Archive: Whoever wants it, take it as long as my name and address is on it and you tell me if ya haven't already.......

KEY: ~*~ = flashback
/\/\/\/\ = different point of view
'thoughts' = person's thoughts

When Wufei woke up, he had a human, well, sort of human, blanket. He stifled a laugh, who would have thought that Duo was a snugger....... well, he thought in an abrupt change of mood, Yuy might have known if he'd even attempted to not push Duo away every time Duo was around. With a mental sigh, Wufei set about trying to extract himself from Duo's grip so he could get up. After trying for five minutes, he gave up. Since there was no possible way to escape Duo's grip, Wufei just settled in for the long wait till Duo woke up. A half hour later, he had just started to doze off again when he felt one of his remote warnings go off...... he woke himself up from the doze he was in and waited to see if it was just an accident and someone was just passing close by. It became evident that they weren't when they passed two more, each warning signal closer than the last one. His eyes narrowing, Wufei woke Duo up and told him everything he knew about where they were, which was very little. Duo frowned when he finished.

"Well, we'll need some weapons, what'd we got?" Duo asked, already in Shinigami mode.

"Whatever you have on you, my Katana and my gun," Wufei replied, slightly distracted by the feeling of the target going through another of his barriers.

"Okay, that leaves me with my knives...." Duo fell silent, his eyebrows drawing together in thought, "hey, Wu-chan, could you get me a staff?"

This got Wufei's full attention, Duo had never seemed like the person to use a staff, but he would be the first to admit that he didn't really know a lot about the pilot of Shinigami. "Yeah, I can," he replied, curiosity shining in his eyes.

Duo noticed Wufei's expression and smiled mysteriously. "You'll see what it's for," he said.

Wufei blinked in surprise, but went to find a suitable tree to use for the staff. When he found one, he quickly went to his full dragon form and used his claws to cut it down. He stripped the limbs off and made it as smooth as possible, but it was still to rough for it to be used very well, so he put it down and quickly ran some condensed flame over it, both hardening the wood and smoothing it out. Studying it carefully, he nodded, it would do, at least for now.

Changing to his human shape, he walked back to the campsite. When he was almost there, he felt the stranger reach the second-to-last warning signal. Breaking into a run, he managed to make it back before the other person did.

"Duo!!" He said, getting his attention, "It's here."

Wufei tossed Duo the staff and hoped that it would do for what Duo was planning to use it for. He quickly went to his stuff and got his sword out. When he got his first look of the enemy, his breath caught, he was beautiful! 'Absolutely bishonen', his mind whispered, surprising him.......... his hair was a silvery-gray color and it just barely touched his shoulders, locks of his hair fell in his eyes partially blocking the view of them. The visible parts of his eyes were an all-encompassing black that showed absolutely no emotion. Beneath each ebony eye was two equally dark marks, one was thin and V- shaped, while the other looked as if it was intended to also be in the shape of a V but had had something dragged down through it, pulling the color down his cheek. He had pointed hears with three earrings and one ear cuff. The ear cuff was attached to the bottom earring with a thin chain, while above the cuff, he had two studs. His face was un-naturally beautiful, though Wufei thought that Duo looked just as beautiful.... his thoughts de-railed. 'Where did that come from?' Wufei thought to himself then shook himself out of that line of thought to get back to the threat in front of him. The stranger, surprisingly, had not moved while he had been distracted and was looking around him, searching for something. Wufei used the stranger's distraction to get himself ready and to see where Duo was. Duo had taken the staff he had thrown to him and had very quickly re- done his braid so that pieces of his hair didn't block his vision. He was now standing and watching the stranger, for once not making a sound. Wufei switched his attention back to the stranger when he started to talk.

"Who are you and where did you come from?" the strangers voice sounded like he looked, perfect.

"Who are you and why do you want to know?" Duo replied in a why- should-I tell-you-anything tone of voice.

Wufei was surprised. He had expected to have to do all the talking. 'But then again Duo always did like to talk' he thought wryly, with a mental chuckle.

The stranger sounded faintly amused when he replied. "My name is Sor'ian, ningen, and I want to know what that energy was that appeared yesterday."

Duo's lips twitched when Sor'ian called him a human, but other than that there was no expression on his face at all. Wufei had never seen Duo look like that before, he had always had an expressive face, constantly showing what was going on in his head. As Duo talked with Sor'ian, Wufei slowly circled around so that he could attack if need be. And it look as if he might have to because Sor'ian was becoming agitated, his voice showing what his face did not. When Sor'ian finally became impatient enough to get his katana out to attack, Wufei was ready and quickly counter-attacked. Sor'ian had evidently forgotten about Wufei because he almost didn't block his attack.

/\/\/\/\

Duo was amused as hell. This demon, which looked to be a scorpion- humanoid mix, obviously didn't know what he was getting into when he attacked them. Wufei so far had the fight well in hand, so he wasn't going to join in unless he was needed. Duo snickered to himself when the demon, Sor'ian as he called himself, tried to attack Wufei, but just succeeded in nearly imbedding his sword in a nearby tree when Wufei dodged at the last minute. Looking extremely mad, Sor'ian finally decided that he had had enough. His hands brightly glowing, he shot a bolt of ki at Wufei, who hadn't been expecting that. He had managed to dodge most of it, but still got hit with a significant portion of it. Duo went from amused as hell to see-you-bastards-in- hell in an instant.

/\/\/\/\

Wufei groaned as he tried to get up. He hurt. He hurt a lot. He looked fuzzily at the sight before him. Evidently Duo had gotten Sor'ian's attention and was making good use of his staff. 'I didn't know you could do that with a staff!' he thought incredulously. Wufei hadn't known that it was possible to for a staff to hold it's own against a katana, let alone for it to actually win! His sight wavered a bit before going back to normal. He noticed two more people approaching and stood up. Or at least, he tried to. As he got his feet underneath him, his head swam and everything faded to darkness.

/\/\/\/\

Kurama tucked a piece of his scarlet hair behind his ear. Botan had dropped off him and Hiei at a spot relatively near the place where the incident had occurred. Hiei had immediately gone to check out the surrounding area while Kurama headed towards the site. They were almost there when both of them recognized the sound of a sword fight and then felt the release of a ki blast soon afterwards. He looked at Hiei and as one, they started to run. As they got closer, the sounds got louder even though it had a different sound to it. He saw why when he got to the clearing. There was a Demon with a katana fighting a braided ningen with a staff, and the ningen seemed to be winning. Kurama froze in astonishment until he heard a groan. He looked towards the sound and saw another human that was watching the fight. The human looked up and saw them approach. As Kurama came near, he saw the human attempt to get to his feet. As he fell, Kurama raced to catch him. When he caught him, Kurama saw what was wrong with him. He had been hit by that ki blast from earlier and even though it wasn't a direct hit, he would have an extremely large headache whenever he woke up.

A sudden stop in the fight made him look up. The demon had evidently been lucky, he had managed to just miss hitting the braided human's neck and had instead managed to cut off part of his braid. The braided human was staring at the lost hair in shock.

/\/\/\/\

Duo stared in shock at the hair lying on the ground then looked up as the demon began to speak.

"Aw, what's the matter? Did you loose something?" Sor'ian's mocking voice angered him like nothing had ever done before, not even the massacre of Maxwell church. His eyes narrowing, he looked at Sor'ian.

/\/\/\/\

Hiei had heard what the demon said to the ningen, but he had seen something that the demon had not. He saw the ningen's reaction. His eyes widened at the abrupt rise in ki that the human showed that the other demon couldn't, and wouldn't, pick up because of the shield on the human. When the human looked up, his eyes were glowing with all the power he held and even then the demon was so busily gloating over his minor victory that he didn't realize the danger he was in. Hiei flickered over to where Kurama was with the other ningen.

"It's going to be over soon, Kurama. You might want to put up a shield too," he said, never taking his eyes off the braided one. Kurama looked at him, but followed his advice.

/\/\/\/\

When Hiei told him to put up a shield, he didn't understand why at first. Kurama did it anyway though, and then he understood when he caught the look on the human's face and the subsequent rise in ki around him. He watched as a mist rose up around the human's form and when it went back down, the human was there no longer. All that remained was a dragon. The dragon had a slightly different feel that Hiei's dragon on his arm did, but it had the same amount of power. And this one was more deadly, because this one had no one to control what it did like Hiei's dragon did. Needless to say that the demon was very surprised, and was quickly disposed of by the dragon.

When the dragon finished, he turned and looked at the Kurama and Hiei. Again the mists rose and fell, and the human was back again. Without saying a word, the human took a step towards them and promptly collapsed.