Kitsune Kit: Thanks, I try. Even if it's harder than hell to get away from Hiei after such scenes. n,.,n

Darkspirals: Ooh, new reviewer! Thanks for such wonderful praise. I have to admit, I'm rather attached to my fox-god--

Starling: (coughcough)

(glare) Didn't ask you, wolf--but Hiei comes in a close second. Everybody's gotta love a bite-sized badass bishie.

Chapter 6

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The next morning, barely past dawn, Hiei stumbles blearily into the living room, peering about owlishly and his hair flattened against his head. "Where's Kohaku?" he mumbles to Aislin, who is seated on the couch with some of her school books as an effort to fill her time with homework. Demons their age don't need much sleep, but he'd passed the time for a long nap sometime during Kohaku's week of healing.

"Out on the field training, if I remember correctly," is his mirror's calm reply, the slender female scribing an answer neatly into her notebook. "Kurama-kun went home so Shiori-san wouldn't worry, and Botan dragged the other two boys home in an attempt to get them to school today. Meiou has a teacher's holiday so we've got the place to ourselves for once."

"Hn." Hiei is not awake enough for normal conversation, but after centuries of associating with her soul-sib, Aislin easily interprets that as a 'thank Kami'.

"Oh," she suddenly remembers, "Genkai's supposed to come by sometime this afternoon to give our pretty hanyou a going over in terms of her abilities. The faster we get her trained as far as she can be, the safer she'll be."

"Hn." 'That's good.' Chuckling to herself, Aislin goes back to her books while Hiei disappears into the kitchen to make himself something to eat and a cup of coffee. A few minutes later he's ensconced on the windowsill, mug of precious caffeine cradled in one hand and a toasted peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in the other. He grunts a monosyllable in Aislin's direction, who obligingly rises and walks over to the window to peer out curiously. In clear view is the training field and a small figure upon it, moving with slow grace through a variety of katas.

"I didn't realize you could see the training field from here." She glances a little higher. "And the sunrise isn't bad either."

"Hn." This one is a pleased sound, as though he's happy that someone finally bothered to figure out why he spends so much time gazing out this window. Glancing at the pile of papers and books that await her on the couch, Aislin pulls a face and gazes back out the window at Kohaku warming up.

"You know, screw the schoolwork. I feel like some training. Come and join us when you finish waking up, porcupine head."

"Hn." 'Yeah, okay.' Shaking her head at the broad range of meanings Hiei can imbue a single grunt with, Aislin disappears into her room and emerges a few moments later dressed in sweats and her hair tied back into a French-braid. She waves casually at Hiei and starts to go out the door, then changes her mind and heads for Hiei's window.

"'Scuse me!" she chirps, opening the window and just leaping straight down. All seventy feet, to land whisper-soft on the ground and trotting off towards the paused form of Kohaku. Hiei watches them speak for a few moments before Kohaku resumes her katas and Aislin begins stretching out muscles stiff from sitting for hours on end. At an invisible signal from Aislin, Kohaku stops her forms and the pair begin jogging off on the thin track invisible from this distance and angle.

He takes his time finishing his meager-but-adequate breakfast, and takes just as much time performing his morning ablutions and making a futile attempt to get his head-fur to smooth into a proper crest--an ongoing battle that he usually loses. Giving up on his fur for the nonce, he pulls on some of his older black pants and a black tank-top, worn and especially comfortable and smelling of the herb sachets Aislin and Kurama keep sneaking into his drawers. To him, they smell intangibly of 'home', and to one such as he, 'home' is a very precious thing indeed.

Amused with himself at the sudden philosophical turn his thoughts have taken, especially so quickly after his awakening, the fire apparition saunters over to the window and follows Aislin's example by simply leaping the relatively short distance to the ground below.

"Ohayou!" Kohaku calls as the two girls jog past him, one arm raised in a wave. "Sleep well?"

"Hn." Kohaku just smiles as he falls into step with them, not even bothering to stretch his own muscles--by this point, they warm themselves up by the act of just walking--and Aislin chuckles before translating.

"He says he slept like a rock, Kohaku. Hiei's not really much of a morning person when he bothers to sleep."

"Know the feeling," Kohaku sighs, breath coming easily to the fit girl. "Given half a chance I'd probably be a lazy creature content with lying around in the sun and playing with children. But my dad and mom train me too hard for me to get lazy."

"Training is good right now," Aislin informs her in a warm voice. "Training will keep your hide in one piece for the most part."

"It's the 'most part' that concerns me!" comes the playful retort. Hiei by this point has woken up enough to snort, as exercise burns away the last cobwebs wrapping his brain.

--

Later, after Genkai has arrived, Aislin and Hiei sit on the sidelines of the outdoor training arena while Kohaku demonstrates one of her routines. On Aislin's lap sits a state-of-the-art boombox that somehow manages to be fairly simple and quite elegant at the same time, a cd already inserted and waiting.

"You call that a routine?" Genkai rasps as Kohaku finishes, looking vaguely dissatisfied with herself.

"I call that me being out of flippin' shape," Kohaku grumbles back before looking over at Aislin. "Hey, Aislin, gimme track number fifteen! I need something with a good beat to really get me started."

"Hai!" Aislin chirps, turning the 'box on and pressing 'play'. With a much-happier set to her entire body, Kohaku once again begins to demonstrate her techniques while a pulsing techno song throbs from the boombox's speakers. Genkai's eyebrow goes up as the pattern in the routine is revealed with the song's beat, and gives Aislin a slight nod. With a mental 'nudge' Aislin shifts the song into the middle of a different track and Kohaku follows without faltering. When the routine ends Kohaku looks expectantly over at Genkai.

"So your specialty is music, eh?" Genkai finally asks, and Kohaku nods.

"It helps me concentrate and it's fun to set different moves to different songs. I'm just outta practice 'cause I've been zonked for a week and my muscles forgot."

"How about your reiki abilities?"

"My what?"

A wry smile. "I guess that answers that question." The old psychic passes a wrinkled hand over her face and sighs. "So what do you know?"

"I'm at Koenma's palace in the Reikai because someone called the Jaganshi declared me his ward--whatever that means--and now I'm the target for every single one of his enemies. Who are still alive," she adds after a moment's thought. "And that all the stories that my mother told me when I was little about demons are probably true. Pretty much it, really."

"I meant techniques," Genkai croaks, while Aislin stares at Kohaku.

"You don't know who Jaganshi is?"

"Nope. No one's really explained anything yet. What I know is what that stupid tiger-guy blabbed about before someone dropped through the skylight."

"I was wondering what kind of dramatic entrance Hiei had made," Aislin laughs. "And by the way, he's Jaganshi. It's his last name, get it?"

"So, why are so many demons after your head?" Kohaku asks, turning to look at an uncomfortable Hiei.

Placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, Aislin answers. "Because we used to be what the laws would call very bad people. We stole, we killed, we blackmailed and we smuggled. We also caused massive property damage and many headaches for Koenma." An involuntary snort of laughter from Kohaku.

"But you two are only...like, what? Fifteen, sixteen?"

"Nearly one thousand, actually. Hiei's older than me by a couple of months." Kohaku's jaw drops.

"But...how?? You'd have to be demons or something!"

"Actually, we're mixed-bloods. Some of it demon, some of it apparition. I have some human in my blood, something like a quarter if I remember right."

"So...why are they after him if you're both so strong?"

"'Cause they're stupid," Genkai rasps before Aislin has a chance to answer that one. "These two are a couple of the most powerful creatures in existence right now, or Hiei would be if he hadn't sealed himself."

"Huh?"

Aislin sighs. "You might as well show her, Hiei-kun. It would explain a great deal." Reluctantly, the kajihenge pulls away the white bandanna wrapping around his forehead. Kohaku gapes at the sight of the violet-colored eye staring at her from between Hiei's real eyes, and before Hiei can interpret that gape the wrong way, her mouth turns up and her eyes grow wide.

"Holy shit! That is so gods-be-damned cool it's not funny! What is that?"

"It's a Jagan eye," Hiei says in the tone of someone speaking to a small, particularly dense child.

"Seriously cool! So, what, does it use your power for itself and give you neat abilities in return??"

Taken aback, Hiei nods. "Exactly."

"Useful little thing, that." The eye narrows and she blinks. "I'm sorry, did I insult it? I didn't mean to, really. I think it's absolutely fantastic!" Pleased at the praise, the eye actually warms its gaze for the hanyou girl.

"You do?" Hiei can't believe his ears and Kohaku nods firmly.

"Yeah! I've heard about the 'evil eye' in some of Mom's stories, but I never thought I'd get to see one. Oh, this is so cool!"

"Hiei has a fan," Aislin mutters in surprise to Genkai, who is looking between the two speakers with some amusement.

"Heh, to be young at heart again. Glad that's over. Come on, girl! We'd better get started if you're going to learn anything by the time you're supposed to go home."

"Woo-hoo!" Kohaku cheers, shooting one fist into the air. "New techniques!"

----

"What in the world possessed me to actually go along with that tyrant?" Kohaku moans to herself later that night, soaking her many new aches and scrapes in near-scalding water saturated with wildflower bubble-bath. Genkai had not held back for her new--if temporary--student, training Kohaku until she'd dropped and then waiting long enough for the girl to recover before doing it all over again. On the positive side, Kohaku now has a fairly good grasp of her reiki and has already developed a couple of techniques and weapons.

She can already tell what her favorite technique will be as soon as she's worked the kinks out of it: claws made of reiki, resembling a mole's forepaw on the general configuration and forming a guard by overlapping her arm nearly to the elbow. Her fingers support the sturdy ripping blades of reiki, hooked to ensure the most damage. Most useful as a melee weapon, really.

Deciding for that it will be safe to space out for a few minutes, at least, Kohaku closes her eyes and leans back in the deep tub, the bubble-foam so high that her face is in a newly-formed valley of suds created by the back of her head, completely hiding her from immediate view from the door.

Which is a good thing, since someone enters without bothering to knock and, from the sounds of it, begins to undress. "Ya baka!" Kohaku snarls, making sure that yes the foam actually does cover everything important, not lifting her head up so that she wouldn't have to see anything, either. "Knock before ya walk! Get your ass outta my bathroom before I rip your head off!"

"Aw, geez, sorry!" Yusuke's voice says from nearer the door--he'd started escaping with her first words. "I wasn't thinkin'! I forgot this was your room!" Kohaku, deciding that Yusuke is not leaving fast enough, grabs a convenient shampoo bottle and flings it at her hardest in what she hopes is the right direction. She is rewarded with a thunk and a pained yelp, then the hasty opening and closing of the bathroom door. Risking a peek, Kohaku sits up and brings an armful of foam with her just in case, only to find that Yusuke is not being stupid and hiding somewhere in hopes of a peek.

Breathing a satisfied sigh of relief, Kohaku once again sinks back into the bubbles and lets her embarrassment soak away.

----

"Are you certain it's all right for you to be up?" Kurama asks again the next day as they walk down the street towards Kohaku's home, concern creasing his forehead and clouding those beautiful emerald eyes.

Kohaku rolls her eyes. "For the fourth time, yes, Kurama, I'm fine." She'd learned the fox-human's real name yesterday during her jog with Aislin. "After all, I survived Genkai without falling over. My mom shouldn't be too much of a challenge. I hope."

"You don't sound too certain of that."

"My mom doesn't always have the safest temper. Speaking of tempers, how come you're walking with me instead of Hiei?"

Kurama coughs slightly and hides a smile behind a hand. "Ah, yes. I was informed by our resident fire apparition that your mother would not welcome his presence and might take steps to remove it from the premises."

"So he pissed off Mom sometime in the past and she hasn't forgiven him yet, huh?" Kohaku summarizes, and her companion chuckles.

"In so many words, yes. He didn't tell me why your mother dislikes his company so much, but then Hiei has always had his secrets and he keeps them well. Not even Aislin knows all there is to know of Hiei, and she's known him almost all of her life." They walk up the front steps and Kohaku takes a few extra steps to reach the front door before him, producing a key from her jeans pocket and letting the two of them in.

"Mom! Dad! I'm home!" Overjoyed barking immediately resounds throughout the house and Kohaku quickly pushes Kurama behind her as Baka tears down the hallway towards them. "Baka! You're okay!" Whump! Kurama laughs quietly at the sight of Kohaku bowled over onto her back with Baka licking at her face with a long pink tongue, the long fangs never even grazing her skin. "Ack! Pfpth! Ack! Help! I'm being attacked!" the girl laughs, vainly trying to push Baka away from her long enough to regain her feet. "Okay! Okay-okay-okay! Baka, enough!!"

Panting, the wolf-like dog subsides and sits a foot or two away, panting with a canine grin plastered on his face. "That's quite a welcome," Kurama says with one last chuckle, wiping away a few tears from laughing so hard. "Does he always do that?"

"Naw, he only does that when we've been away a while," a younger voice pipes from the stairs, and Kurama looks to find a younger male version of Kohaku standing on the last step with a relieved grin suffusing his features. "Look pretty good for a corpse, sis."

"Oh, psh!" Kohaku snorts, drying her face with one sleeve of her sweater. "I ain't dead by a long-shot, Koryu. Any mail for me while I was gone?"

"You act like you just went on vacation," Koryu grumbles, but points to a large box waiting on the hall table, covered in airmail stickers. With a joyful shriek, Kohaku leaps for the box and quickly tears off the wrapping, revealing a plain cardboard box that quickly follows the wrapper's suit. The box is packed to the brim with manga, DVDs, CDs and a few artbooks of some of the more obscure anime.

"Yatta! Yatta! Cassie made good on her promise!" Kohaku squeals, holding up one manga after another and grinning broadly at her new prizes. When Kurama looks curiously over at Koryu, the youngest Piers just shrugs, resigned.

"Kohaku's an anime fanatic. When she gets one of her 'care packages' from some of her old gang back in the States, she goes a little crazy for a while." Kohaku is still making interesting sounds from next to the box. "I give it a good two days 'til she's calmed down."

"Where's Mom and Dad?" Kohaku asks absently, still pawing through the box and not even bothering to look up.

"Huh?" Koryu seems startled by the sudden reality-check of his sister and is at a loss for words.

"Where's Mom and Dad?"

"Oh. They're upstairs. Come on, Shuichi. You might as well come, too." The red-head looks startled.

"Ah, oh, no! I couldn't impose, really!"

Kohaku sighs in exasperation and puts down her treasures before grabbing the boy by his arm and hauling him up the steps after her. "Come on, Shuichi. You can save me from a painful death. Mom's gonna kill me for not calling sooner."

With a weak smile, Kurama allows himself to be pulled upstairs after the siblings and towards what appears to be their parents' study. When a knock on the door yields a quiet 'come in', Kohaku opens turns the knob and stares at the sight that awaits them beyond. Koryu peers around his sister. "Whoa."

--

"So what do you think, Genkai?" Somehow, Hiei can't bring himself to call her by anything but her name. Pride will not let him use 'san' but it will not let him call her the names her apprentice uses freely. The two are sitting at her temple, Genkai at a low table sipping at tea, the apparition sitting against the wall. The old woman glances up from her tea with an unreadable expression.

"What do you mean?"

"Her skills, old woman! Do not play the fool with me!" There. Temper has satisfied his pride. Hoorah.

"Knock it off, Hiei. You know your temper doesn't scare me." Reluctantly, Hiei subsides against the wall and settles for his usual sullen glare. "Her skills are impressive for someone like her, I will admit. She has a great deal of potential. Nowhere near Yusuke's or Aislin's level, but good enough to serve as your fifth and allow Aislin to sit out for a change."

"Hn. Better than I feared."

----

Kohaku and Koryu stare at their parents, jaws dropped and eyes wide. Kohaku had half-expected to see the silky black ears emerging from either side of her mother's skull instead of the mortally round ones, and a tail the same ebony as her hair slowly sweeping from side to side, but more meets the three children's startled gazes. Benjamin Piers is seated next to his wife, with dark mocha brown wolf's ears tilted in relaxation in different directions and a fluffy tail wagging cheerfully behind him.

"Dad??"

"Heh, surprise, honey."

"Cool!" Koryu cries, grinning. "Does that mean I've got ears too??"

"Well, I'll be damned," Kurama chuckles. "Been a long time, Buyuu."

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It's just a small three worlds, isn't it? ;P How does Mr. Piers know Kurama? Find out next chapter!

Hanyou: half-blood

Ohayou: Good morning

Reiki: spirit energy

Reikai: Spirit World

Buyuu: valor