I apologize now for the confusion.


What's This Shit?!

Me'ran's ankles are crossed and her hands are folded behind her head, and she's leaning in her favorite corner, admiring the sky. Hiei's not here, Kurama's not here, it's a nice day, everything's quiet, and it's all really nice.

Then she hears footsteps coming up the stairs inside. She tries to feel out who it is. Kurama.

"It's not that late in the day, is it? Why are you here?" she asks as he comes through the door. She sits up a little better and leans against her knees. "Hiei's not up here. I'm feeling pretty good, so suicide isn't a risk."

"I know," he says slowly. "After I explained to Sawada-sensei, I excused myself as well. I told him I wanted to keep an eye on you, in your frail condition. However, as to why I am really here, I simply wanted to spend time with you is all. If we cannot be... together, I at least want to be friends."

"Or a second choice," Me'ran counters, crossing her legs Indian style.

"I was less hopeful on that, but I would like to be, yes," he confesses after a second with a wry smile.

"No," she tells him firmly. The smile drops instantly, but he doesn't look too hurt. Daunted, but not hurt.

"Why not?" he asks in nearly-whining tones. Well, to be honest, since it's Kurama, it's more like slightly curious and faintly annoyed than whining, but it's safe to assume that Kurama hasn't used a whiny tone since he was old enough to talk.

"It's not just him that's keeping us separate. Told you. You're like my grandmother. You try to take care of me and you worry and stuff," she sighs.

"You never were one for protection," he admits with the smile returning. It looks bitter, now, though.

"Nope. Not me," Me'ran agrees pleasantly. "I liked playing with those plants with you, though."

He doesn't say anything for a minute. She can tell he's trying to think of what he wants to say. Or maybe he knows and just can't word it right. She almost starts talking, but he beats her to it, and starts a conversation.

"Your birthday is next month. A month from yesterday," he says smoothly, simply. But he's hinting at something.

"Yeah. Yours is sometime around now, isn't it?" she asks.

"How did you know that?" he asks, mocking surprise. He meant to do that. He didn't expect her to guess that right off the bat, he thought he'd have to tell her, but his surprise is still false.

"You're a Scorpio. Scorpio-Libra cusp, if I had to guess. So. Today's the twenty fifth. Two days ago at least, right?" she offers lightly, giving little airy movements with her hands. "Your dropping that subtle hint alone was a Scorpio move."

He smiles a little wider. This one's genuine—he knows she's not pulling off what he was trying to talk about, now. She gathered birthdays, but whatever he really wants is still unknown. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, the Western zodiac is more narrowed down, and I know the pieces surrounding my own. Libra appreciate things that are beautiful, and if they're not, they fix them to be that way. They love beauty. And they take great pride in their appearance. The well-groomed bright red, long hair kind of shows that one up. Scorpio, on the other hand, are passionate and cold at once. They're manipulative, and they're usually tactical geniuses. They play with their emotions, rather than letting their emotions play with them. They're usually merciless, too, and their faces rarely show anything useful, even when their feelings are kicking serious ass. Compared to water, deep water, calm surface with a dangerous undertow."

He smiles. "It was four days ago. You're very good."

"Japs don't do birthdays, then?"

"Not after our tenth. Well, we do, but we don't make nearly the deal you Yanks do."

"'Yanks'. That's so silly. You know, my part of the country, the south, we don't call ourselves that, and they insult each other with it."

"Pardon my ignorance. Why?" he inquires, shifting a little and leaning his head to one side in a quirky expression. Kurama's acting odd...

"It's like being called an Osakan. Or whatever derogatory word you have for them," she answers simply, looking at him, trying to make her face look less amused and more impatient.

"Ah," he says, nodding. "I have a request. I know I didn't have anything of a party. But I would like a gift from you." Oh, good, he took the hint.

"What is it?" she asks him, curling back up, putting her chin on her knees. She'd been offered enough time to guess it, but she doesn't feel like being wrong, so she keeps her trap shut.

He moves closer and kneels in front of her. His face is close to hers--so close that she can feel his breath on her knees and chin. She starts to ask him if it's what she thinks.

"I won't ask you to kiss me," he says, anticipating the question she's already opened her mouth to ask, "but I would like it if you would allow me to kiss you. Please."

This gives Me'ran pause. She doesn't know what to do or say. Her mouth closes a second.

"Hiei'll get mad," she says, finally.

"He'll just kidnap you and take you back to demon world. You seem to like it better there, anyway. You don't have to do anything. It doesn't have to mean anything to you. It would mean the world for me, if you would just... allow..."

He creeps closer to her. Already, she's decided that she's going to let him, out of sheer kindness. She has hurt him enough.

She puts her legs down and leans closer to him and closes her eyes. His lips brush hers, first, and then presses to them more firmly, but still so gently that she's hardly aware of it. Already, she knows how much it's been killing him to do this--she can feel that he truly means this, and how much he's showing her through it. It's very different from kissing Hiei--he's so gentle about it, almost girly, and his lips are softer, where Hiei is almost violent with his kisses.

She stays perfectly still, barely leaving any space in her lips, but Kurama doesn't seem to mind this. He sucks on the girl's lips very tenderly, but he keeps his tongue in his own mouth, and he doesn't even open his own mouth very far. She feels the hand he's not using to support himself touch at her neck and creep into her hair, and he keeps himself close, until, after a long time, he sits back. He tasted like hundreds of years and the smell of flowers and plants, which confuses her. She's not sure how to react. She sits back on her haunches and he scoots back a bit.

"You're pretty good, where'd you learn to do that?" she asks him with a soft smile.

He blushes a bright color, but doesn't answer, being either too abashed or shy.

"I'm not sure which one to be more touched by," a voice says. It's not Hiei, which is good, but Kurama still ducks a little.

The figure behind Kurama is tall and thick with strangely curled ears and low earlobes. He's got four arms, too. His tail is cat-like and lashing behind him. He's against the sun so she can't see anything else about him.

"Do you have business with her or me?" Kurama asks as he rises to his feet. Me'ran follows his lead.

"I've not met you," she mutters softly, moving so she can see him better. Kurama stays in front of her defensively, despite how he's probably more vulnerable than she is. The demon flares his youki in an attempt to frighten Kurama. Her heart rate rises, and she pulls Kurama back. She pulls herself onto the wall.

"Me'ran, be careful!" Kurama snaps as she walks along it a little ways.

"I have to have intentions to kill myself if I want to die, calm down," she assures him, still moving. "He's malicious. You should run."

Hiei lands on the outbuilding over the stairs.

"I thought I smelled something foul," he spits. "What the hell's been going on, here?"

"Hi, Hiei," Me'ran sings, voice wavering with her nervousness. The as-far nameless demon gets impatient and moves for Me'ran, running to the wall and starting to attack. She jumps over him and lands behind him. Her ankle twists funny, and she staggers, but she keeps running. Kurama follows her.

"Friend, Hiei?" she asks as she sidles up to the pissed off fire demon.

"No," he answers. "And when we defeat him, you and I are going to have a talk," he adds vehemently.

"Foe?" she asks after stifling a giggle. "And if you think we need to talk, you need to remember that I've got those really irritating moral codes."

"He's not a foe I remember," he says after a minute. Then there's an explosion of movement. Kurama calls Me'ran's name, distracting her, at the same time the monster lunges for her, and there's a flash of green as Kurama's whip slices through the air. Hiei starts to jump out of the way, and Me'ran slides on the ground out of the way, but then Hiei gets caught blind-sided by Kurama's whip, distracting him. "FOX!" Hiei barks angrily, retreating to the ground. But then the monster, while he was cut by the whip, seizes Hiei's robe, which knocks him off balance, and then Hiei's ankle is seized and he's slung into the ground. Me'ran starts for them, seeing the way the blood splattered when Hiei's head hit the ground. Kurama grabs her wrists as she starts to run, and he keeps a firm hold.

"LET GO OF ME!" she roars.

"Are you that desperate to die?" he demands, twisting her arm and doing something with his grip in the other arm that freezes her. She can no longer move without causing herself intense pain.

"HIEI!" she shrieks, looking over her shoulder for the bastard that has Hiei and Hiei himself. She wants to hurt Kurama, make him let go, but she's not sure how. She finally head butts him. He lets go for the shock, and she stunned him with that blow to the head enough that he doesn't grab her again. She runs for Hiei and gets caught and thrown by one of the two hands of the monster that isn't holding Hiei. Her back hits the wall, and she starts to go through it. Kurama grabs her ankle and pulls her back and pulls her to her feet.

"Let's get going, Kisho!" a foreign voice calls from inside the building. Me'ran chases after him and Hiei as he goes down the stairs and through a wall, but when she hits the wall they went through, she just hits wall. Kurama takes hold of her arm as she starts to punch it.

"Don't hurt yourself, you need your hands," he says calmly, staring at the wall.

"The fuck was that about!?" she screams. She kicks the wall instead of hitting it, too, and swears at it in English. Kurama pulls her back by the hand he never let go of, drawing her toward him. She turns her anger to him, now, almost moving to hit him, but she tames herself enough to leave it at cussing him. "The fuck did you hold me back for, I could have taken him out, knocked him--"

"You don't know enough about sensing youki to know how strong he was, you did not know what powers he had, and you didn't know if he was one of your kind or not. If he had tried to kill you, you could have died. You've already reopened the wounds on your back," he snaps coldly, showing her the hand he had on her back and the blood that leaked onto it.

"Are you BRAIN DEAD?! I'm not stupid enough to get killed in a fight I know I'm getting into! I'd have died for him anyway; I'd die for any of you! I'd die for all of you!"

"All the more reason to keep you from doing something stupid. Come, now--we can talk to Koenma--he can help us."

Me'ran sits down for a second. Kurama moves behind her to look at the back of her uniform, probably checking for the bloodstains. He finds one, she guesses. She feels him put a seed into the back of her uniform, and she feels it weaving into the fabric. She takes off the jacket and lets him do the same for the A-line under it.

"Thank you," he says. "I'm sorry, but it would be better if we behaved rationally."

"Shut up. Are those plants done sucking the blood out of my shirts?"

"I think that you're still bleeding," he says after a second. She sighs, then pulls the plant off her back and tosses it down, and pulls her jacket back on. "Keep your jacket on to hide the remaining blood," he says after he recognizes the impatience. "I know where Koenma works. We can find him there. He will be able to help us."

"Agreed," she sighs. He stands and offers his hand to help her up. She ignores it, then gets up and slaps him in the back and follows him down the stairs, cussing all the way down.


This was not one of my better fight-things.

In essence--All three combatants moved at once. Kurama nearly got Hiei and distracted him. Hiei got grabbed and knocked out. Meru freaked, Kurama grabbed Meru. Meru escapes Kurama, guy throws Meru, Kurama saves Meru, Guy escapes.