Recap: Hiei believed that he was assimilating to life in paradise by merging with – or perhaps just becoming – that other Hiei, and he watched a video (given to him by Kurama) of Botan's initial defiance of spirit world in order to become his wife.
Chapter 29: That Other Hiei
Hiei yawned as he waited for the video to rewind. He had watched it seven times, but it had yet to lose its entertainment value. He was not sure which part he liked best: Botan's sarcasm, Koenma's squirming, Botan's new name for Koenma or the prolonged recording (some forty-five minutes or more) of Koenma's temper tantrum after Botan left his office to confront King Enma himself with her request. As he waited for the video to rewind, Hiei picked up the other video box at his side, eying it over, finding it suddenly far less appealing. He no longer really cared what it was that Hitoshi had said to stop the war in demon world from starting – in fact, he doubted that he ever had cared – though he was still mildly curious to see who had attended the speech and if they would be visible on the recording. A glance at the thin windows above his head told him it was approaching dawn, so he decided to watch the demon world video next before returning home: though he really wanted to just keep re-watching the spirit world video.
Hiei wondered then what Kurama's intentions had been by giving him the video. He still thought that the fox demon had been trying to make him feel guilty and confess his identity or else just leave the paradise reality, but, even after seven viewings, Hiei felt anything but guilt. In fact, he felt quite pleased with himself. He felt sure that he had done the right thing by returning to paradise and choosing to stay there and he felt even more confident about his relationship with Botan: and according to Botan on that video, even the guardian of fate had said that they were meant to be together one way or another.
The video stopped rewinding and Hiei was plunged into silence: and in that moment he remembered why the guardian of fate's name seemed significant. He had met her before. She was that erratic, bushy-haired woman Koenma had brought to the living world with him in the near miss reality. She had been ranting on about something being amiss there and Kurama and Koenma had decided that it was Hiei, and, although the whole situation had been quite annoying and inconvenient, Hiei had, deep down, accepted that the crazy bitch was right: he was out of place in that reality.
Hiei swapped the videos, starting the demon world video as he replaced the spirit world video to its box. Unlike the ridiculous four minutes of mindless self indulgence Koenma had taped onto the start of the spirit world video, the demon world video launched straight into the subject at hand, showing that noisy fox girl sat at her desk, looking inappropriately cheerful as she announced that the ambassador for Mukuro's territory had an important talk to deliver regarding the current eruption of terrorist activity across all sectors of demon world. Then Hitoshi – the ugly bastard that he was – stepped onto the screen, nodding politely at the fox demon and accepting her microphone from her.
"Denizens of demon world," he began, clutching the microphone by his mouth with one hand and making a grand hand gesture with the other.
Hiei paused the video to groan. Hitoshi was supposedly a genius, and the speech he had given had saved demon world from a devastating war: why then had he started it with such a ridiculous opening line as "denizens of demon world"?
"Idiot," Hiei sighed, pressing play again.
He sat, with one hand over half of his face, and watched as the famous ambassador spoke for over half an hour, making excessive hand gestures, all the while wondering why he wasted so many of his fancy words saying something that could have been said in less than five minutes.
Hiei twitched awake to the combined sounds of an alarm clock and Botan groaning at his side. He had successfully snuck his way back into bed with her in the early hours of the morning without anyone noticing his absence during the night, and since it had already been morning, he had allowed himself to sleep for the hour or so until Botan's alarm sounded. She started to move from the bed but before he had even fully opened his eyes Hiei sat up and grabbed his arms around her waist from behind, pulling her back down. She yelped and her arms flailed at her sides, but Hiei had a good hold of her and he easily controlled her drop back down onto the mattress at his side.
"Well good morning to you too," she said.
Hiei ignored the hint of sarcasm in her voice, instead keeping one arm locked around her and moving his other hand to her hair, pushing it aside to expose her neck. He then promptly bit down on her.
"Ow, Hiei!" she yelped.
He opened his jaws again and then began licking along the reddened dents he had left on her skin.
"Oh, Hiei!" she groaned, leaning into him.
He moved one hand under her chin, holding her head up, and slid his other hand up her body to her shoulder, slowly pulling down the strap of her night-gown, kissing his way along her shoulder as he went.
"Nng, Hiei…" she muttered.
When the seam of her nightdress started to tear she jerked slightly.
"Hiei, I don't have time for this right now!" she said. "I have to get Monzan up and ready for kindergarten."
"Kindergarten?" Hiei said, releasing her instantly.
"Yes," Botan replied, moving around to sit up.
"And he'll be gone for many hours then…" Hiei mused to himself.
"Yes, so just let me get him sorted out and then we can…"
Hiei looked up at Botan as she started to get out of bed. She stood up beside the bed, and for several seconds seemed to be pinned to the spot as she glanced back and forth between the door and Hiei.
"You're so mean to me sometimes, Hiei!" she moaned, frowning and pouting like Monzan did when he was told to stop eating cakes. "You know perfectly well that I feel just as frisky as you do first thing in the morning, and the longer I stay in bed, the worse it gets!"
Hiei could not stop his eyebrows from rising up in surprise at her words, and upon seeing his reaction she growled at him, which only served to surprise him further.
"And don't look at me like that!" she said. "It's like you think I'm being ridiculous!"
"No," Hiei corrected her. "I'm just surprised that you feel that way. Usually women don't feel that way at this time of day."
Botan gave Hiei a strange look, and for a moment he wondered if he had said something terribly wrong.
"I never used to feel this way at this time of day, Mister Hiei," she said tightly. "At least, not until I married you, that is. And then you started doing exactly what you just did a moment ago, and before long my body's clock of horniness started syncing up to yours!"
Hiei started to smirk and he allowed one eyebrow to twist upwards, at which Botan's anger faded into shocked indignation, and she snatched up a pillow, smacking him over the head with it.
"And don't look at me like that, either!" she wailed. "You know I can't resist you when you pull sexy faces at me!"
Hiei pushed the pillow aside in time to see Botan fleeing the room. He gave a "hn" and lay down onto his back, listening to Botan's feet scurrying around in a nearby room. After several frantic minutes she reappeared in the room in a dress and with her hair pinned haphazardly up around her head.
"Stop it!" she warned, pointing an accusing finger at Hiei, who had done no more than look in her direction.
He heard her hurriedly moving through the house and he began to frown when she veered in the wrong direction for Monzan's bedroom. Hiei wondered if he had confused her completely by trying to lure her into staying in bed longer, and he began to become confused himself when several minutes passed and still she did not go to Monzan's room. He could hear her moving about in the kitchen, and eventually he began to smell warm food being prepared. On instinct he got out of bed and started to follow the scent: after a night of no sleep and only coffee for sustenance he was quite hungry, after all.
As he approached the kitchen door it opened ahead of him and Hiei looked down to see Monzan stumbling into the room, still in his pyjamas, his eyes half-closed and his nose in the air.
Hiei sighed and followed after the boy, who went straight to the dining room and sat himself down at the table, rubbing sleepily at his eyes.
"Is this how you always wake him up?" Hiei called through to Botan as he approached the table. "With the smell of food?"
"Monzan likes to sleep and he doesn't get up without motivation," Botan called back. "He gets that from his father."
Hiei hesitated, an idea about going back into the kitchen and showing Botan that he was anything but lacking in motivation passing through his mind, but as he saw Monzan smiling up at him he found the strength to restrain himself and he sat down at the table. Botan shortly joined them, placing down bowls of steaming hot miso soup in front of them.
"Remember honey, this isn't a race, so take your time," she said as she sat down.
"Hn, I'm not an idiot," Hiei scoffed.
"I was speaking to our son," Botan said, smiling to herself in amusement. "He sometimes plays a game with Yusuke, it's like a drinking game, but with water, and it's taught him bad habits about drinking down anything too quickly."
Hiei nodded and picked up his own bowl, taking a slow sip just in case. Botan started commenting on how nice she thought it was to have her family eat breakfast together, but Hiei was too distracted to really concentrate on what she was saying: a lock of her hair had fallen loose from its ties, hanging down one side of her face and curling slightly at the ends, and for some reason it was having an almost hypnotic effect on him. He started to think about pulling loose the rest of her hair, something about the idea of it being wild and free appealing to him in more ways than one. He was almost glad when she left the table with Monzan because it allowed him to eat without the distraction: though he found himself concentrating on listening to his wife and son as they moved about the house together, the sounds of their voices oddly comforting to him. Until they started arguing over a hairbrush.
Hiei stood up from the table, debating whether he ought to interrupt or if he just wanted to stay out of it, and as he was trying to decide he heard movement by the front door. Glad of the distraction, Hiei started towards to door, stopping as he reached the entranceway and Kuwabara stepped inside the house.
"Morning Hiei," he said.
"Kazuma," Hiei replied with a nod.
Hiei turned around and started back into the house, but his stride became a little erratic and he felt his eyes widen as he realised what he had just said. As he walked back towards the dining area he wondered what the hell a "kazuma" was – and as he reached the table he finally remember that it was name Yukina called Kuwabara. Hiei was not even sure how he knew that Kuwabara's first name was Kazuma, much less why he had just addressed him by it.
It was that other Hiei. That other Hiei was slowly taking over his mind. Hiei was unsure if that was a good thing or not: becoming that other Hiei meant he should be able to stay in paradise indefinitely, but it also meant becoming that other Hiei, and Hiei hated that other Hiei.
"Uh, are you okay?"
Hiei turned his head sharply, glaring at Kuwabara, who was giving him a strange look.
"You just called me Kazuma," he said slowly. "And now you're sweating and muttering to yourself."
"It's very hot in here!" Hiei snapped irritably. "And I always call you Kazuma. It's to differentiate between… It's because of the… It was when the… Why are you here?"
"…To take Monzan to kindergarten?"
"Well get on with it then!"
Kuwabara looked about himself before shrugging.
"I guess he's not ready yet," he concluded.
Hiei touched a hand to the side of his face, alarmed to feel that he was actually sweating just as Kuwabara had told him he was. Did that mean that the other thing he had said was true too: had he also been muttering to himself?
"I'm going outside," Hiei said abruptly. "To… Cool down…"
"Okay…" Kuwabara said, watching him leave with a curious frown.
Hiei ignored him, hurrying out of the house and down to the ground, quickly taking himself to the temple beyond, with the intention of dunking himself into one of the ponds there. As he neared the temple he noticed that Yukina was sat on the steps, still fully engrossed in the book she had been reading lately, but for some reason, Hiei found himself interested in the book that morning. He stopped and turned to face her, squinting over at the cover of the book. It was littered with foreign writing, but it was not the text that had caught his interest, rather it was the person pictured beneath it. His curiosity peaked, Hiei started towards Yukina, who did not notice his approach until his shadow fell over her, at which point she jumped slightly and gasped before breaking into a smile as her eyes found his.
"Oh, brother, good morning!" she said. "You startled me! I've almost finished reading this book. It's the first book I've read in English, and I managed it in under a week!"
Hiei nodded, though he had not really paid any attention to what she had said as his attention was still focused on the book she held.
"…It's a shame it was so boring…" she added. "I thought it might be an exciting book because it's his life story and he's such a big celebrity, but it was very boring…"
"I recognise that person," Hiei eventually realised out loud, pointing a finger at the cover of the book.
Yukina peered over the top of the pages, smiling as she saw what he was pointing to.
"Of course you do!" she said, looking up at Hiei. "He's the owner of the lodge! He's the man who gave Kazuma his first big job after seeing the tree-house! He's asked Kazuma to build another house for him, that's why we're travelling again soon."
Hiei started to sweat again. He genuinely did recognise the face of the man on the cover of Yukina's book, and it seemed like the only explanation for that could be that he was becoming that other Hiei, since it was something that only that other Hiei would know.
"We're going to America," Yukina added. "We'll be there for some time, so I want to be able to read English too, not just speak it."
Hiei sweated some more. Even that sounded familiar. In fact, a small part of him wanted to tell her that he already knew that she was going to America with Kuwabara.
"Kuwabara is terrible at packing a suitcase, and he gets stopped by security at an airport," Hiei said, the words leaving his mouth as the thought entered his mind.
It had been a worryingly clear thought, though again Hiei had no idea where it had originated from.
"Yes, that's right!" Yukina said, laughing at his words. "Do you remember when we went to France? We missed our flight because Kazuma had to open his suitcase at security! It was so funny! They were very kind at that airport and gave us a refund on our flights because of the inconvenience, but it really was Kazuma's fault for making such a terrible job of packing his suitcase!"
"Why would I know that?"
Yukina's smile dropped. Hiei knew that he should not have asked her that question, but he was completely at a loss to answer it himself, and he was starting to become desperate: surely someone must know what was happening to his mind, and Yukina was just as likely to know as anyone else.
"B-because you remember me telling you about it before?" she offered.
Hiei nodded, though her answer did only seem to confirm that he was becoming that other Hiei: which was something he was not really sure that he wanted. He realised then though that Yukina was not the best person to discuss his concerns with, and so he decided to say no more on the matter. Yukina forced a smile and then went back to reading her book and so Hiei turned away from her, starting back home. On his way there he met Kuwabara and Monzan walking towards him, and it was arguable which one was talking more excitedly.
"Behave yourself today," Hiei warned as he passed them.
"Yes, daddy," Monzan said back.
"I wasn't talking to you, son," Hiei said, smirking to himself as Kuwabara cried out in complaint.
And as he walked on, Hiei wondered when he had started enjoying joking around with Kuwabara. Something very strange was definitely going on, and he was still undecided how he felt about it and how he intended to deal with it: but when he arrived back at the tree-house and found Botan removing the clips from her hair and letting it fall down around her shoulders his mind went blank and he headed straight for her, grabbing her into his arms and burying his face into her hair. She started to say something but her words became scratchy and incoherent as Hiei tore his way through her dress and his fingers reached her thighs. As he moved his hands higher her voice was reduced to an almost pleading moan and she leaned back against him in what he took to be a sign of submission.
He made short work of tearing off the remainder of her clothes and lowering her to the ground, wrapping his arms around her legs and taking one last look at the curious and desirous expression on her face before proceeding to remind her why she felt that way about him.
Hiei gently lay Botan down on their bed and began removing his own clothes, smirking as he saw her eyes watching his every moment, her face still flushed and her chest still heaving from what he had done to her in the kitchen. She had seemed fully satisfied but he could tell that she was still keen for more, and as he was yet to get his own release, his desire had almost reached the point where he could no longer control himself. He gladly shed the remainder of his clothes and crawled onto the bed, reaching out his hands towards her.
"Hello?"
Hiei froze at the sound of a voice calling into the house from the doorway.
"Oh…" Botan whispered, looking a little disappointed. "You're going back to demon world with Yusuke today?"
"…Fuck…" Hiei muttered as he remembered then that he was meant to be doing just that.
He growled in frustration, but the sound of Yusuke walking into the house and the thought of him seeing Botan naked sobered him slightly, and he reluctantly started to drag himself back from his wife.
"What are you doing?" Botan snapped, grabbing his wrists and pulling him back.
"Going to demon world?" he responded.
"You're going to just leave me like this?" she asked, looking suddenly angry. "You can't do that! Finish what you started!"
"Finish what I…" he began, his face twisting in confusion. "You got what you wanted, I'm the one who needs finishing!"
"I know that! So finish!"
"But what about…?"
Hiei's frown deepened as Botan's pull on his wrists became surprisingly strong.
"Hiei?" Yusuke called through to him. "Come on already!"
"Do you want him to see us like this?" Hiei hissed.
Botan's eyes took on an almost fearsome look and she did something Hiei thought he might never recover from.
"Fuck off Yusuke, we're busy!"
Hiei heard Yusuke mutter out a few complaints, but he moved away again, eventually leaving out the front door.
"There we are!" Botan said sweetly. "That should have bought us half an hour or so."
Hiei stared down at her in disbelief.
"Did you just tell Yusuke to…?" he muttered.
"Oh sweetie, it worked didn't it?" she said, pulling harder at his wrists.
"But…"
"Hiei, shut-up and get back down here. Now."
Hiei let her pull him down then, though inwardly he was still shocked at her outburst. Apparently she really did find it impossible to resist him, he thought.
Hiei moved to the railings on the porch of his house, looking down at the ground below, where he found Yusuke sat against a tree, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. Hiei sighed and then leapt down to where he was sat. As Hiei landed, Yusuke opened one eye and looked up at him expectantly.
"Are you done yet?" he asked.
Hiei growled at him and Yusuke grinned, opening his other eye.
"You do know that those walls aren't soundproofed, right?" Yusuke asked, standing up.
Hiei faltered slightly and Yusuke's grin widened.
"And you're at the top of a hill here, so it kinda broadcasts out in every direction," Yusuke continued.
He sighed and shook his head.
"It's your kid I feel sorry for," he said.
"Shut-up," Hiei grumbled.
"That shit could scar a kid for life," Yusuke muttered.
"I said shut-up!" Hiei snapped. "Let's just go to this stupid meeting!"
Yusuke shrugged and started to say something else sarcastic and unnecessary, and so Hiei turned with the intention of leaving without him, only to grunt out a noise of surprise and stumble to a halt when he noticed another figure standing leaning against a nearby tree.
"I thought I might sit in on the meeting today. I hope you don't mind, Hiei."
As Kurama pushed himself off of the tree and turned to Hiei at his last remark, he gave him a glare that directly contradicted the light and easy tone of his voice.
"I don't care what you do," Hiei lied, keeping his face as disinterested as he possibly could: though on the inside he was growing increasingly alarmed by Kurama's presence.
"Then let's go already," Yusuke said. "You've kept us waiting long enough, you randy little bastard…"
Hiei stiffened as he realised that, according to Yusuke's use of the term "kept us waiting", Kurama had also been outside the tree-house the whole time that Yusuke had, and presumably he had also overhead everything that Yusuke had too: and although Hiei had not really cared about Yusuke overhearing what he had been doing that morning, he was quite concerned at the thought of Kurama having heard it. After all, Kurama obviously preferred that other Hiei, and he probably thought that what Hiei was doing was forcing Botan into some form of infidelity.
"It's a lovely morning," Kurama said lightly. "The wait wasn't so bad."
His last words only confirmed Hiei's fears and so he ran off, not wishing to see the look on Kurama's face when he turned his way. He followed the same route Yusuke had taken him the day before, eventually bringing himself back to Yusuke's tower, where he slowed to wait for the others to catch up to him, as he did not wish to join the group he could see waiting for them at the same location as the day before: even though he knew that he should be able to trust them, Hiei still could not think of them as anything other than the enemy soldiers of an opposing army who wanted him dead (which was, of course, what they were in his own reality).
"Damn Hiei, I'm surprised you still had the energy to get here so fast," Yusuke said as he caught up to Hiei.
"Hn," Hiei plainly replied, looking back the way for Kurama's inevitable approach.
"You're a really lucky bastard, you know that?"
Kurama was still some distance away, but at Yusuke's last words, Hiei forgot all about the fox and his concerns with him.
"I'm not lucky!" he snapped.
"Yeah you are," Yusuke replied. "I know you always say you make your own luck and you don't believe in leaving things to chance, but you are lucky to have a woman who actually wants you in the morning."
Hiei could not really answer Yusuke, mostly because he knew that he was right: Hiei did not believe in luck, he did not like to leave things to chance and yet having a woman who was as keen to get her hands on him as he was to get his hands on her first thing in the morning was lucky.
"That is one thing Keiko never does for me," Yusuke said with a sigh. "Even when the school's out for summer and I'm on a day off, and neither of us have to get up for work. She'll lie in bed with me for hours if I want her to, but she gets so damn self-righteous and bitchy if I try anything. She just lies there in those stupid pyjamas that button all the way up to her chin… Damn…"
Hiei frowned slightly as he saw a strange look pass over Yusuke's face, and he found himself wondering if he had just stumbled across another slight flaw in paradise: perhaps Yusuke and Keiko were not so perfectly happy there as he had originally thought they were.
"I love Keiko," Yusuke said. "I always have. But sometimes I just wish she would let go a little. She can be quite uptight sometimes, and she's always trying to keep up her image as the professional woman who's always in control… She'd probably enjoy herself a lot more if she would just relax and give it up some of the time…"
Hiei snorted before he could stop himself, and then felt almost relieved when Kurama joined them, as it saved him from having to explain himself to Yusuke, who was glaring at him angrily for his outburst. There was, of course, nothing funny about what Yusuke had just said: but for some strange reason, the irony of it, combined with insufficient sleep and too much caffeine and pain made Hiei want to laugh. After all, in his own reality, Keiko had long ago given up maintaining "her image as the professional woman who's always in control", and she was anything but enjoying herself for it.
"Why don't you go ahead and start the meeting, and we'll join you shortly," Kurama said to Yusuke.
Hiei tensed as Kurama dropped a hand onto his shoulder and gripped into him a little too tightly.
"Um, okay…" Yusuke said slowly, his eyes on Kurama's hand. "Sure…"
He paused for several seconds, his eyes still on Kurama's hand, before he turned and started off across the yard. Once he was comfortably out of earshot Kurama turned to Hiei.
"I trust you've had time to watch the video I gave you last night," he said. "And I see that you're still carrying it on you."
"I couldn't exactly leave it lying around the house," Hiei sarcastically replied. "Botan would have known what it was instantly."
"Yes, well, I need to return it before it's missed," Kurama said.
"Fine," Hiei said, retrieving the video from his shirt.
Kurama accepted the video and quickly concealed it beneath his clothes with the ease of a seasoned larcenist.
"And you did watch it?" he asked quietly.
"Many times," Hiei replied, smirking slightly as his favourite scenes from the video replayed in his mind.
"Good," Kurama said. "Now before you return home I have a question for you: the last time you were here you told me that in your reality I had returned to demon world and taken my full demon form once more, so then what became of this body, the body of Shuichi?"
"He stayed behind in the living world," Hiei replied, feeling a little surprised and confused by Kurama's question. "He told his mother about you and all your adventures and she had him committed to an insane asylum because she thought he was crazy."
"I see," Kurama said, nodding slowly. "Have you ever spoken to him?"
Hiei eyed Kurama over, wanting to ask him why he was so interested in Shuichi all of a sudden: but as he saw that Kurama appeared to have eased off from trying to chase him out of paradise, he decided not to push the matter and simply to go along with answering Kurama's questions.
"Yes," he said. "I visited him in the hospital. Twice. The first time I went because his mother found me and made me go."
"How is my mother is your reality?" Kurama asked. "I've always been very close to her, and when you told me that I had returned to demon world permanently in your reality I wondered how it had affected her."
Hiei shrugged. He did not really know or care what had become of Shuichi's mother. She was alive, she was still moving around on her own and she had seemed mentally stable and coherent the day she had taken him to visit Shuichi, so he had to assume that she was alright.
"She seems fine," he said. "I suppose she wishes that Shuichi wasn't in that hospital, but otherwise she's just the same as she always was."
"What about my stepfather?" Kurama asked.
"Who?" Hiei responded.
"My stepfather? My mother's husband?"
"I don't know, I didn't see him."
"Really?"
Hiei felt that Kurama was almost accusing him of lying, which was completely unwarranted, as he had just been completely honest with him. He had not seen Shuichi's stepfather and so he had no clue what had become of him. Kurama was being unreasonable, since Hiei genuinely was ignorant to the facts about Shuichi's stepfather in the norm reality.
Or maybe not.
"Fuck," Hiei muttered under his breath.
"I didn't think it would be good," Kurama said, sounding far too calm and knowing for Hiei's liking. "Though obviously it's not important to you, since it took you so long to remember…"
"I never saw him, it was just something that Shuichi said to me!" Hiei snapped angrily. "I forgot about it until now because it was just something that he said when we were comparing this reality to our own reality!"
"What did he say?" Kurama pressed.
"He said that he worries about his mother because his stepfather left her because he couldn't handle what had become of Shuichi and the fact that his mother became depressed after he was hospitalised. He said he worried about her being on her own."
Kurama nodded and finally removed his hand from Hiei's shoulder.
"It fascinates me that so much about my life and the life of those around me depends on you, Hiei," he said.
"It's not my fault that other reality turned out wrong!" Hiei said defensively: though he knew it was a lie.
"Perhaps not entirely," Kurama said, much to his surprise. "You couldn't have known that overlooking Botan would have had such an impact on all of our lives over time. And I suppose if Mukuro were to send me to another reality, I might find one even worse than the one you came from: after all, our lives are all intertwined, and it only takes one thread to come loose for the whole tapestry to fall apart."
"Very poetic," Hiei said sarcastically.
"I was trying to offer you some advice you may find useful in your own dimension," Kurama flatly replied. "Now let's not leave the others waiting."
Hiei rolled his eyes and then followed Kurama up to the balcony where Yusuke and his men were waiting to reconvene the meeting from the day before. When they arrived they found the same group from the day before, all sat on the ground except for Yusuke.
"Okay, let's try this again," Yusuke said as they joined him. "What are we going to do about that valley? I think we should take a vote, first off. All those in favour of blasting it?"
Yusuke held up his hand, as did most of the rest of his men.
"And those against blasting it?" he asked.
Hiei raised his hand, and he was surprised to see that Kurama did too, along with three of Yusuke's men.
"Okay, it's pretty much fifty-fifty then," Yusuke said with a sigh. "I guess that means we've got to talk it out…"
Yusuke sat down on the ground in the partial circle the others were sat in and Hiei and Kurama sat down with him. Hiei found himself between Yusuke and Kurama, and he could not decide if he felt more secure next to them or not: he still could not shake the idea that everyone around him wanted him dead, and he supposed that was a part of the norm reality that would never truly leave him no matter what he did or how long he stayed in paradise.
"Well the way I see it is this: we've lost four merchants in the last two months through ambushes from the valley," Yusuke began. "I don't care about what was stolen, but I don't like needless slaughtering like that, especially not on a road that ought to safe for everyone to use. So I think that–"
Yusuke stopped short as the two guards at the gates of his tower began yelling frantically. He looked back over his shoulder with a frown and eventually Hiei and Kurama looked back too. From their vantage point it was difficult to tell exactly what had happened, but the guards seemed to be trying to catch something down at their feet.
"Probably just another snake," Yusuke concluded, turning back to the others.
"They seem quite riled, are you sure?" Kurama asked him.
Yusuke shrugged.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure they can handle it," he said.
"Maybe it's someone from the valley coming to protest this meeting," one of his men suggested.
"How would they know we're having this meeting?" another asked him.
The others all began arguing the point, but Hiei was still looking down at the yard below and too distracted by the ensuing ruckus there to care. He could sense what was really happening down there, but what he was sensing seemed ridiculous, and so he was trying to visually confirm or refute it. With the clouds of dust the guards and their apparent intruder were kicking up, it was almost impossible to clearly see anything. He could barely make out the guards growing increasingly confused and eventually one of them falling over and the intruder darting away from them. Hiei grew increasingly anxious when a line of dust clouds shot across the yard towards the stairs leading to the balcony he was sat on, and as the dust began to settle and sounds of an approach began to reach his ears, Hiei gave up trying to deny what was happening, as absurd and inexplicable as it seemed.
Monzan had just appeared in demon world.
"Hey, what the hell is he doing here?" Yusuke asked, looking back over his shoulder as the familiar shape of the spiky-haired boy began to become clearer, scaling the steps towards them. "Isn't he supposed to be in school right now?"
"I have a bad feeling about this," Kurama muttered.
Hiei doubted that Kurama could be feeling as bad as he did right then: something was clearly amiss as it made no sense that Monzan would run away from kindergarten and enter demon world, least of all that he should come to Yusuke's tower. As he drew nearer Hiei started to feel panicked, torn between anger and fear as he saw that the boy looked extremely distressed and almost wild. He heard voices muttering questions around him but he ignored them all, swivelling around to face the steps and barely managing to open his arms in time to catch Monzan as he launched himself at him.
On instinct Hiei closed his arms around his son, holding onto him as he cried into his shoulder and started wailing out indecipherable nonsense. The boy was still dressed as he had been when he had left for kindergarten that morning, but his bandana was absent and he had been running so fast and hard that he had run through the soles of his shoes and his feet were scratched and swollen.
"What the hell happened to him?" Yusuke asked. "Was it those kids at the kindergarten? He's usually pretty tough against humans, one of them must have hit him with a chair to leave a mark like that!"
Hiei tensed, wondering what Yusuke was referring to.
"And look at this," Kurama said, pointing at something over Hiei's shoulder. "A wound like that could only have been caused by a talisman. This is a very bad sign."
Hiei had heard enough. He forgot his fears and simply became angry. He grabbed Monzan's shoulders and wrenched him back, holding him at arm's length and eying him over carefully. His bottom lip was burst open and one side of his mouth was turning blue and swelling and the right sleeve of his sweater was torn off, and he did, as Kurama had already pointed out, clearly have a wound from a talisman card.
"Who did this to you?" Hiei asked him in a low voice.
Monzan babbled out a bunch of incoherent syllables before sobbing into his hands.
"It must have been somebody seriously strong," Yusuke whispered to Hiei. "Even though he's like that now, he just got past my guards."
"Who did this to you, boy?" Hiei demanded, his anger only rising at Yusuke's words.
"There's a bad man there!" Monzan replied, before once more dissolving into talking nonsense.
"There?" Hiei pressed. "Where? At your kindergarten?"
"No," Monzan moaned. "I was outside playing and I used my special eye to look for mommy, she said I'm not supposed to, but you said I had to look after her when you go to demon world so I was looking for her and I saw her crying and there was a bad man there so I went to fight him but I couldn't get there because there were two other bad men in the forest and they were too strong so you have to come home and make the bad man stop making mommy cry!"
Hiei felt his mind go blank and, for the first time in a long time, he was filled with an uncontrollable blood lust. Whoever had done this to his son and was hurting his wife was going to die very painfully. He put his arms around Monzan, pulling him flush against his chest and then rose to his feet, only pausing when Kurama grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt.
"Tread carefully, Hiei," he said. "This is a time for diplomacy, not bloodshed."
"Fuck diplomacy, it never achieves anything," Hiei growled, before jerking his shoulder forwards and tugging his shirt free of Kurama's hold.
He tightened his hold of Monzan and then took off, running as fast and hard as he could, his mind devoid of all but one thought as he travelled back home: how he was going to make whoever had dared do this suffer.
Next Chapter: The noose is getting tighter for Hiei as someone else has discovered his little secret, and this time it's not someone who intends to be discreet about it. Hiei learns something significant about his second son and the issue of "that other Hiei" is starting to consume his every thought to the point of irrationality. Chapter 30 – Conflicting Loyalties
