Disclaimer/Intro: Idiot Beloved
by
Kenshin
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. Don't sue.
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.
The events in Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark
Tournament.
What's it About: Hiei makes a single, fateful decision---and his
life will never be the same.
This novel deals with adult themes: notably the R-word
(Responsibility), the D-word (Duty), and lastly, the S-word
(Sacrifice).
Rated Mature for language and intense sexual situations.
Idiot Beloved Ch 2: Borderline: "Your Opponent Is Me!"
He made her feel stupid. Romance-novel stupid. Creep-magnet
Ronni stupid.
But Shayla Kidd kept her hands on the wheel, and the ancient,
roofless Jeep on the road. This man didn't give a rat's ass
about the temple. Why was he here?
His hair stood up like a bristlecone pine, and must have needed
an extraordinary amount of product to hold it. Maybe that was
the origin of his scent: blackberries in burnt sugar, evergreens
waving in a night breeze. And that white starburst on the
forelock, the pinnacle of the hair colorist's art.
Well. Aren't we the vain little trend monkey, she thought.
But there was something in Hiei's bearing that didn't mesh with
vain. He carried himself like a prince who would be a tough
customer in a fight. Economical of word and movement. Heavy-
duty martial arts training, she guessed.
She was good at quick reads; always had been. It had saved her
on more than one dangerous occasion with the thugs in town. His
blink rate said he wasn't lying. She tried to read his age---it
was difficult sometimes with Asians. Forget the smooth,
impassive face. Look at the neck and hands. Mid-twenties?
Early thirties? Something was off. Leave that puzzle till
later.
And if beauty could be considered an asset, this was a wealthy
young man.
Stop that this instant! she scolded herself.
The air was flint-thick with the oncoming storm. The stark
landscape whipped past, fusing to a dun-colored blur.
"You're a border agent, aren't you?" she said.
He gave her a sidelong glance. "A what?" His voice was a
surprise: a low, throaty purr, dangerous.
"Ehh..." She ransacked her pitiful Japanese for the right words.
"Genkai..."
Raised eyebrows and a soft grunt. Could her question have
startled him? That meant undercover. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Genkai no senshi... no, that's 'soldier of the boundary.' Not
quite the term I wanted."
"H'n. I'm tourist."
Yeah, she thought, like I'm a miko.
But by now she had his cadence: the deep, even breathing, the
occasional speech particle drops, and she could mirror him. She
tried one of his grunts, to see whether he noticed. He stared at
the road ahead, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
"You learned Nihongo from class?"
She shook her head. "Books. Tapes. Cartoons. Little to do out
here. Keeps my mind off border."
A distant roll of thunder. He leaned back in the passenger seat,
and cranked his head around to face her. His expression was like
stone. "If you are doing this on purpose, you're very good. If
not, urusai."
"Shut up yourself." Way to go, fake miko! Insulting a stranger
who might possibly be dangerous.
Except that this one didn't give off the same creepy aura she
felt from Ronni's usual assortment of drive-by suitors.
Note to self: she thought; just because he's not a creep does't
mean he's tame.
He gave a near-imperceptible head shake. "H'n."
"I'll take that as a laugh."
"Eyes on road," he advised.
So, she thought, heavy undercover. That black coat, the white
scarf---too much clothing for this weather. Which means he's
packing. And those slender little hands---ten to one he's got
every kind of callus on them and can break you in half without
even trying.
He was difficult to read, but not impossible. The way he kept
stealing glances at the dashboard, at what she did with her
steering, clutching and shifting. Either he'd never seen a Jeep
this old (and who had?) or there was something about the car that
aroused his suspicion. Did he think she was a drug runner,
hiding her loot somewhere in the vehicle?
She had never been a druggie, and Ronni had been clean for years.
So what was he after? The mysterious owner of White Serpent
Shrine? But she had never even seen that one.
Whenever she caught his gaze he did not look away or shift in his
seat or smile. So different from the other Japanese she'd met:
Peter, for example, owner of the Kouhaku restaurant in Palo Alto,
who laughed almost too much. This person seemed dark, brooding,
Russian. And he knew she knew.
Her target loomed to the south. She pulled to the side of the
road, but stopped well away from the spot, not wanting to
approach further.
"That's it," she said, turning off the motor. She unlatched her
seat belt, got up, pointed. "See that line in the gully about a
mile south? Looks like a wash of rocks. It's not."
He hopped out of his own seat to stand on the windshield,
perfectly still. Even with all her training she could not have
matched such a feat of balance.
"Ch." A breeze found him, lifting the heavy black coat, showing
a flash of scarlet lining somewhat lighter than his eyes.
"Backpacks. Boxes. Cloth. Why?"
Holy cow. He can see all that detail from here? "Abandoned by
people illegally crossing the border. Women's garments, removed
by force---a lot of rape here. Boxes, bottles, needles, other
flotsam of drug use."
"Who does this?"
"Some are looking for jobs. Too many of late are disease-ridden
thugs and drug runners. Which is why I no longer care to drive
into town alone."
"But--ningen. Just ningen?"
"Of course people. What else would they be?"
"H'n." He dropped back into the seat. "Have they discovered the
temple?"
She sat, clipping herself back into the seat belt. "Not yet, but
it's only a matter of time."
Thunder rolled. She glanced overhead. The sky appeared leaden,
and the smell of ozone stung her nostrils. "No time for that
trip into town now. When the storm hits, the road could be
washed out in an instant."
He nodded as if he knew what she meant. They didn't have Arizona
weather or terrain in Japan, she thought. How does he know?
"Iko!" She started the Jeep. He again refused to fasten his seat
belt. She made a three-point turn to head back north.
"At least you have orange tree," he said.
She stifled a laugh and hit the gas, hard. Watching him under
lidded eyes, she again caught him tracking the movements of her
hands, her feet, and what she did to shift gears.
Damn. The Jeep was hard enough to drive without the added burden
of her billowing miko drag. Maybe she should have taken a minute
to change into normal clothes.
Lightning licked the ground to her right.
And because of this, and because of her garb, and because she
kept stealing glances at him, she took a split-second too long to
respond when a massive body leapt out from the left, charging the
car.
"Abunai!" The border agent yanked at the wheel, and she cut hard
right, but too late.
Slam the brakes. Tires screeched. Couldn't swerve. Fishtailing
on sand.
Her fleeting thought: Hiei's not wearing a seat belt.
Impact.
Breath slammed from her lungs. A stab of panic. Tumbling, then
wrapped in darkness. Blind. Whirling.
A bone-jarring thump, and she landed. His voice, in her ear:
"Daijoubu?"
The darkness lifted. She blinked, looked around. It took her a
few seconds to get her bearings.
They were crouched atop a ten-foot boulder. The border agent
knelt close at her side, one hand on her back, steadying her. He
was glaring at the spot where they'd left the road.
She followed his stare. The Jeep lay overturned in a sandy
ditch. How had they reached the top of this rock? If they had
been thrown clear, they would have landed close to the Jeep.
And she had been wearing her seat belt.
"All right?" This time his voice had a snap to it. And he
turned the stare upon her.
"H-hai," she said, forcing herself to concentrate. "No steam
coming from the Jeep. Good sign." Maybe not; even with the two
of them together, they could not possibly get it back up on its
wheels. "How did we---"
"That thing hit us." He jerked his head. "Just behind Jeep."
She followed his gaze. What she saw sent an involuntary shudder
throughout her body.
The only reason she hadn't noticed it before was its dun-colored
fur, short and bristly, a perfect camouflage for the desert
backdrop. But now that the border agent had pointed it out---
It looked like a cross between a kangaroo and a corpse. It had
powerful back legs and dangerous claws. Its face was a
gargoyle's, part human, part bat, and it snarled in a way that
made her throat close in on itself.
"How's it still alive? We hit it with enough force to roll the
Jeep. How'd we get up here?"
"Saa!" Eyes on the monster, leaning closer still, Hiei spoke into
her ear. "What can you tell me of this creature?"
She frowned. It looked familiar, but not something she had ever
seen in real life. It looked like...
"I--I'm not sure. Might be what's known as El Chupacabra."
He had trouble repeating the name. "And?" They were
shoulder-to-shoulder now; the border agent's body heat struck at
her through their clothing.
"They're said to kill and eat cattle. But I thought they were a
myth, like UFOs."
"Ch!" He straightened. Lightning clawed in the flat gray
distance. She rose, risked a glance up into his eyes.
They were utterly ablaze with wicked glee.
He pressed a hand to her shoulder, and she thumped back to the
boulder's surface. "Stay down," he instructed. With the sound
of a herald unfurling, he flung off his coat; it puddled to her
knees in a pine-scented drape of black and scarlet. His
sleeveless white shirt played in the wind like silk. "America,"
he said. "So, English!"
With a barely-perceptible bunching of muscles, he vaulted from
the rock to land dangerously close to the monster. She gasped.
No one, no one jumps 20 feet out and ten down and sticks the
dismount. Okay, border agent, she thought, your cover's blown.
Do I get to live, or is this one of these
if-I-tell-you-I-have-to-kill-you deals?
Hiei had a katana strapped to his back. She thought, a bit
giddily, a sword---that's what he's packing?
El Chupacabra was taller than the border agent by at least a foot
and must have been twice, three times his weight; Hiei seemed not
to care about the difference.
"Who sent you?" He was facing away from her; it was the wind
that carried back his soft words.
El Chupacabra hissed. She hadn't really expected it to banter
with him.
He crouched. With razor precision, he whipped the katana from
its saya, sliced the air to ribbons, and advanced.
"Speak or die."
She sat up, craning her neck. El Chupacabra circled, growling,
shaking its ugly head, scratching the dirt with powerful back
claws.
But it wasn't really looking at him. It was looking at her, its
nasty little eyes zooming in to lock gazes with her. Its lips
drew back, revealing the dripping, jagged teeth.
"Animal," Hiei said, smacking the katana back in its saya.
"You're not worth bloodying this." He walked forward, hands at
his side, relaxed.
Is he crazy? Alarmed, she shot upright, drew breath to shout a
warning.
El Chupacabra attacked.
But not Hiei. Her.
It flew through the air, straight at her, driven by those
powerful hind legs. She flattened herself to the rock. Its
acrid stench stung her nostrils. It was overhead; its parody of
a human face grinned at down at her.
She didn't have time to scream. A flying shadow flickered in the
air above it. Beast and shadow twisted against the sky and sped
past with the sound of wrenching ligaments. She spun around to
follow its trajectory. It landed, whump, on the other side of
the boulder, some twenty feet distant, and struggled to its feet.
And now Hiei was standing between the monster and the boulder.
How on earth---
"Your opponent is me!" he snarled, and all the blood in her body
shot to her toes. She shivered. How did El Chupacabra not die
of terror then and there?
Instead it hissed, gathered itself for another attack, and
hurtled over Hiei's head.
Without even seeming to track it, Hiei made a vertical leap,
plucked it from the air and flung it away. It slammed to the
ground in a sickening crunch of bone, rolled end over end, and
lay still, its head twisted at an impossible angle.
She breathed again.
He turned. From twenty feet away, he flicked up beside her. "I
told you, stay down." The black coat materialized around him.
"You can teleport," she said accusingly.
"H'n." In a blur, he teleported back to the Jeep, inspected it
briefly, and righted it. With one hand.
He wasn't even breathing hard. He called up to her, "Will this
vehicle still go?"
Day-umn! Here she was stuck up on this rock. And she hated
heights. "Only one way to find out." Inching to the edge of the
boulder, she glanced fearfully down, tried to find a handhold to
climb back to the ground.
She winced. "Ow."
His head snapped up. "What is it?"
"I might need help." She glanced at her white kimono top. The
left sleeve was shredded; dots of blood on her bare flesh made
her feel queasy. "My arm. Must have hurt it in the crash after
all."
Instantly he was beside her on the boulder, lifting her arm,
peering at her sleeve. She sipped in a soft breath. "Careful.
That hurt."
The air thickened, then attenuated. Hiei was no longer beside
her; he was crouched over the fallen monster---
---a black blur flew at her. Thump to her ribs, bringing more
pain to her injured arm. She shut her eyes, curled in on
herself, instinctive protection.
Scent and touch informed her that she was pressed against his
coat, with the air speeding past. One of his arms under her
back, the other under her thighs. Didn't make sense. What was
he doing?
She pried her eyes open, glanced past one black shoulder; the
ground was moving in a blur, too far below to be real. She shut
her eyes again.
The sensation of movement made her dizzy; the pain in her arm
grew from a dull ache to a deep burning. It was cold, too cold.
Difficult to think. Impossible to talk, but...
"Keep still," he warned. "We're going back to the temple."
"Jeep---" she managed to gasp.
"This is faster. Besides, I can't drive."
The desert was moving; it was they who were standing still, while
the rustle of a tree, the scrape of a boulder brushed past them,
flick, flick, flick, point to point to point.
He blew his cover, she thought. Will I be allowed to live?
-30-
(To be continued)
PS: I understand there are still a couple of formatting problems. Working on it! Oo
Return to Top