InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Cruel Hands Of Fate ❯ Chapter Seven ( Chapter 7 )

Kagome sat on her bed, slowing turning over the piece of technology in her hands. It was Saturday and a week had passed since she had returned home from the Reikai. She had explained the new situation in it's entirety to her family already and all of them were ready to stand behind her. None of them truly understood what everything in the story meant; the real part that everyone latched onto was that she was forever tied to a youkai and a demi-god and that her lifespan would be eternal.

 

After being home again, the thought of being immortal began to hurt. She would sit by and watch as her family grew old and died, while she would never look much different. She had lost her surrogate family in the Feudal Era and now she knew she would lose her own too…and be around long after their demise.

 

Honestly, she wasn't even sure that the well worked anymore. She had been sent back to her own time by the jewel but since it still resided in her body, she thought it may be possible to still time travel. There was the same magic air about the well as when she had first started her journeys and the thought that it was still usable brought confusing emotions. She had been tempted since being home to test it out but couldn't bring herself to do it. She missed her friends of the past but was, at the same time, too scared of confronting Inuyasha to attempt it. The look of hatred he gave her before she disappeared was not lost on her and she was sure he wouldn't give her a warm welcome.

 

Shaking her head to rid herself of the sorrowful thoughts, she focused once more on the communicator and smiled. Koenma had given it to her the morning she left, telling her that if she should need or want anything before she required a “recharge” that said communicator would connect her directly to him. There had been quite a few times since being home that she had thought about both Koenma and Hiei; she hated to admit that she missed them somewhat. She knew they would protect her…but she wasn't so sure she would be happy with that alone.

 

Then two days ago, as if in answer to her unspoken thoughts, the communicator had gone off and scared the daylights out of her. Of course, it was sitting innocently on her desk and she had been in the bath at the time. When she answered it, she saw Koenma on the screen and was confused at first, seeing his blush and impression of a landed fish. It was then she realized that she had jumped out of the bath and answered the damn thing naked as the day she was born. She then blushed furiously, stuttered and apologized as best she could while setting the communicator on her desk facing the wall to get dressed. Thankfully, she was done washing anyway.

 

Once she got back around to talking to the junior ruler, with a blush still raging mind you, he had told her the reason for his calling was that he wanted to see her. She had raised a skeptical eyebrow at the statement, inwardly hoping that it wouldn't be just a `business' type of meeting. He had smiled and told her he would open a portal for her at her house on Saturday evening and then broken the connection before she could question it.

 

It was now near seven o'clock and Kagome was still sitting on her bed thinking. She had already gotten dressed, stripped and dressed again six times, coming up with her first choice, a form fitting black dress that stopped mid-thigh, in the end. As she lifted her head to note the time, she realized how close her `meeting' with Koenma was and began to get nervous. She had felt amazingly comfortable with him the day she had appeared in his office…but that was a week ago and maybe he had decided differently about her.

 

Kagome was driven to this line of thinking mostly due to Hiei's abrupt departure from Reikai on that first day. She had thought herself comfortable with him too…and had dared to think that maybe he was feeling the same. However, when he had up and left without so much as a backwards glance, the doubts she had in herself…that past with Inuyasha…and her guilt over the situation that had been impressed upon the two, resurfaced.

 

Even when Koenma had showed her around Reikai some and given her a place to bed down for the evening with nothing short of charm, she had still been saddened. So many people she had cared about had been hurt due to her; even beings she didn't directly know or care about personally had been harmed because of her mistake in shattering the jewel. Now, she had to sit back and watch as yet two more were set to protect her…and they didn't even have a choice as her Feudal Era friends had.

 

Sighing heavily, Kagome shook her head to clear her mind, but still found her thoughts distracted. She knew the portal to wherever Koenma was would be opening within the half-hour and she had to at least be able to be attentive. She had decided that if things went well with them tonight, and it wasn't a business meeting at all, she could maybe hope that he might care for her. She wished silently that things with the Fire Apparition would be as easily defined.

 

However, things for Kagome Higurashi hadn't been easy since falling into the well at the tender age of fifteen.

 

~*~

 

Speaking of our favorite hybrid, he was at that time, and had been for the past week, sulking in a tree. Well, maybe sulking was too pathetic a word to describe it…but pouting was definitely close enough.

 

He had left his boss's office in a hurry that day for good reasons. He had found himself actually thinking that being connected to that woman, `Kagome', might not be too bad and had been acutely angry. He had never wanted a specific female in anyway, let alone one that had, at any point in time, been a ningen. Not only that, she was a miko! Of course, his body thought there was nothing at all wrong with the raven-haired beauty with shining eyes, and had made its opinion well known to him.

 

Aside from that, he found that the longer he stayed in her presence, the more anxious the youki of his Jagan and Dragon seemed to get. He had felt them pull to her and it was almost stronger than the feeling the connection he had with her was. To say the least, it was disconcerting and infuriating to the diminutive demon all at once. Hiei refused to be controlled by anyone and he thought that controlling him was indeed what she was doing. He couldn't fathom his own body turning so traitorous on him; he had long ago been forced to perfect his control to keep from being torn apart by his raging blood.

 

All of this is what had prompted him to leave her company. He had thought that putting distance between Kagome and himself would help immensely. However, on the second night since he had met the young woman, he had been alarmed when the Jagan, while he was resting comfortably in a tree, had abruptly taken over and searched out the mind of Kagome. He was taken by surprise so quickly that his consciousness had actually been forced to the side as a bystander while the implant located the woman in question.

 

Initially, he had been startled when the Jagan had actually located its prey. It was then that it sunk into his thoughts that by invading her mind in such a way, he could inadvertently be purified. In response, he tried fervently to fight for control of the Jagan; only to have it acknowledge him with a sense of calm understanding before seeming to tap gently against the barriers of her mind.

 

Hiei had sat stock still, holding his breathe and waiting for the burn of purification to sweep over him. When the intense pain never came, he noticed that Kagome seemed to be sleeping deeply and her mind had silently granted passage to the probing of the Jagan. Hiei leaned back against the tree once more as the implant set to rifling through the girl's memories, as if trying it's hardest to gain a deeper understanding of her. Hiei himself might have been able to pull off not caring for an indefinite amount of time, however the Jagan, and even the Dragon, had different ideas.

 

Suffice it to say that when the eye had finished glancing about her current thoughts and began to look gently through her past memories, being careful not to harm the girl in any way, Hiei was thoroughly shocked. The Jagan normally had a malevolence to it that aided the hybrid in being a very potent weapon. It was almost comical to see a sentient thing such as the Jagan being so careful with a task it was known to be ruthless with in most other situations.

 

The Fire Apparition had been harshly jolted from his musings when he felt an intense wave of sorrow wash over him. It was only then that he registered the images the Jagan was pulling from Kagome's memories. He was astonished to see that the memory in question was the very event of his leaving that day. Moreover, were the things that Kagome had spoken of upon his absence.

 

He watched as a silent onlooker as Kagome told the godling of the things she had endured in the company of the hanyou. Once she had finished talking and the subject had been changed to her returning home, he found himself shoved into a barrage of memories.

 

Koenma was indeed correct in the assumption of his reaction.

 

Hiei found himself snarling and flexing his claws as the Jagan provided him with the memories of the many transgressions of the hanyou against the miko. He watched, seemingly through her eyes, as the girl was led on by the half-demon, only to later find him in the arms of the clay miko. He felt his own heart break a little in response to the debilitating pain she felt when he berated her and tore her down with his careless words and exclamations: `Kikyou would never have done that.', `Why can't you be more like Kikyou?', `Kikyou was prettier, stronger and a better fighter than you.'

 

All these things swam through his mind like a mantra and he watched helplessly as the once strong woman was broken down into near nothingness at the hands of the one who held her heart. Unbidden, the current memories faded to leave the final battle in its wake. He felt a strange sense of pride and awe course through him as he watched Kagome defeat the vile hanyou…only to have it washed away in a sea of red as he witnessed the way Inuyasha had treated Kagome then…at a time when celebration was in order.

 

The look of intense hatred towards the young miko from the half-breed was not lost on him either…nor did he miss the final breaking of her heart when she saw it before she was forced away from the Sengoku Jidai.

 

As abruptly as it had started, the Jagan had closed to connection with the females mind leaving a Fire Apparition shaking with barely concealed rage in its wake. Many a tree had fallen that night to the anger of the hybrid.

 

Even now, five days after seeing the horrendous things the woman endured, Hiei was still ill at ease and desperately wanting to bathe his claws in the hanyou's blood. Such a fierce reaction had startled him at first, but he had waved it off as being a side effect of the bond he shared with Kagome. Though somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that wasn't the case.

 

Which is why he was currently sulking…pouting…in a tree that was located in no other place than the very shrine in which the miko resided. Initially, he hadn't really been aware that his late evening wanderings to a new tree had been leading him towards her. He had made notice of this two days ago but made no motion to change it. Now, he was thankful, for even has his claws once more twitched with unreleased anger, he felt himself instantly being calmed and could only chalk it up to the link he shared with Kagome.

 

He had decided that night to make this tree his most permanent resting spot. He felt calmer and more at ease, though no less aware, when he was nearer to her. Hiei had even ventured to the tree that was directly outside her window earlier that evening and had been slightly amused to find the miko sitting and staring anxiously at a device in her hand that looked suspiciously like a communicator from Reikai.