Chapter 7

"To be honest, Hiei," the fox began. "I never would have imagined you having a child."

"Yeah, me neither," the former detective added.

"Nope." Kuwabara threw in his two cents.

The fire demon was lagging behind the rest of the group with Amaya to avoid conversation. Unfortunately, the fact that Amaya was even there sprouted a conversation around him. 'This is another reason why she shouldn't have come,' he thought, mentally kicking himself for allowing her tears to sway him.

They had arrived at Mishiyori City and were searching for the address of the missing man. Kats and Kazuki were walking beside both their fathers like Amaya, but unlike her they had started talking to each other about school and friends. 'How annoying,' she thought. Amaya didn't care about friends and she thought school was a huge waste of time. 'Why would you sit in a room all day just listening to someone talk nonstop?'

'Regretting your decision to see the humans?' her dad asked telepathically.

Amaya flipped her hair over her shoulder. 'Nonsense. If I endure now, I won't suffer later.'

Hiei chuckled. Yusuke heard him. "Something funny?"

"Oh man," Kuwabara joined. "If Hiei's laughing, either it's really funny or really sick."

"Do you want to risk it?" Hiei challenged.

The psychic pondered a moment then shook his head. "We're on a mission, I can't afford to lose focus."

"Smartest decision you've ever made."

"You haven't changed one bit, runt boy!"

"Did you expect him to, Kuwabara?" Yusuke asked.

"I guess I did, at least a little. Twenty years is a long time. It's hard to believe we are all here, together."

"Yeah, it seemed like just yesterday Keiko and I got married. Now we have a house, two kids, and a restaurant.

"I hear ya. At first it was just me and Yukina. Then her one hundredth birthday came and she had Harumi. Then Kazuki and now Keiji."

"You guys gonna pop out another one?" Yusuke chuckled.

Kuwabara couldn't help but laugh with his friend. "No way, three is enough. Besides, we are trying to focus on paying for Harumi to go to college abroad. She really wants to go and we figured she's a good enough student to stay afloat. Plus, we know she could do so much more..."

The two dads continued talking about their families. 'Kill me now,' Hiei thought.

"Hiei," the demon turned to Kurama. "I was wondering: what does Amaya's mother think about her visiting Ningenkai?"

Hiei stopped walking. Amaya looked up at her father with unconcealed concern. Kurama and the rest of the group stopped and turned to the Jagan wielder. A painful silence came as Hiei glared at the ground, his fists clenched tightly. A few minutes passed before Hiei relaxed. Amaya thought she saw some blood on his left palm.

"I'm sorry," Kurama whispered.

Hiei laughed harshly. "Sorry for what? Amaya's mother is dead, so she doesn't have an opinion anymore. Even if she wasn't, I wouldn't want to hear it; she was annoying." With that, Hiei marched on towards their destination. "Come on, the sooner we check this lead the sooner we can leave."