Time seemed to stop for a few heart beat at the sight of Nishi dangling in the air over the expansive front hall with Five's sword against her neck and hand wrapped around her hair. All it would take to kill her would be to let go of her hair. Hiei dropped his blade, trying to come up with some plan, any plan now to save her.
The rock mage shook his head, brandishing his own sword. "Kill her. Kill a woman. See if I care," he said boldly.
Five smiled down at him at that. Hiei rounded on the rock mage, punching him the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He struck him again, this time across the side of the neck, extra certain to knock him out. He was tempted kill him for good measure, but he had to remember the rock mage, was not the real enemy in the room. He was on his own with three ice maidens and no one to help Nishi. He sensed back into her boy's room. Her boy was barely conscious, and the wind mage was frozen from the inside out, dead. The wolf healer was on the bed, shivering and trying to help the mute whose son was on the verge of being born.
He turned back to Five, but kept his eyes on One and Three left in the room. "He's dropped his weapon, let her go." He reached into her boy's mind. 'Get up, we need you.' he demanded.
"On your knees," One demanded. He complied, knowing what these two were planning. He would not let them carry out.
Her boy stirred, pulling himself back into consciousness. He felt a gnawing hunger in his gut. 'I can't,' he said, pushing his upper body off the ground.
Hiei kept himself stoic, but stayed in her boy's mind. 'Get up! Get up or your mother will die!' he shoved the real time image of Nishi dangling over the ledge with a sword on her neck.
'Mother!' her boy thought and said out loud in his room.
'If you don't want her to die, get down here!' Hiei shouted mentally, ending the conversation at that. His head pounded fiercely. He could barely sense anything from that, but he could sense her boy on the move, hopefully he would be fast enough.
"Hands on the ground, hang your head low," One ordered him.
When he did so, he heard the trill of laughter loosed by Three. "So compliant. All over a woman. Men have such extraordinary weaknesses." He saw her lift up her own sword above her heard. Everything went so tense in that moment. Time seemed to slow down.
Her boy made it. Hiei sensed him, looking up at Nishi. A blurry image of her boy barreled into Five, forcing all three of them to fall from the ledge. Hiei launched himself from his crouch on the ground, sprinting full speed towards the three of them, aiming himself at Nishi, eyes only on her. He caught her, but felt a sharp pain delve into his leg. It crumbled beneath him, making the two of them roll and tumble on the ground in a tangled mess. When they finally stilled, he was on top of her, pain dwelling up in his thigh.
He looked down at her. She pulled herself away from him, curling up in a ball. Her neck and fingers were still bleeding. The front of her neck and chest was soaked with blood. Without a healer, it was deadly wound. He looked back at her boy, about ready to call him over.
What he saw made him want to panic. Her boy was fighting, ice sword out with impeccable speed, fighting the three remaining ice maidens. The only problem was he had black wings across his back, and black pits where his eyes should be. He fell. Her boy fell...
Nishi shook near him. The room was also too cold for her to survive long term. Her neck... "No, come here," he said, pulling her onto her back. He raised himself up over her by his left arm. Her neck... the blood half froze as it was flowing out. "Fuck," he swore. He was not a healer, and from what he could see of her boy, he was no longer one either. The wolf healer was still alive. She just had to live long enough to get to her. He raised his right hand up, feeling hellfire crackle against it. Her eyes went wide at the sight of it, her fear of it very real. She tried to squirm away, kicking him in the leg with the sword in it. He gritted his teeth. "This is going to hurt, but you'll survive this way." He reached down and grabbed her under her chin, cauterizing the wound.
He remembered what the burning felt like when he was trying to tame his dragon years ago, and he could hardly fathom what it would feel on her. At least she would survive long enough to get her to the wolf healer. If her boy did not turn on them once he was through with the ice maidens first.
She screamed over and over again beneath him, hands clawing at his own. "Please, no, please no. Stop!" She kept screaming. "It hurts! Great Mother, please!" She shook. "Kill me instead, kill me!" she begged, tears springing from her eyes.
He wretched himself away from her now that her neck was no long bleeding. Her fingers were burned as well, which he had forgotten about. At least that those stopped bleeding because they were burned now, too. He sat up, legs out long before him. He looked at the sword sticking out of his leg. It skewered it right through the middle. He could feel it piercing the bone there. He needed a healer, too, and fast. It was bleeding around both the entry wound and exit wound. He felt like it was probably safer in than out at this point in time though.
He looked up at her boy. Three on her knees before him. He cut her down mercilessly. One and Five had broken away, freezing the unconscious rock mage to death. He shouted wordlessly at them, charging over at to them. They had their swords up, fighting him. They were fighting for their lives against his vengeful, berserker attack. Hiei felt a deep seated fear he never felt before dwelling up inside of him at the sight of her boy as a fallen angel. He knew it was not unlike the fear Nishi had when he used his hellfire dragon.
Speaking on Nishi, she was up and moving now. She clung to his back, feeling like a cold, wet rag against him. He flared his body temperature, trying to warm her up faster. They needed to get out of there, and fast, before her boy turned on them. He grabbed the hilt of the sword in his leg, tugging on it painfully until it finally came loose in a mess of his blood trailing after it. Nishi's neck had been bad, but this was worse. Just as he feared, the artery in his leg had been sliced. He shoved the last of the hellfire over the entry and exit wounds, knowing the burning did not get all the way through. He would not bleed out, but there was still bleeding within. A wound like this, if not healed in time, was still a languishing death sentence. Another look at her boy told him he was no longer an option. He had shoved One away, rounding on Five.
"You need a healer. Maybe Izo or Asa," Nishi shook out. He did not look back at her. "Izo..." she whined, having finally noticed her boy.
Hiei placed his hand on his leg. He had to get up. They had to get away. "I made him get up," he confessed to her. "I made him join the fight... I told him you would die if he didn't. I didn't think he would embrace the fall to do it."
Nishi leaned her head against the back of his shoulder, whimpering. Her boy kept driving One away, but going after Five, like she was his primary target. That was the one who dangled Nishi like a puppet in the air by her hair. The huntress had become the hunted.
"We need to get out of here. He'll want to kill any around him, especially those who anger him, and also demons," Nishi reasoned. She pulled herself up and started to drag him by the armpits. The jostling sent spikes of pain into his leg. She only managed a few steps before she collapsed behind him, wincing and panting. The burns on her hands and neck were too much for her to move very far with him. His leg ached, his pant leg starting to feel tight. He tore at it, seeing the swelling and bruising swirling around it. She would never manage to get him out alive.
Five screamed, drawing Hiei's attention back to her. One at a distance, watching in horror. Her boy had held Five up in the air by her hair, slowly shoving his sword through the back of her neck. A wicked grin of enjoyment was painted on his lips. He removed the sword and dropped Five by simply letting her hair go. He flicked his ice sword, turning his gaze to look at One. One looked ready to die of fright.
"Get out, run," Hiei told Nishi.
She grabbed him again, trying to move himm. "No, he might try to kill you."
His leg protested. He should not be moved and he knew it. "You can't move me," he confessed. "Go. Before he turns on you."
"I'm angelic... he might not," she said in a voice that had zero confidence.
Hiei looked back at her boy. He had One on the run. He was cutting her, nicking her with his blade now. She was tiring out, having fought for much longer than he did.
"What kind of man are you?" One asked, panting and parrying his blade.
"An avenging angel of death," her boy answered in an unnaturally husky voice, driving harder against her now. "Your sisters here have died. You will die soon. And then I'll go after your sisters on your floating island. I'll kill them all! And everyone connected to them! Then I'll kill every last demon I can find! I'll wipe them from the face of the world!" He launched himself in the air, testing out his new found wings.
"No!" One cried. "My other sisters, please, spar them," she begged. Her boy shook his head, laughing at her. He flew down at her, slicing her head off with his blade. Hiei felt sick watching it.
The room suddenly felt warmer, back to just below its normal temperature. Her boy's eyes flicked over at the rock mage, whose iced over body was melting. He looked at the ice mage and the stocky mage, same thing was happening to the two of them. He looked over at the ocean mage, who had been knocked out and then forgotten about in the fighting, lucky enough not to be iced over. Then he looked over at Nishi and Hiei, narrowing his eyes. He moved purposefully towards them, flicking his ice sword down by his right side.
Hiei tried to get up, injured leg refusing to cooperate. Anything and everything inside of him demanding he fight or flee from the fallen angel. He tore off his headband, pressing into her boy's mind, trying to stop him in his tracks. Her boy grabbed the side of his head with his left hand, slowing down but not stopping. He kept inching towards him.
"Run, now, I can't move," Hiei commanded Nishi, wishing she would just listen to him for once. "But I can hold him off."
"Get out of my head, demon!" her boy snarled at him. He forced Hiei out of mind unexpectedly. No one had ever managed that before, except for Mukuro. "I'll end you next," he swore. "You're spawn of one those ice maidens. Like the one who tried to kill-" he stopped, shaking his head in confusion. "Like those I've sworn to kill." The fall held him fast.
Nishi was on her feet, standing in front of Hiei, arms spread wide, legs in much too wide of a stance. "No, I won't let you kill your father," she panted. Her limbs were shaking. Hiei wondered if she felt just as terrified as he felt. How she even manage to get herself standing was unfathomable.
"Move, angel," her boy commanded, coming toe to toe with her. Her boy was taller than she was now, yet she refused to back down.
"No," she said. Hiei noticed her hair was dancing as if in the wind, like in a breeze he could not feel was surrounding her. "Izo, you can't do this, you can't!" she pleaded. "You've fallen. You have to resist it. I've done it before, and so have you. Don't give in. It will consume you."
"Mother," he sighed in a normal voice. He shook his head, taking a pace back. He brought his hand back up to his forehead. "Angel, move or I will kill you along with him," he threatened. "I have my mission."
Nishi shook her head. "Your mission? Your mission from who?" she asked. "Please, you need to snap out of this. We need healed. Your father first."
"I'm not a healer! I'm an avenging angel! All demons are evil and need removed from the world. And those who would protect them," he ruled. He raised his sword up.
Hiei stared up at the two of them in mute horror. Her boy swung his sword down, that he was sure of. Nishi brought her hands over her head protectively. Then a wind wiped like a fury around Nishi. She gasped, going rigid for a split second. She threw her head back drawing in the deepest breath. Her hair shimmered, going from black to white in a flash. Then with her raised hand, she stopped the sword with calculating ease. The sword did no damage to her whatsoever. Her boy froze, staring at her disbelievingly.
"My son," Nishi said, but not in her own voice. "My messenger," the other worldly voice said. Nishi pushed the ice sword away from her as if her fingers were neither cut nor burned.
Her boy's all black eyes widened. "Great Mother," he breathed. He moved to sink to his knees, but Nishi stepped forward and stopped him.
She moved swiftly, wrapping her arms around him. The way she moved was all wrong for her on a normal day, let alone a day with burned and neck. One hand buried its way into his hair at the base of his skull. "My son, this is not you. This is not your purpose. This is not your destiny," Nishi's unnatural voice soothed. Hiei felt himself lull at the sound of it. "All I've ever called you to be was my messenger from time to time. Release yourself from this darkness overwhelming you."
"I can't, they would have killed... They would have killed... someone," he groaned, trying to pull himself away from Nishi's smaller body. She held fast to him, tighter.
"The huntresses would have killed you, your mother, and everyone remaining in this castle, yes," the Great Hawk Spirit spoke through Nishi. "You were right to stop them, but now you must escape this darkness or it will consume you. I cannot allow one of my children to rampage like that again on this world." She held him tighter. "I promised myself a long time ago to interfere should that ever occur again. I nearly had to with your mother once, but your father stopped her first."
"Mother, you're hurting me," her boy winced. His eyes screwed shut. He tried to pulled away from her, but the other dimensional being possessing Nishi refused to let him go. He beat his black wings again and again against the air, unable to so much as budge either of them from the ground. There was no way the real Nishi would ever have had the strength to do that successfully.
"Not all demons are evil. They are not the source of evil in this world. Rise up from your desire to kill them all. Rise up, or die," The Great Hawk Spirit demanded of him.
Her boy roared, "I can't, but I don't want to die!"
"You can and you must chose," she said. "If you chose to die, your mother will die. Her body cannot handle my presence much longer. Your father will die without a healer's intervention. Your friend on the ground behind you will die from her own wounds as well. Rise from your fall, my son."
Her boy rested his head against her shoulder in a way where Hiei could not see her eyes. "How?" he choked out, trembling.
"Give it to me," she offered. "Give it all up to me."
"You'll fall," he tried to refuse.
"I'll not," she promised.
He groaned, crying out against her shoulder. "Take it, take it all. I don't want to die," he pleaded.
Nishi's body clung to him as tight as it possible could. Her boy screamed. A blackness seem to flow out of him and into her. Then a blinding flash pure white light seemed to split the scene before Hiei. He shielded his eyes instinctively.
"Mother!" her boy's natural voice cried out. Hiei blinked up at the two of them. Her boy held a wilted Nishi in his arms, her hair still white as pure snow. On her neck bore no sign of burns anywhere to be seen. Her boy knelt down to the ground with her, touching her neck to feel for a pulse. The black wings, now white wings, were curled up on his back. Hiei looked over at her hands. They looked unblemished. "Mother, please wake up," her boy begged her. His now crimson and white eyes pleaded. Every single thing about the two felt normal and right once again. "She's still breathing, her heartbeat is strong," he said. Hiei tried to move over towards to them, but stopped, gnashing his teeth at the pain in his leg. Her boy's eyes flashed over to him. "Your leg," he suddenly remembered. He sat Nishi down on the ground to rest gingerly before crawling over to Hiei.
