What Runs Deeper

a fanfiction by andrivette and psychoheidi

chapter ten
"All On the Line"

They watched one another for a mere moment; a grin spread across her face.

Then Mukuro moved, and Hiei moved with her, jumping away from the behemoth's smoke attack and the startled cries of the other men. He flitted to the top of a table, eyes trained on the after-images of her as she darted around him, slowly closing in.

Then she was upon him, and Hiei's delayed reaction left him barely enough time to move out of the way before the table gave way under the force of her energy.

He was thrown back, avoiding the blow itself but barely managing to find his footing before she threw herself at him again.

Mukuro's hit struck his chest, but she pulled back, darting across the room and away from him.

He didn't understand the retreat until he saw her lean down and pick something off the ground, and his eyes widened.

It was his sword.

"Are you going to fight or do I have to stick you like a worthless pig?" she asked, the smile in her voice.

She came at him again, but this time he did not flee—didn't have to dodge. This would be her mistake, if she could ever make one. Hiei was weak, and her hand-to-hand combat was superior, yet here she was, playing to his strength instead of his numerous weaknesses.

In the instant in which she sliced the blade through the air above his head, Hiei pulled the replacement sword from his belt and the clash of metal against metal pierced the air.

She looked pleased by the turn of events, but she wouldn't be for long. This little game could be the end of her.

"Fool," he said, blocking another hit. "You really have lost your mind."

Mukuro yelled in response, jerking back and striking at him again, but their swords merely collided for the third time.

She twirled her sword, attempting to lock them and disarm him, but he would not have it. He drew his sword away from her misguided attempt and she slung her own, but his hand was better—his blade sliced across her abdomen and she cried out, leaping away from him as the remainder of her shirt dropped down her body, and she switched the sword between hands, allowing the tattered cloth to fall to the floor.

Then Mukuro drew her arm back and threw the sword at him.

Hiei hurled his current weapon to the side and, with the cuff of his hand, deflected the oncoming blade so that he could grab the hilt.

It felt good to hold his sword again.

She was watching him—waiting, perhaps, for him to make a move.

Her bared stomach was bleeding, and Hiei experienced a very real moment of regret at having caused it. The real Mukuro was not calling the shots anymore, and wounding her body was undue punishment for actions that were not her own.

Hiei just wanted it to be over.

"This isn't a game," he said. "Don't toy with me." He ran at her, swinging the blade at her face.

Mukuro's mechanical arm flew up and the metal clashed, the flying sparks punctuated by her sharp peal of laughter.

Her other hand thrust out, knocking him back, and she careered around him, striking him again, and she almost landed another hit before he just managed to tear his sword through the air, driving her away.

"You're going to die here," she crooned, gnashing her teeth as she smacked him and darted away again. "I'll bury that sword in you!"

She laughed again—a cold, clearly delighted laugh, and it served to convince him once more how foreign she had become. Yet her excitement thrilled him, for what a magnificent predator she was.

And how sad for him to know that these circumstances—these final moments—were the last he would ever get to experience her.

She lunged at him again, faster without the sword—and this time she knocked him down, his hurt leg giving way and sending him to the ground.

Hiei could not rise in time to run or dodge, even as she came for him again, a maniacal glint in her eye. He poised his sword in front of himself, the tip of the blade aimed directly at her as a last defense.

But before she could reach him, her body was thrown off course by a sudden force from the right.

She quickly regained her momentum, rolling to her feet with a feral hiss.

It had been the body of one of her own men. The gargantuan stood there, and with the force of his energy, another of her men's bodies hovered in the air and flew at her.

Hiei regained his footing, watching with mild shock as that idiot countered Mukuro's attacks, slamming her again and again with objects lifted from the ground.

It would not be enough to defeat her, but it provided Hiei with the opportunity he needed.

As she shrieked again in frustration, Hiei ran at her, surely taking her by surprise as he collided with her and pinned her down, the tip of his sword poised a hair's width away from the pale skin of her neck.

Now.

Now!

Hiei's hands tightened on the hilt.

But he hesitated, and by then she had smacked the sword away, the blade nicking her skin.

She bashed Hiei from her.

He was on his back again, and her fists were in his face.

Hiei couldn't see at first, yet the resolution of this was suddenly clearer than ever. He hadn't the strength or will to take to her life—he never had, and he doubted he ever would.

And strangest of all, he accepted that solemn fact, like he accepted her continuous beatings and her screams of rage.

The real Mukuro, if there was any of her left, would be disappointed with him. He, too, was disappointed—he hadn't ever really known what he had wanted for himself or for her—but this certainly was not it.

This was far from what he would have chosen for them.

Grief filled him, and he caught her fists in his own bloodied hands, his sword cast too far away for him to reach. "Dammit, Mukuro!" he shouted, his energy swelling around him. "It shouldn't have to end like this!"

Mukuro continued to throw her fists. Hiei was going to die.

Hiei was going to die?

Her chest tightened as she stared at his bloody face, but she couldn't stop.

He had to die.

But, no, he didn't.

Her fists slowed minutely, and he caught them.

"Dammit, Mukuro! It shouldn't have to end like this!"

Mukuro . . .

Was that who she was?

Mukuro.

Yes, he called her that once. It must have been ages ago.

But here he was. And he was going to die, finally.

"Shut up!" she screamed, then just as suddenly, "Hiei!" She freed a fist and hit him again. "You—"

Something hit her from behind, and she cried out in pain.

Why was she fighting?

She jerked around, throwing energy blindly. It probably hit its mark but she didn't care anymore. She wanted all of this to stop.

It was too much. She couldn't think at all. Everything whirled around her.

She turned back to Hiei, she hit him, and her body seized.

She couldn't stop looking at him.

He was going to die.

It struck him in a funny way. Hiei had never expected to live this long, much less expect to be where he was.

Regrets were pointless, especially now. He didn't want to spend these last moments thinking of everything he could have done differently in a life that had begun as a colossal mountain of shit and, it seemed, would end in largely the same fashion.

Reminiscing was a useless practice better left to ungrateful fools.

She hit him again, then stopped, a wide-eyed, stricken look about her. And as Hiei stared back at her, he realized—incredibly, illogically—despite all of it, how grateful he was.

Weakly, he extended a hand to her face, but he couldn't quite reach.

He tried to speak, but the thickness of his own blood choked the words back down his throat.

And just when he was certain that the brief moment of calm would surely end, Hiei felt the warm pulse of the Jagan on his forehead as he said the words into her mind: Thank you.

Mukuro stared.

What . . . what was she doing?

A tear fell from her eye.

This wasn't going to happen.

It wasn't.

More tears fell.

Thank you.

It bit into her consciousness, and suddenly she felt she knew.

No.

No, this can't, what have I—

"Hiei!" she wailed.

For all that, she held him, but it may have been minutes or hours until her body froze with the most crippling pain and then, oblivion.