Chapter 10
It was easy to argue that Hiei wasn't lonely, he was alone. A lone wolf who chose to go his own way and eschew the pack. A pride-less lion, so strong that he could defend his territory single handedly. Yes, you could say that the fire demon was a loner by choice, and always would be. You could say that, but you'd be wrong.
Wasn't it telling that the defining quest of Hiei's life was finding his sister? Finding connection? Family? Oh, he liked to talk big and push everyone away, but it was no accident that he had, however reluctantly, found a family with the Spirit Detective and his crew. Had single-mindedly pursued his sister through the years, though he had never even intended on speaking with her.
Rin's memories of Hiei were always of him at a distance, where he could be apart from the people that he was forced to associate with. But while he always kept that space from others, he was never far away. He didn't come when called, but in the old days Rin knew he was always listening. Maybe he delighted in denying people his company and scoffed at the notion of 'friends,' but he was never out of reach.
Another cloudy day at Genkai's temple. This was in the weeks before the Dark Tournament, when everyone was training frantically. Genkai had assigned fifteen-year-old Rin a three day jaunt in the dark forest, where she would have to survive and defend herself from the demons and spirits within. Hiei and Kurama were training Kuwabara on the other side of the compound, and Yusuke was at school for once. As Keiko had said, he couldn't skip every day or he'd have to repeat a grade, and she would let that happen over her dead body.
Rin had made it a full day in the forest so far; she had quite a few run-ins with weaker demons who tried to prey on her and ran when they saw a glimpse of her strength. Back in the old days, her specialty was disappearing in plain sight, using her spiritual powers to remove any trace of herself from enemy senses and then attack with her spirit knives from nowhere. But Genkai had told her that the point of the trip was to train, dammit, not disappear, so she wasn't allowed to stay invisible the entire time. Besides, disappearing wouldn't be of much use in a ring match.
Angry gray storm clouds tinged with green had covered the sky as she trekked between ancient trees. She stopped in a clearing and ate a peanut butter energy bar, her favorite, watching the darkening sky. An eerie wind began to blow, screaming like a chorus of lost souls, and the clouds opened up in a torrential downpour. She was soaked instantly. Soon the ground was a sticky quagmire; thunder clapped and lightning flashed. She had to find shelter. Remembering a cave not too far to the south, Rin hurried that way, her head bowed under the pouring rain.
One of her boots slipped in the mud and she put her other foot down to steady herself, only to find that she had stepped into open air. Rin windmilled her arms as she lurched sideways, trying desperately to keep herself upright, but gravity pulled her down, down into a crack in the earth. One of her flailing hands grabbed the lip of the opening and she hung suspended, her shoulder screaming and the rain pelting her face, before it crumbled in her hand. She fell in space for half a second, had the presence of mind to curl up to protect her head, and landed heavily on her side. Pain roared through her side and left wrist. Her head felt like it was wrapped in fuzzy white static, and instead of fear or panic, a strange calmness filled her mind.
Slowly she sat up, feeling something sharp stab her insides as she moved. Her wrist was already swelling and purple. Rin gingerly moved her remaining limbs, but the rest of her seemed whole, just bruised. Using the muddy rock wall as support, she pushed herself to her feet. She brushed the rain out of her eyes to see that the ravine was narrow, maybe ten feet across, and deeper than the diving well of a swimming pool; it more rightly would be called a small vertical cave. The walls were riddled with cracks but slick with rain. Climbing in a downpour like this would be a bad idea even if her wrist wasn't broken, and though the cave was deep, it was also narrow like a chimney. There was nowhere to go.
No one would come looking for her for another two days, and she couldn't flare her spirit energy like a beacon, or every demon in the forest would be on her in five minutes. This was bad, but all she had to do was wait for the rain to stop, right? Maybe she could fashion a rope or climb out somehow. It was all part of the training, she told herself.
Rin was in the middle of opening another peanut butter bar on the highest, driest bit of ground she could find, figuring that it was best to keep her energy up, when something in the darkness moved.
"Hello?" she called, not liking how her voice trembled. The energy bar wrapper floated to the ground, forgotten.
From the other end of the cave, a shape separated from the shadow and stood, taller and taller until it loomed over her.
"A long way from home, aren't you, girly?" The voice was low and muffled, like the speaker was talking from another room.
Already on her feet, Rin watched the shadow resolve into a hulking midnight blue demon with liquid black eyes from edge to edge, the lower half of its face covered in writhing tentacles. It was at least seven feet tall with arms that almost brushed the ground and ended in wickedly sharp claws. She kept her mouth shut, eyeing it carefully, mind racing.
"Seems you aren't from around these parts," the demon drawled as it came on, its tentacles sliding and slithering over every word. It continued, "Or you'd know only fools step foot in my forest."
Heart pounding, hoping she might scare it off with mention of her sensei, she said, "Last I checked, this was Master Genkai's forest."
The demon stopped short, sizing her up with those eerie black eyes, then said, "One of the witch's pups!" It shook its head ruefully. "Didn't tell you about me, did she?"
As it lumbered forward again, Rin tried to call her spirit energy, such as it was. Her wrist throbbed and her ribs stabbed every time she moved, and it was like trying to call her energy through a thick layer of syrup. The rain crashed down in sheets as thunder continued to roar. She shivered, brushing strands of wet hair out of her face with her good hand. She couldn't run. It would have to be a fight.
"Stay away from me," she said, backing up and making her voice high and wobbly to seem terrified. Not that she had to do much pretending. Her heart was almost beating out of her chest.
It came closer still. "Be afraid, girly. I'm the terror of this forest. The stalker in the night. The claws in the shadows. When the witch has nightmares, she dreams of my face. I'm Konda of the dark forest, and I own this place. I've killed more psychics than any demon in the dark forest - any demon in Human World!" It continued monologuing as it came on, seeming to love the squishy sound of its own voice.
Rin had stopped listening after the first sentence. She concentrated, shutting out the pain of her body and calling to her spirit energy, and though sluggish, it came in a warm glow. She disappeared.
The demon's monologue stuttered to a stop after a beat. It shouted in surprise and looked all around the cave, then whipped its long arms through the air where she had been. It scythed through the air at ground level all around, catching nothing but empty space.
"You can't teleport, girly," it shouted, turning in place, face tentacles waving. "I watched you long enough to know that. You woulda got out of this hole already. I know you're here."
Rin chose that moment to leap, landing on top of its head from behind. She knew she had to get inside its guard, and the only way to do that with those long arms was from above.
Not even a split second after she had gone invisible, Rin had formed spirit knives in her good hand and the toes of both boots. Using her weapons like ice axes, she had thrust them in cracks in the stone and climbed up the cave wall to get high enough to surprise the demon and get out of reach of its grasping claws. Her injuries had screamed at her all the way, her useless left wrist held tight against her chest to protect it.
The beast bucked, trying to throw her off, but Rin clung desperately and stabbed at its face with her glowing knife. Something popped and greasy black liquid poured over her hand; the demon roared and seized her leg. Before it threw her across the cave, she plunged the knife into the same place once, twice, and then she was sailing through the air.
She hit the cave wall with a bone-shattering crash, fell to the ground in a heap, and everything went black. Her eyes fluttered open a second later to the beast stumbling drunkenly toward her, its eye leaking black fluid and blood streaming from its severed tentacles. Summoning the last of her spirit energy, Rin made one more spirit knife, waited till the thing was only feet away, and threw it with all her might into its face.
"This. This is why I told Genkai that training you humans was a waste," a gruff voice said. "You can't even clean up your own messes."
Rin opened her eyes, cold rain cascading down her face, to see Hiei standing on the corpse of the tentacle demon, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Did I get him?" Her voice was a weak croak.
"It was suffering. I had to finish it off for you," the fire demon replied. He considered for a moment, then said with acerbic finality, "Sloppy work."
She didn't even have the energy to protest as he knelt next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and under her knees. As he lifted her, her head fell against his warm chest, and she knew no more. A summary of her injuries: a shattered wrist, multiple compound rib fractures, a broken leg, a pulled rotator cuff, and a concussion, all healed only halfway by Master Genkai.
"Otherwise you'll never learn," the crotchety old woman had said.
Later she had asked Kurama and Kuwabara how the fire demon had known she was in trouble, but both of them said only that he had come to a complete stop in the middle of training, ignoring a strike from Kuwabara's Spirit Sword, and then blinked away.
So if Hiei truly was a loner, there was no reason for him to come to her rescue. He could have left her to die if he was the ruthless lone wolf that he pretended to be, if he truly didn't care. Back then, Rin had believed Hiei's posturing, even after he had saved her. Thinking about it now, she knew she was right.
"Like I said, this isn't about Kuwabara. I think you're scared of being alone again. It doesn't matter who Yukina marries. What really matters is that you feel like she's leaving you."
Back in the present day, Rin's words echoed around the empty patio. Hiei watched her with eyes round like coins, reflecting moonlight in the dark.
Her heart beating a fast tattoo against her ribs, Rin watched him quickly regain his composure, his face smoothing out to his customary dispassionate expression.
Hiei tossed his head and said, "That's ridiculous." He chuckled and turned back to the empty night. "Silly girl. You presume to know everything about me, but you know nothing."
"Hiei." Her firm voice cut across his, the sound of his name bringing him to stillness. "Don't bullshit me. We've known each other too long for that."
The fire demon was quiet. Rin let the silence stretch, though she didn't drop her steady gaze. After a while, he ran a hand through his hair and said, "She wants to live here, in this filthy, putrid Human World. With him."
Rin was stunned. She hadn't thought about where the Kuwabaras would live after marriage, but it made sense that they would want to be in Human World, where it was safer. "Hiei, I…"
"I looked for her for so long," he continued, the words coming fast now, like he couldn't stop them. "For years, I fought countless lesser demons for information, scoured the darkest depths, highest peaks, and most dangerous terrain in all of Demon World. I…" He rubbed at his bandana-covered forehead, eyes downcast, and said, "I endured the worst pain I've ever felt, when that doctor cut into my forehead. He had to tie me down. All for this Jagan eye, so I could find her. And now…" He took a shuddering breath. "And now she's leaving me. Again."
"She's not leaving you," Rin started to say.
"Don't." Hiei cut her off bitterly, eyes flashing. "Don't try to spare my feelings. She actually did it. She married that overgrown clown and is going to live here, in this stinking Human World. She knows the depth of my hatred for this place, and she's staying here anyway." He put his head in his hands and his voice came out muffled. "Everyone leaves."
Her heart was breaking. All of the posturing, all of the anti-social tendencies, all of his bad-tempered comments. It all came down to this. He didn't want to be alone, but more than that he didn't want to be left. If he pushed everyone away first, they couldn't leave him. It was why he hadn't wanted to tell Yukina that they were siblings. And now that he had told her, had danced at her wedding because he would do anything, anything she asked, she was leaving too.
"Hiei…" Rin wanted to reach for him, but was afraid of how he might take it. Her hand hovered at his shoulder, then dropped. "No one's leaving you. It's not like she's going to live on the moon. You can still see her."
"Even you left," he continued, as if he hadn't heard her. "After everyone's revolting talk of teamwork and camaraderie, the card games... Forging alliances, real trust through battle. All that, and you never came back after the tournament."
She was stunned. She had never considered that he would even care that she had left the team. Had figured that he would think she was an annoying, weak little child and good riddance. She remembered that back then, she hadn't even said goodbye to him. Shame washed over her.
"So don't presume to know me, girl, to know what's wrong, " he said with a voice made of broken glass that pierced her heart. "Everyone leaves. My mother. Mukuro. You. Even my sister." His hands clutched the railing in a white-knuckled grip, his ruby eyes alight with sorrow and hurt, bitterness and rage as he glared into the night.
"I won't lie to you, Hiei," Rin said slowly. "I can't make Yukina stay with you forever. I can't say no one will ever leave you again. I can't even say I'll never leave." She reached for his hand, covered it with her own. It was so hot it almost burned her. He looked down at their joined hands, then his gaze snagged on her face. They were so close that she could see the curve of his long eyelashes as they brushed his porcelain cheeks. Looking into his questioning crimson gaze, barely daring to breathe, her heart pounding, she said quietly, "I can't say you'll never be lonely. But I can stay with you for tonight."
The moon shone with its wan light; the night air was cool and quiet. Rin held her breath, holding his hand gently, so gently, like she held a delicate hummingbird in her hands. Though he looked away, after a long moment his hand tightened in hers.
Author's note: I've been loving digging into Hiei's motivation in this chapter! There's a lot of emotion here, which is not typical for him, but I hope that it rings true to his character. I really like this chapter, though it was again difficult to write, and I hope you all do too!
Thanks so much to livesinasong13 for the favorite, and to LadyEllesmere for the very kind review!