Chapter 26
Sunlight dappled the white sheets and threw into stark relief the dry, dusty texture of Mayuga's beautiful face; she looked like a crumbling marble statue of herself, all the life and warmth drained out of her. The moth demon's eyes were closed, and whether that was a sign of true sleep or of an unwilling plunge into unconsciousness, Rin wasn't sure, but the woman's brows were still puckered in worry.
Rin's foot tapped nervously on the sterile linoleum floor as she sat in an uncomfortable chair at the foot of the hospital bed, drumming an offbeat counterpoint to the beeping of the twenty different machines hooked up to the prostrate woman. Rin hated hospitals and always had, but her antipathy had only deepened after watching two grandparents slowly fade away in rooms that looked a lot like this one.
Mayuga had returned from emergency surgery about half an hour ago, but she didn't look any better. If anything, she looked worse. Even her beautiful, fluffy antennae were withered and dull, like a rainbow on life support. The Spirit World doctors had told Rin that they weren't sure if the moth demon would pull through, but her chest rose and fell like clockwork. She was still fighting.
On the edge of her awareness, Rin felt Hiei's spirit pressure pop into being somewhere below. A few minutes later, there was a black flash in the doorway and then his warm hand landed on her shoulder.
"How did it go?" she asked without looking up, both her gaze and her thoughts fixed on the woman in the bed. A tiny section of her taut nerves unwound at his presence.
The fire demon snorted. "Laughably easy, of course. A few human security guards are no match for me."
Rin glanced at him. "You didn't hurt anyone, did you?"
Hiei rolled his eyes, planting his feet and crossing his arms, prickly like a porcupine, and growled, "I don't have to answer that question."
"Fair enough."
After the EMS ogres and Spirit World police had arrived on the bloody scene at the Spirit World Embassy, triaging the worst wounds,covering the dead with white sheets, and crowding Rin away from the table where Mayuga lay slumped, Rin had asked Hiei to go to Human World for blood.
"I don't want to know how you get it," Rin had added, as a practical afterthought. Hiei had nodded seriously, smirked at her for the briefest of moments, and flash stepped away.
As Hiei disappeared into thin air, Lord Koenma's stunned gaze found hers, like a magnet to a lodestone. He was peering under the arm of one of the EMTs crowding around him as his mangled, bloody arm was being wrapped in bandages. Rin waited for him to bluster, to rage that Hiei had to come back, for the storm and the fury that she would have to fight through to get the moth demon the literal lifeblood that she needed, wasting valuable time, but the prince of Spirit World seemed to be thinking. After a moment he had given her a tight nod, then looked away. Maybe in these trying times, he could overlook a little bit of robbery and assault in the Human World.
In the present, Hiei asked, "How is she?" His hand still rested on her shoulder, a grounding force that tethered her to the earth and stopped her poor fretting body from vibrating so hard she launched into the atmosphere. Her heart had not stopped hammering since the moment Mayuga was attacked, but the warmth of his hand and his solid presence helped her anxiety, even if only a little.
"I don't know," Rin said, a sick feeling of worry deep in her stomach, but before she could continue, a voice came from the hallway outside.
"I'm a nurse; I'm not trying to assassinate her. Let me through," said someone who sounded very annoyed and Done With This. "Look, here's my badge."
Koenma had stationed guards outside Mayuga's room; they were checking the credentials of every single person that had tried to enter, even the nurses and doctors. Now someone shoved impatiently past them and into the room. The person was an ogre dressed in lime green scrubs; in combination with her bright pink skin, the resultant color clash immediately gave Rin a headache. The ogre was wheeling another IV tree to add to Mayuga's forest of metal poles, tubes, and wires, but the bag swinging from this one was full of crimson blood.
Hiei looked down at Rin, one side of his mouth quirking up in a slight grin, and her heart finally unclenched. Rin closed her eyes and rested her head against his side. "Thank you," she whispered. The frenzied beeping of the machines finally began to slow.
"Is she awake?" Lord Koenma eyed Rin from his hospital bed, thick bandages covering injuries on his head and arms. He was alert and moving well, still in his adult form and propped up on several pillows. He had an IV in one wrist. It seemed the doctors were taking no chances.
Rin shook her head, feeling like a child called to the principal's office. She and Hiei had been pushed out of Mayuga's hospital room by a swarm of doctors and nurses after one of the machines had started screeching insistently; they had escaped to the nurses' station only to be nabbed by one of Koenma's aides and herded to his room on the floor above Mayuga's.
The prince of Spirit World was surrounded by a flurry of ogres carrying stacks of paper, occasionally shoving one at him for stamping. It figured that the wheels of bureaucracy didn't stop turning even for grievous bodily injury. The three of them stared at each other amid the commotion, momentarily at a loss. The attack and explosion had thrown everything into chaos, and Rin, at least, had no idea what to do now.
A familiar blue ogre bustled into the room and made a beeline for Koenma; Jorge urgently whispered in the prince's ear, then glanced around and caught sight of Hiei and Rin. He gave them a rueful smile and a little wave as he stepped back and into his customary place at Koenma's side. With that, the swirling activity around the prince stopped as the other ogres recognized Jorge. They knew who was Lord Koenma's de facto second in command (and often his favorite whipping boy).
"No sign of the second assassin. Of course not. It couldn't be easy." Koenma grumbled, half to himself, half to Rin and Hiei. He raised his eyes to theirs, looking from one to the other, and continued, "They found a sniper blind on top of a hotel west of here, but he was already long gone. The trail's cold."
"I can find him," Hiei put in, crossing his arms and standing taller. "My Jagan Eye can find anything."
"You're welcome to try," the prince replied, exhaustion spelled out in every word. He rubbed at his temples fretfully, flinching from a sore spot. "Ugh, I've got such a headache."
Hiei tensed, as if ready to flash step away right that instant, but Rin touched his arm and shook her head. They needed to know what Koenma was thinking before anyone went haring off on a half-formed plan.
Koenma turned back to Jorge, who straightened to attention. "We need to figure out how to spin this, ogre. Our focus right now is on damage control. Rumors will start soon, if they haven't already. I'm sure some demon kid got video of the explosion on his phone and has already posted it to the internet. Not to mention fifty people probably saw it from the street." At Rin's bemused expression, Koenma explained, "Progress has been slow, but we've finally got computers and internet hookups here at the border. We're not totally in the boonies. Turns out wireless internet signals reach across dimensions." He refocused and continued, "We've got an attempted assassination at the Spirit World Embassy that involves a head of state and a foreign ambassador. This is bad. Very bad." He looked intently at Jorge, as though the ogre might have the solution to all his problems.
"Right, sir," Jorge said. Then, with less surety, "So what do we do?"
Koenma shook his head and rubbed at his temples again, groaning. "This headache is awful; I can't think straight. Someone tell the doctors I need more painkillers." One of the other ogres scurried away. "But nothing that will make me sleepy," Koenma called after him.
Jorge looked from Koenma to Rin and Hiei. The ogre was at a loss.
"We have to tell everyone that Mayuga is alive," Rin said. "The rebels will get worse if they think she's gone."
Hiei nodded seriously, and Rin was briefly warmed by his support.
Koenma squeezed his eyes shut. "Someone must have seized control after we took care of the Nokawa. Last we heard, the group was in chaos because of the power vacuum. Jorge, do we have any idea who the new leader could be?"
"No, my Lord," the ogre replied. "The rebels are especially guarded and suspicious at the moment - our spies aren't having any luck finding openings. After Sanzu, they are being much more cautious."
"Whoever their leader is - he's no fool," Hiei put in darkly, grudging respect in his tone. The kind of a former criminal appreciating another's craft. "This one is using strategy. Hitting us with a double tap kill strike was smart." He fell silent, considering, then continued, "His fighters are zealots, willing to sacrifice themselves to the cause. He knows we can't get information from dead men. They won't be caught out again."
"And we can't just march our Spirit World forces into their hideout in Demon World and wipe them out," Koenma added miserably. "It would cause the worst diplomatic incident since Sensui. Father would be furious."
"Would the Demon King help us?" Rin asked, thinking through their options. "It can't be good PR for him to have rogue demons attacking the head of Spirit World and threatening to invade the Human World."
Koenma stared into space past her shoulder, thinking. His bandages had slipped down over one eye, and he pushed them up impatiently. Then he said, "King Mukuro is not likely to aid us with a raid on her own people. While these terrorists are a threat to Human World, they are only that: a threat. If I don't miss my guess, she'll want to bide her time and see what happens."
At the name 'Mukuro,' surprise hit Rin in the gut. Her gaze went immediately to Hiei, but he stared at a spot on the opposite wall and wouldn't look at her. On top of everything else that had happened today, this was just not something that Rin could deal with right now. She put that information away to be considered later.
"But she may be willing to lend us support," Koenma continued thoughtfully. "Maybe. If we can persuade her of the prudence of such an action. While the relations between our worlds are diplomatic and cordial, they are not particularly friendly, and we do not have a military alliance or treaty with Demon World that would require them to render aid." Koenma stared at his hands, contemplating them like the answer to all his problems was written somewhere on his skin. "We also have no hard proof that it was the rebels behind the attack. They may claim their act of terrorism, or they may deny everything. Blame it on a lone wolf attacker."
The room was silent as Lord Koenma thought. Rin wondered distractedly if it was prudent to have one man deciding the fate of three realms while he was injured, possibly concussed, and laid up in a hospital room. Shouldn't he have a council, or a cabinet to help him make decisions? Advisors or something? There was a reason that Rin had always distrusted Spirit World, and she supposed that this was part of the reason why.
Then Lord Koenma's chin came up; he seemed to have made a decision. He turned to Jorge again and said in a commanding, no-nonsense tone that belied his obvious exhaustion, "Ogre. Inform the press that while there was an assassination attempt at the Spirit World Embassy, both myself and Madame Mayuga are alive. We are investigating the cause and the perpetrators but have no further information at this time." Jorge nodded and hurried off.
Then Koenma turned back to Rin and Hiei. "That should buy us a little time. Hiei, escort Rin home. Then see if you can find any trace of the assassin's trail. Everyone else, out. I need to rest."
Rather than arguing in typical Hiei fashion, the fire demon nodded and herded Rin out of the room. Once through the Demon World tunnel, he swept her up in his arms and carried her home, where she staggered into her bedroom and promptly passed out on top of the covers.
Author's note: Thank you for your patience as I continue to write this story. I took a break over the holidays, but I have no intention of leaving this story unfinished.
