Hiei awoke, shivering in a cold sweat. That same recent, reoccurring nightmare. The dark crone standing over him, cackling with a large needle in her hand. He jumped awake. The muscular one knelt down, hoisting him up by the ropes infused with draining wards binding his hands behind his back. He mercilessly placed Hiei on the back of his horse and tied him down to the saddle.
"Water," he croaked, throat parched. The muscular one grunted under his breath, but grudgingly gave him a drink from a luke warm canteen.
"Enough," the small one shrieked. "He only needs enough to keep him alive long enough to kill him in the capital. When we pass him off to the widow." The muscular one just grunted again, acting like him just serving water was a waste of his abilities.
Hiei felt the jerk when they went forward for the day on their horses. He had long given up on asking for food. They would not 'waste' it on him. It was worse after they had given him to the dark crone. He recalled it unwillingly.
They had just passed through Gandara, picking up supplies along route to the capital. The procurer had also met with friends of his to catch up with them. North of the capital, the procurer said he wanted to meet someone to buy an intriguing item she was rumored to have. He led them to the dark crone's cabin in the woods. He figured he would just the means to pay her.
They went to the dark crone, where the procurer approached her alone, leaving the others outside while he spoke with her in her small cabin. Hiei saw twice that the two of them looked out the window by the door, only to disappear again into the center of the house.
Time eked on. It felt like hours when the procurer and the dark crone finally came out of the cabin. The procurer held in his arms a ratty looking grey cloak. It had a sinister aura coming from it. The procurer held it like it was the most precious and fragile thing.
The dark crone was smiling in a frightening way. It sent chills down Hiei's spine. "Which ones?" she asked in an excited voice.
"The bound one," the procurer answered. "You can take what you want without killing him." Hiei felt like he wanted to flee. The procurer pointed to the bomber and the larger, masked one. The masked one looked uneasy on his large horse. "You can one of the two of them."
"For keeps?" the dark crone asked. She looked ready to drool.
The procurer nodded. "Just be quick with the bound one. I need him alive when we get to the capital."
The dark crone's face was terrifying and happy. "I want the big one, of course."
"No," the masked one spoke up for the first time in Hiei's earshot. "No," he insisted.
"You're debt to me is higher than his," the procurer said, nodding to the bomber. "Besides, she chose you."
"NO! I will not die at her hands!" the masked one shouted. His voice was muffled behind his masked.
"Your debt is paid and full if you do this," the procurer said calmly. "You can go willingly or she can magic you." The masked one let loose a raging shout before turning his horse around and charging off wildly. The procurer shook his head. "Go get him," he permitted. The small one smiled with glee as he and the muscular one charged off into the woods on their horses. "Bring him inside," the procurer told the bomber.
The bomber loyally dragged Hiei off of his his horse and over to the dark crone. The dark crone gave him a sinister smile. The bomber said nothing in response, but shivered. He shoved Hiei into the cabin.
That was where the nightmares always began. The small cabin house a bed and a small version of a kitchen, but down below a staircase that went underground. The cold smell of the dead crept up from there.
Hiei dug his heels in the ground, not wanting to go down there. "No," he pleaded. "No, no." He struggled against the bomber. He tried to escape from the cabin while the bomber tried to shove him to walk down the stairs. They were in a dead lock.
Outside, he could hear the masked one. He was begging to be set free. It was almost pathetic to hear him gravel like that. Then, without warning, his pleading stopped and there was the sound of a large body falling to the ground.
The muscular one dragged the masked one into the cabin, passed Hiei and the bomber, and down the stairs. It made his stomach drop to watch him being dragged down there.
Hiei felt a tug on his shoulder after that. He turned around, seeing the dark crone standing underneath him. For how tiny she was, she sure was evil looking. "Now to knock you out, too," she said. She held up her hand. A few pinches of red powder rested in her hand. She blew them in his face. His face burned as he breathed it in.
When he came to after that, he was in the dark crone's cellar. She had him striped down and tied down to a cold metal table beneath him. He could see the masked one sitting in the corner, unconscious, but not dead. He could barely move anything beyond his head. He could see the dark crone humming to herself as she set down a rather large needle full of blood. His blood... or worse. His hips did ache tremendously.
"You should not be awake," the dark crone said. "I must need to give you more sleep powder to knock you out." She blew a larger handful of red powder in his face, rendering him unconscious once more.
When he came to the next time, he was on horse back, riding behind the bomber. The procurer rode next to him. Everything hurt, deep within him. He felt weak and drained in more ways than one. His hips ached the most with each step the horse beneath him took.
"What did she do to me...?" he mumbled out.
The procurer smiled. "Harvested from you without killing you. She only took things from you that you could survive losing. She was rather low on bone marrow."
That statement made his stomach drop. The dark crone had the masked one now, his whole self. He could not even begin to fathom what the dark crone was going to do to him before he died. A wave of pity for his poor, unfortunate soul rolled through him.
"Bui was worth the sacrifice," the procurer commented. "Trading him and part of you got me the cape of no return. I had been waiting so long to get my hands on it."
The small one, who had been riding ahead of them, turned his head back and said, "all the deaths you can issue without seeing the end of them. Sounds like a wet dream for you."
The procurer smiled slyly over at the small one. "If I saw them die after issuing the execution order, then how can I imagine and re-imagine it over and over again." He sounded too excited at the prospect.
The small one kept talking, "how do you imagine his whore died?"
The procurer sighed. "Sometimes choking on her on vomit. Sometimes a hole burning its way through her stomach. Always dying alone and laying on the floor." He seemed excited when he talked about it. "And now with the cape, I can kill others and send them to their death. So much mystery in how they might die. Once covered with the cape, they will be transported to the closest and most likely place in which they will die. The possibilities are endless..."
The procurer had kept smiling to himself on and off as they rode on the next few days. Hiei hated it. He wished he could destroy the cape just to spite the procurer and punish him for the nightmares he had had about the dark crone. He was a monster.
The riding seemed endless this day. When the procurer finally decided to stop and rest for the evening, Hiei was given another drink of water and nothing else. He felt so hot, so weak, and ill. They had continued to use to bind him with the ropes infused with the draining wards. They were worse after the dark crone had harvested from him. If they kept them on him much longer, they would have trouble getting him to the capital alive.
They left him against a tree to sleep outside while the rest of them slept in their own tents. They did not set up trip wires around their camp sense the small one had his fingers buried in the ground so he would be able to sense anyone coming on foot.
It was cold at night. Usually that did not affect him, being a fire demon, but the draining wards had been taking equal amounts of energy from him for days and days. It was twice as much energy was exerted than normal for one task. Breathing was twice as hard, riding was twice as hard, and recovering from the dark crone's harvesting was twice as hard. The cold seemed to be seeping into his bones this night. He was not sure how much more of it he could take.
He was torn between the desire to sleep and rest and the desire to stay awake and stave off his nightmares about the dark crone. He must have fallen asleep though because he saw in the sky some winged creature flying above him. It flew closer, which made him suddenly apprehensive. He blinked, watching it closely. It circled in the air above them before flying away. He felt like it was some kind of vulture, circling and waiting for his death.
His eyes closed unwilling, exhaustion forcing him into an uneasy sleep. He was shocked awake when something landed in front of him. He jumped awake, seeing, what looked like the girl but with whitish hair and wings crouching before him. He gasped, not expecting that.
"Saif- Hiei," she whispered, bending forward to kiss him in a bizarre turn of events.
She pulled away. "You were dead," he breathed.
"Long story," she said vaguely. She pulled him up from under his arms. She pushed her... wings... trying to... fly...
Only to be yanked down by the small one's fingers extending and wrapping around her ankle. Hiei could have kicked himself. He should have warned her that the small one had every night stuck his long fingers just under the surface of the ground surrounding their camp. She must have woken him up when she touched down on the ground. If she had not done that, they probably could have gotten away.
Yet they did not. The small one yanked her down to the ground. She dropped her hold on Hiei as she was dragged across the ground and over to the small one's tent. She cried out in fright as the small one sounded the alarm. The other three did not take long to wake up after that.
"Kurama! Yasha!" she screamed names she should not have known. The small one had her her legs bound, fingers curling and inching up farther along her body. She kicked and bucked her legs. "I don't care! Just get him off me!" Then a small, semi-white snake appeared on her neck and slithered its way down her neck. It hissed and sank its fangs into the small one's extended finger. This led to the small one screaming in loudly in pain.
"Get her off him and find the others!" the procurer ordered the two other bounty hunters.
The bomber ran off into the woods while the muscular one went over to the girl and yanked her away from the small one by the upper arm. This led to the snake dragging its fangs along the small one's fingers, bloodying them up. It took some agonizing seconds to get the two of them separated. The snake seemed to let go of the small one unwillingly. Once the small one was free, he clutched his injured hand and moved off to the edge of the clearing they were all crammed in. He rub the bloody bits that were his fingers. He watched the girl, eyes wide in fright.
"Bring her to me," the procurer seethed, heading towards the two of them.
The muscular one dragged her over towards the procurer, but dropped his hold on her abruptly when the snake tried to go after him. She stayed still on the ground where she lay, the snake moving around her neck and hissing menacingly at both the muscular one and the procurer.
"You're supposed to be dead!" the procurer hissed at her. "How did you survive the nightlock?! Where did you get wings?!"
She frowned up at him. "None of your business," she retorted weakly. The snake around her neck hissed viciously for her.
Before the procurer could say anything else, the sound of an explosion and a scream that sounded like the fox echo through the woods.
"Have them brought here before he gets carried away," the procurer told the muscular one. "Wait." He stopped him for a moment. "Break her wing first so she cannot escape."
The muscular one stepped over to her, watching her neck carefully. She turned onto her hands and knees, trying to scramble away and fly off. The muscular one gave her a quick karate chop against the top of her right wing, making her cry out and crumple to the ground. He then turned away, charging off into the woods after the bomber.
The procurer disappeared briefly into his tent, coming out with the cape. "How did you come back to life?" the procurer asked the girl, stepping as close to her as he dared. He looked furious with her for not being dead.
She had pushed herself up on her hands, her right wing hanging limping behind her at an odd angle. "I didn't," she whimpered.
"Then how did you get wings?" he demanded.
She merely shook her head up at him. "I'm not telling you," she replied weakly.
She crawled towards Hiei, wincing each time her broken wing was jarred. She stopped when the bomber and muscular demon came back into their clearing in the woods, both the fox and the stranger in hand. Both of them were bloodied, looking like they met the wrong end of the bomber's abilities.
"Just let us go," she mewed pathetically.
The procurer shook his head, stepping towards her. "Oh no, you're dead and their dead. I'll take them to the capital," he nodded over at the fox and the stranger. "My friend's widow wants Hiei killed in her presence, but I don't think she'll mind if I bring these two friends of his along as well." The procurer stood before her, wary of her mysterious snake. He shifted the cape in his arms. "But you, I meant for you to die back in the South. And you didn't." He shook out the cape between the two of them. "You will now!" he shouted, throwing the cape over her as she threw her arm up over her face to protect herself.
Hiei watched, unblinking as the cape engulfed her and then lay flat on the ground. He stared at it. The procurer bent down, picked it up, shook it out, and carefully folded it in his arms. "Well worth the cost," the procurer purred. He turned to face the fox and the stranger. "Do we have anymore ropes with draining wards?" he asked the muscular one.
"Two more," the muscular one answered.
"Perfect. Tie the two of the up. If the widow doesn't want them with Hiei, we can at least try ransoming the queen's half brother," he planned.
The whole situation made Hiei's stomach sink. The girl... the girl was here, alive, and gone in an instant. Somehow she had brought the fox and the stranger with her. Somehow she-
"What did she do to me!?" the small one shrilled, bringing everyone's attention to him. He was clutching his chest with his good hand. His face was pale, going blue around his lips. He was breathing haphazardly. "What did she do?!" He roar out in a high pitched scream, punching himself hard in the chest. He dropped to his knees, still punching his chest. "What-?" he choked out. "My heart- I can't move it away- from them all-" He wrapped his good arm around his middle and collapsed in a curled up position on the ground.
"Brother?" the muscular one said in shock. The muscular one ran over to the small one after that, pleading him to get up, growing more intense and more pathetic with each passing minute. No one else moved, no one else dared breathe loudly.
Hiei managed to make eye contact with the fox, who looked just as shocked as he felt. The fox shook his head, showing he had no clue what had happened or what was going to happen next.