Disclaimer: Kenshin does not own the Yuu Yuu Hakusho characters (they are the property of Togashi Yoshihiro et al), and does not make any money from said characters.
What Kenshin does own, however, are all the original characters in this work. Any attempt to "borrow" these characters will be met with the katana, or worse.
Idiot Beloved takes place right after the Dark Tournament; Firebird Sweet directly follows. For reference, I use a combination of the subtitled YYH anime and the American manga, plus some of the CD dramas.
Title: Mr. Hiei
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: General, Mystery
Rating: K+/PG-13
Summary: Hiei awakens in a place he's never seen, and a fog that's alive.
A/N: This one-shot is peppered with OCs. As always, thanks for your faves and reviews!
Outside a building near the woods lurks a strange, threatening creature that challenges Hiei's ingenuity.
Mr. Hiei
by
Kenshin
Juggling an armload of test equipment, Bronsky paused in the doorway. The test range was barely visible. "Not this again."
"What, the fog?" The agent, Nishimura, wore a gray suit and an air of authority. "Welcome to the mountains."
"Will the fog have an effect on, well, you know-"
Offloading an attache case filled with electronics (which Bronsky just caught with his pinky finger), Nishimura strode out toward the tarmac. "Maybe we get lucky and it'll finally manifest."
Manifest? This so-called superweapon? Bronsky thought. I should hope so. Struggling to balance the attache, he hurried to catch up.
0-0-0-0-0
It was a placid little suburb of trimmed lawns and neat houses where nothing out of the ordinary happened. Until now.
With nightwatch stealth, Wild Bill approached the man seated on a lawn chair.
Sal Randazzo, small and dark, nodded in greeting; Wild Bill, big and laconic, raised an eyebrow at the shotgun Sal held across his lap. "It's going to be that bad? Alien-invasion bad?"
"Who knows?" Sal stifled a yawn. "You bring any beer?"
Bill produced a round metal cooler.
"I see you manage to sneak it past Hurricane Enid."
"She's away. You know that."
"They all are, amen. It's a wonder Enid lets you out of the house without a leash."
"Nice one."
Sal shrugged. "It's a gift."
"Don't see you donating any beer," grumbled Bill.
"I figure this'll do." Sal indicated the shotgun.
"Think we'll need it? Your kid-could she be right?"
Sal shrugged. "I notice you're here, pal. The other guys coming soon?"
"Bronsky and Bates?" Bill reached into the cooler and got a cold bottle of Black Label beer, which he handed to Sal. "Guns, beer, aliens. Think they'd miss out on this?" There were only two beers in the cooler. Enid had a habit of counting. And if what Kellie said was true, they'd need to stay sober.
Fireflies danced in the air, flashing yellow signals. The other guys arrived. They sat in watchful silence.
Then the fireflies stopped blinking.
"Cold." Sal gave a shiver.
Thick and sinuous, a band of fog tumbled from the sky with a thunderclap din. The others seemed stunned, unable to move, but Sal lifted the shotgun and took aim.
The fog fell upon them.
0-0-0-0-0
"You're like a live wire," a child's voice piped.
"Then don't touch," Hiei managed.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Faint odors of cardboard, glue. Somewhat musty. Hiei pried open his eyes. It took a few moments to realize he was staring at a peaked ceiling.
He was dizzy. More than dizzy. Sick. Merely turning his head in the direction of the kid's voice made him feel like he was falling, with nowhere to land.
He sat up. Whatever he'd eaten last pressed against the back of his teeth, clamoring for release.
He'd felt better. Somewhere. Sometime. He was almost certain of it. He shut his eyes again and lay back down.
What am I doing here? No use. Can't think-
No. You're the type that never quits. Try again.
Hiei found he was in a finished attic. Behind him a window, judging from the pale light sifting down. At his feet-
Seated on a trunk, a girl gazed at Hiei, with a boy of five or so behind her. There was a window at the opposite end of the attic. The girl was about ten, Cecilia's age, with taffy-colored pigtails, a spray of freckles, a white sleeveless blouse, plaid shorts, and an expression of intense curiosity.
English, Hiei thought. Speaking English. But I was...?
Blessed-or cursed-with eidetic memory, Hiei could not recall where he was prior to finding himself on the floor.
Shouts. Fog. A flash. Nothing more, not even a memory. Hiei took a deep breath, then gritted his teeth against another wave of sea-sickness.
Despite his misery, Hiei saw that one of the girl's eyes was brown; the other, blue. "Oh," she chirped. "I see you've noticed. I'm half-and-half."
Half what? "Where am I?"
"Top floor of the church annex. I come here to try on costumes, play games. You know. Early. Before Mom and Dad wake up, because they really hate it when I turn on the TV. But they're gone now. So's everyone, except us."
"Us?"
She tilted her head toward the boy. "Me and Wild Bill's brat from next door. And now you. Plus that monster outside." She knitted her brow. "Are you an alien? From outer space?"
Though not quite human, Hiei did not hail from outer space.
"Because one minute you're not there, the next you are."
A truculent voice declared, "Me no 'fraid," and the tow-headed boy in grubby jeans glared at Hiei as though everything was his fault.
Hiei needed to escape their scrutiny, gather his thoughts. "This place got a bathroom?" Failing that, a bucket.
The girl nodded. "Down the hall."
Hiei navigated to the bathroom by clinging to the wall. Once he doused his face in cold water, the seasickness relented a bit. He grabbed a towel with a flowered border.
The mirror revealed that his face had a reddish tinge, like a sunburn. That meant he had deployed his weapon of last resort, and he had quite an arsenal at his disposal: formidable fists, hyper-speed, sword skills, fire attacks, and the Jagan, a psychokinetic third-eye implant hidden behind the white bandana that tamed his bristling black hair.
But to use Tenchi no Hi, The Flame of Heaven and Earth-! The sword that existed outside the boundaries of time and space, which had been given to Hiei by The Stranger (whom Hiei suspected was an angel).
Tenchi no Hi contained Hiei's most powerful precision attack, Sword of the Archangel: a blinding flash, a searing heat, the earth beneath melted into a puddle of black glass, himself deafened and blinded. The weapon seemed to 'know' the size and danger of the foe, and adjust its blast radius to match.
Why can't we see it? Someone had asked; What's it feel like?
What it feels like is real to my hand. Cold metal. Not Japanese in design, but Celtic. As long as my five-pound katana but heavier. Sometimes. Sometimes lighter, all but weightless.
Tenchi no Hi meant he'd been facing a significant foe.
Though its after-effects included the 'sunburn,' it had never before caused dizziness, or made him want to hurl.
Jagan Master Hiei, special operative for both the top-secret Agency, and Koenma. Somewhat unwilling member of Team Urameshi, especially when I have to bail them out of a jam.
Great. You know who you are. Ten points.
Battling vertigo, Hiei leaned against the sink while he checked his pockets. In his wallet was Agency ID, but no plane ticket. Money. About a hundred US dollars, plus its equivalent in several other currencies. Standard contents. No convenient little card telling him of his mission.
He was wearing jeans, and a sweatshirt chewed off at the arms, as if he'd just come from a disreputable gym, or an even more disreputable rehearsal hall.
Not a black-tie case of espionage then, but the Agency gear meant he wasn't fighting monsters on his own dime either.
His phone-another Agency special-remained in his pocket. He could place a call, ask 'Where am I and what was I doing?' Embarrass himself. Maybe later.
He made the return journey by clinging to the opposite wall.
With a rolling garment rack containing angel costumes, boxes stacked against the wall, and an old sofa, the attic didn't look like a particularly dangerous place.
The girl was still sitting on her trunk, wide-eyed.
Hiei spoke. "You said everyone's gone. How do you know?"
"Same way I know you're a live wire," said the girl. "I just know things."
So the kid's a psychic? Or has a strong sixth sense, like Kuwabara and my Firebird, Shayla Kidd.
He trudged toward the window.
"Don't look outside," she warned.
Hiei looked, and slid to his knees.
"Told you not to look."
Outside was a lawn, split by a concrete walkway that led to a small parking lot. A few lawn chairs. Fifty yards beyond the parking lot, woods.
Between the building and the woods, on a swath of scrubby earth, clung a bank of fog. The fog was six or seven feet tall and four times as wide, roiling as though alive.
It felt alive. The fog spewed a sense of desperation that filled Hiei with dread. It seemed un-natural, wrong. Chills raced down his back. Was it desperate to get at them, destroy them? Did the annex offer some form of protection, however miniscule?
He turned from the window. "Is this normal?"
"Nope. We never had zombies like that around here before."
If that's what they are, Hiei thought. Do I sense youki? Maybe? Faint? Only know that the fog's alive.
"Where is this place? And don't say the church annex."
"Mayfield," she said, as if that explained anything.
"What country? State, province, prefecture?"
"Good thing you didn't say planet."
She was just a kid. So was the truculent Jimmy. Dredging up another spoonful of patience, Hiei repeated, "Where are we?"
"You really don't know?"
"Kid-"
"My name's not 'kid.' It's Kellie. Kellie Randazzo. Better than a name like Kellie Green, right? I mean, how tragic would that be? Mom's Irish, Dad's Italian." He indicated her eyes. "Hence one blue, one brown. And Jimmy..."
"Me no 'fraid," growled Jimmy. "Tarzan bundolo!"
Tarzan bundolo? From Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hiei recalled: Meaning, Tarzan kill. Could use Tarzan's help about now.
Kellie said, "And you are-?"
Though Hiei was a secret operative, his name would mean nothing to her. He introduced himself.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hiei."
'Mr. Hiei.' Equivalent to 'Hiei-san.' No one but strangers and employers used an honorific coupled with his name. When she was in one of her moods, Shayla Kidd called him 'Shujin-sama:' Lord and master. This was never a good sign.
In Japan, the child might have called him Brother, or Uncle. At 29, Hiei was not old enough to be called Grandpa, but circumstances were conspiring to make him feel like his own one.
"Just Hiei," he corrected. "Where are we?"
"Well, bearing in mind that geography was never my strong suit, Mayfield is in the southeastern part of Ohio, which is part of the United States of America, which is in the Western-"
He raised a hand, stemming her babble. "Close enough to a river or lake big enough to cause fogbanks?"
"Lake Erie's all the way at the top of the state, where Cleveland is. We're about 80 miles from Columbus, and sure we got ponds and streams around, but no big rivers or lakes."
But fog, nevertheless. Alive, desperate. The old sofa looked comfortable. He sat. A spring poked him in the back.
Chin propped on her hands, the girl studied Hiei. "You look really intense now that you've sobered up."
"I wasn't drunk. Just sick."
"Right. That's what Dad always says."
"I'm not-"
"You're so intense," she interrupted, "that you remind me of my absolute favorite actor, Yul Brynner."
Hiei was familiar with the iconic star. Amused, he grabbed his abundant, bristling black hair. "Really?"
"Oh, Mr. Brynner has hair. He just shaves it to look cool. I saw The Magnificent Seven, and I hate Westerns. But he's just soo-! Once I sneaked into this depressing war movie to see him." She paused, for effect. "He played a drunk."
Hiei blew out a long, slow breath.
The girl asked, "Where are you from?"
No harm telling her. "Japan."
"That's a long ways off. What are you doing here?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
"Well, what do you do there?"
"Commercials. Voice-overs. Sometimes club work."
Her eyes grew like saucers. "Like in a NIGHTCLUB?"
"Exactly."
"Neat-o! I guess that explains why you were on a bender. The bohemian life and all."
"Wasn't on a bender. Sick."
"For real?"
He grunted.
"Like malaria?"
"Maybe."
"Is it catching?"
"Definitely not.
"Do you need an aspirin?"
"If this keeps up I will."
"Do you know Yul Brynner?"
He again held up a hand for silence. Fog zombies or not, Hiei could no longer delay filing a report. He grabbed his phone, punched a number. Nothing. Even the screen was blank.
The girl's eyes gleamed. "What's that?"
Shoving the device back in his pocket, Hiei asked, "Is there a phone here?"
"Down in the kitchen."
He made it downstairs by clinging to the banister, and with every step, the living sense of a desperate fog zombie swelled, crowded him, disoriented him.
The instrument in the kitchen was a heavy, old-fashioned black wall set, and there was no dial tone.
Back upstairs to collapse on the sofa, still dizzy.
"Why hasn't it attacked? What on earth is that thing?" Hiei was talking to himself, not expecting a reply. "Why's it just standing out there?"
The girl shrugged. "Maybe it..."
Jimmy balled his fists. "Tarzan bundolo."
The girl waved a placating hand. "Yeah, yeah, Tarzan kill. Whenever Jimmy watches monster movies, he scares himself half to death, then has to pretend he's Tarzan."
Hiei rose, and peered out the opposite window. The view from the front lacked zombies. "You said everyone's gone?"
"Well, most of the ladies and some of the men are already away on a weekend mission. Even Pastor Jenke."
"Mission?" Hiei couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.
"A church mission. Aren't there churches in Japan?"
Oh. "Sure. What about the rest of the men?"
She didn't hesitate. "Gone."
"Have you looked?"
"Like I said before, Mr. Hiei-"
"Just Hiei."
"Not sure how I know this stuff. I just do. I knew some big, weird thing was brewing, like maybe space aliens, so I sneaked up here last night to watch. Jimmy tagged along."
"You haven't gone outside since?"
"Not with those zombies waiting to eat me."
Something nagged at a corner of his mind. How long was I lying here on the floor? Before that, I remember going out to-
-To where? "And the 'zombies' have been like this all along, outside the annex? Haven't tried to get inside?"
"I don't think they can. But Mom should have been back by now. Jimmy's Mom, too." For the first time, the girl's voice trembled. "D-do you think the zombies ate everyone?"
Hiei glanced at Jimmy. "Of course not," he said automatically. "You were here most of the night. Me, too?"
"About an hour into our watch, Jimmy hadda go. I was walking him to the bathroom, 'cause he was scared-"
"Was NOT!"
"-and when we returned, Dad and his friends were gone from the lawn and the fog zombie was there, and you were here, lit up like a Christmas tree. Mom says that about Dad, but I never knew what she meant before. Took you a long time to wake up."
Time.
Then, Hiei pinpointed a nagging oddity that had bothered him. Kellie had asked, 'Do you know Yul Brynner?' Present tense. But the renowned actor had died in 1985.
This was 2005.
"What year is it?" There was an edge to his voice.
"What year?" The girl blinked in surprise. "Why... 1965."
Nineteen hundred and sixty five.
Not only had Hiei been knocked off-course, he had been knocked off-era. 40 years off-era.
Who-or what-had the power to do that?
With a dizzying jolt, Hiei remembered where he had been, and what he had been doing. "Sick or not, I'm going out there."
"No!" Panic laced the girl's voice. "You're the only grown-up around. If you get eaten, we'll be alone!"
"Kid, if I'm right about this, everyone is coming back."
"But, Mr. Hiei-"
"Just Hiei." Heading for the stairs, he added, "Take Jimmy. Do NOT look outside, no matter what."
"O-okay," she faltered. "Where?"
"Bathroom." It had the advantage of facing front. "March!"
Dragging 'Tarzan,' Kellie scurried to obey. At least his parental superpowers were intact.
I must return to my own time. Hiei wobbled downstairs, reached the rear door.
Of course his phone didn't work. It hadn't been invented. Of course he couldn't reach Shayla Kidd. She hadn't been born.
But there was one thing which existed outside the boundaries of time and space: Tenchi no Hi. The Flame of Heaven and Earth.
If Hiei could manage to sprint past the fog zombie and reach the woods, the sword's blast radius might not hit the annex. Shaky and sick though he felt, he just might be able to pull it off. And even if his hunch was incorrect, the attack did not kill humans.
Hiei turned the doorknob, stepped out, and staggered off to battle the Fog Zombie.
0-0-0-0-0
At The White Crane, a small, off-beat nightclub in the Shimbashi district, Hiei was emceeing a one-night Enka fest.
The place was packed. The fact that half of it was friends and family didn't matter. One or two nostalgic salarymen and a couple of foreigners also littered the seats.
The inimitable Shayla Kidd had a set late in the billing. When the show ended, Hiei headed backstage. Elfin, fiery, humorous, Shay-san was waiting for him in the hall.
Then a woman called out, "Oh, Mr. Hiei!"
Trapped between two females, Hiei turned toward the sound.
The contrast was vivid. Shayla Kidd, glamourous as a movie star in a silk gown that echoed the marigold color of her hair. The woman hurrying toward him, a house-wren in a gray wool dress, pleasant-looking, but no beauty.
Yet Hiei almost fell to his knees with shock.
She had changed. Though she was about Minamino Shiori's age now, makeup concealed her freckles, and she had traded her pigtails for a page-boy bob, Hiei knew her.
One brown eye, one blue. Kellie Randazzo.
A strapping man with abundant sandy hair towered over her, and there was something familiar about him, too. "This is Jimmy," said Kellie. "The brat next door."
Hiei was all but stuttering. "The b-b-"
"Wild Bill's son," Kellie went on. "He really did turn into Tarzan. Remember?"
"Yeah," Hiei replied, while Shay-san's eyes flashed gold lightning. "Tarzan bundolo."
Jimmy blushed. "That was a while ago."
"A very big while." Kellie beamed at Hiei. "It's nice to see you sober."
"Not this again."
"But you-you haven't changed a bit."
"Oh?" Shayla Kidd folded her arms and said, in Japanese, "Who's your girlfriend?"
"Do you remember the night we spent in that annex?" Kellie went on, enjoying Hiei's obvious discomfort. "You were right. Right about the Fog Zombie, right about everyone coming back, right about everything."
"Always am." Hiei forced himself to sound calm.
"It was the talk of the town." Kellie studied him. "Did you ever find out what it was?"
With a smile like a hungry shark, Shayla Kidd addressed Kellie in Japanese. "If it wasn't for your advanced age, you'd be so dead by now."
"Not out here," muttered Hiei. "In the dressing room."
With Shayla Kidd glaring foot-long daggers into Hiei's back, they left the hallway.
Of course Hiei hadn't changed. For him, Operation Fog Zombie had occurred one month ago. For Miss Randazzo, it had been 40 years.
One month ago, with the Agency using the former Tarukane Gonzo manor as a base, Hiei had been persuaded to go to the test-firing range to determine the blast radius of Tenchi no Hi. Shay-san had been in the bunker with an agent and technicians.
When the Fog Zombie rolled by-Fog Zombie was as good a name as any for that strange youkai with its amorphous form and uncatalogued powers-looking indeed like mere fog, Shay-san gasped, "It's alive!"
Agent and techs alike had dashed onto the range, but too late. Tenchi no Hi manifested. The Fog Zombie intersected with the blast, and catapulted Hiei into the past, gulping down both the men from Mayfield along with the test-range agents. It had kept the men suspended within itself, no matter how desperately they struggled to escape.
One lab tech was originally from Ohio, and Hiei had remembered thinking, Why drag in an outsider from some town stuck in 1965? Had the Fog Zombie scanned his brain and used that fleeting thought as a locus? Later, Hiei had learned that the tech, Bronsky was the son of a man who helped keep watch for the 'alien invasion.'
The Agency was still trying to figure it all out.
When Hiei again deployed the sword outside the church annex, the bemused Mayfield men, Bronsky included, returned to their rightful time and place, along with the equally bemused Agency crew, who were no doubt still being debriefed.
They couldn't ask the Fog Zombie. It was gone. There was always something.
Hiei introduced them. "This is Kellie Randazzo."
"Only it's Kellie Schneider now," she said.
Jimmy coughed discreetly. "My last name is Schneider-but of course you never knew that."
"Congratulations," muttered Hiei.
"Thanks!"
"Ah!" Shayla Kidd had been dispensing daggers, but now that she understood the situation, as easily as breathing, she switched to English. "Mrs. Schneider. Do have a seat. And welcome to Japan."
Kellie sat, her gaze glued to Hiei. "But you really do look exactly as you did 40 years ago."
At the dressing table, Shay-san pretended to fiddle with her makeup. "You know these Japanese. They seem ageless."
"Knock it off." Kellie narrowed her eyes. "I know how old Mr. Hiei is. It's right on the Romantic Soldier fan site."
You could cut the silence with a katana.
Romantic Soldier: the boy band masterminded by Shayla Kidd. With Urameshi Yuusuke, Kuwabara Kazuma, and Kurama, Hiei had experienced fifteen minutes of fame that, for him, had spun out into both a career and a cover for his Agency role.
So. That was how the lively little girl and the brat next door had found him-and now they posed a threat.
Shay-san flicked Hiei a glance. With a few words, and her powers as a Spellcaster, Shayla Kidd could make them forget both Hiei and the Fog Zombie.
Hiei readied himself for anything.
"I kept thinking of that day," said Kellie, "wondering if I was nuts, or if it was a dream. But Jimmy remembered, too. A while back, we used the internet to search for an entertainer with your name. We located the Romantic Soldier fan site, and Jimmy said, 'That's him; the guy from back then.'
"And here we are," added Jimmy.
Jimmy was big, but Hiei could take him with both hands tied behind his back. As for Kellie, hitting girls was beneath him.
Kellie squeezed 'Tarzan's' hand. "Jimmy and I teamed up after the Fog Zombie, investigating the paranormal. At first it was just dumb kid stuff-neighborhood 'monster' sightings that turned out to be dogs with mange."
"Then," Jimmy said, "we teamed up permanently."
His Jagan allowed Hiei to read Shay-san's thoughts, and vice-versa. He liked to avoid it. It gave him a headache.
Amateurs. Shay-san put a hint of vitriol in the thought.
"Most of what we investigate," said Jimmy, "we end up debunking. Horses who can spell, mind-readers, that sort of nonsense. But those Fog Zombies..."
Kellie sprang to her feet. "That was real!" Clenching her fists, for that moment, she vaulted time: once again she was the curious, eager child of 1965. "I know it! The supernatural exists! Why deny it?"
Shayla Kidd rose languidly from the dressing table and ambled over to stand in front of Hiei.
In order to protect both him and the Agency, she was indeed about to use her Spellcasting abilities to make the Schneiders forget Hiei and the Fog Zombie.
He brushed her hand. Stand down.
Oh? Shay-san turned her stroll into a bit of stage business, reaching for a water bottle. This will be interesting.
Hiei regarded Kellie and 'Tarzan,' thinking, Another pair who only see the excitement of monster-hunting, blind to the Shadow Wars under their noses, unaware of the sacrifices made by us Shadow Warriors to maintain their blissful ignorance.
Could he tell these two amateurs about the classified incident which they had witnessed? Should he haul them into the Agency and have them debriefed, possibly arrested?
As a special operative, he had some wiggle room. Some.
It was, after all, the Agency which had begun this debacle, by pushing Hiei about the nature of Tenchi no Hi.
Hiei knew that the sword would refuse to manifest unless there was a threat. He had said, somewhat arrogantly, "You want to pay me for standing in a field? Fine."
Perhaps the Flame of Heaven and Earth thought Hiei needed a comeuppance for agreeing to the test in the first place.
And perhaps some things are meant to remain enigmas.
Hiei knew what he had to say. "There are always going to be mysteries. Unanswered questions. This is one of them. Trying to solve it will bring unpleasant consequences for everyone."
That wasn't what Kellie wanted to hear. She shook her head. "You're no normal person! I know it!"
"Kellie, look at me. Would Yul Brynner lie to you?"
'Tarzan,'strong, silent, apologetic, realized it was over. He rose. "Come on, Kell. We've outstayed our welcome."
Kellie tried staring Hiei down. It was a lost cause.
At last Mrs. Kellie Schneider relented. "I guess this is good-bye." Patting her dress into shape, she spoke to Shayla Kidd. "I enjoyed your song, even if I couldn't understand the words." Then she shook her head at Hiei, frustrated, puzzled, curious. "What on earth are you?"
He shrugged. "Just-Mr. Hiei."
-30-
(A/N: Thanks for reading. For further sagas concerning the mysterious Agency, please see Farewell, Mr. Groovy, Trade Secret, Elementary, My Dear Hiei, and Operation Rosary.)