IMPORTANT ANOUNCMENT:

For the sake of the time line of the actual series, the events in this story occur in place of the chapter black saga. Thank you.

Koikokoro: Part 1-Not So Shiny Armor

Hiei paused on the gnarled branch he had landed on, attempting to calm himself for the fiftieth time. His lips were curled up and over fangs in a vicious snarl, as he held a trembling hand over his abdoman. To say he was angry didn't begin touch the red he was seeing. The Jagan pulsed on his forehead as it searched in vain for the target he was desperately trying to locate and the dragon itched in his arm, swirling and growling in his mind, impatient, and anxious. The stupid ningen had purified him, thinking he was another demon attempting to kidnap her, and ran off in some unknown direction. When he had been able to move sometime later, he began his search. Flying through the forest, attempting to pinpoint her location with the Jagan, and coming up short when he realized belatedly that the pureness of her being made it impossible for the highly impure Jagan to find her. Still the eye pulsed, as if it were determined to find the source of this hindrance and destroy it. Hiei, wasn't sure the mere threat of incarceration would be enough to prevent him from killing her himself, as he fumbled angrily with the singed fabric of his cloak, the smell of the burnt flesh filling his sense.

Koenma the tiny, insufferable bastard that he was had called him into his office a few days ago. It wasn't new, and though Hiei loathed following orders, he loathed being caged in the Reikai even more. The toddler had given him the simplest of missions; search and rescue. Apparently, a ningen onna had been kidnapped by a few lower class youkai and had been dragged to the Maikai. This all seemed a moot point to the fire youkai, considering that the next piece information Koenma told him was that she had been gone for nearly forty-eight hours. There upon, Hiei had interrupted, announcing that if in the event the girl was possibly still alive which was a very, very tiny chance she was probably traumatized, or injured beyond repair, and to bring her back would only be a waste of his and everyone else s time.

Koenma the proceeded to chastise him about how the responsibilities of a spirit detective, whether he had become one willingly or not, were not to be ignored, and a few other choice, and colorful words that Hiei made a point to ignore for the sake of the toddler s life, as well as his own freedom. After the brief, but stern tongue lashing, the Reikai ruler filled Hiei in on the importance of the girl. Apparently, she was the descendent of a great and powerful priestess who had lived thousands of years ago, and though many women in her line had taken on the duty of becoming a priestess themselves, she was the first that showed any real ability in purification. This made her an important future alley to the Reikai. As it stood, she could have been Kami himself, and Hiei wouldn't have cared anymore than he did, which was in fact not at all. But beyond that, telling a youkai that object of his rescue could purify him with a single touch if she so chose, wasn't necessarily the best to win over said youkai, and get him to go along with it. Hiei voiced this in his usual sardonic way, further angering the child ruler. The demi god then proceeded to inform him that his "looking out for number one attitude", and his "I m above the world" ego were starting to grate at his nerves, and just to prove his point said that if Hiei didn t bring this girl back without a scratch on her pretty head, he would inform his father that his reform had failed, and he would be incarcerated until he turned to dust.

Hiei had scoffed at the idea, but wasn't foolish enough to think Koenma wouldn't do it. So, like an idiot, he had agreed to go after the girl. Playing the hero had never suited him, it was better to leave such self-righteousness to the team players like Yusuke, and his oaf of a friend, Kwuabara, or even the fox would have been better suited for this sort of a thing, but Koenma was always one to make things as inconvenient as possible. Was it Hiei's fault that he was the fastest of the four of them? Was if his fault that the Jagan was the quickest way to find the demon s who had taken her? Well, in retrospect, yes, it was his fault, that was beside the point. He hated save-the-day-superheroes, and now he was being forced to play one. It all boiled down to the fact that he hadn't had any desire to be here, and now he was searching madly for this woman who was not only the reason he was here against his will, but whom had also injured him in the one way that wouldn't heal by itself. The worst part of it all was that he didn't know if he wouldn't kill her when he found her.

Continuing on again, Hiei resumed searching, eyes darting to and fro, scanning the landscape for any sign of her, his body a mere blur among the branches that he was trending on. He hadn't gotten very far before he heard the tell tale scream of a ningen who had just run into a very large, and hungry youkai. With a hop, and jump, he had found her in a clearing just ahead of where he had stopped previously cornered by a bolder, and a mass flesh that was some sort of youkai that was snarling and swiping at her. His patience already gone, Hiei lashed out at the thing, reveling in how easily his sword sliced though its maroon colored flesh, spilling similar colored blood across the ground. It would have been sufficient to say that the attack he had used - a sword display consisting of over thirty five slashes- was a bit overkill for the barley C level youkai, but he was beyond restraint. Sheathing his blade, he turned his crimson eyes upon the girl who had since slid herself down the rock until she was sitting on the ground staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Without thinking about the possible reprecusions, Hiei reached out and grabbed her forearm, roughly haulomg her to her feet, his foul mood only increasing as he realized she was taller than him by several inches. As he started to drag her across the clearing, attempting to get under cover of the shadows, she started to yell at him, ordering, threatening, begging and all manner of other attempts to get him to release her, all while attempting to to wriggle herself free from his bruising grip. Once inside the forest line, Hiei turned toward her, his free hand darting up to grasp her face, pulling her down to his eye level, and effectively covering her mouth all at once. The silence was lovely.

"Baka ningen onna!" he hissed "do you want more like that Oni to find you?" She shook her head quickly, or as much as she could with his hand clamped onto her face. "Then I suggest you cease your insufferable whining. I am not going to harm you, lest you prove too annoying to bare. I'm here to take you home." Her eyes promptly became the size of saucers. "Now will you be silent?"

She nodded curtly, and after a moment of deliberation over whether or not he believed her, Hiei removed himself from her entirely, and stepped back, daftly pocketing his hands. The girl clutched at her forearm where he had gripped her, rubbing it to dull the sting of forming bruises. He took the moment to access her, making sure that she was uninjured. Her clothing was tattered, but save for a few scratches she received most likely from running through the foliage of the forest, she seemed relatively unscathed. The dark-haired ningen looked just as she had in the image Koenma had shown him, not ugly, but undeniably, and unimpressivly exactly like every other human he had seen; except maybe her eyes. This caught him off guard only slightly. Her eyes, unlike many of the humans he had seen, were pale and the color of the sky on a cloudless day. It was unusual; more unusual still is that they seemed to be sparkling at him.

"Are you some kind of knight in shining armor or something?" she asked.

He raised a brow at her, the scowl never leaving his face. "Do look like one?" he asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

She shrugged, with a timid smile on her face. "I don t know, I've never seen one before."

"Hn" was his only reply.

The portal that had gotten him here was a few miles away, and it was nearly dark now. He, of course, was more than able to take care of himself in this sort of situation, but glancing back at the ningen, and her slightly sagging frame, he doubted she would last through the night. Another day life wasted on the wench, and she hadn't even apologized for purifying him. As if sensing he was thinking about it, the burnt flesh on his abdomen began to pulse with pain anew, though he gave no hint that it had.

With aggrivated growl, he half turned toward the darkness of the forest. "It would be unwise to continue until morning". He told her, his voice cold "You should make a camp, or whatever it is that you ningen do."

An hour or so later, just as the sun started to sink behind the horizon, the girl had made herself a pleasant little camping space, but was struggling to get a fire started. She had been sitting in front of the little pit she had crafted for nearly twenty minutes now, attempting to spark a fire to life with some stones she had found. Had Hiei not been enjoying watching her fail time after time, he might have told her that the rocks she was using weren't anywhere close to the kind she needed. Though it was amusing the first ten minutes, it started to grate his nerves, and by the time twenty had rolled around he was biting his tongue to keep from shouting at her. Finally, with a growl, he jumped down from the branch he had been previously occupying, landing with a light thud beside her, and lit the fire himself. She had stared at him in awe as a flame a crackled to life in his very hand, as if he had willed it to be there, and lit the pile of twigs and leaves she had in the pit.

"That was brilliant!" she murmured, her eyes shifting to look at his face.

He promptly returned to his branch without so much as a word to her.

If she was offended by the rudeness of ignoring her, she didn't let it show. Instead she settled down against the tree he was occupying, leaning against the trunk, and stretching her hands out toward the fire. All was silent for a few moments, which was perfectly fine with Hiei, before she spoke, shattering his peaceful quiet. He barely contained a groan.

"Are you alright?" she asked quietly "I m sorry I hurt you."

He made no reply and silence reined for a moment, before she spoke again.

"You're a youkai aren't you?"

He didn't feel this question deserved an answer. Of course he was a youkai, would a ningen be able to produce fire as he had done? Would a ningen have been able to trek across half the damnable Maikai and killed that Oni to save her undeserving hide?

"What's your name?"

Again he was made no reply. He felt there was no reason for the onna to know such things. In the morning he would take her back the Reikai, shove her off on Koenma, and be rid of her.

"You know, I haven't met very many youkai, but they all seem to have this unifying silence issue. Why are you all so unresponsive?"

"Why are ningens so nosey and loud?" he snapped back.

She looked up at him then, a smile spreading across her lips as she finally got him to reply. He lifted a brow, but refrained from comment.

"We're just special I guess"

'That's a word for it,' he thought, 'though I would also use insufferable, moronic, and detestable.'

Her voice cut through his thoughts. "My name is Kiyoko Fukutoma" she told him, as if he cared to know. "And I m very glad that you re here. I don t know how, but I knew everything would turn out ok, and because of you, it did. I thank you for that."

He could barely breathe through her suffocating optimism, but managed a low "Hn" as a reply.

With a smile still stretched across her lips, Kiyoko settled back against the tree, arms around her knees, and attempted to get some sleep, confident for some unknown reason that her rescuer would prevent any further attacks on her, should another beast happen upon them in the night.

Long after the girl had fallen asleep, and the fire had turned to embers, Hiei had sat awake in the dark, his eyes glowing like some kind of nocturnal predator. It bothered him only slightly that she was so cheerful in the face of such danger, but he brushed this off as typical ningen foolishness, though he grudgingly gave her some credit for retaining that optimism through the few days she had been there, however nauseating it was to witness.