Warnings: creepy change of feelings…

The Wielder of BlackFire:

The Legend Lives Part II-Rose's Renaissance

Chapter Fifteen: Seeking

"But it's been six days, Genkai!" Botan said, exasperated. The ferry and the old master were sitting on the floor of the latter's game room, tea cups in front of them. Botan hadn't touched hers, and it sat chilling on the short table. Genkai's cup was empty and cold.

"And I haven't found anything," the old master said in a monotone voice that hinted annoyance.

"But we know she has it! She saw some of Koenma's tape, so she must be a little aware!" the ferry said. She was worried. The threat had not surfaced lately and it was concerning them all. If they couldn't find the demon, then who knew when they wouldappear in either the human or Spirit World. The thought hadput all of Spirit World in an uneasy state, and all of the detectives available were on duty in search of the creature, including King Enma's personal guards.

"I just told you, she hasn't expressed any form of Spirit Energy," the master said with a snap. "I've pushed her to the edge of her abilities, and she's fought back brilliantly, but she still seems refuse to use it. I'm beginning to doubt Koenma's word."

"He showed you what she did at the Dark Tournament! Spirit Energy like that doesn't just disappear, and we need to find it!" Botan argued. Genkai nodded casually at the flustered grim reaper.

"Yes, I saw her work. But, in case you haven't noticed, that wasn't her." Botan looked at her, bewildered, her head tilted slightly and lips puckered in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" the pilot asked in a high, surprised voice.

"The girl that Koenma showed me was different, maybe not in body, but in nearly every other aspect," the woman said. "They are two different people, living in the same body."

Hiei listened from outside the room, silent and unnoticed.

"Well, unfortunately, Koenma only wants her help, the aid of her power. He really doesn't have time or the energy to care which personality has it," Botan said with a slightly dour and impatient expression. Of course, Koenma was worried about everything working out, what did he care if it was Rose or Thorn or the Black Blaze himself, as long as they were loyal and powerful enough to give his team assistance without killing innocents?

"Hm," Genkai grunted. "I understand his situation, but from what I can see, without the other soul awake, she doesn't have the memories or the power to do as Koenma asks, even though her stubbornness is at such a level that seems impossible." Here the master smirked and gave a small chuckle. "Teenagers. She wont give up. But, again, it seems that her other personality, or whatever it is, holds her greatest strength." Botan frowned at the master's words.

"Then we have to find out who can awaken Thorn, before it's too late," the girl said solemnly.

Hiei didn't stay to hear the rest of their conversation. He walked around to the back of the temple, where music played. He took his time, jabbing his hands in his pockets.

'So they've finally discovered Thorn's little secret. Two souls, bound to make another. It took them long enough to come to the conclusion that I could have told them weeks ago,' the fire youkai thought sourly as he walked along. 'Now that they've realized this girl doesn't have Thorn's power, we can finally start looked for the one who has the password, which is where we should have started in the first place.'

The music, however faint by distance, grew louder as he walked around the temple's walls. It was deep and mournful, but fast-paced, with words he just barely recognized, for the spell Koenma had given Kurama and himself to understand English was beginning to wear away. The prince had given the girl a purple box, much like the one they had received, to help her better understand Japanese. She picked that up as well as she did anything, which didn't surprise any of them, since she seemed to speak it fluently. Well, Thorn always had.

Hiei stopped outside of the open door to a room. Before him was a large room that smelled of cleaning solution. The floor was glossy and sparkling clean, a smiling hard wooden floor. The walls were a bland, expressionless white, but gave the impression of concentration and focus. In the far corner was a small, disc-shaped thing that looked like a metal cookie with buttons for chocolate chips, a wire connecting it to two small speakers. He recognized both from passing glances at Rose's open book bag.

In the center of the room, wrapped in a cloud of detachment, was Rose, throwing punches in the air and thrusting kicks out at an imaginary foe. Both her wrists and her ankles were bound with weights, but the energy in her kicks and punches suggested they were feathers, although the sweat on her brow did not. Her hair was back in its normal, low-set pony-tail that rested on the base of her neck, a few stray strands sliding from their bindings. Her long bangs had escaped from behind her ears, swaying in time before and beside her eyes like the waves on the ocean. He watched her a moment, taking note of her movements which, compared to Thorn, were jerky and clumsy, although graceful... for a human. Her hands, still gloved, were balled into fists. The wounds from her escape attempt had healed, only to be reopened and enlarged by her ruthless training. They had been bandage secretly by the girl, but he had noticed when she asked Yukina for bandaging tape.

'What was the point of giving this human training?' he scoffed silently. As soon as they found Thorn's password holder, she wouldn't need it. Thorn had received training from the Black Blaze and would easily be able to work around being slightly out of shape. Not even the oldest and most powerful ningen psychic could even begin to compete with that. But it was known by everyone, probably even the girl in question, that Koenma wanted to be prepared, and thought that he was not. It was not a good sign.

The song ended, fading away with a anguished howl into nothing. The girl seemed to abruptly drop from her trance-like state and paused to glance at her watch. She seemed surprised as to what the hands on the round face told her. She turned away from the door, her back to Hiei and the door, and walked over to her CD player, stopping the contraption just as the beginning of the next song began.

She sighed and turned around, removing the weight from her left wrist and tossingit into the corner by her CD player. It was then that she noticed Hiei in the doorway. She looked at him a moment before removing the weight from her other wrist and throwing it aside.

"Your left kick is sloppy," he muttered to fill the suddenly oppressive silence. She seemed too tired to argue as she knelt to remove the weights from her ankles.

"I'll work on it," she said, wiping the back of her hand across her brow and shoving her hair behind her ears.

"Did Genkai send you? I know I'm late to eat."

"No," he replied. She didn't bother asking why he was there, if not because of Genkai. Perhaps she was just too tired to care. Besides, she reasoned, he was probably just making sure she didn't try escaping again. She shrugged it off, walking past him and out the door with hardly an exhausted glance. Hiei followed her, walking stiffly beside her. Her step had retained a bit of its bounce, he noticed, as she gazed around the grounds. She seemed content, happy even.

"You know, I can see why Genkai likes it up here," the girl said. Her tone nearly made Hiei balk, but he quickly concealed it with a blink and chanced a glance to her expression. There was hardly a trace of hardness in her tone, and it sounded almost warm. He glanced away from her briefly, uneasy at her sudden relaxation around him. Did she not still think of him- of them- as the enemy? But her face was bathed in the deepening shadows of night, only the faint, smoky gray of the retreating sun shaping her face. He was reminded of himself, telling Kurama that he would always think of Thorn as the detective's enemy. It didn't exactly stick as it had in the past during other missions against other opponents.

"It is very peaceful here," she continued. He gave an indecipherable grunt and fled, using his superior speed to disappear. It startled her and she shook her head.

"You know, that's really annoying," she said, sighing and continuing on her way, but her shoulders were drooping slightly now.

……………………………

Hiei woke early the next morning to a creeping chill. He opened his eyes, looking to the east. The sky was still dark, dawn more than a half an hour away. He turned back, settling deeper into the warmth of his cloak and the warm tree branch. He casually glanced down at the window that sat slightly below him, more from habit than anything, before closing his eyes.

Wait.

He opened his eyes again and looked into the dark room. The bed was empty and neatly made. He scanned the rest of the room, only to prove that indeed nothing resided within it any longer.

He got down from his tree with a swift leap, using his Jagan Eye to find the room's evicted occupant. He found the girl sitting on the front porch, and so walked around the side of the temple. He paused at the building's corner, keeping from the girl's sight.

"You can come out, Hiei," came Rose's voice. A dull pain shot through Hiei's gut, but he pushed it away impatiently. This was no time for memories.

"How did you know it was me?" he asked, turning the corner and walking the short distance to where she sat, lounging on the temple's wooden front steps. She didn't look at him and her eyes suggested she was in a distance place.

She shrugged.

'Her awareness is improving,' the youkai thought. There was a comfortable silence that rivaled the uneasiness of the one experienced the night before. The stars were slowly fading and the moon had fallen below the tree line. A milky and stealthy fog began to creep from the forest, rolling along the grassy earth. It gave the area a sinister look, like the dungeon of some sick scientist who mixed too many chemical fumes together. The faint light of the dulled stars shone down on the mist softly as it crawled into the courtyard. The temperature dropped slightly and through the tears in the fog, one could see a stray bar of starlight twinkle off the thick dew that lay beneath the protective cream. Threads of the earth-bound cloud wove together tightly, thickening it into a soup-like solution.

"Hiei, could you sit down a minute?" she asked after a long stretch of silence. The youkai was slightly startled by the request, but saw no harm in doing as she asked. He took a seat beside her on the step, being sure to keep his distance. There was a pause.

"You know something about me that no one else knows. Not even me," she said softly. So this was the reason for her request. Questions. Hiei shifted uncomfortably.

"What are you getting at?" he snapped almost nervously.

"I just want to know what happened during those months," she said. He was silent. She sighed slightly and turned to look at him. He suddenly found the ground extremely interesting covered in dew as it was.

"Please, Hiei?" she asked, her voice pleading. "I just want the truth."

"And what makes you think that I'll tell you?" he asked, his voice scoffing. She leaned closer so that he could see the pleading in her dark eyes and face from the corner of his vision. He turned away, refusing to look her in the eye. Pain once again throbbed within him.

"Hiei-" she began again, her voice even softer, lacking its usual gravel and becoming more musical and feminine. So much like Thorn's voice. He tensed. He knew she saw it, because she immediately discontinued her attempt to pry information from him. He silently cursed himself and made to get up.

"Wait. It's okay, you don't have to tell me. But you can stay. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I didn't think anyone could," she said ruefully, her eyes returning to the blanket of white that enveloped them. He hesitated a moment before settling back onto the stair. It was uncomfortable, on that aspect she was utterly correct.

Thoughts bolted frantically through Hiei's mind. It made him uneasy. The thoughts were unsettling and almost painful, putting cracks in the walls of his dam that kept the pain of his memories of Thorn at bay.

"I'd better go," she said at last. "Genkai will be wanting to begin soon." She stood up, dusting off the front of her black pants unconsciously. She stopped and looked down at him.

"I know that you still feel pain for something that I have done. When you want, I am ready to listen to your story of what happened," she said. He glanced at her, unable to help his eyes from straying away from the ground. The sun had begun to lighten the sky to the east, tedious rays brushing over the ghostly mist and moisture-laden grass, giving the fog a blanketed look, hiding diamonds beneath its folds. Her eyes were not cold, and nor were they hard, they were large and full of questioning, dark and bright at the same time. But the questions were held in place by a self-contained demeanor. She looked up and took a deep breath, as though to ready herself for her exercises. She walked up the three remaining steps, walking along the wooden porch.

"Today will be very exciting," she said to herself. 'Then, tonight, I get to go home. I'll miss this place, but damn, I love Fridays!'

Well, one thing was for certain, it would come to be a very exciting day...

………………………………...

AUTHORESS' NOTE: alrighty then! More frequent updates now. Although I haven't gotten my ass in gear with the prequel, and I don't think I will really. I'm in two chapters and that's like it. But soon, yes dearies, SOON, the real stuff begins!

Reviews:

Damage145: for the details I've pretty much memorized them . I own both movies, which I've watched to death, so I have lots of details engraved in my mind.

Reallydizzy: omgosh that's cool! I've finished all, but I think I need to watch the movies. I'm still confused about how Harry's mother's blood and living in his aunts house helps him, so its like, erm! But I'm sure it'll get cleared up in the next book. Thanks!

Ensatsu-Kokoryu-Ha: hello! This chapter's pretty slow too, but next chapter is REAL stuff. Well, at least badly needed extensions in the plot. Lol, the part about Kuwabara is a fav of mine too. We should start the Sadistic Bitch Society:P make men our slaves so we can beat them with…. Erm… hippos! Yes -evil grin-. Sorry to hear about yer SAT sad story! I haven't gotten my results yet, and I'm very impatient for them, although I already know I'm going to take it again in the fall, unless I get like a 2200 -never happening-. Lol. Hope yer grades are okay on it!

The Password:

This is just a note for all of you who think you know the password right now. I would just like to say that I will not make ANY comments in yer review replies about it. Not only would, if you are correct, it spoil it for others, but I do not wish to make you think that you are right when you are wrong, or vice versa. I've gotten comments in the past about the password as well, and that's dandy, but please just know that if you think its blatantly obvious that the password is 'Blah Blah BLAH!' please keep it out of reviews. If you would, however, like to send me an e-mail about it with questions, I would be happy to see what I can do as an author without spoiling my story. In truth, I'm going to stop giving any and all hints as to what might occur in my stories out of context. I think it really might be spoiling the over-all story. But I do thank you ALL for the great reviews!

Reviews help make the fat lady sing! LALALALALA!