*Over ten years later*
Hiei could sense five of them before he properly saw them. He rode on the back of one of the clan's beasts. This... hippogriff was temperamental with him on the trip home. So was its stable hand. Yet, after Nishi abruptly insisted he needed to come home a month early from his training with the large demon for the next demon king tournament next month; he knew he needed to move swiftly and also have his strength about him should something serious had happened. Nishi had not told him why she wanted him home of all of a sudden; but she did promise to explain when he returned.
As he and the stable hand closed the distance to the front lawn on his girl's castle, he sensed his girl and her boy sparring, while he sense Nishi and the innocent one nearby. Likely Nishi was training the two of them again. Her boy seemed to prefer her training while his girl preferred his. His girl had been stuck training with their mother though while he was in the clan's territory, training with the large demon. Thankfully in their training, the large demon had dropped any hard feelings between them from years ago.
When he and the stable hand broke through the tree line, he saw the twins stop their sparring in the middle of front lawn abruptly. Behind them sat Nishi and the innocent one, sitting closely together under a massive blanket. There was a chill in the air, but Hiei found it surprising that they would sit like that. The coward stood a short distance away from the innocent one. The two of them had become mates a few years ago, much to his surprise. He would have thought she would prefer someone stronger.
Before anything was said, Hiei frowned slightly over at the innocent one by Nishi. She was not so innocent anymore though. He could sense she was with child. Maybe that was the reason for the blanket.
Nishi moved her mouth, mouthing his name beside the innocent one. Yet, she did not raise up to greet to him. His girl did though.
"Father!" she cried out, running at him. Her half wild, bobbed black bounced as she moved.
He barely had the chance to slip off his hippogriff before she threw her arms around him. She held fast to him, barely two inches shorter than he was. "Beat your mother to it this time, I see," he commented as she pulled away from him.
The stable hand had jumped off of his hippogriff, taking the reins of both of theirs in hand. He saw the coward had come up to them as well, bowing his head to him before assisting the stable hand to guide the two beasts to their stables around back.
His girl had been rambling, talking rapidly about the events she had experienced in the eight, nearly nine months he had been gone. She and her boy were currently on summer break from their school for demon-human hybrid children in Northern Ireland. Of all the countries to run such a school, one that had a history of peace of reconciliation was better than most.
She kept talking as they walked together towards her boy, who looked himself like he swallowed something sour. He tilted his head low when they were next to him. He was tall where his girl was short. He was taller Nishi, but barely. He kept his teal hair long, braided back in a single braid. In the braid, it reached down to his upper back. He and his girl must have been sparring for a while as his braid was unkempt and partially unraveled.
"Father," he said softly, hand coming out to clasp Hiei's forearm. Hiei returned the gesture in turn.
Hiei kept walking after that, reaching the steps where the innocent one and Nishi sat. Nishi did not raise up, but raised her hands up to his, pulling him down to an embrace where only her upper body moved. He brought his mouth to hers for a chaste kiss.
"I missed you," she breathed softly. The innocent one shifted uncomfortably by them.
He knelt down beside her on the opposite side of the innocent one, hand coming to rest on her knee over the blanket tucked high around her torso. "Why did you call me back early?"
She pursed her lips as he looked up at her. She had been urgent, so why did she not tell him? "Later," she said tersely. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the twins were standing next to each other. Her boy looked cross while his girl looked nervous. "Izo and Hikari actually have something they would like to ask you," Nishi informed him on bated breath.
He turned back to look at the twins. His girl looked suddenly excited and hopeful while her boy looked even more irked. "Perhaps now is not the best time, Mother," her boy said shortly. He was trying to bite back his insolent tone with her. Rarely did he question her like that, even when he was younger.
Hiei looked backed over to Nishi, who was frowning slightly. She looked back to Hiei, saying, "they are fourteen... Old enough to enter the Demon King Tournament. Barely, but allowable since that was the age Yusuke set up when he organized the first tournament. The same age he became a spirit detective. I didn't want to tell them yes before asking you," she finished.
Hiei rose back up, looking over at the twins standing near them. Both looked like they had been sparring before he got here, and hard. "If you are not strong enough, you could die," he told them point blank.
"I can do it! I won't die! I won't!" his girl cried out in enthusiasm. Her voice was colored with a hint of tiredness though.
Her boy stayed quiet beside her. He usually would not talk unless he deemed it necessary. So taciturn, but quietly confident in his own way.
Hiei looked back at Nishi and then back at the twins. He read on her face that on the one hand, she thought they were capable. Otherwise, she would outright have refused to let them. On the other hand, she did not give them explicit permission, which meant she did not fully support the idea with how dangerous it could be. She fell back on him to make the decision.
He thought about how strong and skillful Nishi was, even though she was barred from the tournament because she made a scene at the closing ceremony of the last tournament, swearing at the current king, and earning herself a life ban from future tournaments. If they could prove to be as strong and skillful as she was, or close enough anyway, then yes, they could fight in the next tournament next month.
He figured while he was away, they must have grown strong enough under Nishi's tutelage. But they needed to prove themselves just as skillful. "Split your element dragon across your body," he told them. Nishi could do that when she was at full strength and was focused. If they could do that, then they could keep themselves alive in the tournament he planned on winning.
His girl gaped at him while her boy stood with a quiet poker face. "What?" his girl rushed out angstily. "We've been training all morning. Using our dragons, I can't-" she stopped herself with a huff. "Can we at least wait until tomorrow morning? When I- when we're rested?"
He thought about it briefly, before denying, "no."
His girl hissed through her teeth. She side stepped away from her boy to a safe distance. She summoned up her fire dragon, evolved from the fire serpent of her childhood a year ago. The thing was small and lithe. It blazed around her neck and shoulders. Its heat was the reason her hair was cropped so short around her face. Any hairs that were longer got singed.
She was breathing heavily with just that effort alone. She tensed up, closing her eyes. He watched her as she slid her dragon down her right arm, bringing its head from her palm and out the other side at the top of her hand. She held her hand up for them to see. It shook visibly. After a few seconds, she released her tiny dragon, recalling back within her. Then her eyes rolled to the back of her head, showing the whites of her eyes.
"Hikari!" Nishi rushed out. Nishi did not stand, but the blanket did slip lower down, passed her chest. She pulled the blanket back up, bunching it up in front of her chest.
Her boy broke the distance between them, catching his girl as her legs gave out. She maintained conscienceness out of what seemed like sheer will. Her boy lowered her down to a sitting position on the ground.
"There," she wheezed out. "I... I've proven I... get to be... to go... to the tourna... tournament..." Her eyes blazed, even as her body still trembled a little bit.
Her boy straightened up, stepping away from his panting sister. His eyes rested on Nishi yet. Hiei looked back, seeing Nishi watching his girl with such concern on her face, and yet she sat rooted in her spot. Her lack of movement was unnatural...
Hiei turned back to his boy, calling his attention over to him. "Your turn," Hiei told him.
Her boy nodded once to him, respectfully. He summoned up his own ice dragon, four times the length of Nishi's. He saw no reason to keep it in a compact form like Nishi did. Four feet long and steely blue. It had gone from the serpent to the dragon form over two years ago. His girl had been so livid with jealousy that he reached that point before she did that she nearly killed herself trying to reach the same point he did.
He sent his dragon down his right arm. It weaved its way in and out of his arm half a dozen times. The tail rested hooked around his shoulder while the head came to rest in the palm of his hand. He hardly looked phased with the effort of it. Just breathing a little heavier than usual.
"Show off," his girl griped on the ground next to him. Jealousy dripped from her voice. She rose off of the ground shakily, barely blinking back the angry tears that rose up in response. She ran off towards the front door of the castle and right through it. She slammed the front down hard in her rage.
"Hikari," her boy breathed testily. He took a few hesitant steps towards the front door, but stopped abruptly, looking back over Nishi, silently asking her permission to go after his girl.
"Go after her," Nishi permitted. Her boy still hesitated. "Please." Her boy caste one more worried looked at them before he jogged himself into the castle. She turned to the innocent one sitting next to her under the blanket. "Go with him please, Sayuri. I will speak with Hiei privately out here," she added, casting him a side long glance.
"Are you sure, my lady?" the innocent asked, casting him her own side long glance. She looked suddenly very nervous.
"Yes, Sayuri," Nishi said firmly. "Here is just as good as anywhere," she admitted vaguely. "If you would like instead to go to your mate Hotaka in the stables, you can," she added.
"As you wish, my lady," the innocent one said as she slipped away from the blanket that had covered the two of them. She turned and shuffled nervously away to the direction of the stables and her mate, the coward. She kept throwing them backwards glances until she was out of sight.
Hiei watched her go, still sensing something off of her. She was not heavy set at all, yet from what he thought he sensed off of her should have made her bigger by now. "How long has she been with child?" Hiei asked Nishi when they were alone. Something did not seem to add up quite right.
Nishi whined under her breath, pulling the balled up blanket up to her chin. "She's not," she whispered mousily. He looked down at her, but she her eyes were downcast. "I figured if she was near me when you first got back, you would think it was her." She drew a steeling breath and then shoved the large blanket down to her feet.
He gasped audibly at the sight of her. Her breasts were large and swollen. Her stomach bulged out largely beneath them. She was the one who was pregnant. By the looks of it, she was also about ready to give birth.
"How?" he sputtered out, staring down at her. She could not be, absolutely could not be. She had antibodies in her blood that would attack any demon blooded child she conceived. Even then, the very idea of her conceiving again was next to impossible as she had been damaged internally by the last child she carried over ten years ago. The fire demon boy who burned too hot for her body to handle...
"I don't know," she choked out, suddenly losing all of her confidence and poise from earlier.
"You can't be," he hissed out. "Your body should not be able to conceive, let alone carry a child to term," he growled. He stared down at her hard, not believing what he could see with his own eyes. He was suddenly cross with her when her blurted out the thought that came to him, "why didn't you send for me immediately when you first found out." He kept his voice soft, but deadly.
She rested her hands on her stomach, keeping her head down. "Izo sensed it first. When he told me, I figured I would lose him just as soon as I had conceived him."
"Clearly you didn't," he hissed out. "You have to be..." he ticked off the time the he had been gone. "... eight and a half to nine months pregnant right now." He had been gone that long.
She spoke, voice as weak as water. "I... took on Asa as a midwife, after being check at a hospital in Northern Ireland, of course. The one for mothers of demon-human children..." she hummed under her breath, still not looking up at him. "He's not... his blood type isn't demon, it's human... same as mine. So my body doesn't reject him..." She shifted her feet, antsy. "Asa, as well as the other doctor- the female doctor, confirmed that I should deliver within the next three or four days. Next week at the latest."
He stared down at her, thinking back over all the mental conversations the two of them had had while he was away training with the large demon. Her mental images she projected then showed no signs of this secret pregnancy. Her words spoken to him made no mention of it. The most she would say to him was that sorely missed him and loved him, but wanted him to stay with the large demon and stay focused on his training. She, and the twins, and the wolf healer, and everyone else had kept this secret from him. The only reason any of them would do that was if she ordered it.
"Why didn't you send for me sooner than this?" he said, voice full of bite. "When you knew you weren't going to miscarry, why didn't you send for me?" He kept himself from yelling at her, but barely.
She looked up at him then, dead in the eye. "Because you needed to focus on your training!" she rushed out. Her voice shook as she spoke. She took two rushed breaths. "If I told you, you would have ended your training abruptly and come back to me. Like you did just now."
She looked back down at her feet, hand coming up to her mouth. His temper flared, vision blinking red for half a second. He snatched up her wrist, yanking her arm towards him. He held her wrist firmly, but without any force or pain applied.
"Look at me," he ordered her harshly. She did so, apprehension dancing in her eyes. Her free hand wrapped protectively around her enlarge middle. "Why? Why didn't you send for me? Why didn't you tell me?"
She swallowed thickly, saying, "because you're one of the men from my second prophecy," she shouted. She tugged at her wrist. He let it go when she did that. "The one the Great Hawk Spirit told me. That three men will change the destiny of the Demon World is about to come true. Three men who will act out of anger, desperation, and preservation." She was rambling, but at least she kept her eyes trained up to his for a change. "There have been so many years of peace in the Demon World, that it makes sense that the upcoming Demon World Tournament has to be when the peace will break and the three men will change the world's fate. You're one of them. You have to be. I think you'll be the one who acts out of anger," her voice puttered out to a whisper. "I was worried that if I pulled you away from your training with the large demon, that you won't be strong enough in the tournament. And that you will die if you aren't strong enough." Her voice cracked on her last words of her conjectured confession.
"You don't know that," he said down to her. "You don't know any of that. Unless you received more information from the Great Hawk Spirit after your original prophecy, you would not know any of what you just said for certain."
"What else would make sense?" she asked insistently.
He let her wrist go with a shake. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. She looked down at the ground like a guilty child. "What do you want me to say?" He stared down at her hard, but she did not flinch nor look back up at him. He looked behind his shoulder at the castle. "Please stay," she rushed out the plea. "I want you there with me."
He thought about doing anything otherwise to what she asked, but now that she asked it, it did seem a little tempting. He seethed, but knelt down next to her, hand submissively laying on her knee. "Never keep such a secret like this from me again," he hissed out harshly.
She swallowed thickly and then nodded.
