Hey! What's up? (I've gotten a bit more proficient in the language of teenagers.) I have yet another chapter, and I'm very surprised that people actually liked the story and how it is going. I have gotten 5 reviews, and all of them were quite heartwarming; I was going to mention their names below, but I realized that they may not want their reviews publicly displayed on this chapter, but do know that those reviews made my day. If I get an 'O.K.' then I might edit this and put their names below. Wow, my fourth chapter and still going strong…

Names:

-Sara NekoChan

Hiei's curse

The guardian angels of life
sometimes fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always
looking down upon us. ~ Jean Paul Richter

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.

To the average person(or demon), Hiei seemed to be living in the lap of luxury. There were humans that catered to his every need, and practically worshiped him. He could ask for whatever he wanted and they would do everything in their power to get it for him. They always wanted his opinion, well thought out or not, and took his word as law. Life seemed to be pretty good, on the surface. But to Hiei, this was worse than torture.

To Hiei, humans were the lowest of the low, having them as slaves would only hurt his reputation, and having them worshiping him willingly, well that was downright shameful. Having them taking care of him was insulting his strength, as meager as it was. Always wanting to know about what he thought about anything and everything was causing him to be the center of attention, which made him uncomfortable. He was used to his comrades mentally filtering everything he said, separating the nonsense from the facts, but these humans would do anything he said. If he told them to jump off a cliff in the name of God, they would, and they would thank God for Paige's guardian angel all the way down to their watery graves.

Perhaps the worst thing was being called an angel, and being praised for his goodness and good deeds; chivalry was the worst thing a demon could be described as. To his surprise, the family didn't question an angel named Hiei, despite how contradicting it was. Speaking of contradictions, they didn't question him wearing black, or his hair being spiked, or his eyes being red. Or that he had a headband around his forehead that he refused to take off. They just had blind faith, which he was content about, he needed a place to stay and recover anyway.

His wounds were healing; albeit very slowly. He had to use the priest as a crutch to be able to move around, furthering the humiliation. Hiei had tried to argue the first time; saying nonsense like 'I don't want to impose' and 'I don't want you to injure your back' to try to persuade the priest to let him be, but unfortunately, the priest was insistent, and he was forced to succumb. What he had discovered, made him feel worse. This family was dirt poor, and he felt something akin the guilt every time he accepted a meal. They were farmers, or they owned a farm anyway, and the plants were all wilting or dead. If he had more power, he could heal one or two of the plants, but beyond that, he was helpless; a feeling he hated.

Kurama would be a really big help in this situation. He had no way to contact him however, so the thought was meaningless. When he heals and regains his strength, he might find Kurama and ask him to heal the plants, and suffer the humiliation later. It wasn't for the humans of course, it was simply to stop the guilt on his conscience. Perhaps some God on vacation decided to make good fortune his, when he heard a knock at the front door and could hear Paige's light footsteps make their way to the door.

About a week after he started searching, Kurama had stopped at the housing district where his searching plant felt Hiei's energy and he started to walk along the streets. Using the Makai plant wrapped around his finger like a ring, he was able to track Hiei's energy. When he heard the neighbors talking about a fairy that stopped cleaning houses, he knew he came to the right place. Hiei was the type of guy to create these kind of situations. There was a woman with chestnut hair in a bun complaining to her neighbor about the messes she now had to clean up. Kurama walked over to her in a leisurely manner and casually inquired about the fairy she was talking about.

"Excuse me, Miss. May I ask what you are talking about?" Kurama asked.

"Oh, hey kid. We're talking about the fairy that cleans our houses." The woman replied.

"There are fairies that clean houses? Are you feeling alright?" Kurama replied.

"Don't look at me like that boy! For about a week there was a fairy or something that magically cleaned houses and trimmed bushes. It took care of everything, and we really appreciated it. But now the fairy is missing, and we were discussing how to ask the fairy to come back. Do you know anything about fairies?

"I'm afraid I do not." Kurama lied. He didn't much about fairies, but he knew a lot about the subject these two were actually talking about. His suspicions were correct, it seems Hiei really has simply blinked out of existence. He could feel a trail of Hiei's demon energy now leading away from the housing district. He excused himself and went along the trail.

Kurama arrived at an older cabin inhabited by a grandmother. Hiei obviously came here, but he didn't stay for very long. Instead of lingering around, he stopped at the house for a brief moment before picking up the trail again. He ran across the city to the other side and the trail of Hiei's energy slowly became stronger and stronger. He was careful not to run faster than the average fit human could to avoid suspicion.

Kurama came across a farm house in the more rural part of the city. He pondered how to go about finding Hiei. Did the humans find him and take him inside? Or is he simply hiding inside the house? Both would require him introducing himself to the family; he didn't have Hiei's stealth or resolve to sneak into a family's home. But what would he say? 'Oh, I'm looking for a small child with spiky hair. He also has an artificial eye on his forehead. Have you seen him?' Well it couldn't hurt, honesty was the best policy; especially when you can brainwash them afterwards.

Kurama smoothed back his hair and gave a test smile. Satisfied, he walked up to the front door and politely knocked three times. He heard footsteps padding up to the door. The door was opened to reveal a small redhead gazing up at him.

"Hello!" Paige said.

"Good Afternoon." Kurama replied. Hearing Paige answering the door, Mr. and Mrs. Cathom walked up to the door behind her.

"What can we do for you?" Mrs. Cathom asked.

"Actually, I'm looking for someone. Have you seen a small child with black spiky hair around here?" Kurama asked. After he finished speaking, the whole family narrowed their gaze and looked at him suspiciously.

"What do you want from Hiei?" Mrs. Cathom asked. 'They know Hiei's name?' Kurama thought. 'In what circumstances would Hiei tell his name to a human? A whole family of them no less?'

"I'm a friend of his." Kurama replied.

"He disappeared about a week ago, and I was worried. I can usually feel his energy, but for some reason he disappeared without a trace. His energy leads back here."

"How do we know you're a friend of Hiei's?" Paige asked. At this time, the priest walked up to the door as well. 'A priest? They didn't capture him to religiously sacrifice them, did they?'

"What's the problem?" Mr. Asher asked.

"This guy just showed up and he wants to see Hiei." Mrs. Cathom said. Now the priest was looking at him suspiciously. Great.

"Every Angel has a special ability they are born with." Mr. Asher said.

"Whether or not your ability shows you are a good angel will dictate if you can see Hiei." The priest said. 'Angels? What on earth did Hiei tell them?' So, they want a special ability? He'll give them a special ability.

"Very well." Kurama replied. He combed his fingers through his hair and produced a seed. Increasing his energy, he willed the seed to grow. The plant grew a stem, budded, and produced a dazzling purple flower. The family's eyes widened, but the priest was still suspicious. He handed Kurama a pack of tomato seeds.

"Grow one of these." He said. Kurama nodded and took the seed and placed it in his palm. He once more willed the plant to grow, and the family was finally convinced. They all bowed on the floor and asked for his forgiveness.

"We didn't know you were an angel too." The priest said, his voice muffled from his position on the floor.

"Oh, it's quite alright. I'm sure you were just trying to protect Hiei." Kurama replied a tad chagrined.

The family led Kurama into their home and stopped right outside of the guest room once again. Even though the family saw Kurama's power, they still wanted to make sure Hiei knew him before leaving them alone. Mrs. Cathom knocked on the door before opening it. It revealed a very bored Hiei laying on his bed. He looked up, and his expression turned surprised.

"Kurama." Hiei asked in confirmation.

"Hiei." Kurama answered, and the family figured that that was enough proof. They respectfully left, but Paige kept an ear to the door.

Kurama gave Hiei a once over to make sure he wasn't injured, but noticed the bloody bandages early on. 'What do you do in your spare time, Hiei?' Kurama wondered. Removing the bandages, he immediately realized that the wounds were poisoned. That explained why Hiei was here for so long. He combed through his hair again and produced a healing herb. Warning that it would sting, he pressed the herb to the wound.

Hiei hissed from the sting, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Now that the poison was combated, Kurama rewrapped the bandages and sat on the chair next to the bed that Paige liked to sit on when talking to Hiei. Kurama wasn't sure where to start, he had more questions than even the priest did, and Hiei was his best friend. He decided to start from the beginning.

"What was going on earlier this week, Hiei? When we had the mission to defeat the gangs?"

Hiei hesitated, sharing his feelings was never his strong suit, nor did he like to share them. Should he lie? No, Kurama probably already had an idea of what his problem was, lying wouldn't prevent anything. But telling the complete truth didn't sound very appealing either. He supposed that telling the truth with a couple of things left out, like him being the weakest of the team, and couple of lies sprinkled in would be the best way to go. Kurama was waiting patiently while Hiei was battling it out in his mind, but was becoming more worried as time went by.

"I was worried my skills wouldn't be enough for the mission, so I decided to train to get them up to par." Hiei finally said. Kurama decided that that made sense, but Hiei didn't say why he felt like that, but he decided to let it go.

"So you were training by pretending to be a fairy and you cleaned people's houses for them?" Kurama asked confused.

"Huh? No I wasn't being a fairy, I think. You said that I can't destroy people's property unless it's helpful, and I needed some kind of target. I tired of trees." 'Oh' Kurama thought. It was a good thing Hiei didn't call himself a fairy in the first place, he would have questioned his friend's sanity even more than he did now. He even listens to him when he says things. That's good to note. Kurama started to snicker, the mere thought of Hiei in a tutu with a magic wand and tiara was hilarious. Hiei looked at him strangely, wondering what the sneaky fox was thinking about now.

"Anyway, you then went to an old granny's house?" Kurama asked.

"I helped her carry her groceries, and she offered me cookies. I couldn't refuse." 'Just what the world needs.' Kurama thought. 'A Hiei hyper on sugar.'

"Why did you come here?" Kurama asked. "And why do they think you're an angel?"

"While I was at the old lady's place eating cookies, I smelled blood here in the house, so I went to investigate. There was a human murderer trying to murder the family you just met. I didn't want Lord Koenma to punish me anymore, so I saved them. In their twisted minds, they decided I was an angel sent to save them." Hiei left out the part about him actually saying that.

'Hiei saved a human family because he feared Lord Koenma.' Kurama thought 'Pigs are also flying and people are screaming 'Look! Flying Bacon!' and shooting them with machine guns. It's possible all of the sugar from the cookies was messing with his frontal lobe. Or still is. And now I'm dragged into this too.

"How did you get the poisoned injuries? I know that a mere human couldn't have injured you."

"An A-class demon came little bit later, probably smelling the blood. I fought against him and he managed to slash me a couple a times."

'What do you know? Hiei can beat an A-class demon. It seems the training has paid off. I'll have to warn the others not to upset him.'

"And then the family allowed you to rest here?"

"Yes." Hiei replied. His eyes were starting to droop, he would need to sleep soon. Kurama stood, prepared to leave.

"Could I ask a favor, Kurama?" Kurama shook his head in awe. Now Hiei was asking for favors. Maybe he should keep cookies on hand.

"Of course, Hiei. How can I help you?"

"Could you heal the plants in the farm? The family is always hungry." Hiei asked before falling asleep.

Kurama shook his head for the second time and walked to the door.

"Of course." Kurama replied again as he shut the door.