Nanashi sat Izo next to her and Hikari right next to him. Kurama sat behind her with Yusuke and Kuwabara. Hiei's semifinal match against Yomi was about to start. She tried consciously not to tap her foot anxiously as they waited. Yomi had killed opponents in this tournament callously. He killed Yasha ten years ago by removing his hand and then making him bleed to death in the ring. Something that seemed to still hang over Kurama like a quiet shadow.
She could hear Yusuke and the others talking about Izo's reveal of Hayate's identity, but was only half listening. She wished that it was Hayate going up against Yomi right now instead.
She jumped when the match was announced and commenced. Hiei wasted no time drawing his sword and standing at the ready. Scrapes and bruises from his previous tournament matches marked his chest and torso. Her mate bite there was somewhere under all that. Yomi looked a bit beat up himself, but not as much as Hiei did. Hiei had not been training as much as he should have the last month. She regretted calling him back early once more, even if it was for Kaze's birth.
Hiei charged at Yomi, moving lightning fast. Nanashi resisted the desire to blink lest she miss anything. Hiei kept coming at Yomi and Yomi kept dodging him, light on his feet too. She just wanted Hiei to hit him, hard and fast, or to run him through before he got a chance to attack Hiei.
Hiei did manage, riskily, to break through his defenses and slice Yomi across the middle of his stomach. Just with the tip of his sword though. Hardly a mortal wound, though it bled shallowly. Hiei had been going for a disabling blow though. Yomi had backed off at the last second.
Yomi seemed to have grown tired of being chased around. With a shout, he gathered up energy in his hand, hurling it at Hiei in full force. Hiei dodged the first one with ease. The second one surprised him, but he dodged that one as well. The third and the fourth one too.
Yomi just kept sending the barrage of energy blasts at Hiei for him to dodge. It was overwhelming Hiei though, tripping him up. One did manage to catch him in the chest, sending him skidding across the rubble on the plane. Nanashi felt her breath catch in her throat, watching Yomi send a series of shots down at him, creating a billowing cloud of dust and smoke that no one could see through.
Before the dust settled, Hiei's mortal dragon charged out of it, straight at Yomi. It caught him head on, shoving him onto his back and setting his lower body ablaze. Once it had knocked him down, it flew away in release.
'He must be getting desperate,' Nanashi thought to her wind dragon. 'He's held back from using that dragon or the hellfire dragon during this tournament. Both tax his energy too much. He's afraid he'll be too weak for the next fight.'
'He might not think he can win otherwise,' the wind dragon thought back.
The dust finally settled around Hiei. He was standing up, panting heavily, and holding his sword in his left hand while flames puttered out on his right forearm. The mortal dragon was tamed, so it was not going to harm him. Not burns from it decorated his skin.
It had burned Yomi though, all down his lower abdomen and legs. He was smart enough to roll on the ground to put out the flames. The mortal dragon was from the Human World, so it was weaker than the hellfire dragon. The flames were less powerful, especially in a different world. The burns that were visible through the tears in his clothing looked like they hurt though.
"That was the wrong dragon to use on me if you truly wanted to win," Yomi called over to Hiei. "Were you planning on saving your stronger dragon for your friend in the finals?" Hiei did not give into the taunting, but rather passed his sword from his left hand back to his right hand. "You're not going to make to the finals," Yomi declared. "You're not going to live long enough to see him die too. Nor the impending destitution of your family and friends."
"What does he mean? What did that threat mean?" Hikari was asking over and over.
Kurama was saying something soothingly to her, but Nanashi could not hear what he was saying over the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. 'He wouldn't,' she thought to the wind dragon, not believing herself.
Yomi started again with firing a barrage of energy blasts at Hiei. Hiei seemed extra annoyed with having to dodge them all over again. This time, he was slower. He was getting hit, only a few times at first, but more as the minutes dragged on. Each time he was struck, he cried out in a way that made Nanashi feel sick.
Yomi had stopped for a moment. Hiei was standing near the edge, shaking visibly. He half turned his head to look behind the edge of the plane.
"Jump," Izo whispered next to Hikari.
Hikari rounded on him for that. "Father wouldn't do that! That's a coward's way out!"
"Better alive and a coward than dead and courageous," Izo eked out.
"He's not going to die," Hikari insisted.
Nanashi kept watching the fight on the screen, wishing Hiei would jump and knowing he never would, no matter how tempted or desperate he was.
Hiei flicked his sword, turning to face Yomi. He charged over to him with as much speed as he could muster. He was so slow though compared to how he was earlier in the fight. Yomi shot at him, but he managed to dodge most of them. It was desperate and reckless charge.
When he got close enough to Yomi, Yomi finally made a move. Yomi managed to cut behind him as he drove for a killing blow. Once Yomi got behind him, he sent a blast into his lower back with crippling force.
Nanashi gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth in shock. 'Please, no,' she thought to herself.
Hiei skidded and rolled across the ground a few good feet before he came to a halt. His lower back was bloodied and bruised, but Yomi had held back so much on the blast that could have easily shot right through him.
'Stay down,' she thought, begging Hiei silently. 'Pass out.' She groaned, watching him raise his head. Even just that was a struggle.
"What was that?" Izo asked looking over to his left. "I just saw someone or something take off from the stands."
He half way stood up before Yusuke pushed him back down. "Down in front," he muttered, eyes still trained on the screen.
Hiei stayed laying prone on the ground on his stomach. He was trying to push himself up, but stopped when he jarred his lower back. He let loose a strangled cry as his back shook painfully. Mercifully the ten count started. Nanashi wished it would go faster.
Yomi had stepped up to him, standing next to Hiei. "That wasn't supposed to be to kill you," Yomi told him. "Only cripple you. Yet I've seemed to fail at that."
The ten count was half way finished when Yomi stomped down on Hiei's lower back, finishing the crippling.
Nanashi stared in horror, hearing Hiei scream at that pain. The ten count needed to go faster. Crippling could be healed, but death could not be.
Yet before the ten count could end, Yomi grabbed Hiei by the back of the head, yanking him up into the air by the hair. His legs hung listlessly in the air as Yomi held him up. Hiei gripped his sword tightly in his right hand. Still, it did not take much effort for Yomi to yank it away.
"No," Nanashi whimpered. She did not want to watch anymore, but could not pry her eyes away.
Yomi held the tip of the blade against Hiei's neck. "Too fast," Yomi commented. He trailed the sword down until the tip hovered over the middle of Hiei's right thigh. "Too slow," he commented. "Besides, with your lower back broken, you wouldn't feel it anyway." Then, with an expedient flick of the wrist, he cut off Hiei's right hand at the wrist. "Perfect," he commented over the sound of Hiei's hoarse screaming.
"No!" Nanashi screamed, jumping to her feet. She could not watch anymore. She brought up her wind dragon around her neck, ready to summon it up to wings to fly up there and interfere with the fight. Before she could start that though, she felt strong arms lock tightly around her arms and torso. "Let me go!" she shouted at her unseen assailant.
"You can't," she heard Yusuke's voice tell her. He knew exactly what she had planned to do. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I can't." His breath caught in the back of his throat. "Yomi would kill you for trying. We can't lose you, too."
Yusuke's words confirmed what Nanashi tried to deny. Yomi was going to kill Hiei and there's was nothing she could do to stop it.
She screamed once more, raging and grieving at the same time. She released her wind dragon, hiding it away again. She felt Yusuke's arms grow slack around her. She turned to face him, hands coming to grip the front of his shirt and buried her face into his shoulder.
She could not breath, could not think, could not feel. All she could do was cry and try to deny what she knew was truly happening on screen behind her.
The sounds of a cacophonous explosion shocked her out of her misery. She looked up at the screen, blinking rapidly to get the tears out of the way of her vision. She saw Hayate hovering a few yards above Hiei and Yomi. He had both hawk wings on his back and a conjured bow and arrow in his hands. A crater had been blown into the ground right next to the two of them.
"Drop him," Hayate ordered with an alpha male's voice. "Or the next one goes through you."
Nanashi watched Hiei while they talked. He brought his left hand and his right stump together. Neither Yomi nor Hayate seemed to notice.
"You touch me and you're out of the tournament," Yomi countered, keeping his hold on Hiei. "I won't fight back. I won't even lift a finger to stop you. And I'll win."
Hiei summoned up his hellfire dragon, just enough to have a flame. He cauterized what was left of his right wrist, stopping the bleeding that could kill him. He gnashed his teeth at the pain. It would take a talented healer to reattached his hand to his wrist. If that healer messed it up, misaligned the veins or tendons, then the hand would have to be removed all over again and would be lost permanently. But he would live. That was all that mattered.
Yomi caught on by the sounds of Hiei's grunting and the smell of burning flesh. He swore impatiently at the sight of it. After doing all that, Hiei's eyes closed and his mouth went slack as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Hayate called his attention back to him. "I shoot you, here and now, and you will die," he boomed down. "You're died, while I'm disqualified. Then Hiei's king. I think I could live with that. His mate would make a good queen by his side."
Yomi growled wordlessly up at Hayate, adjusting his grip on Hiei's sword. He still had Hiei up by the hair and could run him through if he wanted to. Hayate caught on to that too. He shot an arrow at Hiei's sword, snapping the blade off of the hilt. All this while never touching neither Hiei nor Yomi.
"Stop interfering," Yomi growled up at him. He threw the now useless hilt up at Hayate, missing him with a wide berth.
"Did you mean to miss?" Hayate asked, teasingly. "Because it looked to me like you didn't."
Yomi turned to where Hiei's severed hand lay near by, stomping on it and grounding it onto the ground distastefully. After that, he kicked it away. Next, he tossed Hiei towards Hayate's direction. He landed on his side, not moving. The ten count restarted, Koto counting faster than she probably was allowed. The second the ten count was over, Hayate landed on the ground. He cringed as he picked up Hiei's mangled hand first, followed by picking up Hiei's body.
"I will kill you in our match," Yomi called over to him. "Then there will be no one to save him. Or his family. Or your clan now. I will be king, as I should have been years ago. I'm the last of three remaining kings. And I will restore this world and bring chaos where I see fit."
Hayate made no response as he took to the sky.
Nanashi slipped from Yusuke's arms, running at a dead sprint towards the healers' tents. She heard Hikari not far behind her. Last, she heard and saw Izo sprint past her, heading in the same direction.