Tell Me a Story

by

Serenity Draco

A Yu Yu Hakusho InuYasha Crossover

It was a beautiful day outside. The sky was the perfect shade of blue and the clouds were white and puffy making fun shapes that many were outside enjoying. Many except the girl sitting beneath the cherry tree blooming in the sunny park. Her dark hair fell in long waves over her shoulders as she sat holding her light jacket over her legs keeping them warm from the cool spring breeze that fell over her every so often. Her short gray skirt did little to warm her unlike her long sleeved black shirt that covered her arms right down to her knuckles as she sat with her hands in her lap staring without sight in to the branches of the blossoming tree.

"It is too beautiful a day to be so sad, miss," a smooth voice called to her, pulling her from her thoughts.

She didn't jump at the sudden sound of his voice. There was no real reason to jump in this era. She had left all the real danger behind her and now life was just dull. Slowly she lowered her gaze to the man who was attempting to warm her with words. She hated people anymore which was why she had become a recluse since she returned here permanently. Everyone here was fake. Just like she figured this boy was being as well. He probably only saw her as easy, what with her emo appearance and rounding figure that was thankfully still hidden by her clothing. She frowned and only glared at him hoping to scare him off like she had done to all the other people, including those she had once called friends, but he only smiled and sat down beside her leaning against her tree.

"You know you look a lot like a woman from a story I had once heard," he said adjusting his long red hair so that he wasn't leaning on it as he made himself comfortable. "A story about a powerful priestess and some jewel, though I forget what it was called."

"The Shikon no Tama," she replied coldly with a disbelieving tone.

"Oh so you're familiar with the tale?" he asked lightly with a smirk.

She shrugged, "My family runs a shrine."

"I see, so you know the tale already?"

"Never said I paid attention," she responded blankly as she leaned her head back to look up at the falling petals above her.

"Really?" he questioned in surprise. "Then you've never been told the old tale of the priestess and the thief?"

She froze for a moment before she turned to look at him with wide disbelieving eyes. It took it her a moment to relax as she slowly realized that they boy was probably speaking of an old shrine tale after all, it was probably bound to happen, but she was sure that the tale was probably misconstrued and she probably died in the end, because that's really all that could be said of her sudden disappearance.

"Can't really say that any one has," she responded looking back up again.

"Then do you mind if I tell you?" he asked hopefully, resting his arm on his khaki clad bended knee comfortably. "I think it may just cheer you up."

"Knock yourself out," she sighed dully.

"Well they say, about 500 years ago there lived a strange priestess in a small village. She was very beautiful and from the descriptions you could probably pass for her twin," he began to which she snorted with a roll of her eyes, but he continued. "She was a tamer of beasts, they said, because she traveled with a halfbreed man she could subdue with merely a word and an orphaned fox kit in her care. She was the type to make friends with everyone and anything and it was because of this a certain infamous thief sought to use her to capture a certain jewel she was to protecting.

"It was said that this jewel housed an incredible and terrible power that could grant the person wishing upon it equally great and terrible things. It was also said to be most beautiful when it was at the most corrupted but the woman carrying the jewel was the purest that the earth had ever seen and so the thief sought not to corrupt the jewel itself but the one who protected it. He began by approaching the girl slowly and only when she was alone. The tale even describes their first meeting as going a little like this;

~*~

"I know you're there demon," she called out to him from the hot spring where she was bathing. "You may as well show yourself."

He stepped from the shadows of the trees surprise showing clearly on his face along with puzzlement. She was alone and vulnerable, yet here she was calling him out on the spot as she stood in the water as naked as the day she was born save for the glittering pink jewel around her neck. The hot spring glowed with it's own eerie light and coupled with the moonless night it gave her an almost ethereal form. It was as though she were an ebony haired goddess standing in that pool of water instead of the gifted mortal he knew her to be. She turned to face him, her long tresses covering her breasts, preserving at least some of her modesty while the water that reached her waist shielded his eyes from her treasures below.

"I know what you seek, demon," she said knowingly as she rested her hands on the surface of the water.

"Do you now?" he responded, leaning casually against a tree and folding his arms over his chest with a raise of his elegant silver brow. "I am just a low level apparition drawn here by your enticing scent. What is it I would seek from a pathetic mortal such as you?"

She laughed a tinkling sort of laugh that reminded him of the sound of gold which he found he liked, "You were enticed by my scent?" she scoffed, placing a hand on her hip, looking at him incredulously. "Look, I'm not stupid, thank you very much, so if you don't mind I would appreciate it if you wouldn't insult my intelligence by lying to me, thief."

"Thief?" he questioned innocently with a smile.

"First of all there are not many demons who can take on an almost completely human appearance and those that can are very powerful. Seeing as I'm friends with most of those powerful demons, that leaves only another handful to take an appearance like you," she began simply. "Now out of those handfuls the only one I know to look like you, fox ears and all, is the thief Youko Kurama."

"So you are intelligent after all," he replied with a sinister smile. "Then you also must know that I have you surrounded and escape from me will be a futile endeavor."

"Hardly," she shot back with another laugh. "I am the Shikon no Miko for a reason and while I would rather not hurt you I'm not as defenseless as finding me naked in the middle of the night would lead you to believe."

"Hm, that may be true but I can think of a few different ways that finding you wet, naked, and out in the middle of the night would find you very defenseless."

She sputtered looking at him with a blushing face. Even the perverted monk she traveled with was not nearly as bold as the fellow in front of her with his crude remark. She almost wondered if he was attempting to seduce her, but she kept her thoughts to herself only moving to cover herself as she submersed herself back into the cloudy water.

"Hentai!" she muttered, knowing full well that he could hear her.

He only smiled and stepped to the edge of the spring so that he was now looking down on her, "I cannot help it if that is what your perverted mind thought of when I said that."

"What do you want Kurama?" she demanded hotly a pretty blush still on her face as she glared up at him.

"I merely wanted to see if the Shikon no Miko was as beautiful as the rumors say," he replied simply with a shrug.

"Oh?" she snorted in a very unlady like fashion. "And how exactly do I measure up?"

He didn't say a word but instead pulled from his hair a single perfectly formed rose. She gasped and reached up to catch the beautiful red flower and when she did she was surprised to find that all the thorns were missing from the stem. She was as equally surprised when she looked to the bank where he had once been sitting to find that he was gone. Worriedly she turned searching for him, but he was no where to be found.

~*~

"So it is said that their first meeting was the first as well as the basis of their next several meetings," the boy finished with a small smile. "He continued meeting her just as he did the first time, and each time he would disappear, leaving only a perfect red rose each time."

"Did it ever say what she did with all the roses?" she asked quietly.

He thought for a moment before he replied, "No I don't guess it ever did, but I'll assume that given the time period she probably didn't know much in the way of preserving them."

She didn't say anything, but just stood and ran away from him. He stood quickly and watched her disappear into the crowd catching the smell of her tears with his acute senses and though no one noticed his eyes glowed gold for a moment before returning to their normal emerald green color as he turned and walked away.

Authors Notes:

Okay, so this is just a little story that I wrote in like two days after listening to A Fine Frenzy and their song Almost Lover on repeat for like hours. Yeah, my muse is a fickle thing that's inspired by random music and the occasional music video. Go figure. I wasn't really well please with it honestly, but thought that perhaps someone else might enjoy it. I may even go back and add onto it more later but for now, these three chapters are all that I'm posting, if my muse allows me or enough people like the story.