Rei: You know the drill... Sigh I don't own Hiei or Kurama...
Hiei: Hn. Thank Inari. Do you know what I'd do to myself if she did?! I'd... -Starts listing ways to kill himself in gruesome detail-
Kurama: Honestly, I wouldn't mind. She's got a nice place...
Here's the next chapter Sis, I love ya!!!!!!
Chapter 10- It's Not Your fault
Rei walked through the door slowly, her katana dragging the floor. Closing it, she heard the voices of Heather, Athyr, and Hathor, and the clanking of dishes. Athyr was cleaning the kitchen, which was strange; it was nearly 2 in the morning. Setting her sword in the hall closet, she headed to the kitchen/dining room. Hearing the noise of the doors, Athyr peeked around the corner, her smile turning to a deep frown as she gazed at Rei's tear-stained face.
"Rei, are you okay?" She rushed to Rei's side as the girl's knees gave way, and caught her just in time. She called to Heather to help her as she tried to move Rei towards the stairs. Having one arm over each of their shoulders, Heather and Athyr dragged the oblivious Rei to her room and laid her on the bed. They tried everything they could think of to pull Rei back to reality, when Heather, the ever impatient one, finally had enough and smacked her across the face. Hard. This broke Rei from her reverie as she shot to a sitting position, a hand on her reddening cheek, and gave Heather a wavering glance before bursting into tears.
"What happened?" Heather queried, putting an arm around her best friend.Rei buried her face in her shoulder.
"I killed him. I-I don't know how-I-" she sobbed even harder. "H-he just fell, and-and I couldn't catch him, a-and he."
"Ssh, it's okay. It's okay." Heather whispered, trying to soothe the broken fire demon.
"He had a peaceful smile on his face." Rei said after a while, wiping the tears from her face "Like he was happy to die. I don't understand."
"It's not your fault." A voice said from the door. Rei looked up to see Hathor standing in the doorway, the cordless phone in her hand, "Tarenka just called. Judging by the toxins she found in his blood, he committed suicide before the fall. Apparently he had a poison bead just in case something like that happened. He was dead before he hit the ground."
'He was dead before he hit the ground...' Those words played in Rei's mind, and she felt a large weight lift from her shoulders. She sighed, "We need sleep. We have school tomorrow."
"Yeah..." Heather agreed, "And practice. You haven't touched your guitar since last year."
"I know. You can stay the night if you want, get my lazy ass outta bed." she gave a small laugh, "You know how -not- a morning person I am."
"True dat." Heather replied, giving Rei her best 'thug' voice. "'Nai nai."
"'Nai." Heather turned to leave, "By the way, like the hair." Rei added.
"Think so? I think it's too short."
"Nah. Suits you. 'Night"
"'Night."
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Rei woke up early with the sun in her face. she looked at the clock. 5:14 am. She groaned, but threw off the covers anyway and padded down the stairs, careful not to wake the others. She knew Athyr would be up, for it seemed like the Dragon never slept. She reached the living room, and had to clamp her hand tightly over her mouth to keep from laughing.
Heather was stretched out under the coffee table(which was puzzling how she got under there in the first place, it's a very low table), with her head poking out from the right side. Rei's gaze moved to the couch, where two cats, a silvery-blue Siamese, and an ice-green tabby, lay. Athyr lay on her back, her dark paws reaching for the ceiling, or so it seemed, and Hathor's rear end was slipping off the cushion. Her amber-red eyes moved back to Heather, who was rolling over and muttering about frogs being on fire. This puzzled the fire demon greatly, but halted her thoughts as a thump brought her back to reality; Heather had whacked her head on one of the legs of the small table, and was currently awake and trying to figure out how she wound up in the predicament she was in. Rei chuckled and bent down to help her kitsune friend by lifting the table by one end.
"Good morning." Rei giggled, "Aren't we bright-eyed and bushy-haired this morning?"
Heather muttered a string of curses in Youko under her breath, ripping her fingers through her tangled hair.
"That wasn't very nice." Rei said in a humorous tone, running her own fingers through her own short, unruly hair.
"Piss off."
"My, such foul language. You'd make virgin ears want to shrivel and fall off."
Heather gave up the oh-so-cheery dialogue, her emerald eyes moving to the spectacle on the couch. Rei disappeared for a moment, reappearing with her digital camera, one of the many perks that came with her line of expertise, a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat plastered on her face. She, as well as Heather, were Quest class demons, detectives/hunters/protectors of the Ningenkai, the Human World. Ten minutes later, they were in uniform were speeding down the highway on Heather's hunter green Suzuki, the camera dangling around Rei's neck. "I can't wait to upload these!" She exclaimed, yelling over the roaring wind, "You mind if I borrow your computer tonight?"
"If you want to." Heather replied, laughing, "You'll have to excuse the mess, Hathor and I don't clean." She laughed again, "Well, we do, the kitchen's clean, but my room's not."
Rei laughed with her as the school came into view. As they entered the small parking lot, Rei vaulted off the back of the motorcycle, somersaulting and landing softly on her feet as Heather hit the brake and slid the last few feet, stopping neatly in a space that read "Heather's; You park, You die." in bright green spray paint. Propping the bike on it's kickstand, she yanked off her helmet and shook her knee-length hair with the grace only a Youko could have. Of course, she wasn't in her Youko form at the moment; the humans they studied with didn't deserve to see the true beauty of a Youko. She smiled to herself as Rei joined her.
"Thinking vain thoughts, Foxy?" Rei grinned.
"Why, yes, Shorty. How ever did you know?" the fox replied, throwing her ponytailed hair over her shoulder to add to the vanity, "Let's go, shall we?"
Rei nodded in reply, linking her arm with Heather's and entered the building, leaving very confused humans in their wake.
"I'm not going in there." A voice said from a tree outside the school's gate.
"Hiei..." The redheaded figure frowned, "You know you have to. Come down." Kurama was never one for harsh tones. His soft voice was fawned over by the girls of the school. But now his patience was wearing thin. They both had watched the entrance made by the girls, and the boy in the tree was having no part of it. 'And it was hard enough to coax him into the uniform...' Kurama sighed. "Just for today, please." he pleaded. The figure grunted and jumped out of the tree, dressed in a black uniform similar to Kurama's white one. He was shorter than Rei, if you didn't include his spiky black hair, which defied all laws of gravity. A stark white starburst broke up the black.
"Still don't like it." Hiei crossed his arms. "Kraiden can kiss my ass if he thinks I'll agree to look like a ningen. I'm already dressed like one."
Kurama sighed again, "He knew you'd say that. That's why I hate to do this..." He pulled a necklace out of his pocket, a silver chain adorned with a Dragon claw, clutching a clear crystal ball. He also produced a small pouch out of the other pocket. Hiei stared as he pulled a pinch of the silvery dust and blew it at the fire demon, rendering him immobile long enough to clasp the necklace around his neck. When he had finished, the crystal pulsed with a faint, crimson-violet light, and Hiei's features began to change. His hair shortened and lay somewhat flat, and he grew taller by a few inches. Fully done, his hair reached almost to his shoulders and was tipped with red. His dark red eyes stayed the same, but his Jagan, his third eye, disappeared, although he could still feel it. The crystal dimmed and became clear once more, the transformation complete.
"You'll be following me around today, so keep your aura down, and don't lose your temper. I know you hate humans as much as the next demon, but at the end of it all, I've got something for you." Kurama gave Hiei a confident smile and ushered the quite unwilling fire demon into the school as the days announcements played overhead.