Author's note: My one review worried that I was too focused on YYH, to the point that this wasn't a crossover. I can only agree that YYH is strong now. The memories are going to start playing a greater role in a few chapters—in connection to a special kind of eyes.
Updates less frequent due to college and real life.
The Kingsword will stand in its scabbard of granite,
The quicksilver forged in the pools of the sky.
A rumor explained by the one who began it.
A boy's hand will grasp it, a man's raise it high.
- Heather Dale, "Kingsword"
Chapter 4: Quicksilver Forged
All children take after their parents, no matter what race.
When it comes time for Hiei to choose a weapon, he is instinctively drawn to blades.
At first, like many children, he enjoys borrowing his father's things; the flapping cloak for a man three times his height and a double-edged sword as long as he is tall. It is only because of his speed that he is able to wear both so effectively.
His father, however, eventually wants his things back permanently. Hiei still enjoys the cloak and sword combination, but eventually sews a cloak his own size from some better-woven cloth they manage to 'liberate' on a rare occasion. Though shorter, it still flutters delightfully when he moves (terrifying one's enemies into making mistakes is always fun), as well as keeping him dry (warmth is a slightly lesser concern, given what he is). As his style grows to rely more and more on speed, Hiei acquires a katana, single edged but lighter and therefore better adapted for his katas.
Not a child's katana either. A man's.
Nobody dares mock him, despite the fact that his current blade is almost as long as he is tall.
Those who try…well, Hiei's always been a quick learner (no he hasn't he doesn't improve fast enough). Anyone who has little stray thoughts taunting him in the back of his mind about his weakness would strive to improve. With Hiei's fire youkai heritage and eidetic memory, improving is inevitable.
Just as well, really. The Makai is a harsh world.
Hiei wouldn't have it any other way.
As he grows older, there is only one incident where he is afraid his family will rid themselves of him. The summer he is ten, when he nearly loses control of his flames in a fit of frustration.
His adoptive father is very angry at that. He takes Hiei off with him, and forces him through exercises in manipulation over one of the biggest deserts Hiei has ever seen, until Hiei has his flames under control even during nightmares.
The nightmares are odd ones. Usually they involve a frantic chase down empty halls of stained paper and scarred stone, a frantic patting of bare feet as he finds body after body, no one alive, and no one he knows, as he keeps searching for people he knows, but finds no one. He doesn't even know why he's so terrified in the dream; he doesn't exactly mind blood, no youkai worth the right to exist minds blood, and Hiei and his not-kin-not-clan-but-still-family revel in it. But that dream—
Enough. It is a dream. He needs to concentrate on the real world.
Weapons is, of course, hardly the only thing he learns. In the school of his raider 'uncles,' Hiei is firmly educated in Battle, Winning, Deception, Highly Expressive Language, Cunning, Ambushing, Searching and Plundering, Interrogation, Reconnaissance, Exploring Another's Anatomy for Pleasurable and Painful Reasons (all theory on the Pleasurable side – for now), Dirty Tricks, and Bloodthirst.
They may have taught him the last one too well.
He begins to seek fights, an addiction as ruthless as cards or dice with high-stakes risk for a gambler. His mother's tear gem is his stake, worn outside his shirt until someone sees the glint and asks him to give it up. He will refuse and run, fast enough for his tattered cape to cease catching on the ground, but never out of sight, just out of reach. Really, it should clue them in that he's playing with them. It's not like his speed is a secret.
But they never notice.
And so, at the last moment, he will stop, turning on his feet and unsheathing his sword in the same instant.
Three eyeblinks later, his quarry for the day is on the ground, in pieces. Sometimes still twitching with the last command the brain sent the muscles, not quite caught up to their own death.
And Hiei only has as much blood on him as he chooses.
What need is there to search for a monster in the dark, if Hiei becomes the monster? What need to search out an unknown village, a place that was part of him for only a moment, no matter what they did to him? Why on earth would he abandon his family and a life that he loves so much for that? The ice-women might be fools to his mind, but they are not hypocrites or traitors-they made him no promises, only served him and themselves according to their own rules. He can respect that even if the rules are ridiculous. Why should he care about being evicted from a home he didn't have enough time to grow attached to?
He doesn't even dream about the mother who fought for him vainly anymore.
Bloodletting is his favorite childhood game, one he often plays and always wins. It never occurs to him that not everyone might be so pleased with his habits, especially as the frequency rises. He doesn't realize there is a problem until the day he returns to camp and all suddenly goes quiet.
He can only gape as they scurry into the cave. His 'father' is the last one in, sparing barely a glance over his shoulder before letting go of the cloth barrier. And it is only when the curtain drops, the cave goes quiet, and all that is left outside is a little bundle full of the few objects he has claimed for himself and supplies for a few days, that he realizes it has happened again.
He has unknowingly shifted from a part of the group to the outside threat. From 'us' to 'them.'
A distant corner of his mind (the bit that isn't quite consumed by shock) finds this humorous, that a group of bloodthirsty mercenaries have apparently decided they have had their fill of blood, at least by his blade. He, who was one of them, had gotten too bloodthirsty for a group of battle-hungry youkai! He hasn't even reached his first heat cycle!
Yet he cannot be angry. He has just become what he is, and that is apparently too different for them to accept. At least they were polite about it; they didn't have to leave the supplies along with his things. Hell, they could have simply told him to his face he wasn't wanted. Instead, they chose to let actions speak.
It hurts, yes, but it is a clean pain. And he will not slaughter them for being who they are. Not when they have not provoked him.
His 'father' knows him well. Apart from participation in the group raids, Hiei does not seek out fights; he just lures them in.
There is a rock next to his bag, flat and narrow, sticking upright in the ground. He does not know why he pauses, flipping it flat on the ground, before hoisting his bag and turning away, trudging into a future he has no way to predict the course of.
Even as a child I found tremendous pleasure in spilling my enemies' blood. Their screams of agony were my music box. Once I realized my mother's frozen teardrop was highly valuable, I would purposefully wear it in clear sight of everyone, hoping their greed would entice them to challenge me, thus giving me the opportunity to take another life. I suppose I wanted to prove that my mother's people were right to abandon me. For years I spent every waking moment looking for my next kill.
I started to wonder if finding my mother and the glacial village mattered at all. It wasn't long before my former life started to become a faint shadow on the outskirts of my consciousness.
…The bandits, who I had come to look upon as a family, soon grew weary of my murderous habits. And once again, I found myself shunned.
In my solitude I found myself gazing into my mother's stone for hours, finding I would be taken over by a strange calm. And the desire to find the home of my birth began to churn up inside me again.
- Hiei, YuYu Hakusho, Episode 100: The Secret of the Jagan