Extra: Green

Yusuke always loved the color green. There wasn't a specific reason, he could give a damn about the grass and the freshness of spring. He just liked the color. It was better than blue and nicer than red. That was the reason why he chose to wear green instead of blue to school, not that anyone but Takanaga cared, and why he always loved to see Keiko in the color. In his own way, he always thought he had marked her as his because she was wearing his color.

To his surprise, he shared that commonality with Hiei. He had picked up the subtle stares, and he realized that Hiei watched Mîra more often whenever she wore the color. Of course, the only reason he noticed the looks was because she didn't wear green often, unless she was dressed up. Yusuke thought she might not like the color as much, which seemed odd to him because she seemed to be a green kind of girl.

For one, she enjoyed being really rich. Money was no object to her and she had benefited from it, evident from Keiko endlessly complaining about how the woman hardly did anything to help in the kitchen when they collectively cooked. Then she was an elf. According to Lord of the Rings, elves are supposed to be one with nature and are big tree huggers, right? When Yusuke visited them in the Makai, he sometimes thought she had walked right off the film set or a story book. More importantly, she was completely and obviously jealous of Mukuro.

The elf's little green monster went deeper than the fact that she had 'stolen' Hiei from Mukuro. During the war, Yusuke had heard rumors about her; the cruel way she brought out information from prisoners, her cold demeanor, and the way she ruthlessly made sure there were more enemy casualties than wounded. Yusuke didn't believe it, and even after seeing her in battle briefly and knowing her, but he knew that she was jealous of the woman she had brought down proudly in a decisive and costly battle.

Mukuro was what Mîrvana was striving to achieve, to be recognized as a free and powerful ruling woman. Yusuke knew that the elf cared about his friend and would never do anything to undermine him, but Mukuro would always be a rival and a threat to her relationship and to herself, a constant reminder of what she could have been. This meant that she was confined to the wife of a king and it forced her to try and prove her worth whenever possible.

Consequently, he wasn't surprised when Mîra showed up with Hiei on a mission to a disobedient demon lord in an unclaimed area of the Makai who was also in trouble with the Reikai. Originally it was supposed to be the Fantastic Four, as Boton called them, but Hiei grumpily showed up with his wife. Yusuke was half expecting Legolas to show up next since she looked just like him with forest green and brown leather clothes. She carried a bow was tied to her back with a quiver filled with arrows and her sword was at her hip.

Yusuke had no problem with her being there, he didn't think anyone did but Hiei. He never said anything about it but Yusuke recognized the worry in his eyes. That was the same way he sometimes looked at Keiko. But she was more than useful as they stormed into the town, she was exceptional.

Slowly, he began to believe the rumors as he noticed bits and pieces of the way she brought down her sword swiftly and diligently, yelling at Kuwabara to not try and talk to them, to just kill. The brightness of her eyes that Yusuke usual saw was replaced with something cold and dark. Yusuke normally didn't hesitate in the thick of a fight but he knew if he could, if he needed to. He didn't think Mîra would hesitate. She moved like a well-oiled machine in ballet shoes who was able to gut someone with her sword, take a spear from the ground and hurl it at a demon charging Kurama and turn to pull out an arrow of her quiver and stab a demon approaching her in the eye, knowing that the spear hit it's mark just where it needed too.

He was a total believer when Kurama mentioned they needed a way into the stronghold and she instantly found a wounded demon and proceeded to break four of his fingers before asking him for information. After the information was easily received, the demon received a quick death. The pleasant, happy woman he knew before was gone and replaced with… an Amazon warrior.

Not that he cared, if anything it only made her and Hiei more of a match. Kuwabara was floored by her change in demeanor but Hiei wasn't fazed at all. He had sparred with her many times and probably knew the cold ferocity lurking beneath her. In fact, nothing seemed to surprise Hiei when she took charge as the group moved into the castle. When they came upon the rouge lord, everyone immediately sprang into action, trying to push through guards and demons to get to him.

Yusuke lost track of everyone except for Kurama who managed to create an opening for him, allowing Yusuke to get to the demon. The demon wasn't bad, Yusuke had fought much more difficult opponents and as the fighting began to finish, he looked around. Kuwabara was just finished slicing through his last demon and Kurama was nearby, destroying his whip. Yusuke spotted Mîra throwing a demon off of her with her sword, her torso covered in purple blood with splashes on her face and in her hair. She looked around wildly at the ground until she found what she was looking for.

"Herven! This one is alive," she called sharply, peering down at a demon.

Immediately Hiei was by her side, threatening the live demon. Yusuke figured Mîra would have been in on the threatening as well, except she was staring at her husband with an odd expression on her face. Yusuke didn't understand why until she reached out to touch him, after the sole survivor ran off, and recoiled her hand from his shoulder. She didn't have a place to put it because there was a purple eye open on his shoulder.

Hiei had used the power of his Jagan, causing his body look completely different. His ears were pointed and slender, his hair seemed to split in half and his hands were clawed, minor details compared to the green skin and purple eyes covering his body. Yusuke had seen this form when he first met Hiei and Yusuke looked back on it fondly now, realizing that Hiei's defeat would eventually lead them to become friends. But if he didn't know Hiei, if this was the first time he was seeing the fire demon he would be scared shitless. This was the sort of monster you checked underneath your bed for, and closed the closet door to prevent coming into your room. Hiei was a scary guy when he wasn't green, and when he was, he was terrifying.

That was not why his wife was staring at him with the mixture confusion and terror. Had Yusuke not known the look, had he not seen it before, he would say she was staring at him passively with a controlled look on her face. But he knew the look, the look of a wife staring at her husband and wondering where that monster had risen from. If that monster was in him all along and if everything else was a lie. Or rather in the elf's case, that her husband was indeed a ruthless, monstrous demon.

Yusuke wanted to say something, anything to keep Hiei from seeing that look on her face. That look didn't go away, it haunted him and he knew it would haunt his friend too. He took a step forward just as Hiei stared up at his wife. Yusuke froze as Hiei grasped his wife's chin in his clawed hand and turned her head. Wordlessly, the small, menacing, green demon stood up on his toes, reached his clawed fingers into her purple splashed hair, and spoke.

"Mîra, we need to get to a river if you don't want any of this to stain." Yusuke didn't realize he had been holding his breath until Hiei spoke. Yusuke exhaled deeply and stared at the odd couple.

"What?" Mîra said, obviously dumbfounded.

"You heard me. Your hair is a mess and I don't feel like dealing with your bitching and whining for the next two weeks about how your hair is ugly and purple," he growled, his fangs poking through.

Then another look washed over her, one that Yusuke had also seen and recognized. The elf looked down upon her demon husband gently and held out her hand.

"Okay," she said smiling. Yusuke breathed a sigh of relief. That look, the soft gaze that told him she knew better than to be fooled by the appearance, that the man she loved was still inside meant more to Yusuke than anything. Not that it would mean anything to Hiei, the idiot completely missed his wife's previous distress.

"Let's go home, shall we?" Kurama asked, smiling. Yusuke grinned at his friend and followed the Monster Demon King and his Amazonian Arwen Queen as they walked out hand-in-hand (claw). He ignored Mîra's questioning of Hiei and as to when he was planning on telling her about his Super-Seiyan transformation and instead thought of Keiko waiting for him in bed wearing his white and green pajamas. Well, there was one more thing he had in common with Hiei; both of their women liked men in green.