This has been a long time coming and I apologize for making those who've stuck through the inaccurate submission process. Special thank you to jtdarkman, 2black2butterfly, for sticking with me from the beginning. Oh, inspiration for this chapter came from Adam Lambert's Never Close Our Eyes by accident when I happen to be listening to it recently and others by the fellow. On to the show!
"I don't know!" Botan shouted to Crescent. Idly Botan noticed that Crescent also had a sword strapped to her side. Hiei just about scooped the two women and child up as the ground right by the mound started to split and crack.
"Move back!" Hiei shouted. As he all but shoved the three away practically tossing the terrified Dova into the Gabriel the blacksmith's arms and Crescent into Mortis'. Quick as lightning he whipped his sword out of its sheath. Slight looks of impressed ran across the two Ren. faire actor's faces. As each in turn unsheathed their swords, Crescent also followed suit after disentangling herself from Gabriel. Dova started crying, as Mortis handed him to Botan the only one without a weapon of some kind. The rest of the gang had come up on the scene, with no regards to the normal folks that were running around heading out of the field started to reveal their own original weapons of choice.
"It's coming… it's coming!" Dova was crying out. Hiei looked at Botan.
"Keep the kid safe?" Botan knew exactly what he was saying. Botan sighed as her oar glimmered into focus.
"I knew you were different…" Dova said as he hugged on Botan still crying as he was looking at his mommy. Crescent looked over, not terrified of what just happened at all. Neither did the other two ren fair performers bat an eye at it either. They of course were different too. Botan's oar floated behind her and she jumped on it situating the little boy in her lap. Mortis walked up with some rope and acutally fashioned a harness for Dova to sit in that went around Botan's upper body, so that he was secure. Just as Mortis finished what he was doing strange creatures with four arms started pouring from the cracks that had been forming under their feet.
"Imps!" Crescent yelled. "Ew Nasty creatures…" It shouldn't have surprised Hiei that they had any knowledge of the kinds of demons that existed, but it still did.
"Botan…" Hiei said turning to look at her, as the three performers started to dispatch the swarms of creatures, followed by that of Kuwabara who joined the three to take care of the masses that continued to come up.
"Yea taking off now…"
"No… be careful." Hiei muttered as Botan took to the sky holding the still crying child.
"Will my mommy be ok?" Dova asks quietly as he hugs Botan's neck.
"I'm sure she will be fine Dova…" Botan was fairly sure the rest of the gang would protect the performers, even if they were different than regular folks. "Hold on to me tight ok?" Dova nods and closes his eyes, hiding in her neck. Back down on the ground the swarms of imps, continued to flow, these ugly little creatures came out in hordes and could easily take down even a special person. Yusuke walked up next to Hiei with Kurama trailing behind, having finished telling Shizuru and the other girls to help lead the civilians to safety, with the help of the other performance troupe members.
"I heard what ya said there shorty, caring a little bit more than ya should?" Yusuke said teasingly obviously trying to lighten the already dire situation that they were heading towards like a steam engine to a wall.
"Just because you say it's too much doesn't mean that it is Yusuke…" Kurama said in a way jeering back, but it was always harder for him to make light in dark situations like this. A dark clawed hand that was very thin and knobby came out of the crack that suddenly got wider as this creature started to crawl out, it looked like the ogre demons they had fought early that weekend. The only difference was it was deathly skinny as it stood to its full height which was well above the height of any who was present. Kurama shifted his wrist to test the waters of this strange creature that appeared out of the ground. As the whip headed towards the demon creatures head it let out a loud blood curdling roar, which made all stop and cover their ears.
"What is that?!" Yusuke yelled over the creatures scream/roar. The imps took this opportunity to attack en masse. Those trying to take care of the masses return to their previous duties as they continued to literally sweep at the tiny creatures. The ground started to shake harder, out of the ground shot a giant demon. The three remaining stared at the creature as it continued to grow in size.
"Fuck.." was all that essentially in one version or another came out of the three's mouths. Then another of those sickly skinny demon creatures came out of the ground as well. Kurama started after it automatically, all they needed was another of those giants to appear if that is in fact what called it there. Yusuke stared at Hiei, they both put their fists in the air and then towards each other, swung them down.
"You cheated… Shorty." Hiei smirked.
"Can't prove it and no time to fight about it." Yusuke grinned at Hiei.
"You're just trying to be cool in front of Botan!" He yelled as he ran towards the other sickly creature.
"Are seriously having a rock, paper, scissors match over who fights the big one?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?" Botan screams at the top of her lungs as she covered the young boy's ears as not to yell into them. She watched as Hiei flitted out of sight.
"Yup…" Hiei muttered out loud to himself, he flitted out of sight running towards the one side of the field intending to give himself a good running start at the thing to get up the side of the giant demons legs. There were a chorus of screams around him as people happen to glance back and in turn others started screaming. He took one more step back after he stopped and then charged forward. As he got closer to the giants foot the creature started to pick up it's foot and move forward. Hiei would have to either continue past to the other leg or take his chances with a jump…
"No choice!" Yusuke yelled and stood just ahead of the giant preparing to launch Hiei into the air for an extra boost. Hiei took it and just as his foot hit Yusuke's hands, Yusuke launched him as hard as he could in the air. Just after he had to drop to the ground to dodge the pestilent demon (the sickly looking demon).
"Geeze not even a break!" He dodges again in a drop and jumps up and runs away towards another part of the field out of the way of the giant feet that had begun moving. He noticed that Kurama had done the same thing moving to the back of the giant demon. Hiei continued in the air then hit the unusually tough skin of the creature zipping up as quickly as he could. Strange mounds were all over the body as he was going the mounds seem to move. He quickly realized there were parasite like creatures all over the giant demon. He didn't stop his ascent, as soon the creatures started squirming and writhing. Soon the creatures were swiping and trying to slow his ascent to the top. He jumped, dodged and dived around the creatures as he continued on it soon came to the point that he had start cutting down these strange symbiotic creatures as the continued to hamper his way up. Flitting creature to creature slicing as he went, the closer he got to the top the more there were and the harder it was to just continue without effort.
"Tch.." He shifted to his demon form, turning green and eyes opened up all over his body, and he opened the Jagan. As his speed increased so did the amount of times he went without having to slash through the writhing creatures. Dodging blows, and blazing through the creatures closer and closer to the head of the giant. He cut through several more of these creatures, dodging and flitting through he finally got to the head. He immediately buried his sword to the hilt into the giant's cheek. Forcefully pulling it out he received no reaction from the beast… Running towards the nose he once again stabbed his sword to the hilt into the beast and begun dragging it through the tough skin of the demon all the way towards its eye.
"Hiei!" Botan yelled at him, good idea and all but now the beast was raising its hand rather fast to crash to its face. The force of the wind sent Botan and Dova into a tailspin, Botan was able to get back into control rather quickly. Watching as the giant hand smacked into its own face, rather effectively crushing Hiei. When the hand moved Hiei stood there just fine. Apparently the demon had cupped its hand on its face. The wind and pressure messed with Hiei's equilibrium however causing him to be a little put off and dizzy from the quick pressure changes. He shook it off as he worked his sword loose thinking up another plan as he went on.
"The eyes! He-ay! The eyes, get its eyes!" Dova had turned to look at the giant demon creature, something made him shout out pointing to what he thought would hurt the creature the most. To Dova the creature seemed slow and dumb, despite how fast its hand had flown up to smash against its face. The demon took too long to feel the pain even if it seemed more like a scratch to the thing. Dova continued to shout and wave his little fists in the air at the fire demon below on the face of what everyone but nary a few continued to run from. Even with the large steps of the giant demon it still seemed like it would take much longer for each motion. Hiei could hear the persistent yelling of the toddler, what an obvious spot for an attack, you'd think the demon would expect that. Hiei went ahead and went for it what could it hurt nothing else he had tried since after he recovered had worked. So he streaked for the closest eye and jumped in the air to drive his sword with as much force as he could into the eye. Almost an immediate reaction set the creature screaming in pain. He could anticipate the hand that would come up to smash against its face once again. He pulled out his sword and drove it in again and again. Suddenly it literally popped and out swarmed millions of the imps that had shown up before, Hiei jumped up and landed on the other eye and preceded with the same motions as before. This eye did the exact same, as more of the imps poured out of the eyes of the giant the more it felt like he was getting lower to the ground at a high rate. The demon was full of imps!
"Hiei, catch on!" Botan got awfully close to the creature as it continued to deflate. Hiei understood what she meant and made a jump for her and Dova, he had jumped a little shy of what he had meant to do and nearly missed grabbing the end of her oar as she zoomed away out of harm with the fire demon in tow. Soon there were masses of these multicolored imps all over the field, but they were quickly being pushed back towards the cracks in the ground. Imps were better in mass groups, but when they knew they were out down they tend to run away. That was in fact what was now happening, as they poured into the cracks in the ground Yusuke and Kurama had just finished off the sickly pestilent demons. Kurama withdrew something from inside his mass of hair and threw it to the ground infusing it with his spirit energy. Almost immediately a massive tree started to grow in the spot the cracks appeared. Botan made to land, Hiei jumped off and helped to finish the last of the imps that didn't make it into the cracks before they were overcome by the humongous tree root s that continued to form.
"DOVA!" Crescent ran towards Botan and her son and swopped him up out of Botan's arms.
"Were you a good boy? Did you behave for Botan?"
"Yes mama… I helped too." Dova said proudly.
"Helped?" She looked at Botan questioningly, then to Hiei who shifted forward. Dova shimmied out of his mother's arms and ran towards Hiei and hugged his leg.
"We made a good team huh?" Dova smiled up at Hiei, who couldn't help but crack a smirk. The kid was infectious, he placed his hand on top of his head.
"Yea, he sure did good with that idea of going for the eyes." Hiei said as he crouched down at eye level with the kid. He had since cleaned off his sword before everything came to a standstill.
"I wanna be sword fighter like you one day." Dova yelled out, he jumped up and down slightly. Hiei blanched slightly at the straightforward attitude this kid had even knowing that Hiei himself was a demon.
"Not all demons are bad right mama?" Dova looked at his mom, who nodded with a laugh.
"Well here, a gift from me to you kid. Become a great swordsman." Hiei said suddenly as he stood up and set the sword in Dova's mom's hands.
"When you get bigger you can use that sword. How's that sound?" Hiei said another smirk gracing his face.
"But Hiei, this is yours…"
"Swords can be replaced, he needs it more than I do." Hiei said as he cut off Crescent.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth Crescent. Plus from this guy.." Yusuke started to say but was cut off by Kurama.
"From Hiei it's a great honor, believe me." Kurama smiled his trademark smile.
"Ok, if you're sure… Thank you very much for this generous gift!" Crescent said as Dova looked at his new prize very carefully. Hiei was walking away, Botan caught up with him.
"Walking off into the sunset all cool like now?" She teased him slightly.
"Yea with you at my side." Hiei looked at Botan out of the corner of his eye as he continued to walk. He brought his hand up to his face as if to wipe something off. Only to hide a smile.
Alright there is one more after this ladies and gents to help wrap it up and then that will be it! Read and review! I'm sorry this chapter took so darned long!
