Ch.11: Winging It, Baby!

W.W.- Another mutant chapter, people! I was going to write something totally different, but it felt too early, so I'm mutating! Wait, that doesn't sound right...

Hans: AKA, she's winging it.

W.W.- SHUT UP! Just because I'm winging it does not make this any less of a story then if it was completely planned out! It's not like I had a real idea for it in the beginning anyway...

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Mysa looked calmly up at the biggest, meanest looking dude she had ever seen in her life. Then she grimaced.

"What the hell do you mean, a tender moment? What planet are you from? I gave him a knife. Not that big of a deal." Her grimace became worse. "When was the last time you took a bath, Mr. Big-Hairy-Stinky-Guy? I think you're overdue." The man was red in the face, and a course of snickers drifted down to them from the nearby trees.

"Shut up! Hand over your valuables, and no one gets hurt!" Mysa looked at Hiei out of the corner of her eye.

"That line is completely overused. Besides, I don't have any valuables. Do you, Hiei?" Hiei said nothing. The big guy's red had faded away, and now he grinned.

"What about that sword? It's such a pretty little thing, much too good for you." He reached for it, and Mysa snatched his hand, twisting it painfully. All trace of complacency was gone.

"How dare you." She whispered, eyes blazing. Hiei watched her, a look of mild surprise and curiosity on his face. The big man was looking at her with all the stunned intelligence of a fish suddenly pulled out of the water. "How dare you even try," she twisted it even more. "...to touch my katana?" Hiei could hear the bones snapping in the man's wrist. The color had drained out of the big guy's face. "With your filthy, unworthy hands? Try to touch my baby? Try to steal it?" She was still speaking in a whisper. The demon could see a shadow, not a mist, surrounding her, not appearing to be moving quickly, but ...pulsing. It was stunningly creepy. Then the man regained enough air to call,

"Now!" A net was yanked up under their feet; Hiei flitted out of range, as did Mysa. The man gaped. "What are you?" He started to get to his feet. In the blink of an eye, Mysa's katana was out, and the edge was pressed hard against his throat.

"Oh, no." she said. "You still have to learn your lesson."

"Boss?" A nervous voice called from the trees.

"Help me, you fools!" He screamed, and the two were now surrounded. Hiei glanced casually around. All humans. Mysa didn't even bother to look. Blood appeared on his neck, and started to flow slowly toward his shirt. "Help me!" He babbled.

"Tried to steal my baby..." Mysa murmured, watching the blood flow. Hiei raised an eyebrow. This was exceedingly weird behavior. Then he turned his attention away from the human girl and her prey, and toward the group of humans now ringing them. He pulled his blade from the sheath, and they all took a nervous step back.

"Don't draw unless you're willing to die," he sneered. Out of the corner of his eye, one did draw, but he wasn't headed for the fire demon. The man was aimed at Mysa. With a snarl, Hiei took the bandit out; Mysa remained oblivious to everything outside her own little sphere.

When they all were... taken care of, he turned to see that the big man was nowhere to be found. His body had disappeared entirely, and Mysa was seated on a rock, watching him. She saw him look for the body, and Mysa shrugged.

"He's dead." The pulsating shadow had dissipated. "And buried. Sort of." A drip of blood caused him to look up. A head was perched on the tip of a branch. Several other branches were also colored red, making Hiei wonder exactly what she had done... then he decided that he really didn't want to know. With a shrug, he continued walking.

"Hn." Was all he said. Mysa got up when he came near, and walked beside him, silent. Hiei glanced over at her once or twice, and each time her face was the same. Set, a little too focused on the ground in front of her, and very pale. The demon found that he could scan her topmost thoughts again with no problem, and with no apparent awareness from Mysa. There weren't really any thoughts. Just... grey.

Soon the two hours was up, and Hans was 'back'.

"All right! We're still going in the right direction, but there's a few obstacles ahead of us. There's an ocean, and a desert, but until then, and after, it's mostly forest. Very few paths. If we walk straight for a few more hours, we should hit one of them. Then, we can follow it to its end, and shave off a couple hours. All set?" Hans looked at Mysa, and no one could see the nervousness he had. He, unlike Hiei, had seen what the human had done to the bandit... and now he could believe her claim of being evil. She smiled at him.

"Yep! All ready!" The dirt arm also noticed her unusual paleness, but it didn't make much of an impression on him. He was still too stunned by what he had just witnessed the supposedly peaceful Mysa do. They continued on their way. "Hey, Hiei, that was pretty impressive, what you did back there. You think you could teach me something?" The fire demon looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Well?" She was blushing with embarrassment. "Can you or not?" The blush grew deeper as he just continued to stare at her.

"Hn." He grunted. Mysa exploded.

"THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER, HIEI! Why can't you just be normal and say yes or no!" She threw up her hands, but fell silent again, stomping along, off all by herself. Soon her stomping stopped and became mere trudging. She was so tired... And it was only noon!

"What would I get out of it?" Hiei asked from beside her. Mysa didn't even have enough energy to jump in surprise. She looked at him.

"I dunno... what do you want?" His gaze studied her up and down, and he snorted.

"You don't have anything I want, human. You find something of worth, and I'll think about it." The ningen thought about being mad, but... it just wasn't worth it. In fact...

Mysa staggered off a ways and sat heavily on a big stone. Hans inched worriedly up to her.

"What's wrong, Mysa-san?" He asked. Trying to look at him, she fell off the rock. "Mysa!" The dirt made hand squealed. Getting up shakily, she said,

"It's all right, I'm fine, really I am. The rock is just slippery, that's all. Wasn't prepared." The girl sat on the rock again.

"You really do need to be taught something if one fight with one human wears you out." Mysa kept silent against Hiei's snide remark. If she wasn't being so taxed when she slept... when her legs felt less like rubber, she got up - despite Hans' protests - and began to walk again, forcing herself to keep pace with Hiei.

She was so focused on doing just that that she didn't notice Hiei slowing down to accommodate her haggard steps.

By mid-afternoon, Mysa felt like she was just going to fall over and die from tiredness, but she kept going, her mind's grey becoming black, little swirls of red popping up now and again to relieve the mundaneness of the constant darkness. They had been progressively going slower as time wore on, and she was less and less able to focus on the ground in front of her, tripping, though not falling, constantly over roots. Hiei watched her openly, guessing that she couldn't really see by now. What was wrong?

The sun had reached about ten o clock in the sky, meaning it was late evening in the Ningenkai. Hiei stopped without warning, and Mysa ran into him.

"Oops." She muttered. "Sorry." She pushed herself off him and tried to walk some more, succeeding only in falling. Hiei caught her before she hit the ground. The human had lost consciousness.

"Hans, set up the tent. She can't go any further." Hans scurried to do the fire demons bidding. While he was gone, Hiei searched Mysa's mind. The black with swirls of red worried him. If you looked at her life energy - which it now occurred to him to do - he could now see that she was more then half dead. Yet she had kept going. What about Syrin inspired such devotion in this girl?

Hans (what would be a good substitute for 'ran'?) hurried back to where they were, and skidded to a stop on front of them.

"It's all set up." Hiei nodded, and picked Mysa up bridal-style. She groaned in her sleep and turned in his arms, curling up, so that her face was against his chest and one hand grasped his cloak tightly. The demon waited for her to stop shifting, then carried her over to the tent, not looking at Hans. The arm had left the door flap open, and Hiei walked straight in. Everything was already set up, the bed roll, the pillow. But when the Koorime tried to set her down... she wouldn't let go of his cloak.

Hiei: -.-U. He put her down, and hovered over her awkwardly, trying to release her grip without tearing his cloak. Half dead or not, he couldn't pry her hand open. Finally, with a snarl, he gave up, took off the cloak, and left it with her.

When Hiei came out of the tent in only his sleeveless and pants, it made Hans laugh silently, but since he doesn't have a face, Hiei couldn't tell. Sometimes its good to be a hand made out of dirt.

Inside the tent, a sleeping Mysa smiled a little and curled up around the cloak.

Outside, Hiei scowled at Hans - whom he was sure was laughing, though he couldn't prove it - and settled in a leafy tree to sleep... with one eye open.

And while he slept, he had the strangest dream.

He's in a dark hall, with big oil portraits on the walls. Walking down, he looks at each face. The first three people he doesn't know, then came Syrin, then himself, then Botan, and a finally, a very faded picture of Yukina. Then the faces were gone: the hall had ended, and he was just floating in a big black nothing. So far, the dream had been a little strange, but not really. The scenery changes.

He was floating in what appeared to be a black fog. Gentle golden air currents pushed him around, and moved the clouds beneath him, so that he could see the ground. It looked like the pebbled sand of a beach. A dark ocean washed in not too far from the figures below. As Hiei watched, they began to talk.

"Come on, we have to practice, I have to learn, I have to get better." A short figure was pacing along the beach, a katana in one hand.

"Absolutely not. You're killing yourself, and if you die, where would that leave me?" This was said by the other figure, who was considerably taller then the first, and had no katana.

"How would I know? You're the special one, you figure it out. And while you're doing that, you can teach me something!"

"Calm yourself. You're already better then any other human."

"That's not enough!" The taller one stalked over to the other, grabbed its shoulders, and shook it a few times.

"How long have you been able to hide things from me?" No response; a few more shakes. "How long?"

"Since about a year after you got here." The short one shrugged off the taller one's hands. "It doesn't matter! I have to be stronger! Can't you feel it coming? I'm not ready and I have to be! So let's practice already!" It dawned on Hiei that the short one who was so persistent, was, in fact, Mysa. The tall one, however, he couldn't place, though it was familiar.

"I'm telling you, I'm not teaching you anything tonight. You're just not up to it, whether it's coming or not. Even if you learned anything, being dead instead of waking up sure would make you useless. And you shouldn't hide things from me." Hiei was close enough now to see Mysa stick her tongue out at the taller figure. Suddenly, the cloud beneath him burst, as if it was a bubble, sending him plunging toward the sand. A very short plunge, and of course he landed on his feet, so he was unharmed.

But, he found to his surprise, he couldn't move very easily. It was as if the gravity was a couple tons heavier. He was shocked a little to see that his feet weren't sinking into the ground.

Mysa's head whipped around, and she spotted him first.

"Hiei?" She spluttered, causing the tall one to turn and look. "What are you doing here?" The human looked back at the figure bewilderedly. "What is he doing here? I thought no one but us could get here!" 'What a warm welcome', Hiei thought sourly, and tried to move again. Still not much luck. Mysa walked toward him with an ease that annoyed him, and poked at his forehead, carefully missing the Jagan. "So that's what's under the headband..." She muttered to herself. He snarled, and found that he could at least talk.

"Stop that." A moment's surprise, then she smiled.

"Sorry!" The smile became an evil grin, and she slung her arm around his shoulders. "I see you're having problems moving."

"His connection here can't be all that strong then," the taller figure murmured. "We have to send him back. He's not supposed to be here."

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Abruptly she took her arm from his shoulder, and looked guilty. "I should probably introduce you two, shouldn't I? Hiei, this is Aryd. Aryd, this is, obviously, Hiei. You, at the least, already know about him. Hiei, Aryd is the person who lives in my head. She's sort of how I would have looked had things turned out right." She whispered to him behind her hand, "But I still think I would have looked better." Talking normally, she continued. "Now, to clear something up: she is not a different personality of me, she's her own entity." Aryd made 'Shut up!' gestures at Mysa, who ignored them. Waving around grandly, she announced, "And this is my little world. Not very bright and charming, is it?" She slung her arm back around his shoulders. "Is anything I'm saying making sense?"

"No." Hiei said, and Mysa nodded.

"Yep, that sounds about right. So, now that I've shared a little with you, why don't you tell me: how the fuck did you get here?" He raised an eyebrow. "If you don't at least hazard a guess buy the time I count to three, you're going to regret it..." Her voice lilted in a somehow threatening manner.

The katana had disappeared, and Hiei knew nothing could hurt him in a dream. So even though he really didn't know, the fact didn't worry him. Besides, she was just a ningen.

"One."

"I don't know."

"Two."

"Go ahead."

"Three." Without warning, Mysa acted on her words. Swooping, she kissed him soundly on the lips.

Time stopped in the dream. Hiei stood with wide open eyes, staring at her as she kissed him. Breathing didn't occur for him for a moment.

It was, all together, a strange, but pleasant dream.

Finally, she broke it off, and smiled at him.

"Who said I was going to hurt you? I just said you'd regret it." Though he glared at her, he didn't say anything. And... well, he couldn't say that he regretted it. This was probably the most pleasant dream he had had in quite a while. Nothing of a nightmare quality here.

In fact, he felt extremely safe.

Aryd coughed, and it sounded like she was trying to choke back laughter.

"Excuse me, you two, but we still have an issue. How are we going to get him back?" Hiei shot a glance at Mysa, who was blushing a little bit. There was a silence, in which the demon noticed a few things.

For one, Aryd had almost the same face as Mysa, though it was somehow older, and softer, more open. Also, they were both wearing the 'training clothes' - shorts and t-shirts - but Aryd had no scars, though Mysa had plenty. They were just vague blurs in his dream, though, not definite, and sometimes they weren't there at all.

The human saw him looking, and tugged fitfully at her shorts with her free hand, but she didn't address it. Instead, she asked lightly,

"So, Hiei, I take it you have no problems killing?"

"Hn." He said it in a slightly questioning tone, though, so Mysa elaborated.

"You know. This afternoon... or would it be morning? Anyway, when those bandits stopped us, you didn't seem to have a moral problem with taking them out."

"Why should I care? They were trying to get in the way." Mysa nodded at this logic, instead of appearing appalled, like he had half thought she might.

"Makes sense to me."

"What did you do to that guy?" He asked grudgingly. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Oh, him? Wait a second, I was pretty foggy... Oh, yeah." She shrugged. "I tortured him to death. He tried to take my sword," she added in defense, speaking to Aryd now, rather then Hiei. "You know how that is."

"You took his sword and I don't see him torturing you to death." Aryd said in a chastising tone, pointing to Hiei with every him or his.

"I was just inspecting it, and he knew it. The guy was going to STEAL mine, though. That's unforgivable." The tall one sighed and let it go. "I put too much into Utchat to let some moron steal her."

"Which is sort of a good thing. It was starting to poison you."

"See? I do take your advice occasionally." Now he was lost.

"Put too much into it?" He asked again. Mysa looked at him almost like she had forgot he was there. Then she grinned evilly.

"If you ask me when we're awake, I might tell you. Of course, you'll have to ask nicely."

"What's with the scars?" He asked bluntly. The grin faded, and that made him feel a little guilty.

"I don't feel like telling you that, Hiei." She said quietly. Aryd snorted.

"Oh, sure. Tell him all sorts of things about me, but one thing about you and you get all 'No'." Mysa shot a look at the tall girl. "Don't worry, I won't say nothing if you don't want me too."

"So, where are we?" Hiei asked, looking around with some strain.

"We're in my head. I really would like to redecorate, but apparently that's 'not allowed'."

"Because we're not in your head. At least not totally." Aryd sighed.

"This has been a weird dream. Probably caused from being in forced contact with a deranged ningen." Mysa looked blankly at him.

"He's talking about you, idiot." Aryd chortled, and Mysa sniffed

"So, will you tell me what type of demon you are yet?" It was his turn to stare blankly. "Yes, I know you're a demon. Botan told me. But when I said you wouldn't tell me what kind, she got all haughty and said I'd have to find out for myself. What's the answer?"

"Still don't have the story behind the scars."

"I guess that's a no." She took her turn sighing.

Abruptly, Hiei felt a tug in the back of his head. He snarled at the pain.

"What's wrong?" Mysa asked him worriedly. He shook his head, and she pinched his shoulder. "Something is too wrong. Even killer demons don't snarl at nothing." He glared at her, then snarled again at the tugging in his head, that had moved to his eyes.

"He's solving the problem for us. He's leaving. I'm guessing he's waking up." That was Aryd, but her voice was becoming fainter. Mysa looked at the demon with concern.

"If it's hurting, you probably shouldn't fight it." He had not even realized that he had been. He relaxed, and the pain dissipated as he started to fade. "Bye, Hiei. Nice talking to you." Just as he was about to fully disappear, she winked and said, "And thanks for the cloak." Then he could see nothing.

Hiei snapped awake in the tree, with the sun directly overhead, shining in his eyes. With a growl, he moved to a different, more shady branch, and tried to go back to sleep. Part of his dream came back to him, and he growled more, shooting an evil look toward the tent. Though he couldn't say he hadn't enjoyed it...

What was he thinking? Of course he could! A picture of Mysa's face, smiling at him with warm, gentle eyes, flashed in his mind, and he roughly shoved it away. It had been a dream. Get over it. There's no way that she would like him, anyway, all he had been was short and mean with her, and that's how it would stay.

Back on a beach in a place that didn't exist, yet somehow did, two mis-matched people stood throwing stones into a dark ocean.

"You shouldn't have done that, you know." Aryd said.

"Well, he wasn't supposed to be here. Why not let him think it was a dream?" Mysa threw another rock into the water. "I wouldn't of ever been able to get one from him in the real world, anyway. You should take advantage of opportunities."

"I still don't get why you even like the guy. He's so ill-tempered."

"Oh yeah, and I'm just such a spring-daisy mood wise, myself." She grinned impudently. "He's irresistible, of course." Then the smile faded. "You want to know why, Aryd? I really don't know. Oh, sure, he's cute, but so was Kakashi, and I turned him down. Five times. But Hiei's just... I want to help him. Not change him, just help him. He's going to drown soon. And he's not such a bad guy. He volunteered to help Syrin, he saved me from that T-Rex,"

"That you could have saved yourself from if you had not been so hellbent on killing yourself here."

"...he helped out with the bandits while I was having an Episode, and he didn't kill the Threesome. That's a pretty big list for two and a half days if he's so evil."

"Credit to you, you didn't spill everything while he was here."

"Why should I? Like I'd actually want to burden him with my problems." Aryd shook her head.

"You should probably be leaving too. Go have yourself some real dreams." Mysa didn't move. "You can go of your own free will, or I can force you."

"No you can't. But I'll go. Try to think of how he got here, all right? Though it was nice having him here, I don't want him accidentally stumbling in on a conversation of a... different caliber. Just because I like him doesn't mean I trust him." She smiled tightly. "I'm not stupid. I do learn." Aryd actually smiled, and Mysa faded away much as Hiei had done, leaving the tall girl on the beach all by herself.

It got really quiet, as the girl appeared to be thinking. Then she shook her head, and motioned to the sea. Silently, it rose up, and enveloped her.

Then, the beach was empty.

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At the place where they had killed the bandits, a green-eyes man walked among the corpses. He kicked one, and giggled. Then, in a stern voice, he commanded, "Wake up."

Slowly, the bodies rose to their feet, discolored where the blood had settled, movements stiff from rigor mortis. Abruptly, screaming filled the air from above them.

"Kill me! Oh, god, please have mercy! Let me die!" With disgust, the green-eyed man flicked his wrist, and the screaming gave way to a sigh, and finally, silence. He turned to his waiting corpses.

"Alright, I just need to know one or two things. Then you all can rest. Deal?" The zombies nodded. "Good. Now..." He asked his questions, and listened attentively to the answers. "Very good. However..." The green-eyed man held up a small silver flask with detailed inscriptions on it. "I am MOST thirsty..." He uncapped the flask, and one by one the bodies dropped, their souls stolen from them once more. When the last had fallen, the green-eyed man raised the flask to his lips and drank half of what was inside. Immediately, his whole person seemed to glow.

He capped the flask and went on his way, whistling.

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Mysa awoke slowly, and stretched. Sharp pains told her that she had slept in her pants, on all the knives and chains. She was just glad none of the knives had popped open and cut her up. That would have been hard to explain; all that blood, and no wounds.

Lifting her hand to rub at her eyes, Mysa found that she was still in possession of Hiei's cloak. There was a rustling at the flap, and she quickly moved the cloak out of sight, under her pillow.

"Mysa-san, may I come in?" Hans asked from outside.

"Sure." The flap unzipped and Hans entered.

"Good morning, Mysa-San!" He chirruped. "How are you feeling today?"

"Rested and raring to go. How are you? How's Hiei?"

"I'm good, and glad that you're feeling better. You were a real mess yesterday. Hiei's still sleeping. He didn't sleep any last night, so I figure he's making up for it."

"Oh." Her voice dropped down to a whisper. "Then we should probably be quiet. Or leave. For a little while, anyway. Do you know anything we can do near here?"

"We can go swimming," Hans suggested.

Mysa blinked, then frowned.