Okay, this chapter is a bit strange. There's nothing about Kurama or Karasu in it. But… From the title of the chapter, I'm sure you can tell they meet somebody new. Well, all I can say is that it's not your average standard everyday type of person… If you can call it a person… More like… a reptile?
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CHAPTER FOUR
A New Acquaintance
When Yusuke woke up, he found Mai curled up against him. Managing to get up without waking her, he walked over to check on Shadow, Hiei, and Eclipse. They had all moved around a good bit during the night. Hiei had his head on Shadow's leg. Eclipse was lying halfway upside-down with one leg straight up in the air against the cliff wall.
Yusuke wished he'd brought a camera. These people had odd sleeping patterns. It was already getting light, so he nudged Hiei in the ribs.
"Hey, get up, Hiei," he said. The little demon opened one eye, looking up at Yusuke for a second. Then he looked at his 'pillow.' Realizing he had been sleeping on Shadow's leg, he sat up so quickly it somehow woke up Shadow.
"Hmmmnnnn?" she mumbled, looking around. "Aahn?"
"Get up. Time to get started again," Hiei said sleepily, yawning. Shadow was looking at Yusuke.
"Still hate me?" she asked. Yusuke's left eye was swollen shut.
"I'll take that as a stupid question. I think you broke my face," he said.
"Stop whining," Shadow teased. Yusuke narrowed his eye.
"Shutup."
"Yeah, whatever." Shadow stood up and walked to Eclipse. She jabbed her in the side. "Hey, ya lazy bag of bones! Getup."
Eclipse didn't move.
"WAKE UP, YOU LAZY LITTLE GIRL!!!"
No response.
"Hm... DINNER!!!"
BOOM!
"WHERE AT?!" Eclipse asked, looking around greedily. Hiei sweatdropped.
"No where, baka. It's just a way to get you to wake up."
"What? Curse you, Shadow! I was dreaming about food, I thought maybe it wasn't a dream!"
"Merry Christmas," Shadow said dryly, tossing a small bag of jerky to Eclipse. "Don't eat it all in five minutes."
"Okee Dokee." Eclipse paused. "I'll eat it in six minutes."
"Give me that, baka!" Shadow snapped, snatching away the bag. "If you're going to be like that about it, I'm keeping all the food with me."
"What?! You'll eat it even faster than I will!"
"Yeah right! I don't eat 24/7!"
"Neither do I!"
"Yeah, you eat 23 and three fourths/7!!!"
"SO? That's not 24/7!"
"Baka! Close enough!"
"But it's not!"
"Dufus. Loser. Retard. Baka. Mentally damaged Bulgarian llama!"
"Huh?" Question marks flew around Eclipse in erratic patterns.
"I said... MENTALLY DAMAGED BULGARIAN LLAMA!!!"
"I think not!"
"FINE! YOU'RE A COW! MOOOO!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Fine! If I'm a cow, then you're a whale!"
"Whales are cool!"
"They're fatter than cows!"
"No! I'm an evil flying GoatSheepWhale, ruler of all beans!!!"
Shadow waved her arms like wings and went in circles, obviously doing an impression of an evil flying GoatSheepWhale (whatever the heck that is).
"Yeah, beans are really something worth ruling," Eclipse said dryly.
"Peh. It's more than you rule!"
"So?"
"SO I'm better than you!"
"ARE NOT!"
"AM TOO!"
"ARE NOT!"
"AM TOO!"
"ARE NOT!!!"
"AM TOO!!!" Shadow's teeth were a jagged line, her eyes were glowing red, her head was ten times its normal size, and if it were in any way possible to look any angrier, she would have.
"ARE NOT!!!"
Eclipse's teeth were a jagged line as well, and her eyes were glowing an evil icy blue color.
Hiei and Yusuke had watched this whole scene with about 200 sweatdrops each, completely clueless expressions on their faces. Kinda like a mixture between ._. and O_O. Their mouths were so tiny and so far down it was almost like they didn't even have mouths. The two boys exchanged puzzled looks.
"CHILDREN! Could we go?" Hiei interrupted. Eclipse and Shadow looked at him, their jagged teeth vanishing, their eyes going from glowing red and blue to normal, innocent red and blue, and little halos appearing over their heads. They saluted, looking almost chibi.
"Yes sir!"
"Yes ma'am!"
"MA'AM?!" Hiei screamed, throwing a rock at Eclipse's head.
"Sorry sir!" she apologized, bowing repeatedly.
"You better be."
"Ma'am," Eclipse muttered under her breath. Hiei punched her in the head. She fell face first onto a pile of tiny rocks that had somehow gathered there. Instantly, a small lizard ran out of a hole in the ground, shaking its fist.
"Baka ningen! You wrecked my insect house! It's not cheap to build one of those, you know!" it yelled in an extremely high-pitched voice. Tons of small insects were now running away from the pile of rocks. Eclipse, Hiei, Shadow, and Yusuke watched it curiously with odd looks (._. O_O and -_-) and sweatdrops. Mai was still asleep.
"... Is an insect house anything similar to a dog house or a chicken house?" Shadow asked, leaning over towards Hiei, her eyes still glued on the lizard, who was wildly darting around, catching the insects.
"I dunno. Maybe," Hiei answered. "I wasn't aware that lizards could talk, were you?"
"Nope."
"I didn't know they made insect houses either, did you?"
"Nope."
"Odd."
"Yup."
"Very odd."
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe we should help it or something."
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Eclipse should. We didn't do anything."
"Oh. True."
"I'M NOT HELPING SOME STUPID LIZARD! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KNOCKED ME ON MY FACE, HIEI!" Eclipse yelled.
"STUPID LIZARD, AM I?!" the tiny creature yelled. "JUST BECAUSE I'M LITTLE MAKES ME STUPID?! WELL YOU HUMANS ARE QUITE FULL OF YOURSELVES, ARE YOU NOT?!"
"I'm not," Eclipse retorted.
"YEAH, WELL WHAT'S THE SQUARE ROOT OF 16 TO THE POWER OF X WHEN X IS EQUAL TO THE SQUARE ROOT OF 4?" the lizard yelled.
Eclipse's face fell. She looked completely clueless. "Uhhh..."
"Sixteen," Hiei replied. Everybody stared. The lizard ran up Hiei's leg, chest, and onto his shoulder.
"You've got a brain in your head, sir, that you do," the lizard said. "How did you figure that out?"
"The square root of four is two and the square root of sixteen squared is itself. It's really quite simple, if you aren't an idiot," Hiei said, wondering if somebody had slipped him some drugs. How often is it you explain to a lizard how you solved a math problem? And it actually listens? And understands you? How often is it a lizard gives you a math problem to solve and explain to it?!
"I like you. You're cool," it said, scurrying around to Hiei's other shoulder.
"Uh... Thank you? Um... Would you mind telling me how it is that you can talk?" Hiei said.
"Talk? All lizards can talk. Very few lizards can talk so that human people understand them. And even if they can, most don't, because it is looked down upon by other lizards, and all the lizards around here can't stand to not fit in," the lizard answered. Hiei still looked slightly confused.
"Oh... Then why aren't you like that?"
"Because I like being strange!"
"Sounds a bit like you, Shadow," Hiei said, looking up from the lizard.
"Yeah, I know. I never thought I'd meet a lizard who thought like me..."
"Was that a sarcastic comment? I think it was!" the lizard said, jumping from Hiei's shoulder to Shadow's, then scurrying up to sit on top of her head.
"It wasn't. I just mean that I never thought I'd meet a lizard who could think like me, because until now I never thought lizards were very intelligent, no offense," Shadow replied.
"Ooh. Okay. I apologize..." The lizard looked around at the group. "The human body is so interesting. Every one is different..."
"Right. But we're not quite human," Yusuke said.
"What?"
"We're demons. Well, technically, I'm the only pure demon, unless you count that little girl over there," Hiei said, waving his hand in the general direction of Mai. "Shadow, Eclipse, and Yusuke are half breed demons."
"Interesting. Demons, huh? Well, I never thought I'd meet any, pure or not," the lizard said. "I guess we haven't had an official introduction, though.. I'm Kei. What are your names?"
"Shadow."
"Eclipse."
"Hiei."
"Y... Yusuke?" Yusuke was still in shock from seeing Hiei with a talking lizard on his shoulder. And Shadow with the lizard sitting on her head. A polite, intelligent talking lizard.
"Who's the little one over there?" Kei asked.
"Mai."
"Why isn't she awake?"
"She's lazy," Hiei replied.
"Hiei, why are you suddenly being such a loser towards her?" Yusuke asked.
"I had an epiphany."
"A who?"
"Nothing. You'll have one soon enough, too, I'm sure," Hiei said dully.
"Huh!" Kei muttered. He hopped back to Hiei's shoulder. "So what brings you to this place?"
"We're searching for our friend," Hiei replied. "Don't suppose you've seen him?"
"I doubt it. Wait. No. Maybe I have. You're the second group of people to pass through here over the past month or so. What's your friend look like?"
"I doubt you've seen him if the last group came through a month ago... But... He's tall, with long red hair and green eyes. He was wearing white when we last saw him," Hiei said.
"White? Green? Red? Nope. Not him. The guy I saw had long black hair, and he wore black. He had really pale skin, like somebody who spent no time outside in the sun. He also had part of his face covered with a mask or something..." Kei said. "He was really freaky looking."
"Is it just me... Or did that description sound a lot like Karasu?" Hiei asked nervously, looking at his friends for backup.
"Karasu? Hm. That name sounds familiar," Kei said thoughtfully.
"Really?! Uh-oh. If Karasu's around here... Kurama is like... In a lot of danger," Shadow said.
"No, really?" Hiei replied sarcastically.
"Yes, really! That guy is like... gay or something!"
"Oh shut up. Let's go... Uh. Kei? We gotta go," Hiei said.
"No biggie."
"Um... Why are you still sitting on my shoulder then?"
"I'm coming with you."
"Okay... Then... In that case, let's go..."
"Onward!" Shadow cried. She stuffed a few pieces of jerky in her mouth and trotted down the path with Eclipse trailing behind her whining about food and hungry and all that stuff.
Hiei and the girls were a good way up the path before they realized Yusuke was still behind them attempting to wake up Mai. When she made no sign of waking up, he picked her up and hurried to catch up with his friend.
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If I wrote a Hiei/Shadow romance, how many of you people would read it? How many would actually want me to write one? If half the reviewers would read it, then I'll post one (After at least 15 reviews, if half the people want me to post one, I'll write and post one.) Cuz somebody suggested I do that, back around story #2, and I just recently finished "Separation Situation," so I only have two stories rather than three that I'm working on. Anyway, PLEASE answer this in a review: Do you want me to write a Hiei/Shadow romance?