Suzume stared back at them defiantly, arms crossed over her chest.
"Do you have to stare? It's rather unnerving."
"Enough stalling," Kaito snapped, short on patience.
Suzume sighed heavily. "Kazue's heart is inside me now."
Kaito laughed, surely this had to be a joke. He'd played along when she pretended she could speak to Kazue.
Suzume scowled in reply.
"Kazue called me too," Makato said.
Kaito's narrowed gaze flickered in his direction. He didn't trust the priest, but he let him stay around because he'd rather have him close where he could watch him than have him with Hisato where he could do more damage.
"What do you mean it called to you?" Rin asked. Her eyes were pinned on him, like a starved woman.
"When I first found Suzume it was as if something was guiding me..."
Suzume gasped. "I felt the same thing."
Makato nodded as if he suspected as much. "And after that, the dreams started."
"What dreams?" Suzume frowned.
"You're saying you haven't dreamed of her?" He looked at her imploringly. Everyone's head swiveled in his direction.
"You have?" Suzume's voice was high and accusatory.
He didn't look directly at anyone but at his feet instead. "It was never anything concrete, but every night since I've met you I see that woman in a field of red spider lilies. She's waiting for someone, I don't know who. Because when they arrive I wake up." He raised his head and his eyes met Kaito's.
The dragon didn't like to think about the fact that a piece of Kazue was also inside the priest. Maybe unconsciously it was another reason he wasn't willing to part from the man. He was another link to Kazue, just like Suzume.
When their eyes met, he swore he saw Kazue staring back at him. He had to look away, even if it made him look weak. Kaito felt like the breath had been stolen from his lungs. The priest was dreaming of the day Kazue sealed him. He was sure of it. Suzume looked from Kaito to Makato and then back to Kaito without saying a word, perhaps she had the same dream. The thought only stoked the fires of his anger, to know these two people shared with him the darkest moment of his life. That moment of her betrayal. The only good thing about learning about the dream, was the cold reminder of what Kazue had done. He could not forgive her, even if she could be brought back to life.
"None of this matters. All that matters is making sure she doesn't kill us all with her fire." He jabbed a finger toward Suzume.
"And how do you suggest I get control of it?" She bristled, their argument resuming once more.
"Maybe we should seal it," Akira suggested with a sly look at him.
Kaito glared back at her. He wouldn't take her bait. He might be weaker than before, but he wasn't going to give in that easily. Whatever her initial motive, it was a logical solution. If Suzume couldn't control her power, perhaps they should take it away.
"What if I get attacked, how will I defend myself?" Suzume said.
"Rin will protect you," he said without conferring with the kitsune. He knew she would obey without question.
"I can teach her how to control it," Makato said, looking at the dragon for permission.
Kaito crossed his arms over his chest and assessed the man standing before him. What was his motive? He didn't want to trust him, but he didn't entirely like the idea of sealing Kazue's power either. But if he didn't then he might never get a glimpse of Kazue again. And that could either be a bad thing or
a good thing. But that was just sentimental crap. He had moved on from his feelings, hadn't he?
"What can you possibly teach her that Akira and Tsuki couldn't?" Kaito replied, his voice dripping with disdain.
"When that thing rose from the ground, our energies were harmonious. If we can learn to balance one another we'll be twice as powerful as we are alone." He looked to Suzume, nodding his head for her to help him.
Suzume nodded her head feverishly. "We were stronger together. It felt like we were connected. You did that, didn't you?" she asked Makato.
He shook his head. "Until recently, I never knew I had control over the earth. You were the same with your flames?" he asked Suzume.
She nodded. "Not until I broke Kaito's seal."
"The pieces of Kazue must have linked up. And then took hold of Suzume's body because she hasn't learned how to channel the power yet. We've seen her unconscious defenses before. Perhaps Kazue drew her energy from Makato's body and used Suzume's body as a vessel," Akira mused, hand tapping on her chin as she thought.
Suzume threw her hands up in a stop motion. "You cannot really think Kazue is possessing me?"
The priest looked pensively at the ground. "I think whatever part of us that is Kazue is starting to wake up."
"Can you try communicating with her again?" Akira asked, she leaned in close to Suzume, peering at her face as if she could see Kazue there. "She may only be able to communicate through images, maybe you've remembered things that never happened to you?"
Suzume's eyes darted in Kaito's direction and their gazes met. He narrowed his eyes, trying to read what she was thinking. But she was a mystery. She scowled and looked away.
"This is crazy. Kazue cannot be alive in me. She ripped her own soul apart."
"How do we know this isn't some plot by Hisato," Kaito said, jabbing a finger in Makato's direction, speaking his doubts aloud for the first time.
The Sea Stone Page 19