I realize after the thunder brothers' episode that Hiten was cut in two, and then crumbled to dust. However, for the purpose of this story he will be un-dustified.

I also know that in the anime, Manten had his forehead torn out by Hiten. The following scene is adapted to the manga, where Manten had his heart torn out by Hiten.

--

How long had it been?

Days?

Weeks?

Years?

God. His chest burned like hellfire.

All sense of time left him as he lay there among the rocky terrain, rain-soaked and indifferent. He looked at his fingers, bloated at the joints and calluses beginning to form in his palm where he gripped at his blade. His father's blade that was passed down to him when he passed away now lay in two pieces on the ground, useless and pathetic.

He put his heart into a small twitch. His left fingers curled up into his palm, then relaxed and stretched back outwards. He had no energy left to move, to breathe. He replayed his whole life and how he had made a mistake.

Hiten wished Ayame were here. If she were here to mock him and pummel his face into the dirt, he might feel less bad for what he had done to her.

A few months after he took his father's place as chief, it wasn't another tribe of demons, but a forest fire that was started ironically by a lightning and thunderstorm that wiped out his tribe. The neighbouring kappa tribe was nearby, and with their help in carrying water in their hollow skulls and bringing it upstream to smush the flames, the fire would not have been such a big deal. But a truce that went wrong irritated the kappa tribe to such an extent that they refused to lend any help whatsoever. Hiten had his chariot shoes, Manten had his raincloud; the rest of the tribe had nothing.

He felt like a failure. First he had let Ayame down when she needed help the most; now followed by her, he was letting his entire tribe down. But they weren't going to get out of this alive, so none of them would be able to live to tell the tale. He wanted to curl up into a ball and die. The stench of flesh burning away into charcoal and yellow fat suffocated him so much that he had went away, far away.

'Remember who you are, son. Remember what you would be giving up.'

Not much. In fact, nothing at all. The position of leader slipped away just as quick as he had inherited the title. Everything was slipped away; his brother, his home up in the cliffs, and…

He painfully reached up to his forehead. Nothing was there anymore. He couldn't feel the rough serrated edges of the shikon shards that had been firmly planted into his skin, only a wet mass of blood and bone.

--

Days that felt like years passed by. Hiten's demon form had almost finished healing, although the deep cut that the goddamned mongrel had given him would leave a quite nasty scar. He groaned and stood up, but found that to his dismay, part of his wounds had healed over the ground. Gritting his teeth, he managed to tear himself away from the ground; he was too numb to feel the pain.

A barren wasteland greeted him. The combined power of his thunder attacks and that Inuyasha's attacks had dug scars into the cliffs, the ground, the rocks, everything in sight. The few trees that stood remaining were burnt to a crisp, while the rest were reduced to a handful of ashes. Not too far away from his broken thunder pike lay Manten, a gaping wound torn through his chest. He could have lived if he had left his body alone; but slowly he realized that in the process, he had gone mad and cannibalised his own brother. His heart was gone; there was no way he could come back to life.

He saw the wooden handle of the pike not too far from Manten's carcass. Hiten grunted and tried to fly, but weakly fell over and it hit him; that human bitch had wrecked one of his chariot wheels. Devastated, Hiten screamed, a buildup that ruptured in his throat until his esophagus went raw, and kicked the remaining lone wheel into a boulder. It shattered and splintered into pieces, ones that couldn't be undone.

Just like his life.

'Remember who you are. Remember what you would be giving up.'

"I've given everything up." Hiten yelled out towards the sky, as if his father were looming over and listening to him. "I've given EVERYTHING up! The tribe, the village, my brother, my existence!! Is this what you wanted?!"

For the first time in his life, Hiten collapsed to the ground and wept bitterly.

--

When he came to, the sun was shining. He knew because it resembled a bright white light behind his closed eyelids, and he work with a start. He almost moved mechanically. For the first time in his life, Hiten was alone. No family, no father, and no title for him to brandish wherever he went.

He wasn't Hiten the chief anymore. He wasn't even Hiten, eldest of the thunder brothers. There were no thunder brothers anymore. He was just Hiten. Just plain, simple, destitute Hiten; thrown into the world where no one would feed him with a silver spoon.

The cliff was very high; for once in his life, he began to realize how important his chariot wheels were to sustain himself ever since he inherited them from his father. He hadn't had to climb since…

(the day you lost yours)

(lost what? My virginity, or my dignity? Or my common sense)

?

That day.

A putrid smell pierced his nose time and time again as he ransacked his own home, looking for any belongings that might enable him to start anew. The first thing he did was to strip down naked and take a bath with boiling water. Hiten solemnly watched as he was cleansed of mud, dirt, rain and sweat streaks and blood. Every one of his crevices was being cleansed, from the dirt under his nails to the caked blood that mangled with his chest hairs and clung to his wounds.

When he was finished, he looked down at himself. He was clean. He would start clean. He wondered painfully if this was how Ayame felt when she was forced to leave their tribe. Hiten wished he knew where to find her.

He walked through the home that once belonged to him, looking through some drawers. He managed to pull out a proper-looking top and hakama bottom, ones that he wore to sleep. He went back to his pile of discarded armour with a picking knife and proceeded to pick out the precious stones that adorned his pads. He bit down on his lip; How in the world did he come to this? Stooping to such a level so he could live a new life…his father would be turning over in his grave.

Hiten strode out, stepping over his now-dead woman's body. It was beginning to decay; the worms and filth would take care of her. He had half a mind to go back and bury her, but that thought quickly dissolved. All he wanted to do was to run away, far away where no one would recognize him. What if he had to live among the humans? It was the only place he could turn to. His father had alienated so many nearby tribes that he knew he wouldn't be able to fit in with the demons anymore. The kappa, the wolves, the dogs, the foxes, the baboons…no one would take him.

He covered Manten's body with dry branches he cut down and held his palm forward. But something caused him to hesitate; was his ability to produce thunder still intact? He prayed that it did and felt a surge of electricity coursing through his veins. The lightening instantaneously caused the bundles to rise into flame, engulfing Manten's lifeless form.

He looked back one last time at his home as tears rolled onto his cheeks and ran in fear that he would see his brother going up into flames like his tribe had, reduced only to bones and yellow fat.

--

Hiten looked up at the morning sky. The sunrise gave off a glowing orange tinged with a shy blush of pink. Smiling bitterly, he waited, crouched by the side door of the brothel. He could hear through the door some rustling of clothes, a pompous cough, and saw-heard the sliding door open as a large, disgusting man, probably one that came after he had left to his home, stepped down the stairs. Even though he tried to control himself, Hiten could not help but glare with a look of hatred on his face.

"What're you looking at, you twit?" the man spat on him and walked away. Hiten made a mental memo to himself to do away with him a few nights later, perhaps drag him into the old hermit woman's alley and pull out his fingernails or crack his neck in three places.

Interrupting his thoughts, a new figure stepped out of the room.

"Hiten." she blushed, trying to look at decent and ladylike as possible.

"Ayame." Hiten whispered. "Come, let me take you home."