AbhorsenSabriel87: Hello again readers! I actually got a couple of reviews, so I'm going to update!
Keichi: Amazing. --massive sarcasm--
Sabriel: Aw, don't be that way, Keichi-kun! By the way readers, Keichi is Kurama's son in a fanfic my friend Trenity170 and I created titled All In The Family.
Keichi: 'Lo.
Sabriel: Anywho, this next chappie is from a different perspective and will kinda jump around a bit. So stay on your toes and enjoy it!
Keichi: AbhorsenSabriel87 does not own Yu Yu Hakusho. There.
Sabriel: And here are the reviewer responses!
KyoHana said: I truly thought you'd abandoned this story, so I was very happy to see it here this evening. I love 'seeing' this story through Hiei's eyes and thoughts -- brought 'alive' through your wonderful writing. Keep it coming!
Sabriel replies: Can do! Glad you like it, and I hope you enjoy this bit too!
Keda Jaganashi said: --crosses arms-- You stopped writing? How could you! --cries-- ANyway, I'm kidnapping Hiei until you write more! --sticks out tongue--
Sabriel replies: Yeah, I was wondering where the midget ran off to… Well, I hate to say it, but I need him back or else he's going to be absent from the story…
Keichi: ...Which doesn't really make any sense because it kinda revolves around him.
Sabriel: Exactly. Please release him. I haven't stopped writing the story forever, ya know. It is a round-robin.
Brenda said: Thank you for the locker note and you're welcome for the reviews. Write more on all your stories and I won't have to kill you.
Sabriel replies: Heh heh heh… --sighs-- All right, I'm going on with it. Please don't kill me or else it'll never get done. BTW, Brenda goes to my school (which is why I left her a note on her locker).
Sabriel: Anywho, that's all of them that reviewed this chapter.
Keichi: Wow. Short list. Are you sure you're good?
Sabriel: Shut up you! --fwaps him--
Keichi: Ack! --falls over in pain--
Sabriel: Onto the fic!
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As we look deeply within, we understand our perfect balance. There is no fear of the cycle of birth, life and death. For when you stand in the present moment, you are timeless.
-Rodney Yee
---Kurama opened his eyes to see an unusual sight above him, but not an unfamiliar one. Salt and pepper tiles of a hospital ceiling spanned his line of vision and he blinked to assure himself that it was what he was really seeing. The bed he was in was warm and comfortable, but the blanket seemed thin and the air around him cold and sterile. He glanced over to the left to see a young nurse with limp black hair checking over his chart. He saw this woman before; she was the attending nurse when his mother was in the hospital. But that would mean… he was back in Ningenkai…
---The woman looked up and smiled. "Ah, you're awake Shuichi!" she exclaimed, putting the chart back and walking over to him briskly. Kurama almost felt like saying Really? You can tell? I thought I was still asleep! But then he realized that sounded far less like himself and more like Hiei.
---Hiei! he remembered suddenly. Where was he? Was he here in Ningenkai, too? Is he awake? The nurse noticed his expression and grew concerned. "What is it Minamino-kun?" she asked gently. Kurama looked over at her and cleared his throat. He didn't get a chance to speak, however, before the door opened, revealing his living, breathing, moving Spirit Detective allies.
---"Hey Shuichi!" Yusuke called out, grinning as he always did. "Glad to see you're finally up!" The black haired teen had been bandaged up quite extensively, though the broken nose he'd had before seemed only to be an ugly bruise over his straight one. He was dressed in street clothes; torn jeans, a white T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Kazuma came in directly behind him, also bandaged but just as cheery as Yusuke. "It's been a couple 'a days," Kazuma said, grinning brightly. "We were starting to worry."
---Kurama blinked as he sat up. This couldn't have been real. They were in Chicago, then Reikai... How the Hell did he wind up back here? As if he'd heard the thought, Yusuke watched the nurse walk off, muttering back, "That doctor brought us back here. She's tending some kids right now, but she said she'd be here in a minute or so." Kurama winced as he pushed himself completely upright. His arms must have been cut up when he crashed through those windows earlier. "Does my mother know where I am?" he asked. Yusuke wasn't so much surprised by the question than the exhaustion laced behind it.
---"Yeah," Kuwabara answered, nodding for the emphasis. "We made sure to call her. That doc was able to a spin a pretty close story without mentioning what we all are when she got here." Kurama sighed in relief, leaning back against the pillows in exhaustion. This mission was far too stressful. They'd gotten beaten to Hell and back, shot at by the human police, and one of their best friends had very nearly stayed dead. Remembering that instantly, Kurama jerked upright again, his eyes glittering in both worry and hope. "Has anything changed in Hiei's condition?" he asked.
---Yusuke flinched and looked to Kuwabara before looking back at Kurama. "Well… no," Yusuke muttered, looking off distantly. "At least not since we last checked. He's still the same. But the doc has a few wards on him to make sure that no one can see his Jagan or sense his aura but us and her." Kurama fell back against the pillows again, sighing in despair. Hiei… you saved my life… he thought sadly, tears threatening to well up in his eyes, eyes the color of a forest after a storm. Why did this happen to you? I'mthe one that should have died, not you. I should be the one in the coma now… Gods, Hiei… I'm so sorry…
---The door opened suddenly, snapping all of the detectives into rapt attention. As the door closed, the two human boys relaxed minutely and gave shaky grins. "Hey, Doctor K.," Yusuke said, sounding more than slightly nervous. "How's it going?"
---The woman replied with a simple, "Fine," before moving over to the foot of Kurama's bed and checking the chart, recording the data on her own clipboard. "Well, Minamino-san," she said coolly, "you seem to be healing remarkably well. You may just be out of here before school starts in a week." The woman shifted her eyes to Kurama's, an icy and piercing blue that reminded Kurama of something…
---"You're the doctor from Reikai, am I correct?" he asked, suddenly remembering the woman. A small smile crept onto her alabaster features, but the smile itself was not warm or kind or even humored. It was cold, almost as if she was faking a smile to hide the fact that she may have been insulted. "Yes, that I am," she replied, the icy civility in her voice making Kuwabara and Yusuke shift nervously. "How kind of you to remember. I do love being noticed." Kurama froze. The ice in her voice made him feel as if he'd said something wrong. He hadn't, had he? He didn't think so at least. "Ah, well…" he started, but the look of sarcastic intrigue given to him was enough to make him shut his mouth. What had he said to insult her? "But perhaps, you would do well to remember that although I am a doctor, Mr. Minamino," she continued, the icy civility making the nurse who was about to walk in turn around and leave immediately, "I also am not simply labeled by my profession. If that were the case in this world, I'm a afraid I would have to call you something quite different every time I see you."
---In hopes of drawing that icy chill in the air away, Yusuke cleared his throat, making the albino-looking woman draw her sharp gaze to him. "Ah, Doctor K, how's, um… how's Hiei doing?" Instantly, her attention shifted and the room grew slightly less tense. "I'm afraid Mr. Urameshi, that your friend still needs time to heal," she answered flatly, scrawling something down on the clipboard before replacing it at the foot of Kurama's bed. "My powers can only do so much. I cannot raise the dead or wake people from eternal slumbers. I'm afraid I'm not that talented."
---"Doctor Nakia Kenjutsushi, report to the third floor nurse's station," rang out over the intercom. Giving the speaker on the wall an icy glare, she only nodded to the three boys and left, taking her winter's chill with her. All held breaths were let out in one instant, each teen relaxing as the tension subsided. "Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen her get cold for no reason," Yusuke muttered quietly, sitting down in the chair next to Kurama's bed. The fox youkai looked at him in surprise. "You've met before?" he asked. Now that he thought of it, the name "Kenjutsushi" rang a bell somewhere…
---"Yeah, we both have," Kuwabara explained. "I've only seen her once, and that was when I saw her walking in one time last year." The copper-haired teen smiled as if he'd remembered something both funny and embarrassing at the same time. "I was in after Yusuke had beaten me up on the day he died. I hadn't seen her before, so I asked her if she was a patient, and she got all cold and creepy on me too. Luckily, her brother came in and rescued me from that icy wrath." Yusuke laughed.
--"Count yourself way lucky, nitwit," he laughed. "I've been on her bad side so many times, now whenever I come in, she asks where she should send the ambulances." Kurama smiled; apparently this woman was more than she appeared. She seemed to like Yusuke and Kazuma enough…
---But what had he said?
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---"There you are, sis!" Nakia Kenjutsushi turned about at the sound of her brother's voice, smiling as she looked at his six foot two inch athletic frame. "Hello Horo," she replied softly, her tone instantly sweeter than it had been. "What did you call me down here for?" The young man rubbed the back of his head, making his short white hair appear even more feathery and messy than it usually did. "You knew it was me, huh?" he asked sheepishly, looking at the floor.
---"I've been working with you in this hospital for over two years with you calling me on the intercom whenever I'm needed in the Clinic," she answered dryly. "Not to mention the fact that I'm two years older than you, otooto-san." As he brother laughed sheepishly and agreed with her, she smiled warmly for the first time today. Her younger brother always had that effect for some reason. Tall, athletic, and slender, Horo looked like he was seventeen. But Nakia knew better; the brat was only thirteen, still in middle school even. He only looked seventeen because of his height and the face that he was so tan.
---Anyone who saw them didn't believe that they were siblings at first, or even Japanese. This was due to the fact that Horosha was over six feet tall and very tan, while Nakia was roughly five foot six and damn near albino. Both had white hair and light eyes, thus making them dubbed as European, but neither remembered whether or not they were even partially so. Their father had been fully Japanese, and Nakia didn't remember their mother at all, much less expect Horo to.
---"Say, weren't you messing with that Minamino kid just now?" he asked, turning serious. "What's he doing back here anyhow? I thought we'd seen the last of him when his mother got better last year."
---"So did I," the smaller sibling sighed, shrugging her slender shoulders. "But apparently he works for Reikai now, so I expect we may be seeing more of him."
---"What about Kuwabara and Urameshi? Are they in league with the Spirit World, too? And speaking of that, where'd you run off to yesterday morning that was so important? If it was the Underworld Palace, why didn't you take me?" Nakia sighed. She hated leaving her brother out of so much of this, but Reikai was not the place for him to be. "You ask far too many questions at once, Horosha," she sighed, picking up a few charts from her box. "First of all, yes those delinquents are part of the Reikai Tentai, and yes I left for the Spirit World because I was called." Before he could even make a statement of disbelief, Nakia turned her pale blue eyes to lock with his, a dusty green the color of Chinese jade. "I'll take you next time, I promise," she muttered, dropping her tone as another doctor walked by. "But yesterday… it was an emergency." She walked past her brother to continue down the hall to the Pediatric Ward, when Horo called to her, causing her to stop.
---"Does it have anything to do with the demon in the ICU?" Nakia paused, trying to find the right words to say. Being unable, she continued on her path without answering his question.
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---"Goodnight Doctor Nik!" Nakia smiled warmly as she shut the door to the Pediatric Ward and started down the now deserted halls of the hospital. Very few nurses were on duty this week, as a bad case of the flu had run rampant through the staff for the past week. Nakia counted herself lucky that neither she nor her brother had gotten it, but that meant long overtime and triple swing shifts 'round the clock for both of them. As she passed Kurama's room, she looked through the glass to see Shiori Minamino sitting in the chair next to her son's bed, talking to him like she had been since mid-afternoon. Glancing at the clock, she opened the door, causing both occupants to look up and one to bristle. Giving Kurama a blasé gaze in response to his reaction, she turned her eyes to his mother as she walked in. "Hello Minamino-san," she said politely, bowing at her waist in respect for the older woman. "I did not expect to see you in my hospital again."
---To Kurama's surprise, his mother returned the bow with a smile. "Hello to you as well, Kenjutsushi-isha," she replied warmly. "It's good to see you again. How are you and your brother? Doing well in school, I hope." School? Kurama thought, glancing back at the white haired doctor as she responded in kind with sincerity. She looks to be over twenty-five at least! How could she still be in school?
---"I assure you, Minamino-san," Nakia said, snapping Kurama out of his bewilderment. "Suichi will be able to get out of bed before the school year starts again. Trust me." Oddly enough, when she said that phrase, Kurama felt like he could trust her. But a quick and icy glance from her dashed away the feeling instantly. She still didn't like him, and was probably going to harbor a grudge for the rest of his life or hers. "But that is beside the point," Nakia continued, looking back at Shiori. "I'm afraid visiting hours are over, Minamino-san. You may return tomorrow, but I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave." Shiori nodded and stood, bowing to the female doctor. Turning back to Kurama, she smiled and ran a hand though his messy red hair, muttering a quiet "Sleep well" to her son before leaving with Nakia.
---When she closed the door, Nakia watched Shiori walk over to the nurses' station and begin talking to Horosha. The two talked for only a few minutes before Shiori waved goodbye and left the hospital. Taking a glance back at the room to see that the boy within had turned off the light and seemed to fall asleep, she left down the hall, putting his file back in her box without even glancing at either object. She stopped by Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara's rooms to find them empty and checked her charts. Since their injuries had been light, they'd been checked out earlier that day. Sighing, she made her way back up to Horosha's station, managing to get there just as he was getting ready to leave. "Going home?" she asked, putting away the files and looking at her brother. He nodded and yawned, stretching his lean and muscular arms above his head. "Yeah," he added needlessly. "I have practice tomorrow, plus another double-swing. You comin' with?"
---Nakia shook her head, her pale hair falling over her face and shoulders as she did so. Pushing the strands back in annoyance, she replied, "Maybe in a bit. They need at least one doctor on call, and my rounds aren't over until midnight." Horo glanced at the clock and nodded, then hugged his sister tight. "See you in an couple hours then," he said, picking up his bag and walking off.
---"Yeah, if you aren't asleep!" she called after him. His low chuckle made her smile in content, but the smile dropped when she saw the file she was left holding. Sighing in exhaustion, Nakia made her way down the sterile halls once again, this time to the Intensive Care Unit. Just one last patient and she could focus on replenishing her aura. Hell, she could do it while she was there; no way he'd notice anyway.
---Opening the door, Nakia flipped on the light and entered the room. Connected to half a dozen monitors, two IV's, and a respirator was her last patient, one she'd gotten yesterday. Scanning her eyes over his calm features with the careful eyes of a doctor, she checked his vitals and marked them down. Other than a slightly higher than average body temperature, he was relatively fine… for a kid in a coma. Checking his IV for any kinks or blocks, she couldn't help but glance at him again. He didn't look like he did before, but something told her he was the person she remembered.
---Walking through the Underworld Palace, hopelessly lost, was a young girl of about 11 with white hair and powder blue eyes. Sighing in exasperation, the child crumpled to the floor and leaned against one of the many pillars that held up the six-story ceiling. If she didn't get to Koenma's office, she'd be late for her meeting with him to discuss her position as a Spirit World Healer.
---"What are you doing here, child?" The voice snapped her attention up, causing her to look directly at a man barely her own age with crimson eyes and jet-black hair pulled into a tight ponytail. He wore all black and a dark scowl as he looked at her, obviously not happy at seeing her. When she stood, she realized that he was only about as tall as she was, maybe an inch or so taller. "I was looking for Lord Enma Jr.'s office," she explained warily, feeling truly intimidated for the first time in her life. The man's look did not change as he motioned down the hall. "End of the hall, turn left, then walk until you reach the stairs," he directed. "It's the first door at the top of the stairs." She looked to see where he'd motioned to and nodded, turning her eyes back the where he was.
---But he was gone, as if he was never there at all. Smiling a bit to herself, the little girl walked the hallway, wistfully thinking of the guardian she seemed to have.
---She was only a child then, just starting to discover her healing powers. When she'd seen him at first, she thought he was an illusion, and one she would never see again at that. Now here he was lying right before her, seeming so peaceful one might think him just asleep. But she knew otherwise; he was in a coma, and it was doubtful he'd ever wake up again. Brushing a strand of the blue-tipped black hair out of his young face, she was surprised at how silky it was and how easily it moved to her touch. She was glad her healing had been done well enough to keep his hair intact as she bandaged the remainder of the fatal wound in his temple. He looked so different asleep, as if he really were just a child…
---She shook her head, trying to shake away the thoughts. He was a 100 times older than her if he was a day, and he probably hadn't been a child for a long time, being a demon. It was unfortunate, but all she could do to thank him was to try and help him as best as she could.
---Placing the file on the bedside table, Nakia rested her left hand over his slowly beating heart, the right barely brushing his forehead and Jagan ward. Breathing deeply and evenly, she felt her power push though her fingertips and enter his battered body, once more giving it energy to heal itself. After a few moments, however, she had to stop, taking deep and shuddering breaths. Humans were easy to heal because they had the same type of energy she did. But demons sapped her strength and her aura until either one or both of them broke the contact. This one was no different, but he at least was not asking for it.
---Now exhausted, Nakia slumped down into the chair at his bedside, envying the demon for the opportunity to rest and recuperate. I'll just rest for a bit, she thought tiredly, resting her arms on the side of the bed and her head in her arms. If they need me, they'll page me. With that, the human closed her eyes and began to slow her breathing.
---Within seconds, she was fast asleep.
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Sabriel: Anywho, that's all I can offer you guys until Hiei is given back to me, so review please!
Keichi: --yawns and falls asleep on couch--
Sabriel: --grumbles-- Lazy bum… Soory about his being mostly about the OC, but it'll have more Hiei goodness in it next chapter... if thepygmy comes back! --glares off-- Please review.