note: I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors I made :( I did not go through this chapter thoroughly. Thanks for the reviews on the first chapter ^_^ I really appreciated it.
Chapter 2:
A Rhapsody in Blue
Kurama discovered the onbi plant on the outskirts of the city within Yomi's territory.
It wasn't a particularly powerful plant. Its powers were fleeting; it latched to its victims and sapped them slowly of their energy before detaching and withering away. Kurama wasn't able to digest the energy it absorbed, and the plant, more often than not, died immediately after its purpose was served.
Some onbi plants attached to the ground and lived for a short time before meeting its ultimate demise. Had it not been for the gradient of vivid blues, the softness of its petals attached to a furry stem, he surely would've considered the plant worthless.
But once in a while, and he didn't like to admit it aloud, he let his superficial tendencies take over.
The onbi reminded him of Maya.
They first met in middle school, and Kurama was fairly aware of her harmless crush on him. She was pretty enough to catch his eye, but her physical features alone didn't stand in the way of her more prominent attitude. She was outspoken, and she wasn't afraid to speak out against the boys in class who teased Kurama about his feminine features.
She was defensive of him, but he couldn't really understand why. He didn't particularly care about the comments of the children in his class; in his three thousand years, he'd heard much worse and he had taken far graver offenses.
One day, she finally confessed her feelings for him. She admitted she loved him. But what did twelve-year olds understand about love anyway?
A crush was only a crush, in the grand scheme of things. But Kurama supposed just because she was too young to understand love didn't mean she couldn't feel it at some level.
It was a shame her own spiritual awareness and curiosity would become her own undoing. When she was kidnapped by Yatsude, Kurama had to save her. Old and jaded as he was, he couldn't quite distinguish the difference between his feelings of compassion and his obligatory feelings of justice served.
He supposed it hardly mattered in the end. Maya was saved, she would learn to forget the horrors that almost befell her, and she would go on to live a normal, average life.
The kind of life that Kurama could never have.
After she lost her memory, she would look at him in class and there would be this look in her eye of perpetual nostalgia, like she was trying to remember something deep inside herself. But it would always be fleeting, and the looks she gave him became less and less frequent as time went on.
She ceased speaking to him, and she ceased flirting with him on a daily basis, but when the boys in class teased Kurama about his feminine features, she would snap at them to shut their mouths. He could erase her memories but he couldn't erase her habitual instincts.
There were some things that just wouldn't change despite his best intentions.
He wondered if he could've fallen for her. At some point, he had to admit that she was the girl he could've loved if he were only human.
He squeezed the stem of the onbi between his thumb and index finger and let it settle into his right pocket.
Kurama wasn't human, and he never would be.
He just wished he could accept this inevitable certainty.
Hiei breathed deeply, feeling the skin on his knuckles stretch taut as he tightened his grip around the hilt of his katana.
He watched Kira from a distance, and she gazed back at him with mild irritation. Her arms were at her side and she stood motionless, only the soft wind lifting slightly the black flaps of her qi pao dress.
There was a cut on her cheek and a single drop of blood slid down her skin, touching her chin. But she didn't seem to mind the wound too much.
Hiei was sure she'd seen uglier wounds in far uglier places. A simple cut to her cheek would merely ruin her complexion but something told him she wasn't the kind of girl who cared about something so trivial.
"I need your help," she said, "I'm not here to fight you."
The corner of Hiei's lips lifted into a faint smirk.
He'd heard all sorts of stories about this girl, and he even met her once before, right after he had the Jagan eye implanted. The two of them had an unsettled debt, and Hiei had sworn to kill her someday when he was stronger.
He might've been feeding his own ego at this point. He knew he wasn't strong enough to take her alone right now, but if she needed his help, that meant she couldn't kill him.
With that little bit of mental leverage noted, he charged forward—and vanished suddenly before he could touch her with the sharp edge of his katana.
Kira hesitated for a fleeting moment but didn't shift her gaze from the specific area Hiei had been standing in only seconds go.
She could sense his very apparent presence in the tree behind her, probably crouched down, with his katana pointed in the general direction of her neck.
There was a strong killer's intent radiating off him that she couldn't miss if she wanted to but Kira supposed it was nothing too personal—that his apathy for the living must've been something just inherently buried inside himself.
She noted that Hiei was skilled and was good at hiding his demon energy, but there were just things that he couldn't hide despite his best efforts.
"I need to find the baku jewels," she stated in the open, "they're in Yomi's territory hidden away in a river somewhere. I've been searching but—it's embarrassing because it's taken me a while to realize—I need your Jagan eye. There are hundreds of rivers. It must be in one of them and I don't have time to go on a blind mission."
The baku jewels were nestled away because, once upon a time, Raizen believed it would be a good idea to spread his wealth across the land.
In some ways, it was pretty clever before the era of the Three Kings.
But when the territories were consolidated, he had to rush to gather whatever wealth he could before returning to his own terrain.
That meant there were jewels hidden away that managed to elude him and when Kira searched through the inventory he had listed in the dungeons of his castle, she knew she had to get them back before someone else discovered them. It was a matter of greed, she supposed.
She could feel Hiei bristle and shift in the tree.
She turned around as he leapt forward and grabbed the blade of his katana in between her two fingers.
He narrowed his gaze into the form of a glare, trying to force the katana down between the wedge of her index and middle finger.
But she didn't struggle too much, and she used the leverage of her wrist to prevent the blade from slipping down too far. Hiei was powerful, but brutal strength wasn't particularly his forte and she knew that his power lied in agility and quickness.
He could jump around all he wanted but in this moment, he wasn't powerful enough to defeat her with brute strength alone.
Kira knew he would surpass her easily in a few years if he continued working for Mukuro but right now she had the upper hand.
He was all reckless abandon and apathy; she could see it in the way he fought.
Kira supposed, in the end, that was the pointlessness of his nature. He had too much pride and not enough foresight. For such a renowned psychic in the Makai, it was rather ironic.
It also seemed Hiei desired something a little more than power. He must've been strong at some point (it could only explain the ego thing he had going on).
Since then, he'd most likely lost it, depraved and weak. He edged so closely to desperation she could almost taste it. Kira met many demons like him working under similar faculties. But they lacked the same resolve that Hiei had.
She supposed it was only a matter of time before they met again. She could only wish it were under different circumstances. There was part of her that wished for a good spar, but she was in a rush and he was wasting her time.
"I know we made a promise to fight if we were in a situation like this," she said, "but right now, I need your help."
Hiei scoffed, "And why should I help you?"
He lifted the blade and made a quick swipe at her; but underhand, he raised a fist and jabbed closely to her chest—only to have her grab both his hands, the katana slipping from his hand and hitting the ground.
Hiei stared into her eyes, black as black. She didn't move, only gave him a stern look like she wasn't amused by their dead end conversation.
"I don't a lot to offer you," she said with a half smile, "I don't have money, and I don't have the kind of power you're looking for. But I could help you hunt down what you're looking for. I could use all the resources at my disposal."
He paused, "Tch. Your resources? Are you talking about word of mouth, run-of-the-mill rumors? That's insulting. It makes me want to rip the lungs right out of your chest."
"Big words for such a weak apparition," she retorted without missing a beat, lifting his entire body up slightly before slamming him into the ground, a massive dent forming underneath them.
She crouched down on one knee, overlooking him, "I know you must be looking for something. Don't tell me power is your sole ambition."
Her offer was vague enough to hit home.
Hiei thought about the jewel from his mother he'd lost so long ago. He'd been searching for it ever since; in fact, he'd implanted the Jagan eye for that very purpose. That and Yukina.
Kira sat down on the floor of the forest cross-legged as Hiei pushed himself up from the dent in the ground on all floors. She smiled softly at him while he shot her a glare.
The truth is, he could threaten her however he wanted to and she wouldn't care, too self-absorbed in her own goals. She never took anything too personally. And it was insulting that she thought he couldn't manage to find his mother's jewel on his own.
Hiei wasn't particularly fond of this girl.
"In a few years, you'll be stronger than me—but until then don't doubt my ability to destroy the nerves in your legs. I'd make sure you wouldn't be able to walk again. And you don't seem like the type of apparition who really gives a shit about death, so let me make it a little more clear. I would never kill you—only make sure that you live with no ability to ever stand again," she said, "that is, if you don't help me."
So she was trying to threaten him now.
Hiei shot a glare but let out a small hn of acknowledgment. He couldn't say he was truly angry, and he couldn't say that his pride or ego was hurt—not as much as when she offered to help him find his mother's jewel.
The truth is, he was amused more than anything. For a girl who masqueraded around with such a fake innocent façade, she really knew where to throw the right punches.
She was right in almost every way. Hiei wasn't the kind of demon who feared death. He feared being useless; he feared having no purpose.
"Your threats don't scare me," he rebuffed, "idiot."
He couldn't tell if she was bluffing. But if she were anything like the girl he met so long ago, then she probably wasn't. Still, he wasn't afraid of her.
"Answer me something first," Hiei stated.
She arched a brow, "What is it?"
He paused for a moment before continuing, "Why do you choose to masquerade as a demon when it's clear you're a human?"
Kira was reticent and she wrinkled her nose in disgust, as if she'd just tasted something disgusting in her mouth. It was almost a comical look.
"I couldn't tell at first with your demon energy. But there's no mistaking the beat inside your chest—it's a human heart," he stated impassively, "you can try to hide your human stench but you can't hide your own biological body."
She watched him, her initially soft smile disappearing from her mouth into a grimace, "Well. Can't say I didn't have this coming. I'll give you that. But it's fine—I'm not offended. I guess," and she shifted her feet slightly, feeling a prickling sensation in her toes, "I can only say it's a matter of convenience."
"Convenience?" He echoed, "You must be joking."
Kira shrugged, "Sorry if you expected something more." She wasn't lying, but she wasn't being completely truthful.
They were at a standstill and Hiei decided to continue, completely unaware of the boundaries that he was pushing, "Then answer me something else," and there was a pause before he asked, "since you're a human, who exactly was stupid enough to give you the demon energy sitting inside you?"
Kira wasn't particularly fazed.
She knew Hiei had a tendency to overstep his boundaries. And it was only a natural question for him to consider, now that he understood the truth inside her.
There weren't many who understood her human nature. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her human background. At this point, it was a force of habit. Kira could've killed him right now for the sake of her own self-preservation but she needed him—and if she decided to kill him on a whim, then she wouldn't be able to use his Jagan eye.
Besides, they had some kind of history.
They met long ago—when he was far weaker than he was now. She had an inherent curiosity about the Jagan eye implanted inside his head. Kira was young and she had a tendency to let her inquisitiveness overpower her intuition.
While he stayed quiet, she continued to pester him about the eye. So Hiei decided to depart the general vicinity, not without letting her know that she was a nuisance and that when they met again, he would shut her up. He wasn't afraid of her so much as he was irritated by her big mouth.
At the time, he was a D-class demon and she was somewhere in the B-class range. She supposed with some twisted kind of logic, they were almost in the realm of being friends.
Kira took a deep breath, and when the silence stretched too thin, she finally opened her mouth to say, "I already answered your first question. Don't you know when enough is enough?"
"No," he didn't even miss a beat.
She pursed her lips, "…you didn't have many friends growing up, did you?"
Hiei flinched.
Kira was hitting too close to home. He wasn't particularly offended because what she said was pretty much true. After all, he was abandoned as a baby, before he was accepted into a group of bandits, only to be abandoned once again.
It seemed all he understood was the perils of living in solitude. And just as he was about to open his mouth to retort something like I don't need friends or why don't you watch your human mouth, this look of understanding and realization dawned on Kira's face.
Like something was clicking inside her head.
"I didn't have many friends either, to be fair," she said, laughing sheepishly, "I—uh—actually got the crap beaten out of me as a kid. I didn't really understand how to socialize with a bunch of demons. Granted I was somewhat of a teacher's pet. But it made me realize it didn't matter and that I shouldn't try so hard to please them. All I needed was my little family of monks. And that's all that really matters to me now."
Hiei hated talks like this. He pressed his head into the ground and prayed that she would shut up.
"And also those kids killed my turtledove. Which just. You know—" Kira pursed her lips, "That was really messed up. It was a perfectly innocent little thing. And they weren't even sorry about it—"
Correction. Hiei absolutely despised talks like this.
"—anyway," she continued, "things are exceptionally better now. Ever since then, the monks and I have—"
"If I tell you where the jewels are, will you cease your pointless drivel," Hiei's question was more a statement and he didn't even bother to hide the very apparent irritation in his tone.
Kira smiled. For some people, things just didn't change.
"There seems to be some movement on the eastern edge of the border," Yomi stated dispassionately, "how strange. Raizen's errand girl is heading to the Fenzhōu River. She seems to be alone."
Kurama raised in his head slightly. He was compelled to reply but tried not to answer too quickly. He wasn't completely sure where he stood with Kira, and any knowledge he did divulge would be useless to Yomi. He had to tread more carefully.
"What business she has with that dump is beyond me," Yomi continued, "the river has been contaminated with garbage for years."
Yomi was right. The Fenzhōu River had been polluted since Yoko was alive and well. Only the filthiest demons chose to dwell there. Even from a mile away, the putrid stench was able to overcome any passerby. Kurama hadn't visited the river for a long time, and with good reason too.
It was ransacked with trash and the color of the water had turned a putrid shade of purple, almost poisonous. Some parts of the river were so caked on with sludge it was impossible to move through.
"I'll need you to look in on it," Yomi stated, "I would send Shachi but I'd need someone more …reasonable."
"I see," Kurama said, "anything in particular you need to know?"
"Find her intentions. Try to avoid physical conflict if you can," he said, "she has a tendency to flee if she's in a rush. She's moving at quite a pace so I'll need you to leave immediately."
"Understood."
"And before you leave," Yomi said, "make her divulge her allegience. Raizen won't last much longer and I'd like to know if her loyalties lie the same. Trying times, after all, my friend."
Kurama felt the onbi in the pocket of his jacket. It would take him a few hours of walking to trek to the river. She would probably get there in half the time if she were already by the eastern border.
If he wanted to make up the pace, he would have to run the whole way there. A small smile formed on his lips and he wondered what exactly she was looking for in a place as rotten as the Fenzhōu River.
"From what I can feel, you must be really lonely, huh?"
