AN: From this point on is where the story is more heavily edited; the deeper into the story you get, the more deviation you'll find from the original around 7-8 years ago :)

From thereon, everything was hectic. The girls wouldn't scream and fight (it just wasn't polite), but they were snippy and clung together like saran wrap until even Botan was ready to scream with frustration. If there were any more tears in the room, Kurama spared a thought, they would need to build a new ark. It took over an hour to get Koenma's group to leave, and when Jin showed up to escort his four, the waterworks started all over again. It wasn't until Genkai and Yukina arrived that the girls stopped sobbing (though there was still a fair amount of sniffling). Even then, it was only the old woman's fierce scolding that did it.

Finally, when it was only their team and the last of the girls, driving in a darkened van to yet a new location, Yusuke heaved a sigh of relief. Where before there had been chaos and crying (the more ghastly of the two, surely), now there were only the sounds of wheels on the road and Kuwabara struggling to get the ancient radio started.

Kurama and Hiei arrived separately at the safehouse, securing the area before the van was near. That night, Kuwabara sat on the wooden floor amongst the four girls. Sagaku watched him wearily. There was still a streak of blood splatter from the demon, dried and cracking in a thin line from her forehead to cheekbone.

"You don't have to be sad," the kind-hearted man told Sagaku and her forlorn sisters. "You're going to seem them all again. It's just for a little while."

"It's still sad," Sagaku said. Her dark eyes were watery, though no tears fell. Ririshii shook in her grip, but Tarento and Iwaku just leaned against her silently.

"You guys are close," Yusuke grumbled. He eyed the younger girls and then sighed. "But for some reason it's louder when there are only four of you. How do you manage that?" He knelt besides Ririshii, chucking her chubby chin lightly until she giggled weakly up at him, blinking her pink eyes clear of wetness.

"Why are you always so quiet?" Kuwabara asked. "You only talk to us when it's just you."

"Well...it's not polite." Sagaku shrugged. Tarento giggled into Sagaku's shoulder, burying her face. It was the first noise she'd made since they were separated from the others.

"You're talking now," Kuwabara pointed out.

"I won't make a good breeder, everyone says so. I didn't take after Mama enough, not like Tarento." Sagaku shrugged, looking a little bashful as she glanced at her sisters. "Papa won't get a good bid for me regardless, so he isn't as hard on me as the others."

"A bid? That's so...feudal. Wouldn't you get pissed if you had to marry someone you never met before?" Yusuke stood back up, leaning against the wall.

Iwaku hissed in displeasure, finally speaking up. "Papa won't pick bad men," she told them sternly. Despite her tone, she kept her blue eyes firmly on the floor, tugging Ririshii to stand before her. Though they shared a father, she could never be as bold or improper as Sagaku.

Sagaku sent her sisters to one of the bedrooms shortly thereafter. She wanted to know more about what was going to happen, and the men seemed unlikely to discuss it before such young ears. While the girls agreed to take the bedroom, they did insist on sharing one bed. Sagaku agreed to their terms, and assured them that she would retire to bed in just a few minutes as well.

When it was just her and the four men, she hoped to ask questions. Instead, Yusuke and Kuwabara fired one question after another at her. Apparently, the lives of Hanshoku was of dire interest, despite their snorts of disbelief (and disapproval) at times. Kurama sipped tea, listening quietly-both to the three talkers and to Hiei who supplied a running commentary in his head. He had to smile at some of Hiei's responses-it had been a long time since the demons spent so much time together. He'd forgotten how acerbic the shorter demon could be at times.

Finally, when her voice was raspy with sleep, Sagaku made her escape to the bedroom having learned nothing as she'd meant. She barely had time to lay her head on the pillow and wrap her arms around her sisters before sleep was claiming her. The last thought that flitted through her head was of her family. Downstairs, Hiei relayed this to Kurama.

"They're an odd group," Kurama observed. His fingers twisted fleetingly through his hair, pressing lightly against the stem of a rose hidden there. "Not much is known about warrens. They occur so infrequently."

"They're kind of cool, though." Kuwabara looked up from where he wrestled with Yusuke. "It's like talking to someone from a different country."

"They may as well be," Yusuke grunted. "They're from the Makai."

Hiei smirked, watching the fools slam each other into the floor. With none the wiser, he slipped out of the room and took to the trees to patrol the property. It was quiet outside, and remained so throughout the night.

It took nearly a full week for the girls to get used to living apart. After that week, when even Iwaku who was the stingiest could bear the stillness no longer, Kurama suggested an outing. Eager to take their minds off worry for their sisters, the girls agreed.

Sagaku grimaced as she forced her legs into the jeans. They were just as rough as she had imagined, and so tight they pressed the flesh of her thighs uncomfortably. She definitely preferred her loose, worn, dully skirt. The bra was even worse, binding her already small breasts tightly to her ribs. Despite that, she did like the soft tank top that was a bright shade of green she'd never seen before-greener even than Kurama's eyes. Her sister's were dressed in various bright shades as well, yellow, blue and purple.

"Where are we going?" Tarento asked eagerly, grabbing on to Kuwabara's hand. The giant man had taken a liking to the girls, and Tarento in particular loved listening to his jokes and stories.

"The movies," Kurama told them with a smile. Ririshii bit her lip, and reached up to hold onto Kurama's sleeve. He smiled down at the white-haired youngster. It took some getting used to, but all of them had experienced it, except Hiei whose scowl could keep them all at bay. The girls seemed to require almost constant contact with someone else in order to be comfortable.

"Like on the TV box?" Iwaku asked, pressing herself to Sagaku's side.

"Yes, like on the television," Kurama turned his smile on the fourteen year old. She returned it tentatively.

"I like the...television," she admitted to her older sister. Sagaku tweaked her nose.

Keiko joined them at the theater, surprised when Ririshii transferred her affections to her instead. With one hand in Keiko's, and the other in Yusuke's, she led the way to the line, chattering excitedly. Yusuke wasn't sure he would ever want children, but he did love Keiko and her consternation at the young girl was amusing. Someday, if Koenma would allow him to live in peace and he could ignore his responsibilities in Makai, he would ask her to marry him. Maybe. If the mood struck him. Of course, his advisors in Makai would throw a fit.

Sagaku was the only one not holding on to someone else in the movies. She sat between Kuwabara and Yusuke but was hesitant to put her skin against someone who was not her sister. Plus, Tarento and Iwaku were cuddled together two seats down, gasping in unison whenever something surprised them on the screen. And Ririshii refused to sit anywhere except between Yusuke and Keiko, much to Yusuke's chagrin.

The movie ended up being a bit dull, but watching the people around them when the lights were back on was exciting enough for Sagaku. She was still watching everyone leaving their seats when Yusuke had to take a call.

"What?" Yusuke yelled into the phone. He tried to plug his other ear with a finger, pressing the phone closer to him. His eyes were haunted when he hung up.

"Back to the safehouse," he snapped. "Now."

Hiei waited at the safehouse. From the highest branch he could perch on he watched the van skid to a stop near the door. The girls piled out, with Yusuke and the others immediately on the defensive. Danger, then.

"What's the emergency?" Kuwabara asked once the girls were locked safely in their room.

"Genkai said Usagi...went into heat." Yusuke gritted his teeth, hoping the blush would leave his cheeks before the others noticed. Kuwabara stared at his friend dumbly, but Kurama's eyes widened and even Hiei had to admit to a moment of surprise.

"Does she think the other girls will also go into heat?" Kurama asked. If what he'd heard of Hanshoku was true, it was lucky Usagi was surrounded only by women at the temple.

"It's a possibility," Yusuke said. "Usagi said it was her first time, but Mazui and Sagaku are only about a year younger than her. We'll have to watch for the signs."

The four men stared at the closed door that separated them from their charges.

"We'll be fine," Kurama finally said. He hoped to reassure his friends, if nothing else.

"Hn," Hiei grunted. "Better be safe, fox. You know what will happen if the girl does."

Kurama met Hiei's eyes, acknowledging his statement. It wouldn't be safe for any of the girls to go in heat close to male demons.

"Genkai said Sagaku is probably too young," Yusuke said.

Silence fell in the room. Probably too young was not the same as definitely too young.

Over the next few days, as mind-numbing boredom sank back in (when exactly was it going to be safe for the girls to go back home?), Yusuke and Kuwabara introduced the girls to some card games. Even Kurama joined in from time to time, when he wasn't studying or going to class. Sagaku spent a fair amount of time sneaking around after Kurama who subtly left his books out for her. She read them voraciously, always hungry for more information to sate her neverending curiosity. She read a lot during those days. Never had she imagined the real world could be so amazing, so different. Even the men were different, shaped different. They looked nothing like her Papa.

It was that thought that dragged her gaze up from the history book (ninenkai history, not makai), to watch the four men and her sisters. Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara sat on the floor with her younger sisters playing with cards. Hiei sat on the window sill, hand draped lazily against the wall. Outside, rain splattered heavily against the window-probably the only thing that kept the fire demon inside.

Kuwabara was easily the tallest person in the room, almost twice the height of Sagaku when they stood side by side. To be fair, she was considered pretty short, even for her breed. The orange, curling hair that fell on his forehead was in stark contrast to his pale skin. Though he had a squared forehead and jawline, his high cheekbones broke up the otherwise monotonous lines of his face. His shoulders were wide, too, Sagaku mused. Almost wide enough for her to sit on one. His chest was flat and tapered into thin hips, leading to terribly long, large legs. Of all of them, he looked the most unusual too her, so mundanely human.

Yusuke, who just now punched Kuwabara's shoulder for stealing his card, didn't look at all like Kuwabara though he too was somewhat human. His face was rounder than Kuwabara's, though it also had rigid, male lines. His hair was dark, flattened back by some sort of gel. Everything about him leant to his rough-and-tumble projection. His eyes ruined the facade though, dark and expressive and beautiful.

She also studied Kurama, though not as long since she had been following close behind him for days now. He was pretty, with soft features. She suspected his body was as hard as the other men's, but it was hidden beneath well-tailored pants and jackets - they showed he was fit and tall, but hid any definition that might have been there. His hair would take any attention off his body anyways, she decided. It was long and thick with light waves, the color shifting from bright, almost unnatural red in flourescent lights, to dark crimson in normal lighting. Even his eyes were almost unnatural, the clearest green she'd ever seen except for when the spring grass was unfurling. It made Bourei's green eyes look positively muddy.

Sagaku snuck a quick glance at Hiei. When he didn't look at her, she let her eyes linger. He reminded her a little of her sisters, being short and very slender with a rounded face. He also covered so much of his body in layers of fabric, he could have passed as one of them in the darkness of the warren. Despite that, he was the hardest she realized. He didn't converse with them, not even Ririshii at her most inoffensive. He was always watching, always ready to react, his dark crimson eyes catching even the briefest changes of light outside. He also had the prettiest hair she'd ever seen, being darker than midnight and thicker than her own. It was even shiny. Sagaku twisted some of her brown hair in front of her face, narrowing her eyes at it to see if it, also, was shiny. She didn't see Hiei's crimson eyes narrow a glare at her.

"Shrimp!" Kuwabara cried from the kitchen, where he'd briefly escaped. "You ate all my effing ice cream again!"

Hiei bristled, lifting his fingers to his belt. Kuwabara stormed into the living room, wagging an empty carton at Hiei like a newspaper at a puppy. Hiei glared, wrapping his fingers around his katana's hilt.

"Watch it," he sneered.

"Stop eating my stuff!" Kuwabara demanded, crumbling the carton in his hand. "And stop leaving the empty containers in the freezer!"

The katana came out, whistling lightly against the sheath. Iwaku pulled Ririshii and Tarento to her, abandoning the cards on the ground. Sagaku stood, ready to lead her sisters away from the argument, when Kuwabara charged.

Hiei and Kuwabara clashed together. They dodged and collided with so much force the entire house shook. The sisters, trapped across the room from Sagaku, fled to their bedroom. Sagaku watched the fight hungrily, tracking the speed and the movements. When the moves slowed enough that she could study them, she tried copying them where she stood. Oh, if only she could fight like that-with speed and grace and control. Despite their anger, the boys didn't hurt each other (not really, anyway, though the bruises would be quite colorful).

The fight was broken up by the arrival of a demon, far from the house but near enough that the spirit energy was clearly felt. Kuwabara and Hiei left to take care of it, leaving Yusuke and Kurama with the bodies they had to protect.

For several days after that, there were short flurries of action. Luckily, it never took more than two of the men at a time, so the girls were never left unprotected. Unfortunately, or fortunately dpending on how you looked at it, the demons were always intercepted far from the walls of the house. Sagaku wasn't able to get another look at a real fight. She practiced what she could remember from Hiei and Kuwabara's fight when she could, but she wasn't even sure if she had the moves right.

One of those days, after Kuwabara and Yusuke left to protect the safehouse once more, Sagaku crept into the kitchen to watch Kurama cook. Though he seemed focused on the task at hand, his eyes frequently turned to the window to watch for his friends. Sensing Sagaku behind him, he turned and smiled at her, stepping aside so she could watch him cook. He even gestured for her to take the salt and pepper, to help when it was time.

The front door opened and the two fighters loudly entered the front room, arguing. Sagaku heard the girls pestering them, wanting to know if they were hurt or if they'd gone anywhere else.

"I'm glad you're patient," Sagaku admitted to Kurama. Hiei, who slipped into the room to escape the noise from the younger girls, claimed his usual seat at the window. The youngest breeder had taken to grabbing onto his hand if he passed too close, and he had no idea how to loosen her grip without hurting her.

"Why's that?" Kurama asked Sagaku. He smiled encouragingly at the girl, and then winked at his friend who was scowling out the window though he clearly listened.

"Because we know nothing," Sagaku said. She gestured around her. "If I had to explain to someone how to live in the warren as much as you've explained to me about living her, I think I'd go insane. You never get angry when I ask questions." He was her favorite one to talk to, in fact, though she found Yusuke to be very amusing and Kuwabara would sometimes say the sweetest things.

Truly, Kurama thought, she was the most talkative of the four breeders in the house. She never seemed to run out of things to demand explanations for. The kitchen was quiet for a few minutes as Kurama gestured for Sagaku to take over the cooking. He leaned back against the counter, watching her.

Sagaku, however, had already found something else to demand her attention. Hiei appeared to be zoned out, staring blindly into the trees. Sagaku's voice startled him out of his brief moment of peace.

"Can you show me how to climb a tree?" she asked. Hiei glanced up, wondering how Kurama would respond, but found that her dark eyes were focused on him instead. "I see you in them," she told him. "I've always wondered what it would feel like to be that high. Is it like flying?"

"Hn," Hiei grunted. He didn't really have a response-not a polite one. He didn't mind her company (well, he kind of did, but compared to four years ago he could deal with others much better), but he wasn't going to show someone how to do something so...mundane.

Before Hiei could come up with a response, one that was sure to wipe the look from Sagaku's eager eyes, Yusuke crowed from the doorway. "Ha! Shorty's got himself a girlfriend!"

The muscle beneath his eyebrow twitched, and Hiei glared at the Spirit Detective who was, in a fit of maturity that would benefit a pre-schooler, pointing and laughing. Hiei jerked his shoulder into the idiot's gut as he stalked from the room. Still, he had to pause out of everyone's sight to control the jerking of his shoulders. He was not laughing, he told himself. But still, the questions the girl was now firing off at the Spirit Detecting were amusing. A little.

"What's a girlfriend? How do you know he's got one? Do you have one? What about Kurama and Kuwabara?" Sagaku paused for a second while Yusuke sputtered. "What about us? Do we get them too?"