The dark, seedy bar was filled with clouds of smoke. Depressing music filled the air, fitting the mood for most of the patrons. The tables scattered throughout the place held only a few customers. The bar that stretched most of the length of the left wall held a few more people. One such customer didn't quite belong. Her long black evening gown was low cut and had a split in the fabric that showed off her shapely right thigh and calf. The tall heels she'd worn in lay abandoned on the floor below her feet. The tall stool was uncomfortable. She downed a shot of brown liquid and held the glass up towards the bartender. She grimaced as she swallowed the harsh alcohol. She took another long drag from the cigarette held between her slim fingers. Her hair was tied up on the top of her head in a bun. Two ornately decorated black chopsticks framed the small pieces of hair that stuck straight up out of the bun. Her long silver earrings matched the thick silver necklace that draped down between her breasts.

"Hello?" she demanded, waving the shot glass in the air. The bartender gave a heavy sigh and headed for the woman. "Another shot of Jack, please."

"I think you've had enough, sweetheart," the bartender responded, taking the glass from her hand. She frowned.

"Fine!" she spat. She grabbed the tiny purse by her hand and fished out a few bills. She threw them at the bartender and hopped off of the stool. She grabbed her shoes, rather than putting them on, and headed for the door. Muttering dark expletives to herself, she began to walk down the sidewalk, swaying with every few steps.

"Stupid bartender," she bit. "Stupid bar. Stupid Togashi. Stupid date. Stupid restaurant." In her drunken daze, she wandered around the city. She found a liquor store and stumbled inside. She found the shelf for whisky and grabbed the biggest bottle of Jack Daniels she could find. The young boy at the counter gave her the total and told her to have a safe night. As soon as she heard the door close behind her, she stood on the sidewalk and opened the brand new bottle of whisky. She took a gulp, her lips pulling away from her teeth and hissing as the room-temperature liquid seemed to burn through her esophagus and warm her belly. She screwed the lid back on the bottle and resumed walking.
-

Aimless. Mindless. Stumbling drunk.

The well-dressed female human smelled of strong alcohol and cigarette smoke. She carried her shoes rather than wear them. Every few minutes, she came to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk and took another long drink from the bottle in her hand. She continued on, swaying from left to right. The park that lingered two blocks away seemed to be his target's ultimate destination.

He could find nothing remarkable about her. Smeared dark red lipstick. Hair falling out of the bun on the top of her head. Dark circles under her eyes. Her slender frame bowed over. He watched her collapse on the park bench. She was useless. He felt no inclination to change this opinion.
-

The eyes that had been following her all evening were a distraction.

She lay on the bench, staring up at the stars in the black night sky. A cool breeze chilled her. Without a glance, she pulled a cigarette from the soft paper pack and put it to her lips. Her lighter in her hand sparked and she held the flame to the tip as she inhaled. Flicking the lighter closed, she dropped her hand and exhaled a cloud of thick smoke.

Those eyes had been focused on her back for most of the night. She'd felt them between her shoulder blades- right at the base of her neck. The tattoo she had burned under the pressure. Now she could feel the eyes traveling over her body. She wasn't aware of why or how she knew this. She trusted the instinct. Her world was spinning. She placed her right foot on the cold, wet grass, trying to hold the world still. It worked- to a point. The dizzy feeling washed over her. It was almost a relief.

She turned her head to look out at the street. Her eyes drifted to the bottle on the ground beside her. She hadn't realized how much of it was already gone until this point. A small giggle erupted from her chest. She was trashed. Wasted.

The eyes continued to burn her skin. They were focused on her right leg. The split in her gown revealed a long tattoo: a solid black dragon that wound its way from her hip all the way down to the top of her foot.

She was annoyed.

Those eyes!

Sitting up was a feat she was sure was going to lead to puking. She
took another drag from the menthol cigarette in her hand. She sighed with the exhale. Gripping the back of the bench, she pulled herself into a sitting position. She fought to keep the liquid and bile within her stomach. Somehow, it worked. She flicked the ashes from her cigarette and took another breath of smoke.

Damn those eyes...
-

Wary and uneasy, he watched her stand. The woman kneeled to grab her shoes and the bottle from the ground, and he watched her sway as she stood once more. The need for the human was one Hiei was not accustomed to. The demands from the former demon king Mukuro had led him here, to find her. She was necessary to fill some role Hiei did not fully grasp the gravity of. Psychic or no, she did not belong in his world.

Tension rolled through his shoulders. He pushed it away, but the sensation refused to be ignored for long. A sense of foreboding washed over him as the woman began to stumble her way down the sidewalks of the near-empty city streets. He kept his distance, watching and waiting.

Scouting did not suit him. The drive for action fueled his feet, keeping him to the rooftops as he followed the woman. He was well aware that the small apartment she deemed her home was more than fifteen blocks away. He'd come to accept this was a lengthy distance for humans- even more so for those under the influence of strong alcohol.
He could see the human boys lingering in the alley. He kept a close eye on them as they watched his target stumble along. He knew of their intentions without the need of his telepathic abilities. Not seeming to notice them, the woman continued on her path. There was no need to interfere unless her life was in danger. Mukuro had requested her alive but had made no mention of the woman's physical condition beyond that. A small twist of thought stung the back of his mind. This small part of him knew he could not stand idly by and watch harm come to her. Humans were weak, pathetic creatures. He scowled when the group of four boys left the alley, following his target from a few feet behind.
-

She felt more eyes. She was unable to discern how many pairs. Their presence behind her was no shock now. She kept to her path. They didn't deserve her attention- not as long as they kept their distance. The desire to confront the boys was dampened from the alcohol. Her senses had not dulled from the intoxicated sensation her body felt. Her senses had become sharper, more refined. She knew before the boys began to close the distance between them. She felt their overwhelming pride and need to dominate. She blinked her eyes. They felt dry.

The hollow, dead sensation where fear should have taken over left her without remorse when she felt the hand encircle her wrist. It was a bad move. Her other hand held her shoes. She let one fall to the ground beside her, and adjusted the other in her hand to use the sharp stiletto heel as a weapon. She jerked around faster than the boy realized. She drove the heel into his neck, right at the collar bone. If she'd been taller, she might have made for his temple. The shriek of agony that ripped through the boy's chest and out from his mouth made her smile. She always felt this sick, twisted sensation of pure pleasure when she was underestimated by an opponent.

Quick reactions from the other three boys led her to drop the shoe and take a step backwards. She pulled one of the chopsticks from her hair and drove it home into the throat of the next boy to try to grab her. He was unable to scream out, his lungs filling with his own blood. The pounding in her ears rushed her to slam the glass bottle in her hand onto the lightpost to her left. It shattered, the remaining liquid splashing to the cold concrete. She brandished the broken glass as a weapon, daring the other two boys forward.

"You bitch!" one shouted. She noticed little about him, save for his movements. A switchblade knife had appeared in his hand, and her focus revolved around it when he and his friend stepped closer. She moved like water, dodging the punch and kick from the boy on her left and gliding out of the path of the forward stabbing motion of the knife. She stepped forward, surprising both of the boys. Her hand was quick. Before the blood began to spill from the deep arc she'd carved onto the chest of the boy with the knife, she stabbed the sharp glass into the other boy's tender side. Their agonized screams of pain thrilled her, warming her blood more than the actions themselves. A small part of her knew she shouldn't be smiling, but she could not prevent the wide grin from finding its way across her face.

A twinge of pain shot through her left foot. She looked to the ground and frowned. The pile of broken glass from the bottle she still held was directly under her foot. She cursed herself. She used her toes to limp away from the bloody mess she'd made of the boys. They deserved her punishment.
-

Shock flashed over his features. He'd been ready to leap from the roof, sword drawn. While he couldn't kill the disgusting human boys, he could maim them. She'd reacted with violence and force- a feature of human women he had not come to expect. He'd seen this situation played out before, in various ways. Most women would scream and cry for help, fighting back little if at all. She'd effectively killed at least one of them, although he could see that their deaths were not her intention. She left a trail of bloody footprints as she left the scene.
Perhaps there was more to this woman, after all. When Mukuro had demanded the woman's presence, Hiei hadn't understood why, and didn't care enough to wonder. Now curiosity filled him. He could feel no shred of spiritual or demonic energy from this woman, but in this moment, something about her was not quite human.

He still had two days to watch her before returning to demon world
with the target in his possession. The original plan had been snatch-and-grab. That had changed on the first day he'd located her. The amount of attention she garnered from human males was inconvenient, if not disturbing.

He had to replay the memory of her fight over in his mind. The woman was drunk. She should have been slow and handicapped from the alcohol. Instead, she been quick and decisive. Her body had shown no signs of intoxication when she landed her blows and dodged the ones aimed for her. However, now that the short, intense battle was over with, she was stumbling and limping along once more. It fuelled his curiosity.

She left the main road, cutting through an alley and a parking lot. He could smell her blood on the air. The scent was human. Something else lingered in the air. Unable to directly identify it, he continued forward, following the woman to her home. Once she was alone, he could take her from this world without notice.
-

The eyes were still following her. She'd hoped to avoid both the police and the eyes by taking shortcuts through alleys. She'd left the police behind with no trouble, but the eyes continued to burn the tattoo on her back. Her foot was beginning to throb. The effects of the alcohol were wearing off. With a sigh, she paused to rest against the side of a building. She lifted her foot to look at it, and found a bloody mess. There were at least three small pieces of glass stuck in her foot.

Frustration washed over her. She'd been stood up tonight, attacked, and now she was losing her buzz. On top of that, someone was following her. She could still feel the eyes staring at her, focused on her right leg again. The tattoo had been a drunken gift to herself. She didn't remember getting it, only remembered waking up with burning skin. It took a lot of care and a long time for the mark to heal. For some reason, whoever was following her had a fixation on the ink.
She pushed herself away from the wall and kept walking. She was becoming more aware of the constant ache in her left foot. A chill ran down her spine. Part of her thought it might have something to do with those eyes that were following her. Another part of herself thought it was something much different- something much worse. She swore, cursing her bad luck. Sure, she could defend herself from a few horney boys, but that was about the extent of her skill. She began to walk a little faster. Her apartment complex was only a few more blocks away.

Relief washed over her when she reached the keypad and punched in the security code to get into the building. As soon as the door locked behind her, her feeling of being watched and the uneasy feeling both went away. She made her way up two flights of stairs to the floor her room was located on.

"Hello, Dansei," she cooed. Her big orange cat greeted her at the door. She scratched his head, cheeks, and under his chin. He purred up at her, then pounced away. She tossed her bag and her shoes on the counter that separated the kitchen area from the sitting area. The only other rooms were her bedroom and bathroom. She went to her room first, unzipping her dress and casting it to the floor as she went. The blood and alcohol had ruined it. She fished out a large black tee shirt from her dresser and threw it over her head before turning and heading to the bathroom.

Pulling the glass out of her foot was a painful process. It took more than half of an hour to remove all of the pieces and clean the cuts before wrapping her foot up with gauze bandages. Dansei rubbed against her leg as she sat on the edge of the tub, draining the bloody water from where she'd washed her foot. She scratched behind his ears as she stared off into space. The uncomfortable chill ran down her spine once more. She stood and pulled her hair out of the high bun. She washed the makeup off of her face, trying to relax and ease some of the tension of the day away.

I need a cigarette, she thought. She pushed the door to the bathroom open. Dansei dashed through her legs, hissing. She noticed the hair standing up on his back and neck. His tail was three times its normal size. She frowned. She walked through her bedroom and stepped out into the sitting room.

"Dansei?" she asked. She looked around, searching for the orange cat, but did not see him right away. She looked towards the door, and froze.


M'kay, so this is the first fic I've posted in a while. Here's to hoping it's a decent one!

Let me know what you think- brutal honesty. (Even the negative...)

Disclaimer goes here - *blah, blah, not mine, blah, blah, I own nothing, blah, blah, don't sue me, blah, blah, blah...*

More to come later...

Maybe.