Depending on whether I feel like it or not, I may include a synopsis of the series for this story, since one of my friends-who, believe it or not, is also an author on this site (Legacy of Cain, I think) told me that the main reason she doesn't read my fics is because I always write like you lovely readers actually have a clue who the characters are. Since I, as a general rule, am starved for praise when it comes to my writings and drawings, I tend to listen to such sage advice as that. So expect a synopsis to pop up eventually somewhere. Meanwhile, if you do like LoC, check out my friend's fics. I think her author name is Seer de Draggon or somesuch.

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Feeling like a deer in the old time Kings' forests, the owner of a pair of rich violet eyes peeks over the roof-access shelter's own tiny roof in fear of the small crowd of girls gathered below him. "Where'd he go?" one cries frantically.

"Aw, he got away."

"But I wanted to get his signature in my autograph book! Someone so gorgeous just has to be a prince or something!"

"He's not gorgeous, he's dreamy."

"Anybody get his name?"

"No," several chorus, all of them drooping. "He's new."

"Wouldja get lost, ya bunch of nutcases?" This voice is acidic, ill-tempered, and male, coming from around the corner of the shelter. As one the girls freeze, like any creature caught in car headlights, before quickly retreating back into the school with frightened squeals. "Geez, wake a guy outta some perfectly good winks. Hey, moron, get down from there, wouldja? Spam-for-brains like you'd probably fall or somethin'."

A slender young man standing about 5' 6" jumps lightly down to the main roof's warm cement, peering around the corner to discover his rescuer slouched on the ground in a classic nap pose. A young man about his height and age smirks up at him with chocolate brown eyes, his short raven hair slicked back with some kind of styling gel. Instead of the blue jumper the boys here at Sarayashiki High are supposed to wear, this guy is wearing a grass-green one.

The previously-napping young man takes a quick second to assess the poor sap unfortunate enough to have attracted a fanclub on what's obviously his first day here. He'd already noted the height, but it's the large violet eyes that get his attention the most, half-hidden behind messy wet-ink bangs, the stuff so shining and thick a braid would probably be as fat as either boy's wrist. Besides his bangs, the rest of his shoulder-length locks are caught up in a careless ponytail with a simple hair-tie.

Damn, the punk chuckles to himself, looks like Kurama's finally got some competition in the 'bishie' department. Wonder if this kid's brains are as good as his looks. Real pretty-boy, this guy.

"Hey, thanks for the rescue," the New Guy says gratefully. "Those girls chased me clear across campus. I'm Haru Shinkai."

"Yusuke Urameshi. Perhaps you've heard of me."

A muffled snort as Haru leans against Yusuke's wall, grinning. "Che, who hasn't? I never heard of you before today but boy did I get an earful while I was running for my life. Only people who can stay around you for long without getting flattened are Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwabara, and bets are on for that guy."

"Eh, only when Kuwabara does somethin' stupid." Yusuke just gives Haru one of his infamous cocky-as-hell grins and makes as though to resume his nap. "Speakin' of Keiko, do me a favor and keep an eye out for her, will ya? I'm tryin' to get in a catnap 'fore she hauls me back off to class or somethin'."

"Sure. Who is she, anyway?" the new student asks as he leans both shoulders against the warm concrete, soaking up the early summer sun.

Yusuke's grin turns slightly goofy. "She's my fiancée. Class President and a real bookworm, but she's got a heart of gold and a wicked right hook. Don't meet many girls like that nowadays, do ya?"

A full laugh this time, rich but edged with melancholy. Yusuke cracks an eye open but only sees pure amusement on Haru's face. "I suppose not."

Yusuke stretches with a content groan before rising to his feet and slinging a companionable arm around Haru's shoulders. "Come on, ya poor unlucky bastard, I'll keep those scary fangirls away and show ya around while I'm at it. You're new here; I know, 'cause I ain't seen you around before five minutes ago. If I let ya get mobbed, you'll never learn where anything but good hiding spots are—I'll show ya those, too."

"Your help's really appreciated, Urameshi-san."

"Nah, just call me Yusuke, 'kay? Only guy who calls me by my last name is Kuwabara. He hates gettin' called by his first name so if ya wanna pick a fight with him there's a good place to start."

Haru is laughing pretty hard by the time the two young men make it down the stairs, other students staring at the apparently-unharmed new kid messing around with the scariest guy on campus. Messing around, that is, until an angry female voice cuts over the usual student chatter.

"YUSUKE URAMESHI!"

"Aw, crap," the doomed teen groans, ducking behind Haru and backing them both towards the stairs in obvious retreat. "It's Keiko fightin' mad. Hide me, quick!"

A petite girl with hair and eyes nearly the same chocolate brown as Yusuke's frantic eyes stomps up, battle-aura practically sparking in her wrath. "How many times do I have to tell you not to skip class, Yusuke?"

"That…is Keiko-san?" Haru asks his new friend, twisting his head around to look Yusuke in the face as he jerks a thumb towards the approaching death-sentence. "You don't do her justice, Yusuke."

"Eh?" The rage disappears, leaving a regular girl blinking back. Her hand flies to her mouth in dismay as her cheeks turn pink. "Omigosh, I'm sorry! I wasn't yelling at you! It's just…Oh, you're the new student, aren't you? Haru Shinkai, right?"

"Hai. Yusuke told me about you. Keiko-san: class president and rare find."

Keiko's blush deepens and she smiles past Haru at Yusuke, scuffing his foot on the linoleum in his 'aw-shucks' act. "Aw, Yusuke…" Then her face darkens. "But compliments still won't get you out of class! Now come on before Iwamoto-sensei has another reason to dislike you further!"

"But Keiko," Yusuke protests, pouncing on Haru and grinning weakly, "I promised Haru I'd show him around! Besides," he adds in a whisper to the dismayed excuse blinking at him with his violet eyes, "It ain't possible for Iwamoto to hate my guts any further. If he did he'd choke."

Keiko frowns when Haru's eyes cross as he attempts to restrain from laughing, certain that something has just been said at either her or Iwamoto-sensei's expense. The newbie notices and waves a hand at her. "Nothing about you, Keiko-san! Yusuke was just telling me about a Chemistry incident, right, Yusuke?"

"Right!" The relieved Yusuke starts pushing his savior down the hall, waving with one hand at Keiko. "I promise I'll be in class later, Keiko! See ya later!"

"Yusuke—!"

The brown-eyed boy breathes a sigh of relief as they turn a corner with no sign of Keiko following. "Geez, that was close! Ya really saved my ass back there, Haru."

"No problem, Yusuke, just a little payback. Now we're even." Yusuke blinks for a moment at the grinning newbie, startled, then starts laughing as the two walk down the hallway, clapping Haru on the shoulder as they go.

——

Poke, poke. "Zephyr. Psst, Zephyr! Wake up!"

"Miss Uotani!" The sleeper awakes with a jolt, gazing up with terrified eyes into the stern face of Mr. Iwamoto. "Enjoy your nap, Miss Uotani?"

"S-s-s-sensei!" She can feel her face heating up horribly while the students around her snicker among themselves at her plight. Except for her friend, the sweet and utterly loyal Eri Amazuki. "Um—! Um…"

"Miss Uotani, this is the third time this week you've fallen asleep during class. See me in my office after school."

"Hai, sensei!"

"Ah, here we go," a male voice says from the door as an obvious punk strolls in with another young man, one of the handsomest any of the girls in the class have seen. "Yo, Iwamoto, got a new student here for ya to torture. This here's Haru Shinkai."

"Pleasure to meet you, sir," the young man tells the slightly-mollified teacher with a polite bow. "Yusuke-san here has been kind enough to show me around campus as well as my classes. I'm sorry we're a little late, but this place is rather large."

"All right," the man—Built like a foot-ball player, geez! thinks Haru in surprise—replies gruffly. "But keep hanging out with rotten apples like Urameshi and you can kiss your school career goodbye. Have a seat over by…Miss Uotani. See if you can do a better job than Miss Amazuki at keeping her awake. Urameshi, get your ass into your chair before I slap you with a week's worth of detention."

"Yeah, yeah," Yusuke tells him sullenly, slouching over to drop into his chair right next to a quietly steaming Keiko. "Whatever you say."

Haru just seethes inwardly at the disregard this teacher is showing to the already-humiliated girl's feelings, hunched in chair with the obvious wish that she could just disappear. So he decides to see if he can perk her up a bit. As he sits down, he gives her the kindest smile he can muster and a polite bow of his head. "Hi, I'm Haru," he murmurs as the class settles back down from the interruption. "Sorry about adding insult to injury just now. Friends?"

She just stares at him with wide cinnamon eyes, another blush staining her cheeks bright pink.

"Now, class, if there are no further interruptions—" the teacher and the punk just glare sullenly at each other, "—turn to page ninety-seven and read the second paragraph aloud...Miss Uotani."

"Hai!" Over by the window, Yusuke stares out at the beckoning blue skies as the silver-haired girl stands and begins to read in a clear, precise voice, the blush disappearing from her face.

—

"Miss Uotani," Mr. Iwamoto sighs as the girl slips into his office after the final bell, the setting sun visible through the window behind his desk, "what is going on? For the past week you've been acting like a zombie, falling asleep in class, missing assignments, being late. You've even fallen asleep in PE, for goodness' sake. Are things all right at home?"

Yusuke would be surprised at the kindness in this teacher's voice. Mr. Iwamoto only shows a dark side to the poorer students—punks and those like Yusuke receive only harsh criticism and verbal abuse from this man. But to good, honest teens Mr. Iwamoto shows a somewhat more caring attitude.

Zephyr Uotani blushes and ducks her head, smiling bashfully. "Hai," she mumbles in a voice unlike the one she'd used during reading. "Everything's fine at home. I just haven't been sleeping well lately, that's all. I'll try my best not to disappoint everyone."

"Just don't overdo it," the gruff man tells her in a relatively-gentle voice, gesturing that she can leave. "We want you to succeed, not kill yourself. Now go on home and take a nap. And try to avoid those fangirls on your way out, they're still hunting for that Shinkai boy and I have the feeling you're on their hit list."

"Hai, sensei." Meekly, she slips out as quietly as she had come in, a faint smile on her face for the small joke the stoic teacher had actually cracked.

——

It's late evening now, the stars shining above the quieting suburban neighborhoods and the growing noise of the entertainment district as it gears up for another night of neon, music, booze and carnal pleasure—for a price. Haru Shinkai sits on the access shelter's roof at Sarayashiki, idly kicking air as he savors each and every breath.

"I'd almost forgotten what real air tastes like," he sighs, finger-combing hair that had been cut and washed for the first time in roughly a century just last night. Or really early this morning, depending on how you looked at it. Again he runs his tongue over teeth that had been bleached back into gleaming white at the same time.

A pair of silky black ears swivel to catch each and every sound that the small breeze brings him, wondering at the leaps that human-kind has made in the time of his incarceration. He stretches with careful deliberation, reveling in the new freedom at the motions: for as long as he'd gone unwashed—his nose wrinkles with disgust at the thought—his arms and legs had gone shackled with heavy iron warded so heavily he'd barely had the strength to breathe, his youki sucked away to the heart of Reikai Palace.

It had taken him the last fifteen years to hoard away enough strength to break free of his bonds and escape—that run had taken a lot more out of him than he really cares to admit—and even now he still feels weak. Practically a sitting duck which makes him wonder why the hell he's sitting up here in the open…

"You know, you used to be a lot better at hiding your energies," a serene voice informs him before amending, "what little energies you have left, anyhow."

The black fox stiffens, prepared to flee as he slowly turns around to face his…friend. The tension pours out of him as he grins weakly at the pale woman standing on the concrete behind him just as her dragon wings vanish in a flicker of platinum dust. "Aislin-sama. Inari, but I don't need any more scares like that in my lifetime."

The ice-fox steps forward with a slight smile, pushing one of her wine-red streaks behind her pointed ear with the rest of her snowy hair. "Sorry, Obsidian, but when someone I thought dead escapes from Reikai Mid Security with a strength of C-class at best and comes into my city I like to know why. For that matter, how."

"I'm surprised the Jaganshi isn't here yet," comes the resigned reply.

"Aren't I?" The black fox springs away, landing on top of the chain-link fence at the edge of the main roof, fully ready to run for his life as a black figure materializes beside the annoyed Aislin.

"Hiei, you idiot, don't scare the poor boy. Gods only knows he's been through enough shit without you making him jump clear out of his skin." Turquoise eyes turn to the shivering form balanced perfectly on the fence, the breeze blowing from behind and shrouding all of his face but those glowing golden eyes that gaze at them both so warily. Her eyes soften and she glides down to the main roof, carefully approaching the edgy fox with her arms upraised and open. "Obsidian-kun, it's all right. I've got Hiei on a strict leash, I promise. Come down?"

Hiei remains on the access shelter's roof while a shivering fox slowly climbs down to kneel before a sorrowful Aislin, the fire apparition staring into empty space. "Pathetic excuse for a fox-thief," is his only comment. Obsidian flinches as though struck, Aislin shooting her soul-sib a dark glance that promises future pain as she kneels before the fugitive.

One hand tilts Obsidian's chin up, turquoise capturing gold in a warm gaze. "Winsome kit, little cub, what are you doing here?"

Two hard swallows before the answer is whispered. "I'm looking. I'm looking for my sister Ivory."

The fire apparition's garnet eyes involuntarily soften at this response as he mindsends his soul-mirror, /He's certainly a lot more like us than I expected, Kikan-chan. We each had similar Truths, once./

/Now do you see why I wanted you to be here when I asked him/ Aislin replies absently in the same manner. The fox before her is trying hard to keep himself from crumbling before his friend and mentor, but both elementals can see his emotional walls failing quickly. /He'd have to have a very good reason to do what he's done—Yoko and I trained him to have ethics as well as honor and deft fingers./

Aloud, the koorime questions gently, "But why here, winsome kit?" Her nickname for him, centuries past. "This is the Human World, not ours." Deep concern blooms as Obsidian loses his fight, curling into a little ball at her feet as his shoulders shake with choked sobs. Immediately she drops to her knees beside him, arms going around his shoulders in a gesture of comfort. "Obsidian? Obsidian, what's wrong? Speak to me, kit, that's a direct order."

In a voice filled with old pain, the ragged Avalon relates his tale.

————

flashback

————

Music, laughter, the calls from numbers of booth-owners crying their wares or games. Happy chatter from swirling crowds in the growing town, celebrating its first decade tonight. Among the crowd weaves a pair of young foxes, no more than twenty years old at best, barely reaching the height of most human nine-year-olds. The boy is dressed in a tan yukata patterned with bamboo—his sister wears an identical one the color of new willow leaves. Both wear amber colored obis, from which are hung matching fox masks.

The pair drift from booth to booth, making sure to visit the crepes-seller and the gold-fish game, coming away with two small fish that are red-on-white scaled living jewels. To any casual observer, they are simply what they appear to be; littermates wandering around by themselves before their dam calls them to heel.

To any of the Makai's shadowed world, however, the two show a very different face. Each is alert, scanning their surroundings constantly, occasionally lingering on some careless festival-goer with his coinpurse in plain view. They avoid anyone who resembles authority—the watchfolk, for instance—keeping their faces averted or laughing while holding their toy masks up while making silly pantomimes. These two don't want their faces recognized.

And with good reason: these kits are the proteges of the Winter Rose and the Silver Thief, Queen and King of Thieves. To catch this pair is to lure the biggest prizes from hiding.

However, thoughts such as these are dissolved when the kits catch sight of a fortune-teller's tent, the well-kept but low-key sapphire canvas marked only by a few simple runes. Instantly they are just a couple of younglings searching for adventure, as they trot eagerly to the robed figure merely standing before the opening.

That shadowed hood tilts down as the pair approaches, nodding as one sleeved arm gestures the pair in. The tent's interior is well-lit by a few glass-water lamps, scented with citrus incense rather than the smoky, dim place the kits had obviously been expecting.

"Well, well, if it isn't the young Avalons," the seer says in a sexless, dry voice. The pair freeze, staring up at him/her/it with crimson and golden eyes. "Peace, kits, I care not for deeds done or being done. My bailiwick is the future, specifically, reading it. Not predicting it as some charlatans claim for themselves, no. I tell you what I see, for what I see takes the shape of a book's pages, and it is from those that I read. Still care to hear?"

"Yes!" they tell him/her/it enthusiastically, won again into relative ease by the youkai's disregard to law-folk. With a laugh as dry as the voice, the seer shoos them to a heavy oak table set in the middle of the tent. Directing them to place their left hands palm-up on the carved and decorated surface, the seer pricks first their palms, then his/her/its own once the robed being has taken a place across from them.

The lamps blow out as power is raised, the darkness relieved by the glowing designs cut into the table-top, infusing the small pools of blood cupped in hands with the same moon-silver-blue light. The interior of the hood is thrown into sharp relief; an androgynous face with the almond, slitted eyes of a neko youkai gazes impassively into space, the orbs moving as if something truly is being read.

"For ten times ten years the pair of you will be parted by that which no mortal can stand against, and there shall be no Avalon to haunt the hoards of the wicked and unjust. The final year is yours to search and solve the riddle of the curse laid upon you. If you fail, if the twain stay unraveled or the solution unsolved, then forever shall the curse remain and you shall stay seeking, sought after, yet unfound. So I see, and so it begins. Tonight."

The sigils flare once, then return to darkness, the lamp-flames slowly peeking out from the safety of their wicks. The seer dashes the blood out of his/her/its hand, grasping the thin wrists of the pair and pulling them towards the rear of the tent. "Out the back," is the quiet command. "Trouble comes on swift feet, and no good is in it for any of us—worst of all for you. Flee this place quickly, children, for I know you value each other's lives!"

Now thoroughly terrified by the grim voice warning of doom, the younglings squirm from beneath a loose flap and do as they are bid. They run.

Right into a territorial war-zone.

Festival-goers scream as youki-blasts are sent scattering into booths and crowds, the sources of them all being the two bands of scum-bag mercenaries, the Frozen Souls and the Searing Claws. Bitter rivals in everything, the small armies have chosen this place to finish their three-century grudge, with the knowledge that whoever wins takes this place as their base; this prosperous, peaceful town.

There's no more peace—it's all been shattered, and caught in the middle of it are the Avalon cubs. The little vixen is bawling as her brother pulls her frantically along, his dark head filled only with the thought of reaching the edge of town and the safety of the Makai forest. Forgotten are the watch-men, now firing their own bolts of energy as they gather their scattered senses and numbers.

Forgotten are the trinkets now lying trampled in mud and body fluids, the shiny things the kits had been contemplating the quiet relocation of just minutes before. Forgotten are the foods, the games—but not the bag of goldfish he still carries with his free hand and as much care as he can muster.

Nor is his training—or hers, as the vixen's sobs are quickly swallowed and she begins to help her brother avoid the pockets of fighting, weaving in and out of buildings' shadows, always towards the goal of trees. Trees are a fox's friend as are all the other plants of the Makai. For while a fox may pass a Death Tree unassaulted the same cannot be said for any other but those who are born of earth.

Their escape is curtailed as members of both warring factions become aware of the quiet shadows slipping around danger like eels, and, scenting a better challenge than most of the towns-youkai and easier pickings than their enemies, give chase.

Cautious sprints give way to full-blown running, the goldfish still being cradled carefully in one hand with his sister's fingers entwined with his own, the faster young male lending the vixen additional speed as they try to break away from the sadistic people pursuing them. The names of their heroes are called aloud in shrill voices a number of times before breath is saved for running.

The kits cut back through an alley, skirting another pocket of fighting and dodging numerous energy-bolts sent sizzling their way, ducking ice-balls, rocks, flames and electricity, all manifestations of the bloodlines in the youkai fighting.

The male finds them a dark corner that the fighting hasn't reached yet, the sounds of screaming still loud in their ears as they huddle together, the fish—jounced but still very much alive—sheltered in the bowl of their laps. The noises of battle grow louder—reinforcements for the law-abiders have arrived in the form of Koenma's troops, the more powerful arrivals quickly laying into the Souls and Claws with everything they have.

"Don't worry, Ivory-chan," the boy whispers to the trembling female compacted against him, peering around her head to gauge their chances of fleeing. "I won't let—" BOOM! Both younglings go flying, the buildings they had been hiding against shattered by several loose bolts hitting all at once.

The boy is instantly up on his feet, hand clamping onto the slash bleeding freely on his cheek beneath his eye as he frantically searches for his sister. There! His golden eyes find her just as another pure-bolt is sent slamming off-course.

Straight into her.

"NOOO!" The raven-haired boy scrambles over debris and body alike, ignoring the fact that he claws through both merc and law-man alike in his desperate need to get to his sibling. Koenma's troops are helping the law-men mop up the last of the thoroughly-flattened low-lifes, turning their attention towards the people still panicking around them.

The only difference between the boy they see sobbing over the still body of a silver vixen is the fact that both the children's faces are on wanted posters in the headquarters in Reikai. With a surprisingly large bounty attached to each.

The boy cries as he kneels by his sister, hands limp in his lap as tears pour down his face, his eyes snapping open at the weak, "Ob…si..dian?"

He looks down to find glazed ruby eyes gazing back up at him, one hand uncurling from her stomach. Protected from the devastating blast, the two small goldfish swim dizzily in their small space. "Look…I saved…the pretties."

His hand locks around her wrist, eyes pleading as he cradles her face with the other hand, ignoring the fact that there are law-men approaching him with pity in their eyes. "Ivory, please! Please don't leave me!"

"I…won't. It's…okay, brother."

"No, no it's not! I'll get you back to the Lair, Koshou can fix everything! Please, Ivory, don't leave me!" He fights off hands the grab at his arms and shoulders, try to pry his hand away from the cooling wrist he clutches. When he's finally yanked away, he grabs the bag of fish and snarls at anyone who tries to take them. He strains back towards the small body lying among the rubble, eyes fading into a cloudy rose. "Remember! I'll look for you, I swear it! Don't forget the—"

"Damn, you, Avalon! Just come quietly!"

"IVORY!"

———

end flashback

———

Obsidian kneels with his arms wrapped around his teacher for all the world as though she is his sole link to fraying sanity. She in turn has her head cradled against his own, murmuring soothing sounds in Kitsune as she runs her fingers through his hair, gazing sadly off into space.

Hiei still remains where he was, up on the shelter roof, but his eyes hold only pity for the poor wretch weeping with quiet force into a white-clad shoulder. Even the fire apparition had known, thanks to his Jagan, that his own sister had been safe for virtually all the thousand years she, he, and Aislin had been alive. Even when he hadn't known that he had a sister.

This kit did not even have that to comfort him in the times of awakening and dreaming. The two elementals can guess the rest of the story—upon seeing his sister dead, the cub would have given up and had gone with the enforcers with little more struggle, to be locked in a small stone room for nearly a hundred years with no one that cared about him within reach. Hiei doubts they let him keep the fish.

As the sounds of nightlife in full swing drift to the ears of the trio, Obsidian's storm of grief quiets to frequent hiccups, the fox pulling away enough to swipe at his face with a uniform sleeve, smearing off flesh-colored powder that covers a thin scar on his cheek. Aislin tsks and produces a handkerchief from one loose sleeve, dabbing at reddened eyes and handing it to him with a wry smile.

"I should hope you know what to do with that, kit." Obediently the young fox blows his nose and folds the square of cloth into a compact ball that gets tucked into a hip pocket. She always made them carry around at least one of the things so they wouldn't have to resort to their clothes.

Aislin nods approvingly, then sobers. "I arrived less than ten minutes after that fight ended, but I only found Ivory-chan. I tried tracking you, but all the damned shots they'd been firing made it impossible when one threw in all the blood spilled. I'm so sorry, Obsidian. If I'd known, you would never have spent a night there."

Faintly, "How'd you find out?"

She glances back at the once-more expressionless dark form standing above them. "Hiei told me when Koenma gave him the assignment of recapturing you. He also kept me from bringing the palace down around that damned toddler's ears. I was so furious; one of my people being held practically under my nose and I didn't know about it?" A deep breath that is exhaled just as sharply before she looks back down at the black fox.

"Now what, Aislin-sama?"

"Now, we help you find your sister."

"'We', snowflake?"

The glare she shoots Hiei is nothing short of murderous. "Yes. We. Got a problem with that, porcupine head?"

A snort. "My assignment was to recapture the boy. Not aid him."

"I never thought I'd see the day when the Jaganshi was following the orders of the toddler," comes the quiet mutter from the fox keeping his eyes on the roof asphalt. The fire apparition is quick to correct the boy's mistake.

"I don't follow the orders of Koenma. I follow the Spirit Detective that managed to beat me with a strength one could barely register, the human boy Yusuke Urameshi. He's the one that said I should, quote, 'see if I couldn't dig you out of your hole'. End quote."

Obsidian looks over to Aislin for confirmation, confusion and disbelief clear. "Yusuke-san is the Spirit Detective?"

"So you've met the boy," Aislin chuckles. "Not quite what one would expect for a 'good-guy', is he?" When her student solemnly shakes his head, she laughs outright, pulling the youngster to his feet as she stands. "That was my opinion, too. I expected someone like Mizu to be his next choice after the Sensui disaster, not another Yuuki Miyami."

"Hn. All of them were annoying."

"That's very true. So, my winsome kit," she addresses the black fox before her with quiet cheer, "have you any ideas of where to start looking?"

"I figured," the Avalon replies softly, "that since everything involving the other worlds is centering around here, that maybe she came here too. I only got here this morning, so I haven't had time to search properly." The fox fidgets, toying with his messy ponytail as he stares down at the roof's cement.

"Things have only been heating up around here since Yusuke became a Detective," Hiei scorns. "It's only been three years since the boy and his idiot friend became Koenma's lackeys."

Aislin growls and darts out her hand. Hiei winces as his earlobe is pinched and held between her strong fingers, his head getting hauled to the side as his soul-sib hisses at him, "Hiei, how many times do I have to tell you? Hope is a very fragile thing. It's not nice to break it."

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Let go of my ear, ikeike!"

"Kisama!"

"Wow. So you two really are like this all the time with each other," the young fox wonders aloud, staring at them. Oh, sure, Yoko had told he and his sister stories about the legendary 'spats' these two would get into that would eventually lead up to someone—sometimes the combatants, sometimes not—shedding some blood, but how believable could that be? Fighting but still sibling close? Ivory and he had never drawn blood or even scratched at each other in their entire lives; until they'd made it to the Lair their philosophy had been 'us against the world'. Afterwards it had been 'all of us against the world and whatever Aislin-sama and Yoko-sama say.'

But now, seeing for himself, the black fox has no choice but to believe that his beloved teacher is fully willing and perfectly able (that part he'd always believed 'cause no one's stronger than her) to take the dangerous fire apparition down a few dozen pegs.

The two pause with Aislin still in firm possession of Hiei's ear, the dark male glaring at the staring boy from a very awkward angle. In unison the pair shrugs, though Hiei's is rather more constrained due to said death-grip. "Pretty much, winsome kit," Aislin tells him, finally letting her soul-sib have his ear back in one piece.

"I think…I might just have been safer in jail."

Rubbing at his ear, Hiei advances on the fox with his free hand moving for the katana that one rarely sees him without. "I could correct that problem…"

WHAM! The young Avalon steps adroitly to one side as Hiei crumples to his knees, arms cradling his head as several very inventive curse words manage to make it past his clenched teeth. They mostly seem to relate to Aislin's temper and conception, and what anatomical impossibilities she could go do with herself. The ice-fox, meanwhile, lowers the booted foot that had nailed Hiei on the back of his spiky head, fury radiating in her turquoise eyes.

"Obsidian is one of my people, Hiei Jaganshi! Lay one finger on him with intent to harm—and I count Koenma's prison as harm!—and you'll find out just how fucking scary I get! You got me?"

Hiei continues to mutter more possible bloodlines for the female as Obsidian kneels down, the absolute picture of a child confidante. "And she gets reeeeaaally scary, Jaganshi-san," he whispers from behind a cupped hand.

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And now for my expected review responses...'cause you all know you love seeing your name in print! n,.,n

Kitsune Kit: Why, the fourth story, of course. As soon as I finish this one and figure out what the blazes I'm going to write said fourth story on.

KuramaIsFine: Always did like your name. Thanks for the support, I shall try to live up to your expectations.

Magus784: I have such loyal reviewers, you, Kit, and KIF always review for my chapters. You all get pocky! (showers it on everyone)

Arano Honou: o.O A new reviewer! And skittles! Skittles are always good. (munches happily) And I meant my threat over on your stories! You don't update, I don't either! How's that for incentive? 'n,.,n'

Asilin Kheldarson: I'm writing, I'm writing!