Ch.10: Heh, Like I Know What To Call It.

Mysa and Hiei had been gone for just over a day, and already a routine had been set up back at Syrin's house. They had decided to shift around chores, and it was Yusuke's turn to make lunch. He had raided the kitchen for something easy to make. All he could find was condensed soup in cans... there was no can opener. Out of ideas, Yusuke snatched the sword from it's sheath and began to bang away on the can with the butt of the hilt. Syrin, hearing the noise, peered around the door, curious. She let out a shriek when she saw what he was doing.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She ran into the room and expertly snatched the sword from his hand. "Do you have any idea what this is worth?" Yusuke looked blank.

"It's just a sword..." Syrin's face flushed with anger and frustration.

"Just a sword! This sword is worth thousands of dollars!" Kurama heard the yelling and popped in to see what was going on.

"What's with all the shouting, Syrin-chan?" He asked. Syrin whirled, sword in hand, and pointed an angry finger at the bewildered Yusuke.

"That moron was treating a two-thousand dollar katana like a steak knife!" She strived to remain angry in the light of Kurama's smile, turning her attention to inspecting the sword. No damage. "You're lucky this is such a finely crafted sword. If you had nicked it, when Mysa came back she would have killed you and used your bones for carving practice." There was a gentle tug on the blade, and she handed it over to Kurama.

"Really? It's worth so much? Who crafted it?" He inspected the sword as well. Syrin smiled smugly.

"Bladed Armageddon." Kurama's head snapped up.

"Really?" He saw the laughing light in Syrin's eyes and relaxed. "Oh. You're just joking. Okay."

"No, I'm not. Check underneath the cross guard." He looked, and there was the small symbol, the burning Ankh with two katana's crossed inside the loop. It was tiny, but exquisite, and completely impossible to fake, as many had found out. His eye's went wide.

"It is! How did Mysa get a hold of one? And then let Yusuke use it? Hiei would kill for this katana..."

"Hiei would kill for a handful of dirt," Yusuke grumbled. The others ignored him.

"Mysa got it because she... knows... Bladed Armageddon. She let Yusuke use it because all she had to do is pay for the materials and she gets a new one."

"But I thought no one knew who Bladed was..." Syrin was still laughing at him, and Kurama used that big brain of his. "No way."

"Way." Syrin said. Yusuke looked back and forth between the two, then stomped out of the room. It was obvious that no one was going to tell him exactly what was going on... Well, then, they could just make lunch themselves.

When Yusuke was gone, Kurama asked his question.

"But how can Mysa be Bladed? She's too young." Syrin shook her head.

"No, she's not. Because of 'Bladed's' rep, people think she's a lot older then she is. They think she's been selling for a long time, when her katana's have only been for sale for about three years. It all started out as a dare, as a matter of fact. She was showing me her latest creation, and I got bored, so I told her that she'd never have the guts to sell one. Mysa being Mysa, she had to go and sell one. It's her mantra, you see." He raised an eyebrow. " 'Ignore loss, become accustomed to pain, confront fear'. She was afraid to sell, so she had to do it. But at the beginning, neither of us knew how to go about it. So we went on the internet, and found this nifty site where beginners could sell handmade katana's, and the site was rumored to have big buyers around. But you needed a brand name to sell... and 'Bladed Armageddon' was born. We actually have a whole personality created for her." Syrin rolled her eyes. "It's hard to believe that such an idiot could be a genius. Ask her the first few numbers of pi and she starts drooling, but start comparing the different densities of different steels, and she's God." She sighed.

Kurama laughed silently. If only Hiei knew... one of life's little 'Haha, kiss my ass' (irony is so old) type thing, he guessed. "So, are we going to make lunch?" He asked her, and she smiled at him. Boy, Kurama was looking better and better every minute... and he was drop dead gorgeous to begin with. Syrin tried to drag forward a mental picture of Kyo, but it was hazy and fuzzy.

"Sure we are. I'll need your help, though. I'm not that great at cooking. And after lunch, perhaps you would like to help me design a few more traps?" He grinned, and those lovely emeralds of his sparkled enchantingly.

"I'd be delighted to." Damn, but the boy was fine. Syrin couldn't keep the smile off her face while they prepared lunch. It was just... there.

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"Botan!"

"Yes, Koenma sir?"

"I see that there has been another theft." Botan gulped.

"Yes, sir."

"Do we even know who it is yet?"

"No, sir. We can't find a single trace to lead us to her."

"Her? How do we know that it's a her?"

"This time the thief left a note, and the writing has been identified as female. But other then that, nothing. If she's human, she is one that has no or leaves behind no DNA, or any evidence of tampering of the seals. If she's a demon, I don't know what kind; she gives off no energy signals. The items are just there; then they're gone."

"What did the note say?"

"Something to the effect of, 'I'm terribly sorry, but it has to be done.' That's all."

"That's all?"

"Yes sir." Koenma thought a while.

"Could it be a ghost?"

"Ghosts couldn't touch the objects that she has stolen, sir."

"I think we have a problem, Botan."

"I think so too, Koenma sir."

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The sky had just begun to turn grey in Lost, when the ringing noise Mysa had been making stopped abruptly, jolting Hiei to full awareness, so he just barely caught the breathed, "Shit." from behind the boulder.

"Hiei." Mysa said, still very quiet.

"What?" He asked, wishing that she didn't have that stupid barrier so they could 'talk' completely silently.

"Don't move or make any loud noises. And tell Hans to stop snoring." Yeah, like that wasn't a complete oxymoron. Mysa didn't elaborate, though; and she didn't need to. Right then, Hiei saw the movements in the trees.

It was a giant... bird?...okay. The bird was about twenty feet tall as it stood on its powerful hind legs, with its tiny wingless arms short and close to its chest. The tail was long, unbirdlike and completely unsuited to flying. The head was also unbirdlike, with a wide muzzle and tons of large teeth.

But it was most definitely a bird, covered in feathers as it was.

T-Rex.

King of the Lizards.

A giant, evil, toothed chicken.

Hiei nudged Hans with his foot.

"Huh? Whatzn-" the fire demon clamped his hands tight over Hans'... hand, to shut him up.

"Shut up, you baka arm. We have a problem. Just stay quiet." He released the hand. The T-Rex whipped its head to look at the tree, then back to the boulder where Mysa sat, unmoving. Mysa watched the giant chicken shift on its feet, turning its head to get a better look at her. It breathed in strongly. Mysa didn't breathe at all; she was too busy watching his teeth and seeing herself crunched between them. Her eyeballs squishing out of her head in particular had some morbid fascination for her. She didn't want THAT to happen.

So what now? Should she move?

A bug flitted across the Rex's nose, and it moved like lightening to snatch it up. Well, that got rid of the 'moving' plan. Apparently, the Rex had evolved to greater heights. The thing was incredibly fast. She would hate to see what a plant eater could do by now.

If she couldn't out run it being normal, why not be abnormal? Mysa reached confidently for the black mist.

It wasn't there.

And now she had to sneeze.

Oh, shit (Mysa's like me. She sneezes very violently. You know, the whole face shattering, body rocking type sneeze that would kill most people).

Hiei sat in his tree, waiting for something to happen, wondering with some amusement what she would do, or if she would get eaten. Serves her right for trying to get in his head, then act all offended because he did the same. A few seconds pass. Why isn't she moving? Why isn't the Rex attacking? He looked away from the Rex and toward the boulder. He realized that her mental shield was gone, and he plunged into her head without a backward glance.

'Can'tmovecan'tmovewhereareyouwhythehellareyougonenowcan'tmovenopowerwherethehellis she?' Then he couldn't go farther. Her shield was there, but it had moved so that it was under her conscious mind.

Hiei pulled out and smirked a little. So, her 'power' wasn't always under her control. Then a huge sneeze erupted from behind the boulder, and Mysa bolted. The T-Rex rumbled and began to chase after her.

'ShitshitshitshitshitthisissuchfuckingBULLSHIT!' Mysa thought as she ran as fast as she could, which was still pretty fast considering that she had no extra energy helping her. But the Rex was closing in. Suddenly, she wasn't even running at all. She was being carried, and she was going too fast for her unaided eyes to see. With a sigh, Mysa gave up. She wasn't even going to try to understand what was going on right now. It was enough to know that the Rex was gone. She could probably handle anything else.

Probably.

Abruptly, they stopped, and Mysa fell to the ground on her ass. It was so unexpected that she ended up sprawled all over the ground. Sitting up and blinking, the first person she saw was a certain demon with awesome hair and scorching eyes.

Well, that explained a few things.

Getting up as gracefully as she could, Mysa brushed the dirt off her clothes, nodded politely at Hiei, and began walking.

"Where do you think you're going, baka?" He demanded. Mysa turned sharply on her heel, and looked Hiei square in the eye, face blank.

"I'm going to go see if McDonalds is open." Hiei: -.-U

"We're in the middle of LOST. There is no McDonalds here, you idiot!" Her face stayed carefully emotionless, and that unnerved Hiei slightly. He was more used to her outbursts and quirks then this... acceptance. Raising a hand, she pointed at a bright neon yellow M-fry thing that protruded above the treetops.

"I beg your pardon, but I do believe you are wrong. Will you join me for breakfast once Hans shows up?" The police emotionless was beginning to get to Hiei, he glared at her, not saying anything.

Hans burst into the clearing at that moment.

"Mysa! 3" he sang, sashaying up to the pair. A tiny pebble rolled off Mysa's shoe, and joined the main Hans (didn't quite know how to say that). Mysa's face finally showed emotion, giving Hans a faint smile, but it was still like she wasn't really there behind her face. The shield, though, Hiei noticed, was back in its usual place, as thick as ever.

"Hello, Hans. I'm glad to see you got here safely. Would you like to get some breakfast?" Hans stopped from getting any closer to Mysa, and craned his head up to see her better.

"Are you all right?" He asked. Another faint smile.

"I'm fine."

"Then I'd love to accompany you, though personally I don't eat."

"Great. Coming, Hiei?" With another glare, he followed her. Walking in the door, Mysa halted abruptly. "What the hell are we doing here?" She demanded loudly, startling the fat old people behind the counter, and the ...people... she was with.

"You insisted we eat breakfast here, baka ningen." Hiei growled. Mysa turned and blinked.

"I did?" She rubbed her chin and looked thoughtful. "Hm. So I did. Sorry! I wasn't thinking. Well, not about breakfast... Must have been on autopilot." She grinned at them. "Who woulda thought that there would be a Micky D's all the way out in Lost? There really are everywhere!" Hiei's eye twitched, and he placed a hand on his katana, then had to forcefully restrain himself from attempting to kill her. Oblivious, Mysa marched up to the counter, and fired off orders on what she wanted, and how, precisely, she wanted it cooked. She looked back over her shoulder at Hiei. "What do you want, Hiei?"

"I'm not eating this garbage."

"Aw, come on. I'll buy you an ice cream!" Mysa was being sarcastic, acting like she was talking to a two year old, but Hiei took her absolutely seriously and barked out his order. Mysa blinked again. "Well, grr." The fire demon went to find a seat, while the human chatted with the cashiers until their food was ready. Finally, it was, and Mysa went over to where the demon sat in the empty fast food restaurant. "I found out how come there's a Micky D's here."

"Hn." Hiei grunted, uninterested. "Where's my ice cream?"

"You can only eat dessert after the meal, and you don't want it melting while you eat, now do you? Besides, I didn't know what kind you liked. But how these people got here is really weird. They had been sent to work on a remote island, but soon the islanders - tourists, mostly - left the island, because it had become haunted... and there was a volcano due to erupt. No one ever sent a plane for the people here, and soon they were trapped on the island. One of the workers went crazy, and demanded that they were all Lost, and as the poisons of M. D's food sunk into their brains, they began to believe him, so they all ended up here." Hiei was done now with his food, and said.

"Whatever. Where's my ice cream?" Mysa rolled her eyes.

"Fine. What flavor do you like?"

"All of them."

"Just one." Growl growl.

"Vanilla." She got up and went to get him his ice cream, after convincing the cashiers that money in Lost was useless, so why should she pay? The human drowned them in big long words until they caved and gave her the food for free. It was easier then listening to her babble. Mysa came back with a big sundae for Hiei, and actually started to eat her food.

+Flick+ Something bounced off Hiei's nose. He quickly looked up from his ice cream, didn't see anything wrong, and went back to eating.

+Flick+ Something nicked his ear, and he brushed absently at it.

+Flick+ Hit the bandana. Hiei finally dragged his attention away from his ice cream, and noticed the three tiny chunks of fry lying near him. He glared death rays at Mysa.

"Stop it." He growled. She looked at him with innocent eyes.

"Stop what?" Flutter eyelashes.

"Stop throwing fries at me or I'll run you through." Blink blink.

"But I didn't do it!"

"The whole place is empty except for us and Hans. Hans has no fries. It was you." Pout.

"It was him!" Mysa cried, and pointed vaguely into empty space near them. Hiei: -.-U

"Baka ama." He snarled, then snatched up his ice cream and moved across the room, hidden by a thin pane of glass. Mysa smiled mischievously, and stretched to put her feet in the demon's former seat, contentedly munching her fries.

"That wasn't nice." Hans said reproachfully.

"No, but it was fun. Besides, I didn't mean any harm by it. If he had been anyone else, he would have thrown the fries right back at me. He's too serious." She munched another fry. "Gotta respect him, though."

"You have a weird way of showing respect." Hans mumbled, and Mysa shot a look at the arm.

"Can't help it. I do respect him, however. He's great with a katana, I'm pretty sure there's a brain under all that hair, he saved me from that Rex, and he's... how I would have turned out if I hadn't had Syrin around. Cold, mean, not knowing much more then hate or bitterness. But... I don't think I have such a good reason for it. Then again, I don't know his story. Maybe he was just born this way." Then she shrugged. "No matter the case, I'm trying to do him a favor, make him lighten up a little bit. It probably won't work, but it's worth a shot, right?"

"This is a big change." Hans said. "A few minutes ago, you would've at least harmed either of us greatly. Now... you're trying to help him?" She grinned.

"I can't hurt you, Hans! You're too nice. Yeah, I guess I'm trying to help him. After all, he did save me from a dinosaur. And, I had a little talk with myself. I'm not good for much else on this journey, so why not try to help him? Or at least have some fun... at his expense. About the same thing. There's more then hate to everyone, you know." 'Except Harkio.' 'Well, he's not human, demon... or even a recognizable life form.' 'Thanks to you.' 'Yes, thanks to you. And me. Not her, though.'

Hans rolled his eyes (twirled his fingers) at Mysa's explanation.

"It would be hard to imagine you acting like him, hateful and bitter."

"Yet I'm quite capable of it. If we were back on earth, I'd tell you to ask any number of people." She gave him a big smile and started on her burger. "I'm rather evil, really." Chatting with Hans until she was finished, Mysa then went over to collect Hiei from his seat. He was just finishing his third ice cream (He bullied the last two out of the people behind the counter), and grudgingly stood up to go. Walking to the door, they were stopped by the M.D. workers. An especially fat one stood in front, and began to speak.

"By order of the Great Double Cheeseburger With Everything On It, the newcomers are not to leave, but to stay, and mix their good, sane blood with ours, to produce normal children to carry on our legacy." Mysa managed to look astonished, disgusted, and horrified all at the same time. Hiei only looked pissed. He put his hand on his katana and crouched, prepared to fight his way out, then looked over at Mysa because of some impulse or another.

She was walking toward them.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asked, astounded.

"Proving that I, at the very least, am not sane. Now shush, or they'll hear you... me." She stood directly in front of the apparent leader. Then she crouched, and whispered, "Dance."

"Morgifier?" The leader asked, well, I think he asked.

Mysa leapt up, and screamed at the top of her lungs, "DANCE!" She continued jumping up in the air, but now she twirled as she did so, still screaming "DANCE!" Suddenly, she stopped. Then, she ran to the left until she hit the wall, gobbling like a turkey who's about to die. Using the wall to push herself into a turn, she ran back the other way, again until she ran into a wall. Coming back for a third time, she stopped abruptly in front of the group. Twisting her neck around slowly, she stared at them with wide, crazy eyes (my eyes can do that, and it scares the crap out of a lot of people! Which makes it a lot of fun to do). Mysa said with an amazing tone of calm, "How does a four-legged muffin dance? I shall show you, paper-mache-cow. Come with me." She did a flip right into the middle of the stunned group, and began the routine all over again.

The group panicked, forgot why they were even bothering, and ran back behind their counters. When they were gone, Hiei could see Mysa holding the door open for him. Nose stuck in the air, he walked through.

"See? And no one died." She commented once they were outside.

"Pity." He responded, not noticing the look Mysa and Hans shared.

About an hour later, Mysa was much less optimistic about how easy it would be to get Hiei to laugh. She had tried every joke she knew, and it seemed as if the demon was made of stone.

Hiei wondered if his forced traveling companion had really gone insane. When he looked over and she was making a face like a constipated pirana, he was almost completely sure.

"Hell!" Mysa sat down on a flat rock, put her head in her hands and glared at Hiei. "Don't you ever laugh?" She said in an exasperated voice.

"Hn." He said, and kept walking. Hans moved over to where the human sat.

"Mysa-chan?" The hand whispered.

"Yeah? What's up, Hans?"

"I have to go." She raised a surprised eyebrow.

"Go? As in, go go? Like, go to the bathroom type go?"

"No, as in leave, go."

"But you said you'll help us find that one sword!"

"And I will. But I need to find the way there over land. If you keep walking in this direction, you should be okay until I come back."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Um... probably two hours." Mysa groaned and leaned back on the rock. Two hours alone with the one person in the worlds that she couldn't get to laugh. This was gonna be fun... as fun as getting run through, with a 58 more chance of dying.

"Fine. I'll see you when you get back. You'll be able to find us, right?"

"No problem." A little pebble hopped off Hans and took it's place once more on Mysa's shoe. "As long as that's there, it'll be easy to find you." Mysa smiled at him.

"All right, Hans. See you later." The hand melted into the ground, and the human quickly caught up with Hiei. "Hans has left." She said when she was within earshot.

"I know." Silence.

"He said he's going to make sure about where we're headed, and that he'll be back in about two hours."

"Hn."

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Hans snickered. He had given up on a Mysa/Hans pairing, because it was literally impossible. But he felt a weird mischievous spirit in him, and was enjoying the challenge the tyrant in his head had set up for him.

'Hiei and Mysa. How cute!' (I wonder who the tyrant is... Seriously, it could swing either way between Syrin or I. She's also trying to set them up.) He didn't know how he was going to make it work, though. The only semi-solid solution he had hit on was to leave them alone for long stretches of time... and follow them to make sure no one died. Laying low, no longer in the arm shape but as a blob, he followed them silently, so that even Hiei's ears couldn't pick up the sound.

Mysa wondered what to say next. The silence hung over the both of them, only interrupted by the crunch of dirt under their feet, and an occasional bird song. As they walked along, Mysa suspected that Hiei was mad at her, but she was at a loss as to why. So as she walked beside him, unspeaking, she turned the matter over and over in her head.

The only incident she could think of was when she had gotten pissed at him earlier in the morning, before the whole Rex thing or the McDonalds thing. Was he angry at her for former anger at him, or because she had failed some sort of test be proving useless against the Rex? It puzzled her. She didn't know that Hiei's just naturally foul. ( . What a cute evil little guy)

She hadn't been lying to Hans when she had said that her talk with herself had gotten her over her anger at Hiei. She just hadn't told him the whole truth. The fact that the demon had tried to intrude on her privacy had hurt her more then she was willing to admit - after all, she hadn't actually trusted him, now had she? Of course not. Mysa didn't really trust a soul outside of Syrin. So why did it bother her that he hadn't respected her privacy? After a time, she reasoned herself into believing that it didn't hurt, and she didn't care. Along with that, it was firmly established that she did not trust him, and shouldn't trust him, though he had helped with her 'dinosaur problem'.

Still, there was no law against at least getting him to like her, now was there? Friendships weren't necessarily built on trust, were they? Surely there was an exception. Wasn't her friendship with Botan like that?

So she decided to try to make Hiei (at the very least) not mad at her.

"Hey. Sorry for snapping at you earlier. I just need my space, you know? And, sorry for pushing on your barriers. It was more of a gut reflex then any wish to know something you don't want me to know." Mysa smiled brightly when she saw him glance at her. "Just, if you want to know something, ask me next time, okay?" She couldn't help but add.

"Why do you even bother?" He snapped. Mysa blinked. "This whole thing will be done and over with soon. Why are you even trying to make friends? There's a large chance that by the end of this you'll be dead anyway. What will your apologies get you then?" It disturbed Mysa that he figured her out so easily, but she didn't show it. Instead, she scratched her chin and appeared to be thinking.

"My apologies to you would get me nowhere if I told them to Botan; that was a silly question. Why do I try to make friends?" She smiled impudently at him. "Because you're irresistible, Hiei, you demon you." Then she burst out laughing. When the last of her giggles cleared away, she looked over at him, amused. "Kidding, Hiei; you don't have to look so panicked." His face, as a matter of fact, hadn't changed at all except to look even more mad. "Now, as to why I bother: do you want the truth or a nice, easy to swallow little lie?" Hiei continued walking with his head facing forward. He did not spare Mysa a glance as he navigated over the roots, fallen logs, and stones.

Truth or lies; now there was a good question. He did not know that the simple asking of this question indicated the simple respect Mysa had for him. Normally, she just went for the lie.

"Truth." He said, and Mysa nodded somberly.

"All right then. The reason? There's a few. One, I think you're a useful person to have around and at my back in a fight. Two, I just can't shake the impression that you'd be a really cool guy if you'd just lighten up a little, mainly because you remind me of Tashio. He's a lot like you, only looser. Three..." a pause before she plunged into the reason. "...you scare me a little."

Hiei wanted to say something snide here, like: "Of course you're scared of me; I'll kill you without blinking an eye if you get in my way", but the words wouldn't leave his lips. For a moment, it was almost as if he was sad that she was scared of him; then he remembered: he didn't care. Mysa continued.

"I think that if you have a fear, you should confront it. I choose to confront this particular one by simply trying to get along with you." She thought a little more. "I wasn't scared when I first saw you, but when I inspected your katana." She looked at him very seriously. "It cried, Hiei." He returned her gaze cooly.

"You're still talking." He said, but she ignored the jab.

"When I sounded it out. A sword is created to kill people. That's a truth, and I know it. It's shaped, thought of, and thinks of, death and blood. When you ring it, it should sound clear and true; it knows it's purpose, something very few things - and people - can claim. But your sword... its seen enough, Hiei. Its natural thirst for blood has been quenched, then drowned, and yet it still flows. You've killed a lot of people with that sword, Hiei, and its tired." She looked him earnestly in the eyes. "The fact that you could even do that to a sword, make it so that it doesn't long for blood, scared me. Scares me." He looked at her, incredulous.

"You're insane." He said, and she dropped her serious look, smiling widely.

"Yep. But hey, you asked for the truth."

"I wonder if I had said lie if your talking would have stopped sooner."

"Much. I would just have an even lower opinion of you." There was a teasing note in her voice, but a seriousness underlined it.

"Hn." Hiei said, clearly showing that he couldn't care less about her opinion of him. Shrugging, she dug through the pockets of her pants, and pulled out a palm sized knife; just a pocket knife, no big deal. It was rather plain, in fact, but Mysa was treating it as if it were gold. Then, she turned her gaze to the soil near her feet. It took about two minutes for her to find the right sized stick, and she snatched it up without breaking her stride.

The wood was solid and green, not rotted in the slightest. A faint smile still hovering on her lips, she flicked open the pocket knife and began carving.

"What are you doing now?" Hiei asked, irritated.

"Carving," she said shortly, irritating him a little more. "What? Would you like to borrow a knife? Because if you're not going to engage in a conversation, I got to have something to do, or risk annoying you to the point where you stop holding back at all and just kill me." It bothered Hiei how on the mark she was. What bothered him more was how easily she got under his skin.

Forty minutes later, the first of the two hours was gone, passed in almost complete silence except for Mysa's speech at the beginning, and the scraping sound she made as she continued carving. Hiei had been completely silent, thinking - brooding, more like - on what he always thinks about.

A thought occurred to Mysa in mid cut, and it startled her enough that he blade bit deeper into the wood then she had intended. Inspecting to see what kind of damage she had done, she pondered over that strange and completely random thought.

'Yukina?' The face that had flashed with the thought originally was fading, and Mysa scrambled to pick details out of it was best she could. It was of a pretty, pale girl, with light green hair and big red eyes. Everything about her seemed delicate, fragile. 'But... I don't know a Yukina... Hey, brain, what's with the weird thoughts? You breaking down again?' Her brain growled at her and said, 'Not me, you moron. I don't know where that thought came from anymore then you do.' 'Well, since you're the brain who exactly is the moron now?' Mysa shook her head at herself. She was really going to have to stop these imaginary conversations...

"Hey, Hiei," she said, breaking the long standing silence first. He glanced at her, annoyed at having his thoughts disturbed. "Test this edge, will ya?" The piece of wood she had been carving on sailed through the air, and the fire demon caught it deftly. He looked at her like she was an idiot - asking him to test an edge, then throwing him a hunk of wood - then actually looked at what he had caught.

It was a small wooden knife. Hiei : -.-U

"You really are obsessed, aren't you?"

"Like there was ever any doubt. I was younger then Ray-Ray when I discovered my... passion." She had been about to make 'passion' plural, and had had to stop herself. Mysa just hoped he hadn't noticed her pause. "Just test the edge, please."

"Why?" He asked suspiciously. She made bug pleading eyes.

"Please?" For some to remain unexplored reason, he caved, and tested the edge. Any Nengenkai poisons she might had put on it wouldn't effect him, and why would she want to kill him anyway? In a very direct way, he was trying to save her friend's life.

He tested the edge; it was nearly as sharp as his katana.

"Not bad." He said grudgingly. Mysa shrugged off the 'compliment', but she was smiling.

"It's strong enough to kill someone with too. You can keep it, if you want." As a matter of fact, he did, and he tucked it into one of his belts. She gave him a little smile.

"Aw, what a tender moment." A grating, laughing voice said from above them. Without being aware of it, they had walked right into a valley.

Right into a trap.