Voices of the Lost Realm (OC)

[Chichiro Ketsueki]

[glow=Black,2,300]Claimer:[/glow]Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

[glow=Black,2,300]Disclaimer:[/glow]Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn’t either, though she’s from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 4—Memory

--

“BEGIN!”

Chichiro watched the two fighters nearest where she was veer out around the outside of the ring and close in on their opponents. She sighed, scratching the back on her head idly, then twitched, glaring over at Hiei. He’d been staring at her on and off ever since the last fight.

“What is it?” she snarled. “Why are you staring at me?”

Hiei glared back at her for a moment, then gave a mild, “Hn,” before looking away, walking back down the hallway.

Chichiro twitched again, growling, then shouted, “d**n IT, HIEI! DON’T YOU IGNORE ME! I ASKED YOU A QUESTION YOU—”

Kurama stopped her, placing his hand her shoulder. “You know he isn’t going to answer you.”

She wheeled on him, looking quite savage. “I’ll make him answer me,” she growled back rabidly.

Kurama couldn’t help but chuckle. “How, exactly, do you plan on managing that?”

Chichiro growled, then rolled her eyes and made an ‘augh’ sound, walking after Hiei, but not turning into his room and continuing on to her own instead.

Kurama grinned and, unable to help himself, called after her, “What? You aren’t going to make him tell you?”

“Screw off!” was her reply, and she turned into her room after flashing her middle finger.

Kurama snickered to himself; it seemed weird to him that she knew the meaning of the middle finger, as that was solely a human world thing. Maybe she learned it from her spirit detective friends, Kurama thought, then chuckled again. He couldn’t see anyone talking Hiei down about anything, let alone about a simple question.

In her room, Chichiro sighed. It had been a day since their last fight; the last few pairs had been taking a long while to defeat their opponents. It had been a nice fight to watch, but now there were shorter, less interesting fights with lesser demons that caused her no amusement to watch.

She closed her eyes, humming quietly the song that had been in her head the past two days, and willed the images of the torn bodies out of her mind.

Hiei watched her thoughts with his jagan, and for a moment the thought of someone watching her crossed her mind, but it vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Hn,” Hiei said quietly in his own room. “So she can sense the jagan’s presence in her mind as well.”

It was then that Kurama appeared in his doorway. “Talking to yourself, Hiei?” Kurama asked, sounding amused. “How unlike you.”

“Hn. Do you have something useful to say, fox, or have you adopted Chichiro’s way of annoying me without trying?”

Kurama grinned lightly. “No, I’ve actually got something to tell you.”

“Well?”

“Our third fight is starting.”

Hiei sat up and followed Kurama, then parted ways with him when Kurama turned toward Chichiro’s room.

After they had all gathered at the base of the arena, Hiei spoke first. “I’m going next. If this tournament wasn’t already boring enough, sitting around and not fighting is worse.”

Kurama nodded, and looked at Chichiro. She didn’t seem particularly enthused with the idea of fighting with Hiei.

Kurama sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he’d probably have to fight every time, but Chichiro stepped forward. “No, this is my fight,” she said in a stiff voice.

Kurama blinked at her, then shrugged with an easy smile. “Alright.”

Chichiro stepped on to the ring next to Hiei, who didn’t move and just gave a simple, “Hn.”

Facing them were two male demons, which looked like siblings. They were both around the same height, roughly six foot; the one facing Chichiro was a fire demon, with black hair that looked, for lack of better words, ‘emo’. Across from Hiei stood a fox demon, whose hair was dark as well, but long and pulled back into a ponytail. Their golden eyes matched each other’s, though the fox demon’s black fox ears and single, black fox tail made the two seem incredibly different.

Hiei and Chichiro, refusing to look at one another, decided without exchanging words to stick with the opponent they were facing. Chichiro “unsheathed” her several-inch-long black claws, which when shortened to their usual length looked like normal fingernails (Though sharpened) painted black, and lowered her body into a defensive position. Hiei didn’t move, glancing at the fox demoness beside him briefly, his hands in his pockets.

After the formless voice called out, “BEGIN!” Chichiro crouched and sprang at her fire demon opponent, slashing her claws down across his torso. He leapt up, flipping backward, but Chichiro's attacks were relentless, and he had to block with his own arms, his ‘shields’ earning dozens of bloody gashes. After only a short while, the demon growled, thrusting his arms outward, and Chichiro leapt upward to avoid the long trails of fire that spiraled out of his arms.

On the opposite side of the arena, Hiei was having the first honest sword fight he’d had in a long while, and he couldn’t deny he was actually almost enjoying himself. Almost. The fox demon’s reactions were quick, and his attacks showed that he was obviously skilled, but the fight lacked action and proved to be boring. Hiei slashed faster than before and sprang away from the demon, raising his sword and leaping into the air, his katana crashing down above the other demon.

“Impatience will be your downfall,” the fox demon commented idly, shoving against Hiei’s sword, and the short half-Koorime was suspended for a moment before the demon below him whipped out a dagger, lashing out at Hiei while still holding out against his sword.

Hiei gritted his teeth as the dagger drew a long slash across his chest, and sprang back. “Don’t try and lecture me,” Hiei muttered, his sword clanging across the fox demon’s again. “You’ll find it a lost cause.” With that, Hiei thrust out his sword, severing the demon’s arm that held the dagger, and took advantage of the demon’s distraction to run him through with his sword. “Pitifully simple,” Hiei sighed, ignoring his injury, and turned to watch the remnants of Chichiro’s fight as the demon beside him fell sideways and was still.

The demoness was still dodging the fire trails, unable to get close enough for effect, though she didn’t appear to have been injured yet. However, the demon’s attacks were cut short as he realized the fox demon Hiei had faced had fallen. “Brother!” he cried, then turned to Chichiro again with obvious rage despite the fact she hadn’t been the one to kill him. His fire attacks suddenly became more expert and trained, and Chichiro’s countenance showed her surprise.

Hiei realized she probably wouldn’t be able to kill the demon now that his focus was completely on his sorrow. That fact made the chance of her being killed quite high, and (Though the prospect was likeable, he dare not inflict Kurama’s rage on himself by doing nothing) he drew his bloody sword again, and slashed across the demon’s turned back.

Chichiro used his preoccupation with his new attacker and dove toward him, unable to get a clear attack unless she allowed her arm to be singed, and thrust her sword through him as Hiei had with the demon’s brother. She winced only once as the fire trail burned her left shoulder, and she straightened as the demon fell, glaring at Hiei. “What was that? I could have taken him on my own! Why did you intervene, d**n it?”

“Hn. Obviously you were going to get yourself killed. He was too blinded by rage to have given you a place to attack him, so I did instead. Although the thought of you being killed is fairly welcoming, it wouldn’t have been convenient.” He turned and leapt off the arena, walking back toward Kurama and Koenma as the voice announced that they were the winners.

Chichiro twitched. “…Der kermbies,” she growled, roughly translating to something close to ‘Arrogant jerk’ in demon, though some would have argued that ‘You jerk’ would have been closer, and then stepped down to follow Hiei.

Kurama spoke first when they returned, addressing Hiei. “Are you alright? That wound looks—”

“I’m fine,” was the flat reply, and Hiei didn’t wait for a response, walking past him and heading back to his room.

Chichiro stared after him in apparent wonder, but Kurama turned, not baffled by Hiei’s pain tolerance (as Chichiro appeared to be), to the demoness. “And you?”

Not to be shown up, Chichiro ignored the horrid sting of her burn and shrugged. “Uh, fine.” She was still surprised at Hiei; his wound was pretty deep, though the bleeding had slowed and would probably stop relatively soon, but he hadn’t shown any signs of even noticing it—not even a pained look in his eyes. She shook her head and looked at Kurama.

The fox could tell otherwise at the ‘fine’, but he didn’t mention it and figured it was probably arrogance that kept her from admitting it.

Chichiro found nothing holding her there, and left to walk down the hallway, though she didn’t turn into her room like Hiei had, and rather continued out of the arena and started to walk back to the woods.

She turned when she heard rapid footfalls behind her, and faced Kurama. “Yes?”

“Hey, where are you off to?”

She shrugged, cursing herself in her mind when she allowed herself to flinch at the movement of her left arm. “Just back to that little spring we found. The arena isn’t too interesting.”

“Mind if I join?”

“I’d like it if you would,” Chichiro replied with a smile.

--

Hiei hadn’t been acting; well, not overly so. He didn’t really notice his injury. Maybe it was the fact he’d had his arm cut off at one point and a simple gash didn’t seem like much, but whatever the case he saw no need to react to the wound strongly. Or at all.

His mind had been surprisingly clear ever since the fight, almost as if he had lost more blood than he thought, but he knew it wasn’t so. What it had been wasn’t obvious to him, so he simply disregarded it and took advantage of his random clarity of thought. After all, he wasn’t exactly a light thinker; to have his mind so silent seemed almost like a luxury.

…Then again, Chichiro's thoughts continued to bother him. Those images, together with that chillingly familiar song…he recognized them. Not just as a similarity to another scene he’d seen elsewhere (As three dead bodies seemed fairly consistent in his life, though often it tended to be more than three.), but those same three bodies and that same song. Hell, he was fairly positive that if someone asked him he could recite the song perfectly (Not that he would, but he was sure he could.). It bothered him that he couldn’t connect the reasoning for it being familiar. He didn’t think he could so easily forget something like that, but it eluded him. Which only meant he had forgotten it, or that he had never found it particularly important and it was just a wisp of a memory. He was half betting on the second.

Simply out of boredom, he decided to go hunt for bandages to dress his wound with. As he exited his room, he noticed Kurama and Chichiro leaving together again, and he scowled at how easily Kurama was getting along with her. It was beyond him how the fox could tolerate someone so irritating, no less actually enjoy being with them. Rolling his eyes and looking down the hallway the opposite way, he resisted a growl when he realized he would have to follow them at least a short ways to get out of the hallway. It was obvious that he would not find bandages in that section of the arena, as the three rooms they were sleeping in were the only ones currently in use in that hall.

Glaring after Kurama and Chichiro as they headed toward the forest, wishing sorely that the spirit fox could see his accusatory look and snap out of it, he turned left and began walking around the outside of the massive stadium.

--

“Did you and Hiei know each other before this tournament?”

The question caught Chichiro off guard, and she stared briefly at Kurama before stumbling over a response. “Well, I guess you could…” She paused and then narrowed her eyes at him, placing a hand on her hip and pointing at him as she noticed in a nearly chiding tone, “That was a really weird question. Really random.”

“Do you?” Kurama prompted, not harshly.

Chichiro looked sideways at the water, away from Kurama, and was silent. Something shimmered in her eyes beyond the reflection of the brook, and the fox demon near her could only wonder what she was thinking of.

Letting it go, Kurama looked to the brook as well. Out of reflex, he asked, “How is your arm?”

Absently, Chichiro mumbled, “Fine.”

Kurama didn’t think she had meant to lie that time around about her wound—she sounded too out of it to really answer honestly or dishonestly. By how spacey she had gotten after the question involving Hiei, he knew the only logical thing to do was to assume that yes, they did know each other. But neither had seemed to recognize each other when they first ‘met’ in Koenma’s office, and it seemed almost as though Chichiro wasn’t sure where she knew Hiei from even now. All the same, Kurama didn’t like being intrusive and didn’t question further.

As his stomach complained of its emptiness, Kurama stood, planning on going back to the arena and satisfying its hunger. “Would you like anything to eat?” he asked, figuring Chichiro could gather easily enough that he would be leaving by the question if she wasn’t going to come along.

“Not really, thanks.” She looked up at him, offering him a small but convincing smile. She didn’t seem sad, upset or angry, just…distant. Exactly how she’d described Hiei earlier. “I’ll be back later,” she promised, giving a low wave to him as he nodded and left.

Chichiro sat for a very long time beside the water in silence. Her mind ran with questions that no doubt Kurama had considered as well about her past with Hiei, but she honestly couldn’t answer many more of them than Kurama could. Did she know him? Yes, she thought she did. Where did she know him from? She wasn’t sure. And it bothered her. How long ago did she meet him? A long time ago, but she didn’t know when.

Scowling to herself, she glared at her reflection simply because there was nothing else around to direct her new foul mood at. Dropping a nearby stone into the brook, she watched as her face was rippled across, and then sighed once lightly and looked away from the water. Faintly in the back of her mind she realized that her shoulder still hurt and that she should have bandaged it long back.

Hiei was near. She could sense him, suddenly, and knew he must have just arrived in the area, or else she would have sensed him much sooner. Rising to her feet, her two blue fox tails swishing absently behind her as she did so, she headed away from the water’s side, following his energy.

When she found him, he seemed too distracted to notice her presence. His sword was drawn, and with swift, fluid movements he was either following through a kata or attacking an imaginary opponent with his blade fast enough that human eyes would not be able to follow him. His wasn’t wearing a shirt or his cloak, and she could see a bandage around his chest where he’d been wounded in the fight. A red strap went around the back and front of his torso, securing the sheathe of his sword in place diagonally between his shoulder blades. Chichiro noticed the bandage on his right arm for the first time, and her eyebrows rose the slightest bit in curiosity—she didn’t remember him being injured on his arm.

Silently summoning her own weapon, Chichiro stepped behind him and, just as he swung backward in his next attack, she raised her blade and let it clash against his.

He appeared surprised for only a flickering hint of a second, and his countenance quickly changed to irritation. His blade withdrew from the position and lashed out at her neck on the opposite side, though her own sword matched his speed and was easily there to block it. “I’m not one for friendly spars,” Hiei growled flatly, holding his sword against hers without moving to release the position or to attack again.

“Who ever said anything about this being friendly?” Chichiro responded coldly, stepping sideways and beginning to walk around him.

Hiei circled along with her, his crimson eyes never leaving her face; he never lost focus on his blade even so, and they both shoved against their swords evenly and didn’t move to attack or submit to the other’s strength. “I suppose no one,” he replied tonelessly, and lighting fast he pulled back his sword and slashed out at her again. She blocked, his katana clashing against her light and wind sword, and immediately they switched position again. Several, odd-sounding clangs of metal on energy disturbed the silence of the woods before Hiei spoke again. “All the same, sparring is generally sportsmanlike practice.”

“Without any true harm intended,” Chichiro agreed. Their eyes never left each others. “But it doesn’t insist a friendly or sportsmanlike approach.”

“No, it infers it.”

Their weapons hit a few more times before Chichiro spun around him and aimed for his back. He moved forward to avoid the stabbing motion and maneuvered his sword against the tip of the hilt of hers, moving her blade upward and hitting it out of the way to slash at her wounded shoulder. She evaded the attack and their swords met again as they evenly shoved weight against them. Neither of them moved for over a full minute.

Then Chichiro smacked his blade sideways, straightening her own at her side and advancing one step, beginning to growl roughly, “Do you—?”

“Yes,” Hiei responded immediately, not fighting against her move, since she offered no attack after knocking back his weapon, “I remember you. I couldn’t place it until now.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Chichiro regarded him with a cold, hateful glare for only the briefest of moments before she spun and began walking away without further comment.

Hiei called after her, “You’re leaving your back open to attack.”

Without turning to him, Chichiro raised her sword in a casual motion to draw his attention to it, and said, “Yes, but I’d slash you in half before you could try anything. So I know you won’t.”

And then she was gone. Hiei stared after her a long while before he flicked his sword once and then sheathed it, giving only a small ‘hn’ before he turned and went to follow her back to the arena.

As Chichiro stormed into the hallway, closely followed by distracted-looking Hiei, Kurama glanced after them, blinking once; Chichiro seemed…stiff, angry. Hiei didn’t seem too different than usual, but he was watching Chichiro more closely—warily? Staring at the two, he called, “Where were you two?” not feeling the need to specify that he meant where they had been together.

There were two different responses, both muttered almost incoherently. One of them said “Killing each other” and the other said what sounded like “Shopping”. He could easily assume which had said which, and simply decided he probably didn’t want to know what had actually transpired between them.

[Jinks]

Ah! This is getting really interesting. I was glad to come home from vacation and see that you had updated. If you had updated a couple of days sooner I could have read this before leaving but it was nice to come home to something to read. Thanks.

[Chichiro Ketsueki]

Jinks--Thanks for the kind comments! I actually just finished this next chapter not too long ago, and I'm almost done with the one after that...So they should be up soon.

[glow=red,2,300]Claimer:[/glow] Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

[glow=red,2,300]Disclaimer:[/glow] Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn’t either, though she’s from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 5—Sparring and Antics

--

Kurama woke to being prodded in the ribs by something, and not gently. He groaned, rubbed his eyes and glared with his single opened eye at Hiei, muttering groggily, “What?”

“When do we fight?” the fire demon asked flatly. He withdrew his katana hilt from its place beside Kurama’s side, returning it to its sheath where it was again at his belt (returned from the back-strap he’d used the previous day.) and looking down at the redhead with his normal belittling glance.

The fox sighed from his place on the uncomfortable bed, and said, “Is that all you woke me for?”

Hiei raised his eyebrows and growled, “Don’t make me ask you again.”

Forcing himself to sit up, Kurama stretched and yawned, and through his yawn he told the fire demon in answer to his question, “I’m not sure.” He lowered his raised arms and looked up at Hiei after he’d finished yawning. “Probably later today. Why?”

Predictably, he only received an unenthusiastic, “Hn.”

Blinking up at his sociopath friend, Kurama couldn’t hide the humor from his voice as he asked, “Are you really that bored?”

“Hn.”

And then Hiei was gone from sight, and Kurama mumbled, “I guess I’m getting up now,” as he moved to swing his legs over the side of his bed.

Having no further interest or reason for bothering Kurama, the fire demon reappeared far outside, probably a mile or so away from the arena. Drawing his sword, he slashed it sideways and allowed it to cut a few inches into the nearest tree trunk. Releasing the hilt, he tore off his bandana, allowing his jagan eye to open and begin to glow. Feeling energy surging through his body, he ripped the sword from the tree and watched as his energy crackled around the blade.

Chichiro dropped from one of the branches around him, standing before him and summoning her light and wind sword, holding it before her. “Impressive weapon,” she commented, nodding to his Sword of the Darkness Flame.

He only glared at her in silence for a moment, then position the blade in front of him and muttered flatly, “You’re late,” as he sprang for her.

--

“KURAMA!”

At the shout, the fox was tempted to summon his rose whip. Instead, he just shot up from his place sitting down on his bed and set down his book, calling, “What is it, Chichiro?” as he ran toward the hallway. He’d heard some sort of explosion not two seconds before the demoness called his name, or at least an incredibly loud noise that would pass as a convincing substitute for the sound of an explosion.

She shot in from outside, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to the wall, pressing him there with her arm, keeping him out of sight of the doorway. “Shh, shh!” She leaned out the door and glanced down toward the outside of the arena, then hissed, “If Koenma asks, you haven’t seen me, and you know nothing about his exploding micro-cooker-thingy.”

Kurama relaxed notably, then said, “Well, truth be told I don’t know anything about his exploding…erm… ‘Micro-cooker-thingy’. What exactly have you done to his microwave?”

She blinked over at him, looking appalled. “What?” she cried, seeming offended. “You think I did something to his micro…thing?”

“Microwave,” Kurama repeated, then shrugged. “No, I wasn’t accusing you. I was just…”

“Well, you did think I did something. I never said anything about accusations.” She leaned out into the hallway again, and he saw her stiffen and then she cried, “Crap!” and scrambled over to the corner, literally crawling up the wall with her back against the concrete. Her long, black claws were unsheathed and kept her where she was, her head against the ceiling, and she put one finger to her lips in a ‘shh’ motion.

Kurama gave her an odd look, then turned to Koenma as the toddler prince stormed in. He was in his teenage form, fuming, and…smoking? The tips of his hair looked singed, and his eyes blazed with rage. “Where. Is. She.”

Kurama blinked once, trying to keep his countenance blank and not allow it to reflect his amusement at the prince’s appearance, and said, “I assume you mean Chichiro?”

Koenma’s eyes snapped to Kurama from where they had been scanning the room. “So you’ve seen her?”

“No,” Kurama responded smoothly, believably, “but Chichiro is the only ‘she’ I can fathom you talking about here, besides Kagura. And Kagura didn’t seem particularly logical to consider as—”

“Alright, alright!” Koenma spat, seeming to simmer down the slightest bit. “If I were an annoying, pyromaniac demoness, where would I be…?”

Kurama raised his eyebrows. “Pyromaniac?”

“Yes,” the prince mumbled, “after that display, I’m sure that she’s—” But he’d looked past Kurama and spotted Chichiro, and he pointed, snarling vehemently, “You!”

Chichiro squeaked and sprang down, shooting past the prince through the small opening between him and the door, and probably headed down the hallway. Koenma sped after her and out of sight.

Kurama just stared after them, confused, then shrugged and went back to sit on his bed, picking up his book again and opening to the page he’d left off on.

Not two minutes later, Chichiro reappeared in his room, huffing, and sprang in a single leap from the doorway to his bed, hiding behind him.

Kurama waited a moment of staring at the page before him before he lowered the book with a sigh and asked, “What now?”

The words that spilled Chichiro’s lips were said so rapidly that he barely had time to understand them. “Well, I was sparring with Hiei—” That surprised Kurama, but he didn’t bother attempting to speak; he doubted with how fast she was speaking that he would have been able to anyway. “—and then I decided that I was hungry and wanted to bother Koenma, so I figured that going to his room to use the microwave would be the easiest since I could do both, but he wasn’t there so I tried to use it by myself and apparently if you put metal in it, it catches on fire, so I put more metal in there and then it exploded and then Koenma found it and I ran and then I came here to hide from him and then—”

Barely able to cut into her single-breath jumble of words, Kurama finally interrupted, “I know the rest from there.” He shook his head and then finally looked back at her. “Are you still running from him?”

She lowered herself in her crouch so that her head was behind his back save for her eyes, which looked out over one of her hands that were rested on his shoulders. “Nope. Now I’m trying to hide.”

Kurama let his face rest in his hand for a short moment before mumbling into his palm, “I’m not sure it’s going to work to hide here again. Much less in plain sight.”

She sat up at that, and said indignantly, “I am not in plain sight!” She glanced down at herself, furrowed her brows, and then said, “Well, I wasn’t a few moments ago…Anyhoo, you’re right. I have to find a better place to hide.” She glanced around his room, and then noticed not for the first time, “Man, these rooms are bare.”

Ignoring her observation, Kurama said, “I do believe you’re Koenma’s temporary Jorge replacement.”

“Who?”

“Never mind.” Glancing around him, he realized that she was correct—the rooms were too bare for her to hide in. “Better try outside,” Kurama suggested casually, lifting his book again.

“Thanks!” She then ran from the room, and Kurama muttered something about how nuts she was before he laid back onto his pillow and crossed his legs as he stretched them out in front of him.

Almost immediately, his reading was disturbed again. This time it was Hiei, asking from the doorframe, “Have you seen Chichiro?”

Kurama quirked a single eyebrow over at the fire demon. “Why do you want to know?”

“I have a late assassination to carry out,” he said flatly, without humor. “Tell me, have you or not?”

Kurama pondered a moment whether he was serious or not, and then responded, “I did see her not too long ago. She should be out in the woods hiding from Koenma.”

Hiei was gone almost immediately after Koenma’s name passed through Kurama’s lips, and silently the fox hoped for no further distractions and raised his book yet again and attempted to find his place once more.

--

Chichiro glanced up as Hiei walked into the clearing; she no longer seemed flustered or worried over the incident with Koenma, if she ever had been save for effect and humor.

Not surprisingly, and despite the fact that he was the one just arriving, the first thing Hiei said to her was, “You’re late, again. Where were you?”

“I have better things to do than spar with you once and a while,” she told him unenthusiastically, not leaning off of the tree her back was against.

“I doubt that,” Hiei commented dryly. “The only thing you have to do here besides fight with me is destroy something that belongs to Koenma, which you’ve already done. Now that you’ve had your fun, I assume you’ll be able to keep your pitiful attention span focused long enough to spar?”

Chichiro felt her twin blue tails bristling, but she bit back rebuttals. “Yes, I’m ready to fight you again.” Since that first day that they had held a mini-spar, they had been fighting one another every few hours or so to battle off boredom and any rusty skills they may have developed. This was their third or fourth meeting, now—she couldn’t recall the number and was annoyed that she even came as close as she did to remembering. She had decided already that she shouldn’t care about the number, and shouldn’t remember anything besides how to defeat him. A murderer like him wasn’t worth any more of her memory than that.

As Hiei came to stand before her, she didn’t summon her weapon as usual, nor did she even unsheathe her claws. Instead, she just leaned off of the trunk and got into a defensive stance, setting her arms before her and lowering closer to the ground.

Hiei drew his katana, but likewise didn’t summon any energy; he didn’t move to attack, either, and asked in what could have been considered a mocking tone, “Finally learned not to attack blindly?”

“No,” Chichiro responded coolly, attempting not to lose it and attack him like she badly itched to, “I’m just shaking things up a bit. I’ve been attacking first far too often—it’s your turn, now.”

Only a small, “Hn,” was offered before Hiei leapt upward and drove his sword downward at Chichiro.

It was a simplistic, purely experimental move, and Chichiro recognized it as half-assed simply so that she’d offer attack of her own. Gritting her teeth and resisting any insults that she felt like flinging at him, she simply blocked and swerved sideways quickly, sliding off behind him and again resuming a defensive stance. No attacks yet, she told herself, though her arms twitched in anticipation of swinging her blade at him and his own sword. I have to read better into his attacks…No more draws for these spars. I want to win, not to let it settle at a tie again.

Hiei seemed to recognize this fact, and after his second less-than-serious attack, he finally switched into complete offense, and Chichiro noted an immediate change in power within him. She had actually considered his half-*ss attacks fairly strong, but even though she could still tell he was holding back simply because this was a spar, he almost matched her within seconds. Almost—she thought she could still barely feel the slightest advantage on her side even if she was only offering defense. Better not be too cocky, she decided, and disregarded the power shift as she sprang up and flipped over him.

As she sensed his sword turning ridiculously fast in the middle of his attack aimed where she had just been, she shifted sideways midair and barely evaded having her right foot sliced in two. She was tempted again to shout at him, this time about being careful, but that would have been a stupid request and she didn’t bother raising it. Besides, he was attacking again and she had no time to shout.

Racing into the cover of the trees, she waited until she sensed him turn and follow her before she actually let herself go as quickly as she was able, or at least as quickly as she was willing to display openly to him. Even if her pace was more rapid than most demons could match—faster than Kurama, no doubt—Hiei kept up with her in the branches of the trees beside her chosen path easily, and didn’t seem to have any trouble doing so. d**n, he’s fast…

Hiei had resisted the urge to keep a constant watch of Chichiro’s thoughts, being that this was not an actual fight and he figured it should be as fair as possible (He was, after all, much stronger than she was, he thought—she didn’t have a chance against him.), but that last one was just too unguarded for his jagan not to pick it up. Of course I’m fast, he thought, not responding out loud or telepathically, even though he spoke to her without her knowing it. Or, perhaps ‘he mocked her’ would better suit what his thoughts were doing. So stop running, there’s no way you can outmatch my speed. “Are you going to keep running all day?” Hiei asked impatiently, dropping down before her with a single large leap. As she slowed for a short second, then veered to the right, he followed at a quicker pace that soon overtook her own and continued, “I thought we were sparring, not playing tag.”

But he had underestimated her speed, Chichiro knew as she picked up her own pace. He may have thought she wasn’t too fast compared to him, but she could barely see the hint that he actually had to try to meet her speed when she shot forward quicker. “I guess patience isn’t your strongpoint?” Chichiro assumed aloud as she skidded to a halt and finally sprang for him.

Hiei had expected her claws, a punch, a kick, or perhaps her light and wind sword; what he had not been expecting was her to tackle him and throw him backward using only the force of her body as it flew toward him, quite like an animal would have while trying to pin its quarry. But Chichiro only held onto his arms as she came forward at him only long enough to throw him against a tree ten or fifteen feet behind where he had been when she leapt, and to jump back she rammed her knees onto his chest and pushed off of his pinned body to flip backwards. He also hadn’t thought that she would be as strong as she proved to be when he slammed into the trunk, so it was rather surprising to him when he felt it crack behind him. Luckily he was able to catch himself before he fell even though he had had the wind knocked from him, and he kicked off the nearest branch when his feet hit it.

Ignoring the irritating pain on his back and the buds of frustration threatening to grow at the back of his mind, his countenance settled into one of annoyance as he lashed out at her with his katana. It was a faking strike; in her left over arrogance from her successful attack, she didn’t pick up on the subtle hints that it was a feigned attack. When she moved to the right to avoid his blade, raising her arm to evade the sword as it was thrust upward toward her limb, Hiei shot out his left arm and let it slam onto the flesh between her neck and shoulder on her right side. Taking advantage of her distraction at the newer, switched attack, he slashed his sword again at her left side, this time downward and twisting toward her inner shoulder rather than her arm.

Chichiro had picked up on the second attack, and she was able to dip beneath it and strike for his face with her fist. The hit on her throat ached, but it only fueled her drive. When Hiei blocked her punch with his left arm, and moved to again block—this time a kick—with his right hand, she spun and kicked his exposed torso. Infuriatingly fast, he caught her ankle and twisted her around so that she was facing the ground when they finally hit. Though her face was in the dirt, she didn’t let that or the pain bother her, kicking his knees. For the first time, she heard him make a small noise of pain—not much, but it was at least a comfort for her pride. She quickly lifted herself off the ground into a position quite like she had just done a push-up with only one leg extended, and smacked his feet out from beneath him with her other leg.

Immediately after Hiei felt the ground against his back, Chichiro was on top of him with her newly-summoned light and wind sword thrusting at his neck; he had managed to put his own katana between his throat and her weapon before the strike connected, but he was at a disadvantage now and Chichiro’s blade was dangerously close to slitting his throat.

He decided casually in that moment that he would no longer think of this as ‘sparring’, but as ‘practice’. Sparring was friendly, and power was held back. Practice had no rules save for not killing your opponent, and even that term was a stretch now with how eager the fox demoness seemed to kill him.

Pushing against her sword, Hiei weaved his pinned legs out from beneath her and wrapped them around hers so that the insides of their knees were linked; now that she had lost her footing, with a single heave, he threw her forward and in turn pinned her down with his blade at her throat.

This led to them rolling sideways and finally hitting a trunk that lay in their path. At that, they untwined themselves and sprang back away from each other to stand. They were both breathing semi-hard, and they could easily read in one another’s eyes that the other was just as frustrated as themselves with how quickly they had gotten winded. The fight hadn’t been too long yet, it had just been fast-paced. Most fast-paced battles didn’t last long, and generally one of the opponents won or the fight simply slowed down.

Letting her sword rest barely-raised at her side, Chichiro huffed, “Draw?”

Flatly, irritably, Hiei agreed, “For now,” and slid his katana back into its scabbard.

[Chichiro Ketsueki]

[glow=black,2,300]Claimer:[/glow] Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

[glow=black,2,300]Disclaimer:[/glow] Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn’t either, though she’s from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 6—The Fourth Fight

--

The next round of the tournament had begun. After a brief discussion, Chichiro had grudgingly given in and let Hiei and Kurama fight. She was currently leaned against the wall of the stadium to watch, her arms crossed and her two tails swishing behind her in irritation. The two male demons from her team were standing in the ring before her.

For the first time the shapeless voice from the loudspeaker in the stadium boomed, “Please state your names.”

The two across from Hiei and Kurama raised their voices before the other pair could. The first, a male wind demon, called out, “Nadaru.” He wore a light-hued trench coat, and he had silver-white hair that greatly resembled Yoko’s. Kurama realized with mild humor that a lot of the opponents, specifically the wind demons, looked a bit like Yoko.

The female wolf demoness beside him announced that her name was, “Wren.” Her single wolf tail swished behind her Arabian-style pants, and atop her bluish hair, her black wolf ears twitched, probably from anticipation toward the battle that was soon to follow.

Lacking any direction to call toward, Kurama didn’t shift his position and continued to face the opposite team as he said, “Kurama.”

Rather than a name, the only thing offered by the fire demon standing beside him was, “Hn.”

Kurama coughed to cover his surprise, hissing, “Hiei!” in a chiding tone. Louder, awkwardly, he called out, “His name is Hiei.”

Without delay, the formless voice shouted, “BEGIN!”

As Wren crouched before him and unsheathed her mean-looking claws, Kurama summoned his rose whip. In the middle of a singular blink from the spirit fox, the demoness disappeared. His eyes narrowed for a split second, and then he sprang sideways from instinct just as Wren’s glowing blue fist slammed into the ring right where he’d just been. He rolled sideways, gathering into a crouch and lashing his whip out at her. Oddly, she didn’t dodge—she simply caught the whip, or rather set her hand before it and allowed it to be slashed in half. She showed no signs that she felt pain or registered what had happened, and she leapt for him again, swinging her fists at him with no visible pattern. As her torn hand swung for his face, Kurama was appalled to see that as it approached him, it was knitting itself back together and the gash was disappearing.

On the other side of the ring, Hiei’s fight had begun with him drawing his katana from its sheathe as Nadaru withdrew a chain and sickle from its place lodged in his sash-belt. The curved blade was thrown toward Hiei, and as the fire demon ran sideways to dodge it, it seemed to be guided by demon energy and followed his movement in an arc heading back toward Nadaru. The wind demon caught the weapon when it failed to hit Hiei, and immediately sent it out again. Hiei sprang upward and managed to actually land on the swinging blade for a short second before he dove for Nadaru, using the wind demon’s own weapon as a kick-off. Hiei’s katana flicked up and slashed the demon’s brow, and as Hiei flipped off, he was surprised to see that his slash had cut into the demon’s now-visible jagan eye.

A wind demon with a jagan…? he thought, then assumed, It must be an implant.

Nadaru’s jagan suddenly changed color and became bright emerald rather than the red it had been before, and Hiei had to consider for a moment if the blood running down it had made it seemed crimson at first. No, he decided, it changed color. Up until now, the demon hadn’t done anything hinting at using a jagan, save for perhaps the use of energy to guide his weapon; Nadaru wouldn’t have needed the jagan’s power to do that, however. If you aren’t going to use it in a battle when you’re at a disadvantage, why have one? Hiei wondered, not caring if he had a reason outside of battle to have it.

Kurama’s fight continued to be aggravatingly one-sided, both in who was winning and who was throwing the blows, though both had claim to a different one. Kurama was offering all of the attacks, but Wren blocked them all with the hand he’d torn earlier and with every tear she became stronger and swifter; she seemed, by all evidence, to be winning the skirmish even though she wasn’t giving any offense of her own.

Because he had found that his impulse was reliable in this fight, he sprang to the side when his instinct told him to. Instinct was wrong this time, and he felt a pressure slam onto his back. He gave a muffled grunt, but Hiei still caught the sound and turned toward him. Kurama rarely cried out during a battle, and he certainly hadn’t expected the fox to during this tournament—frankly, Hiei had thought this would be easy. Neither Nadaru nor Wren were making an honest attempt to dodge attacks, but unlike Wren, Nadaru had not gained speed and his wounds had not healed after each laceration.

“Kurama!” Hiei called over.

The spirit fox knew well enough that Hiei wasn’t worried and hadn’t called to check on him, so after offering a quick, half-hearted attack to Wren, he threw a glance sideways at Hiei. In the few second he was able to focus on the fire demon before Wren dove for him again, he caught the gesture Hiei made to Nadaru’s brow. Most demons wouldn’t catch the indication, but the fox knew that it was aimed for Nadaru’s jagan. By the look Hiei gave him before he faced Nadaru again and slashed at the male demon with his sword, he wanted Kurama to check Wren for a jagan as well.

What’s so interesting about a jagan…? Kurama wondered, but immediately his mind raced with possibilities for the oddity of it, and he decided against questioning Hiei’s judgment. He’d never understood how the fire demon’s mind worked, and didn’t bother wondering now, so he turned back to Wren as she leapt for him, shouting out a battle cry as her elongated claws stretched out toward his face. As her body flew toward him, his eyes sought out her forehead and found it to be covered by a dark navy bandanna. With a flick of his wrist and some manipulated demonic energy, a vine-sword crawled along his outstretched arm and ripped the bandanna from her brow as he blocked her attack. Sure enough, a green jagan glistened beneath it, open wide and obviously being used. Why conceal it if you’re using it?

Hiei looked back to Nadaru, having glanced over to Wren and Kurama to confirm that she did indeed have a jagan. As soon as his eyes rested once more on the male wind demon before him, the jagan on his brow flickered and became red. Hiei’s eyes widened slightly, and then narrowed. What the hell is going on here…?

Kurama blinked once. Was he imagining it, or had Wren’s jagan just change colors? He had heard not long ago from Hiei that there had been a development in demon world of a new jagan, one that didn’t absorb as much of the new host’s demonic energy when it was implanted and didn’t hurt nearly as much, but though its abilities were more limited, it also had a few new ones. Could these two demons be a couple of the test subjects for it? He hadn’t seen them use their jagans besides the colors changing, and he figured they could also be communicating.

Hiei decided to simply ignore their jagans for the moment; they weren’t using them to aid their attacks, so he had nothing to worry about danger-wise from them. True, they could be using illegal in-the-ring telepathy and speaking with one another, but so far that had not affected the fight at all and he didn’t bother worrying.

By the side of the arena, Chichiro watched with a scowl, her eyes mainly on Hiei. The fight was so one-sided on his end, she almost pitied Nadaru. And Kurama? He seemed to be losing to Wren. It was hard to battle a demon that could heal so quickly. All the same, despite her worry, her eyes remained riveted on the fire demon and not the fox. Why had she been so kind to him lately? Perhaps ‘kind’ wasn’t correct—civil, more like. Why had she been so civil to him? She should have hated him. I do hate him, she immediately thought, insistently, then gave a low growl. She turned away from the ring and headed back into the hallway and away from watching the fight. Neither demon noticed her leave.

Hiei found that he was becoming incredibly annoyed with this fight. He leapt forward and, knowing Nadaru wouldn’t dodge it, ran the demon through with his sword. Hiei didn’t bother relishing the feel of the kill, and looked to Nadaru’s brow to find that, as he had suspected, the jagan became red.

Hiei sensed Wren at the last moment, and was barely able to leap up to avoid her attack. What the hell? Why is she attacking me? Although these were tag-team fights, he had thus far not seen opponents switch attack to a different demon mid fight. He had seen that some were emotionally attached to one another—such as the brothers they had fought before—but he had never seen them turn and attack someone else. Again referencing the brothers from earlier, the one who had survived near the end of the fight had continued to attack Chichiro even though Hiei had been the one to kill his sibling. Now Wren had decided to ignore Kurama. Hiei wasn’t worried that she had killed Kurama (He could be wounded) or that it was her reasoning for helping Nadaru, so it was strange to him.

The jagans, he assumed then. As said earlier, he had been the one to inform Kurama about the prototype jagans that had been showing around demon world lately, so he knew well that this probably was one of them. “They’re a new form of jagan being developed for the weaker demons whose energy is too pitiful to withstand a normal jagan, and whose nerves cannot handle the pain of the usual,” Mukuro had told Hiei, back when he still worked on the patrol. “They have new…‘advantages’, though I’ve never seen one myself and cannot be sure what they are.” Still, so far this communication was the only thing he’d seen—the jagans changed color, he guessed, when they spoke to one another: red when Nadaru was speaking to Wren and green when Wren was alerting Nadaru to something. Nadaru must have sought her aid.]/i]

He aimed a single, quick attack at Wren’s throat, slashing it open with ease, and then he looked to Kurama. Flickering over to his friend, he glowered down at him with a raised eyebrow. Flatly, he asked the fox who was currently sitting casually on the ground, “What are you doing?”

“I felt like resting,” Kurama responded sarcastically with a smile, then stood, wincing.

“You’re injured. Where?”

“Worried about me?” the fox jested, his feigned smile turning to a grin.

Impatiently, Hiei growled, “Of course not. Where are you wounded?”

“My back, again,” Kurama answered obediently.

“Again?”

“Yes.” The fox sighed lightly. “Wren apparently enjoyed injuring my back.”

“Hn.” Hiei watched as Kurama straightened with effort from his pain-induced hunched-over position. “We should get you bandaged.”

“I would like to,” Kurama muttered, “but it seems that our fight is not yet over.”

Hiei turned to watch Wren stand, dust herself off, then wipe the blood from her throat. Her neck was healed, and besides the blood that seemed incredibly out of place on her skin, she was untouched and unwounded.

Sensing Kurama making the attempt to stand (He had sat back again, though Hiei doubted he had intended to and had instead done so from weakness.), Hiei shoved his friend back down, growling, “Don’t be stupid. You’re of no use now.” Making sure the fox didn’t try again to get up, he turned to Wren. He had fought fast-healing demons with seemingly endless ability before, and he wasn’t worried that he wouldn’t win—he was far too arrogant for that. But he was surprised Wren had survived having her throat slit all the same—the sword had gone in deep.

“You look surprised, Jaganshi,” Wren commented with a smirk as she licked a small amount of the remaining blood on her finger.

Hiei didn’t bother asking how she knew he had a jagan; it was unimportant. He also didn’t waste time responding, and he flicked his sword free of her blood before contemplating how best to kill her.

Nadaru was keeled over already; not dead, but close. Wren was guarding him, but Hiei figured he’d be able to distract her by getting her to the other side of the ring long enough for him to teleport back to Nadaru and kill him. If she was his only opponent—though Nadaru wasn’t posing much of a challenge, Hiei was sure not to underestimate him and get too cocky—he would have less to worry about and more time to consider Wren’s death.

Wren, despite the guard she’d shown of Nadaru before, suddenly stepped back from him. Hiei’s first thought was that it was a trap, not an invitation for him to attack her team mate, but when she saw his hesitation she just rolled her eyes. And then severed Nadaru’s head herself.

Hiei’s eyes followed the male wind demon’s head as it slipped from his neck, hit the ground and settled, and then he raised his crimson orbs to look to Wren. She’d clearly lost her mind, lost her sentimentalism, or lost patience for his uselessness.

Whatever she’d lost, Hiei wasn’t about to question a good thing and again leapt for her. Directly before his sword moved to cut her head off, same as she had to her own teammate, Hiei sensed a fourth presence again, as he had when Nadaru was alive. The decapitated demon was still quite dead, and there were no new demons in the ring.

Hiei’s eyes widened slightly when he realized that two separate energies were inside of Wren—Nadaru’s spirit had been absorbed into her body. ‘They have new…‘advantages.’’ This was probably what Mukuro meant, Hiei realized with a scowl, knowing before she did that Wren would dodge his attack easily. With the power, agility and healing power of two demons, she’d be more formidable than she already had been. Hiei rolled his eyes and stopped where he was, watching Wren also stand still where she had ran to when she evaded his attack.

“At a loss?” she suggested, smirking again.

That smirk was really beginning to piss him off.

Wren suddenly began leaning exaggeratedly to the side, as if she were about to fall over, and then she was gone from her spot across the ring. Hiei’s eyes flashed from side to side, but he could not sense the demoness, let alone see her. And then, just as he did feel her presence once more, he also felt an energy-emitting fist slam onto his back. He didn’t bother turning—if he had, Wren would have been gone in the next second all the same.

Hiei watched for about twenty seconds as Wren disappeared and reappeared in several places around the ring, and he scowled all the time. Then he heard an outcry from Kurama, and immediately went to the fox. Hiei didn’t see any new wound, but Kurama was wincing anyway and holding his shoulder.

“Minor wound,” the fox muttered, opening one eye and looking to the fire demon beside him. “But all the same,” he continued with a small smile, “I certainly hope she refrains from doing it again.”

“She will,” Hiei growled, glaring sideways as Wren appeared again nearby. He shot toward her, but she was gone before he could attack her. Thinking back to the other times she’d teleported, he guessed her next placement and went there. Sure enough, within seconds she materialized before his eyes, but again she quickly disappeared and he was unable to offer any attack. He was ready with his sword raised when she appeared again, having again assumed where she’d be next, and he swung his katana downward across her back.

In her distraction, she was unable to teleport again, and stumbled forward. Taking advantage of the situation, Hiei tore off his white bandanna and reverted to the green-skinned, multi-eyed demon form he hadn’t used since he fought with Yusuke for the first time.

Kurama was amazed at the difference in energy from the last time he’d seen that form—Hiei’s normal energy was impressive in itself, but this…? He certainly didn’t want to fight the fire demon himself any time soon and opted to stay on his good side.

Immediately, Wren’s body was trapped by several large, shimmering red rings wrapped around her, and she swore once in demon, then cried, “You B*st*rd!”

“Not so easy to escape these, is it?” Hiei asked, finally imitating her earlier smirk as he watched the demoness before him squirm within his jagan tie curse that he had also used on Yusuke in their first fight.

“Go to hell,” she mumbled weakly, her voice already lacking vigor as Hiei used the crimson energy rings to constrict around her body and sap her energy from her.

“You know nothing of hell,” Hiei spat back, and Wren cried out as the tie curse again tightened around her.

She coughed several times before she was able to respond. “And I suppose you do?”

His eyes lacking the rage they’d held second earlier when he had spoke before Wren, Hiei said, “I am hell,” as he wrenched his arm sideways, and with the movement the rings slashed through Wren’s body and separated it into several different sections. He knew she would not be able to heal herself from that, and turned back to Kurama. “…I hope you know it would have been much more convenient if you just hadn’t bothered coming along for the fight.”

Kurama smiled weakly. “I apologize for that.”

“Hn.”

Kurama noticed for the first time as he forced himself to stand and follow Hiei (Who had reverted to his normal form) back to the arena that Chichiro was no longer watching them. His eyes searched for her around the other sections of the inside ring, but as soon as he noted her absence he knew it would be futile to look for her. She was probably either in her room or out in the woods again.

Koenma was standing beside the archway that led to the hallway, and he congratulated Hiei as he walked by, not seeming surprised or effected by the fact that the fire demon completely ignored him and headed past him without a word or ‘hn’. The prince of the spirit world turned to Kurama and said, “Well, you didn’t do too much, but good fight all the same. Keep winning, or we’re screwed.”

Kurama thought to say ‘So I’ve been told,’ but just settled on responding, “I’m aware of that. Have you seen Chichiro?”

“She went to her room. Seemed pissy about something.”

Kurama raised his eyebrows, though he wasn’t sure if it was from his wonder at what Chichiro was angry about or that Koenma had said ‘pissy’. “Thanks.”

Sure enough, Chichiro was sitting on her bed, one leg crossed over her other leg, which was faced upward in a v-shape pulled close to her body. She smiled when she saw Kurama, though it didn’t reach her eyes; even if she still seemed peeved about something, whatever annoyance she’d felt earlier had simmered down. “Hey.”

Kurama returned the smile. “Hey.”

“I assume you won, then?”

“Hiei did, really,” Kurama admitted. “He killed both of our opponents.”

“Greedy B*st*rd,” Chichiro commented without true venom, and she never lost her grin.

Jokingly, Kurama agreed, “Indeed.” Then he asked almost sheepishly, “I don’t suppose you’d know how to bandage back wounds, would you?”

[Chichiro Ketsueki]

[glow=red,2,300]Claimer:[/glow]Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline and any other original characters.

[glow=red,2,300]Disclaimer:[/glow]Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn’t either, though she’s from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 7—The Past

--

When the glow from her hand faded, Chichiro withdrew her palm from its place close to Kurama’s back and finished tying the bandage around him. “Better?” she asked.

“Much.” Kurama looked back to her with a smile. “I didn’t know you had healing powers.”

Chichiro grinned sheepishly. “I don’t think they’re quite developed enough to be called ‘powers’. More like…amateur attempts that sometimes help.”

Kurama snickered. “Come, now, you aren’t giving yourself enough credit. My back hardly hurts at all.”

“And that, children,” Chichiro said to an invisible audience as she gently punched his arm without any true force, “is what we call flattery, and it’s looked down upon because people often want something afterward that the one they’re flattering was beforehand unwilling to give.”

Kurama laughed at that, and apologized with humor in his voice as he reached over for his shirt, which he gingerly slid around his arms and buttoned in front of him when he was satisfied that it was loose enough around his back. “You know,” the fox commented, “Hiei’s going to kill me if I pull something like that again.”

Chichiro decided to play clueless. “Pull what?”

“If I’m that useless in our next battle.”

The fox demoness behind him shoved him down sideways onto the bed, then stepped over him and grumbled, “Don’t be stupid.”

Blinking, Kurama said, “I was joking.”

“Hn,” was Chichiro humorously Hiei-like response, and she said, “I have a lot of pent-up energy, so I’m going to go amuse myself by slamming Hiei’s face into a rock or something.” She gave him a cheery, out-of-place grin and said, “Toodles!”

Before she left, Kurama quoted, “‘Toodles’?”

Seeming semi-flustered, Chichiro asked, “Did I use that wrong? I’m not entirely sure what it means, but Botan said it a week or two back and it seemed like a fun word…”

Again, Kurama laughed. “No, that was correct. No worries.”

Chichiro smiled at him again, uncertain of what to say, and then she simply waved and disappeared from the doorway.

Kurama stared after her for a long while, then sighed once and looked for his bag, feeling around on top of his mattress for an uncomfortable lump. When his hand rested on one, he reached beneath his bed and snagged hold of his bag, dragging it forth and fishing through it. He only had one book left, but he decided to read it now and sacrifice his last resource to chase away boredom all the same. The rounds of the tournament should begin to go quicker soon, now that the number of teams was dwindling, and he wouldn’t have much use to read soon anyway.

--

As soon as Chichiro arrived in the normal sparring-ground, a clearing near the brook in the woods, she was greeted by Hiei’s sword. “Not right now,” she muttered to Hiei, blocking with her quickly-summoned light and wind sword.

“Did I ask you if you wanted to?” Hiei replied, not letting up on his attacks. His sword aimed for her still-healing wounded shoulder, and it slashed the burn injury open.

Chichiro cried out, setting her right hand over the new gash. “You jerk!” She again summoned her sword, this time in her dominant right hand; she had only used her left before because she really wasn’t in the mood to spar despite what she’d said to Kurama and had been lazy. At least she hadn’t been in the mood then—now he’d pissed her off. Her shoulder still hurt rather badly even without the new sword wound, and Hiei’s sword had made her wince when it made contact with it. Something had flickered in his eyes when it had, but it couldn’t be called concern; rather, maybe he had thought it would be in bad taste if he attacked her shoulder again when it was already her disadvantage.

Their skirmish was short-lived. Chichiro, although angry at Hiei’s move, didn’t seem to have much vigor for fighting. Hiei hadn’t felt like respecting her wishes, but without enthusiasm on her end it was boring and he wasn’t getting any true training experience sparring her. They both pulled up a few minutes into it and decided to leave it for later without ever saying a word to one another.

The fire demon, having no interest in Chichiro besides using her as a moving punching bag, began to leave, but he stopped all the same when the fox demoness said, “Hiei.” She was surprised he actually halted where he stood, but she didn’t waste his patience and asked, “Do you consider us friends?”

Hiei glanced back at her, snorting. “What kind of question is that?”

“Well?”

“Of course not,” he responded immediately, lacking any hesitation to even consider the question.

Chichiro smirked. “Good. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea from this. The sparring, I mean.”

“It seems like you’re the one getting the wrong idea if you even considered the thought before asking me,” Hiei muttered back flatly, glaring at her briefly before he again turned to walk away.

Chichiro growled to herself but didn’t say anything, and when the fire demon was gone she pivoted where she stood and headed for the brook. When her feet were only a few inches away from the water, she crouched down and dipped her right hand into it, raising it cupped to splash a bit of the moisture onto her shoulder. It stung, but she didn’t flinch this time as she had when Hiei had initially attacked. A second splash wet her arm to get rid of the trail of blood running down it, and she scrubbed vigorously for a moment to relieve her skin of a small amount of dried blood around her elbow.

Settling back onto the ground, her eyes lifted to the sky. ‘Do you consider us friends?’ What a stupid question. Of course Hiei of all people wouldn’t even think of friendship between them, let alone actually consider her his friend. Hell, he barely considered her an ally, she figured.

Quietly, she began to sing the song that she knew that Hiei had recognized when it passed through her mind a few days back. She had felt his presence within her mind, but ignored it, as she knew he would be unable to delve deep into her memories or anything of true importance, even with how powerful his jagan was. “Honto ni sukidata anata ya inai

Hajimete no koi todomatta.

Konya wa yume ni egao no mama de dete konaide yo ne.”

From behind her, she heard someone comment, “I didn’t know that you knew Japanese.”

Chichiro looked behind her and welcomed Kurama with a smile. “Hey, there.” They had been speaking English and Demon since Chichiro arrived, as Koenma had informed both Hiei and Kurama that Chichiro wasn’t too familiar with Japanese. Hiei hadn’t complained, as Demon was the main language he used anyway (He still used Japanese quite a bit around Chichiro, just because her confusion amused him and he enjoyed seeing her flounder attempting to comprehend what he’d said.), but Kurama hadn’t used that tongue actively for several years and he generally used English.

“I’m not following you, I swear,” Kurama assured her, as if she’d accused him. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I had thought you were sparring with Hiei elsewhere.”

“Nah. I got sick of him too quick.” Chichiro grinned, then jested, “And I’m glad you cleared that up. I was beginning to think I had my own fox-boy stalker.”

Kurama chuckled, then asked rhetorically, “How is it that I always seem to earn that nickname?”

“Fox-boy, or stalker?”

Kurama laughed, wondering if Chichiro’s question had been serious. “Fox-boy. I honestly can’t recall ever being called ‘stalker’.”

The fox demoness’s smile wasn’t reaching her eyes, but one slid across her lips all the same. “I should hope so.”

“Something’s wrong,” Kurama noticed, hoping she didn’t mind him pointing it out.

Chichiro looked sideways and away from him again, and said, “No, I’m just annoyed with Hiei.”

“And this is new?”

“Hn, just this kind of annoyance is. He’s so…God-damned anti-social.”

Kurama raised his eyebrows. “And how is that new?”

Chichiro just shrugged. Finally heading backward in the conversation to answer what he’d said before, she said, “I know a little Japanese. Basics. And I know the translation of the song I was just singing. I’ve known that one since I was a kid.”

“You’re quite a good singer.”

Chichiro grinned gratefully at him, but seemed uncomfortable at the praise. “I guess.” She stood, then. “Alright!” she said, as if she were about to give him a lecture. “We have to find something to do!”

Kurama blinked at her, then asked, “And what do you suggest?”

Chichiro dropped her arm from the heroic pose she’d struck, then said in a clueless manner, “Well, if I knew what we should do, I wouldn’t have said we should find something.”

“…Ah. Right.” Sometimes Kurama had to wonder about Chichiro. Half the time she was hyper as ever and happy like she didn’t have a care in the world, and then the other half of the time her personality split between quiet, sad or angry. Her emotions were all over the place, and she was just as hard to understand as Hiei, though for a much different reason. And she certainly wasn’t so…dark and mysterious, Kurama supposed was the best way to describe Hiei, and he snickered at the thought.

“No laughing!” Chichiro cried suddenly, and if it hadn’t been for the amusement in her eyes, Kurama would have thought she wasn’t joking. “This is a serious matter! The evil mastermind of boredom must be eliminated, and its only weakness is when its adversaries have something to occupy themselves with!”

“I apologize,” Kurama responded, saluting her and feeling goofy, though not minding the feeling. “What is the plan?”

“Follow me!” she called loudly, motioning with her arm as she stalked off toward the stadium, then began to sing in what seemed to be a faking singing voice, as it didn’t sound near as pretty as it had when she’d sang before, “Ohhhh, we’re off to kill the boredom, the horrible boredom of—” She cut off when she could find no suitable word with only a single syllable, then opted to just finish with what the tune suggested and said, “—Oz!”

Kurama shook his head in wonder, pondering when she’d seen the Wizard of Oz, but followed her all the same on her completely pointless quest.

--

“Honto ni sukidata anata ya inai

Hajimete no koi todomatta.

Konya wa yume ni egao no mama de dete konaide yo ne

Saikouno serifu kuchi ni desugite

Komatteta anata

Saigo no serifu kuchi ni shitasugu kadou nanoni kuchi zuke

Kuchibiru ni dake.”

The song had no inspiration or emotional meaning to her, at least not yet. She had not lost her love, as the first few lines suggested: ‘You aren’t here, the one I really love; Tonight in my dreams, a smiling you doesn’t appear; My first love met a dead end.’ All the same, Chichiro felt tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, and causing a hardly-noticed uncomfortable feeling on her chin and the crook of her nose as the tears lingered on her skin. Of course, this was for a very different reason, which she knew to be three bodies strewn on the ground outside the door of the room she was currently in, their throats slit and their dead eyes wide.

She was huddled in a corner, pressed against the wall, her legs pulled to her chest. She felt no fear despite her own impending death hanging above her like a puff of fog, and really, also despite her tears and the trembling of her body, she didn’t feel much of anything. Though not dead like her parents, her own eyes stared blankly ahead like theirs, focused on the floor. And the black boots of the one who had taken the lives of her family. She hadn’t bothered looking to his face previously, but now she looked up into the young face of a red-eyed boy, a demon like herself and not too much older than herself. Perhaps fifty or one-hundred years older; she was already just over one-hundred herself, but her body made her seem to be fifteen at most.

Chichiro could tell immediately by this boy’s stature—which was surprisingly short—his sword, his piercing crimson eyes, his strange black hair and white starburst within it, and his entrancing tear gem that hung in plain view around his neck that he was the assassin she’d heard so much of lately about demon world. His reputation had been sparked a few months before and had since begun to grow around suspicions, rumors, gossip and fairy-tale nightmares to spook younger demons such as herself with. Still, she had long since realized that she would die, and did not fear his killing stroke and did not fear him as said before. That didn’t change the fact that she had to force herself to speak, and when she did, she only asked a fairly out-of-place question: “What’s your name?”

His sword twitched, though she supposed it was only because his hand had first. The assassin seemed surprised at the question. “What?”

“What’s your name?” she repeated, not changing her tone at all.

“That isn’t important.”

“Consider it my last wish, if you have any decency or feel any obligation to carry it out,” Chichiro suggested. When he said nothing and did not move to kill her, she implored, “I just want to know your name.”

The boy looked to almost size her up as he decided whether or not to answer her request. Finally, “…Hiei.”

She smiled at that, though it did not reach her eyes. “Well, I’ve heard a lot about you, Hiei, just never your name. You have a fearsome reputation.”

Apparently impatient with her speaking, he growled, “Silence.”

She obeyed, and looked to his sword as he raised it. He did not grip it with his other hand, though, and his right arm did not move besides bringing the sword vertical.

Curious, she went against what he’d said and asked, “What is it? You’ve killed my family. Surely you can kill me.”

She knew immediately why he hadn’t moved to kill her simply by the expression within his eyes. There was no fun or enjoyment to be had killing someone who was willing to die without fighting. He relished murder, which she supposed was why he had become an assassin, but only when the quarry ran or fought back against him. She also knew then that she was not to die that day.

“Hn. You aren’t worth my time.” Turning, she saw movement that hinted that he had leapt toward the window, but his form was gone in a black flicker, and she could not tell where he had gone.

She stared at the place where his feet had stood blankly for several minutes without moving. And then she crumbled sideways onto the ground, curling her arms around herself and allowing herself to sob.

Several hundred years later, and looking only ten years older, Chichiro opened her eyes and cuffed away the hint of a tear welling in her left eye, giving a heavy sigh.

Kurama passed her room and called in as he walked by without slowing, “The next round is starting. You should come to the ring.”’

She looked to the now-empty doorway for some time before she finally stood. She caught sight of Hiei as he also walked by her doorway, though predictably he ignored her entirely, and she felt hate swirl within her again. You’ve changed since then, she noticed without hatred and without optimism. Not really for better or for worse. But you’re different, now.

Then she heard Kurama’s semi-muffled call from down the hallway, “Chichiro, come on! The round is going to start whether you’re here or not!”

She stood, pushing Hiei out of her mind, and then she wearily headed for the doorway and down to her next fight.

[Jinks]

Finally school is over and look you have three chapters up. At least Kurama and Hiei made it through the fight and now we found out about Chichiro and Hiei. This is getting really interesting.

jinks

[Chichiro Ketsueki]

[glow=black,2,300]Authoress’s Note:[/glow] Jinks—Thanks for always reviewing! :3 Sorry this update took so freakin’ long; there was a specific part of this chapter I didn’t feel belonged quite yet, but I couldn’t decide if I should cut it out and save it for later or not. But, seeing as how in a much later chapter I found a better place for it, I did end up changing it around and now I can post this one without messing up all of the rest of ‘em. XD

[glow=black,2,300]Claimer:[/glow] Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.

[glow=black,2,300]Disclaimer:[/glow] Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine. Kagura isn’t either, though she’s from Inuyasha.

--

Chapter 8—Seeds of Sentimentalism

--

“I hope you know I’m fighting,” Chichiro said to Kurama as she walked out into the arena, ignoring Hiei entirely as she figured he had already settled that he was fighting this round.

“It’s only fair that you do,” the fox agreed. “I took the last fight.”

Chichiro hadn’t assumed that he’d give in so easily, and she blinked at him curiously and then shrugged and said simply, “Yeah.” Looking to Hiei, or rather glaring, she growled, “What are you waiting for? You were here long before—” He was suddenly in the ring, looking ahead, halfway facing away from her, and Chichiro felt herself seethe. “Hey! I was talking to you, jack-*ss!”

Kurama considered coming to Hiei’s defense in saying that the fire demon was only satisfying what Chichiro had been about to lecture him on, but he decided against it and watched as she sprang up to join her teammate facing their new opponents.

As the voice on the loudspeaker again asked for names, Chichiro was tempted to rush across the ring and smack her opponent senseless for again speaking first, but she controlled herself as a golden-haired, human-seeming, quite tall demon mix said, “Nedesco.” Pretty boy, Chichiro thought on first sight.

Following his lead, his partner said, “Marcella.” She was a pink-haired, golden-eyed dog demoness, short and pretty. Prissy and arrogant, Chichiro again criticized, but then she simply announced her own name.

Predictably, Hiei only ‘hn’ed again, Kurama mentally sweat-dropped, Chichiro sighed, and then she grumbled, “His name’s Hiei.”

“BEGIN!”

To Chichiro’s minor surprise, by the way that the two on the opposing team moved, they planned to work together just like the last two contenders that Hiei and Kurama fought. Before the last two battles, they had just chosen a single opponent on the opposite team and stuck with them unless their teammate was killed, but now they were working together. Chichiro figured that meant that she and Hiei would have to work together. She didn’t fancy the idea much, and by the looks of his solo movements, he didn’t either, and so Chichiro simply decided to go after Marcella first.

That plan was somewhat hindered when Nedesco leapt for her with his spear raised, and she was forced to block that attack with her light and wind sword rather than attack the dog demoness. She dipped her right hand out of holding the sword, summoning pure energy into her palm and pressing it against the male demon’s side. She didn’t have the time to watch his body fly back from the attack, as Marcella came at her from behind and stabbed upward with a hook-like weapon. The base of it was connected to her fingers, and the thin, pole-like blades surfaced near her knuckles between her fingers; said blades dug into Chichiro’s back and dragged upward, ripping flesh with the movement, but as the fox demoness spun to counter attack, a black fire assault from Hiei blasted the dog demoness backward and away from Chichiro.

Hiei glared briefly at Chichiro as she glowered back at him, not seeming in the least grateful that he’d saved her *ss, and he couldn’t help but feel pleased that Marcella had at least wounded her. She was fairly much worthless as a comrade in Hiei’s eyes, for although she could match him well enough in spars, she was always getting wounded. As Hiei felt Nedesco’s sword slash across his side, he figured that he could pretend he wasn’t being a hypocrite if he added that Chichiro usually paid much too much attention to her injuries.

Marcella’s attempted attack—attempted because Chichiro slashed her sword into the dog demoness’s upper arm and interrupted—broke through his thoughts and forced him to focus on the battle again. Once again, the two black-haired demons glared at one another. Hiei was fully aware that Chichiro likely had not wounded Marcella, who had landed at an awkward angle after receiving said wound, to save him but rather to take his opponent from him out of spite. Again, Hiei deemed it necessary to linger on how pointless having her as a partner was. She was as immature as she was useless.

Turning as he sensed Nedesco, Hiei blocked the demon’s spear as it was thrust toward him, knocking it aside and sliding his katana along the pole and toward the demon holding it. His blade connected with flesh, and in the next second Nedesco was sent flying across the ring, sailing straight into the irritatingly loud onlookers, and he figured Nedesco was down for the count.

As Hiei looked to Marcella to see if Chichiro had finished her yet, Chichiro’s eyes shifted sideways to meet his just as he noticed their dog demoness opponent heading for him, brandishing her metallic claws. “B*st*rd!” she screeched, her voice proving to be more of an annoyance than her attack; her nekode claws slashed across his side, but with a simple flick of his wrist, his katana severed the tops of the weapon. It slipped from her fingers, and he briefly thought he’d seen her run her actual claws along a smooth, black stone before she tried again to injure him; the stone had hung around her belt the entire match, but he hadn’t really paid attention to it until now. Her claws, now covered just the slightest bit with a blackish powder that quickly became a liquid, barely grazed his side, but the four identical slash wounds still made him flinch. She was simple enough to finish off, however—when she made the attempt to attack from behind, an amateur move when he was solely focused on her, he only had to yank his elbow backward and crash it into her brow—and so he was easily able to inspect the shallow cuts and figure out exactly why such a minor wound had made him wince.

Chichiro was at his side quickly enough. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine, no thanks to you,” Hiei snapped, averting his cold crimson gaze toward her. “I thought you could handle such an easy opponent without my help. Had you held her where you were—or better yet killed her—then you wouldn’t even have to ask if I’m okay.”

“How do you know that’s what I’d ask?” Chichiro grumbled back. “You interrupted me.” Her tone made it obvious that it had indeed been what she intended to ask. She still didn’t bother apologizing. After Hiei’s normal response of ‘Hn’, she sighed lightly, running a hand through her hair and just past one of her furry, blue fox ears, her eyes focused on his wound. “So, what did she get you with?” Chichiro asked in a casual tone, or at least an attempted one. “That liquid on the ends of her claws can’t have been normal.”

Hiei glared sideways at her, wondering how he ever ended up with such an incompetent partner, and then began to say ‘I know’, but at ‘I’ he could already feel his consciousness slipping away from him, and with a muffled groan, his eyes rolled back and he crumbled to the ground.

--

“Well?” Chichiro demanded, her fiery glare riveted on Kurama. “What was it?”

“Poison,” the fox demon responded.

He planned on elaborating, but Chichiro raged before he could say anything, “Poison? Well, then how are you so d**n calm?!”

He uttered a low sigh, forcing himself to at least look patient. “Had Marcella gotten a larger amount on her claws or had she given Hiei a more severe wound, he may have been in trouble. But I recognize this poison—” He didn’t bother adding that he and his comrades had used it against enemies in his days as Yoko, as Kurama figured Chichiro wouldn’t appreciate that sort of comment at the moment. “—and I know from experience that he will only be unconscious for a day or two at most.” He shrugged lightly. “I doubt Marcella was very skilled with using this, or she would have known what the effect was.”

Chichiro glanced over at Hiei; he hadn’t so much as twitched since they had taken him back to his small, cold, undignified room that was identical to their own. “…Hn.”

Noting the skeptic tone in her muttered response and the lingering worry on her face, he said, “He’ll be fine, I assure you. Really, I’m quite surprised you care.”

“Care about what?” Chichiro asked distractedly. “That he was poisoned and collapsed? Yeah, sorry I actually care about the welfare of my teammate.”

Kurama smiled lightly at her, though her eyes were still on Hiei and she didn’t catch it. “I didn’t mean that. I was worried for him too before I recognized the poison. It’s just that you two really don’t seem to fancy each other much and your sudden concern is a bit…odd.”

“Jealous?” Chichiro muttered, not entirely kindly, and for a moment Kurama thought he had imagined it, but her flat expression gave him no such relief.

“Of course not,” he responded, looking at her queerly. Why was she so uptight about Hiei’s injury? Better yet, why did she care in the first place, after being so cold and cruel-seeming to him as of yet? Hiei had certainly been no better to her.

She only sighed, leaning forward onto her hand, which was propped by her elbow resting on her knee. She and Kurama were sitting on either side of the irritatingly small bed, atop the railing at the ends. Chichiro sat with one of her legs draped over the side, resting on the ground. Her expression was fairly vacant at this point.

Echoing her sigh, Kurama offered a single last glance toward both Chichiro and Hiei before he stood and slipped from the room, unnoticed.

--

“Chichiro.”

Rubbing at an eye, Chichiro attempted to smile brightly at Kurama, but she seemed a bit too weary to be any kind of cheerful. “Yeah?”

“We have another fight in a few hours. You know that we’re the only ones who can fight right now—”

“I’m not fighting,” was Chichiro’s simple interruption. Her eyes rested once again on Hiei, and she offered no further word.

“…I’m sorry?” Kurama stared at her a moment unblinkingly before he quirked an eyebrow and managed to speak again. “We don’t really have a choice, you do realize?”

“I said I’m not fighting.” Her voice and tone were the only things that had changed—they was harder, and seemingly a warning. “Not until Hiei at least wakes up.”

Again with the surprising sentimentalism. Kurama, for the life of him, could not understand where it was coming from after she and Hiei had been so cold toward one another. “I understand your worry, but as I’ve promised before, he’ll wake up and be quite alright.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” Chichiro murmured, glaring sideways at Kurama where he stood in the doorway, though she did not move her head and only glowered from the corner of her eye. “The one who can say without hesitation that she hates him is the one who worries and not his closest ally and friend.”

Kurama surprised himself by grumbling a low, exasperated growl that was completely unlike him. “Chichiro, please. There is no reason to be worried—”

“He could have died!” Chichiro spat, standing abruptly. As she continued, her venomous tone was just as rabid-seeming, though softer. “And he made it d**n clear it was my fault he was injured, so if he’d died…” She didn’t bother finishing and sat down as quickly as she’d stood, her countenance relaxing into a bland expression. As if she’d never raised her voice, she repeated quietly, “I’m not fighting.”

Blinking once, Kurama retreated at least until he found out whether he could persuade the other team to wait or not.

--

His vision was blurry at best when he finally opened his eyes. His entire body was sore and stiff, he could tell he hadn’t moved for a while, he was in a foul mood, and d**n was it bright in the god-d**n room. Lifting a hand to his forehead, Hiei slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, ignoring the fact that his limb had appeared to be a formless blob like the rest of the objects in his line of sight, currently.

“You’re finally awake,” he heard Kurama notice aloud.

“Your keen sense of observation never ceases to amaze me, fox.” He had a headache, too. Bloody grand.

Kurama gave a short ‘heh’ before he spoke, the slightest of smiles on his face. “I need to give you a new bandage, you know. You must have torn something open when you sat up.”

Hiei considered growling a defiant ‘I don’t need your help’, but truth be told, with his vision so blurry it would have been a lie. He figured it must have been a side-effect of whatever had been on the ends of Marcella’s claws, same as the obnoxious wooziness, though perhaps that was just brought on from the swimming effect of his vision.

Kurama glanced backward as Chichiro appeared in the doorway, having gone off to fetch new bandages just in case. Convenient timing, the fox noted with mild amusement.

Hiei’s eyes moved to the doorway as well, though he could make out little and had it not been for her scent, he wouldn’t have been able to tell her apart from Koenma in his teenage form. Although he couldn’t see the fox’s expression, Kurama wore the same surprised look Hiei did when he felt Chichiro’s arms around him. Staring ahead with his currently nearly sightless eyes, it didn’t take him long to realize it wasn’t even close to her normal hostile gesture, but rather a…hug? Hiei seemed to be battling himself between allowing it, shoving her away or running her through with his sword. Before he could make up his mind, Chichiro pulled away and refused to make eye contact as she trotted toward the door. Turning back, she appeared to feel awkward about it, but her voice was arrogant and cold as ever when she grumbled, “Don’t ever do that again. Or I’ll kill you myself.” Then she chucked the bandages to Kurama, averting her eyes to the hall even before she moved to leave.

Hiei and Kurama watched her go, and then Hiei motioned to the door, his mouth slightly agape, though he said nothing. Kurama wondered with amusement if he could say anything in response to that, and simply moved to re-bandage his friend.

“…What the hell was that?” Hiei asked, not seeming to notice in the least the mild pain when Kurama wrapped the new bandages around his torso.

“Beats me,” Kurama responded in a rather casual way, quite unlike him. “You know,” he commented, sounding amused, “she was rather obsessive in thinking that you needed to be watched constantly. It was lucky for us that the other team wanted our blood, or we would have had to have thrown the fight. She refused to leave unless I was going to be in here with you while she was gone, and of course that means she refused to leave long enough to try to win a round.”

Hiei glanced briefly at Kurama before his unfocused gaze flittered back to the blanket on his bed, and the fox realized for the first time that he probably still couldn’t see very well. “She was actually worried?” the fire demon wondered aloud. “I can’t imagine why.”

The fox smiled lightly, leaning back when he finished with the bandage. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been bed-ridden and unconscious for the past few days, I suppose from some sort of poison,” Hiei began in a sour tone. “I was just hugged by my daily irritant for reasons I can’t begin to fathom; and I have an annoying throb on my side, lingering effect of the scratch a low-level demoness was somehow able to leave on me. You’re smart enough, you do the math.”

Kurama grinned lightly at the sarcastic fire demon’s response. “I guess you’re feeling better.”

“…Hn.” Hiei lifted his arm and swiped his hand in front of his own face a few times, then grumbled, “How long will this last?”

“So you’re having trouble seeing?” Kurama suggested, not waiting for a response before he answered, “It’s hard to say. It can’t last much longer, with how little of the poison Marcella was successful in transferring to your body.”

Hiei sighed heavily. “How annoying.” Glaring in Kurama’s general direction, he growled, “How long was I out?”

“Less than two days. Just under, actually, by a few hours. It’s pretty late.” He chuckled. “Chichiro hasn’t let me get much sleep, with her persistent worrying.”

“Then go sleep now, idiot fox,” Hiei responded flatly. “But before you do, you said she nearly made us throw our fight but you somehow talked our opponents into waiting?” At Kurama’s agreeing reply, he continued, “When will we fight, then?”

“As soon as Chichiro’s willing, she and I will fight.” The fox demon shrugged. “I would assume she’d be willing to any time since you’re awake, but I’m not now.” He stretched and stood, deciding to listen to Hiei and try to get some shut eye before they fought. “Wake me in a few hours if I sleep too long, will you?”

“If I can see well enough to,” the fire demon muttered back.

“Well, you could use your jagan if need be, but I doubt it.” At Hiei’s short but sadistic laugh, he wondered if mentioning the jagan was such a good idea. “I’ll try to be up in time.” And then he left for his own room without bothering to wait for a reply.