"Someone tried to kill him, and you brought him here!" a shrill woman's voice echoed outside of the room.
Hiei awoke with a start at the sound of it... her. He looked around by the unfamiliar room. It was a small, unused bedroom by looks of it. He awoke on a narrow bed, the sheets had a faintly musty smell. He sat up slowly, feeling decades older than he was. His shirt was missing and his old black pants were half in tatters with dried blood stains and the faint smell of gun powder. His old boots lay at the side of the bed, looking worse for wear. His sword was there too.
He heard another voice, a lower mumbling voice answer the shrill woman, but he could not make out the words. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stood up, laced up his boots, hooked his sword to his belt, and left the room.
As he walked, he heard. The shrill woman said, "so the other guy is dead, yes, but what if someone else comes after him? I don't want him here."
He reached a stairwell, walking down it with soft footfalls, making no sound. Another man's voice spoke. "If someone else comes after him, I can take care of them the way I did with Younger Toguro back in the fighting pit. Besides, once my cousin hears we have him, she'll be flying down here to get to him."
Hiei stopped at the base of the stairs. He could see a group of them, four of them, standing together in a restaurant kitchen through a cracked door. On the opposite side was a backdoor that led to the outside.
"Well then, just hail her then," the shrill woman suggested. "Or someone in the castle."
Hiei stepped through the door, saying, "don't."
The four of them turned around and faced him. He looked them over, Yukina, the oaf, the shrill woman, and the detective, the former detective anyway. He felt a sense of camaraderie with them spur up. In another life, it would be almost a complete set.
Yukina stepped over to him. "How are you feeling? You slept for quite a long time."
"Hibernated practically," the oaf added in. "You're heavier than you look. Lugged you first to my animal clinic down the road from our ruined apartment and then here."
He grunted under his breath, finding himself preferring the oaf when he was not talking. "Why an animal clinic?" he asked not the oaf, but Yukina.
Yukina hummed under her breath. "You were in pretty bad shape, even after I healed you. You had lost a lot of blood from your wounds. Kazuma works as a vet in the city. He managed a blood transfusion for you."
"Wasn't easy," the oaf said modestly with a shrug.
The detective cracked a smile. "What did you give him? Dog blood or horse blood?"
The detective and the oaf only found the joke worth a chuckle. The women and Hiei did not. Hiei could only imagine what the stranger would say if he heard that joke.
"You know that's not funny," the shrill woman said to him. "Or possible for that matter."
"We used my blood," Yukina said. "We're the same blood type."
Of course they were, he thought, but did not vocalize. "How convenient," he answered dryly. She did look a bit paler now that he thought about it.
"You could at least say thank you," the oaf grumbled. "Our apartment was destroyed when that demon came after you, blowing the outer wall of our apartment off the building. You would be dead if it wasn't for Yukina. She froze the room, healed you, and then gave you some of her blood."
He gave her a quick sincere look before turning back to the oaf. "He would have killed you after me if I hadn't killed him first. Ask the king. He'll pay for it, but go alone, by yourself."
"That's not a thank you," the shrill woman told him, staring daggers at him. She was not as intimidating as she was trying to make herself out to be.
Yukina looked back and forth between him and the shrill woman, like she was caught in the middle. Hiei bristled at the shrill woman, which was enough to make her loose a small whimper and step closer to the detective. Not even Nishi had been that easy to scare when he first met her.
He turned from the room, heading back towards the staircase. Instead of climbing it, he went through the backdoor.
"Wait," he heard Yukina calling after him.
He halted in the middle of the tiny backyard with a tall picket fence enclosing it. It could easily be jumped. Yet when he went to crouch down to jump, he felt someone wrap their arms around his upper arm, pulling him back. He looked back, growling at Yukina. She looked quite determined not to let him go.
"Stay back," she called over her shoulder to the backdoor where the other three stood. "Let me speak with him, alone," she pleaded.
"I don't think that's a good idea," the shrill woman countered.
The detective gave the two of them a studying look in the middle of the backyard. "If he was going to hurt her, he would have done so already. Come on," he considered. He started to pull the backdoor shut.
"Shes not safe with him-" the oaf started.
The detective waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, I get the feeling she'll be safe. I also get the feeling that he won't talk if we're listening in." With that, the door was shut between the two sets of them, three inside the building, and two in the backyard.
Yukina still held onto Hiei's upper arm. "Let go," he ordered her.
"I'll only let go if you promise not to run," she said, her grip loosening.
He grunted under his breath. "Fine," he agreed. She let go. He turned around, facing her. She was only slightly shorter than he was.
"Why did you run from the king's castle?" she asked him, giving him a both soft and curious gaze. "You had everything there from what I've heard. Friendship with the king, romance with the angel, work as a king's guard." When he did not answer, she kept asking questions. "Why were you near my apartment when Karasu came after you?" She stared him down, looking just slightly annoyed with him. "I can wait," she hinted.
"None of your business," he growled out impatiently. She did not need to know. It was for her own good.
"I think it became my business when my home was destroyed," she stated.
He studied her. She was gentle, gentler than would have been expected by a full blooded ice demoness. They were usually cold hearted, man hating women who isolated themselves from the rest of the world. That was hardly the vibe she was giving him in the moment.
"I..." he started. "I found something out. Something I had given up finding out a long time ago."
"Good news or bad news?" she asked gently.
He clicked his teeth. "Finally found out who was my father, and it turns out he was a monster, is that what you want to hear?"
He felt the temptation to turn around and jump the fence. She might have been able to freeze a room, but he felt like that was the extent of her powers. She did not look capable of successfully chasing after him. Even with her being an ice demoness from that all woman clan, she likely could have been just like the rest of them, conceived immaculately around the same time the father forced himself upon the mother. It was not a thought he wanted to dwell on. Yet just as well she could also be half elf, half demon like he was.
"Who was he?" she pressed, face aglow with honest concern.
He pondered before answering. She did not have to know the father was likely her father as well. "He was the king's cousin. Lord Jiro's elder brother. He was vicious from a young age. Committed a crime, and fled from the capital. The king suspected it of me from the time he first saw me in the fighting pits, but it was only when Nanashi received a message from the Great Hawk Spirit that confirmed it did the king let me know of his suspicion."
She blinked up at him. "Oh," she mouthed. "So... you're upset to find out you are part elvish... or royal... or-"
"It's who he was, not what he was," he interrupted her rudely. "How would you like to find out your the child of an honor-less man who took joy out of torturing those weaker than himself? Who abused others he saw beneath him. Whose parents had no choice but to disown him. A heinous man, a criminal."
She stared up at him, looking distraught for him rather than pitying him. "That would be terrible," she stated soothingly. She gave him, a small, commiserating smile that oddly put him at ease. "Imagine being an odd child of a heartless race who allows no one to show emotion of any kind expect for one tear shed on the day your daughter is born."
He kept his face stock still. She reached inside of her collar and pulled out a corded necklace. From within it, she produced the tear gem the mother had given her. It was a bit of a challenge to keep his breathing calm and controlled. His memories stretched far back, all the way to that day, when both of them had been born. Even the foggy memories from before being born. When he noticed his own heat and remembered her frigidness. He had been born first, but not given the tear gem shed for him until the day the mother's friend threw him off their floating island. He remembered being separated from the mother immediately as the women around her gasped and exclaimed in fear of him. Yet when Yukina was born, she was treated differently, as one of them. Given her tear gem on a necklace not unlike the one she wore on her neck now. He might have gotten his tear gem a few days later, but he lost it in one careless moment fighting another demon, using it to tempt the brute to fight him and make him stronger. He had searched for it again and again, even getting his Jagan Eye from the osteopath to aid him in his search for it and the ice maidens' floating island. He found them, pitied them, but never found his tear gem for all his searching.
"Why are you showing me that?" he asked, pretending not to know what it was, even as the sight of it filled him with a peaceful sense of calm. He resisted the temptation to reach out and snatch it from her.
"The one tear my mother was allowed to shed when I was born," she explained. She tucked it back down under her collar. "The one time she was allowed to show emotion without being shamed for it." Her face darkened as she continued. "Yet when my brother was thrown from the island to his death, she continued to cry and plead for him, embracing emotions until the overwhelming sense of them drove her to take her own life. The other ice maidens were ashamed of her behavior. When I found out about him, I refused to be like those wretched women. I left them behind and have been seeking my brother ever since. My mother's friend says he had a chance of surviving the fall and I would know who he was because he would be able to show me his matching tear gem."
"He's likely dead," Hiei told her, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
She shook her head. "I don't think he is. I think I would know. Someone who can blaze that hot in the womb would not die that easily, even as a newborn. I'll find him one day, I'm sure of it." He did not like her confidence in that statement. "As for you and your father and me and my people. You can't control who are born to, but you can control who you become. You don't have to become a monster, as you put it, like your father, just as I don't have to become heartless like my people."
"Hn," he grunted at her, mulling over her words.
"You ought to go back to the castle, but only when you're ready," she said. "You can stay with Kazuma and I, although for the time being we're actually staying with Yusuke and Keiko considering the fact that our apartment is still a mess of rubble. I suppose Keiko will need some convincing though..." He shook his head, not sure about what to say to her with that offer. "Then where will you go? Back to the castle?" her voice sounded hopeful at her questions.
He shrugged. "Perhaps," he stated. He still wanted to think over her words and her story.
"Come back inside with me then," she said, stepping over to him and taking him by the hand.
She tugged at him, pulling him reticently towards the building behind her. He followed her, making her take him with her at the very least. She held firmly to his hand and forearm with both of her small, delicate hands. She looked genuinely glad to bring him along with her.