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By Rose Thorne
Disclaimer: Any characters created by Yoshihiro Togashi remain his. Any ideas or characters that I bring into this story are copyrighted to me, so NYAA NYAA NYAA NYAA NYAA :P!!
I would like to thank Thayet D'Ragon for introducing me to Japanese animation, and for eventually making me into a Ronin Warrior, Gundam Wing, Fushigi Yugi, and Reikai Detectives (undoubtably, I'll be adding more names to the list in time) addict. Thanks for the insanity; may it last forever. *grin*
Author's note: This is yaoi. Not lemon yaoi, but yaoi just the same. If you don't like it, too bad. This is my first attempt at writing a fan fic, so I hope I do an okay job of it.
Chapter 1
Hiei scowled as he flitted from tree to tree, being careful not to get too far ahead of the others. It was easy to keep sight of his friends, and if he lost sight of them, all he had to do was listen for Kuwabara's loud, annoying voice.
How the hell had they convinced him to go on a picnic?! Ningen picnics were definitely NOT his idea of a good time. Especially when he had to watch a stupid ox like Kuwabara fondle his younger sister, Yukina, the entire time. Koenma had a new assignment for the Reikai detectives, and, since the picnic had already been planned (Hiei hadn't planned on going), he had decided to talk to them during the picnic. Unfortunately, that meant that Hiei had to come. As it was, he intended to stay away from the picnic site as much as possible.
Kurama would have probably convinced him to go anyway. Damn fox, Hiei thought. He knew exactly which buttons to push and how to push them. Well, maybe that isn't too bad... Hiei thought with the smallest ghost of a smile. And the fox was awfully convincing in his ways. He remembered the first time the fox had kissed him, when the redhead had confessed his love to him. To Hiei's surprise, he had found that he returned that love. His feelings had startled him, and he had left to think about Kurama's...offer. Kurama had interpreted his disappearance as rejection. But Hiei had come back and told the fox his true feelings. They had been lovers ever since. Hiei stayed at Kurama's place. Hiei had never felt so happy before.
It was a very sunny and hot day. In diffidence to this fact, Hiei was wearing a dark purple tunic, rather than his usual black. Unfortunately, it was very windy, a hot, dry wind, so the tree branches swayed horribly. More than once, to his annoyance, he had nearly fallen. Thankfully, no one was near enough to see his blunder.
He suddenly noticed that his companions were out of sight. Grumbling to himself, he reluctantly turned around and followed the annoying sound of Kuwabara's voice. Hiei perched in a tree near the picnic area, watching as Boton, Hinigeshi, Genkai, Shizaru and Keiko unloaded the humongous amount of food from the overstuffed picnic basket. Kuwabara and Yukina were sitting close together talking. (Well, not really. Kuwabara was bragging, loudly, I might add, about himself, not letting Yukina getting a word in edgewise. He was also spouting some rather lousy poetry in a pathetic attempt to be romantic)
Koenma, Yuusuke, and Kurama were trying unsuccessfully to spread out the blanket, which was rather amusing to watch because it was too windy for the blanket to stay on the ground and none of them seemed to have enough sense to anchor it. After a few minutes of watching them futily try to spread the blanket, Hiei retrieved some rocks, and the next time the blanket was touching the ground, he ran around it, depositing a rock at each corner and was back in the tree by the time they realized what had happened.
Yuusuke grinned and called out, "Thanks, Hiei!" The call was unanswered by the fire demon, besides an under-the-breath mutter about morons. Yuusuke's grin grew wider. That was a typical response from Hiei. If the ill-tempered youkai had said anything else, Yuusuke would have been scared. VERY scared.
Hiei watched from the tree as the others served themselves, then jumped down to grab a bowl of ramen and a can of soda and retreated back to the tree. He had moved so fast that, to human eyes, it seemed almost as if the food had just appeared in his hands without him having moved. He ate silently, listening to the others' conversations.
After a few hours, and many, many servings of food, the girls opened a cooler. Hiei watched with interest as they took out six squares of sweet snow. Hinigeshi looked rather startled when the one that she had picked up suddenly disappeared. Kurama smiled at the puzzled expression on her face and pointed to the tree, where Hiei was already well on his way to finishing the half-gallon of ice cream. She shook her head with amusement.
After the ice cream had been finished (Hiei had finished off an entire gallon on his own), Koenma stood up and gestured to Hiei, Yuusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara to follow him. He led them (at an annoyingly slow pace, in Hiei's opinion) through the forest, stopping in a small clearing. "Hiei, come down here so I don't have to yell."
Hiei scowled and grumbled a bit, but did as he was asked. He hated being on the ground. Especially since he was so short that others towered over him. What really pissed him off was the smirks that Kuwabara directed at him every time that Hiei was forced to stand near him (which wasn't very often; Hiei made sure of that). The idiot seemed to think that he was superior to Hiei on account of his height. Well, he had some things in store for him next time they practiced. Hiei directed a brief, evil grin at the orange-haired freak, then growled as a headache hit him full-force. Kurama had warned him about eating the sweet snow too fast. What had he called it...? Oh, yes...brain freeze.
Koenma sat down on the grass, and the others followed suit (except Hiei). Hiei was surprised; it was almost as if Koenma had read his mind. His eyes narrowed as he directed a suspicious glare at the Spirit Lord. Koenma studiously ignored him. Hiei remained standing in quiet resistance to the demi-god's authority.
"Alright, I suppose that you're all wondering why you're here." Koenma started.
He was interrupted by an extremely foul-tempered (most of which being caused by his headache) Hiei. "No, really?!"
The Spirit Lord wisely ignored the demon. "It seems that there is some trouble in the Makai. For some unknown reason, a large group of half-breed demons is attacking the Koorime. Your assignment is to capture their leader, the fire demon Hintoshu."
Hiei grunted contemptuously. "It would probably be easier to kill that one, though not by much."
The others stared at him. Kuwabara was the first to find his tongue. "You know this asshole?"
Hiei growled. "Unfortunately. He has tried to get me to join his `gang' on numerous occasions." He gave a slight, almost bitter smile. "Eventually, he threatened to kill me if I didn't. I taught him a valuable lesson that day." The smile disappeared. "Of course, that means that there is a possibility that he may try to come after me."
"Oh, great," Kuwabara groaned, "so we might not even have to go looking for him." His eyes widened. "Wait a minute! Did you say he was attacking ice maidens?" Inwardly, Hiei groaned at his absolute, total stupidity.
Koenma nodded. "He has killed nearly three hundred. If this keeps up, the Makai will lose its balance between ice and fire. And you know what that means."
Kurama spoke up. "The out of balance elements will be destroyed, no matter what world they're in." He glanced at Hiei with an unreadable look on his face. "Meaning that both Hiei and Yukina are going to die if we don't stop Hintoshu."
Yuusuke looked at Hiei. "Doesn't this Hintoshu guy know what will happen?"
"He knows." Hiei snapped. "But he won't die because he's only half fire demon. He is half tree demon as well, meaning that he has the speed and agility of a fire demon, and the brute strength and height of a tree demon. He also has control over trees." Hiei looked meaningfully at Kurama. "Control so complete, that I have never seen it surpassed. He will be very hard to beat."
"Wait a minute! I thought you said you'd beaten him." Kuwabara smirked. "Or did you lie about that?"
Hiei glared at him, trying really hard to resist the urge to kill the idiot and be done with it. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that if he did kill Kuwabara, an even more painful death awaited him at the hands of Koenma, not to mention Yukina. So he attacked Kuwabara verbally. "Hn. I'm not you." Kuwabara shot him such a dirty look, that Hiei was reminded of the human phrase If looks could kill... "In any case, that was a very long time ago." He paused, then grudgedly admitted. "And I barely beat him then. Since then, it has been said that he has also mastered the kokuryhurra. Unfortunate that I didn't kill him..."
The others were shocked. The kokuryhurra was an extremely dangerous move, and had been banned from the Makai as a result. As far as they knew, only Hiei had dared to disobey the ban, let alone totally master the technique.
"Oh great, we're doomed." Kuwabara matched Hiei's glare with one of his own. Sparks seemed to fly between the two, and Hiei looked like he was about ready to kill Kuwabara no matter what the consequences.
"Cut it out you guys! This is serious!" Yuusuke yelled, infuriated that his friends would let their differences get in the way of the mission.
Suddenly Kurama shoved Hiei hard, knocking him over. Hiei's flare of anger towards the half-youko melted as a ball of fire hit the ground where he had been sitting only seconds before, carving a small crater.
Kuwabara, unfortunately, was the first one to speak. "I think we'd better get back to the picnic area before something happens to Yukina!"
Suddenly they heard shrieks coming from the picnic area. "Dammit, you just had to say that didn't you Kuwabara?!" Yuusuke yelled angrily as they ran towards the screaming. As they broke through the trees and into the clearing, they saw Boton, Hinigeshi, Keiko, Shizaru, and Yukina throwing food at a particularly large and ugly demon, who, to Kuwabara's amusement (and who else but Kuwabara could be amused by a situation like this), vaguely resembled the Jolly Green Giant. Genkai was repelling the power thrown at the girls by the beast.
Hiei landed near the demon after jumping from the trees. "Hintoshu!" The huge demon turned to look at him. "It's me you want!" The ugly character grinned and completely forgot about the girls, who were huddled on the blanket.
Hiei dodged as a barrage of fireballs came towards him, then retaliated with one of his own. Hintoshu dodged, landing near the girls. He grabbed Yukina by her hair and held her in front of him. "Yield or she dies!"
Hiei hesitated, then dropped into a yield position. Hintoshu grinned and threw Yukina into a tree. Hiei watched in shock as her body slammed into a tree and dropped, unmoving, to the ground. In the split second that he was distracted, Hintoshu lunged. By the time the little youkai saw the Jolly Green Giant heading towards him, it was too late to dodge.
Hintoshu grabbed him by the throat and pulled the struggling fire demon up until their faces were level. "Let's go somewhere a little more...private, shall we? That way your friends won't interfere when I kill you." His breath was so bad that Hiei had a really hard time fighting down the urge to start retching.
Behind Hintoshu, Yuusuke and Kurama were running towards them. Hiei did the only thing he could do to distract the demon. He spit in Hintoshu's face. Hintoshu roared with fury and started to squeeze Hiei's windpipe shut, until he couldn't breathe. Darkness began to obscure his vision. A few seconds later Yuusuke's fist connected with the back of Hintoshu's head, causing his grip to loosen on his captive's throat. Kurama came from the side as Hiei struggled to get loose and hit Hintoshu's arm, causing him to totally lose his grip on the fire demon. Kurama then pulled his lover out of the way as Hintoshu fell forward.
Kuwabara gently carried Yukina to the blanket, where he set her down in front of Genkai, who began to treat her wounds. Hiei caught his breath, then he and Kurama walked to Yuusuke, who was walking around the apparently unconscious Hintoshu.
"Say, Koenma, what do you want us to do with him?" Yuusuke asked with a grin.
"Tie him up so we can question him," Koenma replied.
"Yuusuke," Hiei started. "I don't think he's..."
Before Yuusuke or any of the others could say or do anything else, Hintoshu jumped up, grabbed the black-haired ningen, and threw him into a tree, then launched himself at Kurama, catching him in a bear hug. Hiei stiffened, his katana out, as Hintoshu held a dagger to his lover's throat. "Put the weapons away, or he dies." Hiei hesitated for a horribly long moment, then sheathed his katana. Hintoshu smiled, an extremely ugly sight that revealed his rotten teeth. "If you want to see your friend alive, follow me." He launched himself into the trees, carrying Kurama along with him. Hiei snarled furiously and followed.
In case you haven't noticed by now, Kuwabara is my least favorite character. All of you out there who like him despite his oh-so-superior attitude: I congratulate you on being so tolerant. You'd probably make a really good parent. (Can you adopt me? Puleease? I'm such a good girl!!) But meanwhile, please bear with me through the rest of this story, since Kuwabara is the butt of a lot of jokes.
Also, I haven't really gotten the hang of fic writing, so please don't be too critical. I cry easily... ;_;
On to Chapter 2
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