Hiei of the Thousand Eyes

Chapter Six: Jaganshi

Kurama's fingers twitched in an aborted move for a seed in his hair when he finally saw Yusuke. He had only been back in the Makai for a few weeks since leaving Kuwabara's residence. By all accounts, he was not well off when he left, but he could not have been this.

Yusuke looked half-starved and delirious. His body was beaten and not healing as if he had just completed the toughest fight of his life. He sat under a waterfall and let it suffer more abuse.

"My lord has been going through stamina training," the attendent who guided Kurama explained. "He and Hokushin are preparing him for the next Makai tournament."

Kurama frowned. This was not fitting. Yusuke was brash and often reckless, and while he would train for a cause, Kurama couldn't believe Yusuke would subject himself to this type of abuse for anyone other than Genkai.

"My lord wishes to become the next King," the attendant explained.

"Your lord can speak for himself," Kurama said with a wave of dismissal. He was welcomed enough by Yusuke's following, known as a close friend, and was treated with such respect. The attendant bowed and backed away, although they weren't left completely alone.

"Yusuke?" Kurama prodded over the roar of the waterfall. He itched for a seed again, a plant he could grow and turn into a medicine of some sort, but it would put Yusuke to sleep and Kurama needed to speak with him.

Yusuke peaked an eye open before returning to his meditation. "Whaddya want?"

"Can you step outside of the waterfall, please? Just for a moment."

Yusuke sighed deeply but stood, muscles straining with the effort of such a simple task. They walked a bit further down the water's edge and away from the deafening noise. "Must be important if you're back down here."

Kurama gave a perfunctory nod. "There's been an incident, I'm afraid. Nothing that requires your direct attention, but I would like to share with you the details of the matter."

Yusuke grunted. Kurama took that as a sign to continue. "There's been a human girl who collected the scattered remains of a lost artifact. It's power, once restored, turned her into a demon. That is being taken care of. She is nothing more than a scared child, really, although she puts up a good front. What concerns us is that Fubuki went to retrieve the artifact and it was missing. There's no energy signature to it, since it gave Naya-san a power. It appears the Eye of Solomon is in hibernation until next year. If it is in the wrong hands when it activates again, it could lead to disaster."

"So what do you want from me?" Yusuke asked, swaying a bit on his feet.

Kurama shook his head. He finally reached for the medicine seed and let it bloom between his hands. "Do not harm yourself in pursuit of forgetting," Kurama advised his friend. "We may need you in the future. But please, keep an eye out for the Eye of Solomon." He handed over the flower bloom. "Take care, Yusuke."

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the flower, you stupid fox."

Kurama had more to report, but Yusuke was not in the frame of mind to listen. He took what he could in making sure that the hanyou's training didn't kill him.

Botan strapped something that looked like a blood pressure cuff around Chihiro's arms and pressed a button with that annoying cheerful grin of hers.

"Do I even have blood pressure?" Chihiro asked. "I thought my heart didn't work anymore."

"Oh! Well, technically you do have blood pressure. It's extremely high! But, it is supposed to be," Botan cheered. Chihiro felt it getting even higher from Botan's voice alone. "However, this handy dandy contraption is the latest technology from Spirit World! It's going to help us figure out what type of demon you are."

Chihiro clenched her jaw as the cuff started to tighten. She was slowly adjusting to the idea that this was her life now, but she wasn't happy about it. A demon. She'd spent a week at the temple so far and most of the others were gone. The only people left were the family that lived here and surprisingly Hiei, despite his attitude that he'd rather be anywhere else. Even Kaisei had abandoned her. Other responsibilities, he quoted. Chihiro wondered if he just needed time away from her.

Botan, however, kept popping in. Ever since word went back to this Koenma fellow, she'd been assigned to the case. Which at current meant determining Chihiro's demon race.

Soon the pressure of the cuff eased up and Botan stared at the jibberish calculations in thought.

"So?" Kuwabara asked, leaning over Botan's shoulder. "What's it say?"

"Hmmmmm, it's very interesting," Botan said, her voice turning serious for a moment. Then like whiplash she perked back up. "I have no idea!" Botan jumped to her feet and summoned her oar. "I'll have to confer with Koenma on this one! I'll be back in a jiffy." She waved goodbye and began to fly away.

Chihiro ripped the forgotten cuff off her arm and threw it across the porch. It had been a week. A week, and all they knew was that her heart had stopped beating but she wasn't dead. Other than the one time she out maneuvered Hiei, nothing else had happened. No blazing aura, no sudden powers, no change in appearance. Chihiro wouldn't even believe them if it weren't for the fact she couldn't feel her own heartbeat anymore.

She looked up and over to the tree where Hiei was lounging. He was supposed to help train her, apparently. A punishment for letting her complete the puzzle. All he did was hurl insults her way without ever speaking with her directly.

"Fuck this," Chihiro snapped, heading back to the room they had made up for her. She was going home. Nothing happened. She may be a demon, but she wasn't anything special. She didn't need to be here. Chihiro had grabbed all her things (a duffle full of clothes and toiletries Kaiei had gone back to her apartment to get for her) when she was caught.

There was no indication that he was there, and yet Chihiro knew that when she turned around Hiei would be standing in the doorway.

"You care enough to stop me?" she scoffed. He, typically, didn't respond. Chihiro slung her bag over her shoulder and grabbed her swords off the dresser. She turned to face the red eyed demon. He'd gone back to tying a band around his third eye and kept a heavy cloak, even inside. "You don't want me here. Nobody knows shit. I'll come back if I start accidentally killing people, or whatever it is you're worried about, but I have a life to get back to."

She was prepared to push past him, but was stopped in her tracks when Hiei for the first time addressed her directly.

"You never had a life."

Chihiro blinked in surprise. Rage swelled up inside her. "Excuse me?"

"I've seen what you call a life. It's been nothing but fear and running. You have nothing to go back to because there's nothing you've ever cared enough about to fight for."

Chihiro wanted to protest, but she couldn't. He was right. What was waiting for her? Ryuoko's gang that probably had a bounty on her head. An apartment where none of her neighbors knew her real name. No job. No friends other than Kaisei and at best Risa. Her father. If Chihiro went back, she would be hunted down and either killed or recruited and neither option sounded good.

"Fuck." She tossed her short blades back onto her bed and dropped her bag. "Fuck!" Her rage burst through and she swung a fist towards the wall. A hand caught her mid swing, strong enough without effort to stop her full motion. Her full body shook as she stared into Hiei's eyes and for the first time truly thought he was dangerous.

"Do not wreck this house," he commanded.

"Let go."

Hiei squeezed against her knuckles. She could feel the strain on her bones and grit her teeth to keep from crying out.

"You're a nuisance," he spat before dropping her hand.

Chihiro held it close to her body. "Then why didn't you just let me leave to my death?"

Hiei flicked his eyes her way as he walked out the door, seemingly bored by the interaction. He didn't say a word, and yet Chihiro felt as if she knew the answer. She had only traded one prison for another.

Hiei did another patrol of the compound. There were many demons living within the sanctuary of the mountain, but they were weaklings and cowards not likely to venture too close to the temple. Still, he was here and his only kin was otherwise left to the protection of that buffoon.

The girl didn't seem like a danger, yet. She knew her way around her weapons but hadn't handled them as a threat since her first entrance. Still, he didn't like the way she moved. Not the first night when she dodged him. Not the way her eyes always found him without trying, no matter where he stood. Not the way she almost seemed to know things before they happened whether it was catching a plate Yukina dropped or when her friend was going to leave again after brining back her things.

He didn't like it. But so far, she was harmless.

Hiei could feel Boton flying down before she was anywhere near in sight. Surely her quick trip to the reikai was only to confer with Koenma before giving them any real information. Typical. They claimed demons to be selfish, but they hoarded information like the darkest of them.

"Hiei!" she called out, voice shrill. Hiei had never liked her. He refused to look her way until she jumped off her oar and onto the branch next to him. "I need to request something of you." He knew she was serious, but he couldn't help but glare. What right did she have to make any requests. "Since you're here instead of doing your duty in the Makai, and the situation has changed somewhat, we asked if, instead of serving your time to the current King due to your application into the tournament –"

"Spit it out, woman," Hiei snapped. She was the most annoying babbler.

Botan laughed nervously. "It's the girl. We need you to protect her. Training or not, she could be in trouble."

"Why is that my problem?"

"Because you're transferring from the border patrol to Chihiro Naya protection force!" Botan declared.

From the porch Hiei could feel the girl's eyes on him. "What about me?"

Botan flailed so hard she almost fell out of the tree. It would have been amusing. On the ground, Chihiro snorted.

"Perhaps it is best I tell you both at once. Let's have some tea, shall we?"

Botan summoned her oar and floated down the ground. It was going to be a long day.

Once they were all situated around the kitchen table, Botan began to nervously explain the situation. "You see," she began, twisting a strand of her blue hair like a wet sponge, "we have determined the type of demon Chihiro has turned into thanks to the power of the Eye of Solomon."

"And?" the girl asked. She seemed calm, posture set, eyes focused, but her forefinger was shaking just the slightest as it hovered against the side of her teacup. The girl had many tells, Hiei had observed over the past few weeks. All of them were so subtle only someone as sharp as Hiei would spot them so quickly. He briefly wondered where she had learned to suppress her emotion so that her only sign of nerves was the barest hint of a shake in a single finger.

Botan looked at him, wringing her hair like a foolish school girl afraid to be reprimanded. She turned back to the girl. "You see, in the Makai there is a tournament to decide the ruler. It happens every three years or so. Once it's been shorter because a king war particularly unpopular. It's fairly new, but it seems to be holding steadily."

The girl nodded, unsure what the non sequitur was about.

"Part of the rules of that tournament states that anyone who enters and doesn't win must serve the King during his reign. Hiei is supposed to be serving border patrol right now, but instead we have made a deal that he can look after you." For a moment Botan forgot her fears and spoke with all her nagging force directly to him. "We were going to do this regardless, because Hiei should take responsibility for giving you the artifact." Hiei glared back and she immediately backed off, although she finally stopped wringing her hair. "The fact is, it turns out Hiei is the best person to look after you and perhaps teach you, because of what you are," she told Chihiro.

"And what am I?" the girl prodded, annoyed at the delay in explanation.

Botan pouted but then shifted her eyes back to Hiei. "She's a Jaganshi."

Hiei blinked, surprised. The girl wasn't the master of anything, let alone the eye he had taken years to control.

"Not in the sense that you know," Botan continued. "The race was wiped out long ago. Hunted down for their eyes."

The gravity of what the reaper was trying to tell him clicked. He looked over to the girl, who was still lost, not knowing what a Jaganshi was. The eye in his forehead, that he trained so hard to obtain and harder still to wield, was taken from someone else. It had to, eyes weren't just fabricated.

This girl, with the help of the artifact she puzzled together, was now a creature that would be hunted if anyone learned of her existence. Unless she learned how to defend herself, the guilty conscious of Koenma would never let Hiei off his post. He sounded his displeasure with a heavy tsk. She was going to be the bane of his existence for a long while.

"She hasn't shown any signs," he protested weakly, searching for anyway out of this.

"The change will come," Botan assured him. "It's only a matter of time."

"Are either of you going to clue me into what you're fucking talking about?" Chihiro snapped.

Chihiro tried her best to not be affected but all this weirdness was getting to her. It was one thing to learn about this world beyond her own. Demons and spirits and magic golden stones were one thing. Becoming something other than herself was another. For the first time since putting the artifact shards together, she felt like maybe that was true.

After Botan explained further what a Jaganshi demon was, Chihiro quickly put things together. How she moved out of Hiei's path that first night in the temple, of how she could always find who she needed in the temple without try. Her eyes could find Hiei in the tree line in a mere moment. She hadn't sprouted a thousand eyes across her body, such as was Botan's description, but it was always as if she knew things before she saw them. It was the only way to explain how she made it out of Ryuoku's back room alive.

It was the only way to explain how she put it all together so fast.

The more Botan had explained about how their eyes held different features, the more it made sense that she was slowly adapting to the myriad of powers. Her heart had already blasted wide open. She had no heartbeat, no pulse, blood coursed through her veins at a speed they couldn't otherwise track. And her eyes would one day see everything.

"My father was always ten steps ahead of me," she whispered after Botan had gone silent. "All I wanted was to never be caught off guard by him again."

Hiei looked at her strangely and she frowned. Eyes for sight, eyes for searching, eyes for telepathy, eyes for summoning. Hiei had all these powers, Botan had explained, from the single eye on his forehead that had long ago been taken from one of her kind.

Chihiro briefly thought that she didn't have a kind. She was born human. She was made. Modeled after a long dead race. There was none of her kind.

"If Hiei can help you unlock how your new powers work, you'll learn all those same things and more."

She looked at him and he at her and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was a mistake.