A/N: Warnings – a bit OOC Hiei, slight Kuwabara-bashing… I think that's it. Please enjoy the chapter; the ones following this one will be a little bit better and more… plot-filled albeit still exceedingly short (sorry!). Please review!

7. A Ray of Hope – A Friend in Desperate Times

As Hiei sat inside the guest bedroom in Kuwabara's house, wallowing in his own self-pity and well-disguised loneliness, he suddenly heard a tapping noise on the window. It couldn't be Kuwabara; the idiot wouldn't think of using a ladder to climb up to the second floor just to tap on his window. Maybe somebody else is left in the Ningenkai! Hiei thought as he crossed over to the window. He looked outside, but he didn't see anything. His heart sank. Probably just a tree branch blowing in the wind…

Then he heard it again. But this time, the tapping was accompanied by a loud, ear-shattering screech. Hiei winced at the noise, then pushed open the window to inspect what was making the horrible racket. And instead of seeing nothing, he noticed a small, floating fuzzball flapping its tiny wings in midair in front of his face. Hiei looked at the creature in confusion, then hastily snatched it in his fist and brought it into the room.

The flying fuzzball was a tan-colored pufferfish-like creature with a beak. Hiei held it out in front of him and watched it flap around and almost smiled. It was funny-looking and looked stupid as it tried to fly away from Hiei's grip. The bird-creature made a squeaky, chirping noisea and attempted to nip at Hiei's fingers, but it couldn't squirm out of the fire demon's closed fist.

Then, the fuzzy little bird opened its beak as wide as it could go and let out an earsplitting shriek louder than anything Hiei had ever heard before. Without the window to muffle its sound, its scream was nearly four times as loud. Hiei dropped the bird and clamped his hands over his ears to try to block out the noise. The bird then commenced flitting around the room at top speeds, continuing to scream its lungs out.

Kuwabara came running up the stairs and threw open the door to the guest bedroom. "What's up? Ouch!" Kuwabara put his hands over his ears as well as he heard the bird shriek noisily overhead. "What is that?" he shouted.

Hiei jumped on top of the bed and extended his arm to grab the bird. His fist closed around the beak on the obnoxious animal, and the room became quiet again.

"What is that?" Kuwabara repeated, pointing at the bird in Hiei's fist.

"It's a bird, baka," Hiei replied as the animal tried to screech again.

"It's ugly."

"Ugly like you," Hiei said coolly.

"Why you—!" Kuwabara yelled, grabbing Hiei by the front of his shirt and pulling him off the bed. Hiei made a disgusted face and was about to tell him to let go, when the bird in Hiei's hand wriggled out of his grip and bit Kuwabara's hand hard with its sharp beak. "Yoowww!" Kuwabara shouted, dropping Hiei and nursing his hand.

Hiei straightened his cape and dusted himself off, smirking at Kuwabara and the bird, who didn't stop at just biting Kuwabara. It kept going, pecking at his face and his arms and chirping madly. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" Kuwabara screamed, trying to swat the bird away. Hiei watched the bird mutilate Kuwabara with amusement.

After a few minutes of the bird beating on Kuwabara, Hiei pulled it out of the air and held it in his hands, saying, "I think I like this bird. I'm going to name it Killer."

"You're going to name that evil little fuzzball?" Kuwabara shouted. "That thing nearly killed me!"

"You're over-reacting, fool," said Hiei brusquely.

"I hate that bird," Kuwabara said bitterly, crossing his arms and pouting.

The bird, Killer, then squirmed out of Hiei's grip and began pecking at Kuwabara again, almost as if it knew what Kuwabara had said. Hiei smirked again as Kuwabara screamed and flew out of the room, Killer screeching angrily at him. Hiei shut the door and turned to Killer flying in midair. "Killer, you and me are going to get along quite well…"

Just then, Hiei saw a strange green glow coming from Killer's neck. "Hn?" Hiei walked closer to the bird, eyes transfixed by the neon glowing. It was bright, but it was such a small amount of the bird that was glowing that it was almost unnoticeable. Hiei was sure that if he were a human, he wouldn't have noticed it at all. He grabbed Killer and brought him closer to his face, eyes still locked on the light. What is that…?

NEXT TIME – SIGHT OF THE JAGAN – THE BRIEF PRESENCE OF A FRIEND!

--crazykitsune17--