SailorStar9: Sorry for the long wait people. My bro's on the com for the last two weeks. Anyway, this is Chapter 55. Read and review.
Disclaimers: YYH, Magic Knight Rayearth and Sailor Moon aren't mine.
Chapter Summary: In the next match of the tournament, Hiei steps into the ring of battle against his former ally, Mukuro. But Mukuro has already explored the horrors of Hiei's past and knows his thirst for revenge. Will this give the bizarre, shackled fighter the advantage? As a last result Hiei prepares his ultimate weapon, the Dragon of the Darkness Flame!
Chapter 55: Love and War
Koto announced the fight for Group D's second round: Hiei vs. Mukuro.
Hiei was already waiting on the battlefield; Mukuro met him there.
Hokushin commented that since these two fighters were allies, that match would benefit them.
But Yusuke hit his head with a fist and scolded him "I keep telling you not to think on those terms."
He also reminded Hokushin of his defeat in the previous round, and the bald man stuttered, embarrassed.
Jin, Suzuki, Touya and Rinku tried to convince Kurama to go to the infirmary, but the redhead refused.
"I want to watch the fight between Mukuro and my friend Hiei."
"No use boys. He's stubborn." Icy remarked, her injury from before had closed up.
"And you aren't?" Kurama retorted playfully.
On the battlefield, Hiei unsheathed his katana. Mukuro asked him if he has found his answer
"You told me you don't have a reason to keep on living."
"I don't need an answer." Hiei snapped back. "Nothing matters to me anymore."
Hiei remembered what Mukuro told him about herself while he was recovering from the duel with Shigure.
"Among all cores I've ever met, you are the one I feel more comfortable with; now it's your time to touch the core of my being." she told him then.
"I was abandoned right after birth. Naturally, I was sold. I lived as a slave and never met my parents."
Mukuro's flashbacks showed images of her young self walking through a blizzard, wearing a short, ragged dress and shackles chained to her wrists and ankles.
In a stormy night, she ran away, throwing herself in a river to escape enslavement. The right half of her face was already deformed, bionic limbs replaced her right arm and leg.
"I tried to get rid of the shackles, but I couldn't. So I decided to keep them, as a symbol of my hatred."
After that Mukuro started training hard, cloaking herself in hatred and sacrificing whomever stepped in her path. Other demons decided to follow her as her subordinates, and she eventually became as strong as Raizen. But still she kept the shackle around her left wrist.
Back to the present, Hiei initiated the combat, swinging his katana at Mukuro, who dodged easily.
"What is your goal?" he asked. "Haven't you freed yourself from your disgusting past yet?"
He hunted her in the air, trying to slash her, but she moved faster and avoided all strikes.
"Neither you nor me knows what love is." he thought. "We never received it from anyone. All we've had were cold eyes staring at us."
Again he charged with his sword and again Mukuro evaded his attacks.
"We go on living among all this revulsion." he mused.
"I don't know why you and I hit it off."
At last Hiei managed to cut a slash at the collar of Mukuro's clothes.
"The two of us, we live only for the fight, you hear me?" he told her.
Mukuro jumped in the air and made punching gestures, and Hiei was bombarded by explosions of scarlet energy.
He used the katana to cut through the energy and defend himself.
Watching the combat on the giant screen in the stadium, Koenma remarked at the intensity with which the two fighters are attacking, both physically and verbally.
Mukuro used the same technique to explode two small mountains to Hiei's right and left, and huge chunks of sharp rock flew in his direction.
He cut them down with the katana and swung the sword at Mukuro again.
She dodged, makes a gesture to punch him, but seemed to reconsider and landed on the ground a little away from him, not attacking.
Hiei snorted.
"Mukuro... why don't you use all your strength against me? Haven't you freed yourself from captivity exclusively to fight? That's something you should be proud of. If you can't, then there must be something holding you back."
"Enough!" she warned him.
"You don't have any special technique. All you have is a woman's core. I pity you."
Mukuro's ki flared violently around her in scarlet waves, but Hiei went on "You mean nothing!"
Mukuro punched him hard in the stomach, and her energy traversed his body, which as thrown back high and far, crashing against the top of a rocky mountain and rolling down back to the ground, painfully hitting the mountainside several times.
He landed on his knees, his sword gone, his tank top in rags.
He tore it off and stood up, and willed black fire to come from his bandaged arm.
In the stadium, Kurama's eyes widened as he recognized the preparation for the Ensatsu Ken.
Mukuro recognized that power too, and commented calmly "If you came from the Ice Country, it is ironic that you were born with energy provided by fire."
"My power comes from having being born with a different nature." Hiei countered.
"I will channel my hatred to melt the ice with my fire."
"Hatred?" she frowned. "But that's not it. You've already proved you don't hold grudges, Hiei."
He attacked with the Black Flames power, and Mukuro responded by sending her scarlet ki likewise.
The two energies clashed between them.
"What you carry is a great longing for your birthland, isn't it, Hiei?" Mukuro went on, sending only enough energy to deflect Hiei's, and as his attack gradually faded into nothing, so did hers. When that round was over, he as breathing hard; she was not.
Hiei changed tactics and charged with fast punches targeting her face, but she blocked them all with her arms.
In the stadium, Botan thought Hiei had the upper hand, since he was attacking more than Mukuro.
"You think?" Koenma questioned. "I see it differently."
In fact, Mukuro did not seem to have any trouble evading Hiei's socks.
"If you can't get me with your two eyes, why don't you use the Jagan, the eye conceived by Shigure's hands?" she challenged him.
That enraged Hiei, who attacked more brutally, but Mukuro managed to capture his fist in her grasp easily.
"You had the Jagan implanted so you could search for your teargem? Or to look for something else that you don't want to reveal?"
He tried to kick her face then, again not having any success.
"What you are looking for is something that is deep inside you." she thought, jumping back and making a gesture that cut a luminous line right beside Hiei, from the ground to high in the sky.
In the stadium, Touya wondered what that line could possibly be. Kurama explained that he had heard rumors about Mukuro's ability to cut space itself.
Jin asked him what he thought it would happen , but Kurama replied that all depended on her plans in this crucial moment, and he admitted not to know what those could be.
Mukuro cut several lines near Hiei, who had to use his speed not to be hit.
Soon they were surrounded by a dome of space-cutting lines and Hiei as therefore trapped inside. Twice his back brushed the lines, wounding the flesh.
Touya, Jin and Kurama watched anxiously.
"If Hiei crosses one of those lines, his body will be torn into pieces." Kurama told the others.
"I think he knows that." Icy replied.
"Let it be over." Mukuro thought. "I don't want to fight you anymore. The more you insist on fighting, the narrower your space will get."
"I see I have no alternative." Hiei agreed., ripping off his bandanna and untying the bandages on his arm.
Koenma's eyes widened; Kurama and Yusuke watched tensely; Koto was so frightened to recognize the preparation for the Kokuryuuha that she started stuttering unintelligibly on her mike.
"Darn, he's so going to kill us with that tech." Icy muttered.
The Jagan opened and Hiei's body was covered by black flames.
He pointed the arm with the Black Dragon tattoo towards Mukuro.
"This power belongs to Makai. If I use it here, it becomes stronger, terrifying." he told her.
"Hiei, child of Ice." Mukuro challenged. "If you enjoy playing with fire, then come."
"Sincerely, I didn't want to use this against you." he admitted, and the next moment he summoned the Kokuryu.
Botan, Koenma and Yusuke flinched as they saw the colossal Black Dragon erupting from Hiei's arm and soaring towards Mukuro.
The beast dove to devour her, but she held its mouth open using her hands and feet.
The noise of fangs jarring against the steel of her shackle could be heard over the dragon's wild roar.
The Kokuryu flew high in the air, carrying Mukuro between its teeth.
For a moment she seemed to have trouble keeping its mouth open, but at last she screamed Hiei's name, scarlet ki bursting from her hands, and the dragon's head as torn in two.
Yusuke cringed, watching the enormous dragon being slowly ripped apart, head to tail, as if made of fragile paper.
When the ripping hit Hiei, time seemed to slow down as his body was thrown back, obviously in great pain.
He fell face-first on the hard ground, and Mukuro landed near him.
"Are you satisfied now, Hiei?" she asked
Hiei got on his feet with difficulty.
"This technique is too cruel on you, who were born in the Ice Country, Hiei; it's a burden too heavy on your body." she said. "Hiei, you lost."
Hiei acknowledged his defeat, and Koto declared the combat finished; Mukuro was the winner.
"I don't believe it." exclaimed Botan. "Hiei lost the fight. He couldn't defeat Mukuro, not even with the Kokuryuuha."
"I think those two are okay now, Botan." assured Koenma.
Kurama kept watching the two fighters as they stood facing each other, and he uttered Hiei's name in a low voice.
"They should be fine, dear." Icy told him.
"I know." Kurama replied.
"Amazing." Yusuke sighed. "You guys are fantastic."
Back in the battlefield, Mukuro told Hiei, "Honestly, the last thing I want to hear is that this defeat is an incentive for you to try and overcome me someday. This would be very sad."
"I know." he agreed. "I don't want to fight you anymore."
She looked down at her left wrist and as surprised to see cracks in her shackle.
"All hatred is water under the bridge." Hiei commented. "You don't need that anymore."
The shackle breaks and falls to the ground.
It's still too soon for us to throw everything away." he told her. "What do you think?"
She agreed.
Hiei tried to walk to her but could hardly stand.
She helped him to kneel down and held him in a loose embrace.
They both closed their eyes.
"Hotaru is going to be so angry if she was here." Icy remarked, seeing the embrace between the two.
"Agreed." Kurama nodded.
SailorStar9: And another chapter goes down. Read and review.
