Demon Tale

Demon Tale
2: The Seven Dwarfs

It was called the Dead Forest—which was a very misleading name because the forest was far from dead. The high, lush green trees could be seen from miles away. They were so thick, leaves so bushy that they blotted out sun, keeping the forest floor in a perpetual night. The under brash was less leafy, but still very thick and very much alive. They were also very thorny. They kept snagging Yusuke’s cloths as he tried to pass.

The name was a mistranslation from an older name in an old demon language. It meant “the Forest Where No One Lives.” Indeed there were no villages there, but there were bugs, and animals who snapped at Yusuke’s feet when they came too close to their burrows. Yusuke didn’t like hiking in a normal forest, let alone in this permanently dark, night-creature infested pest-hole. The only reason he had come anywhere near this place was because of Hiei.

Hiei had been poisoned by a beautiful enchantress he’d scorned. The poison was allegedly fruited from Tree of Blights, which grew only in the Dead Forest. The cure was unknown. But if he could find the tree, then maybe another part of it held an antidote. So here he was, tromping through this forsaken place on a vain hope.

“Damn stupid woods,” Yusuke hissed as a low branch attempted to strangle him with his own shirt, “Smells like a rotten crotch….”

“You sure do swear a lot,” a voice like a small silver bell started Yusuke. Tiny hands reached out from the gloom and unsnagged his shirt.

“Who?” Yusuke snapped in alarm.

“You may call me Joy, if you like, or even if you don’t like, it’s what they call me!” The tiny hands came emerged from the gloom, followed by the tiny body they were attached to. It was a girl, as the voice suggested. Her skin was the color of newsprint, white with just a hint of greyish-brown. She had short, frizzy blue hair. Her eyes were likewise blue and glowed with such energy that Yusuke wouldn’t be surprised if they could double as bug-zappers. She was only two feet tall, but proportioned like a fully grown woman; complete with plump round breasts.

“What are doing here?” Yusuke asked her inanely.

She blinked at him and then answered, “I live here. So I think the question is; what are YOU doing here?”

Yusuke was thrown off. He thought nobody lived here. He sputtered, ‘Uh well, uh, I’m looking for the Tree of Blights. Ya see, my friend was poisoned by it and I need to find the cure.”

Her petite lips turned, momentary, into a frown, “This friend must mean an awful lot to you, for you to go through so much peril.”

“I wouldn’t call this peril,” Yusuke snorted, “A little annoying….”

“You haven’t even entered the thick of the forest, dummy,” She laughed and fished around in the pocket of her green frock and fetched out a rolled up scrap of paper. She opened it reviling a map.

“This is the Dead Forest-- as you outsiders call it. You’ve been traveling in this path.” She traced here finger in a line that cut through the edge of the forest, but did not lead inside. “It happens; this part of the forest is designed to confuse people. To get to the next ring you got to take the tunnels, but I don’t think you’d want to.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve already come this far. You think I’m gonna back down cus I’ll have to walk through some dark smelly cave?” Yusuke burst out. She tried to interject, but he cut her off, “Listen Hiei is my best friend and… I’d do anything to have him back, got that? So are ya gonna tell me where these caves are or do I gotta just keep wondering around her like an idiot for the rest of my life?”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll show you the tunnel, if…” she dashed off calling, “If you catch me!”

Yusuke tried to pursue, but a tangle of thorns grabbed his clothing. He cursed. Ahead, Joy laughed. She glanced back to watch the young man straggle, but was shocked to only see a jacket hanging in the tangle. She turned back and had just enough time to scream before Yusuke’s arms scooped her up. “Got ya!”

“No fair, I didn’t know you were so fast!” She whined, “But a deal’s a deal. Truth is you would never have found the entrance without me.” She made a vague gesture and the ground a few paces away slid open like a trap door. “I hope you got your own light, cuz I don’t got one.”

Yusuke dug in his bag, pulled out a flashlight, “I got this. How long is this thing?” He looked up and realized there was no one listening. The girl had vanished.

The tunnel was long. Yusuke couldn’t be sure exactly how long he’d been walking but it felt like several days. It was a good thing his demonic metabolism didn’t require much food or rest; otherwise he might have died of starvation or exhaustion down there. He might yet. While the tunnel didn’t spilt in any way, it curved and doubled back on itself a hundred times. Yusuke didn’t know which direction he was headed in, if it was the right direction, or if it even mattered. For all he knew that girl tricked him; and this tunnel didn’t go anywhere.

“What’s that?” Yusuke heard something, a scratching sound. He shined his flashlight around. It lighted on a sign on the wall. “Caution Rats: Give Up and Go Back.”

Like hell, he was going to go back! He wasn’t afraid of rats anyway. He pressed on. The scratching got louder and louder until it reached a deafening pitch. Yusuke had to put his hands over his ears to muffle the sound. Then he a rounded a corner and he saw them. Thousands—no millions of rats! Fat, black and furry, they covered the floor, crawling over each other and… bones! The floor was littered with the bones of apparitions who had attempted to cross this floor and been overwhelmed by the rats.

There was another sign there. “Last Chance: Give Up Now. Whatever you’re after couldn’t be that important.”

Yusuke remembered Hiei, lying in his bed. He shouted at the sign, “NO!” And then he charged into the writhing mass of rodents. They squealed sickeningly under his feet, bit at his ankles, some climbed up his pant legs and snapped at his chest, neck, and face.

Yusuke kept running, even when he was knee deep in rats. He ran until his feet hit earth again. He dropped and rolled in the dirt to knock off the still clinging rodents. Just then the ground rumbled. “What now?” Yusuke groaned. The dirt wall before him opened and there stood the strange little blue-haired girl. Her cute green frock had been replaced with a bright red jumpsuit with a thick black belt.

“Joy?” Yusuke barked, “What the fuck? How’d you get ahead of me? I thought you said this stinking tunnel was the only way! Where the hell did you go; shopping for more stupid miniature clothes?”

It had escaped Yusuke’s notice that all this time, the girl did not smile. She was frowning. Her frown turned to full sneer as her palm rose up and struck Yusuke under the jaw, knocking his head sharply back.

“Let that be a lesson to ya!” The girl snarled, “Ya don’t talk to a lady like that. Shee, I didn’t have to let ya out of that hole—wouldn’t have if it were my call. So, fuck off.” She stormed off before Yusuke could even recover from the blow she’d given him.

“Hey, wait a second,” he said.

Then behind him someone said, “I’m sorry, that was really uncalled for.” Yusuke whirled. It was her again, but now her hair was longer, tied in two tails at the base of her neck. And she was wearing something grey and made of wool.

“How did you…” It a lighted on Yusuke, “You and Joy and that girl who just hit me ain’t the same girl, are you?”

She worked her face like it was complicated question. “I am Drear. The one who hit you was Rage. I’m very sorry about that… and what you must have gone through in the tunnels. Joy should have warned you, but she’s more concerned with having fun.”

“It’s alright,” Yusuke assured her. He felt like he had to. She seemed so downcast about it.

“I suppose you want to get on with your journey,” she despaired as he started to walk, “I’m afraid it’s not going to be very nice.”

“I got that,” Yusuke said, “But there’s no going back now.”

“Not without the Master’s blessing, I’m afraid,” She said.

“Master? What Master?” Yusuke asked.

“He created the forest, long ago,” she told him. Yusuke remembered Joy mentioning something about the forest being designed. “Every plant, animal and rock here was part of his design—save for the Tree of Blights. It was already here. It’s at the center of the forest along with the Master’s Keep.”

“He’s still around?” Yusuke asked.

“He is.”

“Then he might know a cure that’ll help Hiei!” Yusuke was excited. His hopes of finding a cure shot up… and then crashed right back down.

“I don’t know.” She said gravely, “I’m not sure if anything GOOD comes from that tree. I’m so sorry.”

They stopped on the edge of a clearing, she pointed across, “There is that fire-swamp. You’ll have to cross it to get to the Keep. I’m very, very sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Yusuke asked.

“You’ll see, and then you’ll be sorry too,” she said sadly as she stepped in to a shadow and vanished.

“Great, a cryptic warning; those always turn out good,” Yusuke drawled to himself. He set off. He did take her warning seriously. He expected to find, sink holes, monsters and giant bugs, but so far all he encountered was mud and more mud. There was fire too, places were underground gases bubbled to the surface and combusted in a ball of flame. But those places were charred, thus easy to spot and avoid. Only a complete moron would have been caught by one of those.

“Fuck me, this isn’t so bad,” Yusuke said to himself. As if the universe was just waiting for him to let his guard down, the ground under him heaved, throwing him off his feet. “Whoa!” Yusuke yelled as his twisted his body in mid-air to land on his feet. It did him no good because his feet landed in a snare that instantly tightened and jerked him off his feet.

Yusuke’s chest collided with the soggy earth with a wet thud. Then the rubbery snare jerked at his legs, snapping him backward. Yusuke was suddenly aware of darkness as he was drug into the earth. And then, for a time, he was aware of nothing at all.

When Yusuke came to he was hanging by thick rubbery ropes in a cavern that was dimly illuminated by some sort of glowing fungus. Yusuke straggled to free his limbs from the rope; that was a mistake because then the ropes tightened on his limps. He realized they weren’t ropes at all, but vines! Moreover they were moving him toward their source, a man-sized pod. It started to open as he approached. Yusuke gritted his teeth, prepared to see giant, acid-covered teeth.

The pod opened and there were no teeth, only a soft fuzzy bed of pedals. Yusuke was perplexed. The vines held him in front of the thing. Pedals at the center of the bloom pulled away to reveal a rosy colored pucker. Yusuke was perplexed again. But then the pucker twitched and opened—it was a hole! It connected in Yusuke’s brain; it looked just like a sphincter. The vines holding him positioned his hips at that level and Yusuke figured out what it was trying to do.

It wasn’t outside Yusuke’s imagination. Once when he and his friends got drunk, they started talking about sex. Then they started talking about masturbation. And then Kurama told him that there species of plants in the demon world that would get you off because they feed on semen. Yusuke asked him if he ever encountered one of those plants. Kurama just gave him a coy smile.

“It’s no good!” Yusuke tried to reason with the plant, “I’m not into this sort of thing! Look I’m limp as a noodle!” Indeed, the vegetation was having difficulty forcing his limp phallus into its sucking hole. But then Yusuke became aware of a sweet, heady smell. His brain began to fuzz and his body grew warm and tingly.

“Ha-ah!” Yusuke gasped as his suddenly firm manhood was encased by that tight suckling hole. The inside of that channel was so soft, wet, and surprising warm. Yusuke wouldn’t have thought that the inside of a cold-blooded piece of vegetation would be warm. There were certain lotions and lubricates that reacted chemically, warming with contact with skin. Maybe this plant produced chemicals like that.

Whatever, it felt so good. So tight, it wasn’t anything like a pussy. Well, it didn’t look like a pussy either. It looked like an anus. Was this what anal was like? Nobody ever gave Yusuke anal before…. And he wasn’t getting it now!

Yusuke shook his head violently to clear it. He wasn’t with some tender lover here. He was ensnared by a sadistic shrub! He struggled to free himself, but that only made the vines holding him grip harder and the piece around his manhood tighten. Yusuke couldn’t fight it. That heavy perfume was getting thicker, making him weak.

The vines pushed and pulled him, forcing him to thrust in and out of the hungry opening. “Ohhh,” Yusuke groaned in frustration and unwanted pleasure. Then he saw something that made him cry out in terror. It was a vine, thicker than the rest, maybe an inch and a half in diameter. It had rounded tip with a familiar looking ridge around it. It looked like a penis, a green penis, complete with slick fluid leaking from its pulsating tip.

“Wha—whatcha gonna do with that?” Yusuke whimpered, as if the thing would answer. The thing hovered before his eyes for moment before dipping back out of sight. Before Yusuke could wonder where it went, he felt something warm and slick brush against his inner-thigh.

“No, no,” He gasped weakly, “AHH!” All at once the thing pushed up into his crevasse, pressed against his virgin hole. “Ooohhhh….” Yusuke moaned, feeling the singular sensation of his body being opened, feeling something enter him. It would have hurt more, but the goo leaking from the thing seemed to work as a local anesthetic. He only felt a dull pain at his entrance, and the sweet warm friction as the thing started to move in and out his body, sending shock waves of pleasure to his brain.

“Oh fuck!” Yusuke shouted as it touched something inside him. “Fuck fuck fuck!” His hips were moving, thrusting hard into that sucking pseudo-asshole and then bucking back hard to meet that fucking vegi-cock. The vines that confined him might not have been completely to blame. His overwhelmed senses spiraled higher and higher until they crashed back down and he came, ejaculating into a hungry plant.

Yusuke lost consciousness after that… and never really got it back. He was vaguely aware of the smell of vegetation. It was dirt, fresh grass clippings, blooming flowerbeds and neat hedges. It was Mukuro’s garden that didn’t suit her. Yeah, Yusuke could see it now. And there was Hiei sitting under the cherry tree, the bright pinks of the blooms played a stunning contrast against his black clothes and tawny skin.

“Hiei,” Yusuke whispered his name, saw the small man look up. The corner of his mouth twitched as if a smile was threatening to escape. Yusuke had seen Hiei smile before. He was very attractive when he did. It was shame Hiei didn’t privilege more people with it.

There was a pain in Yusuke’s chest. He had an unusual longing to reach out and touch the man. He wanted to wrestle with him, feel his warm living body in his arms. A pain sprang in his chest. He wanted to feel Hiei’s moist breath on his skin and hear his chuckle rumbling deep in his chest. A pain in his chest—a pain in his foot!

“Yowch!” Something that looked like a cross between a bee and a horse bit him on the foot. The pain shot through his body, he sat up bolt strait. He was completely awake and aware of where he was; in the cavernous dwelling of that strange perverted plant. Yusuke saw the plant above him and the horror of it all set in.

“Shit!” He yelled as he tried to make a brake for it. He could see faint light coming from a cavity near the ceiling. But no sooner did he move than did the vines whip out and wrap around his ankles. Yusuke tripped, fell face first onto the mulched ground. He tried to struggle to his knees, but the vines lashed up around his thighs. They held his hips in the air. Yusuke could look between his legs and see the terror behind him. He saw the thick green phallus shoot up behind him.

“God all mighty!” He cried out as it rammed straight up his ass and started thrusting in and out as the vines dragged him backward toward the bloom. “Big mistake,” he gasped out, letting his shoulders fall to the ground. He pointed his index finger back between his legs at the big bloom body of the plant, “Ya shouldn’t have let me use my hands. Spirit Gun!”

A bright flash of blue energy shot from his fingertip, through the air, and hit the bloom with a blinding explosion. There was nothing left of the plant’s body, but a charred stump and the dismembered green phallus still in his ass. He reached between his legs and slowly pulled it out. His ass warmed distressing in reaction to the subtle friction of withdrawing the thing.

Yusuke found most of his clothing lying about the cavern. He made himself decent and climbed out onto the surface. He stayed closer to the charred areas were the fire plumbed form the earth. He assumed from how easily the thing burned that others of its kind didn’t like fire. He didn’t encounter anymore trouble the rest of the way though the fire-swamp.

He knew he was out of the swamp when he saw a splash of purple in the distance. It was a dress; long with flowing layers of gossamer. It was on a two foot tall girl with blue hair. She was carrying a picnic basket.

“You must be hungry after such a long time,” She said in a tone that could almost be considered matronly. She knelt down and started to unpack lunch.

“So, which one are you?” Yusuke asked, “And what do ya mean by a long time?”

“I am Grace,” she told him, “You’ve been in the swamp for days and then before that it was the tunnels.”

“Days!?” Yusuke hadn’t been aware of the passage of time. He didn’t want to think about what went on while he was out.

“And without a bit to eat. Here,” She handed him a sandwich. “Vex should be here soon to take you to the lake. It’ll be the last obstacle before you reach the Master’s Keep.”

Yusuke frowned, “You know, every time I follow one of you girls, I wind up in deep shit. I’m starting to think you ain’t trying to help me at all.”

“You would have run into peril no matter where we led you,” she told him, “It’s fairly consistent and no way is any better or worse than another, just different. We merely pointed you into the most expedient direction. But truth be told, we didn’t expect to see you survive. The Master does not like visitors, you see, that’s why the forest is so hostile.”

Just then someone whistled from the distance. Yusuke looked in that direction. When he looked back, Grace was gone. He looked back to where the whistle came from and saw the same girl only now she was in yellow leggings under a stretched out pink sweater with a thick neon blue belt around her middle.

“Vex?” Yusuke queried.

She was and he followed her until she stopped and pointed, “There it is; the lake.” It was only ten feet across. Yusuke could have walked around it in two seconds, but Vex told him he couldn’t get across it like that. He had to take the boat that was tied to a stump near the edge. Begrudgingly Yusuke got into the boat. She stood on the shore. He took the oar and tried to paddle. The damn thing was only two inches deep! He was essentially dragging himself in a boat through the mud.

It seemed to take forever to get to the other side. And when he was nearly there, Vex calmly walked around the water. “I thought you said I couldn’t just walk around!” Yusuke shouted, standing up in the boat. The boat rocked in the mud, he lost his balance and fell face first into the mud.

Vex laughed hysterically, “I can’t believe you fell for that! I really got you to cross a mud puddle in a row-boat!”

“You little!” Yusuke lunged at the girl, all covered in mud. Now he knew why they called her Vex.

After he gave up trying to ring her tiny little neck, she took him to the actual lake, also with a small row boat moored on it. The water was so flat and still, it reflected the night sky, making it look like a pool of stars on the forest floor. She told him, showing him on a map, “This is Mirror Lake. Its crescent shape almost completely surrounds the core of the forest where the Mater’s Keep is. The opening here is only one mile wide and so fiercely protected that there’s no point in trying got cross by foot—We’re on the wrong side of the woods to anyway.”

Yusuke looked at the map. On the bright side, he wasn’t at the lakes thickest point of crossing. “What’s the trick?” He asked, “What, is there a sea monster in there that’s gonna try to eat me?”

“No. You just have to cross the water,” she told him, “That’s pretty much the last hurtle. That is, until you get to the Master.”

“And what’s so tough about meeting the Master?” Yusuke picked up on that.

“He can be difficult,” she replied.

Well, no problem there. Some of Yusuke’s best friends were ‘difficult’. “Got anymore disclaimers I should know about?” Yusuke asked, but when he turned around, she was gone. “Starting to see a pattern here. Well, here goes nothing.”

He got into the boat and started to row it out into the lake—which sounded like a simpler task than it was. Yusuke had never had need to row a fishing boat before so therefore had not been aware at how difficult it was. First he pushed the paddles in the wrong direction and crashed into the bank. Then he discovered that you had to coordinate yourself so that both paddles stroked at the same time and same strength, otherwise you start to go in circles.

And then there were all sorts of other nuances, the rhythm of stroke, the depth to dip the paddle, he had to figure out. In the end he wasted a lot of energy and had to stop to rest in the middle of the pond. Nothing had attacked him yet and the water was still. It looked like he was sitting in a puddle of stars. He could see his own refection in the water like a Mirror.

“Weird,” He mused to himself, “She said this was the last hurtle. I thought there’d more of a challenge... other than having to learn to row a friggen boat, not that I’m complaining.”

“Why not? Complaining is what you do best?” Yusuke jumped, started by the strangely familiar voice. His eyes snapped up from the water to the seat across from in boat.

He saw himself, Yusuke Urameshi, sitting across from him. But that couldn’t be. He was Yusuke, right? He looked for his refection in the water to check. But his refection was gone. All he saw was a sea of stars. “Who… how?”

The other Yusuke flashed him a roguish smile. Yusuke decided that he looked very handsome and charming like that and determined to do it more often than he already did. Yusuke started by returning the smirk to his double, leaning back and saying, “Okay, I give. What’s the point in this?”

“That’s what I was gonna ask,” the other retorted, “Why the flip are we sitting in this boat, like a sitting friggen duck. Why are we in this god forsaken forest?”

“Uh, Hiei cursed… looking for a cure… ringing any bells?” Yusuke told himself.

“Seems like a lot to go through for some guy….”

“It’s Hiei!”

“So?” The other Yusuke snapped, “Why’s he so special. I mean, you just took an ass raping from some horny plant, man! Then, you just get up and move on? And you got to know that it ain’t gonna get no easier. Is he really worth that much to you?”

“Yes, he is!” Yusuke blurted out without thinking.

The other Yusuke settled back, calm now. “Maybe that episode with the plant wasn’t so bad. Maybe you liked it. Did you like it, Yusuke? Did you like having that vegi-meat up your ass? Would you like to have a real dick up your ass? Maybe you’d like to have Hiei’s dick up your ass. Is that why you’re trying so hard to save him?”

Yusuke’s mouth flapped like a gasping fish. The very idea of him with a guy— Hiei of all people—had never occurred to him before. Oh yes, outrage was the go-to response in this situation, but the level of shock was so high, he didn’t know where to start. Denial; but how could he explain to himself that he didn’t have any feeling or attraction to Hiei without it broaching on lying? Because honesty, he did have rather warm, if not thoroughly examined, feeling for the apparition and he had to admit he was pretty nice to look at. He still remembered that vision he had of Hiei back in the fire-swamp and that deep longing he felt.

Yusuke shook his head and told himself, ironically, “You don’t know nothing about me!” He grabbed the oars intended to finish rowing to his destination, but the other Yusuke grabbed them from the other side. His strength was equal to Yusuke’s. Yusuke couldn’t pull the oars as long as the other Yusuke pulled them in the opposite direction. “Why won’t you let go!”

“Would you?” The other Yusuke asked. The answer was, no he wouldn’t. Yusuke was hardheaded and stubborn. “I’ll hold on just as long as you do.”

That was the trick, it occurred to Yusuke. He let go of the oars, stood up and jumped into the lake. Yusuke saw his double’s image ripple and blur was he disturbed the surface of the lake. He swam the rest on the way. When he climbed, sopping wet out of the freezing water, there was yet another blue haired girl on the shore. This one was wearing a pale yellow dress covered in fringes; a “flapper dress”, as Yusuke thought of it, with an obscenely large and sparkly diamond necklace.

“Would you look what the tide washed in,” she laughed, “Guess ya could say, ‘you’re all wet; really washed up’.”

“And you’d be?” Yusuke really wasn’t up for this.

“Vanity, darling,” she lent him a gloved hand up, frowned at the wet spot he left on her glove, and tried to shake it off.

“And what Hell do you plan to put me through?” Yusuke drawled.

She snorted daintily, “Darling, I’ve better things to do than torture intruders. Someone had to verify your survival/demise; I just happened to be in the area. Consider your survival verified.”

“You sure of that?” Yusuke said, raking his dripping hair out of his face, “Ya gonna show me to this Keep I’ve heard of?”

“It’s over there,” She pointed down a shadowy path. She became temporarily distracted by her shiny ring. She shook her head and started to walk away, but not in the direction she had pointed.

“There a trick here?” Yusuke asked, but didn’t expect a straight answer.

She waved back, “The door might be locked.”

That was an understatement. Yusuke found the Keep doors. They were enormous, steal and complex with dozens of interlocked panels that worked like a Chinese puzzle box. Yusuke jiggled a few of the panels with no success. He barked, “Fuck this! Let me in!” He stood back, pointed his finger, “Spirit Gun!” The door shredded like it was made of tissue paper. Yusuke stepped through and demanded, “Okay, where’s this so-called master? Bring his ass out here!”

“You are a noisy one, aren’t you? The Master stood at the top of a grand staircase. He was tall, aristocratically handsome and a fox-- that figured. Who else than an animal spirit would have designed an entire forest? He must have been ancient, but he looked young. He had long, softly waving blond hair, tied in ribbon behind his neck, with golden brown fox ears atop his head. He wore an elaborately embroidered shirt and leather leggings. “And you’ve ruined my front door, too. Ego, would you mind?”

“Not at all,” Another one of those blue haired girls appeared, but this one was as tall as a normal woman.

“Wow, that one’s full sized!” Yusuke noted.

“The others and I are one being; the spirits of a fractured spirit that abides here. I am consciousness and reason; a greater part,” she told him mechanically as she approached. She passed right through him, like a ghost. She stepped up to the door, raised her hand to it. The hole closed up like a healing wound. “But without my emotional components, I am immaterial.”

The master interjected, “That will be all Ego. Why don’t you go see what you can do about tightening our obviously lacking security?” She nodded, turned and walked out through a wall as if there were a door there. He gave Yusuke an indulgent smile, “So, intruder, you’ve penetrated my forest, invaded my inner sanctum, and dripped pond water all over my rug. I assume you have sufficient reason to do all this.”

“Call it horticultural curiosity,” Yusuke said. Points for the big word. “I heard you’ve got a Tree of Blights lying around here.”

A shadow seemed to pass over the master’s face at the mention of the tree. He descended the steps to stand level with Yusuke. “That is a dangerous curiosity.”

Yusuke didn’t back down, rather, he stepped closer to the master and looked him in the eye, “I’m a dangerous sort of guy.”

“Okay,” the master said abruptly, “Are you trying to pick a fight with me or come on to me, because I’m getting mixed signals? For the record, I’d be amiable to either.”
Yusuke’s face fell. Was this what Vanity was talking about when she said that the master can be “difficult”. Sure thing, Yusuke was having difficulty. He worked his jaw trying to say something, but couldn’t for the life of him think of what.

“Take a breath, and then start by telling me what it is you want with my tree,” the master purred, plainly enjoying Yusuke’s discomfort.

Yusuke briefly explained to the master that an enchantress, named Devetaki, had poisoned his best friend Hiei and how he’d come to the forest seeking a cure. “Of course one of, but not at the top of my list of question’s is: how the hell did that woman get through this hell-hole in one piece?”

“Devetaki.” The master hissed the name like it wore poison itself. “She was my assistant, once. Pretty, but also manipulative, spiteful and volatile. I dismissed her when I realized that. She must have stolen the poison from my lab.”

“Are you going to help me, then? I mean, like, can you?” Yusuke asked.

“I don’t think I can,” the master told him. Yusuke felt his heart drop. “The Tree of Blights produces a number of curses, and some cures. But the tree does not produce a cure for this poison.”

“I don’t believe you! Tell me what you know or I’ll kick your ass until it pops out your mouth!” He grabbed at the fox. Yusuke should have known better. This man had built the forest from nothing, pouring his years and soul into it. It was part of him and him it. Yusuke nearly missed the minute twitch of demonic energy. Before he could react, the ground erupted beneath him. A myriad of rubbery and uncomfortably familiar vines entangled him, wrapping his limbs.

“If you really wish to fight me, you should remember that you are in MY house,” The master told him.

“Get these freaky things off me!” Yusuke demanded.

“I take you’ve met one of my little pets before, haven’t you?” The master ran a finely manicured finger over Yusuke’s jaw, “What did you think? Be honest.”

“You sick bastard!” Yusuke spit as one of the vines crept up his pants leg.

“Yes, I know, it does lack that… something you get from a real person,” the master explained his ‘pet’ as if it were a vaguely interesting painting on the wall. “It was one of my early creations. Sure they could give you a good suck and that probing tentacle can make you go cross eyed, but it’s just not a replacement for a hot sexy body. That’s way I demoted them to guarding the fire-swamp.

“Anyway our conversation had gone off-track. No, I do not have a cure for the poison that affects your comrade. But I did NOT say that there was no way to cure him.”

“You want something,” Yusuke noted shrewdly, “What is it?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Company… or at least the occasional caller,” the master told him coyly, “I do have a particular someone in mind, someone I think you could put in a word with; someone who has a known preference for foxes….”

So as it happened, Yusuke was released from the Keep with blessings to leave the forest unmolested, a clue on where to find a cure for Hiei, and a note to be delivered to Lord Yomi. As Yusuke walked away, trying not to think about the contents of the note he carried. Someone called to him, “Mr. Urameshi, wait!”

“Huh?” Yusuke turned and found a girl just like six other’s he’d met recently, blue-haired and two feet tall. This one was wearing a short frilly gown with lace flowers on the collar.

“I need to give you this,” she handed him a bottle. “It’s juice from the roots of the Tree of Blights.

“But your master said—.”

“It won’t cure your Hiei,” she stopped him. “You drink it. Not the whole thing at once, mind you. If you did that you’d sleep for a hundred years. Just one drop. It will allow your dreaming mind to leave your body and enter his. You can meet him in his dreams. I thought if you were able to see him, keep him fresh in your memory, it may give you reason to keep going even when it starts to get tough.”

Yusuke palmed the bottle. A single drop and he could see Hiei again. He asked the girl, “And who are you?”

“Hope.”
TBC…

A/N: A tower, a can of beans, and lots of hair. Next time.