This is an Avatar: the Last Airbender/Inuyasha crossover, this is my first one and one of my favorite kinds to read. This is for Kurama'sFoxyMiko's challenge. Sorry it took so long, KFM; I revised it at least twice, so without any further adeu let the story begin!
Zuko/Kagome
Slight Aang/Katara
It was cool for early summer. The air was nippy with a smooth breeze. A dark skinned old man with bushy eyebrows and a matching good-sized beard squirmed. Something was amiss, that much Guru Pathik knew. That fact alone made it hard for him to concentrate. He sat in attempt-meditation on his favorite plateau.
He furrowed his eyebrows, making his wrinkled face crease with calm frustration. Sighing with defeat, Guru Pathik stood and stretched.
"Mew"
"Hmm?"
He took notice of a cat standing in the middle of the platform. To say it was strange was putting quite mildly. It was cream covered with black markings and large red eyes. It sat with its two tails curled around its feet.
Guru Patik stiffened.
A twin-tailed fire cat. A legendary creature from Fire Nation lore said to spit fire.
"Hello, little one," he asked hesitantly. "What are you doing here?"
"Mew," the response came. The two-tail skittled across the platform and melted into thin air.
Guru Pathik's jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. A moment later it appeared at the top of the steps going down the step hill. Not only was the cat a demon; it was a spirit as well.
Turning its head toward him, it looked at him, as if it was asking him to follow.
"You want me to follow?" Guru Pathik quirked an eyebrow. "Why should I? Cats are fickle. They only come to you when they want something. How do I know you won't –"
The twin-tail growled, arching its back and took off down the stairs.
Guru Patik tiredly sighed.
"Well, alright," he shrugged.
Where the apparition was taking him, he wasn't sure. He had never known that a passage way existed under the meditating Airbender statue in the ruins of the Eastern Air Temple. The air was damp and misty. Ancient, cruelly carved stairs winded down into the mountain.
The cat paused to make sure that he was following.
"Where are you taking me?" Guru Patik questioned. There was a faint, bluish light starting to grow stronger around the bend. Old carvings covered the walls. These he recognized as the runes of the Air Nomads, he read:
"The Miko is a balanced vessel of the four aspects of the soul (love, hope, miracles and valor) and yin and yang. Every five hundred years a girl is born into opposing elements, and it's this concept of yin and yang that founds the Miko Cycle.
Seven hundred years ago a Water Tribe priestess fell in love with a Fire Nation soldier outcast and in time a little girl was born… this girl was the last in line of the Miko Cycle…"
Guru Pathik tried to decipher what the next text meant, but the defacing was so bad that all he got was: Fire, destroyed, exile, Air, and ice.
The Guru squinted at the neko.
"Why have you brought me here?"
Cocking its head, the cat meowed and fled down to the light.
He tip-toed carefully on the slick rock floor and his hands guided him along the dewy walls. Soon he came across an open stone doorway. Though the mist was still thick he could see that two female air nomads at either side; the two inner in bowed in greeting, the two outer held up their hands in warning.
"What is this?" Guru Pathik said, finally peeking inside to see why the cat had led him here, of all places. Inside, the frigid air made his breath into little puffs of steam. Great icicles hung from the tall ceiling that penetrated the limestone floor, an icy maelstrom of a thick sea of grass-like frost licked the walls and filled much of the room. Among the chaos of eternal winter a great jagged spiral of frozen water collided with the upper limit. He took a humble step forward and almost slipped. The very ground was frozen water over rock! Getting a steady stance, he gingerly made his way to the great pillar of ice.
His rough old hands slid over the surface of the column to remove the layer of thin frost, and revealed more writing. He looked around.
The two-tail was nowhere to be seen.
This is where it wanted him to be. But why?
He scraped away more and more frost. There wasn't just writing under the ice. And the column wasn't solid.
It was an icy prison.
There, in the ice it self, was a young woman in suspended animation. She was beautiful; she had long ebony tresses caught up in the water's still breeze; a blue crescent moon tattoo illuminated her forehead, and she had pale tanned skin. Her eyes were closed in deep sleep and her arms were crossed over her chest. She cast a spell of peace amid the silent noise of her chamber. She was dressed out of date in a blue cloth dress with violet trim and at her feet in a fetal position was the same two-tail that led him here.
He shifted his eyes to the writing on her tomb:
"I breathe, yet I don't live.
I speak and all hear me,
But rarely understand.
I am for but I am one.
What am I?"
"A riddle? Why a riddle? What are you here for?" Guru Pathik's voice rose calmly. "Why on EARTH am I even here?!" With a huff he collected himself. Although this is a grand and spectacular discovery, he still had no idea why he was there.
Disappointed, he turned to leave.
Drip.
A drop of water dripped on his head. He looked up. Everything was beginning to melt.
There was a great crack. He whirled to see the pillar begin to split. The ice in the room was melting; water was collecting, flooding the place.
"What? Earth? Earth is the answer?" he yelped before an immense explosion of bluish-white energy shattered everything.
When Guru Pathik awoke he saw the glimmering night sky. Sore, he grunted as he sat up. The blast had demolished the top of the mountain completely. What was that?
His answer lay several feet before him. The girl lay slumped on the wet packed dirt…
She was breathing.
(Thanks for all your support; I hoped you enjoyed my new story. Thanks especially to Kurama'sFoxyMiko for her challenge; I don't think I could have done this without you. Have a good Thanksgiving holiday, everyone!
Ciao!