After a stressful break, I am back and here is chapter 8 for your enjoyment. AN is on my author's page if you care to look. Oh, and the stars I usually use to show the changes in scene or POV are not showing up so I just marked the places they would normally be.

Sylvannastar

Chapter 8

Kurama stepped back through the portal and cautiously circled the petrified pair standing in a circle of steam and slush. "Hiei?" he called again softly.

A strange glowing came from under the white strip of cloth around Hiei's forehead and Kurama inched closer. When he was close enough to feel the heat radiating off the other demon, Kurama stopped and considered his options. "What are you doing, my friend?" he questioned softly.

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Hiei was impressed by the strength of the mind he was attempting to see into. The barriers surrounding the girl's thoughts were skillfully placed and were contained by a strange power that he was not familiar with. He knew that there were some humans born in the world that had a natural psychic barricade that obstructed invasions such as the one that he was now attempting. He could only assume that she was one of those rare ningens with such a gift.

The imitation of a common and current energy, or emotion was the easiest and fastest way to break into anothers mind, emotion being the key because it was easily manipulated and changed by outside influences. One of the most common door ways that Hiei was familiar with was greed and vanity. The shallow processes, especially of the human mind, was just enough to allow him in and to dominate.

Hiei began looking for a way in. As fragile as the human mind is, he did not realize that it would be so difficult to find a common wavelength that would mesh with his energies long enough for him to get a hold on her. The trick was in discovering the exact experience that he would have to mimic in order to gain that grip on her mind. He had to first guess what she was experiencing in that moment before he could imitate that same pattern into his own aura and slip in.

He found a weakness along the boundary in her mind that had so far barred his attempts to find her consciousness. He was surprised by her resistance to the regular tricks that made humans so easy to read. She had no traces of greed or vanity in her aura when he searched for them. She was not consumed by bitterness or ambitions. No, the doorway he found was in guilt and heartache, so strong but so well hidden that his own energies flared in protest at the idea of mocking the intensity of that feeling. But what would have made this weak human woman experience such an emotion to such a degree? When he exerted his own pressure with the help of the Jagon, he slipped through that timid mental crack with cautious ease. When he was firmly connected, he opened his senses and Hiei was stunned by what his third eye was projecting back to him.

A kaleidoscope of half formed images and thoughts twisted about without form or direction. Chaos in its most primal form was wrecking havoc in this woman's mind. He had never experienced disorder of this degree in the mind of another. It was as if there was no solid essence to her that was coherent. She was constantly shifting and spinning, her entire mind a storm made from the debris of her thoughts and emotions. She was shattered.

Hiei shuddered to a halt in his searching and took a moment to create a parody of his physical form in her head. It was naturally easier to direct his actions and movement if he had the illusion of control over a body more tangible. The force of his energy and his own thoughts were carefully constructed and manifested into a replica of his real body. The body became a focus for his powers and provided a way for him to regain a solid perception of what he was experiencing. This careful construction of a false form also protected him from dispersing his own consciousness into the girl's mind. He was looking for information, not attempting a possession. Merging with this kind of chaos would only shatter his own defenses and pull the taint of disorder into his own head.

Hiei growled at the thought and was surprised by the impression of actual sound that echoed around him. It should have not been possible for this mere slip of a girl to find a way to express the impressions of life. She had managed to not only recollect the experiences of life, but recreate them as well. Her mind, though seemingly wrought by insanity, was so very focused. Sound and color and form all implied a great strength of mind in this one weakened human girl. If she had the mental capacity to not only recall ideas in her memory, but also project them, then he concluded that she must have some of the strongest mental abilities that he had ever come across in a human.

After several seconds of watching the swirling masses of her thoughts and memories, Hiei began to curse at the vertigo and his general lack of progress. There was nothing tangible here to find. He scowled unhappily at this revelation. If he were to ever peak into the mind of an insane creature, Hiei fully believed that this is what he would find. The girl must have completely lost her grip on reality and was now lost to them. The thought made him strangely sad to think about.

"No! Don't do that!"

Hiei snapped to attention when a voice not his own yelled out and he followed the source to the manifested form of the girl who's body he was standing in. That she had managed to create the same kind of focus as he was using surprised him again. This ningen woman was proving to be full of surprises.

Kagome emerged from her panicked hiding place when she recognized the form of the dark haired man from her last conscious experience. He was standing there for several minutes before he started to project a faint aura of sadness that the vortex of her mind quickly swallowed and made use of.

Hiei blinked his shock and allowed his eyes to travel over her detailed copy of her true corporal form. The wounds were gone from her flesh, though she had recreated her torn clothing perfectly. Dark hair billowed out over her shoulders and blew gently in a breeze the could not really exist here. Those stunning blue eyes that he had been repressing his longing to see again were narrowed in a scowl that he responded to.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Hiei exclaimed and glanced around himself in puzzlement. There was no way that this human woman had the strength of mind to do what she was doing. He ignored her projected form while trying to still his scattered thought. He never expected an answer and was stunned to hear her reply.

"I think that everything is just re-adjusting," she shrugged and moved up beside him.

Hiei couldn't help himself. "Re-adjusting to what?"

Kagome turned a disbelieving stare on her intruder and frowned. "To what?! What do you think!? To the very thing that started this whole mess in the first place!"

Hiei was not sure how to respond to her. There was several things about this that made little sense to him. Her very presence in the midst of all this chaos, her lack of concern about his presence in her mind, the meaning behind all of this hidden behind her obviously sarcastic words. Hiei felt a momentary rise of anger at his confusion and at her vague answer and was rewarded by another fierce frown.

"I told you to stop doing that!" she insisted and crossed her arms over her chest. "You are going to make things worse."

"Who the hell are you?!" he exploded and turned on her. It was automatic for him to reach out a restraining hand to capture her wrist, but it was when the sensation of flesh on flesh registered in his mind that he recognized physical touch shouldn't be possible. Her small arm under his hand denied that law. Hiei released her with a curse and stepped away from her.

"If you don't quit projecting emotions like that, I'm going to have to contain you," she threatened with a waving finger under his nose. "Angel or not," she firmly stated and watched the man with a wary eye.

Hiei grit his teeth together and forced himself to ignore that idiotic threat, before he roughly pressed upon the girl holding his attention so completely. "I am NOT an angel!" he protested. "I am a warrior!".

"Of course you are," she sounded amused. "What other kind of protector could have possibly followed me through this life?"

"Are you dense, woman?! I am a demon! Look at me!" he demanded.

Slightly surprised by his declaration, Kagome re-accessed her impressions of the dark man. Her eyes widened slightly in comprehension. Hiei expected her to crumple in fear, to scream, to try to run from his presence. He did not expect the softening of her expression or the gentle look in her eyes.

"I see," Kagome replied softly and looked him over before meeting his hard crimson gaze. She reached out a delicate hand to touch the fire apparition. "It's the same thing in the end, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Demon, angel, human, its all the same."

"Humans are nothing like demons," Hiei spat out. He was desperate to dispel the confusion she was creating in his well ordered world. She was not responding right, she was not following the rules. She was not afraid of him. Hiei searched for a anchor and found it in his bitterness. "We do not have the same weaknesses that you pitiful humans have. You and your stupid emotions and petty goals. There is no comparison."

"No?" she asked, looking puzzled. "Are you not angry right now? A stupid human emotion? Sad? Regretful, even? Don't we have enough similarities to relate to one another?"

Hiei heard her soft chuckling when he refused to reply and felt a growing need to escape this madwoman and her effects on him. Hiei felt himself swell with anger at the insolence of this human girl. His red eyes snapped with suppressed rage that she seemed to see, but was totally unconcerned about. He didn't even stop to think about why her flippant attitude had the power to draw any type of response from him at all. Here, in her mind, Hiei felt his control over his own emotions slipping away. It was as if what ever he was feeling was being amplified by the chaos in her head.

"Oh no!" the girl suddenly pouted and turned to point a finger rudely at him. "Look at what you've done! I told you to stop that!"

Hiei took a step back and hissed his displeasure but carefully took note of how the swirl of color around them began to darken and shapes and faces began to twist about in the mass. Wary of some sort of attack, Hiei was shocked to see the twisted face of a large blue oni scream at them before being sucked back into the vortex. Several other faces peeked out at them, some human, most not, and Hiei grew more and more tense at the moments passed.

"What is this?!" he forced out between clenched teeth.

"Dammit," the girl sucked in a breath and frowned unhappily. She opened her mouth to reply when she was interrupted by the stream of memory solidifying into the image of a dark haired woman in an old fashioned Kimono. Dresses to the finest detail of a princess of a day long since past, she stepped from the darkness and waited.

Hiei stared at the figure and wrapped his hands around the projection of his sword still seeming to rest at his hip. The woman was tall, willowy, and clothed in the finest of clothes...but she had no face. No face...

"Why?" the girl at his side whispered quietly to herself. "I don't want to see this again."

"Again?!" Hiei demanded and snuck a glance at the distraught girl before growling a warning at the creature poised before them. He couldn't help the wave of anger that was spilling out of him now. He had no way of determining what was going on, or how to deal with it. Normally when Hiei was presented with something he didn't like, he killed it, forced it out of his presence. But this, he had no idea what was happening around him. He had no control. HE HAD NO CONTROL! A burst of raw rage at his predicament and helplessness cycled through the fire apparition. With a bit of shock, he noted that the intensity of his responses was fueling the images in front of him.

Now, the faceless woman was joined by a hideous toad creature even shorter than he was and another image of the girl standing at his side. He tightened his grip on the hilt of his katana and bared his teeth at the figures. The younger version of the girl ran at the woman and splashed through the vague image of a pond until the faceless woman wailed mournfully and vanished. If he were made of weaker stuff, he would have been screaming in the shared madness by now.

Instead he rounded on the girl at his side and opened his mouth to demand answers of her. Before he could get a word out, the human reached out and gently shoved him backward.

"Leave now," she said to the shocked demon. "If you can't behave yourself, then I must insist that you leave."

Hiei felt himself fading from her consciousness before he could voice or demonstrate a protest against her.

Kagome laughed and shook her head when he disappeared. "I suppose that it makes more sense that my spiritual protector would be a demon..." she mused.

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The pale glow of energy from Hiei's implanted Jagon seemed to throb in the muted atmosphere. It was the only sign of life that Kurama could visibly see on his friend. Kurama forced himself to take several steps back when the white binding over the eye began to burn off. His own eyes narrowed in regard. The fox spirit attempted to avoid seeming a threat to the half lidded third eye.

Without warning, the faint glow of Hiei's Jagon flared to life with a blinding flash that sent a throb of power through the lands that could be physically felt. At the same time, Hiei cried out in anger and Kurama launched himself at his friend and their captured human girl and tackled them through the portal.

With an audible snap, the rip in space collapsed in upon itself and any and all effects of the explosion of energy Hiei had just released were lost in another world. Kurama rolled to his feet on the marbled floor of Reikai and twisted himself around in the same motion to watch the fire apparition skid to a halt with the human girl still held tight to his chest.

Hiei was breathing harshly and Kurama could see the slightest trembling of his legs as he worked to stand after draining so much youki at one time. Kurama remained across the room from the smaller demon and watched intently. Yusuke and Kuwabara were sitting straight up and wide eyed while waiting for an explanation for the spike of Hiei's power that had just rippled up their spines when there was no enemy in sight.

Hiei clenched his teeth and all three of his eyes shut until the ringing in his head subsided to a more manageable level. With his usual scowl amplified to a dark glower, he stared down every raised brow in the room with a silent refusal to answer their unspoken questions. He shook his head again and proudly raised his chin. "Ask her," he stated and dropped the girl on Koenma's massive wooden desk where she whimpered from the withdrawal of the warmth of his aura.

Koenma had arrived in his room right after Kurama had followed Botan back through the portal to drag in the seemingly reluctant fire apparition. Every attempt to question the other two idiots had resulted in their rude shushing and exhausted rude gestures. Now, with the four members of the team once again in a realm that he could keep an eye on, he was ready to find out what they had discovered on this mission and if it was a threat. He was ready to hear about a massing enemy army. He was ready to hear about some powerful demon set on world domination. He was ready for mayhem and chaos. He had not been ready for a temperamental fire demon to just drop a half dead human girl on his desk.

Koenma stared down in concern at the girl before he hurriedly called Botan over to heal the wounds still sluggishly seeping blood. He shot a reproving look at the fire apparition who took his normal stance at the back wall and received one of the harshest glares he had ever seen in response. Quickly looking away, Koenma pointedly focused his attention on the human decorating his desk. Botan shoved her way between him and the woman before he could get a good look at the details of the poor soul deposited so roughly on top of his paperwork.

"Well," he whined. "Who is going to tell me what happened?"

Yusuke rolled his eyes and waved vaguely at Kurama who was currently staring at a fuming Hiei. The violent light in the red eyed, Jaganashi shifted to encompass the other occupants of the room when he realized that Kurama wasn't the only one giving him that assessing look. "She would be the one with your answers," he hissed at them and folded his arms over his chest in a gesture meant to impart his intent to ignore further questioning.

"I don't think that is going to be possible anytime soon," Botan prompted and gained their attention. "She's pretty torn up."

"So we noticed," Yusuke pointed out with a scowl. "And before you start pointing fingers, we found her like that."

"Out there?" Koenma gaped.

"Where else have we been? Of course out there!" Yusuke frowned and took another stab at straightening the long strands of dark hair sprouting from his head. "She was just lying there in the snow all by her self. We figured that you would know who she is."

"I haven't a clue," Koenma admitted with a serious note of concern laced into his words. "But we had better find out fast. Was she the source of the power surge?" he asked innocently and began shoving aside random files cluttering the room while Botan worked at pouring her healing energies into the pale girl.

"No, she was not," Kurama finally spoke up, his calm even voice ringing with confidence. "But we believe that this is." Kurama pointed a slim finger at a ragged katana covered in a ratty wooden sheath and prompted Kuwabara to raise the weapon up to everyone's view.

The skeptical glare that the young spirit ruler gave the object under discussion was unimpressive due entirely to the fierce stare Hiei was still offering from the shadows of the room. Koenma firmed his posture and moved toward the object that looked like it couldn't cut anything firmer than milk. "That?" he queried. "You think that is what set off the sensors?"

"Looks like an ordinary sword to me," Kuwabara agreed with the spirit ruler and hefted the object in his hand.

"And you think otherwise?" Koenma frowned at the spirit fox resting casually across the room from them. Koenma briefly wondered when the fox had moved and why he would have increased the space between them so dramatically before turning his attention to the blade. "It looks harmless," he announced doubtfully.

"Looks can be deceiving," Kurama answered softly. "Yusuke, a demonstration?" he requested.

"Me?!" Yusuke yelped and leapt to his feet, successfully entangling his left hand hopelessly in his own hair. "Why me? That thing hurts!""

"Give it here," Koenma sighed and waved his tiny hands at Kuwabara.

"That is not a good idea!" Yusuke protested with a yelp and tore a chunk of his hair out in his hurry to get as far away from the katana as possible. A glance from the corner of his eye showed that he was closer to the seething fire demon than was healthy and had to rethink his retreat.

"Why ever not?" Koenma rolled his eyes and approached Kuwabara who was nodding along with the diminutive spirit ruler. He stopped and craned his head back until he was able to see the tattered sword up close and glowered at the tall human when he didn't bend down so that Koenma could reach it. "Well," he announced, "give it here."

Kuwabara for some reason was wary of handing the innocent, but rusty blade to his boss. The others where worried for a reason. Just because he didn't know what that reason was didn't make him a fool. They knew something that he didn't, which while being nothing new, was familiar territory and he was well experienced enough to know that it was usually best to follow their lead. "Perhaps I should..." he began hesitantly but was cut off by Botan's call from across the room.

"Koenma-sama, I think that she will be okay now. She still has quite a bit of healing to do, but I think she's gonna make it." Botan wiped a relieved arm over her forehead and sagged against the wooden desk next to her patient.

"Really?" the toddler asked curiously and trotted back to his desk to examine the misplaced human. "Can she be woken up for questioning?"

Botan eyed her boss with disapproval but nodded her head. "But not for long," she admonished. "She needs her rest to get better."

Koenma clapped his hands together once and gleefully proclaimed "Finally, some answers!"

The others sighed in relief when the sword was abandoned in favor of the girl. And they obviously agreed with Koenma's sentiments about having answers. So far, in this whole mess, they had failed to find answers to anything. But questions, they had many of those.

Against the far wall, red eyes glinting dangerously, Hiei closely watched the others gather in a tight circle around the human girl. He was perhaps the only one not interested in those answers. Hiei was no longer concerned about who she was, or how she got to the Makai. No. All he had only one question that he wanted an answer to. How the hell had she managed to push him out of head?

888That is it for this chapter888

thank you for being so patient,

Sylvannastar