DISCLAIMER: I b do not /b own Yu Yu or Hiei, although I wish I did . I b DO /b own all characters that I have created, so don't use them. Cheers!
RECAP: Anko just fought Hideki in a death match and won, sending her companion to spirit world. Just as Anko started to mourn the loss of Hideki, the spirit detectives arrived on the scene. They made quick work of the evil humans and demons and have now come upon Anko. What's in store for her now?
....... ooo .......
Anko continued to sit silently as she continued to stroke Hideki's head. She kept willing him to jerk awake and say it had all been a game, that he had feigned his death to trick the spectators that had been watching.
She knew that she was only fooling herself, and his lack of aura confirmed he was well and truely dead.
"Well... what should we do with her? She looks pretty out of it. Maybe we could bring her back to spirit world or something." The teenager said after a minute of watching Anko.
"Good luck trying to reason with it." The dumb one said, still rubbing his arms to get rid of the goose-bumps. "That thing is major bad news."
Anko looked up at them, her hand unconciously covering Hideki's eye, as if it would open again. She was waiting for something. Waiting for what? Waiting for her sentence.
"Hn. The baka is right for once." The short demon said after a moment. "Hybrids like that one are to be killed on sight. They have no place in either worlds, be they demon or human alike."
Anko went very still, her dragonic pupils dilating to their fullest extent so that the pupils were hair thin slits in her eyes.
"What?" The teenager said, staring at the demon. His fists were clentched and resting over the edge of the pit, so Anko could see his white knuckles. He was angry for some reason.
"Hiei is right, Yusuke." Kurama said, looking away from Anko when she locked eyes with him. It was like he couldn't meet her gaze. "Half dragons cannot function in a normal environment. They were bred specifically to fight, and as a result are naturally aggressive and blood thirsty. In other words, half dragons live solely for the kill."
"So what are we supposed to do?! Just kill her while she stares up at us after fighting for these sick freaks?!" Yusuke shouted. "She just fought for her life, so now we're going to kill her?!"
"There is no other option for her. It would be kinder to finish her now than to prolong her life only to have her executed later." Kurama continued, trying to reason with Yusuke.
"Kurama's right, Urameshi. If we brought her back with us, they'd only kill her. Who knows how many times she had to kill before we came along." Kuwabara added, trying to help.
"I just don't see," Yusuke said, his voice wavering with anger. "How killing someone thats tried so hard to live is going to help it."
"Think of it like putting a really mean dog down, Urameshi. That's kinda how its like." Trust Kuwabara to come up with the worst possible analogy.
"But she isn't a dog, moron!" Yusuke replied. "She's a living, breathing, human down there! How can you justify murdering her?!"
"She lost the half that is her humanity long ago." Hiei said quietly, staring at her. He was the only one that would meet her gaze. "All that's probably left is the dragon's desire to kill and consume. Hn, I'm surprised she hasn't already started eating that drake's body."
Anko twitched. It was true that some of the matches, called the bait matches, starved the hybrids so that they would slowly eat eachother alive. How dare he compare her to one of those weaker, lower classed drakes that fell so easily to the simple desires of the body.
She had faced a few bait matches when she was younger, but she never touched the meat of the other dragon's body. She wasn't a cannibal.
"I am not some lowly animal that you can insult, demon." Anko growled, standing.
"Hn. You kill so easily, and yet you say you are not an animal?" Was his unhesitant reply.
"I kill to bring my friends and other hybrids the peace that I have been denied while existing here, so don't you dare call me an animal." Anko would have been glad to die there next to Hideki, but there were other, younger hybrids that still had a chance and had not yet been forced into a death match. She couldn't leave them here and alone at the mercy of these people, whom were debating about whether or not to kill her.
"Do animals feel hate, pity, anger, sadness, or regret as most of us here have?" Anko's words were filled with the first warm winds of anger. Her eyes were starting to fill with the jagged edges of hate as stared up at her would-be judge and jury. "Who are you to judge me here, after I have defended my inborn right to live?"
"Tch." The short demon muttered with disgust. "Pathetic. If you are not an animal, then why did you continue to fight for these pathetic humans?"
"Hiei." Kurama said calmly. That one word was heavy with a warning not to provoke Anko.
"Hn." Hiei answered, glaring at her. "She's not even worth an effort." He mumbled as he turned and started walking away.
"Oh, no you don't. Get your ass back here, Hiei!" Yusuke growled at him. Hiei kept walking away, ignoring him.
Anko listened carefully to his steps as they echoed in the room. They were extremely light, and it was difficult to hear them over the shouting of Yusuke and the groaning breaths of the humans that had just been beaten down by the group.
It was very important that he didn't go into the the dingy hallway that connected all of the hybrid pens. Very, very important.
"Please don't let him notice the others." Anko whispered to herself. "By my sire drake, please don't let him find them..."
She wasn't even paying attention to the others now as she listened, giving her a far away look in her eyes.
"Hey, what's wrong with her now?" Yusuke murmured as he looked down at her. Kurama and the idiot looked down at her aswell and wondered why she had changed expression so quickly.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she heard Hiei's foot steps pass the door without so much as changing pace. Everyone is safe. For now, atleast. No one can hurt them.
Hiei's steps stopped abruptly the instant that thought came to Anko's mind. The moment he did, her breathing stopped.
Slowly, he turned around and started walking back to the door that led into the connecting hallway.
All of Anko's fading panic resurfaced as she heard Hiei push the door open. She charged up the exit ramp suddenly, trying to cut Hiei off before he got too far into the hallway and saw the other hybrids that had been left by their owners as they fled.
"Shit, Hiei! Look out, she's coming your way!!" The idiot shouted as Anko reached the wooden trap door and tried to break through it from the exit ramp.
That was the whole point of the exit ramp. Since the hybrids couldn't climb out of the pit because of its depth and the energy dome that covered it, there had to be another method of getting them out. The trapdoor also made it so the hybrids couldn't escape or be realeased before the 'handlers' got them under control.
Anko's eyes were blazing as she tried to shove her way past the thick wooden door. The locks were too strong for her to try and force the door open, so she had to settle for going through it.
The wood was a pretty dense and strong variety. Anko finally managed to break through the center most plank of wood, forcing her already damaged arm and shoulder through it. The wood made groaning creak noises as it splintered apart, unable to handle all of the stress Anko was putting onto it.
"She's getting through it!" Yusuke called out, watching Anko force her way through.
The splinters of wood cut long, angry red wounds into her arm.
Anko quickly worked her other hand into the hole, trying to widen it to allow her body to pass through the door.
The wood was splintering badly now, shooting slivers as another board suddenly broke away. A chunk of it broke off so forcefully that it smacked the idiot in the head. He let out a startled yelp, but it hadn't hurt him too badly.
Anko finally managed to make the hole wide enough to pull herself through. She was scratched all to hell as a result, but she continued to break through the wooden door that was trying to hold her back.
Hiei had long since disappeared into the long hallway that connected the pens.
She hissed in pain as a longer sliver of wood cut into the flesh of her hip, deep enough to expose the gleaming white bone beneath.
Anko stood and shook herself slightly, trying to shake off the blood from her injuries which would make her grip alittle too weak.
"Woah..." The idiot murmured as he watched Anko come through the door.
"Yes." Kurama replied. "Hybrids are amazingly determined creatures, which makes them all the more dangerous."
"Of course. They could never be easy going now could they!?" Yusuke grumbled.
"It doesn't look that way, Yusuke." Kurama mumbled as he started reaching for his rose whip. He would have liked to restrain her before she tried something stupid.
Anko glanced at him out of the corner of her golden eye and glared. In one movement, she had shut her red eye and touched the twilight mark with her left hand. The finger tips glowed a brilliant golden color along with her right eye for a moment...
"Shut your eyes!" Kurama shouted suddenly as he ducked and covered both of his eyes.
There was a thread of panic in his voice that made Yusuke and the moron tightly shut their eyes as Anko lifted the glowing tips of her fingers high over her head.
The pupil of her golden yellow eye dialated to its fullest extent, so that it was no longer visible in her eye as her glowing fingertips sparked. For a breath-taking instant the spark remained suspended, and only Anko's golden yellow eye was open.
Then, the room flashed with brilliant light that seemed to explode from her fingertips. The humans and demons that had been beaten down by Yusuke and the others (the ones that were still concious anyways) that still had their eyes open screamed as the light blinded them, damaging their pupils so that they would be unable to see for the next few days.
"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!?" Yusuke shouted, still unwilling to open his eyes.
The room remained illuminated by the immense light, making it too risky to open their eyes prematurely. As it was, only Anko's single light dragon eye could endure the brilliant light without becoming blinded.
"You, the kitsune." Anko said softly. She sounded tired and drained, and that was because this more recent attack had put a major dent in her energy reserves. "You're familiar with light dragon abilities, right? Then you know I'm not lying when I say that this light will stay here for a while. Don't open your eyes."
She slowly walked to the hallway and slid through the door, shutting it and welcoming the darkness of the hallway. Now, all she had to do was find Hiei and protect everyone else here. Well, atleast most of everyone. Everyone who still had their human side.
Most of the pens were empty, unlike before as Anko had been led to Hideki's execution.
No, not execution. His freedom. Anko responded to the thought that had suddenly been planted into her head. She didn't know where that thought had come from.
Why am I lying to myself? Another thought that she would never had come up with formed in her head. I killed him for the thrill of killing. Thats all... why do I lie and say I'm not an animal?
I AM NO ANIMAL! She responded to the thought. Anko took her head in her hands and tightly shut her eyes, falling forward to her knees as she tried to escape from her own mind that was at the same time not her own. "I'm not... like that demon said..." She whispered. "I'm not an animal."
"Hn." That familiar, cold voice said over her. "You really are that pathetic."
Anko took her hands from her head and carefully set them on the ground in front of her, trying to stop herself from giving into the anger the dragon half of her had welling up within her body.
"You poisoned my thoughts, didn't you?" Anko said lowly, still not looking up as her hair hid her face. "You tried to get me to admit I enjoy it."
"Don't you?" Hiei asked. His voice was empty this time, making Anko wonder why he was doing this.
".... Yes, I enjoy it. I like tearing my talons and teeth into the bodies of my friends." Anko said harshly, dragging the words from her heart. Before Hiei could say anything, she added, "But at the same time, I hate myself for it. I keep waiting for someone who will free me like I've freed so many others." She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood so that it dripped down from her chin in a light but steady line.
Hiei didn't say anything, only unsheathed his katana. "Hn. If you want death, then I'll give it to you." He muttered. The firelight from the torches danced off of the blade in a strange way, making Hiei's already red eyes glow as he positioned the sword for a lethal swing.
Anko looked up and stared at the blade as Hiei held it over her, waiting. This was it. She was finally going to be free.
A small sound attracted her attention at the end of the hallway. It was low, and barely carried down the long and now empty hall, but it was there. Anko immeadiately recognized it as another hybrid that she knew personally.
Shane....
Anko looked back up at Hiei with renewed determination as he swung down. In a flash, she put up her left arm to guard herself. The blade came down and cut deeply into her arm, stopping once it hit the bones in her forearm.
Hiei's eyes blazed suddenly with confusion as he added pressure to the blade, forcing Anko to wince. "Why are you still fighting? Why did you keep fighting?"
"Because," Anko said through grit teeth, glaring at Hiei, "it was the only way to keep everyone safe, and to make them free. I'll gladly suffer the loss of my left arm, suffer any pain, just to stay alive and watch over them. Protect them."
Hiei hesitated as he stared down into her mismatched eyes and saw something similar in them. Yukina's face swam up before his eyes as he remembered why he had originally gotten the Jagan eye, and what his reasons were for.
Anko was like him in so many ways, yet unlike him at the same time that it was strange.
"You'd die for the ones you would kill, just to keep them safe?" Hiei asked. Anko watched him, feeling the sudden lack of pressure he was exerting down onto her arm.
"Yeah." She muttered. Suddenly, she used her left arm and knocked the sword out of the way. It was still stuck in her arm with Hiei holding onto the hilt, but it was no longer between them. Anko's right hand was consumed in black flames as she suddenly went to strike Hiei with her outstretched hand.
He caught her wrist inches from his face and glared at her, while she did the same. She knew it was useless to try and keep attacking him from this position, but atleast he couldn't attack her in the same moment.
"Listen to me." Anko said in a voice barely above a growl. "There's someone down there that I know that needs my help. If you don't let me go, he'll be forced into fights I know he can't win."
"Another hybrid like you?"
"Yes. My hatchling." Anko said as she chanced a glance down the hall. "His name is Shane."
Hiei smirked briefly, but didn't let her go. "You seem a little young to have a son."
Anko blushed slightly but shook her head. "He's not my son, but the hatchling I had to train so he could survive. It's been my responsibility to take care of him."
"Hn, whatever." Hiei muttered as his grip tensed on her wrist. "I don't believe you."
Anko shook her head and unexpectedly jerked herself back, tearing her wrist from Hiei and adding more cuts to her arm. Blood was flowing in steady rivers down her arm and leg now, and she only had a few instants left before she could no longer move.
She hesitated slightly, staring down the hall and listening again when she heard Shane struggling. She could just faintly hear his wing beats and the scrabbling of claws as he tried to stay away from the handlers.
Hang on Shane. I promise I'll get you out of this... Anko thought as she dashed down the hall, Hiei staring at her as she ran.
"Hn." He said quietly as he sheathed his sword. The blood that she had left trailing behind her was a clear indication that she wouldn't last much longer without taking a break to recover.
Anko could feel herself fading as she lost blood, but that didn't matter right now. She needed to get to Shane.
"Damnit, Skye, stop messing around!" She could hear Kazu shouting at her young charge as more scrambling emanated from his pen. There was a low snarl and a high pitched cry that meant Kazu was using his other hybrid to restrain Shane.
Anko knew this one also, and he was one of the half-drags that she wouldn't have felt guilty for killing.
His name was Darc, and he was more murderous than most drakes. He was one of the exceptions to the 'Angel' induction rules, having killed more than the required amount.
Darc was sick in his head. He loved the kill and had no qualms about torturing those he fought before slowly killing them. He was the perfect hybrid: Malevolent, violent, blood thirsty, and without a concious.
Anko was scared of Darc. Terrified.
Suddenly, the mad scrambling stopped, and she could hear Darc scenting her blood. Her heart nearly stopped as her blood ran cold with incredible, paralyzing fear.
"Darc?" Kazu's angry voice said.
"I smell the one between." Darc murmured back. "She's hurting now, and she's here. Come to save the sky?" He hissed as he poked his head out of the door way and stared at her.
The name, 'the one between', was a pet name he had given her after their first fight. He hadn't killed her, making her one of the few of his opponents that survived. No, Darc didn't want to kill one of the few that had managed to attract him.
He wasn't interested in her because she was strong, or because she looked weak. But rather, he was more interested in specific traits that only the opposite gender possessed.
He viewed her as a prospective mother of his hatchlings, and only because she was part Darkness Dragon, like he was.
His red glowing eyes glared into hers, his long serpentine body coiling and ready to spring. He growled low in his throat, his eyes flashing.
Anko took a hesitant step back and hissed, her own red eye flashing. Right now, that was the farthest thing from their minds. All that Darc could smell and see was Anko, coated in her own blood, and weakend.
Darkness Dragons would kill eachother if the other was weak enough. That was how they operated; simple as that.
Darc moved like a well oiled machine, his scales slightly scuffed from the small fight with Shane. His main concern was Anko.
"Damnit, Darc, get in here and help the handlers get Skye under control!" Kazu shouted as the fighting picked up where it had left off.
"Master," Darc hissed. He looked like Anko, without the wings and golden spines, horns, and belly scales. Everthing about him was a dull black, from his roughly foot long horns to his long tail. He also didn't have the little dorsal spikes Anko had.
He stood at a menacing 8 feet, more slender than Hideki, but almost as equally muscled. His teeth were sparkling white and razor sharp as he hissed at Anko. It was a startlingly deep sound that reverberated throughout the entire hallway. His eyes seemed to glow more brightly as the dragon half of his psyche slid behind his eyes.
He wanted this. He wanted to kill Anko.
Anko hissed back, her sound lighter but more harsh. She was physically and mentally drained, and loosing alot of blood in the process. Her red eye glowed as wings started sprouting from her back, stretching out behind her.
This time, she didn't bother to hide the transisition into the dragon body. Her body first patterned with the design of the scales before they seemed to form on her skin, as if some giant hand was embossing each of the individual scales onto her body. Her nails gained a golden metallic sheen and grew into sharp talons as horns started to jut up over her eyes. Her dorsal spikes emerged as her hair bleached itself out, changing so that it was now a mane.
Her bones began to grow and harden, while hollowing out at the same moment. Her neck grew slowly out ontil it was the proper length, leaving her head to be the last thing to change.
Few dragons could turn the normally grotesque shift into something that was actually pleasing to the eyes. Anko and a few others had turned it into an art form, shifting between forms so smoothly that water came to mind with the ease that they turned.
"You were always such a show off, the one between. Even back then..." Darc murmured as recollection passed through his eyes. Anko could almost see the first time they fought.
That had been before she had been an 'Angel', and it had also been when she was younger and more naive. Basically before she killed.
"Tch, things change." Anko replied, her voice raspy with anger in the dragon body. "I'm not how you remember me all those years ago, Darc."
"So it would seem..." Darc replied, flicking his serpentine tongue at her. "So it would seem."
Anko knew in that moment that the two shared a perfect understanding. They would gladly kill the other; one simply for the thrill of it, the other to protect the last hybrid that was still there.
Then lets go. Anko made the first charge, an attack very unlike her style. For the first time, she was truly giving herself over to the thing that hid within her own thoughts. Letting it have full control over her body and actions, and planning to die soon after she protected Shane. Heh... maybe they will have pity on him. I can only hope.
Darc stared at her for a moment, surprised that she was making such a drastic move. He remembered her as an intelligent fighter, but this was stupid.
She collided with him, her jaws snapping together as she tried to land a blow on the more serpentine drake. Darc snarled and coiled around her before she could pull back and make an attempt for another strike.
He wrapped his body around hers, but it was what she wanted, because he could no longer try to dodge her attacks. Anko hissed and slammed her body against the wall and floor with all of her might, bruising Darc's body as he snarled in sudden pain. Her red eye glowed again, responding to Darc's pained cries as she darted her head around to his and struck with lightning reflexes, clamping her jaws down onto his windpipe.
Darc made a few gasping noises before unwinding himself and jerking away from her, hissing as some of his scales got caught by her teeth.
A light trickle of blackish blood splattered the floor as he ripped himself away, more appearing after Anko spat out the contents of her mouth and took a threatening step forward, hissing. It almost sound like See what else I can do.
Darc shook his head alightly, growling at her. His own rage ignited the blood he had lost, so that small black flames illuminated their fight. Small patches of his blood had been cast onto Anko, but she didn't care. It wasn't like flames of darkness could harm her.
This time, it was Darc who charged at her. He tackled her into the wall, snarling and ripping his claws into her exposed stomach. Anko roared, both vocally and in her head as she remembered their first fight. It had almost been exactly like this one.
Her innards burned, and she knew her stomach had been ruptured. She could feel herself getting angrier and angrier as her light side deserted her, abandoning her to the darkness that was both killing and consuming her.
Her right eye dimmed, so that it was no longer bright and nearly luminescent but dark and fading.
She could feel her body burning. Her whole world became nothing but an aching thing with her at its center as she prepared for her most devastating and lethal attack. She came back into herself moments before she unleashed it, a feeling of immense grief and guilt washing over her instants before.
"And so," Anko growled past the pain. "We will both repent together in hell."
Darc stopped clawing her as he stared at her curiously. "What?"
Anko suddenly went back into her human shape and grabbed him around the neck, looking like she was pulling him into an embrace when in reality she was clinging to him to get the greatest effect of her attack.
Hideki, I was thinking of using this attack on you. She thought as her eyes slipped shut and and two tears slid out of her eyes. One black, one white.
"Burning Repentance." Anko whispered so that only the now confused Darc could hear her.
Her wounds and blood that covered her and now Darc sprang to life suddenly with golden flames, black cores dancing in the angry bright fires.
Darc let out a piercing shriek as he was ignited, while Anko held on. She had started developing this technique after she became an angel, filling it with her guilt and regret. The focus of the whole attack was combining the light and dark halves of her lineage into a devastating attack like this.
Unfortunately she had to use her blood as a catalyst, or else the fire wouldn't form. It was even more damaging than the flames of darkness, because it was combined with the purest form of light energy. It affected only those who Anko viewed as guilty in the deaths of the other half dragons, and that included her.
The flames hurt more than anything she had ever felt. The fire that sprang from her wounds burned the brightest, because Anko felt she was the most guilty. It was her own way of making up for all of the pain and death she had brought.
Darc screamed as he writhed under the flames of Anko's attack. He finally ripped her away from himself and rolled around, smearing her blood off of himself and putting the flames out. Even with the flames gone, he continued to scream. Anko's will that he suffered was stronger than his will to make it stop.
Anko coughed as pain racked her whole body, sitting against the stone wall.
"Anko!" Shane called out suddenly. She became aware that she had zoned out for a while there, probably trying to escape from the pain she had inflicted onto herself.
"Sh--Shane.." Anko gasped as she looked up. He looked like he was only 8 or 9 as he kneeled infront of her, worry crossing his face.
"Its... its ok, Shane." She sait quietly. His hands were bound infront of him and he had what looked like a catch pole attached to his neck. She looked past him and saw that Darc was wimpering behind Kazu and Shane's handlers. "I'm sorry. I should have protected you better, Skye." Anko murmured gently touching his face. His baby blue eyes looked even sadder than normal. His light blue hair matched his eyes, adding to his depressed demeanor.
"Anko, where are they going to take me?" Shane whispered, looking back at Kazu and flinching.
"Your going to another hell, Shane of the Skye." Anko whispered back. New tears were finding their way out of her eyes.
"Are you coming with me?" He asked, falling forward and hugging Anko as much as he was able.
"No... No I can't. You'll be alright, Shane." She said wrapping her arms around him comfortingly.
"But I want you to." Shane murmured, something creeping into his voice.
"Don't worry." Anko said, patting his back. She glanced down and saw the two crystallized tears she had formed before the attack. ((No, they aren't Hiraseki stones like Yukina can produce... Its crystallized light and darkness that forms to prepare the 'Burning Repentance' attack. Only Anko can create them.)) She picked up the light stone gingerly and looked at it. "I'll always be with you if you keep this stone. Look, see? I'll always have the other one. Don't worry about me anymore, Shane."
Shane carefully took the stone and nodded to her. "I'll come back for you, Anko. I promise, one day."
Anko shut her eyes and smirked. "That's a nice thought."
"Thats enough heart to heart. We need to get going before those damn spirit detectives find us." Kazu muttered.
Anko looked up and watched as they dragged Shane and Darc away. She never knew if she was going to see them again... ever....
.......End of Chapter 2 .......