Disclaimer: I don't own YYH or any of it's characters. I do own Katrina, Lisa, Serena, Marissa, and Alex.

AN: What I say about the bumping grade thing was actually going to happen to me, except I was going to skip 3rd and go to fourth then skip all the odd grades. Only prob was that I wasn't 'emotionaly' stable enough to skip. Dammit! One of the few times I regret being a hell raiser and the #1 punk of Hodge elementary. I actually got kicked outta elementary! hehe, didn't think it was possible.

CONGRATS!

Here's the prizes to the ones that guess right who it was:

anorehound and koorimechick.

CONGRTATS! -Throws each a plushie Hiei.-

And CONGRATS to anorehound for fully guessing what 'it' was. -Gives anorehound a plushie Puu.-

Sorry koorimechick, you were almost there. As a consolation prize have a Chibi Hiei keychain.

Bewitching Ties

Legend

-Thought-

-Telepathy-

Noise

Chapter Nine: Painful Past

An hour had gone by before Katrina showed any other signs of waking up. Hiei had gotten a few cat naps during that time, during the times he was awake he listened to the storm and kept in contact with Kurama via telepathy. Kurama would have come out and got them except for the fact that the storm was just too brutal. When Katrina began to move in the early stages of waking up Hiei gently extracted himself from her and the cloak and sat across the fire from her.

After several minutes amethyst eyes were looking up at him. "What happened?" she asked groggily.

"From what I can tell, you hit your head while the bat youkai was attacking you." Hiei said, looking into the fire.

Katrina gave him a questioning look. "What's 'youkai'?" she queried.

"It's what you call a 'demon'," he answered, it was for once a question he didn't care if he answered truthfully.

A light came into Katrina's eyes. "That's why you said you weren't a demon," she said smartly, then asked, "What type of youkai are you?"

Hiei smiled. "I'm not a youkai."

Katrina gave an exasperated sigh. "If you'r not a demon and not a youkai what are you then!"

"I'm a fire apparition. Another term for 'demon' but slightly different from youkai. An apparition is usually a 'demon' that's tied to an element. Youkai are 'demons' that aren't tied to elements, such as goblins, that bat youkai and the like," he explained.

Katrina became quiet, she had just noticed that she didn't have any other clothing on except for her undergarments, socks and Hiei's cloak. Hiei had taken off her jewelry and boots to make her, and him, comfortable.

Hiei watched the girl squirm. "I would take you back to the shrine except the storm is keeping us here," he said.

She nodded. After awhile she spoke. "Hiei, do you hate me?" she asked, staring into the fire.

Hiei paused, fighting the compulsion. He lost, "No."

She didn't look up. "Then why can't you stand being around me?"

He sighed, "Because you're driving me and my hormones crazy," he said, he decided it was no use to fight the compulsion.

She looked at him surprised. "What?" she asked, taken aback by what he said.

He felt no compulsion to answer her since it really wasn't a question. An idea came to him. "I order you to always truthfully answer me when I ask you a question," he ordered her, getting back at her. She grimaced.

Hiei smirked, -What's the ningen saying? Oh...'payback's a bitch'.- He immediately took advantage of his order. "What's your history before coming to Japan?" he asked, remembering the spector's advice.

Katrina stiffened. She didn't want to tell him but she had no choice. "I...I and my twin sister were abondoned in a dumpster when we were born. We were lucky that a young couple were walking by and heard us crying. They took us to the hospital where we were treated. The hospital looked for birth records and such, but couldn't find any. The couple, Shane and Diana Lee, adopted us and named us Katrina and Cassandra. We were almost exact twins, the only difference was in our eye and hair color. Where my eye and hair color is amethyst and brassy gold, respectively, my sister had gold-flecked honey eyes and dark purple almost black hair. You could say that we were total opposites in that sense. So were our personalities, I was sweet, gentle and soft spoken then and my sister was the up-in-your-face loud and rash girl. She was always full of life and smiling. Even when we were shunned by all of the other kids in elementary and junior high she was still smiling. Sometimes I even think the teachers shunned us, but hid it well and praised our good grades."

She snorted, "We were such quick learners that in third grade we were doing fifth grade work. Some teachers that actually liked us wanted us bumped up to fifth grade then skip every other grade from there on."

She paused. Hiei knew he didn't have to ask his question again because she would tell him her history now but at her own pace.

She talked again after awhile, "We always knew we were different. We were able to do things the other kids couldn't, things that scared them. We could make things float, sometimes we could float, we could even read thoughts, but we soon quit once we 'heard' the things they thought about us. We could also 'see' things. Things that happened a long time ago, things that were happening then but far away, and things that would happen. After awhile we quit showing our gifts in front of people." She paused again. "We even became scared of our powers. At least the visions. We stopped telling each other our visions. Finally, some how, we managed to repress our ability to 'see', so that we 'forgot' how to 'see'. Up until two years ago I had completely forgotten that we had that ability."

She paused even longer before going on. "Our freshman year in high school we met four other girls that were almost like us, in the sense that they had powers too, though not like ours. They were able to control elements, basicly the four primary elements, earth, wind, fire and water. They were Lisa, Serena, Marissa and Alexandra. When we first talked to them they were shocked to 'sense' the elemental power of spirit in us. They were really excited, they could now have a full circle of magic, five people to represent each element. Though our circle was special, because we had two people to control the most powerful element, spirit. We all thought it was funny that all of our names ended in 'a'. Then there was the fact that our birthdays were all on the 21st of some month. The only sure thing about our birth was that the day mom and dad found us in the dumpster was the day we were born. The doctors figured that we had only been born a few hours before and immediately dumped. They suspected that our biological mom gave birth at home, then dumped us." She shrugged, like it didn't really matter. In a sense it didn't, except for the longest time she and her twin wanted to know who their parents were to try to figure out where their powers came from.

When she spoke again her voice was quiet and husky with repressed emotion. "Remember how I said that until two years ago I had forgotten that I could have visions?" Hiei nodded. She took in a breath. "Two years ago, on our birthday, I had a 'feeling' that something bad was going to happen. My sister was going to go out with her boyfriend and I had begged her to stay home with me. She just kissed me and said everything would be alright." She paused and held herself tight. Her voice became cracked with emotion. "That was at 6:03 PM. At 6:39 PM I had a vision. I was looking through her eyes. It was raining. I saw a semi coming at them while they were driving, it was jack knifeing and tipping. I heard her scream. I heard the screeching of tires. Saw the semi fall on them. Heard the crushing of metal and heard one final scream. I came back to myself screaming. Our parents rushed into my room where I had been drawing. I yelled at them where we had to go. They knew about our visions from when we were kids and trusted me." By now she was choking. "When we got there...when we got there she was...bleeding everywhere...her eyes were already foggy...She looked at me and said...'I'm sorry...You must live for both of us now...I'll always be there...' Then she was gone..." Katrina fell over, sobbing. Hiei stayed where he was, unsure of what to do. He started to regret having asked her. He didn't know it would put her through so much pain. Finally he went to her side and gently patted her shoulder. He had never been in this situation before and didn't know what to do.

After awhile Katrina calmed down enough to hiccup the rest of her story. "We held the funeral, I, Lisa, Serena, Marissa and Alex were the pall bearers. We insisted, saying that no one else had the right to do it. When we laid her in the ground we each laid a yellow rose on her grave. Yellow roses were her favorite. It was supposed to be our 'sweet sixteen' year. But it was only a year full of sorrow. Now I'm almost eighteen, and I still haven't gotten over it. Before we laid her casket in the ground we compiled a cd full of music just for her. I never wanted to hear those songs again, to me they're now sacred. After her death our circle decided to put all our focus on magick. We were all intent to do 'something'. We never elaborated, we just wanted to do something to get our minds off of her passing. We finally decided to try to raise a demon from Hell. Secretly I think we all wanted to see if we could summon something then try and summon Cass's spirit back to us, at least for one last conversation, for a proper goodbye. We all had things we wanted to tell her that we never got the chance to."

She paused and rubbed her arms. After a few seconds she continued. "Then my dad said he was being shipped to Japan to head the new branch of his company here. He says it was sudden, but I doubt it. He had me and Cass take japanese as a language. At the time, I hadn't really thought about why he was intent on getting us to learn japanese, I just thought he was backing our choice. We had been thinking about it since our friends were taking it. He said we were moving a week before we summoned you. We had tried it once before but it didn't work. Then we moved here." She stopped, having finished 'answering' his question. She looked into the fire, eyes red, puffy and exhausted from all the crying.

Hiei studied her face. Day by day he was learning that there was more to this ningen than met the eye. -So 'it' was her sister's death.- He thought as he reviewed what the girl had told him. Then something snagged his attention. Her description of her sister. "What did your sister look like again?" he asked, a suspicion forming in his mind.

She didn't even look at him as she spouted off the answer. "She had waist length straight dark purple almost black hair and honey-gold eyes. Other than those features she was exactly like me."

Hiei narrowed his eyes. -So that's who the spector is.- They sat in silence for awhile, listening to the storm rage on.

Katrina yawned and leaned her head on Hiei's shoulder, spent from the crying. "Hiei, why did you ask me about my past?" she asked sleepily.

Hiei frantically searched for some way to follow the compulsion without telling her the truth. "...Someone close said that I should get to know you." he said, neglecting to specify the 'close' part. He didn't mean close to himself but close to her, though he was fine on letting her think the other way.

"Hm," she sighed. "Hiei?"

"Hn," he replied, waiting for her to continue.

"Could you hold me?" she asked.

Hiei looked at the girl on his shoulder, -What?- He thought about it. He was never this comfortable around anyone, but he knew she could just order him to do it, and no telling what will happen if she were to word it wrong, he may end up holding her for all of eternity. He searched within himself and decided to respond to the question the way she responded to alot of things. -Sure, why not?- He nodded as he positioned himself to hold the girl. It was in a matter of seconds before the brassy blonde was asleep in his arms.

He watched the fire light flicker in the canopy of branches above, thinking of the girl's past. He knew what it was like to be shunned by people, abandoned as a child, and he too had a twin. But there were things that he hadn't experienced that she had, like a family, and a life of innocence. He thought he felt a little envious of her for having found a family. However, she had experienced something he never wanted to experience, the death of her twin. He couldn't begin to comprehend the pain she had gone through. He had felt extreme physical pain, unlike her, but not nearly as much mental and emotional pain that she had. He looked down at the witchling in his arms. 'She needs someone, she needs to know that someone is there for her.' Cassandra's voice floated to the front of his mind, repeating what she had told him. -But why me?-