Disclaimer: Kenshin does not own the Yuu Yuu Hakusho characters (they are the property of Togashi Yoshihiro et al), and does not make any money from said characters. Don't sue.
What Kenshin does own, however, are all the original characters in this work. Any attempt to "borrow" these characters will be met with the katana, or worse.
The events in Idiot Beloved take place shortly after the Dark Tournament; it sequel Firebird Sweet directly follows that timeline, and this particular sidefic occurs a few years later.
Title: Death by Hiei C5: Terrible Swift Sword
Author: JaganshiKenshin
Genre: Action/Adventure, Humor
Rating: M/T (See my Profile for explanation)
Summary: Kurama might finally get what he wants---but there's a price tag attached.
A/N: At the Dark Tournament, Koto appeared to be quite taken with Bui, complimenting him on his smooth voice, but here we see why he was such a formidable opponent. My accompanying sketches are up on LJ, and as always, thanks for reading---please review! ^^
Duck, and cover!
Death by Hiei (C5: Terrible Swift Sword)
by
Kenshin
Bui's ax was a fearsome weapon. Yet despite its razor- edged blade, five-foot handle, and length of heavy chain---Hiei had stopped it multiple times at the Dark Tournament, without even blinking.
But now---
Even as Shay-san's warning echoed off the hills, the ax came whistling at us, spinning like a discus.
Below us, a little to the left of our boulder, the gunman froze in fear.
"Get down!" I pushed Shay-san flat against the rock-ledge.
Turning, Hiei leapt into the air, made a grab for the ax, came up short.
And Bui's massive ax hurtled toward its target.
The amphitheater effect of the arena had carried the sound of Hiei's and Bui's voices to us---but it had also, as I'd guessed, acted to carry some of our words to them.
The gunman didn't have time to dodge. The ax struck, neatly slicing him in two, as though he was a lemon.
Shay-san gave me a startled glance. "Is it---"
"Don't look," I warned, but Shay-san stuck her head around for a glimpse. When she flopped back down at my side, her expression was frozen, her complexion tinged with that same peculiar shade of green it had taken on back in the makeshift operating theater.
"Told you not to look."
Hiei stopped in mid-stride. Inch by inch, he cranked himself around again to face Bui. "Your own man?"
"He was a fool," said Bui. "I never wanted to fight you at anything less than a hundred percent."
Hiei folded his arms. "So it was you who sent those low-level demons after me."
"Evidently they didn't rate the use of your new weapon." With a grim smile, Bui materialized another ax. "I'll just have to find out about it here and now."
"Stay down," I hissed in Shay-san's ear.
Nevertheless she wriggled free of my restraining hand to inch forward and peer at the battlefield.
Women never listen to me.
"Your minion," said Hiei. "What you mentioned just now is true. Thanks to his itchy trigger finger, I caught a slug."
Bui's grim smile turned to a puzzled frown. "So I heard. What's your point?"
Hiei unfolded his arms, spread out his hands. "I'm saying that in my current physical condition---there's no way I can defeat you."
I gasped.
"What's more," Hiei went on, "I won't be able to shoot the Dragon either."
"Then why are you smiling like that?" Bui countered.
Hiei may have been smiling for all I knew. But gone was his Dark Tournament smirk, as well as its accompanying swagger.
Perhaps this was due to the significant personal changes Hiei had undergone since our first meeting. However, giving up on a fight, virtually conceding beforehand---this was unlike any Hiei I knew, past, present, or future.
And Shayla Kidd is no fool. She had drawn similar conclusions, judging by the way her knuckles whitened on the rock. "It's premature to count Hiei out," I told her, mostly to comfort her and convince myself.
"Bui!" Hiei said. "You've obviously spent your time training. I can sense it. But I've had some spare time, too, and I've learned a bit of philosophy. Live by the sword, die by the sword. One day I will fall in battle. But that day is not today."
"Why, you---!" Bui was clearly incensed, his teeth clenched, the purple scar livid against his pale brow. "All you have to do is fight me, not pontificate!"
Hiei did not respond. Both fighters showed resignation. Whose resolve would prove the stronger?
Bui's aura may have been more powerful than Hiei's, but his body language---the slight hunching of the shoulders, the tension in his legs---spoke of desperation, which could prove far more deadly than any cool-headed battle strategy.
Hiei's body language, for all that I knew him well, was harder to read. He said nothing, did nothing.
However, Bui fired up his aura so he again rose and hovered above the ground. "Fight me!" Quick as electricity, he hit the ground, dashed forward, and attacked, going for Hiei with pure martial arts, a cluster of spinning kicks and straight-arm punches, and though Hiei tried to avoid the attacks, many a blow connected.
And Hiei gave way.
At my side, Shay-san gave a little cry.
As Bui advanced, Hiei backed up, moving away from us, his breathing heavy, his words coming in gasps. "You haven't ... lost a step, Bui. Maybe even gained ... some."
Hiei was facing us now, but our view was partially blocked by Bui's huge back. Then we saw Hiei. We saw him because he had turned, and was running toward the trees.
Bailing on a fight? Impossible!
Yet that is what Hiei did. He fled.
"Coward." Bui did not pursue him. "I would have expected no less from a traitor like you, living in the human world."
Panting, Hiei stopped, close to the treeline directly across from us. He wiped blood from his mouth with a forearm, turned his head, spat. "Interesting exercise," he wheezed, "but you have nothing to prove. Why not head for the showers?"
Nothing to prove. Interesting choice of words.
Bui wasn't even breathing hard. "As soon as I have your head on a pike."
Hiei snorted.
"Again you mock me." Bui's fists clenched. "And Urameshi Yuusuke robbed me of the chance to fight Toguro again."
"Then you should challenge him, not me. Want me to phone Urameshi for you?"
"But it's you who did not respect me enough to finish me off, so you do see my point."
"Not really."
Bitterness twisted the air between them. Bui had only suffered defeat twice---once by Younger Toguro, once by Hiei. Both men had spared him.
"Look," Hiei went on. "I don't have the stamina to run around all day. This is your final warning."
"If you won't attack then at least defend yourself! You've been making mincemeat out of lower demons. If you're afraid to face a high-level one, then this high-level demon doesn't mind adding an incentive." With that, Bui materialized another ax, whirled around, and flung it straight at us.
This time, there was no minion to get in the way. Shay-san and I both dove, flattening ourselves on the ledge of the boulder. This time, ax struck rock, neatly slicing off the boulder's tip, missing us by inches.
"That could have been our heads!" Shay-san exclaimed, as the massive ax sailed on to decimate the woods.
"Next time, it will be," Bui assured us.
I risked another look at the battlefield. "You had to pull that trick, didn't you?" sighed Hiei. "All right, Bui. If that's the way you want to play it." His feet slid a little apart.
Here it comes, I thought. Hiei's new attack!
But all Hiei said was, "I am authorized to bust you to Koenma for invading the human world. He'll deport you to Makai."
"Soldier of the boundary," whispered Shay-san. 'Back when I met Hiei,' she had said, 'that's what I called him.'
Soldier of the boundary. Cop.
"Don't you mock me again!" snapped Bui.
Hiei shrugged. "Or we can do this the hard way."
A change came over Bui. I would almost have called it a sense of peace, of satisfaction. "At last, you're taking this seriously." Bui materialized another ax.
"Fine," said Hiei. "Then I'll give you what you've been begging for. But don't say I didn't warn you."
In a quite leisurely fashion, his back to the treeline, Hiei made his stand. A gust of wind ripped at his hair and sleeked his shirt. Still I felt no rise in his battle power.
In silence, Hiei raised his sword arm---his Dragon arm, with its long black gauntlet. His fingers extended. His gaze never left Bui. He made no other move, made not a sound. Just that upraised arm, as though he were about to referee a foot race.
Is that it? I thought, That's all there is to the new attack? I could admit to a sense of disappointment. Was this new attack, then, nothing more than a variation of the Dragon?
Yet Hiei had not peeled his gauntlet. And he'd just admitted he could not shoot the Dragon.
"It's coming." Shay-san got into a crouch, neatly tucking the plugs into her ears, then tugging my vest. "Get ready."
But I did not put in my ear plugs. Not yet.
There was something the matter with the air. No rise in Hiei's battle power was causing this... thickening, this gathering of clouds, though the sky was already a flat unyielding gray. The wind brought the scent of danger, riding on a hint of music that spoke of white fire.
Unable to rein in my curiosity, I stretched over the part of the rock that had been sliced flat, to get a better view.
Hiei had not moved, nor Bui. The wind howled, and the sky darkened to cold iron
Close to Hiei's upraised hand came a flash of greenish light that did not quite blind me, but burned its afterimage into my vision in a long red-orange slash. I blinked.
In Hiei's hand---
A sword.
It was not a Japanese sword. No katana, this weapon, but of Western design, straight rather than curved, roughly the same length as Hiei's usual sword, but easily twice the thickness.
The sword's gleam hinted at a construction of pure platinum. Both handguard and pommel were far more elaborate than a Japanese sword's: scrolled and filigreed, fashioned of the same material as the blade. The blade itself swelled to a greater thickness just before tapering to the rather blunt-looking point.
Its name was inscribed along the blade in razor lines of green: Tenchi no Hi, Flame of Heaven and Earth.
"G-get us out of here." Shay-san's teeth were chattering, yet still I hesitated.
Bui laughed. "Is that all you've got? Another sword?"
How could Bui not feel this danger? There is enough demon in me, in this Youko-Minamino fusion, to be slightly sickened by the power that was growing, gathering itself to the sword. I am human enough to tolerate Holy Water with impunity, and the touch of a Rosary holds no terrors for me, but this---
"Very well, then---ax versus sword!" Bui pointed the ax at Hiei. "And don't dare take this lightly!" He charged, his battle aura glowing around him, footsteps skimming the sand like he was Mercury himself.
At the Tournament, Hiei had managed to turn Bui's own power against him. But as Bui speed-skated toward him, a replay of that feat seemed impossible.
Hiei made no attempt to dodge the attack, nor to launch one of his own. He simply stood sword on high, waiting.
Shayla Kidd grabbed my arm, hard. "Goggles!"
"Right." This time I also jammed in the earplugs. I wanted to see the attack, but I had given Hiei my word that I would get Shay-san to safety. Crouching, I signaled her to climb aboard, then gathered myself to spring from the rock.
But curiosity got the better of me.
At the last minute, like Lot's wife, I looked back. I didn't quite turn into a pillar of salt.
Bui's impressive charge carried him toward Hiei, ax parallel to earth, swinging in great horizontal arcs that promised to cleave Hiei in twain, torso from legs. Yet Hiei continued standing perfectly still. Bui was forty feet away, twenty.
And though Hiei made no move, something changed. A tiny spark of white flame appeared, danced at the tip of Hiei's sword, then rapidly expanded until it became beating wings of fire.
Trembling, Shay-san pressed her head against my back. I knew she was thinking: Get out of here---now!
Hiei's voice rang through the arena: "Sword of the Archangel!"
And in a swath of white fire, Hiei swung the sword in an arc of its own, to thrust the blade---not into Bui, but the ground at his own feet.
I thought I heard the faint singing of crystalline voices.
Then, a blast of thunder. A dome of Holy Fire appeared where sword struck earth.
Of course. Hiei's motif is fire. Fire is light. He can see Holy Fire---he's mastered its use?
The wind reached hurricane force. The sky turned to slate-tinted ice. The bubble of Holy Fire ballooned to 20 feet in diameter, glowing, iridescent, a 'pearl of great price.'
Its hidden power, barely leashed, raised gooseflesh all over my body. Still gripping me, Shay-san trembled like a leaf.
Bui was upon him, Hiei encased in the bubble when he released its power.
The explosion blew the plugs from my ears and tumbled us down the slanting face of the rock. I could not right myself, could not find my balance, could not resist gravity.
We fell.
Something slammed me amidships, turned me, knocked Shay-san loose; but I felt her clutch my sleeves and I managed to get a grip on one of her wrists. Still we flew, skidded along dirt and branches and rocks and finally rammed into something solid, I knew not where or what, driven by the force of Hiei's attack.
For a moment I couldn't tell whether I was alive or dead. Then pain gave rise to common sense: If I'm dead, my ribs wouldn't hurt.
When sight and hearing are scrambled, smell and touch are amplified. I felt the warmth of a body close to mine; the resin scent of pine needles was everywhere...
...and then someone removed the scorched goggles from my face, lifted my chin, and I could see, though just barely.
Shay-san's face was scratched and bruised, but she was alive. My eyes stung, burned, watered; I raised myself on one elbow to look all round.
We had fetched up against a towering pine, somewhere off the forest trail. The needles it had shed over the years formed a deep soft carpet that, thankfully, cushioned our fall.
She knelt before me and I peered at her, unable to hear for the thunder in my ears, but I was able to read Shayla Kidd's moving lips:
--Can you see well enough to get to him?
Hiei! Of course---Shay-san was not strong enough to carry him away in the best of times, and she was cradling her left wrist as if it hurt.
"Are you all right?" I had no idea whether I shouted or whispered.
She nodded, far too vigorously.
I got painfully to my feet. The wind had died, and the air felt dry. If birds were singing, I could not hear them.
Even knowing she was not all right, I had to complete my mission.
I left her huddled against the tree and picked my dizzy way through the forest trail to the battlefield, not knowing what I would find.
At last the trees parted to reveal the arena. I paused, hoping that what I feared had not come to pass.
The sand was still there. But at the far end of the arena lay a lone black spot.
So I can help you field-dress the corpse, she'd said.
I shut my watery eyes a moment.
I had known Hiei was in poor shape, known Bui powerful and desperate. But I had never really believed, until now, that Hiei would win the battle---and lose his life: Karasu, but this time the wrong man fell.
You may leave the Dark Tournament, but it never leaves you.
Heart sinking, I made for the black spot. My own footsteps mocked me: Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I would not think about what it might mean---not just yet. But I had to retrieve him, no matter what.
The trees closest to the fight had been blown back, leaning now like weary strap-hangers. Miraculous that any trees were standing at all.
Still unable to see well, and with great trepidation, I reached the black area on the ground, then held my breath to examine what lay there.
Hiei. How small he looked, crumpled in a heap in the middle of what appeared to be a black lake 10 feet in diameter.
He was still breathing.
I slumped in relief. The sky had lightened to pale gray; the air was warming. Now to take him with me.
Even if my vision had been clear, it would have been a slippery job, for this was no pool of water, but as I discovered, a disk of black glass. And slick as it was, it was also hot, as though still molten. I inched my way across its surface, heat rising even through the soles of my hiking boots. After many anxious moments, I knelt at Hiei's side.
Some of his garments had been shredded in the blast, but apart from a slight reddening of his exposed skin, he appeared unhurt, though his breathing seemed a bit fast. With his eyes shut, head turned to one side, he looked almost tranquil.
Now I understood his plan, and gave silent thanks.
Hiei had not been running away from Bui. He had been drawing him as far from our boulder as possible.
I glanced about. The strike zone was circular---rather like the form in which Yukina could use her ice attacks. I wondered whether this pattern was inherent in the sword itself, or if it was simply a factor of Hiei's Kourime heritage.
Not a trace of Bui remained---nor his bisected minion. And of the Flame of Heaven and Earth there was no sign either.
I spoke to Hiei, though I knew he couldn't hear me. "I suppose one of these days I'll find out where you kept it."
Sliding one hand beneath his shoulders and another beneath his knees, I attempted to rise.
I had expected to feel Hiei's usual solidity, but I was shocked: he was all but weightless. Overbalancing, I fell to one knee on the slippery lake of glass, still uncomfortably warm.
What sort of magic could cause this change?
I tried to lift him again, and almost fell a second time. Hiei may be heavy, but not this heavy. Someone or something was playing havoc upon the laws of physics.
I could barely lift him at all, let alone stand. Was some peculiarity of the strike zone itself making me weak, human-demon fusion that I am?
I shot a watery glance far back at the pine tree where Shay-san waited. How on earth would I lug Hiei there if I couldn't even lift him?
I was reminded again why it's usually Kuwabara who carries him. But I refused to ask an injured girl for assistance.
Sighing, I knelt, placed Hiei back down onto the black glass. I would have to summon another Thrashvine, tie him like a pork roast, and pull him along the ground.
And then, even in my deafened state, I heard the raucous blast of a horn.
If it had been the sound of Gabriel's trumpet, I would not have been surprised. Getting shakily to my feet, putting myself between Hiei and the sound, I saw----
The Cavalry had arrived.
(To be concluded: Will Hiei ever come to?)
-30-