The Shotgun Approach
Chapter 29: Hatred Takes Effort
A/N: Continuing Hiei's POV folks!
. . .
"How the hell are we getting out of this?"
"Human shooters?" I asked.
"The two I saw, I think so. But it's not like I got a great look at them."
"You're useless," I hissed.
Shou made a noise that was half pissed off tiny dog and half pissed off cat and I just laughed in his face.
"Stay here," I said. "I'll take care of it."
I rose to do just that, but Shou's hand shot out and grabbed my arm. "Don't hurt anyone, Hiei. That isn't your job anymore."
I stared at him and then felt myself smirk. "Don't be so naive. You can't save people with goodness alone."
Shaking him off, I flickered from our cover and rushed into the house, ducking behind the first large piece of furniture I spotted. Two shooters within my normal sight, another I could see with the Jagan, hidden away in one of the back rooms.
The first two never saw me enter. Shou was right, they were both human, but the third was far from it.
I took out the two closest to the entrance silently, hitting pressure points to put them to sleep. They would wake up groggy, but otherwise unscathed. The last one only noticed me when I entered the room and he was quick to swing his gun towards me.
He shot off a few rounds that I dodged, allowing them to get lodged into the walls behind me.
When he pulled a shotgun off his back I expected to continue the fun, a game of cat and mouse, where he was meant to be the victim. I didn't expect it to have incendiary rounds.
The first shot blew a hole in the floor I nearly fell through.
The second almost took out my leg.
The third was never given a chance. I tore the demon's hand clean off before he was able to pull the trigger.
Falling to his knees, the man screamed, and I just grabbed him by the throat and growled in his face: "Tell the mayor he's going to need to try a lot harder than this to assassinate any one of us."
I tossed him aside, spitting on his prone body as I stepped over him. "Pathetic."
When I returned to Shou he bombarded me with a million questions. All of which I refused to answer until he got into the goddamned truck and drove the hell out of there. Knowing I would keep my promise, he made quick work of throwing the gear back into the ambulance and getting us as far from that house as possible.
"What happened?" he asked, still breathless as if he were the one that just risked his life.
"Nothing that concerns you."
"Oh come on, Hiei—"
"Shou!" I snapped. "If you're as smart as I know you are, you will stay out of it!"
He paused for a moment. "Did you just...compliment me?"
I felt my face heat up and snapped at him, "Just drive, idiot."
. . .
The late summer heat was sweltering and standing in one of Kurama's many greenhouses wasn't making it any better. The stench of fertilizer burnt my nose and Kurama's quiet murmurings to his numerous killer plants were enough to make me gag.
"Can we get on with it, fox," I snapped.
"Yes, yes," he waved me off. "Don't be so impatient. We can talk while I work."
"I've said my piece, I'm waiting for your opinion."
Kurama watered some plant that bent to actually kiss him on top of his head and I really did have to hold back a gag that time.
"Well, we can't let it continue."
"No, I figured we should allow it to escalate until we have the entirety of Japan's armies coming to wage war on the demons."
"Your sarcasm is not appreciated."
Kurama finished his chores in the greenhouse and ushered me out, back into his tiny home and into a chair at his kitchen table. He went about brewing a pot of tea and making lunch without asking if I was hungry because he wouldn't allow me to refuse it even if I wasn't.
"How is your mother?" I asked suddenly, but hoping for an honest answer.
"She is well, thank you for asking. She's happily retired now. Little Shuichi is going to college, so its been a madhouse over there lately."
"Your mother must be ecstatic to finally have the house to herself again."
"There's still my stepfather, or did you forget?"
"I didn't. But you and I both know she's the head of that household."
Kurama laughed, setting down mugs of hot tea and two hearty sandwiches, before taking his own seat. We ate in silence, as was usual for the both of us, and didn't speak again until the dishes were washed and put away.
"I will go speak to the mayor," Kurama said, drying his hands on a rag, a cold light in his eyes contradicting the domestication.
"I don't know if it will help at this point. I'm assuming this is the backlash from not handing in Etternia."
Kurama's shocked gaze surprised me...then I remembered I never told him. "The mayor knows a woman named Etternia had something to do with the bombings...courtesy of Yomi."
Kurama's fist clenched around the towel, his face angry, energy flaring from the sudden rush of emotion. "Should have guessed," he said.
"He wants her for something. That letter you had me deliver..."
"It doesn't matter. She can't leave the human realm or she forfeits her life. Whatever Yomi wants, he can't have."
"I'll make a visit to Mukuro this week," I said. "Keep an eye on Yusuke while I'm gone."
It didn't need to be said. But it didn't hurt.
. . .
My trip to Mukuro's turned out to be a waste of time. Even more so because the damned woman decided to start a fight.
She couldn't beat me when I was serious anymore.
But I would never rule over Alaric.
This seemed to anger her more over time and even if she did know what Yomi was up to, there was no way I would get the information from her.
I considered going straight to Gandara myself but knew the man wouldn't even hold an audience with me unless he thought I came with Etternia in hand. I was left with few options. There was no time to do a full-scale investigation and Yomi's resources were just as good, if not better than Yusuke's.
A human world meeting then.
I wondered what it would take to unseat the bastard from his throne.
. . .
A week later I had my answer—not much.
Kurama went to see him because Yomi never refused Kurama. And considering the fox got nowhere with the mayor, other than his ass kicked out onto the curb, he picked a battle he knew he could win. Yomi still had his own agenda and I knew he would take Yusuke's crown if ever given the chance, but he still harbored a soft spot for Kurama.
The fox returned with a smug look on his face and I knew he'd won.
Three days later, a mountain of paperwork and Yomi was in Japan for the first time in his life. He rented a penthouse room in the finest hotel Sarayashiki had to offer and immediately sent for Kurama and me.
There was only one problem—Etternia was nowhere to be found.
"You told her to leave?!" Kurama said in hushed anger. "What were you thinking?"
"I didn't expect this to come up."
He dragged a hand down his face, exasperated and tired. "Find her," he snarled. "Do whatever it takes. I will stall for time."
I started by scanning the city, pushing my Jagan to its limits and coming up empty-handed. Not in Sarayashiki then. I moved on. Town after town. All of them coming up empty-handed. Tokyo was last. Mostly because the city was so large it would take me several days to scan it.
If she wasn't there...that left the mountain ranges, the islands.
Or perhaps she wasn't in Japan at all, had actually heeded me this time and left. Then we would be royally screwed, as Yusuke would say.
I didn't have much time.
Sending Yomi back with nothing would be an insult he wouldn't stand for. He played his cards, revealed he didn't want her dead and came here to see her. I needed to know why. The only way to do that was with this godforsaken woman who didn't know better than to keep herself out of their lives.
. . .
It was with zero relief that I did eventually find her.
My last day in Tokyo, my patience and time wearing thin, the Jagan picked up her wavelengths. Without energy, she was ten times harder to find, but the paths of her mind were always there no matter how safeguarded, I could still see them. I couldn't access them, however, and it was only good for hunting her down.
I found her in the back of a garish nightclub, giving a man a lap dance.
She was naked from head to toe, minus a skimpy pair of underwear. Watching her dance for the pig of a male beneath her made an unbidden rage crawl its way up from my gut and burn the inside of my throat until I saw red.
The man was roughly tossed from the room, sputtering indignantly the entire time, until I turned and growled at him. He ran with his proverbial tail between his legs. When I turned back to Etternia, she was sitting in the man's hastily vacated seat, not looking at all surprised.
"Did you come on your own behalf, or Yusuke's?"
I said nothing, tearing off my shirt and throwing it at her. She held it in her hands for a long time before she decided to slip it over her head, the hem falling just past her thighs.
I pretended not to notice when she took a deep breath in and held it.
"Get up, you're coming with me."
In the end, I found myself in the passenger seat of a rented car because Etternia refused to run the entire way. "I'm fast, but not that fast," she'd said.
She drove us back to Sarayashiki without hesitation, a blind trust (or perhaps resignation) making her drive without a single stop. The ride was silent and hostile, the air charged and restless, waiting for something to set it off. But Etternia was either too smart, or too fed up to speak to me, and thus the entire ride remained so quiet it pushed us both further towards the edge.
When I directed her towards the hotel, only then did she dare break her silence. "I will not speak with him, Hiei."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I played dumb. I wasn't sure how she knew. But I wasn't about to let her back out.
At the entrance to the hotel, she refused to get out of the car. I argued with her for what felt like hours, our voices getting increasingly louder until we were yelling back and forth. Her from the car's doorway and I, leaning over her like a predator, spittle flying as I hollered insults back.
I didn't even know what we were arguing about anymore. I only knew that it felt good to scream at her, to let her hear my anger if she could not feel it.
I hated her.
Hated everything about her.
She betrayed me.
Betrayed me...even as I leaned in further, the cold light of her eyes swallowing me, the word rang across my mind. It continued on still, when I crowded her back into the car, my knee jamming itself between her legs until I was so close I could smell her hair. She always smelt of cold bitter winters and hot coffee and herbs. The scent was..comforting. Familiar.
I don't know when the anger changed.
Nor did I know when my mind turned blank and that word—betrayed—stopped its infernal mantra.
But if I were to take a guess, I would say it was right at the time I leaned in a little too far and found myself sinking to kiss her.
She stopped arguing abruptly, stunned stiff. It felt like kissing a corpse.
I backed away to snap at her, to tell her to—to what?
But a completely fed up mumbling of, "Jesus Christ," had my face flaming.
Kurama—and Yomi—were behind us. Kurama with his face in his hand and beyond disgusted with what he just witnessed. And Yomi...who just looked pissed off.
"I found her," I said.
Kurama had the gall to give me a look that clearly stated, "no shit."
. . .
The hotel room felt suffocating. The silence that reigned was not helping.
I sat in the sill of the large bay window overlooking the city. Yomi, Kurama, and Etternia were all seated in the center of the room on plush chairs surrounding a low glass table. None of them spoke, but I could see Yomi's sightless eyes glaring a hole into my back from his reflection in the window.
There was no doubt in my mind he knew exactly what transpired outside.
As it was, I was fighting the urge to go wash my mouth with acid. The spell cast on me outside was gone and now I just felt disgusted and disappointed.
She betrayed us all.
She wasn't worth the effort or the time or the air she breathed.
She wasn't.
Kurama, growing tired of the standoff, cleared his throat. "As you can see, she's quite well. If you could call off the mayor, by sending him word that it was your mistake about the perpetrator of the bombing—"
Yomi raised his hand, silencing the fox. "Her energy is sealed and you dare to tell me she is quite well?"
Etternia sighed and rose from her seat, just to kneel on one knee before Yomi, her arm held across her chest as she bowed to him. "Lord Yomi, I ask that we speak privately on this matter. That is what you wished, is it not?"
I was on my feet, prepared to argue, but it was the look Kurama cast me that caused me to reconsider. The whole reason I went to retrieve her, spent days searching, was to know why Yomi was so insistent on speaking with her. I knew they held secrets and history, Etternia spent years in his employ, but how close were they—truly?
"Come, Hiei. Let us give Lord Yomi some privacy."
Kurama beckoned me but I stood stalwart. I wouldn't leave without answers. The mayor was hunting us because he felt we knew the whereabouts of the bomber. Every day was a risk, another step further back from the goals Yusuke set the first year he became king. I wasn't about to allow the two of them to conspire further.
"This was your goal all along, wasn't it?" I snarled. "You were working with him to destroy Yusuke's reputation."
Yomi only smiled, the look belying nothing. "It is within your best interest to listen to Kurama, imiko."
The growl I released at that word vibrated straight to my feet. I hadn't been called that in years. It made such a bright, heady rage blossom in my chest it took everything within me not to attack the lord of Gandara. Yomi was a fearsome fighter and one I was never given the pleasure of challenging.
The thought, as tempting as it was, would be an act of folly.
I could not be the cause of further destruction.
Even as I walked from the room with Kurama, I never stopped looking at Etternia—knelt on the ground, her head bowed in reverence.
Betrayer.
Yomi had his own agendas.
She was just another piece in this never-ending puzzle.
The door shut softly behind us and I took up a spot in the hall, in a corner closest to the doorway. Kurama eyed me for a time before sighing and sinking down beside me. "Do you plan to stay here all night?"
"What choice do I have?"
His tiny smile lacking in humor grated on my nerves. "Perhaps give up on her."
I glared at him, seething. "If I had it my way she would be dead. You are the one who defended her so valiantly in court."
"I did that under the orders of my king," he said, but something in his tone irked me. It was almost as if he found it funny. And I didn't understand why.
"Yusuke would not have faulted you if you refused him," I pointed out.
"No, but he would have done something reckless instead. I did what was within his best interests."
"Tch, if anyone should give up on her it is him."
"He was not the one I found attempting to kiss her less than an hour ago."
Admitting to Kurama that I'd lost my mind momentarily was just as degrading as being caught in the act. With nothing to say I just sneered at him and turned to watch the door. Even with my demonic hearing, I couldn't make out what was being said behind it. Attempting to use the Jagan was also fruitless, as Yomi was carefully maintaining a psychic barrier around the room.
"Do you truly think Yomi was the mastermind behind all of this?" Kurama asked.
"I think Yomi plans to use it to his advantage, whether he was behind it or not."
"I thought I was able to garner most of Etternia's secrets that day in court...it appears I did not grill her hard enough."
"She was a convincing actress, I will give her that. But what little I was able to dig up about her wasn't nearly enough."
"You think she lied?"
"No. Not about what you asked and not about what pieces of her past she seemed fit to tell us. She gave up enough to seem genuine...but not enough to seem entirely honest."
Kurama brought his knees up towards his chest, wrapping his arms around them and allowing his hair to spill over his shoulder like a cascade of red. His eyes watched me a little too intently and after a while, I grew uncomfortable. "What are you staring at, fox?"
"You have changed so much in the past few years. Are you aware of that?"
"Don't be stupid."
"It's true." He cocked his head to the side, the inquisitive gaze of a Youko lighting up his face. "You have worked hard to achieve goals I would not have imagined in my wildest dreams. You are an EMT. Yusuke's second in command. You handle human affairs as if you spent years studying up on them. You have made great strides to bring out your utmost potential...and yet...something is still lacking."
"I was either forced or coerced into every single one of those so-called accomplishments. They are nothing to be proud of."
I couldn't look at him any longer. His gaze felt like tiny daggers, rooting deep beneath my skin, pricking and drawing blood. I wanted it to stop, for him to turn away and let go of this idiotic trail of thought, but his final words made me wonder—what was so lacking? Still, after all this time. What was I missing?
The fox was never given the chance to elaborate, because the door was abruptly thrown open, nearly hitting us both.
Etternia came storming out, her hair having grown so much longer billowing behind her in an icy curtain. Yomi was hot on her heels, stopping just before the doorway to call to her. When she did not turn around or respond at all he sighed and turned his sightless gaze onto us.
I watched Etternia leave. Watched those strong shoulders slump just as she was about to turn a corner, and caught a glimpse of her face, hardened into cold stone.
"I appreciate you arranging this meeting," Yomi said. "I will make sure the mayor of this city calls off his manhunt, but I believe the problems do not just stem from my letters."
Kurama spoke with Yomi briefly, giving his thanks and saying farewells, but I was still watching that corner. Watching for her even though I knew she was long gone. What was that look? Why was her gaze so sharp and determined, yet her body was folding in on itself as if she wanted to be swallowed up by the earth?
Everything was a game to her. Not for fun or pleasure. Just pure strategy.
Kurama's hand at my elbow drew me from my reverie and I snatched my arm back with a narrowing of my eyes. No answers. Again. And it was the fox's fault.
Later that evening found me on Yusuke's doorstep where I hesitated. Why was I here again? How many times now have I slept over, in his bed, only to wake up and realize I was being used as a replacement? How many times would I allow it before I finally grew to despise every second of it?
Yusuke used to sleep in Etternia's bed.
Purely platonic on her part. Not quite as much on his.
But this was different.
We often found ourselves in a tangle of limbs, clinging to each other in our sleep like lost children.
It made me sick.
I turned from the door...and ran.
. . .
This was the last place I wanted to be. I let my feet carry me here of their own accord, the sun setting and rain starting to fall as I ran. By the time I stood outside her building I was soaked through, the droplets fat and unrelenting. The rain was cold, a cool comfort against my skin that still burned with heated rage. My mind was malcontent, a constant rush of thoughts I wanted no part of. Of Yusuke, of Etternia...and Yomi and Kurama...and the fact my life was so off-kilter from where it was supposed to be.
Ultimately, it was Yusuke's fault. All of it. If he never dragged me into his life...if I fought it a little harder...
Except...I knew I would still follow him to the ends of the earth...and back again. He gave me a purpose where there was none. Just as Mukuro had years ago when I felt my purpose with Yusuke ran out. Inside me was a fire renewed, a strength I didn't know I harbored. It was thanks to them both.
Then came Etternia.
And she ignited it like gasoline on a bonfire.
What was once a flame was now an inferno. I wanted to be more than I ever was. More than just a fighter and a murderer and a thief.
I wanted to be someone. I wanted to make them all see who I really was.
This was thanks to Etternia.
She brought out the worst and the best in me. And I hated her for it.
My hand gripped the sword strapped to my waist, so tight the friction made my hand burn. I should kill her, I thought, put her from her misery. It would be a small mercy.
Revenge was only an added benefit.
I stared up at her building, eyes glued to the balcony I knew was hers, and let the rain sting my eyes and soak my hair. Half of me hoped she would leave again now that her meeting with Yomi was complete. The other half I shoved deep, deep down and tried to burn it within the inferno roaring in my chest.
Hatred was not a strong enough word.
...And neither was love, I thought.
As I watched Etternia exit the building, barefoot and dressed in light colored jeans and a white t-shirt I recognized as Yusuke's, I knew there were no words befitting what I felt for her.
Perhaps there never would be.
My hand left my sword.
I marched up to her with the intent to interrogate her as I always did. To demand answers to the million different questions I still had. But nothing came out. Nothing at all.
The first I did when I reached her was to rip the cord of leather from around her neck. I held up the bottle on the end of it, tearing the cork out with my teeth and spitting it to the ground. The contents were promptly poured to the pavement, streaming with rainwater, before the bottle followed to be smashed beneath my boots.
"If you want to prove yourself," I said, "get clean. Only then will I listen to anything you have to say."
She stared at me with glossed over eyes. Gone was the gaze after her meeting with Yomi. What remained was the same hollow addict's eyes I'd grown to loathe.
"Says the man who told me only two months ago to overdose already."
I grabbed her by her arms and shook her, my lips turning into a snarl so fierce it would frighten a grown man. I wanted to pretend I meant those words two months ago, wished with every piece of me that it was true. But it wasn't. Not in the slightest.
Her hair, soaked as much as mine, was plastered to her face and forehead. The white of her shirt was transparent and her feet were covered in bits of dirt churned up from the falling rain. And I couldn't let her go, couldn't pry my hands off her.
"You stupid woman! Just do as I say!"
Etternia, her eyes clearing finally, shrugged her way out of my hold and wrapped her arms around herself. "Why? So I can feel all the pain I've locked away for so many years? You do not understand."
"I don't need to understand," I snarled. "The past cannot be changed. But your future can. Yet you waste away, day in and out. A demon once so fierce she could have destroyed worlds."
"I am demon no more," she said. "Even without the brand, I left the old life behind me long ago."
"You left behind nothing. You spent decades searching for something that didn't exist and allowed yourself to become a shell so worthless it was less than human."
"Yes, I'm worthless and stupid and too human for your liking. I should be cruel and full of hate and rage and death," she said, breathless. "I was all those things once. I killed and ate humans like many of the others. I enjoyed it for a time even. Until I met Artair."
"It always comes back to Artair, doesn't it? The past is what made you. And you will wallow in it until the day you die."
Something changed in her eyes. They were not so hollow and distant anymore, but instead, I felt that same rush as the day we fought. A sudden danger so strong it excited me.
She made no move to attack me, but her gaze never relented. I knew she was confused by my presence here, angry with my words, yet she never refuted me. She didn't deny it and knew it was true herself no matter how many times she wished she could just leave it all behind.
Her gaze dropped to the ground and it took all I had not to curse.
"Someone once told me," she began, "that I should not waste my time looking back, because I was not going that way. I never heeded his words, even when I knew I should of."
"Artair?" I asked with clear disdain.
"No." She looked up, her eyes fierce once again. "The man was my father."
I knew nothing of parents. Fathers especially. But the words that flew from my mouth stemmed a reaction I didn't expect. "He sounds quite wise. Unlike you. What a disappointment you must have been."
I was hoping for the anger. The tears were not supposed to be part of it.
They came unbidden, without sobbing or sniffling. They just spilled over and washed away with the rain. And yet her eyes still burned like the earth set aflame.
Something in my chest shifted then, softened and molded and hardened again. Was it some sort of resolve? A feeling?
Another thing that lacked any words suitable for its true meaning.
No dawning realization came. No warning or blatant sign of the change. It was just there. Maybe it was always there and just now it came to some sort of fruition.
Either way...
The hatred would have been easier.
. . .
A/N: First, I want to say that the line I used for what Ettie's father told her above was borrowed from the show Vikings. It is a quote of Ragnar's I thought was fitting...considering who Ettie is and the culture I am basing her off of.
Second, Hiei is off the goddamn walls. He's jumping into the deep end and doing a good job of drowning himself. Wtf you doing, Hiei? Damn.
It's back to Ettie's POV next chapter!