A Yuu*Yuu*Hakushou Christmas, part 13
"Challenge"

        Mikawa opened her eyes and groaned.  "Damn it, don't tell me 
that..." she moaned, daring to reprove Inari.  "I don't want to hear 
it...."  Still, the insistant nagging at her mind did not stop.  "Damn."
        Sighing, Mikawa sat up, already regretting the day that hadn't 
started yet.  She called out to the other members of the White Council with 
her mind, rousing them from their sleep as surely as Inari's touch had 
wakened her.  Their reactions to the situation ranged from sleepy 
indifference to outrage to instant doubt of innocence on the part of either 
party.
        She sighed as she shook her fur and eight tails out, stretching to 
waken herself more fully.  She had barely been reunited with her daughter 
and the bright young silver fox she had grown to like over the years before 
something had to happen.  Kurama's first wife _had_ to pull some kind of 
stupid stunt like this, didn't she?  Still, this didn't quite smack of 
Kakuko's style or reasoning.  She should have known that Shizuru was 
half-mortal, and would not live forever.  She should have been able to wait.
        <That makes her offence even worse,> Mikawa thought to herself, the 
sudden thought of her daughter dying waking her like a dash of cold water.  
Silently she fled from her den, making her way unerringly to the the guest 
house where the visitors resided.  She slipped inside, followed shortly by 
the eight other members of the White Council.  The investigation had to be 
conducted now, while the crime scene was still fresh and uncorrupted.
        Awaiting them were Kurama and his first son, Yuumi.  Also present, 
though fast asleep, were Shizuru and Hiei.  Mikawa sighed, relieved, as she 
saw that her daughter was unharmed.
        Both of the silver youkos shifted curteously to their natural fox 
forms, complete, in the case of Kurama, with five tails.  Yuumi, naturally, 
had only one, being so young, and Kurama had obviously acquired the fifth 
sometime during his years of absence.  The two prostated themselves 
respectfully before Inari's nine chosen, even as the tenth member of the 
Council arrived in the room.
        <Hikaru-sama,> the white foxes thought as one, bowing respectfully 
to the personal servant and messenger of Inari himself.  Hikaru smiled, 
somewhat sleepily, and nodded for Lady Ako to begin the inquisition.
        Lady Ako, a nine-tailed kitsune who was the oldest of all members 
of the White Council, nodded solemnly, and began questioning the silver 
foxes mentally, not using verbal speech, as that might awaken the two 
sleepers.  "We all know who you both are," he began, "so we shall dispose 
of the normal formalities of introduction.  Besides, it is quite late at 
night, and these are special circumstances.  I would like an account of the 
incident from each of you, separately, in your own terms.  Silver Kurama, 
you may begin."
        Kurama sat up straight from his submissive position and met the 
eyes of each Council member evenly.  "For the past twenty years, I have 
been gone from this society," he started.  "I was killed in this form by a 
hunter in the Reikai, and I fled to the human world, where I saved the life 
of an unborn human child, and in the process, became that child.  I have 
not severed my ties to the Makai in the least; I am allied with Yuusuke 
Urameshi, who became Raizen's successor, and am the acknowledged successor 
to Yomi.  My primary loyalties, however, have switched to those who I care 
for in the Ningenkai.  The mother who gave birth to my second incarnation, 
the man she married, and his son, for example.  Also, a few close human 
friends, and my fiancee."
        "Kakuko, as you know, is my first wife, and the mother of my kits.  
Before returning to this village, however, I did not know that she had 
borne a litter of my seed.  I considered twenty years' separation and my 
apparent death to be enough to void our marriage, and fully intended, as I 
intend now, to make Kuwabara Shizuru my wife.  When I returned here this 
evening, I found them at each other's throats, and sided with Shizuru.  I 
called a challenge, and when Kakuko left, I found that she had used her 
abilities to entrance my friend Hiei."  Kurama hesitated.  "I enspelled 
Shizuru into sleep, as she will need it for tomorrow, and waited for you to 
arrive."
        "We should question them as well," Hikaru said softly.  
"Kuwabara-san is half-kitsune, and her word is therefore valid in our 
court, as is that of Hiei-san.  But I am reluctant to disturb 
sleep-enspelled beings, and hence ask that we wait until they wake."
        The council nodded in agreement.  "Silver Yuumi, give us your 
version of the events," Lady Ako said.
        "I do not know what my mother's original purpose in being here 
was," Yuumi said, "but I do know that she and Kuwabara-san are not fond of 
one another.  Still, this was not the mother who raised me that I saw, 
though it may have been her body.  I can say no more without repetition of 
that which my father has already said."
        Silently, without a further word on the subject, the members of the 
White Council left the dwelling.  There was one more they had to question 
this night before returning to their individual dens and musing upon 
aspects of the truth they had uncovered.  They would question Kuwabara 
Shizuru and the Koorime boy later in the day, and make their final decision 
regarding the matter then.

        Yamako watched as the nine white foxes and the one golden one 
padded softly away from the guest-house where her father was staying.  
Inari-sama had pulled her tail out of her dreams and told her to get it 
over here.  Yamako idly wondered if she was really white enough to be 
accepted into His service... she had never heard of a kitsune whose fur and 
nature was unacceptable being touched directly by Inari.
        "Otousan?" she asked as she entered the house, shifted into a 
semi-humanoid form.  "Yuumi?"
        :Yamako?:
        :Yama-chan?:
        "What's the White Council doing up at this hour?" Yamako asked, 
changing her body back to its natural fox shape, to match theirs.  She 
stifled a yawn.  "I was asleep, then Inari-sama woke me up and told me to 
get over here."
        "Inari?!" Kurama asked... no, yelped.
        Yamako felt immensely pleased, for some reason.
        Yuumi looked thoughtfully at her, then said "Well, I think it's a 
good thing that I'm leaving, then.  You and Hikaru are blessed, and I don't 
want the village remembering that you share a litter with a silver."  He 
smiled wickedly at her to take the sting out of his words, but Yamako still 
felt stunned by them.  She barely noticed her father padding over to where 
his friends lay as she moved closer to Yuumi.  Yuumi couldn't seriously be 
leaving... could he?  It was one thing to talk about it, another for it to 
happen.
        "You're not serious..." she whispered softly.  "You're not really 
going... are you?  You have a place here, Yuumi.  You have a future.  
You're a part of the village...."
        Her younger brother affectionately nuzzled her.  "'Fraid so," he 
told her.  "Look, we'll survive.  You have Hikaru to look after, and the 
Alcolytes are sure to accept you now into their studies.  You can study the 
ceremonial dances and be all the parts at the festivals that you wanted to 
when we were kits.  That's what you always wanted, right?  But I don't want 
that.  I want to find out what's out there.  I want to find out what's 
beyond the village and the youkos... not what's inside of it.  I want to 
know our father, and I can't do what I want here.  So I'm leaving to be 
able to do it."
        "Yuumi...." she whispered.  Fox eyes watered and blurred as she 
shifted back to her humanoid form, gathering the silver kitsune into her 
arms.  "I don't want you to leave... you're one of my two favorite 
brothers."  She looked over at her father.  Golden fox eyes looked back at 
her, not judging, merely accepting.  Her father wanted Yuumi, she realized 
slowly.  Hikaru had his own life, his own plane of existance that they 
occasionally broke into and pulled him out of, keeping him more real to 
them than any of the golden foxes of legend.  And she had her own goals, 
dreams of becoming the primary dancer among the youkos.  But Yuumi had 
nothing except his fighting, his skills with weapons.  He didn't fit in the 
village.  And their father wanted to take him away, to teach him to do what 
he did best even better.
        :He is a gypsy-kit, like I was,: she heard in her mind, :a 
world-wanderer, a thief, and a trickster.  It is the fate of all silver 
foxes, as it is the fate of all white foxes to create and worship, and all 
black foxes to destroy and defile.:
        Yamako listened to her father's words, then looked down at the 
silver pelt of the fox she held in her arms.  She couldn't keep him, she 
realized.  Her brother would stay if she asked, but she didn't have a right 
to....  "Go, then, Otouto.  Just promise to come back some time... lots of 
times."