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

Kurama's eyes snapped open. Something...... wasn't right. His emerald eyes narrowed as he looked around, but he couldn't see or feel anything wrong. He continued looking, scanning the clearing for anything unusual. When he got to Wufei and Duo, he nearly fainted in shock. He could see them physically, but when he checked for their ki, there wasn't any! The space was totally free of their ki; there wasn't even a residue from the previous day's fight hanging around! As Kurama stared wide- eyed, Wufei's eyes slowly opened, then popped open in surprise.

/\/\/\/\

As Wufei swam back towards consciences, he noticed something felt different. As he slowly became more aware of his surroundings, he realized just what it was...... during the night Duo had gained enough energy to put his shields up. Only for some reason he had put them over Wufei too, and Wufei couldn't figure out how he did it. The shields were perfectly formed and they were linked to his sub-consciousness....... so no matter what happened he would always have them, even while sleeping or if he was knocked unconscious. As he looked at them, he noticed a link of some sort going from him to Duo, and as he followed it, he realized just what it was....... it was a mind link. Wufei felt his eyes pop open in surprise, the only dragons capable of forming mind-links were shell-twins and two dragons who decided to become life-mates. And though he had once been married, they had never formed the link because they wanted to make sure that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, regardless of what the elders had said. What Wufei felt over the link was scary to say the least....... there was this feeling of chaos that lurked around the edges of Duo's mind. Wanting to find out why, Wufei decided to follow it into Duo's mind. What he found was interesting, but extremely sad and would horrify any dragon........ it seemed that he had found some of Duo's early memories, from the time before the Maxwell Church massacre. As he sorted through the memories, something felt off about the viewpoint of them....... and he found out why rather abruptly when he looked at one memory. Duo was female in these memories....... Wufei felt light-headed when he discovered that out but he found another memory that quickly brought him crashing to the ground. Duo had been a shell-twin. Shell-twins were extremely rare, and therefore valued greatly by the clan they were born into because of their abilities. That Duo and her shell-twin were in an orphanage was very disturbing because it meant that the whole clan that they were born to was either dead, or good as dead. As he thought about that he started to wonder where the twin was, most twins were inseparable and, due to the nature of what and who they are, it was virtually unheard of for one twin to survive the other. Wufei decided to worry about that later, and continued to look for the source of the wrong-ness he felt. When he finally found the memory that he was looking for, he was stunned. It seemed that it was possible for one twin to survive the other......... and that was the cause of Duo's semi-insanity. Duo had been forced to watch as his..... well, actually her, shell-twin was killed. Duo had gone insane when that happened and had killed all of the gang members that had been present in retribution. Afterwards, Duo had decided to take on a male human form, both as a reminder of her brother and as a form of protection against some of the perils of the street life.

Wufei backed out of the link very carefully to avoid waking Duo, then just as carefully moved Duo off of him and edged away from where Duo was sleeping. Blinking his eyes, he was surprised when he felt the beginnings of tears there, and quickly blinked them away. When he looked up, he noticed that Shuuichi was staring at them.

"What?" He asked curiously, cocking his head.

"I can see you with my eyes, but when I *look* for you, you're not there." Shuuichi said, wide-eyed and obviously still surprised. "Why is that?" He asked, his natural curiosity taking over.

Wufei sighed, and sat down next to where Shuuichi was. "Duo has some sort of shield that he uses that blocks anyone from *sensing* where he is, and for some reason, he decided to put it on me as well. He somehow managed to link the shield to my sub-conscious-ness so that the shield will always be up unless I'm so drained that I'm un-able to support it." Wufei had decided not to tell Shuuichi about the mind link, because he might trust him enough that he believes that they won't be killed, but he wasn't gonna give away any information that might be used later to hurt Duo later on.

Shuuichi blinked, "But how did he do it? He's been asleep the whole time."

Wufei grinned wryly, "Duo's just full of surprises. To tell you the truth, I have no idea. I didn't even know he was a dragon until the two last fights....... he's too good at hiding what he doesn't want known." Wufei looked at Shuuichi curiously, "If you don't mind me asking what are you exactly? I mean, you're not human, but....... you're not a dragon."

Shuuichi looked shocked for a brief minute, then looked vaguely amused, "Not much gets by you does it? Well, you're right that I'm not human, at least not totally human. I'm a Youko, and my name was and still is Kurama. Right now I'm working for Koenma as a Reikai tantai. I was reborn as a human when a hunter fatally wounded my youko body. Everyone but the tantai knows me by my Shuuichi alias."

Wufei blinked, "A kitsune? As in a fox?" Wufei's lips twitched into what would have been the beginning of a smile if it weren't for the sudden moaning that heralded the return of Duo to the world of the living.

Duo moaned, cursed softly in every language that he knew (and to Wufei's surprise, Duo knew more languages than he did, or at least the how to curse in those languages), then muttered in a slightly slurred voice, "I'm ne'er goin' to chall'nge Qu'tre t'a drinkin' contest ag'n.........."

Wufei's eyes widened, then he started snickering, "Quatre??!!"

Duo cracked open one eye, "Don' laugh 'til ya try to out drink 'im, I swear tha' boy h's an ex'ra leg or sume'in."

Wufei smiled, that was the Duo he lov...... Wufei froze. He blinked. Then he blinked again. He didn't love Duo, did he?