The park was just what Sagaku needed-grass and sakura trees and benches. A small cart selling some goodies was at the edge, so Sagaku bought herself a smoothie and breathed the fresh air in. a well-trodden dirt bath led to a small wooden bridge. It was in easy eyesight of the vendor. Sagaku went there, leaning on the wooden railing to watch the bright and flashy koi search the murky pond bottom for nibbles.
A couple walked to the bridge from the other side of the path, the one that led further into the park. There were more trees there, forming a well-manicured forest in the heart of the city. Sagaku could hear other people there, the soft conversations of friends and lovers in hushed tones so as not to disturb the natural world. Sagaku yearned to explore that way. Maybe, even, to climb a tree. But no. She'd promised herself that she was going to be smart about this foray.
Another thought occurred to Sagaku, even as she tried to drag her eyes away from the trees and back to the mindless fish. Wouldn't the park-goers be in just as much danger as she would if there were actually demons about? And clearly none of them were screaming or panicking. Nobody here was bothering her, past the hopeful greetings of two teen boys that hadn't seemed to upset when she didn't answer back. Surely it was safe enough to go just a few more steps…
It seemed to Sagaku that she was still having the debate in her mind when the trees loomed over her.
"Baka onna," a sharp voice snapped at her. "You shouldn't be out here."
Sagaku turned, a smile forming on her lips. She recognized that voice well enough. Hiei's angry eyes stared her down. He did not smile back at her.
"I know I shouldn't," Sagaku said meekly. "It's just...I've been away from Japan for so long. I needed to see it, breathe it in. I can't do that from the apartment." She let her smile falter, looking anywhere but at Hiei's face. She'd been thrilled when she saw him yesterday, and hearing his voice just now, because she thought of him as a friend. He clearly didn't feel the same.
"Hn," Hiei snorted. It was his usual sound of disgust. He began walking in the same direction Sagaku's feet had been carrying her-deeper into the trees. Sagaku watched him go warily, waiting for the command to go back to the apartment.
Hiei stopped after a few steps, and turned over his shoulder. The girl wasn't following him. With a start, Sagaku realized what this was: an invitation. Her legs carried her forward quickly and he continued on his path deeper and deeper down the trail. When she would have leaned into him, hoping for the comfort of another's touch, he shot her such a malevolent look that she jumped two whole paces to the side.
It was a silent walk. The stiffness of Hiei's gait suggested he wasn't exactly thrilled about any of it, but Sagaku refused to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. To his surprise, she let him maintain the silence.
Finally, when they'd walked far enough that no other humans had bothered hiking the distance, Hiei let the words fall from his mouth. "Koenma told me you're taking jobs." Hiei didn't sound happy about it.
"Yes," Sagaku said slowly, wondering why Koenma had told Hiei when the two hardly seemed to tolerate each other.
"With me." If possible, Hiei sounded even more displeased.
"With you?" Sagaku's voice squeaked embarrassingly. She cleared her throat. "He didn't mention that to me, just that he'd call when I was needed."
Hiei was silent again, eying Sagaku suspiciously. The surprise in her voice sounded sincere enough. Still, would she have asked Koenma to make Hiei her partner against his own wishes? When he felt for the familiarity of her mind, he was shocked to find that it slid through his metaphorical fingers before he could catch a single thought.
"I felt that," Sagaku said. She narrowed her dark in mild rebuke and tapped the covellite ring on her middle finger. "I have protection from you mind readers now."
Hiei stopped walking and crossed his arms over his chest, facing the frustrating girl. She stopped as well, turning to him and looking for all the world like this was just a stroll in the woods-not a possible confrontation.
"What are the jobs you do like?" she asked. "How hard are they?"
"Easy," he snapped. "I don't need a partner."
When Sagaku opened her mouth to ask another question, or perhaps to argue about partnership, he leaped up to disappear from her view. He didn't want to work with a partner. He didn't want the responsibility of keeping the onna safe, and he really didn't want anyone cutting into his alone time (no matter how much alone time he had). Her laugh followed him from the ground, and he felt her clamber up into the tree.
"You taught me to climb trees," she called to him, "did you expect to lose me that easily?" She laughed again, lightly, and settled onto the branch below him, stretching out languishly and letting her hand dangle down the side. All appearances suggested she was taking a quick snooze. Hiei stayed tense for several minutes, waiting for her to keep talking and pestering him. The silence was pretty resolute, though, so he allowed himself to sink down onto his branch to just enjoy the quiet.
Thoughts of Hiei plagued Sagaku all night. He didn't like her, and of all her friends he was the one who was hardest to be comfortable around. He made no allowances for her need of physical contact. Knots twisted in her stomach; how could Koenma make her partner with him when he so clearly wanted to be miles away from her? A nagging voice in the back of her head tried to point out that he waited with her at the park until she was ready to leave. Wasn't that a statement of sorts? That he at least didn't hate her. Maybe he even tolerated her, as long as she wasn't trying to curl up by him or grab his hand.
Sagaku hugged one of her pillows to her face, smothering her laughter. She'd been home for less than 48 hours and she already missed Shoseki and Mineo. For the last year, it felt like all she'd done was climb all over them, cuddling against their sides and under their arms. Oh, how she'd taken those months of comfort for granted.
When the morning light greeted her, the feeling of dread had disappeared. She could work alone, easily. For now, she would just pretend Hiei wasn't there as much as she could. He would appreciate it, and maybe if she ignored him that urge to snuggle with every freaking living thing would disappear. It was an undignified urge. She was a killer now-or she would be.
Kurama tapped a pen to his class notes absent-mindedly. The day before, Hiei had met him before he left for class in an absolute rage. He was so angry, in fact, there had been heat waves distorting the air around him. In deference to Hiei, Kurama hadn't taken Sagaku's call while he was there but when he played the message Hiei heard. When Hiei growled at Kurama to disregard it, that he'd take care of it, Kurama had no choice but to agree-he had less than twenty minutes to find parking on campus and get to class.
Last night, Hiei had returned to Kurama's house. The rage was still there, but tampered down.
With infinite patience and wheedling, Kurama finally extracted the whole story from Hiei. Hiei thought Koenma was turning him into a glorified babysitter-keeping an eye on Sagaku while Sagaku "worked". Kurama disagreed after careful thought.
"It sounds like Koenma is legitimately concerned about the number of demons that are finding their way here," Kurama reasoned, stuffing his texts and notebook into his bag. "I don't understand what he expects Sagaku to do," Kurama continued in his soft tone, "does he think the stones have made her that much stronger?"
"Hn," Hiei's grunt sounded almost like a laugh, "I'll let you know once I've found out." The girl couldn't possibly be strong. At least not strong enough to truly fight.
"I was planning on taking her out tomorrow to catch up. Join us," Kurama offered. Hiei hadn't given him an answer before leaving. Kurama was left to wonder now if he would see his friend after class.
While Kurama was playing the brief conversation from the night before through his head (instead of writing down the formula the professor was discussing), his friends were in an entirely different situation.
Hiei nearly broke the communicator that beeped in his pocket. Instead, he pulled it out and answered with a growl. Coordinates were listed in the voice of one of the Spirit World cronies Koenma employed and then the call was disconnected.
Biting words flew through Hiei's head. Was he supposed to go to the coordinates provided immediately, or was he expected to collect his "partner" first? To hell with it, he decided. He wasn't a damn babysitter. If the girl couldn't make it there on her own, that wasn't his problem.
To Hiei's surprise, the girl had made it there before him. She was crouched in a corridor where two alleys intersected. Feeling Hiei's heat before she even heard him, she turned and smiled tightly over her shoulder. Hiei curled his lip in disgust-she positively glowed with excitement. But she reeked of nerves.
"One of them is a panther," Sagaku whispered so softly Hiei had to lean forward to hear her. She ducked lower so he could peer around the corner over her head. There were two demons. One was stalking a human female. The other was larger, radiating menace. The female looked at him nervously, and dodged down the other alley.
"Dibs on the kitty," Sagaku said. She straightened so suddenly the top of her head nearly knocked Hiei's jaw. If he'd been a hair slower, she would have.
"Let's go," he said. He spared a split second to wonder how they would manage, especially since the last he had seen she could barely manage a solid kick training with the oaf. There wasn't enough time to worry, though. The larger demon and the panther had both sped up, aiming for the alley the woman had disappeared into.
Sagaku landed directly in front of the panther. His hair was so black that the light reflecting off of it was navy. Although he could nearly pass as human, his eyes were olive with slit pupils. They widened, first with surprise and then with interest as his nostrils flared.
"A little rabbit, all for me?" He bared his teeth in a facsimile of a smile, flashing sharpened teeth. "Are you close to your mating cycle, or should I kill you now and just accept instant gratification?"
Without waiting for Sagaku to attempt a snappy comeback, he pounced. Farther down the alley, Hiei winced. His attention was split, half on the demon in front of him and half on her battle.
Sagaku tossed the panther, exactly like Yusuke had taught her out in the grass one afternoon. The demon spun over her, twisting in the air to land on his feet. Hiei's katana tore through his opponent's throat. Acidic blood hissed against the rough concrete at his feet. He dodged forward, ready to defend the idiotic-
Red light flashed at Sagaku's wrist. Green light radiated near her navel. With all the force she could muster, Sagaku sent her fist flying at the demon's ear. He fell back, crying in pain as he clutched at the angled ear. Blood oozed between his fingers. Sagaku pulled a chopstick from her hair and slid it through the side of the demon's neck while he gaped up at her.
"I don't much care about your gratification," Sagaku said to the corpse.
"You killed him, onna," Hiei said when it looked like she might kick the dead body.
"I was under the impression that was the goal," she said starkly. Then she looked down the alley at the mess his demon left behind. "How do we...you know. Get rid of the bodies?" Sagaku grimaced, looking at the bloody chopstick in her hand. Half her hair was falling over her shoulder now, but she couldn't put it back while it was so disgusting.
"Report to Koenma. He clears it," Hiei told her. "Tell him there's about to be another two down the next alley." He disappeared before Sagaku could respond or attempt to help him. With a sigh, she pulled out her phone and dialed Botan.
When Kurama got home after classes, hoping to change before he met with Sagaku and maybe Kuwabara, Hiei waited for him.
"What's wrong?" Kurama asked immediately, the corner of his eyes wrinkling in concern.
"Nothing." Hiei shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "I had babysitting duty today. The onna killed her opponent."
"Killed…?" Kurama trailed off. Seeing Hiei waiting patiently for the rest of his thought, Kurama said, "I didn't think she could."
Hiei's face twitched, hiding the sneer before it had a chance to form. "Neither did I."
Work from Koenma was not steady or guaranteed. Some days, Sagaku found herself wandering aimlessly around town to cure her boredom. Other days, she harassed Nenriki at the tattoo parlor or sat on campus to wait for Kurama to get out of class so he could tell her about what he was learning. Most of what he learned made no sense to her, but she enjoyed listening to him talk about it all the same. When there was work from Koenma, location and time varied. Inevitably, Hiei would meet her there and leave without her. She was pretty sure Koenma still gave Hiei solo jobs also, but she never had an assignment without the fire demon in tow.
One of the days, when there hadn't been a peep from Koenma for nearly a week, Sagaku stopped by the restaurant she used to work at.
"Sagaku!" the manager called from across the floor. Sagaku smiled and waved in greeting, ignoring the skeptical gaze of some of the diners.
"You don't need any servers at the moment, do you?" Sagaku asked her old boss. The manager looked around. Though it was lunchtime and relatively full, there were only two other servers on the floor.
"You can take some tables, if you want," the manager said after running some quick calculations through her head, "but I can't hire you back full time. We have a pretty full staff."
"That's fine," Sagaku assured her. "Maybe I can just stop by on occasion and if there's work you can just let me know?"
It wasn't a perfect solution, but the manager had liked the peppy young girl (and more than a few regulars had as well), so she agreed.
Sagaku stayed at the restaurant until after nine that day, helping roll silverware and bus tables. It wasn't the type of work she really wanted to do, but at least it was something to keep her busy. Her manager hastily scribbled a check as Sagaku headed out the door, paying her for several hours' worth of work. Weary and over-socialized, but otherwise happy, Sagaku trudged home and up the four flights of steps.
The apartment door had barely swung open to admit Sagaku into the room when Keiko fell on her with a brief hug and then a smack on the arm.
"You're okay!" Keiko sounded oddly angry.
"Of course I am," Sagaku said. She rubbed her arm, glowering at her friend and roommate. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"None of us could reach you," Yusuke told her. He scowled at her, resisting the urge to punch her in the arm. "Way to be a jackass, Sagaku! Way to make us worry!"
Sagaku stared at them, bewildered.
"Where were you?" Keiko demanded, calming down with each breath now that her friend was home unharmed. Hurried footsteps on the stair sounded behind Sagaku, and she stepped fully into the apartment to make way for whoever was behind her. Kuwabara burst into the room behind her. The sound of others behind him made Sagaku wince.
"Urameshi," Kuwabara thundered, "she's right here! What's the deal?"
"Guys!" Sagaku yelled over Yusuke's sputtering. "Calm down! I was just working!"
"Koenma contacted you and not me, onna?" Hiei's voice was seething. He made to confront the girl, but Kurama's arm stopped him.
"Clearly there was a misunderstanding," Kurama said soothingly. "We overreacted, that's all."
Sagaku folded her arms over her chest, ignoring the shiver that ran down her spine.
"I was at the restaurant," Sagaku said sharply. "What did you think happened? The world opened up and swallowed me whole?"
"You haven't answered your phone all day," Yusuke snapped. "Keiko thought you might be with Kurama but he said he hadn't seen you from yesterday. Hiei insisted he hadn't worked with you in ays. Kuwabara was with me. What were we supposed to think?"
"With the demon activity increasing this last year," Kurama added, "we had reason to worry."
Sagaku turned her dark eyes to him, narrowing them in sudden anger. Her chin jerked up in challenge. Not that she was angry at Yusuke, really. It was just the frustration that was pooling inside of her right now.
"Have you forgotten that I am a demon too?" she asked icily. When Yusuke narrowed his eyes back at her, lips pursing in anger, Sagaku sighed and let herself deflate. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to make anyone worry." Patting at her pockets, she realized her phone had disappeared. "I must've lost my phone."
"Idiot," Hiei snarled, spinning to leave. The others stared after him.
"I don't think he likes working with me," Sagaku mused aloud.
"Shorty doesn't like working with anyone," Kuwabara pointed out.
Anger still simmered on the air but it slowly slipped away as everyone's nerves calmed. They ordered takeout since everyone (but Hiei) was there anyway.
After dinner, when they all sat and conversed amiably in the living room, Sagaku crawled into Kurama's lap. He looked startled, but lifted his arms so she could curl up more comfortably against him.
"You don't have to worry about me," Sagaku told her best friend quietly. "I can protect myself now. I learned a lot with Shoseki."
"Friends always worry," he told her.
Happiness fluttered in her stomach-she would never get sick of hearing the word "friend" in relation to any of them.
Sagaku's phone was nowhere to be seen, explaining why no one had been able to get in touch with her. She worried about replacing it, lest Botan or Koenma try to reach her, but it didn't seem to be that big of a deal in the meantime. Her manager at the restaurant promised to keep an eye out for it, though. When it didn't show up for several days, she reluctantly spent some of her hard-earned money on a new one.
Seemingly for no reason, though perhaps one could argue about the full moon or the tides, demons started acting up more and more frequently. There were some assignments where there was only one demon. Hiei usually beat her to the punch (figuratively and literally) on those ones. Teamwork still didn't seem to be something he wanted to fully consider with her.
Then, one day, there were two outbreaks at once. Hiei was sent to one location, and Sagaku to another. She found her nerves were jittering. Never before had she tried to take down a demon without backup in case something went wrong. Luckily, nothing did go wrong (except for an unfortunate hit scratch that left four identical scabs on her left arm).
The surges of demons seemed to be coming in waves, fraying what nerves Hiei or Sagaku had left. Thinking about it later, Sagaku realized this is probably what distracted her from noticing the warning signs.