Chapter 19

The next few days left Kuronue with an empty feeling. He had sworn to love Inane after seeing Hika and Charlie were happy. Right after that Inane was made to forget everything—their friendship, their love, their promises. Everything was gone like a leaf that had been burned.

Kuronue was left to watch Hika and Charlie try to not show any happiness around him. This only made him angrier. How could he help two people when he couldn't even get over the jealousy that he felt for them both? He felt jealous of Charlie because he had Hika. He was jealous of Hika because she hadn't seemed to get any o the memories of Hiromi or Deshiri back and for the fact that she hadn't lost the person making her happy in this life.

He was slowly eating a lunch prepared by Hika as he watched the two try to tease a laugh out of him by acting like goof brains. It was a good two weeks since Inane had stopped hanging out with them. He found himself watching Hika more and more with a stare that spoke of hundreds of years of life experience. Finally he had had enough. He rose from his seat and glared at them.

"How can the two of you act that way?" he demanded. "First we have that bitch to roast and then I have to make Koenma so afraid of me that he'll never screw with my friends and life again."

"Well, we don't even know where to start Kuronue," Charlie said reasonably, "She didn't leave many clues except some 'Lord Ethan' chap until we figure him out, we can't get to the woman that took and hurt Inane."

"And you haven't smiled since that day at the diner Kuronue," Hika pointed out with a small frown, worry on her face. "We are worried about you my friend."

"You-"Kuronue started with a growl. Why had she not remembered everything as he had? Why was he left here to suffer and she remained blissfully unaware of it all? He no longer had Inane to distract him from his want of the girl before him. Only his loyalty to Charlie kept him from sweeping in and kissing Hika right there. "You wouldn't understand. You have each other. It's disgusting. A bound elemental and a bat demon that can't eve fly. You couldn't even save Inane before it was too late. You both were too busy playing school to notice that she was gone!"

They were stunned into silence by this attack by their friend. He could tell that he'd hurt them, and a bit of him was glad. Glaring at them, he shoved the lunch he'd been eating back at them before stalking off. Charlie and Hika didn't even hesitate to pick up their lunches before they were both up out of their own seats, chasing after Kuronue.

Hika had know that there had been something wrong with Kuronue ever since the time in the diner when he'd looked at her weird, but she hadn't been able to quite figure it out. It was like he knew more than her and wanted to tell her but didn't.

Why are you chasing Kuronue when you could be chasing me? Came the all too familiar voice of the man that controlled minds. The girl came to a standstill as a picture of her home flicked into her mind's eye before bursting into flames.

Come here quick if you don't want your home destroyed. A picture of the top of the school then appeared before her. She looked after Charlie and Kuronue. Charlie had caught up with Kuronue and was talking to him. She wouldn't be needed because Kuronue would listen to Charlie's calm logic right?

Without hesitation she ran for the school. She was up on the school's roof no more than ten minutes later. She would have been there in five if a teacher hadn't seen her running and told her to stop after a lecture on the dangers of running in the hallway. She had to admit that the teacher was very creative after listening to an example about how running could lead one to slipping and falling out a fourth story window.

She exited cautiously out onto the roof, looking around carefully for any sign of a trap. "Come on out you!" she shouted.

"No need to call quiet so loud," came a voice over her. She spun just in time to get kicked in the stomach with a booted foot as Bleathe swung down from her perch on the roof of the stairwell. Hika dropped and rolled. When she looked up she saw the girl that had taken Inane that day in the diner.

"You-"Hika started before her gaze moved upwards. There, sitting as if he were watching a horse race, sat Edmund.

"Hello Hika," Edmund said with an evil smile. "How are you this good day?"

Hika tried not to shift away from the cold words. They had—for the most part—trusted him. They had welcomed him into their home with the expectation that he would help protect them from the demon that had threatened Hika. How could he betray them like this?

"Oh don't look at me. Look at your opponent. Bleathe will be the hardest fight you've ever had in all of your lives," Edmund said, pointing down to where the woman had been before. She had seemingly vanished from sight. "She can mess with your mind as well as take it over. But you would remember that if you'd paid attention to Deshiri's precious diary."

As Hika spun around, her eyes seeking some sign of the demon woman, she tried to puzzle out what he had meant. She had read the diary from front to back and didn't remember anything about a 'Bleathe'. There had been so many different kinds of demons in it that it was hard to find one that matched what Edmund had just said. Hika wasn't a genius and couldn't remember every word of the diary but she remembered the parts about the demons.

"And today we added a new guard to our ranks. She is to guard the prisoners and Edmund when she has no one to guard. Her name is Zanti. She has a daughter with her, but that is a side note of little importance," Edmund read, holding up the diary he'd stolen from Hika's room when he had been sure she'd read it all. "Zanti has the most peculiar set of powers I, a mere human in a demon's world, have ever seen. Not only can she control a mind, but she can also make a mind she touches see, or not-see, what she desires. It will be useful, that skill, while Edmund conquers." He flipped a few pages as Hika turned around and around, trying to find some clue as to where to other woman had gone.

"Zanti is dead. Good riddance. She was all over Kur any time she was alone, despite having multiple warnings from myself. Maybe this is cruel, but I am glad the demon whore is dead."

Hika was remembering the passages as he was reading them. What that had to do with Hiromi and herself she didn't quite understand at all. Sure, Kuronue was a common factor but Deshiri—as far as the woman could find—had been alive at least three or four centuries before Hiromi. Other than their attraction to Kuronue, Hiromi and Deshiri were in no way related. Even family genealogy had cut out that possibility that they had been related through blood and thus connected that way.

"What does this have to do with me Edmund?"

"You will pay for Deshiri's crimes against my friend's mother Hika. It is too bad it is happening this soon. I was looking forward to making you squirm a little more. You and Kuronue are so much fun to torture," Edmund told the girl with a smirk.

"But why? What do I have to do with Deshiri? This is revenge for something I never did or had any control over?" Hika asked, frowning, trying to figure out the man and woman's logic. "I'm not Deshiri. I'm Hiromi's reincarnation."

"You are both," Edmund retorted.