A/N: Hello once again, Beloved Yu Yu Hakusho Fans!
Once again, this chapter contains exclusively interactions between Hiei, Toriko, and Maneshi.
Symbols Guide:
* : Written by CM; She writes for Akari and Hiei
3 : Written by Star (supposed to be the 'heart' symbol, but FF doesn't like the 'less-than' sign, so it's a 3 instead); She writes for Toriko and Kurama
~!**!~ : A universal transition between scenes or characters, sometimes used to indicate a passage of time, but most often used to transition between major scenes that are happening. As the story progresses, this will evolve into mainly separating the (usually two) scenes happening between authors/characters.
As a general rule, anything in italics is thoughts.
Unless it's used in a sentence like this, which merely indicates emphasis.
"Quotations are usually reserved specifically for telepathic dialogue being transmitted from one being to another, but sometimes this can also mean a character isn't being careful about what they're thinking and anyone with telepathy in the nearby vicinity can listen in without taking any effort."
The only exception to that last rule is for the Shiba Inu dog, Nabu. All of his "spoken" dialogue will be in italics and quotations, but is communicated through body language or dog-like noises, so unless a character is able to translate those they are unlikely to pick up on what he is saying any more than the average person might understand his general moods like aggression (bared teeth, ears back) or excitement (wagging tail).
Previously on Yu Yu Hakusho!
Toriko assists Akari with her schoolwork, but at the cost of her mental well-being.
Meanwhile, Akari receives an invitation from Otento to join his cause,
and Kurama and the others plot to set a trap for the purple-eyed man.
Kurama attempts to further assist Toriko in using her energy,
but ever since her encounter with Otento she has been unable to even feel it.
Fed up with her in more ways than one, Hiei swoops in
and starts to remove the bobby pins from Toriko's hair.
Suddenly fearful, remembering the original need for the bobby pins
which actually have a spell woven into them to seal her energy away,
Toriko demands Hiei returns them...
Hiei noted the small pause Toriko gave, but it was only a fraction of a moment, something only a Jagan would be able to catch. Curiosity bubbled before it was smothered by the anger he felt as he stepped around Toriko's second advance, simply standing to the side and watching her with narrowed eyes. He allowed her to come at him again, and this time he used her momentum as an advantage and simply slid by her, taking her glasses and the last two bobby pins from her hair, leaving her without her precious items. Again, he stood a good three feet away from her, though this time he let his hands drop the items into his cloak pockets as he glared at her, waiting expectantly for her to start freaking out and possibly even screaming that she needed them. *
Toriko's eyes flashed dangerously at Hiei, her anger at his comments, at his audacity to even touch her without permission, much less take her precious seals off her person, flooding her every pore.
"How. Dare you." Her words came through clenched teeth. Quiet. Icey. Deadly. Dripping with a barely contained fury that could nearly kill in and of itself. Her eyes were menacing, full of unspoken rage aimed completely at the fire demon before her.
The anger suddenly swept up from her feet, and Toriko could feel it traveling at an unstoppable pace to her shoulders, and for the first time in her entire life, she tightened her fists and trembled just a fraction with violent intent, taking a more deliberate step towards Hiei, one that would set her body and let her swing a punch forward in the momentum with the maximum amount of force she could muster behind it.
Just as she meant to raise her arm, Toriko lurched in place mid-step, stopping her in her tracks, her expression falling blank and unreadable as she paused, eyes staring very far away from the moment at hand.
Nothing changed on the outside. No sudden outward explosion of energy, no indication that anything was different at all. Just...a pause, as if Toriko stood frozen in time.
Within Toriko's body, her demonic energy erupted, filling her to the brim, and yet remaining just at the surface, trickling underneath her skin without giving away any hints that it was there. Her scalp tingled, her eyes shimmered, but everything that happened was not noticeable to anyone other than herself.
And then...Toriko was in control. But not simply the plain, everyday Toriko. Her true spirit unleashed from its shackles in a jolt to consume her as Hiei inadvertently broke the contact she had with her seals in too abruptly a manner for her to adjust gradually. Her two personalities merged together in the blink of an eye and she was complete once more.
She remembered everything, every detail, and she reveled in all of them, from before her exile into Human World up to this very moment, shivering once with pleasure, the first movement since she froze, as each memory poured into her head before her mind's eye. She even remembered her own name.
She tilted her head slightly at the remembrance, a small smile playing across her lips, but not truly coming to rest. She wondered at how she still stood in this human-form, full of power as she was, and as she inwardly searched, she found that she would not at this moment be able to regain her demonic appearance. Oh well. Hiei had enough trouble on his hands with her true nature alone being free.
At that thought, she lifted her head to meet his gaze. Not ten seconds had passed since Toriko intended to raise her fist at Hiei, and he had not moved an inch since that moment. She blinked once slowly, and when she opened her eyes to look back into his, she had him captivated, unable to look away from her whether he knew it or not. She tossed her hair behind her shoulders, releasing a scent into the air that began subtly filling the room.
Maintaining the mesmer by keeping her eyes locked with his, unblinking, Toriko dashed towards him with demonic speed, giving him no chance to react before she closed the small distance between them, grabbed his shoulders and kept going, slamming his back into the locked front door with enough force to jarr his hands from his pockets.
"Mm." Her voice was low and velvety and the same playful smile as before ghosted over her features. "You're playing a very dangerous game, Hiei." The smile tugged at one corner of her lips, "And your opponent has centuries of experience."
Her face was inches from his own, her hands now pressed to his chest between the two of them, pinning him in place against the door, her lips slightly parted as she stared into his very soul, her entire aura radiant with the promise of his deepest desires fulfilled. 3
Hiei raised a brow at the angered Toriko, the gesture being the only sign that he was even remotely aware of the emotion she displayed, and cared even less of it. He stood his ground, slowly pulling his fists from his cloak as she moved forward, raising an arm as if to strike. He prepared himself to stop the blow with an easy hand, but the gesture was unnecessary. He was left with his hand in the air for no apparent reason, Toriko pausing in place and staring at him. He sneered at her bemusedly, wondering if her fear of him striking back had stopped her. But as the thought crossed his mind, she shifted and lifted her gaze to meet his, her expression surprising him enough to re-raise his brow.
And that was when his mind went blank. For a few moments, he merely stared at Toriko, her gaze holding his very easily, helping his entire body relax and his hand to fall to his side finally, as if no attack had ever been imminent. She tossed her head, and he dimly noted a pleasant smell in the room.
She closed in on him much quicker than he had anticipated; in the smallest moment of a second, she had achieved pinning his back to the door, his head lightly touching the surface. Still, his gaze remained on hers and he reacted only minimally, raising his arms just enough to keep the jolt in his body from the contact to a bare minimum. As she leaned in closer to him, hands on his chest, he found himself slightly leaning away, then swaying forward momentarily before leaning away again.
As her words echoed in his ears, he felt the smallest tremor run down his spine, her voice coaxing him to listen to every single word she spoke. If she spoke too softly, he would lean forward to catch her words, but it was unnecessary. She did so for him, leaning in so that their noses nearly touched, her breath almost washing over his skin. The tip of his nose where it did brush tingled, and his entire being was suddenly focused on finding some desirable thing to be fulfilled; sure, he held desires, like any other person, but his mind rationalized that all of his current ones were only to be achieved by his own hands, or it would mean nothing. This left him mentally fumbling for something, anything, that this girl could give him that would be of value.
Too bad she couldn't get him out of this damned world. That would have done nicely, except that he'd only be dragged right back.
As his mind continued to fumble, coming up with countless meaningless things he could have if he only asked, and she complied, his lips parted and spoke without his bidding. "A dangerous game indeed." *
His expression had hardly changed from the moment she came at him, but as former experience flooded back into Toriko's psyche, his eyes gave him away and one of her eyebrows twitched upwards briefly with amusement, impressed at his facial restraint, though it triggered something inside her that wanted more reaction. She quickly buried the knee-jerk response her body supplied, which was one of desiring more from him, knowing full-well that he was completely in her power without any further admission on his part.
As she stared into his crimson eyes, Toriko found herself tilting her head ever-so-slightly at him with curiousness. In ages past, the demons she had been ordered to seduce, or otherwise engaged for her own amusements, would often provide her with the next step of their own volition. She was no telepath, but instead a master of reading body-language, something that came with the territory, with the years of experience. At the moment, her readings were providing her with utter indecisiveness from the fire demon in her grasp, a revelation that nearly made her laugh out loud. All of the worlds at his fingertips in her presence and he had not one thing he could decide upon.
"Interesting." She murmured, though she didn't smile, with an obvious sense of delight behind her words. Even the demons she'd been given to play with as entertainment knew exactly what they wanted from her the instant she'd so much as hinted at anything.
"Well, if you aren't going to decide," She leaned to the side of his face, brushing her cheek against his as she moved her lips closer to his ear, "I'm afraid I'll have to do something dreadful." 3
Hiei kept his gaze even with Toriko's, waiting expectantly, but at the same time, his mind continued to fumble. His thoughts ran as fast as his feet would at top speeds, each thought passing and being replaced by another. His eyes remained on the girl, but his mind was registering nothing of her actions, only centered around something he would desire.
And then a small memory popped into his head- or rather, several at once. Images of a trapped Yukina flashed through his mind's eye, and his entire mind was consumed with the image. The ice maiden sat behind a barred window, eyes staring at a small cluster of birds perched in the window, each chirping cheerily as her soft voice whispered to them words he couldn't hear. One stood on her index finger, its head swiveling from side to side and chirping a song with its friends. And then, the image of Toguro killing it crossed his mind's eye, and he was pushed back into the room he had been stuck in, eyes refocusing on Toriko all over again.
He realized she had gotten much closer than before, and immediately, his mind reeled, searching for something else to think about other than Yukina. However, her prompting words slid into his ear, her breath washed over his skin, and unbeknownst to him, his lips parted and his voice rumbled low.
"She enjoys the company of birds," he said slowly, his mind registering that he'd spoken a moment too late. However, as he searched for Toriko's gaze again, his mind became a hum once more and he waited her answer. *
Once he gave her an answer, Toriko found herself smiling, leaning back over his shoulder to his ear and finding that she couldn't stop smiling, though she paused before saying anything more. His answer was definitely not normal, and it left her even more intrigued. She felt even through her fingers his strange response and a sudden thought entered her head.
Just how young was her newest acquisition?
This was not the first time he had side-stepped her advances, and she knew it could not be through any fault of her own. What was the word she looked for? Oh yes. Innocence.
For a moment, Toriko wondered about his past, and how he came to be so very reserved and discrete and...innocent. And usually, she would have simply drilled any being she desired answers from, as it was in large part her former job in Demon World. This one, however...
Toriko surprised herself with the flush of differing, conflicting emotions that came over her.
Surely she could not care for this one. That was not in her directive, not in her nature. One with her role did not create ties for very specific reasons and besides, she knew absolutely nothing about him. He was just another demon...
But why did she want to know? And why did she hesitate to ask him? Here he stood, overwhelmed by her, wrapped about her finger, completely and utterly entranced by her presence and yet...and yet...
Toriko took in another breath and the fluttering of his hair next to her face brought her back to their current position, that being one she had a definite advantage in. The closeness of his body nearly drove her mad and she shut her eyes, unable to resist any longer, but still wanting to distract herself from the matter at hand, until she could gauge him better...know him...better? She trembled.
Keeping her body pressed against his, not that she expected him to struggle to get away, she reached up behind his head and untied the strip of cloth hiding his forehead, pulling the fabric away with one hand that she kept buried in his hair after getting the cloth in her grasp.
Her lips parted a little in awe as the third eye slowly opened to regard her with an unreadable stare. She immediately recognized the purple iris and peculiar shape to be one of a Jagan and her own eyes widened at the revealing, taking this secret in place of the thousands of others she had up until that moment fought silently with herself to keep from asking and extracting every answer from him until she was satisfied.
She had not imagined Hiei would be hiding this specific eye on his forehead, but the discovery lead her mind through several different scenarios she could see playing out in their current situation.
She briefly passed her other hand across the bangs that fell down over Hiei's face, making for certain that she stared into the Jagan for a moment, though she very purposefully made sure she did not attempt to captivate it, then rested that hand at the back on Hiei's neck, looking into his eyes once more with a greater sense of admiration and hope for her own future before drawing her face down until she nearly touched his skin with her lips.
There had only been one other time in all her centuries that she had been brought a demon with a Jagan, and he had been likely twice as old as the fire demon currently in her arms if not more, but Toriko knew a light-tread would be prudent at this juncture. The sudden thought of being overwhelmed by it thrilled her senses just as it had all those years ago, though she had a protector then. Someone to watch over her. Not so, now. The knowledge that Hiei had to be a telepath as part of the pact the Jagan gave him produced for her a way out however, and she felt her heart rate rising with the excitement the next few seconds could contain.
She teased Hiei's neck with her breath, knowing that her hair would be close enough to his nose to fill his sense of smell with her scent.
"I suppose I'll just have to make you feel." She murmured, silently inviting the Jagan's telepathy inside her mind, taking a chance in the ability to join her thoughts together with Hiei's as she had centuries before with the other demon.
The abrupt, absolute rage she felt in its presence was only matched by her own all-consuming pleasure, just as it had been in the time previous, and with its attention upon her person, she went ahead and gently pressed her lips onto Hiei's neck for an instant before pulling back again to let her breath flow over his skin once more, knowing that the buzzing bliss she got in doing so would be translated into their minds and be felt for them as both the ones receiving the kiss as well as the ones giving the kiss.
The feeling hit her too a half a moment later and she felt heady, tingling down to her toes. She did not know if the both of them would accept this, the only sort of offering she had at her disposal to lay at their feet, but she made it perfectly clear within her thoughts by making herself as open as possible that there was nothing else they could hope to gain from her through her demise nor through her separation from them, though they were more than welcome to do whatever they wished to her should they find her lacking or displeasing. As was their prerogative, so too must she acquiesce.
Her overpowering aura of desires fulfilled could not be contain from them inside her mind, but she neither flaunted it nor hid it, simply letting it be as it had to be and awaiting a reaction. 3
Hiei stood in silence, waiting. He didn't know exactly what was going on, other than the fact that his mind was still scrambling for things he could have, things this girl could give him. And, as she leaned in further, her breath washing over the skin of his neck and ear, his body tensed for only a second before relaxing again, his entire being telling him to stay calm and trust this person. Why, he didn't understand. All he knew was that Toriko was offering to grant a wish of his, and he couldn't even think of something other than Yukina and birds; why had that come to mind anyway?
A few minutes passed and he was still stuck against the door, Toriko much closer than any other person, much less a gemon, had even dared to be. In the back of his mind, buried under the feeling of cheer over getting a wish granted, he felt a sense of unnerve. His eyes remained on her even though he was unable to see her face through her curtain of hair, which was all but covering his nose with her scent. It almost drove him mad.
And suddenly, he felt her move, and the bandage from his forehead fell away to reveal his Jagan. At first, he didn't much react, but after a few moments, after the Jagan had fully opened and transfixed upon Toriko, his entire body went stock still, tense, rigid. He felt its power awaken in his bones, as if it had been slumbering and had been rudely awakened and wasn't very happy about it. Its anger was overwhelming in the moment, completely shocking his system and jolting his brain into complete awareness of his surroundings. The intake of her surprised breath, the way her hand stayed on the back of his head. For a mere moment, its anger became his own.
And then his senses were barraged again, and his mind went silent despite the still-fierce energy of the Jagan coursing through his body. Dully, he heard her velvety voice speaking, and his mind registered her words a moment later, just before he felt his mind being coaxed to hers, and the Jagan's angry energy linked itself onto her, searching her mind. It was equally met with an energy that was excited, happy, and bubbly, which completely contradicted the type of energy a person being invaded by a Jagan would normally have.
Hiei hadn't been exactly aware of Toriko's movements at that moment, so when her lips touched his skin briefly before retracting again and letting her breath move over the spot, her mind transmitting her own feeling towards the contact and further scattering his thoughts. His own feelings were mixed; confusion and curiosity mingled with the sudden calm of the Jagan. The energy quieted despite its normal anger, and after a moment, he felt the connection be severed and his own mind was shut off from Toriko's, leaving him to his own scrambled thoughts and unable to hear hers, unable to feel any of her emotions.
The fire demon felt his expression become neutral once more, replacing the confused expression he hadn't been aware he'd been displaying moments before. Normally, the Jagan would overpower anyone who dared to invite it into their mind, but for some reason unbeknownst to him, it had completely ignored Toriko. He wasn't sure what it meant, and with Toriko's breath still moving across his skin, he didn't find much capability of thinking it over. *
The sudden rush of adrenaline that had coursed through Toriko's body during the wait did not subside when she felt the Jagan pulling away from her without interest. She released a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding in a whoosh, her body trembling once as thoughts of her previously pending demise rose to the surface. Thoughts of what might have happened had the Jagan decided she'd been too intrusive and deserved immediate eradication.
Two times she faced a Jagan. Two times she knew she would be walking away from it, but the complete disregard for her this time stirred a good deal of irritation and a bit of amusement within her at the same time.
It was the first time any being had ever passed her by once she released her power. She tried to reconcile herself with the situation by maintaining that she could not be at full strength without her demon form. For all the good it did her at that moment.
But at the same time, if the Eye was a reflection of its owner in specific regards, then Hiei's innocence in certain matters was more thoroughly prominent than Toriko first assumed, if even the Jagan did not even know what to do with her as its complete lack of interest led her to believe.
Heart pounding madly in her chest, Toriko became very aware of all the pent up energy she'd been unconsciously collecting in preparation for whatever the Jagan would do and as she pulled back into the present situation and out of Hiei's mind, her energy threatened to take her over, this fire demon's body against her driving the fulfillment of her own desires.
She fought against it for reasons she still had no answers to, clenching her teeth together as her entire body drew taut in resisting, but the smell of his skin and the warmth of him next to her slowly pulled her down into the wave of power she had created for herself.
At the same time, she felt her face moving back down towards his neck in unconscious response, though this time she bared her teeth and a growl rumbled low in her chest for just a moment in protest of her inability to control herself before she found that she had begun to kiss him again and the noise faded. She made a line of kisses with her lips along his neck to his jaw where she managed to forced herself back and away from him, the effort it took to do so as the rest of her shrieked silently in protest almost causing her to faint. She slowly withdrew her hands from his hair and neck, not getting them any farther than the door behind him, planting her palms against the wood. She closed her eyes and stood face-to-face with him once more until she could do it no longer, opening her eyes and staring into his again, her gaze flicking down to his lips and returning to his crimson stare.
"No. No, no, no." She found herself trying to convince the power that nearly overtook her now, as if her silent words would truly turn the tide. It wasn't that the idea was particularly displeasing, her whole body screaming at her the opposite in fact, but not here. Not now. Not like this.
Why did it matter so much? Standing before her was a perfectly good demon, and an attractive one at that, a combination of elements she had not been faced with over a decade, and certainly not while her true powers were released.
The harder she tried to hold herself at bay, the more difficult it became and she found herself pulling her lips into her mouth and brushing them with her tongue before releasing them, feeling her chest rising and falling rapidly against Hiei's and working herself up into a frenzy.
In a rush, her head moved forward, but she turned it to the side in a last-ditch effort, ending up with her cheek against his, her mouth nearly touching his ear. The denial sent her head spinning in a frenzy and she closed her eyes.
"You..." She breathed softly, struggling with the effort of her restraint, "...what are you?"
She wasn't even sure herself what answer she expected to received, though the question was almost rhetorical and served other purposes than the usual drilling of information she did to her victims at that moment. Her breathing was ragged and her muscles continued to tighten and relax throughout her body as she fought with the different ideas it had about what to do with the prey in her grasp.
As her hands meant to move on their own for some ulterior purpose, Toriko bit her nails into the wood of the door, making tiny dents in the smooth surface as she clenched her fingers in place in a desperate attempt to prevent whatever her body devised for them to do.
She lost control of one hand and it smoothed down the side of Hiei's neck towards his chest, gathering the fabric of his cloak upon reaching just below his chin and pulling it down and to the side, her face following shortly after and giving him more kisses along his collarbone.
Her stomach roiled as she tried to stop, her system starting to rebel against her efforts and stars coming into view before her eyes as her vision darkened. She struggled for a moment longer until she nearly collapsed to the floor, but she just as quickly let go before it could actually happen. All at once the pain stopped and the pleasure of the moment washed over her entire body, sending her afloat on a sea of her power that seemed to her vast and endless.
She slowly drew her head back from Hiei to look him eye-to-eye, taking in his features through the energy she now embraced, a small smile settling on her lips.
"...-yoku..."
Toriko took in an easy breath, filling her nose with Hiei's fiery scent and blinking once, her lips breaking apart ever-so-slightly.
"...-yoku!"
She followed the wishes of her energy and her body now entwined tightly together and began to lean forward, moving the hand still at his collarbone back up his neck and letting it lightly rest just at the bottom of his hairline. Time appeared to slow as their faces grew only inches apart. She flickered her eyes nearly closed keeping Hiei's lips in sight between her lashes as she closed the distance between them.
"YOKU!"
~!**!~
Maneshi yawned and stretched his slender body, opening one eye to the darkness that was the underside of Toriko's bed. His mind slowly fed him information it picked up during his light sleep and he recalled the one that smelled like flowers leaving the room with his lady.
He frowned, opening both eyes as he remembered another, more fierce smell intruding upon the bedroom and he slunk out from underneath the bed, blinking in the warm, soft light of the sunset coming in from Toriko's window.
As his face followed the trail of the second smell, he noted the window as the entrance and the bedroom door as the exit. His mind placed the scent as that of the warm demon and he nearly pranced out of the room at the idea of the intruder being one who might consent to letting the cat lay across his shoulders.
Maneshi halted at the top of the stairs, fur along his spine prickling into a stand as he became aware of several things at once and deep within, hiding underneath the cat, Maneshi truly began to awaken.
He felt more than saw the energy of a Jagan at the end of its presence before it drew completely away, but there was no mistaking the position Hiei and Toriko were in up against the front door. His eyes took in the entire room, his heightened senses almost able to see the perfume Toriko practically radiated. Before he could help himself, he had taken two or three steps down the stairs towards the source of the smell.
He stopped, one paw in the air, and took another experimental sniff.
This...this was not Toriko with the fire demon.
The smell sent memories flying through Maneshi's head, memories he had nearly forgotten, buried behind countless decades of being stuck as a cat, stirred by the tingle that had settled on his nose.
"It...it's her..."
Her body was not the one he remembered, for before him was most definitely the more human-like Toriko, but the smell...there was no mistaking the smell.
The instant he noted her movement, strained as she reached down to clear away cloth from Hiei's skin so she could plant her lips at his collarbone, he knew something had to be wrong. The demoness he knew did not hesitate.
It all came flooding back to him: the intrusion of the blonde, Toriko's powerlessness, Hiei's intervention and finally her plea of the fire demon for protection and his affirmative reply.
Fully awake now in his cat-form, Maneshi's eyes widened as he took in Hiei with this new information in mind.
Her Champion. He was her Champion. A pact formed out of their spoken word and weaving their lives together inescapably as long as it did not expire.
Her kind had no defenses of their own and never lived beyond the first few years of their powers manifesting as a result of the unsavory situations they always became caught up in.
So, there was a pact. A second demon was required, one strong enough to be able to offer up his or her protection. And the demon could not agree to take part in the pact, even under the influence of the first's powers, unless they truly understood the powerlessness of the one they would be in charge of protecting and felt ready to come to their defense should the need arise.
Maneshi, frozen in place, felt his heart leap in his chest at the urgency of the situation before him.
Her powers, having been dormant for so long, would be just barely within her control, and there were stipulations upon her person that came with her side of the pact.
He reached out through his mind to come in contact with Toriko's, a torrent of passionate emotions roughly jostling his attempt to get her attention. He struggled to speak with her, managing to whisper her true name at the outermost reaches of her mind.
"...Shikiyoku..."
It did not seem to make a difference in her advances even as she slowly pulled away from Hiei's shoulder to look at his face. Maneshi could feel the change that had come over her, her acceptance of her powers. She may not have understood why she struggled, why she attempted to resist giving in and taking this fire demon as her own, but Maneshi knew full well what could happen.
The pact... Once activated, she was not allowed to seduce him with her powers unless they were already engaged in such activities with one another regularly. Accidental attraction because of her nature, normal circumstances of two beings enjoying one another's company, these types of things posed no threat.
"Shikiyoku!" He cried within her again, wrestling against her blindness to him, trying to be heard, his ever fiber bent on distracting her, pulling her away.
Should she force herself upon him...his reactions being so heavily influenced by her energy that he could not rightly defend himself...where in his right mind he would have not given his consent...and she went through with it...she would die.
"YOKU!" He finally shouted into her head, desperate to break through, to make her see. Did she truly not realize what she was doing, who this fire demon was for her now? Or was it simply that she could not fight the tide of energy held back from her grasp for these long, hard years among the humans?
~!**!~
At the sound of her nickname, Toriko paused in place before reaching Hiei's lips for a kiss, causing her to blink in surprise.
She had not been called that since...since Youko. His pet name for her when there were no others within earshot. One he reserved when admonishing her for a mistake or praising her for a job well-done.
The tense strain across her shoulders relaxed for a moment as her mind flooded with images of her time within Youko's gang of thieves, but the nostalgia did not hold her back for long.
"Yoku...please..."
Just as the storm of emotions and energy began to stir within her again, the voice in her mind brushed lightly with words once more. Its pitiful plea, its interruption of her work rapidly twisted her pleasure of the situation at hand into one of rage at the intrusion.
She spun around away from Hiei with all the pent-up energy wavering below the surface of her body until that instant and violently slashed her arm across her body, whipping the awaiting storm at the owner of the voice, where it crackled angrily across the room and struck Maneshi, his body absorbing it and taking it into his own.
His eyes brightened significantly and he happily trotted down the rest of the staircase and across the room with an excited murl.
With her pent-up energy now gone, Toriko took a shaky breath and squatted down onto her toes as Maneshi approached and circled her with kitty pleasure obvious as he rubbed his side all along her body until he came back around to her front, purring madly and putting his front paws on one of her knees, his one blue-eyed one brown-eyed, black-furred face blinking with a near-smile up at her, ears forward with great interest and his whiskers quivering slightly.
Toriko heaved another sigh with a bit of a chuckle behind it.
"You're lucky I can't kill you with that stuff." She obliged his awaiting head by sliding a hand down between his ears to the middle of his back. "Or I'd likely have had a mental breakdown at the thought of having brought about your death, little one." She rested one elbow on her thigh and put her cheek in that hand, continuing to pet him. "And it's hard to stay angry at something who becomes so eager to please after you blast them."
Maneshi interrupted his purr only briefly with an affirmative meow, closing his eyes and pulling his ears to the sides as she scratched the fur between them.
Toriko let the repetitive gesture calm her down, her thoughts still reeling with Hiei's smell and skin, but in a much more manageable way.
Maneshi dropped back down to the floor and scampered around her to Hiei as she turned in place to watch him. Maneshi stood up on his back feet and rested one paw curiously on Hiei's leg with the other front paw hanging near his chest, giving a meow for attention to the fire demon before continuing his purr. 3
Hiei's eyes became half-lidded with the sudden relaxation of his muscles, contradicting the torrent of emotions inside his mind and stomach. Without knowing it, he had pressed his back as much against the door as possible, all but standing on the tips of his toes as Toriko pressed even closer. Dimly, somewhere in the quiet recesses of his mind, he recognized that she was struggling with herself, though he didn't know why. He couldn't spare any brain power to think about it, as his entire being was concentrated on the closeness of this girl's body on his, of the quivering of her lips that still occasionally touched his skin, that made her breathing trail over his skin and warm the spot it brushed. Another shiver passed over his spine, tingling from his head to his toes as her cheek pressed against his.
Slowly, his eyes slid the rest of the way closed, silently allowing whatever would happen to happen, because every fiber in his being screamed that this was what he desired most of all. Companionship. Care from another; someone to rely on and someone who understands him in his entirety.
And her actions, her power that sang through the air, told him that Toriko was that very person. She would take him as he was, and wouldn't doubt his actions when he couldn't give all of the details. In return, he would protect her, just as he had promised. A small smirk formed on his lips as the thoughts ran across his mind, and instinctively, his arm moved and his hand touched her hair with a feather-light brush. His nose flared as he took a gigantic breath of her scent, and it overwhelmed his senses.
She was everything he would need. He would be able to go to Demon World with her, be able to do whatever he wanted without her getting in his way. She wouldn't stop him from doing whatever he pleased; she'd simply agree, and add to those plans. She would become his partner in crime.
He would gain someone close to him, someone to care for him as he watched over her.
His hand brushed her hair again, and then dropped to his side as the smirk left his lips, creating a neutral expression once more.
This was what he wanted, and she would fulfill his desires. Every last one of them.
Suddenly, Toriko was away from him, her energy flying through the air and her voice ringing loud into the silence of the room, followed by the sound of Maneshi meowing. His red eyes snapped open and he immediately was watching Toriko, suddenly very confused and thinking of the most recent event, though he wasn't much sure what had just happened. He still felt lingering emotions that left him baffled, left him unable to think straight and unable to make any logical deduction.
So he settled for watching Maneshi and Toriko, as different as she suddenly seemed, interact for a few moments until Maneshi pranced his way of to Hiei. The fire demon stepped a single foot away from the wall, his cloak sticking to his skin from the pressure that had been applied between his skin and the smooth wood of the door. As Maneshi placed a paw on his leg, Hiei's mind began to clear, slowly but surely. His eyes slid down to the cat, observing the difference in the demeanor from his usual actions. And then his mind caught up with what had happened, and his eyes slid back up to Toriko, brows furrowed. She'd struck the cat with her energy, just as she'd barraged him with it as well. His eyes darkened only slightly as a small amount of realization hit him, but he found himself incapable of figuring out why that was so bad.
She'd revealed his deepest desires, and even now she could still grant them. He only need to ask.
Instead, however, he turned his eyes to Maneshi again and crouched to the cat, not reaching out to him but not pushing him away either.
"What are you?" he mirrored Toriko's earlier question, not even sure himself if he was speaking to Toriko or Maneshi. *
Too overwhelmed by what was left of Toriko's power still washing over him, Maneshi could do little else but give Hiei another mew, his tail curling and uncurling briefly as he shifted when Hiei squatted to end up with a paw on Hiei's knee. He pranced back and forth from resting one paw on the fire demon to placing the other down, flitting back and forth earnestly, wanting attention.
When the fire demon did not immediately oblige the black cat by touching him, Maneshi let himself fall back to the ground, turned in a circle three times as if chasing his own tail, then stopped and stared up at Hiei again, dashing off in a sudden run and disappearing underneath the couch. He poked his tiny pink nose out from under the edge as if expecting to be chased, but just as quickly the nose left as he rummaged around for the toy he knew had to be under here somewhere...
Toriko could think of nothing to say to Hiei when they were left by themselves for the moment, though her mind filled with questions she did not think anyone could answer. The main gist of her thoughts centered around her hesitations concerning Hiei, a completely new occurrence to her knowledge, which led her down the path of hearing a voice in her head that she was fairly certain belonged to...
"Maneshi." She nearly growled, squatting down and waiting for the cat. "Come here."
The cat appeared over the top of the couch's other side, having slinked out from under the couch and lept up gracefully, the tail of a toy mouse in his teeth, and the body bobbing around as he trotted along the couch and easily made the jump to the floor to where Toriko and Hiei were. He stopped just out of Toriko's arm's reach and stared at her.
"Here." She said with just as much emphasis, pointing to a bit of carpet in between her legs.
More cautious now, but just as compliant, Maneshi obliged and sat down just where she had gestured, blinking up at her with the mouse still hanging from his jaws.
"Since when," She softly tapped the cat's nose with a single finger, "Have you been able to speak? Hm?"
Maneshi said nothing of course, blinking at her once more before flowing under her bent knee like liquid and moving for Hiei, gathering his sleek body and alighting on the fire demon's shoulders, spreading out as seemed to be his custom, Toriko looking on with a bemused expression. 3
Hiei frowned down at the floor as Maneshi pranced away, tail in the air and nose twitching in excitement. His ruby orbs followed every step the cat took until he disappeared under the couch, in which case Hiei turned his eyes onto Toriko silently. His mind churned, confused and scattered. He didn't know what to do, what was going on. Or how to react about it, for the matter.
He could demand answers, as he would any other demon. The problem with that? He didn't feel the desire to do so, even though there was a quiet anger in the back of his mind that he almost didn't understand at the moment. He was held in place by his curiosity, his confusion, and his intrigue that he had only just identified. Also, his mind lingered on what she had offered, what she could grant him. He wanted to ask, but something held his lips together in silence, even as she spoke to Maneshi and the cat pranced his way back over to the fire demon, taking refuge around his shoulders.
Hiei released a very small breath and stood upright again, glancing at Maneshi and then flickering his eyes back to Toriko, hands placing themselves in the refuge of his pockets. He toyed with the objects he had forgotten he had taken from her, and he remembered the sudden change that had taken over the girl. He thought as hard as was possible, remembering how she had moved to strike, and then pinned him to the door.
Hiei pulled a single pin from his pocket and began inspecting it keenly, looking over every inch of the small object that gave a small sheen in the lighting of the evening. He hadn't realized he'd been there all day.
"What is the purpose of these… things?" *
Toriko absently drew a hand through her hair and found that none of the bobby pins she usually wore were inside, frowning. He definitely held one of the ones that she wove the seal into, but where on earth did he get it?
"Where did you get that?" She voiced her question and stood up. She took a step towards him, reaching for the bobby pin with the intent to pluck it from his fingers. 3
Hiei eyed the small object for a few moments more, waiting for an answer he figured he wouldn't get. He rotated it between his thumb and index finger, red eyes never leaving the smooth black pin. It was odd, to him anyways, that a demon used something that the Humans had invented to hide their energy with.
At Toriko's question, he glanced up at her, a brow raised. Did she really not know where he had gotten them? Must be a side effect of her released energy.
"It was… given to me," he said, sarcasm lightly coating his tone. He didn't truly believe that she didn't know where he got them, so this was his way of… testing her…. *
Toriko opened her mouth, her next demand, that being he return it, getting caught in her throat at his response and she lowered the hand reaching for the pin.
She regarded him strangely for a moment before closing her mouth, suddenly unsure that her demand held any merit. She didn't know of anyone else he would have gotten the pin from, nor did she particularly know why he would have held onto it in the first place. ...but had she really given it to him? What had possessed her to do such a thing?
She opened her mouth as if to say something, intending for a dry remark to spill out from her lips, and closed it again, frowning and narrowing her eyes at him as she struggled to think back to the moments before her release.
It was all...fuzzy, faded just as much as her more human-like self had faded. She remembered...rage, and then...she quickly drew back from where her memories began leading, unsure as to how much her self-control could handle at the moment.
Perhaps...
She looked away from him, eyes passing over his shoulder as she tried to remember.
No, surely not.
She looked back at him and a sense of unease settled over her.
The only person she could ever imagine imparting such a delicate, a precious, and honestly required commodity to would be...would be a protector. But she hadn't so much as thought of the word since Youko's time. It couldn't be. She had no memory of forming a pact with this fire demon and she raised an eyebrow at him.
"Whoever gave it to you must hold you in high regard," Toriko began, still unsure if she had not simply misplaced her own seals and resisting the immediately negative thought at the internal suggestion, waiting to see Hiei's response, "Do you have any idea what that is?" She nodded slightly at the pin to indicate it. 3
Hiei felt the smallest hint of a smirk forming on his lips at Toriko's hesitations. He witnessed her open her mouth and close it again, repeating this action several times in the few moments. He watched different emotions flicker across her eyes for a few moments, realizing that she must not remember him taking them. The thought amused him more than anything else could have in the moment.
He held the pin up in front of his face as if to survey it again, his ears twitching up just a bit as she spoke again. He met her gaze evenly, noticing her unease. His sneer widened just a bit at her last comment, and then dissipated at her inquiry.
"Of course I do," he said slowly, eyes watching her evenly. "They're human objects that you have somehow turned to seals. It wasn't obvious at first, but after today, it became extremely evident that this is your means of control over the energy you seem to so fear." *
"So it is mine." She narrowed her eyes at him, his own words assuring her of the fact. She closed the distance between them and reaching up to snatch the pin from his hand. 3
The amusement that dominated Hiei's features was more than he had thought he could display at this moment, her narrowed eyes and deduction almost making him scoff. Almost.
"Of course. Who else would use Human artifacts?" he retorted, not moving when she snatched for it, letting her take the single pin from his fingertips. His hand slid its way back into his pocket and fingered at the other small pins he held in his possession, his left hand closing around the glasses he held in the opposite pocket. *
"Why...why did you say that I gave this to you?" She asked more quietly. Did I really?
He obviously had little attachment to the object, given how easily he relinquished it to her, so that led her to believe it had not been a gift, but she had to make sure, had to know if she someone made an agreement with this...this aggravating fire demon before her.
What exactly was Toriko's relationship with him? Her demon-side was not able to sift through the girl's memories very clearly, remembering for sure only things she had been directly a part of, such as the day after the blonde-demon attacked when Toriko's memories flooded back and her demon side drew her into sleep.
Toriko drew her hand back to her side, closing her fingers around the bobby pin and feeling its cold power almost pulsing in her grasp. 3
Yoku - While 'Yoku' is in fact just a shortening of 'Shikiyoku,' it can also mean "greed; craving; desire; avarice; wants"
Thanks for reading! Bless your face. If you sneezed during this chapter, bless you. Peace off! -Star