Chapter 3
The Finding
"Detective!"
Hiei, the most aggressive of the four, snarled as he released his weapon, a katana, from its bindings. His angered shout woke the dazed teen from whatever world had stolen his attention from reality; as if by pure instinct, his body propelled backwards, away from the swinging club that had nearly taken off half of his face. A fool's luck, Hiei sneered. How else could he describe it? Only a fool would fail to notice the noisy attack of a colossus golem, and only a fool would have the fortune to survive it.
Sometimes, Hiei began to wonder if aiding the detective was really the better deal. At the moment, Reikai prison was looking rather tempting.
With a grunt, Hiei analyzed the demon. He couldn't be a hundred percent certain, but he was willing to bet that the towering demon created from an array of stones before him was a golem. That meaning it was a big, stupid chunk of rock with a temper. It also meant that someone else had breathed into it life; that, someone else was pulling the mindless creature's strings.
Hiei glared at the nuisance. If there was one thing he hated more than the detective, it was the annoying idea of fighting a mindless puppet created by a coward. He'd thought the same thing when he'd fought all of the zombies at the Saint-beast's castle. He was just as bored then as he was now.
With a grunt, he sheathed his katana and stepped back, crossing his arms, deciding to let the detective have this fight. Hiei's crimson eyes watched as the detective dodged left to right, successfully dodging the heavy mindless punches that the golem unwaveringly threw his way. Hiei found his eyes narrow as he watched the detective blur, only to reappear behind the surprised demon. He's gotten faster. Hiei frowned at the discovery; his fist clenched as he wondered how much he'd improved. Yusuke once again gained the upper hand; sneaking up behind the giant moving rock, he cocked his finger into his signature gun-like stance and smirked coyly as a bright blue light formed at the tip of his index finger. A large ball of crackling blue spirit energy grew quickly in size and within seconds the massive bullet was shot. The entire left side of the beast was obliterated into pebbles upon impact.
Hiei's eyebrow twitched. Not only was he faster than he was just weeks ago, but now he was much stronger as well!
"It would seem that Yusuke has improved," a light-hearted chuckle caught his ear. He felt his eyebrow twitch again. He didn't need this right now. What he really needed was a challenge, not a half-assed errand issued by a ruler whose best friend was his binky. "Go away, fox," he found himself grunting, pushing the uninvited spectator away from him by sheer power of a foul mood.
The red head, who'd also chosen to leave the simple fight to the detective, stepped up beside him. Hiei glanced out the corner of his eye to find his companion's emerald eyes calculating. His eyes followed his line of sight past the rejoicing humans, over the dead demon, and back to the sea. He frowned; his friend voiced their shared thoughts, "The sea has ceased receding. I fear that we may be in over our heads for this one." Hiei's grimace deepened. The fox was right. The sea, at that very moment, was a ticking time bomb, and in any number of seconds, it would detonate.
Hiei turned to face his oldest acquaintance, "How bad?" Did they have a chance? The fox's eyes hardened, "The city will be underwater. I fear that may include us as well." Hiei grunted. This is just what he needed- to be trapped under the sea, to die with two human idiots and a nosy fox. Hiei glared at the two humans, who now headed back to regroup with them. It was all their fault. If they'd hurried it up, then he wouldn't be in this predicament. He momentarily considered killing them and then using their corpses as a raft in the oncoming collision of earth and sea, but he decided against it. He didn't want to reek like human idiot.
"Any ideas?" He voiced as the two humans fell into hearing range. The fox did not say a word. "Well," the detective scoffed as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, "that was easy." "It would be for such a simpleton as yourself," Hiei barked. At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to snap the detective in half for trapping them in the first place. "What's that, Hiei," Yusuke retorted, an equally irritated intensity coating his words as well. A slight movement and a glint of light off of a reflective surface brought his attention to what lain behind the opposing human. Hiei scoffed. "I take it back," he grunted as he drew his weapon, "I gave you too much credit." With blinding speed that only he possessed, he leapt from his spot and rushed past his team to the battle site. With a quick flick of his wrist, the struggling golem fell, but this time into more pieces than the creature could regenerate. Fools.
With a heavy sigh, he moved to sheath his katana. He immediately stopped, however, when he noticed something, other than the obvious threat of drowning, wasn't quite right. His crimson eye's narrowed as he trained a harsh focus onto a single pebble- a piece of the golem, no doubt- on the concrete road. He stared hard, and frowned when his assumption was proven correct; the tiny rock was vibrating. Then, within seconds, several other pebbles and stones began to tremble all around him as well. Hiei felt a tingle shoot down his spine; this wasn't the golem coming back to life, it was something else, something far worse. His grimace lifted slightly at the corners in exited anticipation- it was a challenge. And it hit, this challenge, before he could think another thought- and it hit him hard the second he turned on the balls of his feet.
A brick wall, a tsunami, a wrecking ball- he wracked his brain for any analogy that could possibly describe the force that was her. Ensnared by the Jade inferno his soul had been trapped by the moment he turned, he found none. There was nothing he could think to compare the raging wildcat; he could only feel the intense excitement that poured out from his very core at the assault of her gleaming sword of light against his own katana. He parried her attack with visible effort and leapt back; she mirrored him.
The world fell away in an instant. At that moment, facing his truest wish- a challenge worthy to test his strength- he could care less about what went on around him. The sea could crash down on the entire city and devour every single thing, be it living or already long gone from the world, he didn't care- nothing else mattered. As if the motions were habit, he discarded the dark cloak he'd adorned for so long and shifted his body into the stance of a true warrior. The girl across from him- his opponent- mirrored him; her stance shifted as well, but her pose suggested more of a calculating, calm style of fighting. The corners of his lips twitched upward as a chuckle fell from the fleshy appendages. Fire burst from his heart as it struggled to keep up with his racing need to move, to fight. The blonde before him chuckled playfully; her calculating stare wavered and he knew instantly something he never should have none.
Hiei rushed forward with all of his speed.
And just as he'd predicted, she moved just as he'd expected. Her calculating front was just that; it was a persona, and a false on at that. The jade-eyed fighter never was one for plans; in fact, he couldn't remember a single instance when any of her plans actually being motioned. She was unpredictable; the only thing that an opponent could be assured of is that she is unpredictable.
The sound of clashing metal sent a shiver down the line of his spine.
The blond smirked coyly, her body language practically screaming her love of battle as she countered his jab by blocking with her sword. Her attitude was contagious; he felt something he'd never felt before- joy. He ducked just as she swung a well-aimed sword lunge towards his skull. In a split second, he fell to the ground and sweep one foot out in attempt to trip his opponent. The girl, however, foresaw the motion and dodged by jumping over the protrusive limb. Predictable. His grin widened into the ghost of a smile as he took his chance; he slid forward at an angle to slice across her open abdomen. With speed that rivaled his own, she kicked off the ground and launched into a series of back flips to narrowly escape the fatal blow. Her long black skirt fluttered as she moved and added a mystical elegance to her already paradoxal existence. Once she'd sprung back into a stand, he charged, this time aiming for neck.
She never hesitated. Her sword, as if it were an extension of her body, moved at her will to block the attack. His crimson orbs lifted to hers; his smile disappeared. Her eyes always were the window to her soul; and in them now, he found his only assurance. He tried to back away immediately, but found that he couldn't. His eyes shot down to their interlocked blades- they were at a stalemate; neither could move without both of their weapons being dislodged from their hands. His attention flew to her eyes to find a glimmer of devious mischief. She wouldn't, he'd thought.
The blonde head butted him the second he lost focus. His first reaction was to lose his grip as one hand flew to aid his bleeding forehead. The second he did, he'd lost. Both of their swords shot across the battlefield. His eyes widened. He turned his head just in time to meet her fist. Unpredictable.
Her assualt ceased the second his eyes closed and his head collided with the ground.
When he opened them, he found the girl crouched over him with neither a single drop of sweat adorning her body nor a pant upon her breath; she was just a worried girl- one who possessed the rarest of fires within her soul. She offered her hand as she mustered up an amused, albeit worried bit of a smile. Ignoring the small voice of his own mind humming through his veins, he grasped her hand tightly and used the appendage to pry himself from the ground. "Your unpredictably proceeds you, Lily." It was no longer Hiei, he realized too late; it was no longer Hiei controlling this body or the foreign words falling from his lips, "It would seem that it has become clear that your way of thinking is far too irrational for your opponents to predict." The blonde with jade eyes turned away from him to pick up their discarded swords. "Perhaps it's not my way of thinking that makes me irrational, Adei. Perhaps it's my opponents inability to think outside of what is rational that makes me appear like I am the irrational one."
The happening was like evaporation, Hiei thought detachedly. He was the water that had fallen from the sky of a different time and place and it was here that the droplets collected to form his corporeal form. Then, as was the fate for every cluster of water molecules, the sun- or in this case, this opposing force- shone down with magnificent light onto the water, illuminating every drop with the perfection that resided behind a falsehood of translucency. Basking in the warmth of a temporary sun, the droplet met its fate. In the sweltering heat, the water transforms into vapor-invisible and powerless- grasping blindly for the sun that had ensnared it. Hiei felt like that, too, in that instant. He felt as if he'd become a ghostly spectator watching another take his destined place. Like vapor, all he could was wait and watch, envying the warmth of the sun and wishing nothing more than to bask in its presence at least once more.
Hiei grimaced as he struggled to separate the thoughts rushing through his cranium like a hurricane; at a pace that was far from being quick enough, every neuron in his brain fired up to sort from his own thoughts from the ones that were produced by a foreign mind. Opening the eyes he'd not remembered closing, the crimson orbs rapidly darted from object to object until he found what he was looking for- him.
The body-snatcher stood before him. Slowly, he watched only a ghost from the side with aggravated patience as he watched his own face distort into a face he could no longer recognize. His body, like a growing dandelion, stretched upward to startling heights. The shape of his hair shifted slightly and fell, drooping into the new character's eyes to create shadowing bangs. Under these pieces of hair, he confronted two mirrored rubies, but his aggression was not matched. Instead, his challenge was ignored, for his eyes were watching her.
Hiei felt sickened as he watched those haunting crimson eyes. The rubies were cold, hardened by the cruelties of loneliness and the harshness of the world. Anger, hate, disgust- all emotions reigned in the fiery orbs; even the whispered word- forsaken- could be heard, shouted from those eyes. Yet, as this man continued to stare only at her, all of those emotions began to change.
Those crimson eyes were defeated, a feat he'd tested many a time and failed. Emotions that had been bottled up for centuries-and existed even longer, all began to melt away, as if a pitiful creature had just found a meaning for its existence. His own orbs followed the colossus beast man's line of vision to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Her human soul and those demon eyes filled with bad intentions had met. Then, like someone he knew so well, the girl winked and lifted her hand to form a well-known hand gesture. Hiei had scoffed, but after a moment passed, he realized that the edges of his lips had risen. He frowned immediately upon the revelation. His attention drifted back to mysterious man who'd stolen his fight. His eyes, now, were gold. Hiei glared into the frog-like eyes as the wind carried the man's scent in his direction. The man was definitely a demon. His eyes narrowed, a forbidden species of demon.
Without the ability to move away, Hiei was forced to watch as the forbidden demon stalked closer to the foolish woman. He cursed his inability; he was the one who was meant to fight, not this stranger! But the shaggy-haired, tomboy blonde would never know that, just as she did not know that she was about to meet fate at the hands of a demon. But then, he thought, perhaps he could learn from this battle, learn how great of a challenge this woman really was.
But it was not a demon that greeted that woman. It was a man. Disgust and loathing burned in Hiei's blood as the so-called demon embraced the blonde, his lover. He understood then- why the demon's eyes had changed. He wasn't like Hiei, like he'd thought; he wasn't a fighter fueled by hate and vengeance. He was more like the idiot human on his team, Kuwabara; he was compelled by his "feelings". It was this human emotion called "love" that had changed him. Hiei scoffed, no longer interested in a fight of fools. But, to his surprise, his focus could not stray long. The clashing of metal caught his ears and his entire attention span shifted to the fighting duo.
Hiei's eyes widened in awe as the two fighters danced across the battlefield with a grace and force he'd rarely seen. Within him, he felt his excitement soar. Perhaps, this was a challenge after all! He found himself in a confusing paradox; light danced across the fighter's faces. Anyone could see that a force was driving them, yet it was their bond that fueled them. How could such fools be so strong? How was it that their greatest weakness, "love", was also their greatest strength? His eyes fell upon the female warrior. How was it that such a weak creature, a human girl, contained such a great power- the affinity to sway a demon's heart? In the silence of his calming mind, he wandered vaguely as to who this powerful creature truly was.
Her name was Jade. The voice was not his own.
Hiei's head whipped to the side to find that he was no longer alone.
The transparent body of the demon man stood not two feet away. His eyes, like the corporeal man, were watching her. Hiei glanced at the man, and then chanced a peek at the one who'd captured his interests. When he had turned, he found himself back upon the beach of ruins.
"Her name was Jade," he spoke, this time aloud rather than in the fire demon's mind. Seeing as all he had for company on the abandoned shore was another ghost, he naturally did what he did best. He glared, but otherwise stayed silent. The demon man with the eyes of a frog, however, took no notice of his companion's foul mood and could only stare out into the vast waters of the ocean, searching for something he knew was no longer there. Both remained in silence as the sea towered over them and swallowed the world around them inch by every inch.
"When the ocean cries," the demon whispered softly as his body loosened from its rigid state, "the memories will live on." A soft twitch of something resembling a smile breeched the stony persona he'd always worn. Light from inside the man shimmered in his eyes as the orbs themselves gazed affectionately to the sea. "What happened here?" Hiei questioned after a moment of silence. He would never admit it, but the cause of the destruction of so many lives had piqued his curiosity. Staring into the fierce nature of the ocean, he knew how it had happened- a tsunami- but he couldn't help but feel that something else had happened to this place, something far greater than a happenance of nature.
The man beside him produced a cross between a growl and a chuckle. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiei caught the fading of the apparition's body; if he'd noticed, he didn't make a sign of acknowledgement. "She was a detective, first," he spoke, ignoring the fire demon's request. "She was human, second. She was always like that, I suppose." His eyebrows furrowed as if he were struggling to find his memories in the sea. "That was her downfall and her greatest strength in the end." The wind picked up as the ruined city began to traverse back in time; as it had the moment he arrived, the ruins reconstructed themselves and screams and shouts once again filled the air. Yet, just as it had been when they arrived, there were no people.
Something danced across the pavement beside him. Tense, Hiei unsheathed his sword in record time and swung around to confront the foe. Nothing was there.
"Shadows," the demon replied without so much as a glance, "that is what happened here. That is what we were to become, shadows." The small lift of his lips widened as his eyes glittered. "All but her. In the land of shadow, she is the ocean- fierce, endless, and darker and deeper than the depths we see from the surface." Upon his words, the sky grew dark and the waves of the waters grew taller and fiercer. The tall man turned to face Hiei, "Save her, save us all." Hiei stared into the soul of the man, and scoffed. It wasn't his responsibility to save a human, nor was it in his interest. He had only himself, and he would make sure that all he had would be what he fought to save. Towers of water crashed down upon them, seemingly from the sky, and demolished one building after the other, enticing scream after bloody scream as the force consumed the figureless victims. The demon, however, grinned as if at peace surrounded by the chaos of millions of gallons of water surrounding him, ready to swallow him whole.
"You fool!" Hiei growled as he struggled in his form to grab hold of a nearby lamppost as the water swept the streets lightly. The true waves followed closely at the first waves' heels. The man did not move from the road so close to the beach. He only stood still as if each lash of the ocean waters were a caress of a loved one. "Save her," he reminded Hiei, his head shifting in the direction of a smashed building. Following his line of vision, he caught the glimmer of something shiny wedged into the ruins. The wall of water arrived and hung above the demon's head. Hiei's eyes grew wide as he stared death in the face; the demon could only continue to grin, as if the ocean were embracing him, protecting him from the world around him. The fury of water crashed down upon them and Hiei's world went black.
