YH: Hello Hello!! ^_~ I'm now Yami Hiko – I changed it. My friend Sami decided that I am now to be called "Yami Hiko" instead of "Yami Megami"… ^^;;
Hiei: So, why am I here again?
YH: Well, you were here for the first post of this fic, and so, now you have to be here too! ^_~
Hiei: -_-' Lucky me. And why exactly are you re-posting this again??
YH: Because I went back to read it when I decided to start writing the sequel, and when I was about halfway through, I thought to myself Oh my god, this is soooooo terrible – I have to re-write it before I have any hope of writing a sequel – so that's about where I am now.
Hiei: -_-' Great. Yami Hiko doesn't own Yu-yu Hakusho.
YH: O_O! You did the disclaimer? Without me begging?
Hiei: -_-' Just get this over with…
YH: ^_^ Ok!!
Summary: The Urameshi gang has to go to the makai to rescue a prisoner in a fortress in the middle of a forest. But, the catch is, they don't know who they're looking for, or what she looks like. Then, Kurama finds this strange girl who's been beaten within an inch of her life and saves her. What does she have to do with their infiltration, and why did Hiei bring her along? There's no pairing… ^_^!!
Chapter 1: The Mission
Hot. It was really, really hot. [1] Which is not surprising, because they were in a Makaian Tropical Forest, but hey; it felt like the flesh was melting off of Kurama's bones. Sighing as they trudged on, the kitsune decided that even though he did miss the Makai sometimes, this was not one of the places in it that he was particularly homesick of. They had been walking for a good hour; Botan had given them access through a portal on Koenma's orders on the edge of the forest, which was as close to the destination as they were able to get. Koenma had said that they needed to go to a fortress that was around the center of the forest and retrieve a prisoner there; that's all he would say. No picture, no name, no nothing, accept that they would know her when they saw her.
Yusuke was in the lead, and Kuwabara next to him, every once and a while one complaining to the other about this 'stupid mission'. Hiei was taking his preferred route – through the trees above, and the fox-turned-ningen was bringing up the rear, hands in his pockets and ears perked for the sound of any other youkai that might be around. Fortunately for all of them, he didn't hear any. And then, he felt Hiei's ki stop moving, meaning the han-koorime had stopped going, and then, it immediately disappeared altogether, meaning that he had cloaked it. Which also meant that there was some kind of danger near, and that Kurama shouldn't call out and ask what it was.
The hairs on the back of his neck pricked slightly as the fox cloaked his ki as well, setting a hand on each of the ningen's backs in front of him to halt their steps. Looking around, the red-head's stance was slightly defensive, only a bit different from his normal upright position, but enough to tell the other two that something was up. Cautiously, they looked around, waiting for something to happen…
…fifteen minutes later, they started again, Hiei having come down and told them that they could keep going – what he sensed was nothing to worry about. He had then proceeded back into the trees above, the rich green foliage hiding his slightly shadowed form from the eyes of the ones below. Shrugging it off as over-caution, Kurama continued to follow his teammates, quite ready to get out of the heat and where they needed to go, and then go home……
…… over six hours later, they hadn't stopped yet, and since they had found a lazy stream and it was getting exceedingly dark (the sun had set a few hours ago), decided that they would stop for a while. Kurama was grateful for the cool stream, as he was still really really hot, and he was about ready to drop in a dead faint, as were Yusuke and Kuwabara, though he still didn't really know about the han-koorime; Hiei didn't 'wear his heart on his sleeve', as the expression went, so he was hard to judge, however, the Kitsune expected that he was at least a bit warmer than was normally deemed comfortable.
The others had laid down to sleep, but Kurama couldn't make himself; it was simply too sweltering. Getting up and walking to the water's edge, he removed his shirt and shoes and cautiously (extra caution was to be exercised in the Makai) slid into the cold water after scanning the murky depths to make sure that there was nothing waiting for him beneath the surface. Satisfied that there was nothing, he allowed himself to indulge in cooling down, a sigh slipping form his lips as he was submerged to the neck. And then, he froze. Ears twitching, he strained to listen; he thought he had heard a sound, but he wasn't exactly sure. It had been faint, more like something in pain than an actual threat. Just about to shrug it off, he tensed again as he heard it again. Like a muffled half groan, half sigh. Eyes shifting from left to right, he looked for the source to be close by, but saw nothing. Getting out of the calming stream, he re-dressed his feet, momentarily forgetting his shirt [2], he slowly went off in the direction he thought he had heard it coming from. Searching slowly, spreading his ki out evenly, he searched extensively for an energy source that would deem to be something wounded in some way. About to give up because the ki seemed to be cloaked, he felt it. Just the barest of flashes, as if the barer was falling back and forth from consciousness and back.
Pace quickening, the kitsune made it to the general vicinity of the energy he had sensed, and paused in place. It was a very small clearing, in the center of what looked like an enlarged bush of some kind; just a small opening, and you couldn't see what was going on inside of it. Another small flash, much fainter this time, told him that yes; whatever it was was inside there. Curiously rounding the slightly enlarged green mass, the red-head crouched on the balls of his feet and peered in. Squinting through the darkness that shrouded the inside, the fox found what he was looking for. There was a demon laying there, though he could only just make out their shape and nothing more than that. Spreading his ki to the bush above, he willed it move away so that he might get a better look. In the moonlight, the kitsune saw that indeed, it was a demon, and indeed, she was in dire need of medical attention.
From what he saw, she was relatively tall; perhaps closer to 6'. She had pale skin that was in a stark contrast to the blacker than black hair that cascaded down her back in a thick braid. She wore tattered, ripped clothing that resembled what was once a black turtleneck and a pair of black pants, though the slightly coarse material was ripped in multiple places where she seemed to have been beaten quite badly. She was bleeding from multiple wounds, some burns, some cuts, some other things entirely that Kurama couldn't really identify. Approaching slowly, the kitsune reached down to make sure she was still alive. Ragged breath slipped past blood caked lips, and so, the red-head decided that she needed help, and he may as well give it to her.
Slowly picking her up, he almost stumbled with the extra effort he used; she was extremely light for her height, which did not bode well in his opinion as he made his way back to the clearing where they had stopped for the night… … ...
… … When the others had woken up, except Hiei, they had asked who and why Kurama was healing, to which he had answered truthfully,
"I found her in the forest, and so I brought her here to help her; that's all." The next question they asked was where was his shirt, to which he didn't have an answer; just a slight dust of pink on hi cheeks as he stood to go and retrieve it from the water's edge.
When he returned, Hiei had decided to come from the tree tops to the clearing where the others sat and cautiously examine the girl from around six yards away. And then, the girl jumped up, crouching in an extremely defensive stance and glared. Her eyes were deep black, narrowed dangerously, nails spiking out three inches and changing somehow to ebony. After a second of her assessing her surroundings, she hissed,
"Where am I? Who are you people? Do you work for him?" Her voice was low pitched with a sharp edge on it that told them she meant business. Green eyes blinked as Kurama said,
"I found you in the forest; you suffered from many inflictions, and so, I brought you here to help you." Her eyes flicked to him, and suddenly glazed, as if she were staring through him instead of at him. And slowly, after a second, her nails retracted and changed back to the normal color, and strangely enough, her eyes shifted to white… then they changed to yellow… then to purple … and back to black….repeatedly. Then, her eyes clenched, as if the pain of her wounds just caught up to her, and she dropped to her knees, teeth clenching as she said,
"D… Do you work f.. for him..?" Kurama had no idea what she was talking about; did they work for who? After a second of silence, she ground out again,
"D-do you w-work for him? … Answer me!"
"Work for who?" came the short reply. Looking over, the kitsune deduced that it was the han-koorime who had posed the question. Her still changing eyes flickered up to the black clad demon, and she said,
" … The one who seeks…" and then, abruptly fell forward to the ground. Blinking again, the kitsune turned as the first red rays of light peeked over the horizon; it was time to go. Looking down at the girl, the kitsune was surprised when Hiei easily lifted her bridal-style and disappeared; apparently she was coming with them, for some reason or another…
TBC……
YH: So, how was that?
Hiei: -_-' Better than the original first chapter… if that's at all a compliment…
YH: ^_^!! YAY!! HIEI-KUN LIKES MY FIC!! ^_______^
Hiei: I didn't say – never mind… -_-' R'n'R…
YH: ^_~ Next re-write will hopefully be up soon… ^_^!!
Footnotes:
1 – we all already knew that Kurama was really hot, but that's not really the context I meant this sentence in…. ^_~
2 – you knew I had to… ^_^ ::drools::