The Welder of BlackFire:

Thorn's New Life-The Legend Lives

Chapter Sixteen: Hunting

"Shouldn't you be out looking for Thorn, Hiei?" Kurama asked one day, closing his bedroom door after a day at school. Hiei grunted from the tree outside the window.

"I was waiting for you to get back. I'm going to go see Koenma later," Hiei said.

"I thought you would. She stopped watching quite a while ago. I was wondering how long you would wait," Kurama said, placing his school bag next to his desk neatly. "I know that you are not very pacient."

"Hn."

*

"Hiei, what do you want? Have you found Thorn yet?" Koenma demanded, looking up hopefully from his desk.

"I need to get to America," Hiei said, ignoring the questions the prince had rudely aimed at him.

"So I guess that means you haven't found her yet." Koenma sighed unhappily. "Well, keep at it."

"How did she 'steal' this power that you talked about?" Hiei asked suddenly, the urge to have the question answered burning in his mind.

"I can't say anything because I'm not sure if she really stole it. I have another suspect, but I don't believe that they would take it. I'm still looking for information on her to prove that she stole it," Koenma explained with another sigh, his shoulders slumping over the mess of documents. "Oh, this is so stressful!" the toddler whined. Hiei cleared his throat.

"Oh, right. Ah, would you rather fly or there is a portal that you could go through," Koenma suggested. "But the portal is new and hasn't been tested yet." He looked at Hiei suspiciously a moment. "I think you should take the portal." (lol, doesn't trust Hiei on a plane without Yusuke or Kurama ^_^')

"Hn."

Later that day Hiei arrived outside of Los Vegas. He had no clue where Thorn lived in America, although he did know that she did not live in the big city he was now in, but he knew that if he stayed in one place long enough she would come to investigate eventually if rumors passed as quickly in America as they did in Japan. Koenma had given him another purple box, which he opened to be covered in the fine dust once again. His ears adjusted to the new language and the voices around him. He had two weeks before the effect would begin to wear away, but it would take nearly a month before he would completely forget. But in those two weeks it wouldn't take long for him to begin to understand what they were saying naturally.

He looked around.

'All I have to do is start causing a commotion and she'll come running. Even if she doesn't think or know that its me, if she's really wants a challenge she'll look into anything,' Hiei thought, watching as the people around him babbled into cell phones and honked car horns in a traffic jam.

'Hn. Humans. Disgusting,' Hiei thought bitterly, making his way through the crowds toward the hotel at which Koenma had made reservations for him to stay. 'I'd better find her quickly before these humans get on my nerves and I cause more trouble than I should. The question is, what attention-getter should I use?' he thought with a smile.

*

'It's Hiei. I know it is. Demons might exaggerate when they spread rumors, but they never lie and they said short, with black hair, dressed in a black cloak with a white head band.' Thorn walked down the streets of Los Vegas, her stride long and purposeful. Her keen eyes darted around the busy streets, their vision as sharp as a hawks. Well, actually, they were a hawks. Shape-shifting definitely had its advantages, even to the girl in her human form. Her ears had been enhanced at one time, but the blaring of noises had forced her to actually dull her own human hearing, which was sensitive even without using her power. She saw a few demons, but their minds said they had not seen the youkai she was searching for and that they were living in peace with the humans that surrounded them.

'Hn. Most demons would kill them in an instant if they knew that,' she thought with a small chuckle to herself. 'I wonder where he could be. Hm. I guess the first place I should check is the old hotel where they stayed last time they were here. That would be my best bet. Hm. Maybe Hiei will give me a chance to use some of my stalking and tracking skills today, and maybe I'll use some of my new speed skills that I've been working on since I left. Not that it matters. I'd rather fight than run any day.' She began to head in the direction of the hotel that the Spirit Detectives had taken residence in the last time they had come to the city, her face straight and blank.

She walked into the hotel, and stood in front of the desk. She waited quietly, patiently, for a clerk, her eyes darting around the lobby, searching for the small demon.

"Can I help you, miss?" asked a tall, ugly, skinny boy in a hotel uniform, his face scared with memories of a difficult amount of acne. Thorn flashed him a bright smile.

"Why yes, actually," she said in a low, musical voice. "I was wondering if someone I know was staying here. Do you think you could find out for me?" she asked sweetly, the depths of her tone seductive.

"Y-yes. I could find that out for you." He cleared his squeaking voice nervously and went over to a computer, typing in some unknown password and entering hotel files confidently. "What is this person's name?"

"Hiei. H-I-E-I," she said. The boy gave her a quizzical look.

"Do they have a last name?" he asked. Thorn thought a moment. "Jaganishi. J-A-G-A-N-I-S-H-I."

"Hm. I have one person by that name here," the boy said after scanning the computer screen for a moment.

"Could you tell me what room he's in, please?" she asked in a sweet tone.

"I'm sorry, that information is confidential," the boy said, shaking his head. She glared at him a moment, giving him a guilty feeling and making him advert his gaze from her own depthless, blue one. Her expression changed suddenly.

"That's okay. Thank you so much for your help," she said with a smile.

'Got it, room 128. Perfect. If I remember right, its on the east end of the hotel, right above the willow tree outside. Koenma is so predictable." She walked out of the hotel, looking out onto the street. She looked at the end of the building and, correct to her memory, there was a tall willow tree. 'I just have to hope that its short enough so that he doesn't see me. Invisibility is so difficult and it would just be easier if I can just shadow over. Hm. I think I'll walk around a bit first, just to see if I can pick up his energy signal anywhere,' she thought, walking along casually. She hid her energy completely, making sure that she looked like nothing more than a face in the crowd. No one looked at her twice, and no one was following her.

Suddenly, she looked up. She looked around with sharp eyes before walking into a dark and shady alley. She looked around once again, making sure no one was watching her before her image shifted and molded. A white eagle stood where the girl had been, a black scar between its greenish yellow eyes.

'Hm, I've only used this shape a couple of times. Lets see. I need to change the color. My normal white will stand out too much in dusk. Hm. Black would give BlackFire too much pride and the last thing I need is for you to get fresh,' she thought to a deep and proud 'hn' in her head. Her feathers began to blend a golden brown. 'Now let's go find him, BlackFire,' she thought, taking flight her wings fondling the wind. She flew straight and true, catching drifts and waves of wind under her broad wings. Caught up in the moment she gave a joyful screech to the dancing clouds as the sun's retreating rays played a cheerful and childish game.

She flew into the nearly entirely set sun, following the faint trace of demonic power that drifted back to her. Her eyes reflected the soft glow on the clouds as she searched below her. She came to a dark, shadowed square behind a large business building. She could feel energy coming from the spot. She swooped once and circled twice, her enhanced eye sight picking up the cowering demon. She did not feel the one it was facing, but she had a feeling she knew who it was without looking. She perched atop the building, watching as the demon, which was hidden as a human, sweated beneath the gaze of the one in front of it.

"Please don't hurt me," it whimpered in its squawking male voice. He crawled backwards, his terrified eyes darting around, looking for a way to escape.

"Hn. I wouldn't waste my energy," came a deep and amused voice. Thorn turned her head, looking closer at the hidden demon that coward in the deepening hue on the cement. "I just want to know if you've seen a human girl with extraordinary spirit energy."

"N-no. I-I haven't. There's no one here like that. Please believe me! I don't want to die!" the other begged. The figure in the shadows paused into a contemplating silence.

"Get out of my face," he said. The horror-stricken youkai replied instantly, scrambling to his feet and bolting away with only a nervous and untrusting glance back at it's interrigator. The figure shifted in the umbrage, but did not move forward. Curious, Thorn again took flight, landing on a street light near where the youkai stood cloaked in the stifling gloom. The light deepened the shadows around him, if not for the glowing of his Jagan eye, one would think he was nothing more than a black pool of befog. The Jagan's glow disappeared just as Thorn landed on the pole, but she had seen it.

'Hn, he must have felt me watching him. He's looking for me all right. Well. Now I know the rumors are true. He's not killing, but he's scaring every demon in America senseless with threat. Even as far east as New York. No doubt farther,' Thorn thought to herself, balancing easily on the slippery pole as she watched him.

Dark had come swiftly and painted the streets cool blues along with shiveringly cold blacks, stretching dark fingers over the ground like sable-hued blood. The street lights gave the saturnine cement a heatless glow, giving the false impression of warmth under its rays. The sun's heated rays had disappeared, leaving the sky streaked with dark blues, feathers of clouds floating about with hope of morning's warmth.

"I know someone is there. You can come out," came Hiei's deep and dangerous voice. He lifted his chin higher, letting his rouge eyes drift over the scene before him.

Thorn's hooked beak did not move, but she smiled to herself. She swooped down from her perch, flapping her wings furiously as she landed on the ground. She turned her head to look at Hiei and opened her beak in a would-be grin. Her long talons clawed at the ground as she stepped forward awkwardly before her feathers were again bleached ivory and her form began to change into that of a humans.

"Hn."

"Don't even try to act surprised, Hiei. You knew that I would come as soon as I heard the rumors. Frankly, I applaud your strategy. Making me come to you instead of the way it should be," Thorn said with a smile. "But there was one flaw in your plan."

"Hn. There was no flaw to it. It worked out just as I planned it would," Hiei said, taking a step forward from the veil of penumbra.

"Yes, well if I could had decided to go with my original plan of just swooping in and killing you, then your strategy wouldn't have been to well planned now would it?" she asked.

"Well you didn't. And that's what matters, not what could have happened," Hiei replied evenly.

"Hn. Well it looks like I'll have to change my plan of attack and make them more unpredictable, eh?"

"Looks that way. Maybe you should make me think of a plan that requires more energy to come up with. This one was too simple. You make it too easy."

"Well, then I'll be sure to give you more of a challenge on that level… next time," she said.

"What makes you think that there will be a next time? I have orders to take you to Koenma immediately. No matter what means it takes to do it."

"Hiei, I can tell that you enjoy dragging this out just by the small smile I see growing on your face. You will take your time only because you have nothing better to do and Koenma is so busy researching who I am and all about me that he wont dare put you on another mission in case he needs you to apprehend me. You know this just as well as I do. There will be a next time," the girl said, the light to her left and right as well as behind her shinning against her green eyes, which laughed in amusement.

"Hn. You shouldn't be so sure," Hiei said, his lips twitching into the smallest of smiles.

"I am sure. I'll see you tomorrow, Hiei. Dusk would be the best time, when all the people of this city are in bars and casinos. There are less people in the mountains. That would be the best place for this battle."

"Who says we're going to fight? I was just going to capture you and then take you to Koenma."

"Hiei," Thorn said, looking at him with a you're-so-funny-but-stop-pretending look. "You know that I wont come without a fight. And I know that you're impatient for something to take your energies out on. Now let's see. There's a mountain just north of the city that is next to the desert. I'm sure that it would be a perfect place." Hiei shook his head with a smile. Thorn looked up to the sky, watching as the moon steadily rose. She froze suddenly, and jerked her head to her left, listening.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Hiei. I have to go," she said before walking into the deep shadows next to the building and shifting back into a golden-brown eagle. She flew past him with a small cry, her wings giving off a warm breeze as she winged by with silent feathers. Her green eyes connected with his for just an instant before she rose into the dark sky, her shape disappearing in the darkness.

Hiei smiled before turning and walking back to the hotel.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Authoress Note: Goman-

Yusuke: you're a very bad author.

WHACK!

Yusuke: gaa @_@

J: -eyebrow twitches-

Yusuke: -rubs notting head- oww…

Kurama: what was it this time?

Hiei: A Christoper Pike book. -picks up book- -reads- The Last Vampire: Volume One

Kurama: ahh, reading it yet again, J-chan?

J: -taking deep, calming breaths- yeah.

Kuwabara: He's right, ya know, you haven't updated in a week.

J: -glare-

Kuwabara: -shrink away- I'm going to go fine Eikichi. -walks away slowly-

J: -sigh- I know, and I'm SOOO sorry to my reviewers and all my readers! -bangs head on desk-

Hiei&Kurama: -look at each other-

J: -wails- I will except threats for my inactivity!

Yusuke: will you shut up?! I have a friggin' headache. -rubs head-

J: -fume- I'll so you a 'friggin' headache'!! -lunges-

Yusuke: -squeal- HELP!

Hiei&Kurama: -sigh- -shakes head-

Kurama: I guess its up to us to do the disclaimer.

J: WAIT! -gets up from cloud-fight- we need to do reviews!

Kurama: true.

meghan(): thank you so much for your review! Yes, I will admit that the authoress' Notes do get a little…err… ecentric. ^_^

Miyako14: here's your update! Sorry it took so long! GOMAN GOMAN!

GOMAN NE TO ALL! I am sooooo sorry!

Yusuke: -rubbing bruised and aching head and rubbing black eye- yeah, you should be -grumbles-

J: -glare-

Yusuke: ^_^ -crawls away-

J: I DON'T THINK SO! YOU do the disclaimer!

Yusuke: -groan- do I hafta?

J: YES!

Yusuke: -sigh- J-chan owns only Thorn, BlackFire and Rose. There, happy?

J: -nods- very.

Yusuke: good, can I go now?

J: no! I still hafta beat the crap outta ya!

Yusuke: -runs away-

J: GET BACK HERE! -runs after him-

Hiei Kurama&Kuwabara: -Kuwabara, hidding in a corner with his kitty- what a fool.

Kurama: well, please review, we'd appreciate it.

Kuwabara: yeah, the sooner she gets done with this story, the sooner the torture stops.

Hiei: and she'll update more if you review, so do so.

Kurama: please.

Kuwabara: PLEASE!!!!