Chapter five key

The key to life may lie in death.

"Hiei, you've been killing again." Kurama told him, as if he did not already know. Skye was furious. She picked up screams and sobbing, the blood of innocents on his mind.

"What was that?" Skye hissed, white rage in her voice, a kind of dangerous calm that made demon lords flinch, and grown men hide their faces. "Innocent humans, a child, wretched fool! What pitiful excuse do you have this time?" She could feel his mind cringe, though she knew he would never show it.

"A child?" Kurama's eyes pleaded with Hiei for it not to be true, that he wouldn't kill those whom he had been defending. That he had not killed a six year old girl while she sat in worship.

"Why should they live, love, and be happy if Kurama cannot?" The wind carried the thought to Skye, and it sorrowed her more than crying, or pleading for forgiveness would have. It spoke of years of loneliness and cold.

She twisted the wind, which complained all the while, so that everyone in the room heard the thought, magnified to thrice his voice's volume. Kurama looked as though he had been slapped by his best friend. In a way, he had.

"I thank you to leave my hospital. Find the Priestess Windstorm, she may be able to help you. In any case, give it a day or so before you visit again. I can excuse the slaughter…barely…for your pain, but I will not excuse it again. Give her this message." she added, scribbling on a sheet of paper. "Do not read it, I will know if you have."

"I don't need help." Hiei turned away, and left the room, without the message, and without the comfort he had hoped to find just from being with his friend. Skye pitied him at that moment more than she had anyone else in the past.

"A child?"

Skye turned and studied him, wondering how so much could happen to one person. A terrible past, constant fighting, an illness that might yet kill him, and now this? "I'm sorry." was all she told him.

She felt for fever again, and he coughed, interrupting the process. Well, he couldn't be fevered again after such a short amount of time. "You should practice with Earth Energy, and find out just what you can do, okay? I need to check on other patients, will you be alright?" He nodded distantly, and she wondered what he was thinking. No. she told the winds, don't tell me.

As she closed the door behind her, she saw Hiei's retreating back. He turned his head to match her eye for eye.

"Is this what it comes to, Hiei? For years now you've been defending humans alongside humans, and now this? All because one man becomes sick. I won't stop you, not unless I have to, but think about it. Is this really what you want? To be a murderer? It won't help Kurama to end innocent lives, but it may throw him over the edge he already teeters on. Is this what it comes to?"

She turned around, and went in the opposite direction, without giving him a chance to say another word. Is this what it comes to?

"Is this what it comes to, Hiei?" How dare she assume she had any idea she understood? So she didn't say she understood. She was still interfering in his life! These humans deserved death anyway. They weren't near as wonderful as Kurama, and supposedly he deserved death! So what did that say for the rest of them?

He drew his katana silently, the silver metal whispering gently against the sheath. For how long had it been his only friend? The only one he could trust not to let him down? Too long.

"-is going out with that new foreign exchange boy, Matthew Blackthorn? Are you sure?"
"Positive, of that kiss was anything to judge by!" Both girls giggled, and he stepped from the shadows he lurked in. Sword drawn, he swept it through the throat of the first girl, transfixing her face into one of terror. The other girl fell to her knees, and fainted.

He felt something strange in his stomach. He enjoyed it. The killing, the power he had over human life. If he had power over it this way, why not the reverse? Why shouldn't be able to keep people from dying? Keep Kurama from dying?

Why?

Before the other girl awoke, he slit her throat, feeling warm blood spill on his hands as he pulled her into the shadow he had hidden in.

It felt so good to felt that blood on his hands. He almost cringed away in horror at the joy he felt in it, but the fact remained that this did something nothing else did. It kept him from having to remember about Kurama…

He sighed. Now he was thinking about it again, and he just wanted it to stop. He shrank into the shadows of the night again in search of new victims.

A voice was whispering in Kurama's ears, and he couldn't run. He was chained to the ground, and the ground beneath him was shaking and falling away. Just a little bit more, and he would be able to get away.

He had to get somewhere, that much he knew more than anything else. He had to meet the person who was whispering to him, and tell them something.

"Slice the flesh and spill the blood. Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills. Kills. Kill the innocent to still the mind. Kill the mind. The mind that speaks and runs in horror. End the horror, slice the flesh and spill the blood. Blood so red, so sweet so warm…."

The sick words speaking to him made him retch, to find he had nothing left. The voice repeated itself. He had to tell it something, it was vital!

The chains dissolved, and he fought the quaking ground beneath him for balance. He tried to stand, only to find that the ground he sought to stand on was falling away from his feet, to rise again when he struggled for a new balance.

Finally he stood, finding his balance easy to keep despite the bucking ground beneath. He looked around, and heard the words beginning again, new ones.

"Blood that runs in my veins. Still the veins and find the key. Key to life undisturbed. Blood that is the key. Blood that spills so I can breath. Breath the chains, break the chains. Flesh that's torn to break the chains, so nice to tear the flesh. Rip the skin and spill the blood. Blood to break the chains. Blood that runs in my veins. Still the veins and find the key…"

"BLOOD SO RED, SO SWEET, SO WARM. WARM AS THE BEATING HEART THAT STILLS. KILLS! KILL THE INNOCENT TO STILL THE MIND! KILL THE MIND!"

Hiei!

"Hiei!" Kurama's breath exploded from his chest as he woke in cold sweat. Well, at least it meant he wasn't fevered, right?

But that voice! He shuddered. Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills.

Hiei, what's happening to you?