Prologue: Red Rain
As usual, life in the demon realm was normal for the short statued demon known as Hiei. It was quiet, and he had fallen asleep in the highest branch of an old oak tree in the outskirts of The Forest Of Fools. As usual, the weather in the demon realm stayed the same for the most part, the skies red, and during the day few white clouds gave the sky character, unlike night where none could be spotted.
Sometimes they were lucky to have a change in the weather, and it would rain very little for a short period of time, and like now, the demon was awakened by a single raindrop hitting his forehead, soaking into his white bandana. His crimson eyes instantly opening feeling a change in the atmosphere.
He sits up more, waking up slowly from his little cat nap he was enjoying on what could be considered a 'sunny day.' He 'tsks' to himself grumbling inwardly "Rain..."
But unlike the rain in the human realm where rain was clear, the demon realms was red, like blood. Filling craters with red water that resembled blood. Sometimes yokai's didn't even know the difference if someone had just died or it had just rained...Sometimes even Hiei found himself wondering, though he was always quick to assume bloodshed unless witnessing the rain for himself.
However, it never rained for too long. The demon finds himself sliding out of the oak tree, his feet hitting the ground with ease, and delicacy. He starts walking away, his eyes searching for any nearby shelter he can take from the red rain.
As he walks deeper into the forest, the more his senses seem to feel something wrong, the smell of smoke waffling under his nose. He starts to frown slightly if he recalled there was a village he had passed by when looking for the perfect tree to slumber in peace without being interrupted by troublesome demons. The ones in this area, all mellow and behaved for the most part.
His feet carry further towards the smell of smoke in the distance, and the further he walks the more it starts to rain, and he gets caught in the storm he wanted to avoid at all costs. But his curiosity gets the better of him, and he no longer cares about the pesky rain.
Then once he gets closer to the village he had not known the name of, his eyes widen slightly, as the rain attempts at smothering the fire rising from so many homes. The red rain dripping down his exposed skin and clothing, making his skin to have a pinkish tint to it. Even from a distance, he was at, he could see multiple bodies lying on the ground and tell they had been slaughtered.
The people mostly elderly or middle-aged men and women. Luckily, he found no children, teenagers, or even young adults. He found this oddly strange, as when he passed by the village hours ago it was bustling with activity from yokais, known as Bakenekos or just nekos. Yokai with cat ears and traits.
Hiei disappears, and within a flash, he is at the entrance to the village, his eyes running over the bodies that have long since passed on to the nether realm. He walks into the village, the smell of rising smoke, blood, and guts filling his nostrils. It almost made him sick, but he was used to such smells and the sights of bloodshed since being a young boy. He sometimes even enjoyed it... when he was the one spilling the blood.
He pushes his hands into his pockets, and walks around the village and looks at all the dead bodies and blood stains he wasn't so sure that was blood or just the rain at this point in time...
His eyes and ears are alert for any signs of the attackers still in the village or lurking nearby. He doesn't feel the slight bit nervous, if they wanted to fight him, so be it. He was confident in his abilities, and gladly show them what he was capable of.
Though questions surface in his head, lines like, 'What would I do if I found a survivor.' Or thoughts like 'What was the purpose of the attack?' Pestered him. He wanted to know what had happened in the once busy village located deep into the forest. He wanted to know what the attackers wanted, or what these people had done to be attacked.
He doesn't consider himself kind, and if he did find a survivor it wasn't his problem really, he would simply ask them what happened and once finding out he would simply leave. And then that's when he hears it, a loud cry, a whine calling out for its mother. His eyes widen slightly as his head turns in the direction of the loud wail.
'A baby...' He thinks, looking at the house with the broken down door. His feet carry him towards the sound, curiosity and might he even dare say slight concern weighing heavily on his heart...or what was considered of his not beating heart.
Before he knows it, he's standing in front of the broken down door and walks into the trashed home, the loud wail growing closer and piercing his sensitive ears but that doesn't stop him from following to where the cry is, or to where the thick blood trail went.
Then he stops in front of what once looked like a bedroom. A body lays limp on the ground and unmoving, the first time he has seen a dead person that was young while in the village. The young woman with white hair tied back in a loose ponytail is the cause of the blood trail as she suffered from what looked like a stomach wound until ultimately dying by her bedside.
The wailing continues, and Hiei walks towards the woman's body and kneels down to the ground, and there he sees it. Underneath the bed, in the far back, he sees movement underneath a pink baby blanket with a red handprint stained from the young woman's blood.
He stares blankly at what to do before his instincts react before his mind can. He reaches underneath the bed, taking out the baby, and he pulls down the pink baby blanket revealing two large gray eyes with endless tears, and on top of the baby's head are tufts of white hair and what looked cat ears but they are slightly drooped down. He's uncertain whether it was because the baby was unhappy or that was just perhaps what its ears had looked like.
Then the cries stop as the two large eyes stare at crimson one. Before he knows it, the child's mood instantly is swindled, and it starts to coo and smile as it squirms in his hands.
He stares some more, not knowing what to do with the child in his arms. He couldn't just leave it here...right? Or could he? He, after all, didn't care too much for anyone in particular, and he only cared for something when something was in it for him. He did nothing from the kindness of his heart.
He stands with the child still in his arms, and he goes to put it down somewhere before he gets reminded of when he was nothing but a babe, the memories always haunting him of the ice maiden throwing him over the cliff and being left for hours with no one around and being unable to move all that much.
His muscles tense, his jaw is set, and he suddenly pulls the pink blanket around the baby's head but leaves he or she's mouth and eyes unwrapped. He would have assumed the baby was a girl just by staring, but he could be so very wrong. A lot of the neko children were hard to tell the gender of. You couldn't really tell until its teenage years. Sometimes the men looking like women, and vice versa.
He pulls the child that has stopped crying to his chest, and he walks out of the home, giving one last glance to the woman who lies lifelessly on the ground.
For now, he has done a good deed, but he didn't know the first thing about caring for the child or why he was now carrying it out from within the house. Perhaps it was best if he found a village or somewhere nearby with a woman to deposit the child in the arms of, then it wouldn't be his problem, but these were yokai women he was dealing with.
Some women in the demon realm would love to get their hands on a baby to eat, it would be a delicacy. So for now, he holds onto the child, uncertain of his actions and what was to come next. All he knew was, he was in for some trouble with the child constantly shifting in his arms. But first was shelter out of this godforsaken red rain.
Authors note: Well, this if my first Yu Yu Hakusho Fanfiction. I just started watching the anime last month and finished the anime this month. I know I'm late to the fandom party, but I had thought of this fanfiction idea when watching Hiei's backstory episode. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it and please leave a review or follow or favorite if you did!