Feel
A companion piece to Touch.
Hiei, loathe though he was to admit it, was absolutely exhausted. Really, it was to be expected since their opponent had been a youkai who fought by absorbing his attackers' youki, but this…he'd barely fought and yet he felt as drained as he had after the Dark Tournament.
Not that he was about to tell his teammates.
Not that they would notice anyways, not in the state they were in: of the three of them, Hiei, with his vast reserves of power from the jagan and dragon still mostly intact, though still weak in his humanoid form, had left the battle in the best shape. Kurama, though quicker to heal than a normal human, had fainted from blood loss before they could get to Reikai. Yusuke was holding on out of pure stubbornness. Hiei expected no less.
Unfortunately, going about as if he was perfectly fine had the side effect of Koenma ordering him to relieve Kuwabara, left behind due to injuries from an attack a few days ago, at the shrine. As if to underscore his human fragility, the oaf had fallen asleep on duty, leaving Hiei no other choice than to kick him awake before sending him home. For once, they didn't bicker.
Koenma had started them on guard duty a few months ago. Apparently, the miko was in possession of some kind of all-powerful wish-granting jewel that every youkai out there seemed to want: that was all Koenma told them, and it was more than he wanted to tell, considering all the suspicious sidelong glares he'd sent Hiei's way. Hiei snorted. Like he would sink so low as to steal some twisted bauble to enhance his powers. The only strength he needed was his own. The dragon didn't count: he'd tamed it, he'd earned it. Neither did the jagan: mastering it had been like a rebirth, having to regain his strength. It was nothing like what these weaklings wanted: to simply make a wish and become all-powerful? Fools like that were asking for a messy beheading to get put out of their miserable lives.
It was a task he normally enjoyed, that he normally took his sweet time enjoying. It was just his luck that tonight, of all nights, as he rested on his favorite secluded branch of the huge tree filled with tied prayer papers, slumped in a desperately-needed healing rest, some youkai charged, hissing, out of the forest and towards the miko's window.
With much less grace than usual, Hiei intercepted the lizard, only to be parried by steely scales and acidic spit. He dodged, but it still caught his shoulder. Shit. It would only get worse if he didn't finish the fight quickly, so he pulled out his only wild card. His skin began to turn green, his aura glowing as his ears came to a point and in his mind he could feel the eyes opening all across his body. With a burst of speed granted to him by his majin form, Hiei sprinted to his opponent, thrusting his sword up under the rib cage, pushing searing fire into the blade as he cut through bone and hide to finish him off, both parts of the lizard burning as they fell with satisfying thuds to the ground.
He wrinkled his nose at the foul stench before making his way back to the tree, barely taking notice of the miko as she ran out of the house. Once she'd seen the show was over, she'd go back to sleep. Leave him alone. She slowed, had probably seen the remains of the youkai and would turn around. But she kept going. Toward him.
The closer she got, the more she slowed. Probably disgusted, the urge to run from the storybook monster warring with that kindness she insisted on showing all the time. It was what he expected from a human girl seeing him in this form—it was one of the reasons he avoided it, even though it felt like removing dozens of weights from his youki: he preferred being inconspicuous.
She managed to make it to his side, slowly dropping to her knees, a white box with a red symbol in her hands. First aid. He started to concentrate the miko, seeing that her naïve "let's all be friends" side won out. For now. At least her heart rate was steady, not panicked as he'd thought. That gained a bit of his respect.
And then, with a gasp, she dropped the box; a tube of…something fell out and a roll of bandages began to unroll. He followed her shocked gaze just in time to see one of the eyes on his arm reopen. He waited in the silence for her to leave, repulsed by what she saw, just like he'd expect from any other human. But when she made no motion to go, he narrowed his eyes at her; he wasn't about to be her own private freak show.
"Leave, miko," he spat out. "We both know you don't want to be here." Those two sentences took more out of him than he thought it would. Damn. He concentrated on breathing, on getting up and leaving. His wounds were already healing, he just needed to rest more, rejuvenate his youki. Just one concentrated effort and—
"No!" She had, in a subconsciously desperate way, reached her hand out in a halting motion, as if that gesture could stop him. It did. He was surprised, confused enough to really look at her, see the nervousness, the determination, the innocence on her face as she stammered out, "I mean…I… Can I touch them? Please? Your eyes. I won't hurt them will I? Can I? Please?"
His eyes? The eyes that covered his body? He could still see the same blend of emotion and resolve about her, but there was something more: excitement. Not the excitement of arousal, but not quite innocent either. All because of this form, the one he rarely used. It was good in a fight, like a warrior who trained under dozens of pounds of weights only to take them off when that extra speed, extra strength would be useful. And he always put the weights right back on. The majin form was impractical: youkai noticed him more, humans shrieked in terror—hardly what a stealthy assassin like Hiei would want. Nor was it what many a demoness had wanted, shortly after the Jagan's implant, when he couldn't always control when the transformation took hold. And yet this miko…
He was shaken from his thoughts by a feather-light touch on his arm. He relaxed his face from whatever screwed up expression his lapse of attention had allowed and his eyes roamed to his arm.
Three fingers, moving in a slow, sensuous trail down his arm, making a trail like a snake winding around the open eyes, occasionally veering just enough to touch the corner of an eye, which would close in response, before returning to the green path, until she reached his wrist, where she hesitated before moving her hand to his chest to continue the pattern.
Hiei marveled over the fact that, this body, able to take so much pain in a fight without it registering in his mind, was transmitting to him at this moment with such intensity the feather-light touch of Kagome's fingers as they slid across his skin, a burning path of sensation unlike anything he'd ever felt before.
But it was also more than just her touch: it was her energy. It, too, was feather-light, just breaking the surface, but that little bit was coaxing out his youki. Like rubbing two sticks together to make a fire, he could feel himself strengthening…all over, but in one area in particular.
She moved to straddle him, giving herself a better angle to work with as her hand crept lower and lower, the sensations building as she neared his belt, and Hiei surprised himself at what he was contemplating at that moment.
He took a deep breath, gathering his strength, when he smelled it, that same innocent-but-not-innocent excitement, and realized what it meant: the miko wasn't after sex, she was completely locked in her mind with her fascination.
With that knowledge, and maybe a little regret, Hiei grabbed her arms before she could go further: no one could say Hiei wasn't an honorable youkai. She looked at him in confusion as he tried to ignore the lingering, hard sensation. "I'll be changing back now."
"Oh." Confusion to dejection. Hiei sighed. What a strange miko; most of his acquaintances would be thrilled to get away from him. As her body slumped, her hips shifted, and his hard on returned with a vengeance. Her eyes widened and with an "Oh!" of surprise, and maybe a little delight she leapt off his lap.
Before her blush had the chance to fade, he was back to his normal body, hands in his pockets as he smirked at her nervous form. The miko was far more interesting, far more worthy, than he had thought before. She approached him, so that they were close enough to touch, if either of them were to lean toward the other. "Perhaps you should, um, guard me more often."
"Perhaps." Perhaps extra guard duty could give him time to explore the…possibilities.
She flashed him a smile, something he only ever received from Yukina, before she surprised him yet again with a light kiss on the cheek before running off to her house, stopping only to wave and quietly shout back to him, "Mama's gonna love you!"
Hiei's face returned to the same horrified, confused state it had been in only minutes previous. What is that supposed to mean? This little miko would be the death of him. But her touch…I wouldn't mind that.
AN: After writing Touch, I really wanted to write the same scene from Hiei's point of view. I also removed the last paragraph from Touch and put it here, since it was in Hiei's voice. Hope you all enjoyed it!