(Feelings beyond appearance)

"So you and Hiten are blood brothers?" Sakura commented. Manten and she had been talking for a while now, and she was surprised that the thunder demon wasn't as hardheaded as she expected him to be. Actually, she had been surprised that he would even have offered his aid to heal her wound.

"Yes." Manten says, and the girl saw pain in his eyes that were full of misery. "Being the younger brother of an-chan certainly has its good things, but to me it's more of bad than good."

Sakura swallowed her green tea that Manten had prepared for her a while ago. She had to admit this was good green tea; If only it didn't have a secret recipe that included human body parts. Nonetheless, she nodded and Manten continued.

"Hiten an-chan was always popular with the women." He said miserably. "Even one-night prostitutes fall in love with him even if they were around him for about a couple of days or so, even human females swoon at his presence; But as for me..."

Manten knew that he didn't have to continue along with his pitiful story. Of course this girl knew, he thought to himself.

Hiten an-chan is drop-dead gorgeous, I am hideous.

He is brave, I am...sort of.

He has the raven, silky hair that even the females envy of, and I...just don't, if you don't count the three picks on my bald scalp.

Father loved him better, as did mother. I? Just another child in the family.

And as for the family treasure, the lightening blade Raigekijin? Definitely went over to an-chan, no more words spoken.

The blade...

that even the demon Lords coveted over...

was known to be passed down for at least thirty generations, always went over to the oldest male child. Well, if you don't count our female ancestors that kept good use of it once every few decades...

'Social outcast'

'Hideous creature'

'Pitiful demon'

Such as were the words that my mother overheard at demon Lord Gatherings about me. My mother, even though she loved an-chan better...

She would hold me throughout the night, thinking I was sleeping...

And hot tears of sadness...that her boy was unfortunately, resembling her and not his great demon father...would spill from her beady eyes.

And I opened my slit eyes once in a while to find that Hiten an-chan was standing by the doorway with a tear streaming down his face. Not a sob, but silent crying to see his mother suffer so much...

And pity for his loving brother...

Life wasn't fair...but who said it was?

"Oh, Manten..." Sakura gasped and hugged the thunder demon tightly around the waist, surprising the thunder demon at the same time.

She knew what it was like to be a social outcast. Just because she had no interest in men or makeup or fancy clothing, her fellow friends had deserted her and she saw of her childhood playmates no more.

Her father and mother had died as did her brother. Ever since then, the villagers had treated her like...

crap.

That was the only word that came to her mind. They treated her like crap.

The boys made fun and rude remarks, calling her a female in disguise. The elders and village people thought of her as an odd, cursed girl who no man was fit for her profile.

No man was fit for her...

Thus she knew and understood Manten's pain of being ridiculed. And for once she thought of Manten; not as bad as she had thought. This intimidating demon had feelings beyond his appearance, and had feelings...just like any normal person.

Still crying with her arms around Manten, Sakura wiped away her tears and thanked him.

"Thank you." She whispered, and went outside the balcony to catch a breath of fresh air.

As the seductress adjusted her long pink dress, her snake slithered its long body along the wooden floor. The demon girl beckoned the snake over when she was ready and wrapped it around her slim shoulders. As she was about to leave, she turned to Hiten.

"I like you." She said, throwing Hiten off guard.

"What?" he said almost too unsure of himself.

"You can call me over whenever you feel like it." she said in her voice that dripped with that of a seductress'. "You aren't going to tell me that you weren't satisfied, now are you?"

Hiten had to ponder about that fact. Yeah, it was good...for a woman that he had made love to only once a few moments ago. But he didn't want love from her; something made him believe that this wasn't the right girl. Not that he didn't want to mate a girl one day, but...

"I'll call you whenever I need you; um..." he paused to think. "What's your name?"

"My name is Namie." She said, and waved to Hiten before leaving the room. Walking down the corridors, she took glimpses of her house. This was a Rajuu family with pride, the money, and the men. What more did she have to lose?

On her way out, she saw Sakura and gave her a dirty look. But no worries, she thought. Hiten would never make love to a girl like...that. So homely, so not feminist, incapable of making love to any man.

She didn't know how wrong she could get.

Hiten looked across the room as he was getting dressed, and suddenly at the moment, a scent of blood made him aware. He hadn't killed anything that day, and even if he did he wouldn't be stupid enough to bring the bloody corpse into his room.

Thinking no more of it, he grabbed his Raigekijin and that was when he noticed the dried up blood clung to the edge of the shiny blade.

It was then he realized that Sakura had been cut across the hand when she had dropped his Raigekijin, and it was his fault for leaving it out and not placed against the corner as he always did. Stupid girl, he thought. What if she got an infection or something?

Not that...it mattered...to him, anyway...right?

Sakura, once again, felt that she was short of sleep and was having another slumber out in the balcony with her back to the open wood floor. She had stopped crying a while ago; too much crying could give away her sense of sight, for everything would look blurry around her. Unfortunately, she didn't notice a certain thunder demon watching over her as she slept.

"To wake or not to wake..." Hiten thought to himself. On one hand he wanted to wake her up just to get her annoyed; but on the other hand, she seemed really tired. After all...

She had cut her hand because he had offended her, and thankfully Manten had taken care of that. And now she slept here, trying to comfort herself with an evening nap. His eyes trailed down to her feet, and that was when he remembered that she had yelled at him a couple of days before;

"You probably didn't have your village destroyed by thunder and lightening, or had your beloved brother come home from the war in burial linens, or had to walk for a thousand paces without any shoes on, so there!"

"Stupid bitch..." he said with a grim expression. After a long pause and a lot of thinking, Hiten called Manten again for what seemed like the fifth hundered time that day and told him,

"Bandage her feet too, if you aren't busy." Hiten said with an overly casual smirk on his face and a dry cough; and left a very puzzled Manten behind to aid her feet.

I decided that if this was going to be a Hiten fic, then Manten might as well have a debut role. I feel really sorry for Manten, no matter how unattractive he might be...and he had a slow and painful death in the anime, and that made it worse.

And now a question...I'm going to make either Hiten or Sakura die at the end. I know it's a bit early to ask the question, but who should? By the way, I have plots for both situations that I think will work out...I feel that Sakura should die, and Hiten should...

Oops, I've told too much already...I'll be shutting up and typing now...