Stand By My Side [RL With Kuronue]

[deadly_garden]

Yoko stood in front of the clearly deranged bat, paying no attention to the body scant inches from his foot. His arms were crossed and his eight tails waved and twitched in obvious annoyance

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[cioara_bata]

The crown tumbled as Kuronue surged to his feet, just one impossibly fast blur of motion. In their time apart, in this alternate reality, he'd had little left to do but train. He'd made himself stronger, he'd fought everyone he'd believed capable of taking him down and in the end no one had been strong enough. Until there'd only been him, as alone as he'd ever been. No one had every raised themselves to that level, had ever bested him. Those some had come close.

"Stop it," he hissed again, hands grasping and pushing at the vision, "stop it. You don't belong in my head you don't belong here, get out get out!"

[deadly_garden]

Kurama watched Kuronue as he pushed at him, still bloody nails smearing on his clothes. "I belong here as much as you do, Kuronue. I will not leave until you explain yourself to me."

He grasped his shoulders and pushed him back to look into the bat's eyes. "What in Inari's name has gotten into you? I'm here. You're touching me, you're close enough to catch my scent, I'm alive. As are you. So what is going on?"

[cioara_bata]

"I saw you die," his voice cracked in a fury, but it was impotent rage, formless and pointless. Even if this was a hallucination of some kind, or an illusion crafted by a master assassin here to use it against him ... Kuronue couldn't strike out against his partner.

Over a thousand years after the fact and he couldn't ...

His hands shook, fisting in the front of Kurama's robes as he sagged, wings trembling and hunching in tight. "You died. You died and they skinned you and I buried what was left under the roses. And then I killed everything and everyone I could for taking you from me."

[deadly_garden]

Somewhere in Yoko's heart, the one he sometimes liked to pretend wasn't there after that long ago heist, he felt something twitch in... sympathy? Empathy? He shoved it back, not taking the time to examine it too close.

He took Kuronue's wrists in his hands and knelt down to bring himself eye level with the hysterical bat. "Kuro," he whispered, shortening the bat's name unconsciously, "I'm not dead, I swear. I've never lied to you and I certainly will not start now. Don't you remember? You were the one injured. The bamboo and your captivity and rescue?" He hissed in a breath. "I was afraid I got to you too late."

He forced open one of Kuronue's hands and brought it up to rest against a cheek. "I'm still here, Kuronue. I have my skin in its proper place. I'm not under the roses. I swear it to you."