Hello, readers (:

I hope you have enjoyed the story thus far. Given, it has been sorta graphic, but this chapter is a bit more mellow and informative. Even a bit funny at the end. Again, if you've read even a part of it, a small review would mean the world to me. Let me know how I'm doing.

Come on, guys. Even a smiley face as a review would be fabulous.

Enjoy!

There was cool wind blowing through my hair. The sky above was not villainous or bent on providing suffering through heat, but rather a soft and delicate blue, streaked with the puffiest cotton clouds. We were all playing in the most sumptuous, rolling hills of grass and wildflowers. Tree clusters were peppered all around the landscape. My hands were small and soft, smudged with dirt and the green hue of grass- a child's. Other children were laughing, and my body was laughing. My face was engaged in the largest smile that must have ever existed. The grass was cool beneath my feet- my body wanted for no nourishment. Most of the other children were gathered around, in, and up in the nearest bunch of trees. They were calling my name, reaching out for me to continue playing with them. My heart fluttered in my chest.

They were calling my name. My body was gleefully walking towards them, joyous at the thought of continuing what must have been a carefree day of child's play.

They were calling my name. It must have been my name.

What was my name?

My name.

Now everything was hot. It was too hot to be a summer's day. There were screams coming from everywhere. Burning wood and flesh melded into one rotten scent. Everything was a swirl of orange, yellow and crimson. Was there blood spattered along the floor? There must have been a body attached to the cold hand mine grasped. Hot liquid oozed from my eyes, almost evaporating in the immense heat. The yells of men roared above the call of the fire engulfing everything. Arms and hands were tearing me from where my body was determined to stay.

Why was this so?

Then the hot air that threatened to smother my own breath turned cool, and the roaring fire that was the cause was no longer around me. Instead, it was engulfing a small, humble home.

My home.

My home was not the only one being ravaged. In my struggle to scape the man's arms that grasped me, my eyes caught sight of a large number of homes near mine. The fire was everywhere. It spared nothing. The men spared no capture of a small girl from some of the houses, either. Many were crying. My eyes spilled hot tears, too.

One girl who was being held by another man near me reached out, as if to touch me. Her golden eyes were clouded with tears. As her little hand reached for me, her sob-stricken voice said something.

It had to have been my name that graced her lips.

Everything was so cold then. There was nothing but darkness.

Damp air clouded my lungs. My body had long ago given up the hope of breaking free, much of which had to do with the shackles that clasped my wrists to chains upon the wall. It hadn't known true nourishment in so long- only the scraps thrown to it like an animal and the hollow, sick touch of men. They came frequently, whenever they so wished.

The clink of coins and locks outside of 'my door,' alerted me to the incoming insult to my body. It did not matter how I cried or resisted. If anything, it made the ways in which they touched me worse. The parts of my body that I remember being told were sacred and to be used only for the one I would eventually 'love,' whatever that were to mean, were as frequently trespassed and used as a common sidewalk. The emptiness I felt was only reinforced by the fact that I felt so even as other things foreign to me entered my body.

Other contact meant torture. My frail body prayed for death.

Freedom. Freedom was what came next.

My body, my hair, my arms, my skin was all warm and free, running away from the wretched place where we were.

We.

The same girl from that night, now so long ago, accompanied me. We had escaped? It did not matter. We ran for so long, reveling in our freedom. Along our travels, we stole minimal clothes for our bare bodies to not attract the attention we had so long been subject to.

We traveled for so long- the warm wind in our hair, the sun on our skin. We were so much older then. Eventually we came upon a place where nobody else was- a place of vast sand. Not a soul roamed the place, save for those of menial animals and insects. It was perfect for us.

We spoke to one another about our lives before we were taken, and our imprisonment.

What had come before?

Then, she was gone. I was alone.

Alone to roam the vast sands for years.

Then came the day of blood, crimson blood. A pair of crimson eyes.

Hiei and Kurama were given the task of watching over her after Botan and Genkai had administered the healing she needed. Her body was not yet totally physically healed. However, it was a right sight better than what it had been before. Before her and Yusuke left for their human school studies, Keiko had provided her with a long-sleeved cream shirt that both provided modest coverage of her body and easy access to her wound, along with proper undergarments.

Now she lay in a room of one of Genkai's private houses. Her brown hair, much cleaner than the night before, spilled upon the pillow under which her head rested. The room had a single window, the sill of which Hiei was perched upon, a bed, an armchair for Kurama, and an I.V. drip that was providing the girl with fluids and nutrients through the vein in her wrist.

The thin white sheet that was meant to cover her sleeping body had become quite the hindrance to her fitful, seemingly restless slumber. The girl tossed and turned without stop. Kurama supposed that she would fetch some water for her to drink, as it seemed that she would be waking up soon.

If you're too weak to defend yourself, you deserve to fall, Hiei thought. Yet, if he didn't know any better, the small girl writhing upon the bed could not have possibly been the same girl with the powerful energy that slaughtered the demon the day before. Without the moon's light, she did not appear to be the same girl that he rescued the night before, either.

Another issue was the manner of her being. Currently, she had the puniest human aura. When she was found killing the demon, she had a powerful demonic scent and strength. Just last night, however, she had an almost spiritual aura. Hiei did not like not understanding things, and it bothered him to his core that he was so perplexed by a being that seemed to be so weak- at least at the moment.

The girl on the bed woke with a start. She immediately sat up, deeply frightened and broken out in a sweat. Hiei could smell the fear upon her and used his Jagan eye to peer into her thoughts.

The girl's thinking was all a rapid blur- all Hiei could make out were images of fire, and then the feeling of desolate cold. The feeling of being chained to a wall. Hiei saw her look at the I.V. and noticed the scent of complete fear, and quickly darted over to prevent what he knew was about to happen.

In her fit of fear, the girl tried to rip her wrist from the 'constraints' of the I.V. In doing so, blood began to squirt from her wrist just as Hiei came upon her. He clamped his hand around her wrist to stop the bleeding- but that only made her struggle more. It was evident from her thoughts that she didn't know where she was or what was happening, probably from the combination of poor health and trauma.

"Onna, w-will you stop this idiocy?" Hiei demanded, struggling with the task of subduing her, while also making sure her wrist wouldn't hemorrhage.

A surge of heat emanated from the girl, as did a guttural growl. A hand equipped with growing claws attempted to push him away, but Hiei was far too strong. He pinned her other hand by her side and used his knee to force her down as gently as possible. Of course, if this girl further injured herself under his charge his parole wound never end in the human world.

"Stop it, you damned feral idiot!" he cried, forcing her to look at him.

As her liquid gold eyes met his, an animalistic slit retreated into a normal pupil, and any trace of red faded away. The two were so close that Hiei could feel her hot breath grace his chest as it faded into a calmer state.

"You…" she hoarsely whispered, peering deeper into his eyes.

"What are you blabbering about?" Startled to hear her speak, his knee slipped from her stomach to her side opposite of where his other leg was planted.

"You. You saved me," she almost inaudibly said.

"Don't be daft, you fool," scoffed Hiei. He began to go on to chide her for her foolishness as a stupid woman, and tell her he'd have rather let her wallow in her own misery and blood were it not for his condition, when the door to her room slowly opened.

"Well. Had I known that you couldn't restrain your mating desires until you knew her name, I wouldn't have left, Hiei," remarked Kurama. Clearly he had brought back the glass of water he had left to find, and also Genkai.

"When I heard the commotion, I had suspected it had something to do with her condition, not your trying to get better, ahem, acquainted with her," chastised Genkai.

The warmth of her stomach between his legs and her arms in his hands led Hiei to realize that, in his struggle to subdue her against herself, he had portrayed something else entirely. He had really quite straddled her.