What Runs Deeper
a fanfiction by andrivette and psychoheidi
chapter three
"Rise and Decline"
A couple of the men got out today when Kirin was bringing them food.
It was becoming more than he could handle without seriously considering killing them all.
He had managed to recapture one of them so far but there was no telling where the other had run off to, and no telling what he was doing there, either.
If Hiei wasn't so useless, then this—whatever this was—would be much easier.
Hiei didn't care how tired Mukuro claimed she was, he would not be ordered around and then dismissed like a brainless servant.
"I said get up!" he snapped, and with an enraged snarl tore his sword from its sheath. In the next instant, he was standing over her on the bed, driving the tip of the blade downward toward her head.
She rolled out of the way and threw herself upright, snatching Hiei's throat in her hand and flinging him in one powerful motion, and he met impact with the wall.
Hiei climbed somewhat unsteadily from the pile of debris, then coughed and swallowed, touching a hand to his throat.
"Don't be stupid. I'm going to do what I want."
Mukuro just stood there on her bed, stretching languidly, and he glared at her, more enraged than before.
Deciding that he was going to end this once and for all, Hiei concentrated a small, dark flame of energy into his right hand and hurled it.
Mukuro's bed promptly exploded in a mass of fabric, stuffing, and embers.
"Not today, bitch," he said as the smoke cleared, immensely pleased with himself.
Mukuro roared and ran through the flames at him, but even as she proceeded to beat him, Hiei felt a great sense of accomplishment.
She was out of bed. He had won.
But of course he had won, he thought as Mukuro's fist smashed again and again into his face. He tried to knee her in the stomach but was too disoriented to actually know if the hit connected. It took him several minutes to realize she had stopped, and several more to come to the conclusion that she had left.
Of course he had won, he thought again as he lay numbly on the floor. Then he decided it was time for a nap, and closed his eyes.
Hiei never accepted anything less than victory.
As it turned out, the missing man had somehow wandered all the way to the other end of the fortress, and it was not until Kirin went to eat that he discovered the wayward demon, stumbling about the entrance of the dining hall. Almost certainly the reason he looked so lost was that Hiei—predictably—was still nowhere to be found, and the corridors had become hauntingly devoid of regular activity anyway.
Kirin easily apprehended the soldier and locked him in the room with the others, and he had just turned around when he spotted a most welcome sight rounding the corner up ahead.
"My Lord!" he exclaimed, going toward her. "I am thankful you're here. Are you aware of what's been happening? A large number of your ranks have been acting uncontrollably violent for no reason; I've locked them in there"—he gestured at the door—"for the time being, but without your wise counsel, I am unsure as to what course of action should be taken next."
She stared at him for a moment, and then waved her hand. "What are you doing? Let them out."
Kirin stared at her, dumbfounded.
"But Lord Mukuro, are you sure that would be a good idea? They're a danger to themselves and others in their current mindset, and allowed to roam free, I can't imagine what might take place."
He almost asked her why her hands and sleeves were bloody, since he was quite certain Hiei said she had been sleeping, but decided that it was a question better left for another time.
"They're my men!" Mukuro barked. "Let them out!"
She smiled just slightly when he finally did as she commanded, but her expression soon changed upon spotting the men inside.
"Get back to your work!" Then she rounded on Kirin. "Don't ever lock them up again."
"Of course not," Kirin agreed quickly, concerned at the strange look in her eye, and he continued to concern himself over it even after she had left, her men in tow. He walked away wondering what would happen now that Mukuro was not condoning the isolation of her delinquent soldiers.
Kirin passed Hiei a short time later, disheveled, bruised, and blood-smeared, and it suddenly clicked in his brain that the blood staining Mukuro's hands must have been Hiei's.
Whatever had transpired between the two of them surely was at the root of Mukuro's irritability.
"Hiei, what—"
"Yes, yes, I woke her up," he interrupted. "Are you satisfied now?"
Kirin felt a fleeting guilt at Hiei's condition, and at the fact that his efforts might have been in vain anyway.
"She seemed . . . off," he decided.
"Hn."
"Did she say anything to you?" Kirin continued as Hiei walked past him.
"Fuck off."
Kirin hesitated. "No, I meant about whether something was wrong or if there was a reason that she doesn't want me to keep her men lock—"
"No, you imbecile," Hiei snapped, turning on him. "I am not in the mood for chit-chat at the moment and even if I was, you are at the bottom of the list of people I would ever want to engage in conversation with, so fuck off."
Kirin frowned, trying to think of a suitable response, but Hiei was already walking away. Kirin thought about warning him against heading in that direction, since that was where most of the men he had released had gone, but kept silent.
Maybe it would be fair if Hiei could never walk peacefully through the halls again.
That little bastard.