A/N: Since this is the final chapter, I'm going to thank all my reviewers one final time before I end this series. I give my whole-hearted thanks to the following:
XiaoQiu1992 – Thanks for being my first reviewer and giving the support I needed to write later chapters!
aznwolf4evr – Thanks for reading my first story, Rini-chan! And I wish you luck on yours!
El loco uno – Thanks for letting me know that Mizuih was turning into a Mary Sue. If you hadn't pointed this out, she'd still be one. And thanks for pointing me in the right direction to change her!
bearbunny03 – Thanks for the short but encouraging review!
Hiei13 – Thanks for letting me know about the Mizuki/Mizuhi mix up, and reinforcing my belief that Mizuhi was a Mary Sue. Without that, she'd still be one. Thanks!
peachy-me-keen1591 – Thanks for the added support for me to write this final chapter and finish up this story!
A-Static-Lullaby-Baby – Again, thanks for the added support!
fireflyshanks – Thanks, Firefly, for reviewing! Also, thanks for reading in the first place and somehow convincing me that this story was worth finishing!
Kay. Now that that's out've the way, on with the final chapter!
Once they had completely disappeared, Hiei's knees gave out. The girl he was supposed to protect (not because of feelings, but he WAS her bodyguard after all…) has just been kidnapped. "Great…" he muttered, "She's gone…" Hiei stayed on the ground for a few moments, then noticed that if he stayed where he was, he wouldn't help her at all. He got up and began thinking of a way to get her back, pacing as he did so.
The others outside had heard the commotion and decided to come in and see what was wrong. Kurama came in first. He thought that Hiei should've gone in first, but he was nowhere to be found. 'He must already be inside…' thought Kurama as he slowly opened the door. He saw Hiei pacing and an empty bed. The sheets showed signs of a struggle, and Hiei's troubled expression worried him.
"Hiei?" he asked, "What's wrong? Where's Mizuhi?"
Hiei looked up; his brow still furrowed and growled, "She's gone." His words seemed to echo around the room before and after Kurama processed them.
"She's…gone…?" he said, unsure that he had heard Hiei correctly.
"Yes."
Kurama held back the rage he held inside that his sister had been taken. He realized that it was probably not Hiei's fault. Hiei even looked a little tired, showing that he didn't just sit on his butt and watch Mizuhi being kidnapped. His eyes changed from their normal deep green to a pale red, his anger growing. "Who…took her? Where are they?" Kurama growled in a dangerously unlike-Kurama voice.
"I'm not sure. The man's name was Gurenai, and he said that he was taking her to be with him forever. He said something about her beauty being an added bonus to the power he was going to get from her when marrying her.
"My sister's being married at her age!"
"She's not that young. She's about 16, isn't she?"
"Yes…but she told me that her ideal marrying age was somewhere around 20-30. She was forced into this." Kurama growled again, not happy with whoever took his sister. "This Gurenai must have a death wish.
"That's what I was thinking right after they disappeared."
"Can you explain the whole event to me?"
"Should we invite the others in?"
"No. I don't want them to get too involved in this."
"Hn," Hiei said before continuing on to explain what had happened. He even included the first man that had tried to take Mizuhi who he had killed on the ground floor. Kurama listened intently the whole time, not even interrupting for clarification. He already knew that Hiei would try and give him every detail he could if it was about his sister. Once he finished, Kurama stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in and stretched. The story had lasted about 15 minutes, and Kurama had only moved to breathe and to blink; he'd stayed in the same position the whole time.
"So…we aren't sure where this Gurenai and Mizuhi are at the moment?" asked Kurama, wanting to find Mizuhi before Gurenai could officially marry her.
"No, but I'm thinking that he'd close by."
"Why do you think that?"
"I can still feel his spirit energy close by. It's tainted, so it's harder to track, but I can track it if you give me some time. Would that be okay?"
"Yes," Kurama said, nodding in approval for the elongated search. "Can I help in any way?"
Hiei almost said no, but then saw the expression on Kurama's face and quickly thought of something he could help with. "Hn... Could you explain the story to the others? If we don't, they'll start mobbing us and asking about it. That would lengthen my search even more."
"Okay," Kurama said, dutifully walking out the door.
Hiei turned around and shook his head. 'That over-protective Kurama...Mizuhi, you're lucky to have him as your brother. Without him...what would happen? I'm sure it wouldn't be as bad as the situation you're in right now...'
'Stop...yourself...up...' a mysterious voice said in his head. 'Not...fault...'
'Mizuhi! Is that you!' Hiei thought frantically, trying to find the voice's owner. It was in his head, but if he just got a little closer...he might hear her better.
'Heh...elp...ee...' she said, getting fainter. Hiei walked in the opposite direction he'd been walking, trying to pick up where she was. He'd guessed that she'd been trying to say, 'Stop beating yourself up,' and 'Heh. Help me...'
'Under...ound...'
'Underground?'
'Yes,' he heard clearly.
'I must be right over her!' Hiei thought to himself and jumped out the window and started blowing a hole in the ground with fireballs. (A/N: Very secretive, isn't he?) Once he heard Mizuhi saying something aloud (It sounded like, "Get away from me, freak!"), he burned sideways instead of down. 'I'll be dead if that bastard hurt her...' Hiei thought, breaking through a wall into a large, open chamber with many torches surrounding it, clinging to the walls. At the other end of the chamber, he saw Mizuhi chained to the wall by her wrists and ankles, and Gurenai sitting next to her, petting her head. She tried to jerk away, but couldn't because of the chains. She looked up and noticed Hiei.
"Hiei!" she cried, desperate to get away from Gurenai. Hiei dashed over to them, standing about ten feet away from them and said, "Gurenai, isn't it obvious she doesn't want to be around you at all?" Gurenai saw Hiei and jumped up, positioning himself in a fighting stance. "You're seriously going to try and fight me again? You won by a fluke last time. You doubt you'll win thi—no, you won't win this time."
Gurenai smirked and said, "You won't win."
"And why is that?"
Gurenai smirked more and said, "Because I got married to Mizuhi. I have her power. You can't win."
"No you didn't!" Mizuhi poked in, a disgusted look on her face.
"I told you to shut up and play along so he'd be intimidated!" Gurenai muttered back to her.
Mizuhi glared at him and growled, "One, Hiei doesn't get intimidated, and two, did you really think I'd act like your my husband!"
"Yes."
Mizuhi stared at him. "You're an idiot, aren't you?"
"No, I'm just a fool in love!" And with that, he dashed towards Hiei, sword drawn. Hiei dodged easily and knocked him out by hitting him with the hilt of his sword, sending him crashing to the ground.
"That was too easy..." Hiei grumbled, just audibly enough for Mizuhi to hear.
"No, that's the best he could do. Seriously."
"How would you know?" Hiei asked, turning towards Mizhui.
"I'll tell you, but can you get me unchained from here? My hands are numb." Hiei looked at her wrists and saw that they were chained above her head, making it near impossible for blood to read them.
"All right," he said, walking over and slicing the chains. After Mizuhi was safely sitting on the ground, she told him.
"When we first entered here, Gurenai tried to chain me up, but I fought back. For a little bit he was knocked out, but there was no way I could find to get out, and I tired myself out trying to find an escape route. He only chained me up in the end because I was exhausted."
"Hn," was all he replied with.
"So...should we burn him just to be sure that he's dead?"
"Probably. Do you want to do the honors?"
"Yeah, now that you mention it, I do."
Mizuhi got up and dusted herself off, stretching out her limbs. She then stretched her hand toward Gurenai and yelled, "People of the flames, dance!" Gurenai's body was consumed in flames, but suddenly the two heard mocking laughter, certainly not encouraging them.
"So you think I'm going down in flames? Then I challenge you to a song battle!" Gurenai cackled, standing up and diminishing the flames surrounding him.
"But aren't you vulnerable to flame?" asked a bewildered Hiei.
"Not anymore. I adapt. I'm never vulnerable to the same thing twice."
Mizuhi thought back on the whole conversation and remembered Gurenai had said something about a song battle. "What's this song battle thing?" she asked.
"It's a battle where we throw lyrics from various songs at each other, and whoever thinks of the most is the winner!"
"And what happens if I lose?" asked Mizuhi.
"I didn't challenge you, I challenged Hiei!"
"I doubt he knows as many songs as I do."
Gurenai crossed his arms and pouted while explaining the stakes. "If you win, you can escape alive and I'll curl up and die and never bother you again. If I win, you stay with me forever and all your friends can never come and try to save you."
"Then of course I'll win!" Mizuhi yelled. "So how do we start the song battle?"
"One of us thinks of a line and the other has to think of another line from another song. You can also use lyrics from songs in different languages as long as you know them in that language. You have to name the song when you say the lyrics as well. You can't repeat lyrics or use lyrics from a song lyrics have already been used from. Understand?"
"I understand. You start," Mizuhi said, suddenly getting serious.
"Then I'll start with, 'I'm going down in flames' from 'I'm Going Down In Flames'," Gurenai shot.
"'Un mode sans danger' from 'Un Mode Sans Danger' in French," Mizhi shot back.
"Ooh, starting out with something French? Interesting...then I'll give you 'WHAT'S UP hitomi wo kawashite' from 'What's Up Guys', the theme song to Sorcerer Hunters.
"'Get along, Try again' from 'Get Along'!"
"'Haru wa mada tookute' from 'For Fruits Basket'!"
"'Hateshinaku tooi sora ni' from 'In the Endlessly Far Sky'!"
"'I'll have the quesadilla' from 'Rockstar'!"
"'Aisuru kimochi ha' from 'I Guess That's Love'!"
"'Get back' from 'Infinity'!"
"'Kimi ga seou itami no hate ni wa' from 'The Rose-Colored World'!" Gurenai was silent, and Mizuhi grinned wide. "Can't think of anything?"
Gurenai hung his head and muttered, "I don't watch much TV or listen to much music...so my knowledge is limited..."
"So I win?"
Gurenai fell to the floor and muttered, "Yes..."
"Jeez, that was easy," Mizuhi said, wiping sweat off her brow. They were probably about 100 feet underground, so it was easily explainable why it was so hot.
"So, are you going to go through with your end of the deal?" asked Hiei, just wanting this all to be over with.
"Course not!" he screeched, sounded like a bird. His body grew suddenly, eventually changing into a phoenix. "I'll keel you all before you can leave here aliiiiiive!" he cackled, rising a few feet off the ground with his gigantic wings.
"I knew this one would be troublesome..." Hiei muttered before diving underneath the phoenix. He thought about cutting its wings off, but then they'd grow into two separate phoenixes. "Damn..." he muttered under his breath before dashing around underneath the bird, dodging its wings trying to knock him over.
'Hiei, try stabbing him,' Mizuhi thought to Hiei, not wanting Gurenai to hear their strategy.
'But he's immune to swords,' he thought back.
'No, he's just immune to sword slashes. If you stab him, he can't grow it back!'
Hiei pondered this, then tried it. He dashed right underneath where he could sense the heart was and thrust his sword into the red feathery surface. Gurenai screeched in pain, then reverted to his normal form, a large red hole where his heart would be and blood trickling out of it. Hiei walked over to the obviously-dead body and, just to be sure, kicked it in the side.
"Oi, are you dead?" he called loudly to it. It didn't move, or respond.
"Hiei, I think he's dead," Mizuhi called across the chamber to him. "Can we go now?"
Hiei turned to Mizuhi and sighed. He then did something completely unexpected; he smiled. Mizuhi gasped when she saw him smile, and Hiei nearly laughed at the gasp. "Yes, we can go."
Mizuhi jumped in celebration of the fact they got to leave and ran towards the exit, Hiei right behind her. They were both anxious to get out of there. It had an evil aura around it.
Once they got back up to the hospital room, Mizuhi and Hiei both crashed onto the bed, bringing everyone swarming inside from the noise. They both fell asleep before anyone could ask them questions. It had been an...unusual day to say the least. Kurama stood at the back of the crowd surrounding the pair, attempting to ask them questions without realizing they were asleep. Kurama chuckled and went into Hiei and Mizuhi's dreams.
'You two, I have to tell you something,' he whispered into their dreams.
'What?' the answered simultaneously.
'That man was the ringleader of all the suitors trying to find Mizuhi for her power. With him dead, you don't have to worry about other men coming after Mizuhi.'
'Hn,' Hiei replied. He was quite happy, actually. No more body guarding!
'YES!' Mizuhi cried, obviously tired of people chasing after her for about one week.
'You two should rest now, especially since you have nothing to worry about. Sleep now.'
'I will!' Mizuhi said, falling into a deep sleep.
'Hn,' said a (another) smiling Hiei. (He was only smiling in the dream, but still...)
Kurama exited their dreams and smiled. Mizuhi was safe...for the time being.
The End...?
A/N: Heh, I left it at a point where I COULD continue it if I wanted to. Lemme know if you want a sequel! And sorry for the horrid ending. I was planning on killing Mizuhi, but it seemed to sad compared to the rest of the story. And sorry for the chapter's shortness, but I couldn't come up with anything. And, final thanks to fireflyshanks for helping with song ideas for the song battle! Thanks! Thanks again to all my reviewers for giving me encouragement to continue!