The two of them simply sat for a long time in silence, staring out at the beautiful scenery that lay before them. On one side, the amber eyed, witty princess anxiously awaited the fire demons next question while she questioned herself and her motives for telling someone that she barely knew something that the majority of people didn't know about her. She mentally cursed herself several times for thinking that this demon beside her was more than just a spy for Koenma and cursed her lack of restraint.
On her left, sat the fire demon who her mind was so engrossed with. She turned her gaze to him only to find his ruby eyes staring into her own, questioning her intentions as much as she was. He shifted uncomfortably and moved further away while contemplating what it was that made this seemingly weak little nigen girl so fascinating to him.
"It was an arranged marriage." She started quietly, pulling Hiei from his thought world and back to listening to her story, "We were betrothed from the very day that I was born."
Their eyes stayed connected for bit, causing a faint blush to creep across her cheeks before she turned away, embarrassed that she let such childish thoughts enter her head. She glanced sideways at the demon beside her, trying not to be seen while she admired his ruby eyes. The blush that now colored her face burned with a greater intensity and she thanked the heavens it was night and that he could not see her.
"Doesn't seem like the toddler would approve of just marrying anyone," Hiei stated flatly, turning his eyes to the mansion below, as if he were staring daggers at Koenma's window, still furious for the mission Koenma had almost forced him to carry out.
"It was not his decision. My father and King Yama decided it without Koenma's consent. It was supposed to be some great political movement that would finally pacify the insurgents of the Toki once and for all." She put her hands to her forehead, hoping that their cool touch would soothe her burning face.
"Well, I thought they were a peaceful people. You've said that before haven't you?" He asked turning to face her again.
She glanced over to where he was sitting, confused that this demon who had never cared for anyone in his entire life was now basically sitting at her side, begging her to go on with a story that had nothing to do with him. She became a little suspicious of his motives and decided to keep him away from the more personal matters that only she had knowledge of in case he should report back to Koenma. Hiei didn't seem like the type to do so, but after what Kurama pulled that night, she knew that she couldn't trust any of them.
"Well, of course they were a peaceful people. But, there were those demons who weren't exactly thrilled to have humans ruling over them so the occasional uprising did occur. My father arranged the marriage to make sure I was WELL taken care of should anything have happened to him and my mother." She smiled at the fire demon who was obviously satisfied with her explanation of how she and her family had gotten involved with Koenma and his father.
"Sahara, are you out here?" The two turned to see four feminine shapes heading towards them. Before Sahara could even turn to halt Hiei, he had gone, leaving only a thin trail of dust drifting in the air behind him. "There you are!" A very enthusiastic Botan wrapped her strong arms around Sahara's tiny waist.
"Honestly Sahara, it can't be healthy to sit on the wet ground as chilly as it is out here." Keiko said in a firm, lecturing tone as she draped her jacket over Sahara's small frame.
"Are you feeling better now, Sahara?" Kagami asked as she gave her friend a hand in getting off the ground, "We heard about the little incident with Koenma, do you need to talk about it?"
"Yeah, I would like that." Sahara said cheerily as they made their way back to the mansion and into Botan's very pink room.
"So, Botan has given us Koenma's side of the story but now we want to hear yours." Keiko said with a bright smile, sitting almost completely on the edge of her seat waiting for this great tale to begin. "What happened to make you two lose your love?"
"Ok, first, we were never in love. It was an arranged marriage and nothing more." Sahara stated flatly causing the four girl's eyes to grow wide. Sahara sighed knowing that it was not the best tone to take with this subject, "I mean, don't get me wrong, there was never anything romantic between us, but I truly cared for Koenma and was thankful that if I had to be trapped in a marriage with anyone it was him."
"So, what exactly ended the arrangement?" Botan asked as if signaling for Sahara to proceed, growing impatient with the back-story that she had heard more than she could count.
"Well, when I reached the age of sixteen I decided that I wanted out. I went to King Yama and apologized telling him that I wanted to find love, not a political partner." Sahara said uneasily, seeing the girls around her closing in on her, as if they feared she would run away without telling them the rest of her story.
"Sahara, that's beautiful," Keiko said quietly, the other three girls nodding their heads in agreement, "So what happened with King Yama?"
"King Yama, was absolutely furious and told me that it was my responsibility to break it off with Koenma." She heaved in a deep sigh, trying to contain her emotions as memories of that very painful meeting ran rampant in her mind.
"And I take it Koenma didn't react so well either," Yukina spoke softly as she laid her hand gently on Sahara's shoulder, as if she realized just how painful this was for their newest friend to talk about.
"It was, the second most painful thing I've ever had to endure my entire life," Sahara's voice quivered as she felt the tears coming to her eyes, "Someone you cared about for so long telling you to get the hell out, that they never want to see you again. That hurts."
Yukina, as if noticing her friend was losing the battle with her emotions, began to trace small circles with the tips of her fingernails on Sahara's back hoping to soothe her. The other three girls stared at Sahara for a long time in silence after that, wondering if they should travel any farther into Sahara's past of if they should leave her alone for a bit.
"Sahara, pardon me, but that doesn't explain why you are angry with Koenma," Yukina said softly behind, causing all eyes in the room to turn to her. Her alabaster cheeks became tinged with hints of red as she contemplated her next statement, "Well, from what you've told us, Koenma should be the one angry with you not the other way around."
"Well, after the fight between the two of us, rumors began to spread throughout demon world that the new queen of the demon world, Mukuro, was taking away the smaller kingdoms that still dotted the map, and that our kingdom was next on her list." Sahara stopped for a moment, brushing her long hair back away from her face and into a low pony tail.
"I came to Koenma and presented the evidence, very discreetly so that I would not be attacked on my way here." Sahara said quietly, gazing out the window at a certain fire demon who was sitting on a branch just outside.
Botan's eyes suddenly went wide as she pieced together just when Sahara had last visited the mansion. The usually bubbly pink eyes of the reaper now became very solemn for she knew exactly which part of the story was coming next for it had been one of the hardest jobs she had ever had to do. She looked to Kagami, who sat to her left and noticed that Kagami's shoulders were shaking as she tried her best to hold back her tears from in front of the rest of the girls. Botan nodded for Sahara to continue as she draped her arm around Kagami's shoulder trying to comfort the purple haired girl.
"That was the day Koenma told me he could do nothing to save my people from their destruction," Sahara heaved a sigh that was caught in her chest as a few tears escaped from her eyes and flowed down her cheeks, "The worst part was that after all I had done to him, he still tried to save me."
"So, what made that so bad?" Keiko asked causing the princess to turn her gaze back to the group, accepting the tissue box that Yukina was offering, "Doesn't that show he cared about you?"
"Yes, but he told me that he couldn't reactivate the Spirit Detective team and yet as soon as my kingdom was destroyed, I heard rumors of their return." Sahara's entire body began to shake as she felt the anger that had so long built inside her trying to escape.
"I watched countless lives be lost at the hands of that beast that night and yet for a long time I refused to believe that he would have let them die. 'He would never have allowed innocent people to die', I told myself repeatedly even after I had heard the rumors of their return to work." She clinched her fist tighter, her face now colored a heavy shade of red as she continued to vent on them.
"It was then that I ran into Yusuke one day on an outside mission I knew that he had taken me for a fool," Sahara turned her gaze back to the window for a long time, looking for the red eyes that had been so set on her earlier.
"I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of that, Sahara," Yukina said quietly as she handed the box of tissues over to the still sobbing Kagami.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?" Sahara said with a mocking tone a she plopped on Botan's fluffy bed stretching out so that she took up the chunk that the rest of the girls weren't sitting on.
"Still, it seems like an awful lot for one person to have to go through alone," Keiko replied as she pulled a deck of cards from her purse and began to shuffle them.
"Yes, well, let's not forget that I had Kagami, she's helped a lot," Kagami's violet eyes brightened at this compliment from her best friend and she giggled in response to the wink that Sahara had sent her, "Plus, I would like to think that you three have helped me in the short time I've known you."
"Aw, Sahara! That's so sweet!" Botan's screeching voice made the smaller girl grasp her sensitive ears as she was swallowed up in one of Botan's bone crushing hugs earning a loud, but strained laugh from Sahara.
"Did you guys just see what I saw?" Kagami asked in a shocked tone, earning looks of confusion from the other girls in the room. "Sahara just smiled an actual smile. It has been so long since I've seen one of those, I thought she'd forgotten how to do it." Kagami said with a huge grin causing Sahara to blush.
"You really do have a beautiful smile, you know," Yukina said softly, her crimson eyes boring into Sahara's amber ones, "Maybe you should use it more often."
"Thank you," The now very red faced Sahara wriggled away from Botan and bowed to the group of girls causing Kagami to come bouncing off the bed towards her.
"Would you stop that?" Kagami said forcefully as she pushed Sahara back into a standing position, "How am I supposed to treat you like a normal person if you keep reverting back to your old princess habits?"
"Well, I guess you are right," Sahara said with a huge grin as she made her way to the door, "Now if you four don't mind, I'm going to head on to bed. Got to get up bright and early tomorrow."
"Sahara, remember this as you go to bed. Live life to the fullest, you never know when it's going to end!" Kagami said cheerily to her best friend as the other three girls said their goodnights.
Sahara stepped quietly into the hall making sure that she would courteous to those who might already be asleep. She smiled to herself as Kagami's words repeated themselves over and over again in her ears. It had been so long since she had heard Kagami's homemade saying that she had almost forgotten how it went.
However, her smile suddenly turned to a pain of fear as she began to hear Mukuro's cold, cruel words calling out to her as she lay in her bed that night. The words she had spoken to her on that night so very long ago, mixing with her request that she bring Kagami along for the dark tournament.
Sahara sank off into dreams that night, nightmares of the destruction of her people and the destruction of the only real family she had left in this world. And at the head of all the destruction that was unfold around her stood one woman. Her mechanical eye gazing throughout Sahara's dreams, as if focusing on every little detail of Sahara that made her worry. The nightmarish eye and the evil laughter that had long haunted her mind, haunted her very soul that entire night as she thought of what the next day would bring: The Dark Tournament.