Note: If the "II" at the end of the title wasn't enough to tip you off, this is a sequel. Please read the first book, "Voices of the Lost Realm Book I: The Tournament" before reading this one. Otherwise, you will be quite lost.
Claimer: Chichiro is mine, as well as the storyline, and any other original characters.
Disclaimer: Hiei, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Genkai, and any other YuYu Hakusho characters used are not mine.
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Chapter 1—Alive
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The air was damp, chilled, like a brisk morning in spring. It was not exactly an unpleasant dampness, and was rather quite like the feel of a thin mist. In fact, its crispness was enjoyable enough that Hiei considered keeping his eyes closed to enjoy the feel of it; such was not his way, however, and to be so serene and act so placid would not have felt right to him. Thus, as soon as he was aware that his eyes were closed, they shot open and his crimson gaze swiftly assessed where he was.
As he glowered at the clumps of mist about him, he curled his lip distastefully—he couldn't see a damned thing. Well, at least he couldn't until he heard familiar footsteps behind him. Turning, it was Chichiro that his eyes rested on. He knew as soon as he saw her that he was dreaming. The memory of the familiar ache in his chest that he knew from when he had believed Yusuke to be dead was still fresh in his mind, the image of her body before him still on the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked or closed his eyes, and the sensation of her lips still lingering. Even still, he could do little but stare at her with wide eyes a long time before he mustered, "But you were—!"
"Yeah," she agreed with a grin. "I don't know how you managed it, but here I am. You should ask Kurama about it when you wake up." And then she winked, and before he could ask her what she was talking about, he found that he had shot awake.
A dream, he thought to himself, and then as he considered, Does that mean Chichiro is still—?!
"Ah, so you're finally awake," he heard Kurama notice softly from nearby.
As his eyes moved to seek out the fox, they fell first on Chichiro's form…in a bed? He then gathered they were in a demon-style hospital, not too different from the human world ones save their methods. That meant that she was… "Alive…?" he found himself croak aloud, and for some reason his throat was sore as he spoke it.
"Yes, that energy you allowed her to borrow stabilized her until we arrived here," Kurama told him, and finally Hiei tore his eyes from Chichiro to look toward Kurama.
"Energy?" he echoed. Then, remembering Chichiro's words from his dream, he continued, "What happened? Chichiro told me you'd know."
Kurama narrowed his eyes at Hiei, confused. "She…told you that?" he asked, wondering indirectly exactly how she could have done such a thing, having been unconscious since before she had been given the energy just mentioned. Kurama picked up on the fact that Hiei had no intention of telling what he meant, so the fox simply began to explain. "As soon as she collapsed, you gave her some of your energy. I suppose it worked a bit like a demon's version of a defibrillator." At Hiei's silence, Kurama inclined his head to one side and asked, "You don't remember that?"
But even as Kurama had opened his mouth to speak, Hiei had begun to recall doing that. What had possessed him to do that, to give part of his life energy to ensure the survival of another? It was something he had once said he'd never do. "I do," he replied flatly.
"It saved her life," Kurama went on, seeming as though he believed Hiei needed some sort of encouragement.
"Hn." And though he didn't say it, he knew Kurama had figured exactly what he was thinking: If I had done something differently, perhaps I wouldn't have had to try to save her life. "So," Hiei began again, in his usual indifferent tone, "we won the tournament, then?"
"It was not truly the focus of our mission to win the tournament," Kurama reminded him. "We were merely supposed to kill Kagura, but in doing so we achieved both. So yes, we won the tournament."
Hiei offered only a small noise of acknowledgement toward what Kurama said. He had suddenly become conscious of the fact that his limbs were very weak and that he felt almost as exhausted as he had after he used the Dragon of the Darkness Flame at its maximum potential for the first time.
"You can sleep again, if you like," Kurama told him quietly. "I will tell you if anything changes." He nodded to Chichiro, and for a moment Hiei thought he saw blame enter the fox's eyes. It was gone as soon as he spotted it, however, if it had ever even been there.
"I don't need to sleep," he muttered stubbornly.
"You overexerted yourself in that battle, Hiei—"
"No I didn't," Hiei insisted.
"—when you used your energy in the manner you did," Kurama finished. "It's natural that you're so exhausted—get some rest."
The fire demon's eyes flickered back to Chichiro.
"I told you," his friend assured him from where he sat in the other chair, "I will wake you if there is anything to tell. Alright?"
"…Hn."
But the stubborn little fire demon already knew he had nothing to argue about. It didn't matter to his body whether he wanted to stay awake or not; it needed sleep, and he supposed it intended to get it no matter what he did. So, he graciously admitted defeat and closed his eyes.
While it was true that he had not expected Chichiro to visit his dreams once more, it had registered as he slipped into unconsciousness that it was a possibility. He rarely dreamed in the first place, let alone of something as strange as a seemingly-normal conversation that he could recall every word of upon waking. Thus, it was to be assumed that her presence in his dreams was not normal. He only had the briefest moment to consider how she was doing it before he once again heard her address him softly from the chilly mist.
"You know," Chichiro's voice began from behind him, "I never knew why my parents were killed."
As he turned to face her, it was obvious in the way he watched her speak that he was listening quite intently. It didn't really matter much to him how odd and out of place the subject was.
"I tried to find out, too—find out why someone would hire an assassin to destroy them. I thought that maybe if I knew why they had been killed, I could find some sort of closure." There was a small smile on her face, and little sadness in her eyes. Remembrance overtook most of the grief that remained within her gaze. "I thought perhaps if they had done something wrong…" She cut off and reformed her sentence. "But no matter what they had done in their lives, I realized it wouldn't make me love them any less, and it wouldn't make the pain of their deaths dull at all." She watched Hiei as intently as he had been watching her for a long moment before she murmured, "Do you know why I'm telling you this?" And when he shook his head, "Because no matter what you did to me in the past, no matter what transpired between us those hundreds of years ago the night my parents were killed, I cannot hate you. And moreover, it does not make me love you any less than I do now."
Demon attraction is not quite like human attraction. While there are the vain of the species that, as with humans, look first to outward appearance, there is a greater majority that look to skill, physical prowess and intelligence. It is rare for a demon to find love or feel it, and rarer for them to wish to die to protect the love they've found.
Chichiro, Hiei had realized the moment he noted her growing affection for him, was an odd sort of demon for feeling either love or protectiveness toward him. Yet, he frustrated himself by finding he was beginning to feel a twinge of returning affection for her. It was a bit like meeting Mukuro all over again, and although he was used to the feeling of fondness now that he had been exposed to its possibility, it didn't surprise him any less who it was directed toward. Not long before, he had seen the fox demoness before him as a cocky screw-up, a bit like Yusuke Urameshi without the insane luck and equally insane plans that helped him to succeed.
He had never understood what it was about caring about another being that made one want to tell their deepest secrets, willingly expose their weaknesses to the one they cared for. It didn't change the fact that he was about to demonstrate it, and he could not stop himself from speaking. "Chichiro," he began slowly, his eyes downcast, "I…"
"Don't," she replied with a wide, gentle grin. "I don't want to hear you say it until you mean it."
For the first time since the end of the tournament, he quirked an eyebrow and adopted a casually irritated expression. "And who is to say that I don't?" The audacity of her, first assuming she knew what he was going to say and then deciding for him that he wouldn't mean it! He stubbornly decided against considering that it was likely she was correct on both accounts.
"Me," Chichiro responded, leaning toward him. Their lips hardly brushed before she pulled back. "I know you care about me," she continued after a moment. "Coming from you, that's good enough for me."
There it was again; that same, annoying sentimentality that made his chest ache when he was in such close proximity with her. What was so great about this prodigal nuisance of a demoness that made him so damned glad she was still breathing?
"How are you doing this?" he asked, unconsciously voicing his prior mental consideration of the reasons behind his care for her while simultaneously asking about her ways of communicating with him in dreams.
"Now, that's cheating," she chided with a grin. "You can't ask me something like that face-to-face, you have to figure it out yourself."
…Blasted lucky woman. Perhaps she did have Yusuke's frustrating, senseless luck, Hiei considered irritably, if she had unintentionally been able to answer both of his questions while not actually helping a single bit.
Chichiro's expression suddenly faltered, and she appeared as though a sudden headache had struck her, lifting a hand to her head. "You should wake up, now," she alerted Hiei nonchalantly, though her brow was still furrowed and she still had an odd look in her eyes. "I think I am."
Hiei quirked an eyebrow of his own. "You're waking up?" he asked, to make sure he'd understood her nonsense.
"Yeah." She glanced over at him, answering his next inquiry before he could even open his mouth to speak. "Yes, I know I am, so don't even bother asking. I can feel pain again."
It briefly registered in Hiei's mind that she meant the wounds she'd gotten during the tournament, but he mentally batted away his guilty conscience and spoke once more, though this time it seemed it would be the last he could fit in: "I didn't sleep very long, you know. I'll only pass out again if I wake up now."
"Dreams are usually only ninety seconds long or so, you know," Chichiro told him with a grin. "Doesn't matter how it seems to drag on or pass at normal speed. What do you think that says about the rest of the time you sleep?" She answered for him before he could attempt it himself: "I think you slept longer than you think. You've gotten plenty." She strode over toward him, then, and for the first time he noticed how healthy and unharmed she looked in this spectral dream form.
With her gentle flick on his brow and insistence of, "Wake up," he found that his body obeyed and his eyes opened.
Shaking his head a bit when he found his vision to be bleary from sleep, he blinked several times and scanned the room. Kurama was also asleep, now, head drooped on his chest and a book lying across his midsection, still open and in his hand. He looked as exhausted as Hiei had felt before he'd fallen asleep.
"Damn fox," Hiei muttered softly to himself. "You said you were going to keep an eye on Chichiro. Can't very well do that asleep, can you?"
A little moan from the bed alerted him to the fact that the dream incarnation of Chichiro had been correct. She was waking up.
She attempted to open her eyes several times (during which, her eyelids seemed especially heavy) before she finally managed to keep them open. They were squinted against the light as she scanned the room, taking in where she was as Hiei had upon waking initially.
A weak grin spread across her face at the sight of the mentioned Jaganshi. "Hiei…!" she whispered hoarsely. "You're alive!"
Although it did not feel natural to him to do so, he found he could not restrain a small smile in return. "That surprises you?"
She didn't answer his question directly, but rather offered one of her own after a small groan of pain. "What happened?"
He quelled the desire to flinch surprisingly well, and he knew Chichiro had not seen what little amount of his grimace he could not hold back. The topic was one he would rather not speak of aloud, still feeling as awkward as he did about the event. Thus, he skipped over the part about Chichiro nearly killing herself for his sake, hoping she recalled it herself. "Kagura is dead—our mission is complete."
"I see," the she-demon croaked back, and her next movement seemed an attempt to sit up; the idea was quickly scrapped when she gasped in pain and flopped back to the mattress, wincing tightly.
"Don't try to move yet, you idiot," Hiei growled irritably. "You're nowhere near healed enough for that."
She grinned wearily at him. "Sorry."
He jolted back the slightest, surprised by her response. Surely, she normally would have answered with a rebuttal against being called an idiot, or at least she would have glared at him. He merely uttered a low, "Hn," and looked away from her.
"I had a really weird dream just now," Chichiro mumbled quietly all of a sudden.
Hiei's eyes drifted back to her. "Really?" he asked, his voice lacking much enthusiasm or curiosity, although it was more because he was not used to showing either rather than because he honestly did not feel them. "So did I."
The weak grin showed on Chichiro's face again. "You first, then."
"No," Hiei replied flatly. "I've no interest in telling mine. Go ahead."
"It felt so real, but I can't remember much of it," she began, gaze averting to the ceiling as she appeared to try to remember it. "You tried to tell me…" She cut off, but Hiei knew immediately what she would have said: 'You tried to tell me you loved me, too.' "You tried to tell me something important," she went on finally, "but for some reason I wouldn't let you finish." Her little smile widened. "I don't know why; I told you that you wouldn't mean it yet or something like that…Sorry, I can't think straight. Weird dream, huh?" The latter part of her explanation had been spoken with a mild flush across her face, and she determinedly didn't look at him even when he answered her.
"Yeah," he agreed with a nod, "I guess that was a weird dream." But he was less focused on the fact that she had indeed had the same dream as him, and was far more interested in exactly why she couldn't remember much or the fact that she had been the one to come to him in the dream both times. "Perhaps you should let the dream-me tell you next time," Hiei told her after a moment, smirking over at her. "You know I hate being interrupted."
Chichiro glanced over at him and, seeing the amusement on his face, she returned the smirk. "But I love annoying you," she whined, feigning disappointment.
"Fine, fine," Hiei conceded, playing along and acting as though her response had irritated him. "You decide. But you should get some more rest, either way."
She raised her eyebrows in minor surprise. "How long was I out before I woke up?"
"A couple of days, maybe." Hiei honestly wasn't sure; Kurama had not told him how long it had been since the tournament's end.
"Then I think I've rested enough," she told him softly, though she immediately contradicted herself with a yawn. Ignoring the wince that followed along with it, she glared steely at Hiei and grumbled, "Shush. Yawns only signify that you're not breathing enough, and that means nothing when I've gotten so used to breathing only as much as needed for sleep."
"Hn. Just go to sleep, will you?" Hiei inhaled a small breath and released it as a light sigh, then went on in an attempt to convince her, "You're not going to be doing much conscious, are you? Staying awake won't help you heal any faster."
"…Fine." She uttered an indignant little noise before turning her head away from Hiei and closing her eyes, looking thoroughly sour throughout the whole thing.
Hiei smirked at her slightly, then stood and headed for the door. He'd been sitting there doing nothing too long, and unlike Chichiro, he now didn't have much of an excuse to continue doing so. Besides, he hadn't explored their surroundings much yet; he had little idea where they were save for the fact that there was a hospital wherever it was.
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"Are you sure you should be pushing yourself like this, Chichiro?"
Arm hanging around Kurama's shoulder and supporting herself by leaning on him, she glanced at the fox that had just spoken, grinning. "Oh, come on. I said I was fine."
"I think you should wait until you've healed some before—"
"Yeah, I know," she interrupted with a little sigh. "You said that about fifteen feet back." Offering him a reassuring smile when she spotted his doubtful look, she continued, "I really am okay. I'm healing fine, and thanks to those painkillers, I feel fine, too." Shifting her glance forward once more, she went on to mutter, "I just really want to bathe. Sue me."
Finally deciding to concede, Kurama said nothing in reply.
They were not very far from the arena that had been used in Kagura's tournament, though they were far enough away that Chichiro had requested Kurama and Hiei to find somewhere closer for her to bathe than the spring she had spent so much time at before the tournament's end. She had not been too surprised at their willingness to comply to her request, as she suspected they both—yes, even Hiei— merely would have felt bad if they had said no to her when she was in her current state.
Kurama had come back relatively quickly and told her that Hiei had found somewhere quite close, and the fox demoness had requested that they head out immediately.
Until now, Kurama's incessant fussing over her had not stopped save for a few, insignificant breaks. Chichiro was relieved that he'd finally given up, despite how amusing it had been to see someone like him so flustered over something so simple.
Although she had resisted thus far simply as not to spur any more spats of worrying from the kitsune demon that was helping her, Chichiro had been badly wanting to ask how much farther the walk would be, having started to feel fatigue a few minutes back. She had nearly gotten to the point when she would decide it was worth the fuss to ask about it, when they came upon the place.
"Wow," the fox demoness breathed softly. A small pool lied beneath a waterfall, filled with flat, smooth stones, and a small trickle beyond the pool drew the current away from the waterfall into a small stream. It amused Chichiro somewhat when she realized that she was surprised Hiei had come upon a place so serene, and that it had been him who had found her place to bathe in the first place.
"Where would you like me to wait for you?" Kurama asked.
"Wherever," she replied with a shrug, already beginning to wriggle out of her shirt unconcernedly.
Although her bandages covered most of her torso, Kurama still glanced away and spoke toward the trees. "Would you like me to leave you some new bandages to change into?"
"That'd be great," Chichiro said with a grin, although she knew the expression had gone unnoticed. She was quite unabashed to unravel her old bandages before Kurama had the chance to leave. Demons had different views on modesty, after all.
Poor Kurama, however, had been corrupted of this calm view during his years in the human world, and he turned his back to her fully more so that she could not see the flush that had come to his face than so that he could not see her. "I'll be off, then."
"'Kay."
"You can find your way back, right?"
"Sure can," Chichiro confirmed, slipping out of the rest of her clothing as she was stepping into the pool.
"Alright." Kurama prayed his exit did not look as hurried as it had been.
Chichiro had not noticed his discomfort or unusually quick departure, however, as she was far too involved in enjoying the cool water to notice much of anything. Hoisting herself up onto one of the flat rocks just beneath the rush of water, she lifted her head and allowed the soft spray to wet her face, dipping her feet into the base of the waterfall.
"Your wounds seem to be healing nicely," a monotonous voice noticed from the side of the water.
Leaning forward a bit and bringing her head back from where it had been leaning into the falls, Chichiro grinned casually at Hiei. "Yeah, try telling Kurama that."
"He will stop making a fool of himself about you as soon as you stop having to lean on him to walk," Hiei responded. He, too, had been raised with the morals of a demon and thus saw nothing odd about the manner of their meeting. "He has a right to be concerned if you're weak enough that you can't get this far on your own."
"I guess." She shrugged again. "I say he'll be a worry wart even after my wounds are nothing but scars, but I guess I should be glad he cares, right?"
"Hn."
The fox demoness slid off the rock, wading back through the pool, which was only about three and half feet at its deepest. "Crap," she muttered as she reached for the bandages Kurama had left by the water's edge, "I forgot to bring something to change into." Glancing at the sad little pile of torn clothing she'd just slipped out of, she went on, "I'd rather not put those back on until I at least got the blood out of them. Might want to repair the tears, too…" Her cat-slit eyes lifted to Hiei. "Could you grab me something else, if it wouldn't be too much trouble? You guys did get the stuff from my room in the arena, right?"
"Kurama did," Hiei confirmed, quirking an eyebrow at her request. "Do you really think it would be trouble for me?"
She grinned lightly at him. "No, but I can't just order you around, can I? I think you'd kill me if I tried it."
"Hn."
As Hiei set off to fetch what he'd requested, he wondered exactly why her jesting comment just then had made him flinch, if only lightly. Was he really still that affected by the event at the tournament's end? Disgraceful, he thought to himself as he lifted one of the folded piles of clothing from the nightstand beside the hospital bed Chichiro had spent the last couple of days in. I'm acting as though I'm human.
Ignoring this, he wordlessly headed back to give Chichiro her change of clothes. Sentimentality, he decided, was just something he'd have to get used to.