Ride Like the Wind

Chapter 5

A week had passed and they arrived at a small town. The problem was it was the wrong town.

"We went the wrong way..." Hiei stared at the sign that read "Welcome to Gonzales!" in Spanish in dismay. He turned to Kurama and growled, "I thought you said you knew which way was east and which way was west!"

"Hey, you never said it we were facing north or what from where we were..." Shuichi said, with a sigh. "It's not my fault you have no sense in direction."

"I don't have a sense in direction?"

"You're-What?-twice my age and you still don't know which way's east and which way's west. I'm fifteen and I know that. What's wrong with this picture?"

"Forget it. Gonzales is just about a couple weeks away from Ramirez. We just walk straight through here and we'll be alright."

"Okay then."

"I don't need you now. You can go." Hiei waved a hand as if to shoo him away.

"You dragged me out here just so I would have to walk for a week and try to teach you which way's left and which way's right."

"I'll come back to that." Hiei crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing.

"Hiei, for reference, look at your hands."

"What about 'em?"

"The back of your hands."

"Once again, I fail to see what you're getting at."

"You're left hand forms an 'L' from your index finger and your thumb. They teach you that in grade school."

"Oh, hey! I never noticed that!" He stared at his hand, looking slightly amazed. "Wow... Now that that's done I can have you go now!"

"You only liked me because I know which way's left or right!"

"Yeah... Or I could just shoot you and get the whole thing over with..." He pointed the gun to the red head.

The gun was suddenly slapped out of Hiei's hand. "What the hell're you doin'!"

Shuichi left out a mental sigh of relief as he looked at the person who probably just saved his life.

The person was a boy that was fourteen years old. He had raven hair that he kept slick. His eyes were brown like mud and had a glimmer of confidence. His face looked like it always had the same confident look on his face, but was sometimes replaced by a frown or glare. He was starting to build muscle, too, and he was also lightly tanned. He was actually half Japanese.

"You okay, man?" he asked.

He has a New Yorker's accent... "Yeah... It was nothing. I don't think he really was gonna shoot..."

"Says a lot to me if he would ran like hell if he wasn't gonna do anythin'. Knew the stories about him were bad but..."

Shuichi raised an eyebrow. He remembered hearing what Botan had said about people making crazy stories about his parents, but he didn't know people made up stuff about him. That was when he remembered...

He heard about it when he was five and playing around outside. The women often gossiped about strange things, but this one was the biggest. There was some guy who was in Chicago that went on a killing spree after he killed three men, who were reported to be demons and thieves. That guy continued to kill people from there all the way down to Mexico. He was caught not long after by an exorcist that went by the name Z—. (Shuichi couldn't catch his whole name.) That killer was the same one who killed someone in New York ten years before. The killer, who was fifteen at the time, was Hiei Jaganshi.

"You alright?" the guy asked.

Shuichi shoved the thought to the back of his mind. "Yeah."

"'Kay. So what's your name?"

"I'm Shuichi Minamino."

"Hey, fellow American, huh? I'm from New York, if you didn't notice my accent. Name's Yusuke Urameshi."

"...So what's wrong with Hiei?"

"Dunno. Doesn't seem like a good guy if he'll shoot you... How'd you end up with him to begin with? You seem like a nice guy..."

"Well..." Shuichi explained how he was taken to the mayor and staying with him.

"Well, I'm not saying this because I'm stupid like these other people but..."

Suddenly a woman came out of nowhere and screamed, "YUSUKE! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SKIPPING OUT ON YOUR CHORES!"

"MU-THER!" Yusuke growled at her. "I wasn't skipping out on my chores. I was helping this guy out cause some other guy was gonna shoot him."

His mother eyed him. "Well..." She poured water over Shuichi's head. "And fox demons won't posses you!"

Shuichi felt a strong burn on his skin. He fell to the ground and started to twitch, but resisted its strength and stood again, a smile on his face. "That has a real kick to it! It's pretty strong to affect a human like that!"

Yusuke's mother stared at him in horror, for his eyes had been gold for a split second but changed back into emerald... She mumbled a prayer under her breath as she walked away.

"Don't listen to my mom. She's a freak..." Yusuke said.

"Hey, Yusuke..." a girl joined in. She was fourteen. She had brown hair that she had cut short because of the hot weather in Mexico. Her eyes were also brown, but with a sense of emptiness and calmness. Her face looked blank half of the time. She had a aura of a loving mother about her. She even acted like she was Yusuke's mother sometimes!

"Oh, hey Keiko..." He turned to Shuichi. "Shuichi, this is a Keiko, a long time friend of mine. Keiko, this is Shuichi."

"Oh, hi," was Keiko's simple greeting. The conversation went on.

Shuichi hardly said anything. He kept thinking about that story he heard when he was a child...

---

So how was Hiei doing? He actually crashed into someone running away. That someone was a friend from his childhood.

His name was Koenma. He has brown hair that he let grown out a bit. His eyes, a sense of wisdom within them, were narrow and brown. He had a serious looking face from the long years of research he had done that had usually disturbed him. (Of course, he had spent a lot of his time as a traveling priest.) He was also skinny- no fat, no muscle, and he was still pale. For some unfathomable reason, he always had a pacifier in his mouth.

"Didn't expect to see you here..." Koenma said, an eyebrow raised. "Why'd you end up here when you should be in Guerroro?"

"...Well..." Hiei's eyes fell to his feet.

"If you keep doing that, they'll send that bastard Zeru after you again and I won't be there to get you out of it!"

"Whatever! I get to find my sister, right?"

"That's what this is about? Look. Give it up. I told her about having a brother and she was shocked. She didn't know you existed and may never know. You should just go back home and get married, have kids and stuff of that nature..."

"I'm not gonna... Look. I won't give up until I know where she is."

"But you do." Smugly.

"Shut up! I'll find her. If it's the last thing I do."

"And the American? Shuichi or whatever? You'll leave him behind?"

"He doesn't need... Wait.. How the hell do you know that!"

"Botan. Remember...? She gave me the tip."

Whatever that means... "Look. He's following me. I let him come because he helped me with directions. That's all..."

"Pvvt..." Stifled laughter. "You still get left and right confused! I thought Touya taught you how to remind yourself which way was left!"

"Oh, shut it."

"Look. I've gotta tell you something about that kid. He's got a large amount of energy. It's not Spirit Energy. It's demon energy. I think so at least. Keep an eye on him. It says a lot to me if exorcists track a kid down this much..."

Hiei raised an eyebrow. "You don't say..."

---

Shuichi watched the stars on the roof writing his letter when Hiei climbed up.

"What're you doing?" Hiei asked.

"Don't act like you don't go on roofs... The stars... There's the North Star and..."

"Don't mention getting lost or I'll really kill you."

"Heh... Well, there's the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper... I remember when I was little, I went on the cherry tree at home and watched the sunset and watched the stars by the beach. Really nice view. If you lived by the beach I would do the same thing..."

Hiei pointed at the moon. "You know when I got into the orphanage. The lady that watched us was Ruka. She's still there but anyway... She told us that there was a rabbit on the moon. It was chased by a coyote so it went up there to escape. So they said that coyotes howl to try to convince the rabbit to get down."

"You believed it?"

"...Yeah. For a day. But I was stupid."

"But you should cherish things from your childhood! Look..." He reached into his hat and pulled out a picture. "I have a picture of my father and this is his I'm wearing. Kinda big but it works..."

Hiei stared at it. His eyes looked empty.

"...Hiei?" Shuichi rose an eyebrow.

End chapter 5

Notes:

1. Hiei's age- Actually. Hiei's twenty-five right now. So Kurama and Hiei are ten years apart.
2. About Koenma- I can't tell his eye color because I remember them being blue but... The pacifier becomes important later...
3. Pictures- I'm not sure when the camera was invented. I'm pretty sure they existed in this time period. Only they weren't in color and took forever to take.

I'm finally done! Well, hope you enjoyed. Have a nice 4th of July!

Review!