By: Enkidu

Pairings: TouyaJin/JinTouya

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Sort of AU-ish. Shounen-ai. Some OoC.

Summary: Touya reprises his role as a member of one of the best Shinobi sects in the Makai, and he’s hired for a most unusual job by one of the three lords of the Makai.

“I am dust...
Blown away
...over the edge”

-“Dust” By: Van Hunt

Chapter 1

The worn out, dark grey cloaks he wore began to weigh him down as he trekked tiredly over bleak and humid jungle terrain. The large trees that towered over him did nothing to ease the blazing heat that was threatening to melt the petite ice demon. How could this sunless world be so hot, anyway? He didn’t dwell on it.

Of course, it would have been wise to remove the cloaks and wander around in lesser clothing, but that would mean exposing himself, which was just something Touya didn’t do very often. There was security under the pile of cloaks, and he wasn’t about to let his pale skin contrast heavily against the shadows he was so fond of hiding in.

Then again, he was beginning to overheat and even pant a little as he struggled to push himself across acres of endless trees and tall, sometimes violent plants. Why had he agreed to this, anyway? He knew he should have distrusted Reisho immediately when the earth demon came to him with some grand and important job. Just the fact that it was supposedly “grand” and “important” should have warranted distrust against Reisho since the earth demon was prone to taking any job that was “grand” and “important” for himself.

Touya really wanted to kick himself, but the job just seemed so, well, “grand” and “important” for lack of better terms. Apparently, the Demon Lord Raizen had gotten word of how strong and powerful their sect was and immediately sent out for one of their members to perform a certain task for him. Details of this task were undisclosed and ambiguous at best, but it did require for the lucky assassin to travel all the way to his territory and meet with the demon lord in person. Touya spent a good half of his trip mulling over what exactly the demon lord would have him do and the other half of his trip trying not to suffocate underneath the layers of thick wool he had barricaded himself under. This had better be worth it.

His feet ached immensely as he climbed up another inclined piece of ground, branches and twigs pricking at the soles of his feet, making him rethink investing money in shoes. When he reached the area where the ground flattened out again, he was able to gaze straight out at Raizen’s palace.

‘Finally,’ he thought to himself, resisting the urge to either collapse on the ground in a heap of gray wool or run up to the outer walls of the palace and press kisses to it.

...And that was the last thought he remembered having before waking up in a large but not quite lavishly decorated room. In fact, it seemed almost Spartan compared to some other palace rooms he had seen; at least, he assumed it was a palace room. Wait a minute. How did he even get inside the palace?

His eyes darted around frantically, and he struggled to sit up. He really did. However, there was some sort of weight on his chest planting him firmly to the bed. Even more unnerving was the warm breath tickling his upper chest. Where had his heavy cloaks gone?

He went frigid and couldn’t help his jerk of surprise as large blue eyes attached to one overly jovial face were staring down at him. Touya’s hands were already moving to push away this obstruction, highly annoyed that someone had even gotten that close to him, but he was stopped short by the demon’s greeting.

“Hello!!” he said with an enthusiastic wave of his hand.

Touya frowned and tried once again to gently remove the demon from him as he established by its size and high-pitched voice that it must still be a child.

“Ooh, you have pretty eyes! And you’re so small! How old are you? Why do you smell funny? If you’re an ice demon why are you so hot? Come get out of bed! I wanna play!”

The ice demon winced and slapped a hand over the demon’s mouth only to have it bitten seconds later by a pair of crooked yet sharp fangs.

“What’d you do that for?? Your hand tastes yucky! Daddy!!”

A soft clearing of the throat came from the corner of the room, and Touya’s eyes widened in surprise as Raizen slowly came into view. Now, Touya had never seen Raizen before, but he automatically knew this was the demon lord from the sheer presence he radiated and his massive height, at least in comparison to his own.

He swallowed deeply and forced himself to remain calm, unwilling to show the fear that was welling up inside of him as Raizen’s eyes roamed along his exposed body. He really had to find his cloaks. He wasn’t enjoying the near lecherous look on Raizen’s face. “How old are you?” he finally spoke, voice just as haunting as his eyes.

Touya was frozen in his spot, body completely still except for the barest rising of his chest just to maintain regular breathing patterns. “A hundred and two,” he answered quietly, watching the demon lord’s raise of eyebrows.

“So young, and you’re an Ice Master, already.”

Touya didn’t know what to say to that, so he remained silent. It was true. He was very young for a demon since demons were still considered children until they were at least a century old, and even more unimaginable was that he’d reached Master status so early. That was a result of vigorous training since he was very young and his own fierce determination to master his element.

“Daddy, is he my new friend??! I wanna play!!”

The unmistakable shriek drew his eyes towards the little demon seated happily on his chest, grinning widely. Oh, how Touya already despised the little monster, but from the appearances of it, it seemed the monster was Raizen’s son and therefore not something he should intend to harm.

The corner of Raizen’s lips lifted slightly and he gave the red-headed demon child a nod. “Yes, this is your new playmate.”

“Yay!!” The demon child squirmed happily and bounced on top of Touya, threatening to destroy the Ice Master’s rib cage. Not that Touya even registered what was going on since he could have sworn Raizen called him the demon child’s playmate.

His mouth opened in question but the only thing that came out was a quiet gasp, and his hands jerked forward to still the little monster so he could at least voice his question. “What..?” he asked feebly, the confused tone in his voice sounding foreign to his own ears.

“What’s your name??! Where you from??! Why’s your hair two colors!?”

Touya let out a soft groan of pain as two hands latched themselves into his hair and engaged in fierce tugging. He moved to pry the hands away, but the demon child’s weight was lifted off his chest, allowing him to breathe easily once more.

Raizen carried the squirming mass out of the room and handed him to an attendant. “Take him to get something to eat. I must speak in privately with our young guest for a moment.”

The attendant bowed his head and shut the door, but loud shrieks and protests could still be heard through the hall, only dimming after nearly a minute passed. Touya had moved to sit up, bed sheets pooled around his waist, blocking his lower body from view. His head lowered respectfully, and he fought the urge to let all his questions blurt out at once.

“You’re probably wondering why I hired you and asked that you come here,” Raizen began, eyes boring into the smaller demon’s form. “Well, first of all, I found you after you fainted by my palace. I should hope you have more common sense than to go roaming around the sweltering heat with such heavy clothing, especially if you’re an ice demon.”

Touya winced at that and mentally berated himself for his own idiocy. Deep down, this was all Reisho’s fault. Why’d he send the ice demon to cross all that distance into one of the hottest areas of the Makai? Was he intentionally trying to kill one of his own?

“Now, as for why I hired you,” Raizen continued without warning, his eyes still glued to Touya’s slim figure, “well, that’s quite simple. I need you to look after my son. I’m well aware you are an assassin, but believe me when I say that I need a demon of your caliber to keep up with him. All of his other playmates have either runaway, been killed, or severely injured. You can choose to accept and receive a very generous payment in return, or you can return to your sect as a dishonorable cur for declining the simple act of looking after a child for such a heavy price. I know you have your pride, but you also have your intellect. Choose wisely.”

Touya didn’t like this situation one bit. He was an assassin, not a babysitter! How big of a monster did his brat have to be that Raizen had to hire a deadly assassin to look after him? He really wanted to turn the offer down and return to his sect, so he could glare at Reisho in person, but he knew the earth demon wouldn’t be too pleased if he came back without the payment. He wasn’t foolish enough to go up against Reisho’s wrath, and the look in Raizen’s eyes didn’t promise complete safety if he were to refuse.

“I accept your offer,” he finally said, almost instantly regretting it.

Raizen’s lips curled in a grin, and he nodded once. “I knew you would, but you should know, if any harm comes to my son, I will not hesitate to kill you. Is that understood?”

The Ice Master nodded quickly, keeping his eyes on the bed sheets before him. Why was he so worried, anyway? How bad could it be? After all, it was just a demon child.

“Jin, come back here!” Raizen called out into the hallway and within a matter of seconds, a mass of red hair went flying at him, knocking Touya down on his back with a rush of air fleeing his throat.

“Hi!!” The demon child, whom Touya supposed was called Jin, waved at him excitedly.

“I’ll leave you both to get acquainted. Your clothes are in that desk by your bed, young Ice Master.” With that, Raizen casually strolled out of their room to do whatever it was that he did all day long.

Touya was left alone with the squirming bundle on his chest that never seemed to stop smiling. He was already irritated with the monster’s behavior and the fact that it had serious molestation issues since its hands were currently poking and prodding at his chest.

“What are you doing?” Touya hissed, pushing his hands away, having a severe dislike of being touched by anyone, including dirty little demons with sticky hands.

“You’re not cold! You really an ice demon?? What’s your name? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?? Huh??”

The Ice Master let out a heavy sigh, contemplating if being punished by Reisho would really be so much worse than this. “My name is Touya.”

“Touya? Touya...Touya! TOUYA! TOUYA!!” Jin bounced eagerly on Touya’s chest. Then he hopped onto the floor and began to dance and hop around the room, repeating his name in a boisterous voice that made Touya wince.

“TOUYA! TOUYA! TOUYA!”

Taking quick advantage of the distraction, Touya slipped from the bed and grabbed his clothes, hastily pulling them on, leaving the heavy cloaks off this time and briefly shuddering at the idea that someone had to have undressed him. An unnerving part of his mind feared that Raizen had completed that task himself, which made his insides clench uneasily.

He was only allowed a few seconds of liberation before the red-headed monster threw himself back on Touya, arms wrapping around him and head nuzzling his stomach affectionately. “I like you! Let’s play!”

Touya wasn’t even allowed time to protest before Jin dragged him towards the window, the ice demon’s eyes widening in panic. “Jin, stop!!”

His mind couldn’t process the next few seconds that passed because in a blink, he suddenly found himself flying in the air, a strong gust of wind holding both him and Jin up. One glance downwards made his stomach lurch, and he was quite thankful he hadn’t eaten in very long otherwise he might have thrown up right there. “Put me down!” he commanded without really expecting Jin to listen.

The demon child, of course, did not listen and instead, decided to fly them over the vast jungles that surrounded his father’s palace. Touya’s body went tense, and he squeezed his eyes shut, one hand curling into a fist by his side, unable to quell the knot of fear at the pit of his stomach as Jin decided to fly them higher so he could wave at the birds.

“Jin!!” Touya admonished, but the red-haired demon was more concerned with petting Jurassic sized Makai birds.

“Hello, birdie!! Look, we can fly, too!!” He eagerly shouted to them, scaring them away.

The wind whipped around them even faster, and Touya couldn’t bear to open his eyes. He didn’t even want to comprehend how high they were.

“Open your eyes, Touya!! We can touch clouds!”

“What!?!” Touya’s eyes snapped open in reflex, and he saw nothing but hazy dark grey mist surrounding his head, causing his heart to pound roughly against his chest, threatening to burst out of his body. “Jin, put us down, right now!” he ordered, the dangerous tone of voice meaning he wasn’t going to tolerate this any longer.

Jin blinked then grinned and said, “Okay.”

In an instant, a screamed lodged itself in Touya’s throat as he fell down in an unstoppable rush, branches and tree tops whipping against his skin and tearing into his clothes. His eyes were clenched shut, and his mind seemed to repeat the same thought over and over. ‘If this fall doesn’t kill me, all the bones in my body will be broken, anyway’.

Eh, not much of a cliffhanger. You know he’s going to live, but how?? Hm... do read on and give response!

Thankies to Pepita-chan for beta-ing.