Tsuki rose, wiping away the bead of sweat that tickled her left eyelid. She had spent more than an hour in Mukuro's private gardens, tending the bed of black and white roses which, she was sure, had helped Hiei to head. They would never again want for water or care. Two weeks after the ordeal ended, she had faithfully kept them free of wilt and insects.
Scanning the beds to see what else she could do, she felt another flush of shame. Though she knew the koorime had forgive her, she had not yet forgiven herself, and wasn't sure she ever would. He had been so close to dying, for so long, and it was all because of her stupidity. On the other hand, if she hadn't decided, on impulse, to tease him, would he have still wanted her? Would they now be mates?
They were mates. Tsuki smiled as she knelt down to clip a black-spotted leaf from a white rose bush, cutting the disease away from the plant. Wilt. Her thoughts returned to Hiei, as they always did, of late. Mated. She was really beginning to love that word, with its many nuances and implications. Neither of them had said it, but she knew it was true. Both of did.
Most, she realized, would have expected the distant, cynical demon to change. They would have wanted him to turn away from his cold, stoic detachment; not her. His awesome self-control and his ability to approach any situation with reason astounded her, and it was part of what she loved about him. She had seen his worst, and knew that nothing would ever cause her to turn away from him.
How strange, for this to happen to her.
Putting her tools back in the small, green wooden shed, she left the garden. The warm, waning sunlight felt so good on her face that she had to smile, and of course, that lead to the memory of Hiei's rare smile.
Breaking into a happy skip, she started to sing, though no one was there to hear it. No one was there to hear her shriek of surprise as the trap caught her unawares, either. From the shadows, a man in a green cloak smiled.
Nearby, Touya, Jin, and Chu laughed companionably, enjoying the warm, sinking sun. There were no demons to worry about, no forts to raid, no one to rescue, and no traps to dodge, that the knew of. Jin was showing his pleasure with the playful air currents by moving with them, which brought about a lot of funny poses. Everyone was having a good time, just being together, and safe for once.
The air of good spirits was irresistible.
Jin floated ahead, as he was well-known for doing, upside down. A light breeze teased him, and determined to follow it, Jin wound up face-first on the hard dirt path. More laughter. He rose into the air again, much to the irritation of the green-garbed man who tailed them. A dappled cloak allowing him to watch, unseen, the unsuspecting trio.
"It's a wonder you can fight, being this slow," Jin quipped. When this brought neither laughter nor comments, he turned, at the same time sensing that something wasn't quite right. By then it was too late. Exactly as the bouncy air-demon caught sight of Touya and Chu, lying motionless on the ground, each with a tiny green dart by their shoulder, the hidden man's third projectile caught his chest.
Shocked, Chu tried to turn to look for his attacker, only to find that he was no longer in the air, and actually had to move to do so. The sleeping poison reached his heart an instant later, and the powerful, faithful muscle sent it racing throughout his entire body. Black and red flooded his vision when it reached his brain, and he knew no more.
The man grumbled, wondering at Yomi's instructions to catch them unawares. There had been no challenge at all, and that disgustingly cheerful demon with the aerial tricks had made him miss his famous mark. He was thoroughly displeased.
Shigure and Yukina worked, together in the hospital. Though their craft was all that they had in common, it was more than enough, and they were both enjoying their work. It was supposed to be a learning experience, and with two so skilled, the only way to do that was to work together.
It was the end of the day, and Yukina was very pleased. She had learned much, much more than she had expected, and her opinion of the demon doctor had drastically altered. Most of her healing was done with ki alone, and she was glad to learn more practical methods, ones that would always work, with or without her spirit energy. The blue-haired girl laughed softly to herself, uplifted by the chance to stretch her skills and learn something new. There was nothing she loved more than following her calling.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't even realize that she had walked into a trap, until it was too late. She saw flashes of green before she was knocked unconscious. Had she not been, she would have heard Shigure's cry of anger. He, too, had been captured.
In the human world, Kuwabara and Yusuke uttered a similar sound, and though Kurama was more or less silent, he, too, was taken.
Hiei rounded the corner, entering the garden, and was greeted by the warm, heady scent of roses and the freshness of green grass. For a moment, he could understand why people made such a fuss about them – but only for a moment. He was a bit distracted, looking for Tsuki.
"She was in there, tending to the roses when I left," the tall man assured him, wringing his hands. The appearance of this short, curt demon with such a powerful ki signature frightened him a bit, at least to the eye of any watcher. The koorime did not see the gesture he made into the shadows.
A chill passed through him, then. Not something to prompt movement, but he knew better than to ignore such intuition. It had saved his life many times before, and this particular prescience had the feel of Tsuki. The last time this had happened, she hapless girl had managed to get herself into serious trouble within sight of the hospital. Baka onnanoko, he thought fondly. He couldn't leave her alone, not for a moment.
His thoughts died away, much as a normal person's speech might have, when he entered the garden, and did not see Tsuki. Where could she have gone this time, he thought, distracted. Home, of course, he answered himself. The sarcasm in his 'voice' was more from exasperation than actual irritation.
The sun was sinking below the horizon, and Tsuki would be cleaning the cottage and cooking dinner – for him, he knew, and his mind smiled, which would have made no sense to anyone but himself – and then, she would go to bed. Inwardly rolling his eyes, he went out the way he had come in.
A rustle, like a cloak, almost, alerted him to the presence of another demon. He turned to face it, already knowing that stood quietly before him had no good intentions. Automatically, his hand went to his side for his Katana, which usually hung there – Makai was not a place to travel without a weapon – and cursed venomously. He really had to get that girl her own weapon.
The ki signature in the area bothered him, even before he really measured it. Considering his own great signature, and maybe a big demon nearby, it was still way too high. The collective total could easily overwhelm him. Either this was among the most powerful demons he had ever met, or there was more than one big demon. He didn't like this at all.
Uneasy, he took a step backward. There was another sound behind him. Body tense, his eyes flicked from one dark figure, emerging from the lengthening shadows, to the one he could now see next to it. How many were there,
He had been cornered, without a weapon, save for his fists and ki, and something else was making him nervous. Unusual, before a fight, for him to be nervous. He reached for his ki, and found that it was walled off.
Sutras!
They had a priest. And he still didn't know how many there were. Grimly, he took on a defensive stance, shifting his weight to his back leg, and thoughts ricocheted around his mind, resonating with the sting of failure, as he realized that if these demons wanted to kill him, and he was sure that they did, he was going to die.
Trapped. At a gesture – the lack of sound from this group was starting to unnerve him – twenty-six demons, some humanoid and some not, lunged from every direction, closing in a noose from which there could be no escape. After only a few minutes, he went down, his loss ringing bitterly in his ears. Overwhelmed by sheer numbers and desperate odds, he fell to darkness.
Trapped.
When he awoke again, it was with great confusion. It couldn't have been more than an hour, and didn't seem likely to have been that long. Realizing that it would give him an advantage, if they thought he was asleep, he carefully regulated his breathing and accelerated heart rate. Sleepers were not touched by adrenaline.
There were the hands again. A pair holding him, and maybe six more pairs hovering around. He could feel their heat, and knew that they were wary. Hiei beat back the urge to kill these demons, the creatures that touched him so callously. He hated being touched; he didn't know why.
Time to go. He felt for his spirit energy again, and found it. That's right, he thought. The priest was among the first to die. Six or seven, he reasoned, would be easy to get past. There were less of them, and though he had no doubt that if he failed to escape this time, they would kill him, he was willing to take the risk. Luck was with him, as per usual: he checked the ki signature just before he was about to spring into action, and realized the futility of even trying.
It was higher.
The odds had been insurmountable before, having lost every weapon but his fists. They were worse, now. When he listened carefully, he could hear the swish of many, many feet. His own feet were tied, he knew now. He didn't bother trying to muscle his way out of the bonds. The whole ordeal had been well-planned. There would be no escape.
Tsuki awoke in much the same manner, albeit after a longer period of time, with similar thoughts and similar revelations. The difference was in the nature of her thoughts: she was worried about Hiei. The temperamental demon had been known to take drastic measures before, and even if he wouldn't say it, she knew that she was one of those things that brought about drastic measures.
What would he do when he got to her cottage-style living quarters, only to find her absent? They didn't exactly live together, but Hiei had officially made her home his 'base.' It was where he went to for security, his default area. Everyone, even class-A demons, has somewhere like that.
So what would happen when he found her absent? She knew he would come. He always did. Would he take those drastic measures that she feared, the ones that always got him hurt? Or would he just go to bed when it got late? Her bed. He was very warm, she thought, and had to smile.
She hoped he just went to sleep. She wasn't worth his getting hurt.
Her 'escort' had stopped. In a heartbeat, she felt the difference. She could hear the whispers of the binding sutras, could feel their stifling presence. They caused her something like physical pain, which made her wonder. They were only meant to block ki, but vampires depend on ki for more than humans did. Thus the unpleasant sensations.
They put her in a chair, then, and bound her arms, legs, and neck with some cold – she hated cold! – flexible material that would not stretch. When they removed her gag and blindfold, she caught sight of green clothing, heard the rustling, then looked down to see her bonds. She couldn't help but be curious. Chain mail-style steel strips. Wonderful. She wondered what was about to happen, worried about Hiei, and waited. She kept on doing so until the lights turned off.
Hiei stopped struggling when he saw the triple-strips of steel ringlets at his wrists iand/i elbows. His captors had been well-prepared indeed. Angry and restless, he took a quick inventory of his surroundings, before the lights went out. Lots and lots of sutras, he thought with amusement. Gallows humor. Whoever this person was did not want him to touch his ki.
Talismans aided the sutras, and the combination reeked of Shinobi. He wondered how his captor had managed to summon aid from the human world for the capture of one demon. Must be a very powerful politician, he thought with some disgust.
Tsuki. The screen lit up, and there she was, breathing evenly, tangled in the clean white sheets. His blood ran cold, poisoning him with fear. Fear for her. For the thousandth time, he cursed his carelessness. Tsuki opened her mouth slightly as she slept. He wondered if they were taunting him, showing him that they could get into his own 'home,' if they wanted to.
He sensed that it was more than that, but that did not stop the surge of possessiveness. It surprised the part of him that noticed it. The rest of his mind was focused on Tsuki, sweet, enduring Tsuki. He knew something was wrong, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
Tsuki rolled over in her sleep, groping for Hiei and searching for his warm body, which usually lay next to her. I should be there, he thought angrily. But no, he realized with a sinking feeling of dread. This was a video. Whatever they were showing him had probably already happened.
Remembering the feeling that he had had earlier, the feeling that she was in danger, his mind and spirit cried out to her. She was sleeping, but he knew what she did not: something was about to happen to her.
His head jerked forward as Hiei strained to rip the steel from the chair, and the same time, struggling to break through the barrier that kept him from his spirit energy. The barrier gave, the steel did not, and he knew neither would break. Crestfallen, he waited to see the fate of the woman he loved more than life itself.
What more could he do?
Tsuki watched him sleeping. Hiei never looked so sweet as when he was asleep. He never looked innocent, period, but he came close to it while dreaming. She found that she didn't like the unusual vulnerability. The fire and ice that warred constantly within the koorime was a part of what she loved. A sense of déjà vu passed over her, and she tried to remember when she had thought such things before. A self-indulgent smile came when she reached the conclusion that she was always thinking something similar.
Wait. Something was happening. Hiei shifted in his sleep, and she gritted her teeth. This was bad, but she didn't know what was happening. Two feelings struggled for dominance within her: one that desperately needed to know, and the one that wanted only to ward away the pain that could come.
When the first demon crept up on her unsuspecting, helpless Hiei, terror locked in her seat, though this didn't actually change much. Would he wake? Would the man hurt him before he got the chance to fight back?
A second man entered her little room, following the first, and he finally woke. Her heart leapt into her throat at the sight! Hiei, her wonderful Hiei was on his feet in an instant. The next instant, his faithful katana was bared, and the koorime was valiantly dodging and slashing, but when six more entered the room, she felt sure that there was no hope.
Eyes wild, she begged him to overcome the terrible odds. Hiei was an A-class demon, she knew, but she could tell already that somehow, incredibly, these demons were almost as strong. At least two of them were B-class, and where had her captors found a low A-class demon to work with them?
Tsuki found it very hard to watch. She could barely see Hiei, could barely see anything of the silent fight. If she hadn't been used to keeping track of his fast movements, she would not have seen anything at all. Just a disorienting sense that something was there, hidden. Another moment passed, and Hiei was still holding on, but there were too many. Too many! That minute was the last minute, and she saw blood flash near his calves as he fell.
Those who fall in battle do not get back up.
Unbridled fear washed through her, coursing through every vane and saturating her spirit. A few long seconds went by, and though the invaders had sheathed their weapons, and Tsuki could see no wounds in vital areas – just the back of his legs, nothing that should slow him down – Hiei did not rise.
He tried. She saw him pull himself up, supporting his weight on the nightstand, and she knew. His legs would not hold, would not respond at all, and he must have been in great pain. He would not know what had happened, and he would be afraid. Tsuki worked in a hospital, though, and she knew what those monsters had done to him.
Hamstrung. Like a large animal one might hunt, they had cut his hamstrings.
And she knew despair. A bead of sweat ran down his face, and as he tried to let go of the nightstand, get back on his own legs, despite the pain, she knew that they would never respond again. Even of he survived this, he would never walk again, let alone fight. He didn't know, he didn't understand. He would, though: even if she didn't tell him, after weeks went by with no sign of recovery, after his carefully trained body began to atrophy from lack of use, he know would.
There would never be improvement.
Tsuki knew that he wouldn't want to live, then. Even Shigure wouldn't be able to fix it. There was only so much that surgery could do. Yukina! No. Something from within told her that Yukina would be unable to do anything. No one would. She could not get that thought, that general idea out of her mind.
Something was happening again. The largest of the demons, impossibly bulky, advanced, and proceeded to hold Hiei down. Even without the use of his legs, the koorime was dangerous. Tsuki's mouth went dry; she had become sure, by then, that they would just leave him. Somehow, the tragedy that had already occurred should have been enough.
Hiei knew, as Tsuki had thought, on and off, from the start that he was going to die. It was no longer a question. He stopped struggling, choosing, instead, to wait, helpless but unafraid. His eyes burned with loathing and defiance
When they, with Hiei's own katana, began to systematically torture him, her scream of hatred and loss transformed midway, becoming rougher, almost like the roar of a beast. Carried upon her cry of despair, she fell into a dark abyss, leaving a wild, agonized parody of the Tsuki she had always been.
Hiei was being tortured, but not quite the way she had though. Of course, his own personalized horrors were still to come, but he was Hiei: he would take it with defiance and stoic silence, just as he took anything else.
His captors had found, somehow, his greatest and newest weakness, and he didn't dare hope that his Tsuki would be left alive. His life of justified pessimism had left its fingerprint on him.
Wake up and move! Move! Run, he called to her, not actually speaking. He wished that she could hear him, wished it so thoroughly that it hurt him. Run, Tsuki! But she didn't. She just rolled over, right on top of the shallow dip where Hiei often slept, searching for his warmth. She frowned in her sleep.
His desperation escalated to hysteria when the first man entered, but he still had some small, stubborn hope. He'd had a large part in her training, and knew that she could take one strong demon, maybe two, if she was forced to. And suddenly, there were two. And three. The first man turned back towards the door, and watched the fourth man enter. He summed up their strength automatically, watching the way they moved. His heart sank. If he was right, there was no chance.
The first man, clearly the leader, grabbed her, eyeing her pale, skimpily-clad form. Hiei's red eyes darkened with anger, even before the first man said – there was no sound, but he could read their lips – "He said to kill her, but he didn't say we couldn't have fun first, right, boys?"
This, and the hearty affirmative response that followed it finally woke Tsuki. The brave, beloved girl leapt back the instant her eyes opened, and Hiei felt a small spike of pride in her. She had taken her training well.
She was fighting like a girl, he noted with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. Still, fist fighting would not be enough, and maybe an unusual assault would afford her some advantage. She was doing very well. One man went down, unable to keep up with the furious whirlwind of biting, scratching, and kicks below the belt that was his Tsuki.
She knew she was fighting for her life, and that was terrible to watch.
Two more fell, groaning soundlessly, before the first man got up. She turned to face him, adopting a more conventional fighter's stance. She might get away, he realized with disbelief.
That was when one of the groaning men by her feet reached up, swifter than he had thought possible, and found a vital nerve. She screamed in pain, crumpling, as the leg ceased to respond. No, Tsuki, Tsuki! No! Hiei's silent cries went unheard.
Terror. It crept into her eyes, joining with the pain already resting there, and saturated his whole being. Terror, when they broke her other leg, rendering the woman he loved helpless. When they raped her, all of them.
Black rage gave him the strength to break through the sutra, making them all burn away.
And before his eyes, she took a mortal wound.
At that moment, Hiei felt a greater strength than ever before. When he saw that his body temperature had risen with her anger and fear, as it had always done, he smiled, cold and unpleasant; a man possessed. He knew the steel would give way, and when he got up gracefully, it did. Blood-red power crackled on his skin. He probably would have killed anything and anyone that crossed his path.
The sutra on his concealing headband had burned away, too. He was more dangerous that he had ever been, and his mind was locked far away, contained by the grief. His eyes flicked once more to the screen, where Tsuki's life pumped away, and the glow faded. He was a man again. A powerful, dangerous, broken man, but still a man.
He knew, that instant that he needed to be by her side. If he raced, faster than he had every raced before, he could see life in her startlingly blue eyes one more time before she died.
He didn't notice the doors. He didn't notice anything but his destination, until he ran right into the river. He stopped. Everyone was there; all looking confused and shocked, all traumatized. Kuwabara and Yukina were holding each other as if they wanted to fuse into one being. A haunted look touched everyone's eyes, and he knew exactly what had happened.
Don't, Hiei. Kurama's thought reached him through his unveiled Jagan Eye. The rising rage faded, and he knew his eyes must bear the same expression, in his eyes as, everyone else. Who did you see, Kurama wanted to know.
No one you know very well. He knew he must sound rude, but he knew that his friend understood. Kurama always did. He was special like that. Her name, he said after a moment's pause, Is Tsuki.
He expected shock, or at least surprise, but Kurama's eyes held only the depth of wisdom and the light of understanding, just as they always did. A soft sound reached everyone's ears – someone wading through the water.
It was Tsuki, shoes in hand, and skirt upheld, to keep it dry. Hiei's chest tightened, his relief making it hard to breathe. She felt the same thing when she saw him, but unlike he, she ran right to him, sobbing. He held her, then, his face buried in her shoulder. When she leaned in on him, and nearly everyone looked away, not knowing how to handle the strange situation, Kurama was the only one who did not. Later, no one knew exactly when her shoes fell into the river.
And Hiei held her, cool and unmoving as stone. Many women would have been displeased with the prospect, not Tsuki. It was one of the things she loved about him.