Prisoner of War
Part Four: Weakness
Morning came too soon, and Calai found herself face down on the floor at the foot of Mukuro's throne. Dark hair shielded her eyes from the tyrant's view as Mukuro surveyed the human from her seat.
"My, you're well behaved today," Mukuro said in an icy tone, slowly rising from her throne. "Maybe we'll finally be able to stop going through this monotony everyday." She ambled to the human, victory apparent on her face. Mukuro leaned over to be on level with Calai and whispered in the girl's ear. "Don't pretend that you don't care. You want to be free just as much as I want to squash the rebellion." The demoness stood again, her tall frame shadowing Calai. "Now, why don't you just go ahead and start talking?"
The human had been silent until this point, seemingly subdued by the events of the past twenty-four hours. "You'll get nothing from me," the girl said calmly, her eyes still hidden behind her hair.
"What was that?" Mukuro demanded.
Calai lifted herself from the floor and looked the demoness in the eyes, showing none of the fear she had revealed the night before. "I won't tell you anything unless you let me give Amrie a proper burial."
Silence hung in the air for a few moments while the yokai present took time to digest what had just been said—even Hiei raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you mean?" Mukuro snarled.
"Just what I said. You won't get anything from me unless you let me bury the little girl you killed."
"Ridiculous!" the demoness laughed. "Why should I do anything? It's your fault the girl is dead."
The hint of truth in Mukuro's statement caused a spark of anger to course through Calai, but she hid it well. "I won't talk unless I can bury her," she repeated evenly.
A murmur of surprise rippled through the few yokai present.
"Unbelievable," Mukuro hissed to Hiei. "All that and she still thinks she can make demands."
"Maybe we should give her this one," he replied quietly surveying the human. "It isn't much of a price all things considered."
"I will not give into the demands of a human!" Mukuro said.
"Then you won't find the rebels," the Hiei said with a shrug. "She's not lying about this: if she doesn't get what she wants, she won't talk."
"What makes you think that?"
Hiei shrugged again. "Intuition."
The demoness let out a growl of frustration. "Very well. You can bury the child. But you will come to me afterwards and you will give the location of your partners. Hiei, you go with her. Make sure she does what she's told."
Rain had made the ground softer and the digging easier, which was lucky as, though Calai had been granted permission to bury Amrie's remains, she had not been given any help. The only other being present was Hiei, and he was offering no assistance.
Calai had done the best she could, considering the situation, to give her young friend a respectable resting place, finding a rare field with flowers growing in it to use as the graveyard and a fine piece of centuries old obsidian for a grave marker. With more care and tenderness than she thought she possessed, Calai lowered the body into the grave and covered it.
Hiei watched the girl's work with little interest; he was only there to keep her from running off again, after all. As he watched her work, the girl was covered more and more in the mud. It didn't make sense to him that anyone would go through such trouble for someone who was dead, but then, he had never really understood humans.
By the time Amrie was buried, Calai was nearly indistinguishable from the freshly turned mud and silently crying. Without a word, the girl stood and trudged over to her yokai overseer, silver eyes downcast.
"From that display it's hard to believe that it took so long to get you to talk," Hiei said. "The weak usually make good informants."
"What do you know about weak or strong?" the girl bit back. "If showing some feeling when I'm burying one of my friends is your idea if weakness…. Hell, why am I bothering talking to you? It's not like it'll make any difference."
Hiei watched the girl for a moment, surprised that she had had the will to speak to him in that way but not surprised by what she said.
"My whole family is dead now, you know that?" she said, glancing back at the grave. "My parents, cousins, everyone." Silver eyes full of barely suppressed rage glared into Hiei's face. "When is going to be enough?" Calai demanded. "What more do you want from me? What else can you take?"
The yokai didn't respond but turned and began walking back to the fortress, motioning for the girl to follow.
Still furious, Calai stayed where she was, calling after the yokai. "It's your fault. You don't even realize it, but it is; I know. And when everything you've done hits you, I hope it hurts."
At first, when she saw how quickly Hiei had turned to face her after her comments, Calai thought that she had finally gone too far, and she shied away from him, awaiting whatever he was going to do to her. But he didn't do anything to her.
"We have to get back to Mukuro," he said as if the girl hadn't said anything to him. "She said you could bury the child and you've done that. Come on. Now."
And the yokai began walking once again in the direction of the fortress; this time, Calai followed him.
The crowd that had been in the throne room when Calai had been brought in that morning had dissipated, finding other means of entertainment; Mukuro was alone when Hiei returned, the human girl trailing silently behind him. The girl stood before the throne; Hiei joined Mukuro on the slightly raised platform.
"So," Mukuro said. "You got what you asked for, the little girl is buried. Now you have to hold up your end of the deal."
Mukuro waited for the girl to speak, but she did not; her eyes remained downcast and her hands were clenched into fists.
"You know the question," Mukuro stated. "So give the answer: who were you helping and where are they hiding?"
Hiei watched the human with interest, waiting for what she would do—he half expected her to tell them to kill her, but when the girl heaved a sigh, he knew that wasn't what she was planning on doing.
"Alright." Her voice was barely audible. "I'll tell you."
With every name that she spoke, speech seemed to become more difficult for her, and Hiei, though he hadn't wanted to, began to notice this. Her words from earlier were creeping their way back into his mind.
"It's your fault. You don't even realize it, but it is; I know."
The fire yokai shook the thoughts from his mind.
It was a good thing that he had never known guilt in his life, because if he had, he might have felt it then.
End Part Four.
