deadly_garden | Nothing I Won't Give [RL with Kid and Kuronue, forward dated to the 25th]

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Nothing I Won't Give [RL with Kid and Kuronue, forward dated to the 25th]

When he had been Yoko full time, Kurama had learned quickly that removing emotions from the equation in terms of heists and jobs was the only proper way to do things. Put emotion into it and you got careless and made mistakes. He'd forgotten that once, and it ended in his losing someone he cared deeply for.

He was no longer Yoko, not as often, but he'd learned his lesson hard that day and never forgot it. He kept emotion out of all his plans, all his objectives... save this time.

This time he was furious. He was furious and elated and out for blood. No one chained up his bat and got away with it. No one. And he was going to show them exactly what happened when someone dared attempt it.

He turned to Kid, giving a mental message to his plants to protect the other thief as he did so, once they'd arrived in a thankfully deserted section of the castle. "Keep a sharp eye. These are demons, and they will not hesitate."

Barely waiting for an answer, he pulled a rose out of his long silver hair and wordlessly transformed it into his Rose Whip. "I'm going for Kuronue."

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"Not so much," Kuronue watched the plant, small velvet-green leaves peeking through the other side of the large lock and eating into the metal, and cracked a smile. Kurama's methods always were entertaining to watch; true, however, the scent of blood and pain were high and sharp in the air. Old injuries, new ones, deep and sore and refusing to close due to the depth of trauma. Possible infection in places; this wasn't the cleanest environment for a convalescent.

He downplayed injuries so often, evident when he spoke again, low words carried on the wings of a sigh. "Woke up in here, fox. Don't quite know what happened between there 'n here but it ain't pleasant, 's for sure."

His chin lifted, tilting towards the door to indicate the possibly-quite-dead guards just beyond. "They wanted t'know where the mirror was, so they kept me alive. Maybe hoped you'd get stupid 'n come to get me, and they'd have both of us, can't rightly say."

He could almost hear the raspy sound of Kuronoue's breathing, knowing he had to work fast... and fearing that his plants wouldn't be enough to help him and he would have to enlist the help of one of the community doctors.

...He really did not want to explain all this to Angie.

So he focused at this point on what he could do to at least start treating these injuries. Willow bark for certain, with all the pain Kuronue had to be in.

He growled, casting a sour look at the plant. "That stupid mirror. We shouldn't have even bothered with it," he spat. "Not worth the price we've paid for it."

Sorry, fox..." His voice trailed, faded off, and he knew he could continue on indefinitely whispering apologies specific to all the different facets of the crystalline wrongness of what had happened, but in the end the words were empty. His eyes slid shut on a self-recriminating flinch. True, he was suffering the physical pain of his glorious fuck-up, but his fox was experiencing that on an entirely higher level. Kurama'd lost him, thought him dead, Kuronue could only hazard what that'd felt like.

The plant was taking an extraordinarily long time. Or maybe it wasn't. Time was relative.

What had that mirror been, he couldn't fully recall, all the heists blended together here in the dark. His head was pounding, and he could hear every scrape and hiss of the plant working at the lock like small explosions behind his eyelids. It was night, but he still felt so ... tired.

Oh no. No, no, no, no. "Kuro-ai, stay with me. I should have the door open soon, promise," he whispered, leaning on the bars. This was the last thing he needed. He was strong, and he had his tails, but there was no way he was going to be able to carry Kuronue out and to Kid with the bat unconscious. "And don't apologize, the heist was my idea, remember?"

A soft click was the only warning he had before the door swung open, causing him to let out a surprised yip and almost fall into the cell with the bat. Recovering his footing was simple enough and he quickly went to Kuronue's side, putting an arm around his shoulders. "Kuro-ai?"

That heist ... I have this idea-

The voice of memory whispered in the back of his mind, seductive and smooth, '- there's a beautiful mirror, magical, if we can lift that we'll go down in history...'

A soft grunt of acnowledgment was the most Kurama got, though a gentle shake motivated blue eyes to slit open just enough, shadow ringed with a bone-deep exhaustion. "I remember," a soft breath in and he pressed forward, ignoring how his own filth stained up Kurama's eternal white purity. It'd always been that way, only now it showed externally. His mind had gone morbid, they said being locked up for long periods of time drove a man to madness but he'd never believed he'd fall prey to such.

"Shoulda listened, ne ...? Y'aren't coming, are you." He swallowed with an audible click, breathing in like it hurt, "y'aren't. I'll have to figure a way out of here, I have to. Can't let you think I died like that. 's my fault, my burden, not yours."

Shit, shit, shit... "Kuronue, I'm here. I'm right here, just like I said I would be. Don't you start hallucinating on me, you hear me?!" he all but yelled, even now mindful of their situation.

He ignored the blood seeping into his clothes as he fished around in his hair for his last plant. Quickly willing it to bloom, he then squeezed the nectar out onto the ward-metal. Acrid fumes rose from the shackle as the nectar ate away at it, slowly freeing his wrist. "It's not your fault," he soothed quietly. "I should have planned better, should have gotten a sturdier chain for the pendant."

He pressed his lips to blood caked hair at the crown of the bat's head. "Never your fault, always mine, you understand me?"

"Personal responsibility," Kuronue rasped softly, his forehead finding a nook to rest against somewhere near Kurama's throat. "Y'taught me that, ne ..? Got it back though." His hand lifted, fingers tangled tight through the broken chain of his pendant. "Not worth dyin' for. Thought about that a lot."

He coughed and pressed closer, breathing in the scent of blood and roses. Cloying, familiar, necessary. He couldn't recall what he'd done, how he'd lived, before that scent had so invaded his life. A desperate and meaningless existence.

A life worth throwing away in an instant, he'd wondered if that was his destiny. Breaking away as part of the tail of Kurama's shooting star, soft and sparkling dust in his wake, propelling him higher. That was worth dying for, never gems and trinkets, no matter how sentimental. "It's my fault. Ain't yours, y'can't say that."

Kurama stroked his hair, easing Kuronue's wrist out of the now worthless shackle. "Yeah, you got it back. And I'm proud of you for it."

He frowned at the spatter of blood that the bat coughed up. He was only thankful that it was dark. Old blood, not fresh. That hopefully meant that whatever had been bleeding had stopped.

"It's always my fault, Kuro," he softly insisted. "I should have watched you better, watched the guards better, done more scouting for traps." He'd never suspected that plants would one day become his enemy. "Now come on, we need to meet back up with the Kid and get out of here," he continued, nudging him to stand.

The hand didn't want to unclench; it'd seized in bruise and was healing badly around the cratering hole in the palm, a stigmata-esque wound from sharp bamboo. He forced the fingers to flex anyway, grimacing through clenched teeth, then hissed out a soft steadying breath. "... brought a kid along?" he asked dizzily, as strong hands lifted under his armpit and waist to half-haul him to his feet.

Lessened weight did have its perks. As a creature of flight, Kuronue weighed less than the average person half his size, hollowed out and feather light. It was more the awkwardness of trying to awaken sore limbs fallen asleep, and waking to cramps.

Getting to his feet was easy, staying upright was hard. He hissed, gripping against Kurama for balance, and nodded tensely to show he could manage. He'd walk across glass if it meant getting out of the thrice-damned cage. ".. 'm fine," he gritted, "let's go, huh?"

Kurama winced as he saw that particular wound, then shook his head at Kuronue's words. "That's just his professional name. He's a thief like us."

The weakness worried him, but if he thought he could manage at least getting to Kid, well, it was enough for the silver fox. And if he couldn't, Kurama was more than happy to carry him.

Putting an arm over his shoulders, the fox spared a moment to nuzzle behind an ear. "Yes, let's get out of here," he whispered, starting to slowly walk out of the dungeon.

You know, for all the warnings he received about how dangerous the demons in Makai were, Kid couldn't help but think that these guys were entirely too easy to take down.

All he had to do was distract them a bit and lead them on a goose chase through the cobbled maze of the castle (baiting them with catcalls and taunts and magic tricks like he did at every single one of his heists), and eventually they were stupid enough to accidentally knock each other out with their oversized fists.

Kid couldn't help himself. There was no way he could suppress a laugh after that. Luckily for him, his chortles (though they echoed down the hallways) didn't attract anymore guards. Or stronger demons.

For a moment, he debated on whether he should go back to Kurama just to make sure the fox demon was okay. But after he realized where the two guards had knocked each other out (right in the middle of the hallway next to the dungeon where Kuronue had been kept prisoner. Had he really been leading them in circles?) he figured it was best to wait. The two had to come this way to leave, after all.

The phantom thief had taken a perch right on top of the guard pile, and was sitting cross-legged as he amused himself by juggling a few colorful balls creatively and whistling a rather cheerful tune to himself. These demons were big and smelly, but they made pretty comfy chairs.

Sorta.

There'd been some fairly unusual events in his life the bat had played spectator to. Shadowed tents with overcast-hued veils and twisted bodies, freak shows they called them, bearded women and twisted repulsive dwarved creatures, enormously stretched uncomfortable looking women that could easily touch the rafters with elongated fingers. Juggling had odd connotations in a mind not yet steeped with the apathy of over-exposure the future brought. It was reserved for circus monsters and court jesters, and both were equally funny when perched atop the very guards he'd swiped his book from.

A gasping sound against Kurama's arm, and the bat dissolved into choked laughter, wings and shoulders quaking. It was too ridiculous not to.

Maybe he was lapsing finally into that hysteria he'd worried about. Maybe so. "See what y' mean," he finally gasped, eyes sparkling under a thick mess of tangled hair, "weird partner you got there, fox."

The fox smiled and nuzzled his hair, laughing along with him. "He's not exactly my partner, though he is a little unusual. A magician turned thief, in fact." He grinned at Kid, eyes sparkling.

"I see you managed to hold your own," he observed cheerfully. "Perhaps you should fight in the tournament as well."

He waved a hand, causing the demons he had felled earlier to erupt into improvised flower beds, each holding a single rosebush bearing black roses.

"I'd say we're through here, wouldn't the two of you?"

Laughter was always something Kid enjoyed hearing from his audience, and he grinned widely as he suddenly stopped juggling, whipped off his tophat, and caught the colored balls one by one. He replaced his hat and gave a mock bow to the other two demon thieves. "It wasn't that hard," he said a bit arrogantly, although he certainly felt like it was deserved. He was merely human, after all.

The white-clad thief leaped off of his makeshift couch, his cape fluttering behind him, just as Kurama turned them into rosebeds. He nodded his head and tilted his hat at Kurama. "The only way I'd fight is if the prize was shiny and fit in the palm of my hand," he answered honestly, "And even then I can't guarantee I wouldn't just steal it instead." Though the mention of a tournament did bring back memories of the Mascorrida in Zaza, and his stunning heist of the Sun Mask. But that had been so long ago.

With a slightly exaggerated flick of his wrist (and Kuronue would come to see many of Kid's movements were rather exaggerated. Thus was the style of a thief who enjoyed the performance more than the prize), he magically produced his trusty worldhopping mirror out of nowhere with a light 'pop.' "Where to, and I'll have us out of here faster than you can say 'Abracadabra.'"

"Gandera, Makai, 1994," Kurama informed him smoothly. He adjusted his hold on Kuronue as he smirked. "Yomi owes me a favor."

He dropped his head to whisper in Kuronue's ear. "We're going to do what's called 'worldhopping' now. It's a little strange, but that's about all there is to it." He pressed a quick kiss to the bat's cheek. Looking up at Kid, he smirked. "Ready when you are."

Distracted from asking what the hell 'abracadabra' was and meant, Kuronue blinked owlishly and nodded once to show he understood, even though he wasn't quite able to comprehend what he'd been meant to understand. 'World hopping' ... and the year was equally confusing. A spark of fear started at the nape of his neck, lifting the hairs there in a prickle of disease before shooting down his spine.

Worldhopping - what if they disappeared and he was left behind? He couldn't fly like this, and escaping the castle would be damned near impossible alone. His arm tightened subconsciously around Kurama's shoulders, and he swallowed again, but said nothing.

Voicing irrational fears only made a body look weak, and if he looked any weaker than he was, he'd be a corpse in their eyes.

Well, Kid had never heard of that place before, but as long as he had a name and a year, he could worldhop. With another nod, he reached out and grabbed Kurama's arm tightly in one hand, holding out the worldhopping mirror with the other.

In the blink of an eye, the trio was gone from the castle hallway.

... and landed right into Yomi's bedroom.

Kanzeon always did have a sense of humor with the equipment she provided her favorite thief.

...

At least Yomi wasn't in his bedroom, the silver thief thought as Kuronue finally passed out in his grasp. He chuckled softly -- he was suddenly doing that more, he noticed -- and nodded a farewell to Kid as he gathered the bat in his arms and carried him to his room.

A few baths and some medical attention was all Kuronue needed to being right as rain again, and Kurama couldn't be more grateful.

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Nothing I Won't Give [RL with Kid and Kuronue, forward dated to the 25th]

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