Raimei

Something was wrong.

Hiei could feel it in the air, buzzing at the edge of his senses. Every muscle in his body was tensed, on guard for when it would happen.

The demon was crouched in a tall tree somewhere near Kurama's house. There wasn't a human around for miles, and the forest was deathly silent. Hiei had his Jagan eye unsealed and scanning the surrounding trees for whatever could cause this feeling, but no enemies appeared.

He was being paranoid, he knew, because there was no logical reason behind this feeling, but he couldn't shake the tension that coursed through his body.

Just when Hiei started to relax slightly, the feeling suddenly increased and-

BOOM!

-the silence was shattered by an earsplitting roar that deafened all other sounds, and the whole world exploded in white.

Hiei ran.

Blinded by a sudden panic and his instincts screaming at him to runrunrun, the small demon shot across the forest in the blink of an eye, not caring where he ran as long as he could escape.

It wasn't long before Hiei realized something was hitting him over and over again. He could feel the cold, relentless projectiles strike all over his body, the unending attack making him numb.

Then, his body took him through a small opening, where he abruptly crashed into something hard and fell to the ground. He started to rise, when-

BOOM!

-his enemy roared again, its powerful aura bathing the world in a harsh light. Thankfully, wherever his body had taken him seemed to be safe from the cold projectiles. Curling into a ball, Hiei attempted to make himself a smaller target, his eyes squeezed shut so he wouldn't be blinded by its aura. The roaring had stopped, and now the only sound was of his rapid, gasping breaths, until-

"...Hiei?"

The unexpected voice next to Hiei made him flinch violently, eyes flying open as he jerked away.

It was Kurama.

The fox was standing over him with a confused, concerned look on his face.

Hiei swallowed. "W-what are you doing here, fox?" he croaked, cursing himself for how weak and vulnerable his voice sounded.

Kurama tilted his head, looking even more worried. "I live here, Hiei. This is my room. You just came flying in through my window. What happened?"

Hiei opened his mouth to inform the other demon that there wasn't anything he couldn't handle, but before he could get a word out-

BOOM!

-his foe roared again, and this time it sounded like it was lurking right above the house. Hiei couldn't stop the strangled noise from emitting from his mouth, hands already clamping themselves firmly over his ears and eyes clenched tightly shut. He could feel his entire body shaking, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the obviously much stronger demon devoured him whole.

"Hiei."

Hiei's body and clothes were drenched, a fact he hadn't noticed before. He realized his enemy must have tried to swallow him without him knowing, and then released him to – what? To play with him? To torment him? To-

"Hiei!"

A thought suddenly occurred to him. Where was the detective? If there was a strong demon in the human realm, wouldn't the detective be made aware of it? Knowing him, he and the fool would have immediately tried to go after it, and if the demon was this strong, then-

"HIEI!"

Hiei's head snapped up. Kurama was crouched in front of him, his hands on the smaller demons shoulders. His green eyes were boring into Hiei, but instead of feeling intrusive, the gaze felt slightly relaxing. Comforting.

"Hiei, I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that? Calm yourself and match your breathing to mine," the fox gently told him.

Hiei was about to explain to Kurama that he was breathing, the fox was out of his mind; when he realized that no, he was, in fact, not breathing.

Hiei breathed.

At first, his breaths came out gasping, stuttered, but Kurama slowly and patiently breathed with him, and Hiei's breathing started to even out.

BOOM!

It came back! Hiei choked on his next inhale, eyes darting up to meet Kurama's in pure panic, but the fox only pulled him closer, his energy wrapping around Hiei in a comforting manner.

Hiei remembered to exhale this time, and found solace in the fact that Kurama was hundreds of years older than him, so surely he had encountered this type of demon before, surely he knew how to survive them, surely he could protect Hiei from it.

The smaller demon relaxed as the adrenaline faded and finally succumbed to his exhaustion.

When Hiei woke up, he found himself in Kurama's bed, securely wrapped in the blankets. The fox smiled up at him from the futon next to the bed and calmly proceeded to explain what thunderstorms were.