Asylum

Asylum(n.) - 1. A place of safety; refuge 2. An institution for te care of mentally ill, aged, or poor people: a term now rarely used (Definition taken from Webster's New Compact Desk Dictionary and Style Guide)

Battling Conflict

Hiei wasn't sure what to do with himself now. Being confined to the bedroom wasn't something he was used to on any level. He was frustrated and really didn't want to give way to past memories, so he decided to head for the training room.

Halfway down the hallway, Ayana came shooting through the Operation Room doors. Hiei continued to walk, not looking back as she came running up to him. Only when she stopped to walk in tandem with him did he finally give her the slightest of glances; only to see that she was virtually topless, all but a navy bra covering her upper torso.

"W-What are you doing down here?" she rushed out.

"Those pitiful screams," Hiei replied stiffly.

His response seemed to make Ayana flinch and Hiei caught himself wondering why.

Ayana took a deep breath and asked, "So where are you going now?"

"Training."

"Can I spar against you?" The woman seemed to almost plead it of Hiei.

"Hn."

Ayana sped up just enough to turn around. She now walked backward, facing Hiei as they continued to traverse down the hallway, entering the lobby. "Is that a yes?"

Hiei decided not to give a definite answer. Instead, he closed his eyes and kept walking, using his sense of ki to find the gym. Ayana's presence never left him as he opened the training room doors and stepped in. Evidently, she really wanted to spar against him.

"No weapons," she bit out immediately.

"Why?" Hiei tossed at her sharply.

Ayana's face stilled and her shoulders tensed for the briefest of moments before she replied, "You don't have to accept my sparring offer."

"Hn. You never offered." Hiei whipped his cloak to the side and walked to stand in the centre of the sparring mat. Ayana only paused to discern his body frame for a moment before moving to oppose Hiei, standing three feet away.

No words were exchanged between the two; they gave a formal bow to one another, tapped knuckles, then dropped into their signature fighting stances. The stand off only lasted a few short seconds before Ayana swung her leg around to do a roundhouse to Hiei's temple.

Hiei blocked it smoothly and quickly followed it up with a reverse punch to the solar plexus that momentarily knocked the wind out of Ayana. She lunged back and tried a front kick aimed for Hiei's gut but the demon easily dodged the hit, sending his own acute roundhouse into Ayana's ribs.

"Why are you so afraid of weapons?" Hiei hissed out as he ducked under Ayana's right hook.

"I have no clue - hait! - what you're talking about," Ayana replied, bringing her right hook into a back knuckle, catching Hiei's right temple as he came out of the duck.

Hiei growled and virtually disappeared, immediately reappearing behind her. He landed a solid front kick to Ayana's tailbone, causing her to lose her balance and head toward the mat. Ayana realized she was going down and curled herself into a forward roll, spinning to face Hiei as she came back up.

"Yes you do," Hiei snapped. "It's the only reason you won't spar with them."

The demon lunged in with a high punch, but Ayana was quicker and did an outside crescent kick to Hiei's jaw and sent him toward the ground. Hiei shot an arm out as he neared the mat and levered back off his hand, kicking his legs straight out as he pushed himself back at Ayana. His boots caught her right in the gut, sending her sprawling onto the mat. Landing swiftly, Hiei pressed his foot upon her exposed stomach.

"I win," he said flatly.

Ayana didn't make any reply to that statement, but continued with their original ... discussion. "How the hell do you know that my reason for not sparring with weapons is because I'm afraid of them? I may just not like sparring with weapons simply because I don't feel like it!"

Hiei didn't lift his foot from her stomach as he replied, "If that's the simple answer, why get so defensive?"

Ayana opened her mouth, caught herself, then closed it again. Hiei watched her, then stepped off. "Hn." Turning away, he headed back to where he had set his cloak down as Ayana hoisted herself up.

"Why do you care that I'm afraid to use weapons, though?" Ayana questioned as she walked toward the demon.

"I don't." Hiei threw his cloak back on as he walked toward the doors, never once turning toward Ayana as she followed after him.

"Then why ask?" Ayana's voice grew a cocky tone as the two of them headed out of the training room and down the hall.

Hiei didn't answer her, which started to annoy Ayana for some reason. She didn't press him for an answer though, getting the feeling that despite not having his katana at his side, he'd harm hurt her within a moment's notice.

"Why are you following me?" Hiei suddenly asked in the silence that has started to descend.

Ayana blinked. "Huh? I'm not following you, we just happen to be taking similar paths."

Again, Hiei made no response. They continued to walk down the hallway until they stepped into the lobby. Hiei turned toward the next corridor, planning on take the stairs up to his floor, but paused when he saw Isabella standing at the entrance to the corridor with an piece of cloth clutched in her small hand.

"I-Isabella, wh-what is that?" Hiei shifted slightly, viewing Ayana out of the corner of his eye.

The woman had stopped a few feet short of where Hiei stood. Her face had suddenly become ashen and pale, sweat collecting on her brow and upper lip. She seemed frozen to the spot and her blue eyes were locked onto Isabella and the thing she held in her hand.

Isabella took a step forward and Ayana automatically took a step back. "Something you should have been confronted with a long time ago."

Ayana's breath hitched and her eyes almost dropped from their sockets. "I-I thought y-you said th-that you w-w-would l-let me —"

"I changed my mind, Ayana." Isabella's tone bit harshly into the woman and she flinched. Hiei seemed to be going unnoticed, practically watching this all unfold from the sidelines, despite him being caught almost directly in between the two of them.

Isabella took another step toward them, Ayana taking one step in the opposite direction. "P-Please, I-Isabella! D-don't make m-me do this n-n-now."

"Why not now? If I let you go like so many other times, you'll never get over it."

"I-I promise! I s-swear I'll g-get over i-it!" Ayana was almost hysterical. Tremors were prominent about her body and fear rolled off of her in waves.

"Hiei," the kajihenge looked at Isabella, who was now staring at him, "I want you to stay with Ayana tonight."

"What!" Both Ayana and Hiei bore shocked expressions, gaping at Isabella like she had grown two heads, polka dotted skin, and flesh-eating tentacles.

"N-n-no. Way!" Ayana shook her head vehemently, arms waving around as if to ward off all the sudden craziness. "Hiei has his own room, there is no way in hell he's staying with me. Besides, he's supposed to stay at the institute, where he can be monitored."

"Exactly." Isabella tucked the piece of cloth into a hidden pocket of her black dress. "Hiei will go with you to your apartment and stay the night. He'll be monitored by you and you'll be monitored by him."

"I don't need to be monitored!" Ayana cried. "He's the one who was brought here for treatment, not me!"

"Stop your whining, Ayana," Isabella snapped, lips still. "It's either that or a day's docking on your pay check and dressing Azuné for a month."

Ayana's eyes widened. "Alright, fine. Come on Hiei."

Hiei opened his mouth to argue but Isabella fixed him with another horrid stare and he suddenly decided against it. With a grunt, Hiei followed Ayana as she exited the Tokyo Health Institute and the two got into Ayana's Lexus.

"There are rules that will be followed if you're going to stay at my place for the night." Ayana was already over the shock and the fear that she had experienced only moments ago, already taking control of the situation.

As the woman backed out of her parking space and pulled out onto the street, she dished out the rules and regulations to a silent and brooding Hiei.

-----X-----break-----X-----

And out comes chapter five. Yes, I know that these chapters have been coming out fairly quickly, but it's because each chapter is short and the all over length of this story (hopefully) won't exceed nine or ten chapters. It was never meant to be long in the first place, so ... yeah. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I seriously hope I didn't confuse some of you guys with the sparring match; I take martial arts, so I had fun writing that scene. If it didn't make much sense, just simplify it in some way. Meh.

Trivia: If Ayana isn't a demon and isn't a human, then what species is she? ... also ... what is it that Ayana hasn't "confronted" yet?

Tata, luvs.
.Bloodrunner.