What Runs Deeper

a fanfiction by andrivette and psychoheidi

chapter seven
"Stranger"

Hiei couldn't sleep.

It was such a silly thing—so silly that he be bothered by this. He had always been so good at resting his back against the sturdy trunk of a tree and blocking it all out. But tonight he could not accomplish that one simple task, and so he roamed the halls of the fortress.

He was not looking for anything particular, simply passing the time with a mindless routine that he had performed over and over on his way to visit her.

And then, suddenly, she was coming down the hall toward him, wearing only a shirt torn down the center and her stride nothing short of provocative.

Hiei stopped several yards away from her, so stunned that his bruised face couldn't even form the customary scowl.

Then he sneered, "Your memory must be deteriorating along with your sanity—otherwise you would have remembered to wear pants."

"No," she said in response, her voice low and dismissive. She stared at him for several moments, her eyes glittering with the predatory gaze akin to a snake, and took another step forward.

No.

No?

A strange feeling took hold of him, but Hiei's expression remained coolly passive. "I fail to see how it benefits anyone for you to prance about the halls half-naked while your already-retarded men fritter away what little is left of their brains," he said. "Stop acting like a wanton little cunt and do your job."

Mukuro frowned. "Get out of my way," she snapped, then continued walking.

It was obvious now—she didn't care anymore.

She didn't care about herself, and she obviously didn't care about him.

But that was all right, because Hiei didn't have to care either. He didn't have to care what became of her, or if she would ever again bless him with some semblance of normality.

Mukuro walked past him, and he did not bother to look back.

He didn't know why this was happening, and he didn't give a fuck.

The messenger showed up later in the week, straight from Enki himself, and Kirin intercepted him at the entrance to the fortress, terror striking him when the small, fidgety demon asked to speak with Mukuro.

"My Lord is otherwise occupied at the moment," Kirin told him, respect for Mukuro driving him to protect her reputation by any means necessary. "But if you leave the message with me, I will make sure that it reaches her."

"The message is from Enki himself," said the other man, looking perplexed. "Surely it takes precedence over whatever else she's doing."

"Lord Mukuro isn't here right now," said Kirin quickly. "Either tell me what it is you have to say or come back another day."

The messenger looked skeptical, but eventually relented, conveying the message and leaving as suddenly as he had arrived.

Border patrol. Kirin had completely forgotten, and with the recent upset in the fortress, rounds had ceased completely. Dozens of humans had died already because of this. Enki was not pleased.

To make matters worse, Kirin had not seen Mukuro in days. But as he went to search, he felt an immense dread about what was about to take place.

When would it end?

—.—

Kirin was already distressed from being forced to effectively lie to Enki, and so when he saw Mukuro coming toward him dressed in little more than her underclothes, he had to try very hard not to panic.

His brain madly fumbled for what he should say that would be appropriate, but she didn't seem to care that he was struggling. She walked up to him and reached up, pulling him down closer to her, and removed his helmet.

She stared at him, and he stared back.

And then, before he could think of saying anything useful, she leaned up and touched her lips to his.

It took a moment for him to realize what was happening, and he had hardly gotten over the shock of it when he jerked his head back, eyes widening in surprise.

"I'm very sorry, My Lord," Kirin said. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Don't, then," Mukuro replied quickly, letting his helmet fall from her grip to the floor with a clank as she placed one hand on his shoulder.

Kirin was not sure how he felt about this.

All he knew was that Mukuro's interest in him had never extended past the duties involved with ruling. Perhaps at times their bond was something resembling friendship, but never would he have thought . . .

Did she truly want him in this way? Did he want her?

Kirin was too uncertain to chance it, and there was no time for that anyway.

He placed his hands on Mukuro's waist, but only so that he could ease her away from him, and was about to steer her focus toward more pressing matters, when suddenly out the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar blur of black and white.

"Are you pleased with yourself?" came Hiei's voice.

Kirin felt a pang of guilt, but when he turned, he saw that Hiei was not addressing him. Rather, his gaze was trained on Mukuro, eyes smoldering with uncharacteristic emotion.

Shit.

That bitch let go of her piece of meat and turned on Hiei, and he held his ground, sneering at her as she approached.

She hit him.

He stumbled back only a step, the feeling of her fist on his already-bruised face nothing in comparison to the cleaving inside his chest.

This was not the Mukuro that he knew.

He did not know her at all.

Somehow, their mutual understanding had dissipated, and only now did Hiei realize the painful hollowness of having it gone.

She had torn everything they had down the center, like the shirt now failing to conceal her chest.

Hiei was so consumed by rage that he could hardly think straight, much less hit her back.

"Look at yourself," he snarled, tone dark and nasty, "You're a disgrace." He spat at her face. "You disgust me."

Mukuro screamed and the light blinded him—her light.

And she struck him with all of it.

—.—

Hiei was awake, and for the first time in a long time, he did not want to be. Every muscle in his body throbbed with the burn of her.

Her.

Mukuro had left him, now insisting on tormenting him with the behavior of an impostor, a woman he did not want to know. As the blood sang in his ears, Hiei let his mind wander, trying to somehow cope with this idea, but he still could not fathom it.

He heard voices and opened his eyes, and they stung from the bright light shining upon him.

There was something on his leg.

He sat upright, and all his nerves screamed at once.

"What's happened to me?" he demanded, trying to decipher the white wrappings from his ankle to his knee. A sudden bout of dizziness was making the task rather difficult.

"It was Mukuro," came the hairless mammoth's voice to his right. "After she was done maiming you, she was apparently too tired to mess with either of us and left, so I was able to take you to Shigure to fix you up. You've got a broken leg there, and you've been out for two days now."

Hiei took one look at that woman-stealing bastard and felt his blood pressure spike.

"Just in time, Hiei," said the surgeon, who was standing across the room in front of his shelves. "If you're both done babbling I have something important to tell you." He turned to them then, approaching them with a jar in his hand, the occupant of which resembled a bloated worm.

"This is a parasite," he announced. "These things are what're causing the soldiers to go nuts. From what I can tell, they enter through the blood stream until they find their way into the brain, where they begin to manipulate the host. Based on their behavior, it seems they blindly attack others in order to spread their seed, so to speak."

Hiei closed his eyes, trying to block out the sudden ringing in his ears.

He didn't want this.

He didn't care about a damn bug in a jar.

All he wanted was Mukuro. He wanted to rewind time so that he was caught in her embrace, subject to the gentleness of her hands and her mouth and the sturdiness of her demeanor. He hadn't even experienced it long enough to understand it completely, and he certainly wasn't ready to lose it yet.

Now he couldn't even speak to her—much less think about her—without feeling that he was being manipulated.

It was a thought that made his teeth grind.

"But that's obviously not all," the surgeon was saying. "These things are obeying someone—who herself has started to act strangely. I think they're behaving as a sort of hive mind, with a queen parasite organizing them: Mukuro."

"How?" asked the behemoth after a silence. "I've never heard of . . . anything like this. How did they infect our men, much less get into the fortress in the first place?"

"This specimen is rare," said the surgeon. "It would have had to come from an outside source. Have there been any visitors that could have exposed us to it? And as I said, it spreads through the blood. Large cuts, open wounds . . . anything like that."

"There were intruders a week or so ago. I wasn't able to stop them, and they held several of our men hostage."

Hiei stared at the jar as the conversation droned on, observing the leech-like black creature submersed in inches of water.

He thought of the wound on Mukuro's arm. The wound she had given herself in order to save him. The wound that had split open the day the first soldier attacked her . . .

Hiei's blood went cold.

"Mukuro would never allow herself to be manipulated by that," he growled.

"The parasite feeds on and seeks out high levels of energy," explained the surgeon. "The stronger the host, the more easily it can survive and reproduce. She wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter." He, too, looked down at the jar. "Ever since you woke up, this one's been clinging to that side of the container. It senses your energy." He stood and approached the cot. "Here, have a look—"

"I don't give a damn!" Hiei shouted, back-handing the object out of the other man's hand. It shattered to pieces on the floor. "This is absurd."

The surgeon sighed.

"Absurd or not," the incredibly stupid hulk interjected, "I don't plan to let this continue. We have to figure out a way to stop it." He looked up hopefully. "Isn't there a way?"

"These things are tricky. Removing a living one would likely cause irreparable brain damage," the surgeon replied. "However, the body's immune system can fight it off—if it can actually recognize the threat. It seems that most of the parasites have been able to mask themselves from their host's body, securing themselves in the brain almost effortlessly."

"So, what? We have to just hope that by some luck everyone's bodies fight them off?"

"Actually, I have an idea on that front." He looked at Hiei. "Your Jagan eye. It's possible that you can reach inside their minds and get through to them, thus breaking the connection between parasite and host long enough for the immune system to identify the danger."

They blathered on while Hiei stared numbly at the small creature lying on the floor, his glare fading as he watched it writhe amidst the wet shards of broken glass. It looked so pathetic, so stupid, and he could not bring himself to believe . . .

"It's not really her, then." Hiei looked up at the surgeon. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "It's not her."

A moment of silence passed before the behemoth spoke, "So are you going to try it? Using your Jagan?"

Hiei might have snapped at him for asking, or at the very least given him a dirty look.

The woman who, in a matter of days, had nearly brought him to wit's end was not actually Mukuro.

He was relieved. Perhaps he had not lost her. Perhaps there was an explanation for this.

But all that Hiei could focus on were the words "I love you" as they frustratingly—infuriatingly—replayed in his head, and the incessant ache in his chest upon realizing that the sentiment had not truly been hers.

He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed the thoughts away.

"Hn," he finally said and, struggling with the resistance given by his injured leg, climbed off the table.