I'd like to thank Self-Proclaimed Everything, BlueUtopiah, thoth-moon, and MysticChaos for their reviews.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho; I make no profit from this story.

Burning Angels
by R. M. Weiss

Chapter 2:

"Is that everything?" Koenma asked, brushing chestnut hair from his eyes. He had ordered the ambulance Kurama had called for and then nearly flown from his office so he could reach before anyone else. He never imagined a simple surveillance case would turn into the nightmare it had just become. Officially they had nothing on Itsuki, no evidence to link him to any crimes, the man's record sparkling clean. If nothing else, Sensui had taken extremely good care of his men, particularly his saiko komon. Scratching the tattoo on his forehead, the youngest man ever to be appointed chief of police let out an aggravated sigh. A wanted yakuza member was all but with in their grasp and he'd be damned if they let Itsuki slip away this time.

Noting the distant look in Koenma's eyes, Kurama took his time to radio in a call to the ambulance that had taken Itsuki away and get a status report. Listening to the static laced voice on the other end tell him that they were fighting to stabilize the man, the redhead shot a glance at Koenma before handing the radio back to his partner. "Sir, he's in critical condition. We'll be lucky if he pulls through. From what I saw, he had five chest wounds, not to mention the strays that clipped his legs. Whoever did the drive-by didn't want to leave any chance Itsuki was going to survive."

"Then they must have miscalculated," the Chief replied. "Someone clearly fucked up."

The redhead nodded hesitantly and excused himself as he saw Hiei gesture for him to come over. "May I, sir?" he asked Koenma, knowing the Chief had seen the motion.

Scratching the back of his neck, the brunette nodded, "Of course…Oh, Kurama?"

"Yes sir?"

"I want a report on what happened in my office sitting on my desk by ten."

Promising to get the report done as soon as possible, the emerald eyed man hurried over to where his partner stood waiting. Hiei was leaning against a police cruiser, his hands jammed into his pockets as his eyes took in every detail of the parking garage.

"Hiei?" Kurama murmured as he slid up onto the hood of the cruiser.

The ex-con in question folded his arms across his chest. "Urameshi," he said slowly, "he's still in the hospital."

Knowing that it was more of a statement of fact than a question, the redhead waited for Hiei to continue.

"Sensui put him in the hospital. Itsuki is guilty by association."

"Yusuke wouldn't take something out on Itsuki," the redhead replied.

Snorting, Hiei tensed, a slight tightening of the muscles in his neck and shoulders. "You know what coming close to death can do to someone."

The words were like a wash of ice water over Kurama's head. Reaching out, he settled a hand on Hiei's folded arms, thumb moving in a soothing circle. "Don't think about that," he whispered, moving closer, lightly resting his head on Hiei's shoulder. Kurama wanted to put a brake on Hiei's thoughts, knowing they had strayed to a night long ago when he had taken a bullet from Hiei's gun, a bullet that had been meant for the nosy detective that had been snooping around their apartment. The metal casing had ripped into his abdomen and nicked the soft lining of his stomach. Kurama knew that Hiei had never forgiven himself for that night, the knowledge of how close the redhead had come to dying burning itself into his memory so that he would never forget it.

In a rare show of affection, Hiei took Kurama's hand and given it a light squeeze. It was the most he could offer until they got home. Tonight could have been another close call, if Kurama had run ahead, if the car had stopped and gone after them. There were so many 'ifs'.

Feeling the tension slowly drain from his partner's body, Kurama smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek when he was sure no one was watching. His gut told him that tonight they'd both be up for a little while longer than usual. It was nothing new, the need to reaffirm one's existence through sex, and the redhead was more than willing to give it if that's what Hiei would need to push all thoughts of guilt and brooding to the back of his mind.

- - -

The monitor blipped softly, ticking away a now steady heart beat. White sheets that smelled of sterile soap were pulled up high, carefully placed over tubes and fresh stitches closing surgical incisions. Drifting unconscious from pain that was managed by morphine, Itsuki never heard the door open or the soft limping gate that approached his bed.

Amanuma looked down at the still form of his guardian, watching the steady rise and fall of the man's chest. He had told the police all he remembered about the shooting, how he had been in the car waiting for Itsuki to come around and drive when the other car had sailed by, a spray of bullets coming from the passenger side window. He hadn't been able to see who it was that drove by, he had tucked himself between the seats in the back, lying on the floor to protect himself from the shattered glass. When he had heard the car roll away he had gotten out and seen the green haired man on the ground, and then had been restrained by a cop as he tried to reach for his guardian.

Sniffling back tears that blurred his vision, the boy rubbed hard at his eyes. In his head he could hear Sensui's voice, telling him to be strong and not cry. It was just so hard not to. The tears he was fighting built up more as he heard the door behind him click open. Turning around, he could only make out the blurry outline of a man with short black hair messily slicked by a hand and the aid of water. Amanuma knew on some logical level that this was not Sensui back from the dead, but as he saw the blurred figure take a step inside the room he found that he didn't care. In his mind, this person was his adoptive-father, and in a heart beat he ran across the room and grabbed hold of hospital issued pants, clinging and crying into the fabric, cheek pressed against the warmth of skin beneath.

The man who had entered the quiet room looked down with confusion at the boy. He had made his way from his room two floors down on sheer willpower, and the added weight to his still unstable legs was enough to make him have to work hard to keep his balance. Yusuke had been out of commission for the past few weeks ever since the warehouse shoot out, stuck in his bed unable to walk more than a few shuffling steps at a time because of the surgery on his right leg to repair his major artery that was hit by a stray bullet.

Of course, healing wounds and unused muscles meant nothing to him when he heard who was being housed in a room over his head. The brown eyed man had bribed the nurse taking his vitals and had her help him up to the private suite that was yet to be guarded by an officer from the local precinct.

It was strange to see the man who had to vehemently protected one of the most influential and feared kumicho lying vulnerable and still in a hospital bed. In the warehouse, the saiko komon had been the one Yusuke had found the hardest to get past. The detective had hit the man twice with a bullet, he was sure of that, and yet each time the other had gotten up and come at him again, trying to give Sensui time to escape.

Thinking back on the shootout, Yusuke felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder, his arm which hung in a cast giving a start to the sudden pulse. Closing brown eyes, the detective let out a heavy sigh laced with pain before reaching out with his good hand to gently push the crying child from his legs. "Easy kid," he murmured, looking down into the boy's red-rimmed eyes.

Amanuma swallowed hard around the lump in his throat as he heard the man speak. The voice was so different from Sensui's, and in a hairsbreadth of time the brown haired child remembered that Sensui was dead and this man, who he could now see clearly through half-dried eyes, was the city's up and coming detective, Yusuke Urameshi.

Stepping away, the boy felt anger replace his sadness. Like an infection it spread from the pit of his stomach through his body. Backing up until he hit the edge of Itsuki's bed, Amanuma felt a scowl appear on his face. Determined to protect the unconscious man if need be, he wiped his nose across the back of his sleeve and crouched ever so slightly, getting ready to spring forward. Though he was the youngest in the group and had never been left unsupervised during the meetings between the Seventh Shinobu-gumi, he wasn't completely helpless.

When he had been brought home that night two years ago, Amanuma had been a pathetic malnourished child. He had lived on the streets for a while, his parents having died in an accident four months earlier, and he hadn't known a parent's tender care until a tall man with black hair and tanned skin had come up to him and extended a hand in friendship. For the next two months he had worked running errands for the quiet man, until one night he was offered a place to sleep. The boy had been skeptical about going with Sensui, but something inside him had urged him to follow the man that night, and he knew now that he would never regret his decision. That night had been the first night of the next two years in which he would be groomed to become Sensui's successor, and part of that job had included training in self-defense. Lowering his eyes, Amanuma planted his feet a little firmer on the floor as he continued to think back.

Yusuke noticed the change in the boy's posture, recognizing the hunched over shoulders and subtle shift in weight from toe to heel. He had used the same pose when he was a child trying to fend off the bullies at school and establish himself as the kid no one wanted to mess around with. Feeling a grin tug at the corner of his lips, brown eyes closed briefly as he rubbed the back of his neck with a clammy hand, "Hey now, brat, I'm not going to do anything."

"Stay away," the boy snapped, inching closer towards the hospital bed, nearly climbing onto it.

Taking a step closer, Yusuke's grin morphed into a frown when he noticed the boy tense even more. It was clear that Amanuma wasn't fooling around, and if the detective pushed his luck he'd find himself being dashed to the floor by a boy not much higher than his waist line.

"I'm not here to kill him," Yusuke said after a moment, turning his chocolate eyes on Itsuki's pallid face. The green haired saiko komon lay still as a corpse in the bed, the barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest hardly disturbing the sheets that covered him. Someone, most likely a nurse, had tied his hair back in a messy ponytail, emphasizing the hollows of his cheeks even more. The last five weeks seemed to have taken their toll on the man, and Yusuke felt his mind drift to wondering just how devoted Itsuki had been to his kumicho.

'Of course the fact he just got a round of bullets in his body might also be what's keeping him from winning any beauty pageants,' the detective thought.

"I said stay away!"

Coming back from his thoughts, Yusuke found that he had gotten closer. Holding up a hand in surrender, the detective tried to appear as unthreatening as possible. "You're very protective, aren't you?"

"It…" Amanuma felt his resolve falter at the question. Casting his eyes back to the floor he stared at a patch of linoleum tiling. "It's none of your business."

Turning at the sound of the door opening, Yusuke nodded in greeting to the slim blue haired nurse came in her, red eyes filled with worry. Yukina had been looking all over the hospital for the past hour trying to find the little boy that she had been put in charge of. He had slipped away when she had gone to get him some juice from the cafeteria, and the head nurse had not been pleased to find out that she had lost him.

"Amanuma-kun, you shouldn't be in here," she said, hurrying over to the boy and gently placing a hand on his shoulder and checking for a fever by pressing the back of her hand against the boy's forehead. Looking back at Yusuke she smiled a little, "You shouldn't be here either, Yusuke-san. You still need to rest. Your wound isn't completely healed…"

"I had to come up here and see this for myself."

"I understand," Yukina replied. Gathering Amanuma away from the bed, she kept a gentle hand on his thin shoulder. "I have to get him back to pediatrics…please rest, Yusuke."

"Give me five minutes."

Yukina nodded silently in response, ushering Amanuma in front of her. The boy turned back only once at the door to look at Itsuki, his eyes focusing on the man's hand which lay atop of the pristine white sheet. It was the same hand that had so often stroked his hair to get him to sleep after a nightmare, the same one that could be loving and gentle one minute, and then pull the trigger of a gun pointed at a target the next.

He had always tried to figure out Itsuki, why the man was so devoted to Sensui. Looking away from his guardian, he closed his eyes and let Yukina lead him from the room, back towards the warm light yellow room he had been given on the second floor of the hospital. For now all he could do was hope that the detective that had walked in wouldn't hurt Itsuki.

Back in the clean white room, Yusuke took a seat in the chair beside the bed, his head dropping into the cradle made by his hands as he hunched over. Watching the steady rising and falling of the line on the heart monitor, he felt his hand twitch as if to pull a trigger. He had a couple questions for the man lying in the bed before him. If it was possible, Yusuke was going to get to the root of the boryokudan structure in the city, and he was going to start with this saiko komon.

TBC…

A short chapter that will hopefully act as the lull before the storm. Burning Angels will begin to pick up it's pace soon enough.