Well, here we are on part two of my crazy long saga. I'm posting this so anyone who wants to can add it to the notification list. I am going to put this series down for a bit to finish up another fic that I promised I would work on and to brainstorm a bit more. I know where I want to go, just need to make sure I get there in a way that works.

Some notes for those reading this fic:

1) Don't worry about too much angst. I'm not a fan of taking a couple and putting them through so much that they are damaged forever. I am a firm believer in happy endings

2) I will try to avoid the "annoying fictional children" syndrome where everything is about their kids and you wonder where the heck the romance is. You are reading this for Kyo/Yuya and Kyo/Yuya you shall have

3) I been re-reading the manga and I'm still sticking to calling Akari "he". There is literally no one in the entire SDK universe that sees him as a female, he does have a super small (blink and you'd miss it) crush on Yuya and Santera has an equally small one on him, and he actually becomes more masculine in both mannerisms and art style as the series goes on. I believe this is keeping within context and it is not intended to be offensive but if it bothers you, you are within your rights to give this fic a pass. That said, if you don't have any hang-ups about gender, I think you'll find my portrayal of him fun. He is one of my favorite characters after all. ;-)

4) The name of this story means Crimson Memories which is a reference to Kyo's eye color, his memories (as well as those of others), and the Crimson King (past and present). It seemed appropriate.

5) I'm pretty sure that Kamijyo intended Ruru to be pronounced as Lulu (it's hard to explain but a Japanese "r" is pronounced like a cross between "l" and "r") but I kept the spelling just in case I was wrong.

6) Sit back and enjoy!

Kurenai Kioku

Prologue

"Kyo's wife is getting close to her time."

The softly spoken words were like music to his ears and the main reason why he had summoned her before him. But he frowned, disliking her acknowledgement of what that human female had meant to the Demon Child.

"Kindly refrain from assigning that title to her, Sakuya-San," he said mildly and she knew him well enough to know it was in her best interests to do as he commanded.

"How long until the child is born?" the tall man asked.

"Within the next few days. Sendai-Sama," the miko replied, keeping her body and mind as still as possible lest her thoughts betray the knowledge she had been holding back for the past few months.

She concentrated on nothing but a pleasant memory of fragrant cherry blossoms and warm morning sunshine, playing the scene over and over again until she actually started to relax - something she was usually incapable of doing when dealing with the king.

"It's a pity Fubuki's pupil was unable to stop Kyoshiro from taking the girl but I am not surprised. Kyoshiro is my heir after all. All will be well though. Since Kyo has proven uncooperative in our attempts to breed another child, I am content to settle for a guaranteed one. It might be a half-breed but I can overlook the taint of human blood for the good of all."

Sakuya said nothing, merely waited for him to tire of her presence and leave. She knew exactly why Kyo would not – could not – work out but she wasn't about to dwell on it in front of a man who could read minds.

"You are so silent, my precious seer. Do my plans bother you? Would you perhaps like to try your hand at rousing the passions of my formerly wayward Demon Child? I know you felt something for him once upon a time."

Of course, he didn't really mean the part about her seducing Kyo - she was too valuable as a prophetess and had been too close to Kyo once to risk putting the two of them alone in the same room for any period of time. No, he merely sought to get a rise out of her, wanting to get a glimpse of her closely guarded thoughts.

She gave herself a silent pat on the back for betraying nothing as she replied, "That chapter of my life is long over, Sendai-Sama. Kyo already loves someone else and I will not interfere."

It was a mild jab, her backhanded way of rebelling by mentioning Kyo's feelings for Yuya after the Mibu had gone to such lengths to erase his wife from his life. However, the king made no comment as she finished, "I simply hope that the child will not come to any harm."

"You are such a kind thing," he said, running his hand idly over the top of her head. As always, he treated her like a beloved pet and peered at her intently over his outrageously thick glasses with crimson eyes that were far too similar to Kyo's.

He paused in his stroking of her hair when a knock sounded at his door and pushed her away as he told the person on the other side to enter. Sakuya was expecting either Fubuki or Hishigi to open the door but instead a small head, topped with red hair that was pinned to the side, popped in. Pink irises set above rosy cheeks darted from the king to her and back again as their owner debated whether or not to enter the room.

The seer stared in surprise at the girl and instinctively sought to put her at ease by flashing her a kind smile and saying, "Hello, how do you do?"

She suppressed a giggle when, instead of answering, the girl - who was somewhere between four and five - stepped into the room, closed the door behind her with a small bang, and ran over to hide behind the king's leg. Those pink eyes peered at her with a mixture of curiosity and mistrust and she wondered where she came from and why the king was looking at the child with an expression that she had never seen on his face. She was used to him either playing the fool or ordering her to do as he wished. The soft look on his face and in those penetrating eyes was something else entirely.

"Who is that, Sendai-Sama?" the girl asked, looking up at the king who knelt down to scoop her up in his arms.

"She is Sakuya, my one and only seer. She is very important to my plans, Ruru."

"Oh, what's a seer?"

"Someone who can tell me the future," he replied patiently.

"That's nice," Ruru responded with the calm acceptance of someone who had no idea what she was talking about, "Will you play with me, Sendai-Sama?"

"Not right now, Ruru. I have to send messengers out. Sakuya has just told me some very good news."

"Is something nice going to happen?"

"Yes. In fact, if all goes according to plan, you'll soon have a new playmate."

"Really?!" she beamed and bounced in place, forcing the king to tighten his hold to keep her from falling.

Seeing the fearsome Crimson King cradling a squirming child was surreal and Sakuya didn't know what to make of it. She knew he was dangerous and wicked - had confronted his darkness many times herself - and yet he could almost have passed for normal if he wasn't speaking of stealing Kyo's child away from its mother and giving it to Ruru to play with.

"Yes, really," Sendai-Sama nodded before continuing, "Now, I'm sure Sakuya is busy but if you are a good girl, you might get to spend more time with her. She really is a very lovely young woman."

Knowing when she had been dismissed, she bowed and left the king's study, briefly pausing to return the exuberant wave Ruru sent her way.

She didn't relax her guard until she was almost to her room and even then she wondered how things would pan out. The miko had diligently guarded the secret about Yuya having twins for a while now and she still worried that the Elders and king would figure out how she had sabotaged their dealings with Kyo.

Whatever the case, things were bound to be lively after a rough six months of waiting.

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It started with dark clouds rolling in. Muramasa took note because it was unusual to have such a fierce storm in the spring and he knew in his gut that the day was going to be momentous.

Thunder followed the clouds and a cry echoed throughout the house. He'd been waiting months to hear that sound but his excitement was tempered by worry.

It was too soon.

The baby was supposed to come in the summer and Kyoshiro had not returned from the village yet.

He entered his home to find his daughter-in-law leaning against the wall and she looked up at him with worried eyes, shuffling away from the puddle beneath her feet.

"I've been feeling contractions all day long and it's gotten worse the last hour but I didn't think it would be this soon," she said as she wrung her hands.

He gave her a reassuring smile and said, "It might be a while yet. I've been around long enough to know that babies come when they want to."

She returned his smile with a wobbly one and allowed him to escort her to her room where he laid her down and checked how far along her labor was. Though she was nervous about not having a midwife, she reluctantly accepted the truth that inviting strangers to his remote home was unwise and knew that she could rely on both his thousands of years of experience in all aspects of life as well as his advanced knowledge of healing and the human body.

Aware of the fact that she was still a little uncomfortable with having a man involved in such a female-only practice as delivery, he did his best to soothe her as lightning flashed outside the window and he heard the first drops of rain.

'Please get here soon, Kyoshiro,' he thought as the drops turned into a downpour and, within the next two hours, her labor began in earnest.

Muramasa hadn't told her yet but, if his Satori was to be believed, he was certain that she was about to gift him with two grandchildren instead of one. Of course the babies were too young to form words but the separate minds he sensed had begun to broadcast their discomfort within the tight living space over the past few days. Thinking about it, he should have known that their arrival was imminent.

He helped her up after a while, walking with her up and down the hallways and comforting her as she breathed heavily, trying to find the key to manage her pain. The ancient man stroked her hair and told her that he was proud his son had chosen such a strong woman and that Kyo would be elated when he got a chance to see his child.

It was a mantra he had repeated to his daughter-in-law many times over the past months as he helped her to cope with her longing for Kyo. Pregnancy had brought with it a surge of feelings and she vacillated between sorrow at being apart from her spouse and burning anger at the people who had taken him away. Needless to say, there had been some phenomenal emotional typhoons raging in his house at times but he weathered them with his usual aplomb, knowing that she didn't always mean the words coming out of her mouth.

The hours slipped by and he began to check intermittently how dilated she was. By the time she moaned in pain, gripped his hand hard enough to break that of a normal human, and told him that she would die if she didn't push, the storm outside was in full swing and he could hear the wind howling through the trees outside.

The former Elder laid Yuya down and went to work, switching between praising her, instructing her, and watching her stomach muscles ripple as she bore down again and again until he could just see the top of a small head matted with blood. He wished he had someone else there to sop the sweat from her brow and hold her hand but Kyoshiro was still missing and he forced himself not to consider what could have delayed him.

With a cry of pain, Yuya pushed hard and he eased the first of her children into the world, smiling as he held the baby up and saw that he had a granddaughter with a tiny crop of reddish-blonde hair. She scrunched her little face up and let out a furious wail and he waited a few minutes before cutting the cord, wiping the child off, and swaddling it. He couldn't resist cradling the baby for another moment and felt tears gathering in the corners of his eyes at the beauty of the new life he held.

The sounds of Yuya moaning loudly snapped him out of his stupor and he frowned at the read he was getting off of his daughter-in-law. She shouldn't be in so much pain and yet she was thrashing from side to side and he felt his worry increase as a rush of blood gushed from between her legs.

"S...s...something is wrong," she slurred and he silently agreed, setting his granddaughter aside and kneeling over her again.

He checked her again and was dismayed to see no sign of the other child and when he gently pressed his hands against her womb, even that was enough to cause her to cry out. He could feel distress radiating from both Yuya and the second baby and he was about to guide his fingers inside to try and figure out what was wrong when a malicious presence teased the edges of his senses.

He froze and cold fingers gripped his heart as he turned in more closely and realized that there were a lot more enemies waiting outside this time than any previous visit by the Mibu. The low-level soldiers were not as worrying as the three particularly strong ki's he felt, though. Whoever was coming was on par with Shinrei - it might even have been the man himself - and he was in no position to fight a prolonged battle with his family in such a precarious position and his health having deteriorated the way it had.

'We don't have time for this today,' he thought, panicking at their fantastically poor – or excellent, depending on how one looked at it – timing.

He looked from Yuya to the baby girl whimpering from her position on the floor next to her mother and made a quick decision. Scooping the child up, he mentally projected soothing thoughts and feelings to her and she calmed down almost immediately, latching onto the comfort that should have come from being held in her mother's arms. Exiting the room, he entered the adjoining one and opened a closet, placing the child down gently and using his ability to coax her into drowsiness before sliding the door closed. Heading to his room, he grabbed his sword then returned to Yuya.

A large ki inside the room where his daughter was struggling with her second child hastened his steps and he stopped in the doorway, staring in dismay at the two women standing over her dressed in nurses uniforms and radiating wicked intent. Yuya was pale and still but breathing and he surmised that she had passed out.

"Ugh, human woman are so ugly when they give birth," said the one with longer hair.

"Agreed," said the female with shorter hair.

"If the king hadn't commanded us to get the child, we could be home instead of running around in this nasty weather."

"Yes. I want to go home. Let's make this quick. It looks like she hasn't given birth yet," they said in unison and Muramasa gripped his sword tighter, intending to step into the room and remove them by force of he had to.

"That's not a good idea, Muramasa-San," a voice that he recognized said from behind him and he turned to see Shinrei leaning against the wall with his arms folded. It was testament to how frazzled he was that he hadn't noticed his entry.

"I'd rather not leave my daughter-in-law to the tender mercies of those two. I know what they are capable of."

"Yes…you do," the younger man said, giving him a look with a wealth of meaning in it and he blinked as the young man opened the gates of his mind and he saw an image of Yuya being killed by the women the moment they had the child in hand.

The picture was gone as quickly as it came but it was enough for him to ascertain that the other man was not there to hurt his son's wife.

"Why did you come?" the ancient asked the Goyosei member suspiciously.

"We all have our roles to play and it was either me or Chinmei," he said simply and Muramasa shuddered at the thought of the insane warrior anywhere near his family.

Looking back into the room, he knew he was caught between a rock and a hard place and watched in silence as the women knelt down and examined Yuya, speaking in unison as they turned her this way and that.

"The baby is all tangled up in its cord."

"The girl has lost a lot of blood. Death is very likely if we do not intervene."

"She is of no concern. Only the child. Commencing operation."

They stuck their hands into Yuya's body and Muramasa observed closely as they operated in that bizarre way of theirs, presumably untangling the infant. Years seemed to pass in the following minutes before one set of hands pushed down on Yuya's womb while the other ones withdrew and moved downwards. With a loud cry and a gush of blood and fluids, Yuya's second child was brought into the world and caught by Saisei.

"Yuck, that's just nasty," both women said, pert little noses wrinkling in disgust and he took a step further into the room as they snipped the cord. His second grandchild was a boy with a head of black hair. He wailed loudly as the women wrapped him up and, once they were done, they stared at Yuya as if contemplating what to do with her.

"Do we have any use for her?" asked Saishi.

"Not really. But she has already bled out quite a bit. If we do nothing, she will likely die," Saisei said as she cradled the child.

"Yes. But I still hate the sight of her face. Maybe we should...," Saishi trailed off and held her hand up and Muramasa immediately drew his sword and stepped forward, allowing his killing intent to fill the room.

Though he favored calmness, peace, and serenity most times, he was willing to allow the darker side of his Mibu blood to come out and play if it served to protect his family. Sick he might be but he was still capable of obliterating them all in one fell swoop if need be and they knew it. He was only holding back by virtue of their proximity to his daughter-in-law and grandchild.

Saishi took a step back and held her hands up as she said with a smile, "Ooh, you're pretty sexy for an old-timer. Now I know where Kyo gets that intensity from. Whatever, we have what we came for and the girl is probably going to die anyways."

She shrugged and backed away, throwing one delicate leg over the sill of Yuya's window to make her exit since they weren't about to risk going around Muramasa when he was ready to cut them down. Saisei kept her eyes trained on the former elder as she followed suit, holding the boy - who had quieted down a bit - close as she slipped out of the window as well.

Muramasa turned to look at Shinrei, noting the soft look on his normally stern face as he stared after the baby. The expression was quickly erased the moment the young man realized that he was being observed and he nodded to Muramasa in an uncharacteristic display of respect. The man had been ready to kill him last time.

"You are...different," the older man observed.

"Things change," Shinrei said but did not elaborate as he pivoted around to walk a few steps before pausing.

"I...will keep the child safe," he said softly and continued on his way, leaving behind a very confused Muramasa who wondered what had happened to the fanatical warrior from eight months prior.

His first urge was to follow them and retrieve his grandson but he held back, knowing that he was running out of time while Yuya hung on the cusp of life and death. He also had to grudgingly admit that the Mibu had not gone through the trouble of kidnapping the child only to kill it. Faced with the difficult choice of saving his daughter-in-law and tending to his granddaughter versus tracking down and fighting their enemies - rendering himself useless in the process once he was done and his illness rose up to cripple him - he chose the former.

Fighting a yawning sense of helplessness, he entered the room where Yuya lay and prayed that Shinrei would hold true to his word until he could go and retrieve his precious grandson.

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Whew, that was fun to write. More good stuff coming up but It'll have to wait a bit until I catch up with my other fic since I tend to burn out when I write stories in tandem. Hope you enjoyed and please let me know what you think.