InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Heart Within ❯ Chapter Thirty-Three ( Chapter 35 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: YoukaiFate 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 04.17.2010 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.0K | Visits: 506 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 04.17.2010 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.0K | Visits: 506 | Status: Completed
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, etc., of Inuyasha or Yu Yu Hakusho. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit.THE HEART WITHINSummary: She has carried vengeance in her shadowed heart for 500 years, sacrificing her self for that dream. Now, Sango just might get her chance… (IY/YYH crossover) A/N: Thank you for the reviews from the last two chapters. It made me eager to post the next one, and I can promise I have the next few written, and should be rolling them out soon. =)
WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH CHAPTER BLACK, THE THREE KINGS SAGA
WORDS
ofuda - sacred sutra
Mukade - also known as “Mobile Fortress Mukade,” the white centipede/insect tank Mukuro and Hiei ride in YYH Episode 104 “Every Demon for Himself”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Quietly shutting the bedroom door, Jin shook his tousled red head as he crossed the hotel suite. The poor slayer finally slept with the help of a few Ambien he’d coaxed inside her, and he had to hurry or Touya would freeze his balls right off for being late---again. Dang, but that icy bastard knew just how to threaten a poor youkai.
Not that Jin had any desire whatsoever to attend another damn conference. There’d been enough of those yesterday to bore him right into next week. He’d thought when he’d taken the fox up on his offer that there’d be a bit more excitement---of the ass-kicking kind, mind---than this. But he couldn’t ignore Kurama’s hasty summons, even though a part of him was thinking he might like to indulge in a little bit of that ass-kicking, and with the fox as target.
Jin didn’t know what the hell had happened between Anei and Kurama, but the fox’s scent was all over the girl, and it didn’t take an idiot to figure out what the two had gotten up to last night. Jin had been hoping for it, actually---that one of them, either the fox or that little boiling volcano, Hiei, would take their head out their arse long enough to finally go after the slayer. She deserved so much better than either of ’em, of course. But Jin had quickly realized when he’d first met their little rag-tag group in the Forest of Fools more than six months ago that that was the way the wind was blowing, and who was he to ever stand in its way? Much as he fancied the slayer himself, there was no help for it but to chivy it along a bit with some judicious assistance on his part.
Truth, he wasn’t the strategist Touya was, and as usual, his best-laid plans went all a-pickle on him. Who’d have thought they’d awaken a giant boogie monster when he’d set up that little hide-and-peep game for Lily? Not that it wasn’t a tale worthy enough to share among friends with a pint of Guinness at your knee. Ah, but that was always the way of it when Yusuke Urameshi was involved. By the saints, he missed the lad. The wee bastard sure had a way of stirring things up and getting things going when he was around…
Jin shook his head. Ah, his mind was blowing all over the place, and he didn’t know if it was the lack of sleep, all the crazy going’s on a’going on, or his nagging concern for poor Lily. He’d been that surprised to find her at Kurama’s apartment in the city, and even more kerflummoxed when she’d all but thrown herself at him, sobbing like her heart been torn right out of her sweet chest.
Ah, but it had, and he knew it was the fox’s doing. Damme, but he didn’t know why, though. If he’d been a betting man---and he was, of course---than he’d lay his chips on Kurama being the one to get the girl…
Jin coughed, going slightly red. Well, he had gotten the girl after all, hadn’t he? For there was no mistaking that scent, even for a demon whose nose wasn’t as keen as a kitsune’s. But stronger than the scent of sex was the scent of Lily’s tears, and that broke his heart, it did, for the poor lass had been through enough already in her troubled life to not have that, too. Jin just didn’t know why---why Kurama had broken her heart, and why it was she couldn’t even speak of it, just sob all over him and then shut down into silence until he’d finally coaxed her to sleep, knowing that was all he could really do for her right now.
Jin just hoped it was all one big misunderstanding, that they were just having one of those wee lovers’ spats, when your heart was too wrapped up for sense and you couldn’t see nothing but the hot emotions afore ye. He’d give Kurama the benefit of the doubt, for that one was a deep one, his mind going a mile a minute even while he was standing there still. Therein might lie the problem, though, for Jin suspected the kitsune could sometimes get so wrapped up in all those complex thoughts of his that he all but tangled himself up in them. Maybe even got himself so twisted around he couldn’t see what was right there in front of him. Missing the forest for all the trees, that was Kurama.
Not that there weren’t a lot of trees right now. Lots of things a’going on, there was, enough to start a poor wind youkai’s head to pounding. And speaking of trees…
Glimpsing the distinctive neon-blue mohawk of his friend Chuu over the other demons milling around the hotel lobby, Jin chuckled at the analogy. Aye, Chuu was a towering tree of a man, standing a good foot and a half above the rest of them. The guzzling Aussie had a mean right hook to match that hulking frame of his. Jin had felt it plenty of times in the last six months, when he and the others had trained under that witch, Genkai.
Priestesses were supposed to be all sweet and saintly, like that cute lass, Kagome---who’d come from time to time to work privately with the gnarled old hag. Now there was a sweet piece he wouldn’t mind taking a bite of---nor any of the other lads, to be honest. Too bad the girl had a mutt-eared boyfriend with a bad attitude and big sword. One he knew how to use---for Genkai had often pitted them up with Inuyasha. The old priestess didn’t see why they couldn’t keep themselves busy sparring with the inu hanyou while she trained one-on-one with the young miko at Spirit World‘s---or Prince Koenma’s, rather---request.
Fighting Inuyasha was at least better than being locked in that damn cave for a month. Or standing on spikes for that long week while he juggled Chuu on his shoulders, the poisonous scorpions just waiting for him to drop the drunk lug, or for the Aussie to drop yo-yo boy Rinku from off his shoulders. Gah, but that wasn’t half as bad as the snakes and things.
Jin shuddered. By all that’s holy and not yet damned, he hated snakes. There was a reason dear St. Patty had chased them out of Ireland. They were nasty, loathsome things. Especially, Genkai’s snakes. Slimy, vicious, sharp-toothed, poisonous little bastards. Gods, the last six months had been pure torture, but in the end, it had all been worth it for the increased power it gave him. Flexing a thickly-muscled arm, Jin grinned smugly. He’d be more than ready to take Yusuke on now!
Ah, now wasn’t that a sweet thought! He’d do anything for a chance to fight Yusuke again---even join that weird elitist, Yomi. Jin had been that surprised when Kurama had come asking his aid, but he was willing enough once Kurama had made it clear that he might get the chance to fight the former Spirit Detective, seeing as they’d be on different sides and all. But who in their right mind wouldn’t want to fight in a world-wide brawl of epic proportions? Jin was a true warrior at heart, as they all were. Even Touya, who’d finally found his true calling, thanks to that smart-mouthed ex-detective-turned-born-again-demon.
Ah, but they all had reasons to be grateful to Urameshi. Ever since the Dark Tournament, they’d all been a bit lost, wandering around wondering what it was they would do any more. He and Touya had finally broken ties with the Guardians, something they should have done a long time ago. Right on the heels of that, the fox had come inviting them to train under Yusuke’s old teacher, and then offered the chance to scrap with the boy. It was an opportunity sent straight from Heaven above!
“Jin!” Rinku suddenly bounced out of the crowd, his boyish face wreathed in welcome.
“Hello there, lad.” Jin gave the boy an absent pat on the head, blue eyes on Touya, who frowned at him. Picking himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, the ice apparition casually made his way to the wind youkai’s side as the others followed in a ragged line.
“And where have you been?” Touya quietly demanded as he fell in step beside Jin as they all turned as one and headed towards the hotel’s glass doors. Rinku and Chuu fell to arguing as Suzuka egged them on and snobby Shishi ignored them as beneath his dignity.
“Ah, well,” Jin hedged. Scratching the back of his unruly head, his blue eyes slid past the eagle-sharp gaze of his shorter friend. He flushed uncomfortably, and chuckling, Chuu fetched him one on the shoulder that made the wind-user stagger out into the street.
“Aw, Touya, leave ’im alone. Poor bloke looks like he’s about to burst. It’s right obvious he’s been with a girl.” The grizzled rascal winked. Throwing a heavy arm around the wind youkai’s shoulders, Chuu demanded, “Now, Jin, give it right up. Who is she? What’s her name? She pretty? Or was it just the beer-goggles?”
“Beer-goggles,” Rinku voted, quickly escaping when the huge Aussie turned around and glared.
“Lookie here, bledger, that ain’t something you should know a thing about!”
Rolling his eyes, the short youkai stuck his tongue out at his impromptu-guardian. Chuu did try to father the boy, when he remembered to.
“Care to tell me about her?” Touya invited with a raised brow as the others moved ahead of them. Jin shrugged.
“Ah, you know, lad. I’ve fair talked your ear off about her enough already…”
Touya gave him a surprised look. “The wind changling? She‘s here?”
“Aye.” Crossing his arms over the back of his head, Jin looked up at the fuschia sky. The day was clear, the clouds fat, purple cotton-balls. The air was clean after last night’s rowdy storms, and Jin took a deep breath of it. Funny, but it was not even noon yet. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. First, returning to Demon World and being formally presented to Gandara’s king. Then the whole boring meeting-after-meeting yawn of yesterday, than the party last night in Chuu’s suite. Then to bed to catch a few winks to rise at dawn and go see if Kurama was up and about since he was bored and no one else was recovered yet from all the booze they‘d imbibed. Then Lily and all that mess. Gosh knew there was enough to keep his mind a’muddle without this news that King Raizen might really be dead.
“And…?” Touya prompted, and Jin frowned.
“And I dunno.” Wrinkling his nose, Jin quietly relayed how he’d spent the morning and that the girl lay sleeping it off in his hotel room as they slowly walked to the king’s house in the center of the city.
Touya looked thoughtful. Hoping for some insight, for he trusted the ice apparition’s opinion more than anyone’s, Jin nudged him. “Well? What is it ya think?”
“I think you should speak with Kurama, find out his side and see what happened before you jump to any conclusions,” Touya said firmly, and Jin nodded.
“Aye, that be me own thought upon it,” he agreed, but felt better for Touya’s support. No one he knew---save maybe Kurama---was more intelligent than the icy-eyed elemental.
“Hey, you slowpokes, hurry it up, will ya?” Chuu shouted from the gate, where the others waited impatiently for them to catch up. “Don’t want to keep Kurama waiting, do we?”
“Right,” Jin said, leaping into the air to fly through the open gate and snag Kurama for a word or two before the rest of them showed up to spoil it. Intent on his goal, the wind apparition ignored the startled shrieks and angry shouts he left in his wake as he zoomed past, the fierce wind of his passage ruffling more than just tempers. Ah, but that was normally the way of it, and he hardly paid the uproar any mind as he finally spotted the fox just emerging from one of the screens to step outside on the wrap-around porch.
Jin scooted down the porch to come to a complete stop mere inches from the cool fox, who was unperturbed by the abrupt appearance. Unflappable as always, the redhead nodded politely. “Good morning, Jin. I’m glad you came so quickly; there is much we need to discuss before our meeting convenes. Are the others with you?”
“Aye, they are,” Jin nodded his head back behind him, “but there be a thing or two you and I should yet discuss, Kurama, afore the others arrive.”
“Oh?” A thin brow rose in polite inquiry, but the fox was suddenly tense, his look wary.
Jin scratched his chin, eying the fox with a narrowed gaze. Never one to beat around the bush, he blurted, “What be it that happened ’tween you and Lily last night, eh?”
Kurama abruptly turned away, his hands curling at his sides. His red head bowed and he asked quietly, his throat tight, “Where is she? Did you see her? Is she…okay?”
“She’ll do, for now,” Jin said solemnly, disliking the strain in the fox’s low voice. “She’s in me suite, sound asleep. Though whatever you did had her crying her very eyes out this morning. Now, will you be telling me what is that happened, or are you going to force me to beat it out of ye?”
“Perhaps that would be just,” Kurama said, staring unseeing at the beautiful green gardens before them. A playful wind rippled the waters of the fountain, teasing the red locks of the fox’s long hair and wrinkling the purple over-robe against the lilac under.
“What happened, lad?” Jin put a hand on the kitsune’s shoulder, his voice gentle for the tension fairly seething off the red-haired hanyou.
“What had to,” Kurama said tightly, his green eyes flicking up to meet the wind youkai’s. There was such stark pain in the rich green depths that it fair took Jin’s breath away. Whatever had happened between the two of them, Lily wasn’t the only one whose heart had broken.
“Kurama---” Jin said, but the others had arrived, and he wasn’t able to say anything more. And then the tense conversation was all but forgotten in the crazy shock of Kurama’s news, for Yusuke was coming! Here, to Gandara! To meet with Yomi, and in less than an hour!
Jin could hardly contain his excitement, and the others were just as giddy, though some of the lads managed to hide it better. So, it was true that King Raizen had finally croaked, and the nervous rumors that Mukuro’s forces were already on the move were accurate. That seemed to worry Kurama and Touya, but Jin was too delighted with the fact that Yusuke was on his way here. Though Yomi’s orders put a little bit of a damper on it, since the king wanted them to wait in the next room, and if he gave the signal, attack the poor detective and kill him. But that little wrinkle didn’t bother Jin’s glee too much, and Kurama was optimistic that it might not come to that.
It was hard waiting for Urameshi’s arrival, even in the luxurious room the servant had shown them. But there was no mistaking that spiritually-enhanced demonic aura, or the dour S-class competency of Hokushin, who Jin had barely met before leaving the Forest of Fools. Propping an eyeball right to the crack of the door, Jin watched as the lad took a seat, Hokushin kneeling slightly behind and to the right. By the saints, the lad looked good, and hadn’t changed at all! Jin grinned in fierce delight, watching as Yomi took a formal seat across from the boy and one of the king’s pretty little concubines---Amaya, he thought her name was---offered the former detective a cup of tea.
Turning around, Jin held up his hastily scratched note. They couldn’t speak out loud, lest they be overheard, but Kurama had thoughtfully supplied them with pen and paper so they could spell out their thoughts. It was quite effective, for they managed to convey their unanimous decision to back Yusuke when Kurama asked if it came down to it, which side would they be on? Of course, Shishi had to be persuaded a bit with Suzuka’s gleeful interference, but Jin knew at heart that the handsome imp was on Yusuke’s side as much as the rest of them.
What then followed was one of the most awesome, kick ass ideas Yusuke had ever fucking had, and Jin knew they’d been right to decide to side with the Mazoku over Yomi. It’d been tense there for a while, as the two kings traded words back and forth, and Yusuke’s blunt claim that he would tell Yomi exactly how he intended to rip him off of his throne made the king start powering up. They all wordlessly tensed, wondering if the brash detective had finally gone too far, for the blind king was fairly seething with youkai rage. Jin wondered what Mukuro and Hiei thought of it, for he could feel the ominous aura of Makai’s third ruler somewhere in the city, watching from above. This might be a war on two fronts…
But Yusuke, bless his innovative human heart, surprised them all by proposing a solution that would stop war from tearing Makai apart. And brilliant lad that he was, he knew just how to feed on every demon’s ambition and pride, by pitting them all against each other in a single tournament that would decide, for once and for all, who would rule them all. And in the most democratically demonic way possible, with fists! Each demon representing only himself, using just his own power and strength to strive for the ultimate prize of ruling Demon World---for a time, at least, until the next tournament, when they would do it all over again.
Pure elation erupted inside of Jin, and he couldn’t contain it, bursting right through the doors to volunteer to be the first one to sign up as Yomi showed skepticism for the idea. The others were right behind him, and grabbing Yusuke in a bear hug, Jin greeted his old friend with a loud whoop of welcome. Yomi was only convinced once Kurama told him firmly that he was now on his own side, though the king frowned fiercely at the betrayal. But the king finally had to capitulate---albeit grudgingly---when Mukuro’s gravelly voice echoed across all of their minds, readily agreeing to Yusuke’s terms. The tyrannical king was laying down his lands and titles, and would fight on his own like any other apparition, representing only himself in the Great Tournament.
Jin raised a fist in triumph. Leave it to Yusuke to turn all of Demon World right on its head! In one stroke, the boy had managed to dismantle the regimes that had ruled for centuries, and gods above and below, it was a glorious time to be alive! There was no knowing what was in store, and best of all, Jin would get the chance to fight the detective again, and maybe, just maybe, win this time! And by all the holy saints in Eire, with luck, win Demon World as well! The sky was the limit!
It was good to see the detective again. Hiei smirked. The boy had finally come into his true heritage. The Mazoku was fully awakened, as his incredible aura gave mute testament to. Yusuke was stronger than ever before, and Hiei relished the opportunity of testing his own increased power against his friend‘s. As he had so off-handedly put it to Mukuro, Hiei was more than willing to fight whoever won if it came down to a battle between the two of them.
His red eyes flicked over to the bandage-wrapped demoness as she held out flowers to the Mazoku, bidding Yusuke lay them at Raizen’s grave to honor the king who died a fool. Yusuke accepted them gravely, his piercing brown eyes trying to penetrate the ofuda wrapped around the woman’s head. Not that he could see beneath the outer shields the powerful demoness always kept up in public. Hiei scoffed at her need for it, even while understanding why she did. It was unheard of for a female youkai to hold so much power over others, and it would shame the traditions Mukuro had always championed. Perhaps it was time those outmoded ideas be abandoned with the old regimes…
But it was more than just that. For the former king, her very womanhood had always been her greatest weakness. She’d despised her body so much that she had poured acid on herself to escape the lascivious attentions of her slave-master before finally running away into a freedom that was as binding in its insidious way as the manacle still locked tight to her left wrist. That manacle forever reminded the king of her past, locking her into it for untold centuries as her bitterness and rage over her slavery consumed her spirit in hatred as dark as his own. She had used that hatred, as Hiei had used his, to empower herself, turning bitter weakness into bitter strength, fueling her lust for killing all who opposed her with her own unrelenting darkness.
It was only in the last few years, when a bauble Hiei thought lost forever had been found and given as tribute to the king that Mukuro had made some peace with the darkness inside herself. Hiei now wore that bauble around his neck, given back to him by the scarred woman standing at his side. The bauble was the very hiruseki stone he’d thought lost forever---the tear-gem his mother had shed at his birth, and the only thing he had ever had from her but pain.
Hiruseki stones were rare and precious, for they were valued not only for their beauty, but for the serenity they exuded and gave their bearer. Hiei could not explain, even to himself, the divided feelings he had over the stone’s return, as he could not explain the divided feelings he had regarding the one who had returned it to him.
Mukuro. She was, and was not, a very reflection of himself. Like him, she had been forged from darkness, and like him, she understood and used it to her own advantage. She was the one person on the face of the demon earth who knew everything about him, as Hiei now knew everything about her. In the darkness when he had felt his soul slipping away after the final confrontation with that damn surgeon, Shigure, she had touched his consciousness with her own, sharing with him her own pain even as her submersion tanks had fixed his severed arm as good as new.
Such exposure to another was intolerable, but as she had bared her own inner darkness to him as well, Hiei could not fault the fairness of it. And there was a peace inside him---either by the hiruseki’s influence, or by his own life coming full circle---that he had not had in years. But a peace Mukuro could not quite understand, for he was resigned now to the true emptiness of his existence. There was naught to welcome but death now, though she challenged him that there was more than that, that there still lay---between them, especially---more yet to know.
It was that idle curiosity that kept his anger at bay, that he had not died as he sought under Shigure’s lethal ring-sword. As the surgeon had called it, just before his head toppled from Hiei’s blow, it would have been a noble end, two fighters dying together in battle. But Mukuro had interfered with the surgeon, too, reviving his corpse with her submersion tanks. Hiei wondered idly if the proud warrior felt as bitter as he by the king’s deliberate intervention.
For as much as the king rebuked the idea, what, really, was there left to live for? The purpose that had driven him was as ashes as that which had once driven the taiji-ya. Hiei had found his sister, and knew she would be well and happy, even with that idiot Kuwabara, who loved Yukina like he could never, for it was so completely unselfish and all-consuming. With the aid of the Jagan that Shigure had implanted inside his body, he’d been able to locate his mother’s village, but in the end there had been nothing there for him, either. The last quest he might claim was finding the stone he now wore around his neck, and the peace was not what he had expected, for it just calmed him into the inevitable truth that there was nothing else left to live for.
Mukuro claimed there was. She claimed there was yet another emotion that he had never known and never cared to know. Hiei sneered, for the female was at heart as sentimentally foolish as any other woman. Love. What was that to him but something forever denied? She claimed she would show him, that by piercing the darkest part of him she would prove in the end that he was capable of an emotion he knew damn well he wasn’t. For look how easily he had turned his back on Sango, even after what they’d shared, leaving her alone in her darkness and betraying her as he had betrayed all others, forsaking her as he had always forsaken everyone. The guilt of that---when he had never felt guilt before---was even more unendurable than the agonized longing he had for her in the darkest, bloodiest hours locked inside Mukuro’s dungeons fighting for his life over the last six months.
It was just lust. He knew that, but the tiniest part of him scoffed at the truth of it, believing there was more there than he gave it. Hiei needed to purge himself of that nagging doubt, lay to rest the self-question he had never, ever, indulged in before meeting the slayer. That fierce need consumed him, blinding him to even the three demons standing before him. Hiei realized with a start that the detective was no longer there, had faded into the misty shadows while he stood there like a statue, so consumed with his own thoughts that he had all but forgotten just where he was or anything that was happening around him.
Mukuro watched him, that bulging blue eye seeing too much and not enough. With an abrupt gesture, Hiei dismissed the demoness’s probing gaze, turning his back on it to face the city whose gleaming lights pierced the fog-enshrouded darkness like twinkling yellow stars.
“There’s something I have to do,” he said shortly, for he owed the king some explanation, even just a token one. “I’ll meet you back at the Mukade.”
“Will you?” she asked, her mild tone deceptive. She lent hidden meanings to everything she said---it was irritating as hell.
“Yes,” he said with sharp finality, and she nodded.
“So be it. Though, do not tarry, Hiei. There is much we need to do before the tournament. Dismantling a kingdom I have ruled for centuries will not be as easy as the detective suggests, and we could both use more training to get us ready.” The blue glinted. “I am looking forward to the chance to fight you, demon.”
“As am I,” Hiei allowed, and disappeared.
It was hard pinning down the slayer’s evasive thoughts, even though he knew them well. She wandered, perhaps in dreams, and her thought-energies were dim. It took quite a while for him to finally locate her. The night had waned, the hour far past midnight, but the city was still restless with the news spreading like wild fire that the kings had abdicated their power in favor of a chancy proposal by Raizen’s half-human heir. Disgusted by the equal reactions of fear and greedy speculation, Hiei finally deactivated his Jagan, the glow dying from his third eye as he opened his own.
He leapt from the metal alcove he had hidden himself while he searched, barely touching the next building’s edifice before leaping again, his flickering movements so fast they could barely be followed by even the strongest demons. He had nothing to fear from any who might watch---the most powerful were too wrapped in their own concerns. Even Yomi, deep in the warren beneath his metal city, was contemplating how he might use his unborn son to further his own ambitions. Hiei thought idly of warning Mukuro of the possibility, but the threat didn’t seem that great, for a babe not even born yet…
The others who might challenge him---Chuu, Jin, the other four youkai who had attended the conference and who had shown remarkable increases in jyaki---they were busy getting drunk off their asses in celebration. Kurama, too, was busy getting drunk, alone in his rooms on Yomi’s quiet estate. That bothered Hiei, that the fox who rarely indulged was all but passed out over the empty bottle beside him. But he didn’t have time right now to investigate, for he had caught sight of Sango’s aura through the skeletal walls of the luxury hotel she was staying in.
Landing on the window sill outside her room with barely a whisper of sound to betray him, Hiei hesitated, one hand on the latch. For a long second, he paused, wondering at the nervous rush of strange emotions that hit him---guilt, anticipation, hunger, fear. Then, disgusted by emotions he so thoroughly despised, his fingers tightened on the latch and he yanked it open.
The chill wind this high up blew with him through the window, stirring the short white and black hairs across his forehead. He snicked the window shut, lest the chill breeze wake her. For she slept, deeply, her breaths even and quiet and as loud as his heartbeat in the silence as he crossed over the room to stare down at her.
She was even more beautiful than he remembered. So achingly soft in her vulnerability, for she lay curled on her side, her ebon locks a black tangle around her sleep-relaxed face. The night could not hide the creamy glow of her skin to him, or the sooty feathers of her lashes, the swollen lips that pouted slightly in sleep. Her upswept brows, delicate as a swallow’s raised wing, were drawn down, as if her dreams were troubled, and the silence was deafening as he abruptly realized she wasn’t snoring, even as lightly as she had always done.
He couldn’t help himself. Drawn as if by a magnet, he reached out to faintly trace the fine line of her cheek, light as a butterfly’s kiss lest he awaken her. He froze, feeling the wetness on his calloused fingertips, and sharply sucked in his breath as her mingled scent washed over him. The reminder of her arousal was so powerful he hardened in seconds, his breath growing short. But it was not only her scent that filled his senses, but Kurama’s, and the emotions that washed over him were so powerful he all but snatched his hand back as if burned.
Abruptly turning around, he was back at the window in an instant, red eyes smoldering as he shoved it open and took to the wraith-wrapped sky, the city fading into the curling fog as he quickly left it behind him.
He did not look back.
WARNING! SPOILERS FOR YYH CHAPTER BLACK, THE THREE KINGS SAGA
WORDS
ofuda - sacred sutra
Mukade - also known as “Mobile Fortress Mukade,” the white centipede/insect tank Mukuro and Hiei ride in YYH Episode 104 “Every Demon for Himself”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Quietly shutting the bedroom door, Jin shook his tousled red head as he crossed the hotel suite. The poor slayer finally slept with the help of a few Ambien he’d coaxed inside her, and he had to hurry or Touya would freeze his balls right off for being late---again. Dang, but that icy bastard knew just how to threaten a poor youkai.
Not that Jin had any desire whatsoever to attend another damn conference. There’d been enough of those yesterday to bore him right into next week. He’d thought when he’d taken the fox up on his offer that there’d be a bit more excitement---of the ass-kicking kind, mind---than this. But he couldn’t ignore Kurama’s hasty summons, even though a part of him was thinking he might like to indulge in a little bit of that ass-kicking, and with the fox as target.
Jin didn’t know what the hell had happened between Anei and Kurama, but the fox’s scent was all over the girl, and it didn’t take an idiot to figure out what the two had gotten up to last night. Jin had been hoping for it, actually---that one of them, either the fox or that little boiling volcano, Hiei, would take their head out their arse long enough to finally go after the slayer. She deserved so much better than either of ’em, of course. But Jin had quickly realized when he’d first met their little rag-tag group in the Forest of Fools more than six months ago that that was the way the wind was blowing, and who was he to ever stand in its way? Much as he fancied the slayer himself, there was no help for it but to chivy it along a bit with some judicious assistance on his part.
Truth, he wasn’t the strategist Touya was, and as usual, his best-laid plans went all a-pickle on him. Who’d have thought they’d awaken a giant boogie monster when he’d set up that little hide-and-peep game for Lily? Not that it wasn’t a tale worthy enough to share among friends with a pint of Guinness at your knee. Ah, but that was always the way of it when Yusuke Urameshi was involved. By the saints, he missed the lad. The wee bastard sure had a way of stirring things up and getting things going when he was around…
Jin shook his head. Ah, his mind was blowing all over the place, and he didn’t know if it was the lack of sleep, all the crazy going’s on a’going on, or his nagging concern for poor Lily. He’d been that surprised to find her at Kurama’s apartment in the city, and even more kerflummoxed when she’d all but thrown herself at him, sobbing like her heart been torn right out of her sweet chest.
Ah, but it had, and he knew it was the fox’s doing. Damme, but he didn’t know why, though. If he’d been a betting man---and he was, of course---than he’d lay his chips on Kurama being the one to get the girl…
Jin coughed, going slightly red. Well, he had gotten the girl after all, hadn’t he? For there was no mistaking that scent, even for a demon whose nose wasn’t as keen as a kitsune’s. But stronger than the scent of sex was the scent of Lily’s tears, and that broke his heart, it did, for the poor lass had been through enough already in her troubled life to not have that, too. Jin just didn’t know why---why Kurama had broken her heart, and why it was she couldn’t even speak of it, just sob all over him and then shut down into silence until he’d finally coaxed her to sleep, knowing that was all he could really do for her right now.
Jin just hoped it was all one big misunderstanding, that they were just having one of those wee lovers’ spats, when your heart was too wrapped up for sense and you couldn’t see nothing but the hot emotions afore ye. He’d give Kurama the benefit of the doubt, for that one was a deep one, his mind going a mile a minute even while he was standing there still. Therein might lie the problem, though, for Jin suspected the kitsune could sometimes get so wrapped up in all those complex thoughts of his that he all but tangled himself up in them. Maybe even got himself so twisted around he couldn’t see what was right there in front of him. Missing the forest for all the trees, that was Kurama.
Not that there weren’t a lot of trees right now. Lots of things a’going on, there was, enough to start a poor wind youkai’s head to pounding. And speaking of trees…
Glimpsing the distinctive neon-blue mohawk of his friend Chuu over the other demons milling around the hotel lobby, Jin chuckled at the analogy. Aye, Chuu was a towering tree of a man, standing a good foot and a half above the rest of them. The guzzling Aussie had a mean right hook to match that hulking frame of his. Jin had felt it plenty of times in the last six months, when he and the others had trained under that witch, Genkai.
Priestesses were supposed to be all sweet and saintly, like that cute lass, Kagome---who’d come from time to time to work privately with the gnarled old hag. Now there was a sweet piece he wouldn’t mind taking a bite of---nor any of the other lads, to be honest. Too bad the girl had a mutt-eared boyfriend with a bad attitude and big sword. One he knew how to use---for Genkai had often pitted them up with Inuyasha. The old priestess didn’t see why they couldn’t keep themselves busy sparring with the inu hanyou while she trained one-on-one with the young miko at Spirit World‘s---or Prince Koenma’s, rather---request.
Fighting Inuyasha was at least better than being locked in that damn cave for a month. Or standing on spikes for that long week while he juggled Chuu on his shoulders, the poisonous scorpions just waiting for him to drop the drunk lug, or for the Aussie to drop yo-yo boy Rinku from off his shoulders. Gah, but that wasn’t half as bad as the snakes and things.
Jin shuddered. By all that’s holy and not yet damned, he hated snakes. There was a reason dear St. Patty had chased them out of Ireland. They were nasty, loathsome things. Especially, Genkai’s snakes. Slimy, vicious, sharp-toothed, poisonous little bastards. Gods, the last six months had been pure torture, but in the end, it had all been worth it for the increased power it gave him. Flexing a thickly-muscled arm, Jin grinned smugly. He’d be more than ready to take Yusuke on now!
Ah, now wasn’t that a sweet thought! He’d do anything for a chance to fight Yusuke again---even join that weird elitist, Yomi. Jin had been that surprised when Kurama had come asking his aid, but he was willing enough once Kurama had made it clear that he might get the chance to fight the former Spirit Detective, seeing as they’d be on different sides and all. But who in their right mind wouldn’t want to fight in a world-wide brawl of epic proportions? Jin was a true warrior at heart, as they all were. Even Touya, who’d finally found his true calling, thanks to that smart-mouthed ex-detective-turned-born-again-demon.
Ah, but they all had reasons to be grateful to Urameshi. Ever since the Dark Tournament, they’d all been a bit lost, wandering around wondering what it was they would do any more. He and Touya had finally broken ties with the Guardians, something they should have done a long time ago. Right on the heels of that, the fox had come inviting them to train under Yusuke’s old teacher, and then offered the chance to scrap with the boy. It was an opportunity sent straight from Heaven above!
“Jin!” Rinku suddenly bounced out of the crowd, his boyish face wreathed in welcome.
“Hello there, lad.” Jin gave the boy an absent pat on the head, blue eyes on Touya, who frowned at him. Picking himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, the ice apparition casually made his way to the wind youkai’s side as the others followed in a ragged line.
“And where have you been?” Touya quietly demanded as he fell in step beside Jin as they all turned as one and headed towards the hotel’s glass doors. Rinku and Chuu fell to arguing as Suzuka egged them on and snobby Shishi ignored them as beneath his dignity.
“Ah, well,” Jin hedged. Scratching the back of his unruly head, his blue eyes slid past the eagle-sharp gaze of his shorter friend. He flushed uncomfortably, and chuckling, Chuu fetched him one on the shoulder that made the wind-user stagger out into the street.
“Aw, Touya, leave ’im alone. Poor bloke looks like he’s about to burst. It’s right obvious he’s been with a girl.” The grizzled rascal winked. Throwing a heavy arm around the wind youkai’s shoulders, Chuu demanded, “Now, Jin, give it right up. Who is she? What’s her name? She pretty? Or was it just the beer-goggles?”
“Beer-goggles,” Rinku voted, quickly escaping when the huge Aussie turned around and glared.
“Lookie here, bledger, that ain’t something you should know a thing about!”
Rolling his eyes, the short youkai stuck his tongue out at his impromptu-guardian. Chuu did try to father the boy, when he remembered to.
“Care to tell me about her?” Touya invited with a raised brow as the others moved ahead of them. Jin shrugged.
“Ah, you know, lad. I’ve fair talked your ear off about her enough already…”
Touya gave him a surprised look. “The wind changling? She‘s here?”
“Aye.” Crossing his arms over the back of his head, Jin looked up at the fuschia sky. The day was clear, the clouds fat, purple cotton-balls. The air was clean after last night’s rowdy storms, and Jin took a deep breath of it. Funny, but it was not even noon yet. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. First, returning to Demon World and being formally presented to Gandara’s king. Then the whole boring meeting-after-meeting yawn of yesterday, than the party last night in Chuu’s suite. Then to bed to catch a few winks to rise at dawn and go see if Kurama was up and about since he was bored and no one else was recovered yet from all the booze they‘d imbibed. Then Lily and all that mess. Gosh knew there was enough to keep his mind a’muddle without this news that King Raizen might really be dead.
“And…?” Touya prompted, and Jin frowned.
“And I dunno.” Wrinkling his nose, Jin quietly relayed how he’d spent the morning and that the girl lay sleeping it off in his hotel room as they slowly walked to the king’s house in the center of the city.
Touya looked thoughtful. Hoping for some insight, for he trusted the ice apparition’s opinion more than anyone’s, Jin nudged him. “Well? What is it ya think?”
“I think you should speak with Kurama, find out his side and see what happened before you jump to any conclusions,” Touya said firmly, and Jin nodded.
“Aye, that be me own thought upon it,” he agreed, but felt better for Touya’s support. No one he knew---save maybe Kurama---was more intelligent than the icy-eyed elemental.
“Hey, you slowpokes, hurry it up, will ya?” Chuu shouted from the gate, where the others waited impatiently for them to catch up. “Don’t want to keep Kurama waiting, do we?”
“Right,” Jin said, leaping into the air to fly through the open gate and snag Kurama for a word or two before the rest of them showed up to spoil it. Intent on his goal, the wind apparition ignored the startled shrieks and angry shouts he left in his wake as he zoomed past, the fierce wind of his passage ruffling more than just tempers. Ah, but that was normally the way of it, and he hardly paid the uproar any mind as he finally spotted the fox just emerging from one of the screens to step outside on the wrap-around porch.
Jin scooted down the porch to come to a complete stop mere inches from the cool fox, who was unperturbed by the abrupt appearance. Unflappable as always, the redhead nodded politely. “Good morning, Jin. I’m glad you came so quickly; there is much we need to discuss before our meeting convenes. Are the others with you?”
“Aye, they are,” Jin nodded his head back behind him, “but there be a thing or two you and I should yet discuss, Kurama, afore the others arrive.”
“Oh?” A thin brow rose in polite inquiry, but the fox was suddenly tense, his look wary.
Jin scratched his chin, eying the fox with a narrowed gaze. Never one to beat around the bush, he blurted, “What be it that happened ’tween you and Lily last night, eh?”
Kurama abruptly turned away, his hands curling at his sides. His red head bowed and he asked quietly, his throat tight, “Where is she? Did you see her? Is she…okay?”
“She’ll do, for now,” Jin said solemnly, disliking the strain in the fox’s low voice. “She’s in me suite, sound asleep. Though whatever you did had her crying her very eyes out this morning. Now, will you be telling me what is that happened, or are you going to force me to beat it out of ye?”
“Perhaps that would be just,” Kurama said, staring unseeing at the beautiful green gardens before them. A playful wind rippled the waters of the fountain, teasing the red locks of the fox’s long hair and wrinkling the purple over-robe against the lilac under.
“What happened, lad?” Jin put a hand on the kitsune’s shoulder, his voice gentle for the tension fairly seething off the red-haired hanyou.
“What had to,” Kurama said tightly, his green eyes flicking up to meet the wind youkai’s. There was such stark pain in the rich green depths that it fair took Jin’s breath away. Whatever had happened between the two of them, Lily wasn’t the only one whose heart had broken.
“Kurama---” Jin said, but the others had arrived, and he wasn’t able to say anything more. And then the tense conversation was all but forgotten in the crazy shock of Kurama’s news, for Yusuke was coming! Here, to Gandara! To meet with Yomi, and in less than an hour!
Jin could hardly contain his excitement, and the others were just as giddy, though some of the lads managed to hide it better. So, it was true that King Raizen had finally croaked, and the nervous rumors that Mukuro’s forces were already on the move were accurate. That seemed to worry Kurama and Touya, but Jin was too delighted with the fact that Yusuke was on his way here. Though Yomi’s orders put a little bit of a damper on it, since the king wanted them to wait in the next room, and if he gave the signal, attack the poor detective and kill him. But that little wrinkle didn’t bother Jin’s glee too much, and Kurama was optimistic that it might not come to that.
It was hard waiting for Urameshi’s arrival, even in the luxurious room the servant had shown them. But there was no mistaking that spiritually-enhanced demonic aura, or the dour S-class competency of Hokushin, who Jin had barely met before leaving the Forest of Fools. Propping an eyeball right to the crack of the door, Jin watched as the lad took a seat, Hokushin kneeling slightly behind and to the right. By the saints, the lad looked good, and hadn’t changed at all! Jin grinned in fierce delight, watching as Yomi took a formal seat across from the boy and one of the king’s pretty little concubines---Amaya, he thought her name was---offered the former detective a cup of tea.
Turning around, Jin held up his hastily scratched note. They couldn’t speak out loud, lest they be overheard, but Kurama had thoughtfully supplied them with pen and paper so they could spell out their thoughts. It was quite effective, for they managed to convey their unanimous decision to back Yusuke when Kurama asked if it came down to it, which side would they be on? Of course, Shishi had to be persuaded a bit with Suzuka’s gleeful interference, but Jin knew at heart that the handsome imp was on Yusuke’s side as much as the rest of them.
What then followed was one of the most awesome, kick ass ideas Yusuke had ever fucking had, and Jin knew they’d been right to decide to side with the Mazoku over Yomi. It’d been tense there for a while, as the two kings traded words back and forth, and Yusuke’s blunt claim that he would tell Yomi exactly how he intended to rip him off of his throne made the king start powering up. They all wordlessly tensed, wondering if the brash detective had finally gone too far, for the blind king was fairly seething with youkai rage. Jin wondered what Mukuro and Hiei thought of it, for he could feel the ominous aura of Makai’s third ruler somewhere in the city, watching from above. This might be a war on two fronts…
But Yusuke, bless his innovative human heart, surprised them all by proposing a solution that would stop war from tearing Makai apart. And brilliant lad that he was, he knew just how to feed on every demon’s ambition and pride, by pitting them all against each other in a single tournament that would decide, for once and for all, who would rule them all. And in the most democratically demonic way possible, with fists! Each demon representing only himself, using just his own power and strength to strive for the ultimate prize of ruling Demon World---for a time, at least, until the next tournament, when they would do it all over again.
Pure elation erupted inside of Jin, and he couldn’t contain it, bursting right through the doors to volunteer to be the first one to sign up as Yomi showed skepticism for the idea. The others were right behind him, and grabbing Yusuke in a bear hug, Jin greeted his old friend with a loud whoop of welcome. Yomi was only convinced once Kurama told him firmly that he was now on his own side, though the king frowned fiercely at the betrayal. But the king finally had to capitulate---albeit grudgingly---when Mukuro’s gravelly voice echoed across all of their minds, readily agreeing to Yusuke’s terms. The tyrannical king was laying down his lands and titles, and would fight on his own like any other apparition, representing only himself in the Great Tournament.
Jin raised a fist in triumph. Leave it to Yusuke to turn all of Demon World right on its head! In one stroke, the boy had managed to dismantle the regimes that had ruled for centuries, and gods above and below, it was a glorious time to be alive! There was no knowing what was in store, and best of all, Jin would get the chance to fight the detective again, and maybe, just maybe, win this time! And by all the holy saints in Eire, with luck, win Demon World as well! The sky was the limit!
ooOOOoo
Night had fallen by the time the Spirit Detective finally left Gandara. Arms crossed, Hiei waited impatiently for the boy and his bald-headed nursemaid, Hokushin, to arrive. Mukuro had insisted they wait for the pair just outside the city, for the king---or former king, now---felt the need to make some token gesture on Raizen’s passing. The sappy sentimentality of it made Hiei sneer, for why would Mukuro want to make such a gesture to one she had despised? But then, the demoness’s motives often baffled the fire apparition, as his did her. Strange how they could silently understand each other so well without really understanding each other at all.It was good to see the detective again. Hiei smirked. The boy had finally come into his true heritage. The Mazoku was fully awakened, as his incredible aura gave mute testament to. Yusuke was stronger than ever before, and Hiei relished the opportunity of testing his own increased power against his friend‘s. As he had so off-handedly put it to Mukuro, Hiei was more than willing to fight whoever won if it came down to a battle between the two of them.
His red eyes flicked over to the bandage-wrapped demoness as she held out flowers to the Mazoku, bidding Yusuke lay them at Raizen’s grave to honor the king who died a fool. Yusuke accepted them gravely, his piercing brown eyes trying to penetrate the ofuda wrapped around the woman’s head. Not that he could see beneath the outer shields the powerful demoness always kept up in public. Hiei scoffed at her need for it, even while understanding why she did. It was unheard of for a female youkai to hold so much power over others, and it would shame the traditions Mukuro had always championed. Perhaps it was time those outmoded ideas be abandoned with the old regimes…
But it was more than just that. For the former king, her very womanhood had always been her greatest weakness. She’d despised her body so much that she had poured acid on herself to escape the lascivious attentions of her slave-master before finally running away into a freedom that was as binding in its insidious way as the manacle still locked tight to her left wrist. That manacle forever reminded the king of her past, locking her into it for untold centuries as her bitterness and rage over her slavery consumed her spirit in hatred as dark as his own. She had used that hatred, as Hiei had used his, to empower herself, turning bitter weakness into bitter strength, fueling her lust for killing all who opposed her with her own unrelenting darkness.
It was only in the last few years, when a bauble Hiei thought lost forever had been found and given as tribute to the king that Mukuro had made some peace with the darkness inside herself. Hiei now wore that bauble around his neck, given back to him by the scarred woman standing at his side. The bauble was the very hiruseki stone he’d thought lost forever---the tear-gem his mother had shed at his birth, and the only thing he had ever had from her but pain.
Hiruseki stones were rare and precious, for they were valued not only for their beauty, but for the serenity they exuded and gave their bearer. Hiei could not explain, even to himself, the divided feelings he had over the stone’s return, as he could not explain the divided feelings he had regarding the one who had returned it to him.
Mukuro. She was, and was not, a very reflection of himself. Like him, she had been forged from darkness, and like him, she understood and used it to her own advantage. She was the one person on the face of the demon earth who knew everything about him, as Hiei now knew everything about her. In the darkness when he had felt his soul slipping away after the final confrontation with that damn surgeon, Shigure, she had touched his consciousness with her own, sharing with him her own pain even as her submersion tanks had fixed his severed arm as good as new.
Such exposure to another was intolerable, but as she had bared her own inner darkness to him as well, Hiei could not fault the fairness of it. And there was a peace inside him---either by the hiruseki’s influence, or by his own life coming full circle---that he had not had in years. But a peace Mukuro could not quite understand, for he was resigned now to the true emptiness of his existence. There was naught to welcome but death now, though she challenged him that there was more than that, that there still lay---between them, especially---more yet to know.
It was that idle curiosity that kept his anger at bay, that he had not died as he sought under Shigure’s lethal ring-sword. As the surgeon had called it, just before his head toppled from Hiei’s blow, it would have been a noble end, two fighters dying together in battle. But Mukuro had interfered with the surgeon, too, reviving his corpse with her submersion tanks. Hiei wondered idly if the proud warrior felt as bitter as he by the king’s deliberate intervention.
For as much as the king rebuked the idea, what, really, was there left to live for? The purpose that had driven him was as ashes as that which had once driven the taiji-ya. Hiei had found his sister, and knew she would be well and happy, even with that idiot Kuwabara, who loved Yukina like he could never, for it was so completely unselfish and all-consuming. With the aid of the Jagan that Shigure had implanted inside his body, he’d been able to locate his mother’s village, but in the end there had been nothing there for him, either. The last quest he might claim was finding the stone he now wore around his neck, and the peace was not what he had expected, for it just calmed him into the inevitable truth that there was nothing else left to live for.
Mukuro claimed there was. She claimed there was yet another emotion that he had never known and never cared to know. Hiei sneered, for the female was at heart as sentimentally foolish as any other woman. Love. What was that to him but something forever denied? She claimed she would show him, that by piercing the darkest part of him she would prove in the end that he was capable of an emotion he knew damn well he wasn’t. For look how easily he had turned his back on Sango, even after what they’d shared, leaving her alone in her darkness and betraying her as he had betrayed all others, forsaking her as he had always forsaken everyone. The guilt of that---when he had never felt guilt before---was even more unendurable than the agonized longing he had for her in the darkest, bloodiest hours locked inside Mukuro’s dungeons fighting for his life over the last six months.
It was just lust. He knew that, but the tiniest part of him scoffed at the truth of it, believing there was more there than he gave it. Hiei needed to purge himself of that nagging doubt, lay to rest the self-question he had never, ever, indulged in before meeting the slayer. That fierce need consumed him, blinding him to even the three demons standing before him. Hiei realized with a start that the detective was no longer there, had faded into the misty shadows while he stood there like a statue, so consumed with his own thoughts that he had all but forgotten just where he was or anything that was happening around him.
Mukuro watched him, that bulging blue eye seeing too much and not enough. With an abrupt gesture, Hiei dismissed the demoness’s probing gaze, turning his back on it to face the city whose gleaming lights pierced the fog-enshrouded darkness like twinkling yellow stars.
“There’s something I have to do,” he said shortly, for he owed the king some explanation, even just a token one. “I’ll meet you back at the Mukade.”
“Will you?” she asked, her mild tone deceptive. She lent hidden meanings to everything she said---it was irritating as hell.
“Yes,” he said with sharp finality, and she nodded.
“So be it. Though, do not tarry, Hiei. There is much we need to do before the tournament. Dismantling a kingdom I have ruled for centuries will not be as easy as the detective suggests, and we could both use more training to get us ready.” The blue glinted. “I am looking forward to the chance to fight you, demon.”
“As am I,” Hiei allowed, and disappeared.
ooOOOoo
Perhaps it was the turmoil of the news breaking over Gandara that Yomi no longer ruled it, but Hiei’s presence went unnoticed as he returned to the city. The fear of the city’s populace was pervasive and repugnant. Sneering at the lesser youkai who trembled at the very idea that they were no longer protected by their devious tyrant and wondered what the future now held, Hiei ignored the annoying babble of their excited thoughts to focus on the one he wanted.It was hard pinning down the slayer’s evasive thoughts, even though he knew them well. She wandered, perhaps in dreams, and her thought-energies were dim. It took quite a while for him to finally locate her. The night had waned, the hour far past midnight, but the city was still restless with the news spreading like wild fire that the kings had abdicated their power in favor of a chancy proposal by Raizen’s half-human heir. Disgusted by the equal reactions of fear and greedy speculation, Hiei finally deactivated his Jagan, the glow dying from his third eye as he opened his own.
He leapt from the metal alcove he had hidden himself while he searched, barely touching the next building’s edifice before leaping again, his flickering movements so fast they could barely be followed by even the strongest demons. He had nothing to fear from any who might watch---the most powerful were too wrapped in their own concerns. Even Yomi, deep in the warren beneath his metal city, was contemplating how he might use his unborn son to further his own ambitions. Hiei thought idly of warning Mukuro of the possibility, but the threat didn’t seem that great, for a babe not even born yet…
The others who might challenge him---Chuu, Jin, the other four youkai who had attended the conference and who had shown remarkable increases in jyaki---they were busy getting drunk off their asses in celebration. Kurama, too, was busy getting drunk, alone in his rooms on Yomi’s quiet estate. That bothered Hiei, that the fox who rarely indulged was all but passed out over the empty bottle beside him. But he didn’t have time right now to investigate, for he had caught sight of Sango’s aura through the skeletal walls of the luxury hotel she was staying in.
Landing on the window sill outside her room with barely a whisper of sound to betray him, Hiei hesitated, one hand on the latch. For a long second, he paused, wondering at the nervous rush of strange emotions that hit him---guilt, anticipation, hunger, fear. Then, disgusted by emotions he so thoroughly despised, his fingers tightened on the latch and he yanked it open.
The chill wind this high up blew with him through the window, stirring the short white and black hairs across his forehead. He snicked the window shut, lest the chill breeze wake her. For she slept, deeply, her breaths even and quiet and as loud as his heartbeat in the silence as he crossed over the room to stare down at her.
She was even more beautiful than he remembered. So achingly soft in her vulnerability, for she lay curled on her side, her ebon locks a black tangle around her sleep-relaxed face. The night could not hide the creamy glow of her skin to him, or the sooty feathers of her lashes, the swollen lips that pouted slightly in sleep. Her upswept brows, delicate as a swallow’s raised wing, were drawn down, as if her dreams were troubled, and the silence was deafening as he abruptly realized she wasn’t snoring, even as lightly as she had always done.
He couldn’t help himself. Drawn as if by a magnet, he reached out to faintly trace the fine line of her cheek, light as a butterfly’s kiss lest he awaken her. He froze, feeling the wetness on his calloused fingertips, and sharply sucked in his breath as her mingled scent washed over him. The reminder of her arousal was so powerful he hardened in seconds, his breath growing short. But it was not only her scent that filled his senses, but Kurama’s, and the emotions that washed over him were so powerful he all but snatched his hand back as if burned.
Abruptly turning around, he was back at the window in an instant, red eyes smoldering as he shoved it open and took to the wraith-wrapped sky, the city fading into the curling fog as he quickly left it behind him.
He did not look back.