Back again! Thank you to everyone who reviewed!
Yyhpunk: Yeah, eventually. Not in the way you would expect...
LiL KaWaIi AzN PrInCeSs: Read to find out!
HarmonyHanyou: All will be revealed in the end...
Disclaimer: I don't own YYH. I only own Kai and the twisted plot.
Yin-Yang
Chapter Three: Home Sweet Home?
"Ungrateful little..." Yusuke muttered as he exited the gleaming infirmary, Keiko and Kuwabara trailing after him. The carrot-topped teenager waved mournfully to Yukina, who waved back sincerely, ignorant of (or perhaps ignoring) his obvious infatuation. Hiei scowled at his retreating back, hoping that Yukina would never fall for him. Koenma cleared his throat, trying to break the obvious tension between the idiotic ningen and the short-tempered demon.
"Well, now that they're gone, I need to warn you." They looked at him intently, some with polite interest (Yukina, Kai, and Kurama) and some with mere boredom (Hiei.) "You are all demons. Correct?" No one answered; it was a rhetorical question. "You are also, as of now, protectors of humanity." Hiei gave a derisive snort; he would never protect ningens out of choice. "Like it or not." Koenma added, directing it at Hiei. "From this moment forward, you will be the most mistrusted demons in all of Makai. Watch your backs," he warned. He gave a short bow, brown hair swinging into his hazel eyes, and walked out, leaving them alone.
"Let's go," Hiei ordered, staring at Kai expectantly. She nodded silently, her dark hair swishing about, and replied timidly.
"O-Okay. J-Just follow me, please." She got up and walked to the door, shaking slightly from what Hiei assumed was nervousness. She clutched her unseen charm tightly, as if it alone could console her.
Twenty minutes and many glares later, the demonic quartet arrived in front of a small house painted periwinkle blue, alone on a deserted street. Kai timidly knocked on the door. A woman in her twenties with silvery hair, wearing a midriff top bearing the legend "2 Hot 4 U" and a short denim skirt answered it angrily.
"Where the hell were you?! I've been waiting for-" she looked down at her blue wrist watch. "Five whole minutes! You could've begun to make dinner!" She glared at the timid girl, hatred obvious in her blue-grey eyes. Hiei cleared his throat and she looked up abruptly, not expecting the three visitors.
Suddenly, her disposition changed. "Well, hello! Come in, come in. Kai's never had friends over before." She smiled a falsely serene smile and beckoned them in, as if what they had just witnessed had never happened. As they passed, she glared over them at Kai, who looked down at the ground, ashamed. The red-eyed girl walked into the doorway slowly, momentarily stopped by the women, who whispered to her menacingly, "Meet me in my room later tonight." Kai nodded grimly, holding most of her fear inside.
The women closed the door behind her as she turned to the four demons in her living room. She smiled kindly at them, expecting an equally kind response. Hiei only glared, and Kai gave a small smile before rushing into the kitchen. Yukina smiled back, believing her kindness to be sincere, and Kurama did as well, but only out of politeness.
"So, what are your names?" she asked, resting her arm on a nearby polished gold coat rack. They each answered, Kurama saying 'Shuichi', as he didn't think she could be trusted with his real name. "Very cool," she replied. "My name is Aphrodite, but you can call me Dite or Aph, whichever you prefer. I'm Kai's aunt. The guest rooms are over that way," she finished, motioning in the direction of an elegant hallway, painted silver and decorated with various artworks framed in bronze. Kurama and Hiei went directly to their temporary rooms, while Yukina made her way to the bathroom, near the kitchen.
Aphrodite, as the women had introduced herself, mirrored the blue-haired girl's path and, upon entering the kitchen, sneered rudely to Kai, who was still wearing her school uniform. "You might want to change." She tipped a cup of hot water on Kai's form-fitted tan coat, and then dropped the cup on the polished tile floor, leaving a dark spot on the silky sheen.
Kai didn't move, despite the burn she felt from the high-temperature water. "You might get hurt." Aph smiled evilly and began to walk toward the shining hallway. "By the way, because you so carelessly dropped that water on my clean floor, you'll have to mop tonight. Don't forget your homework." The women finished with mock concern, laughing cruelly.
Yukina watched this incident from a shadowed doorway, righteous anger written on her face. She heard constricted, quiet sobs from the kitchen, but hurriedly left, as quiet as possible, sensing that Kai wanted to be left alone.
"Goodnight." Hiei heard a small voice from his doorway and saw Kai's silhouette reflected by his obsessively clean window. Her pupil-less red eyes glowed eerily in the darkness, and her white bangs shone unnaturally in the pallid moonlight; it was all too clear that she was a demon. Hiei glanced at her, and suddenly his forehead burned with white-hot pain.
He witnessed a flash like the one he had had earlier:
The same young girl from earlier that day sat underneath a street lamp, embracing the fading rain, as if it held the cure to her problems. As the horizon began to brighten, a siren rang throughout the desolate, cold air. The girl got up abruptly, fear shining in her pupil-less eyes. She looked around frantically, surveying the dimly light street. Hiei watched as she ran to her left, down the eerily empty street. The sound of a siren trailed her as she struggled to run and hold down her nightgown at the same time. The memory began to grow unclear as he heard a loud crack, and saw with trained eyes a bullet, smoke trailing it as it hit the girl in her back. Blood splattered all around and the girl let loose a cry of pain as she fell clumsily to the ground.
Hiei suddenly awoke from his trance and stared at the point where Kai's silhouette stood moments before. He heard a door in the hallway slam shut, and silently cursed as he went to close the door to his "room."
As the week went by, the three demons noticed an odd pattern to Kai's life. She and Kurama (who had gotten permission from his mother to stay, granted he do his homework) were dropped off at Mieou High School each morning, and were picked up each day by Kai's aunt, Aph. Kai got up much earlier than everyone else each day, and, by the time she had to leave, managed to look as human as possible.
She wore extremely realistic contacts which had a brownish tint to them, minimizing her dark red eyes, reminiscent of blood. Each day, before leaving, she pulled back her long hair neatly in various colored scrunchies, and by the time she returned, her hair was mussed and disheveled. Each day she wore her blue headband across her forehead, successfully convincing Hiei that she was hiding something, although he didn't confide this to anyone. Also, she wore the same earring, day after day: the 'yin' side of the yin-yang, the dark side.
Whenever she was out of her room, Hiei noticed, she wore her tan, stained coat. Often times, especially directly after school, he noticed the smell of blood clinging to her. He kept this to himself, even though he knew it would be better to tell someone.
In this fashion, one week passed. Hiei grew more suspicious of Kai as each day passed, although he wasn't entirely sure why. He felt more than sensed that there was something....more to her than what she showed to the world. She wore her necklace every day, although Hiei never once, in that entire week, saw exactly what her charm was. One day, however, he could have made a good guess.
A/N: Good? Bad? Odd? Please review! Thank you to Moon Archer, my mucho helpful beta-reader, and Linkin Park, who, in a way, influence my story. This chapter in particular was based off of Faint. Sorry about the slight cliff-hanger.
