Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Is This For Real...? ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho isn't mine, nor are my friends' characters. I don't own Claire in Heaven, which I edited to fit the story. The song belongs to Capercaillie, who is a great band! I highly recommend them. Kimi Ichisaigosuki belongs to me, as does the strange girl who keeps appearing. I don't own anything under brand name mentioned in this story.

 

These quotation marks ' ' and/or italics mean that the character is thinking. The asterisk and italics like *this* signifies Hiei and Kurama talking telepathically. Words like ~this~ signify Kurama talking telepathically with somebody other than Hiei, words like #this# signify Genkai talking, and in a song, this symbol ~ after a word means that that word/note was held out.

 

Chapter Four

 

~*~*~*~

 

“So this is Tokyo, huh?”

 

Kimi, Kurama, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Keiko, Botan, and Hiei were walking down one of the busier roads in downtown Tokyo, those in the group that didn't speak English wearing translators provided by Koenma. That had been a big issue they had spent hours discussing before Kimi was sent over to Japan. Everybody was surprised that Hiei had deigned to accompany them on the grand tour that they had arranged for their exchange student, especially since said student had injured him. His ribs didn't hurt quite as much since Kimi had slathered her herbal ointment on the injury that she had caused, but the indignity of being wounded by a human was still there. The girl herself was looking around with an expression on her face that was almost painful to look at because of all the emotions flickering through her eyes. It was joy, sorrow, excitement, love, amazement, loathing, recollection, and a thousand other feelings all at the same time. Kimi was soon familiar with all of the parts of Tokyo that the Reikai Tantei frequently haunted, with the exception of the slums. She would never see that part of town if the Spirit Detectives had anything to say about it.

 

A few hours later, they were all sitting in McDonald's eating lunch. Everybody had been about to collapse from hunger, so they had decided to eat at the nearest restaurant, and that had been McDonald's. Hiei frowned when he heard the cashier shout over her shoulder that the soft drink machine needed to be refilled.

 

“Why is soda called a soft drink?”

 

“Because it's not hard liquor.” Kimi said, biting into her cheeseburger.

 

“Ah.” Hiei sipped his soda.

 

“I've always wondered about that…” Yusuke said, the rest of the group nodding in agreement.

 

The group finished their meal and looked expectantly at Kimi, who had requested permission to pick the next place they visited. She drank the last of her Dr. Pepper and stood up. “Come on.”

 

She led them to the train station. They bought their tickets and were soon in the train station nearest to Mount Fuji. Kimi all but dragged her new acquaintances out of the building and caught the bus to the base of the revered volcano. Once out of the vehicle, she just stood there and took it all in, the wind blowing her hair around her face and shoulders. The T-shirt she was wearing ruffled in the strong breeze, defining her upper body for a split second. Muscle tone became obvious, and she looked like a kunoichi lost in modern times and struggling to fit in when she suddenly saw a familiar landmark. Without warning a strong gust of wind blew past them, and Kimi looked very different.

 

Her clothes changed from jeans and a T-shirt to a pink haori (1) and blue Japanese field pants that had been altered to reach her ankles; her feet were bare and her long nails became inch-long claws; a katana suddenly appeared on her left hip; her hair was chin length and a sandy shade of mousy brown with very faint tints of red that were hardly visible; on her face were three blood-red, upside-down triangles. One triangle was on her forehead, and there was one on each of her cheeks (2). The pendant that Kurama had noticed earlier that morning (as in 2:34 A.M.) was around her neck. But what might have been the most shocking was that she turned to look at them, and her eyes were no longer a multi-hued hazel green. Her right eye was amber, her left eye brown, and both had slitted horizontal pupils. Then the wind died down and she looked normal again.

 

*Hiei, did you see what I saw?* Kurama asked silently.

 

*Depends on what you saw. I know I saw something.*

 

Kurama sent Hiei a mental image of the girl who had stood in Kimi's place.

 

*Yeah. I saw that. And I think that the others saw it too.*

 

Kimi noticed the Reikai Tantei, Botan, and Keiko staring at her. “Nani? What's wrong?”

 

Kurama shook his head. “Nothing.”

 

Kimi grinned. “That's good. Let's get going!” She turned around and joined the stream of tourists and Shinto practitioners up the mountain.

 

Yusuke's jaw dropped. “Does she intend to climb the mountain?!”

 

“I think she does, Urameshi.” Stated Kuwabara, equally surprised. Hiei rolled his eyes and started after Kimi.

 

“It looks like she'll leave us behind if we don't keep up, bakas.”

 

It took the Reikai Tantei ten minutes to catch up to the American girl, and that was because she waited for them. “Aren't you guys used to climbing mountains?”

 

“And you are?” Yusuke growled in a passable imitation of Hiei. “That was as bad as climbing up the stairs to Genkai's temple!”

 

“Don't be a weakling. We're only ten minutes in. I fully intend to reach the crater by one this afternoon.”

 

The other six stared at her. It was five till twelve, and she was saying that she wanted to reach the top of Mount Fuji in an hour?! The next forty-five minutes were spent clambering up the steep slopes of the mountain. Miraculously, the crowd thinned out until they were the only ones still climbing. They finally got to the crater, with five minutes to spare. Kimi grinned ecstatically and cheered, twirling around. `If Midori or the others saw me now, they would die of shock. I know that this is really out of character for me, but…' the girl stopped spinning and caught her breath. `I'm finally HOME!!' she thought, throwing out her arms.

 

The vision of the strange girl who had momentarily replaced Kimi at the base of the mountain appeared again, once more standing like the fourteen-year-old teenager, leaving the group blinking and rubbing their eyes. Then Kurama realized something: Kimi's hair was now the same shade as that girl's, and her eyes were brown instead of green. A shiver ran down his spine. `Something weird is going on here…'

 

Kimi walked up to her companions. “You guys don't mind if I sing, do you?” She didn't seem to notice that her hair and eyes had changed color.

 

Everybody blinked, but no objections were made. Finally Yusuke stepped forward. “Well, let's hear it.”

 

Kimi drew in a deep breath and sang, her words ringing out and the notes true.

 

“I was no more than twelve years old,

Too young to sleep, too young to loose my soul!

I think of fields where I might run

This mortal twilight I was plucked from.

 

“Up here I have no goals!

You tear your hearts, you claw your souls.

I wonder at that life that passed me by,

But still I smile.

 

“Although I'm not with you down there

I stand alone up here and stare!

It's me, my name is Khlaiyre,

Khlaiyre in heaven!

Khlaiyre in heaven.

 

“I wait to return to life impatiently,

I'm in a rush because of what I see.

It's hard for me to understand

I gaze from poisoned sea to poisoned land!

 

“Up here I see a new tomorrow

Your world's not round your world is narrow.

For me, I just had a while

But still I smile.

 

“Although I'm not with you down there

I stand alone up here and stare!

It's me my name is Khlaiyre.

 

“Although I'm not with you down there

I stand alone up here and stare!

It's me my name is Khlaiyre.

Khlaiyre in heaven.

Khlaiyre in heaven.

Khlaiyre ~ in heaven!”

 

Kurama blinked and then heard a sniffling sound behind him. Botan was wiping at her eyes, and he could tell that Kimi's song had affected her deeply. “That was so—so sad! That poor girl, Claire, dying when she was twelve…”

 

“Not Claire. Khlaiyre. She died five hundred and two years ago and was of royal birth. Nobody except her and a few close friends knew about her noble blood ties. Her name means Young Princess, Deceased and Reincarnated. It is one of the many titles that she managed to acquire over a seemingly short amount of time.”

 

“Hmm.” Botan frowned. “Is it alright if I call her Claire? I'm afraid that I can't quite pronounce her proper name.”

 

“It's fine. She had quite a few names, some of them stranger than others. Claire is just another one on the list to her.”

 

“What language is her name from?”

 

Kimi made a sudden show of looking at the clock display on her cell phone. “Look at the time! We'd best get back down the mountain if we're going to get home before dark.” Kimi quickly strode away from the crater edge and ushered everybody off the top of the volcano. Only Hiei noticed that she looked longingly around the mountain summit before starting down after the rest of the group.

 

~*~*~*~

 

To Yusuke's surprise, Kimi had been right to start them down the mountain when she had. The sun was just setting when the exchange student and the two demons of the group arrived back at Kurama's house, Hiei sneaking in via window.

 

“There you are!” Shiori greeted them as the two adolescents walked in. “I was beginning to wonder if you had dragged Kimi to Osaka! Come on, I made okonomiyaki for dinner tonight.” After the delicious supper, Kimi and Kurama went to the kitsune's room. The moment the door closed Hiei stormed out of hiding and shoved Kimi into a chair.

 

“You are going to answer my questions, and you are going to do it now!”

 

Kimi jerked her arms out of the fire demon's grasp, but Hiei barred her from getting off the chair. “What are you talking about?! What questions could you possibly have for me?”

 

Kurama turned his back on the two and mentally contacted Botan. ~Get Yusuke, Kuwabara, Genkai, Yukina, Koenma, and yourself over to the park. It's urgent.~ He severed the contact before the shinigami could reply and returned his attention to Kimi and Hiei.

 

“How do you know about us?”

 

“Who is `us'?!”

 

“Kimi, I am sorry about this.”

 

“What do you mean you're-?!” Kimi slumped down as Kurama crushed some leaves under her nose. She was unconscious. The fox quickly killed the plants, preventing any more of the sweet but sleep-inducing scent from escaping into the air of his room. He picked Kimi up and carefully climbed out of the window. “We're going to meet the others in the park, Hiei.”

 

“Hn.”

 

“Yukina is going to be there as well.”

 

Hiei got up and followed Kurama. They were the last ones to arrive, and Kurama made sure that Kimi was comfortable on the bench where he set her down before he explained both why the girl was unconscious and the reason for the meeting. There was some dark muttering when he told them about the American's knowledge of the Reikai Tantei and their friends. Then he, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Botan, and Hiei told them about the sudden visions they had experienced twice on Mount Fuji.

 

After an uncomfortable silence, Yukina spoke. “So…what do we do now?”

 

“We wake her up,” was Genkai's reply. Kurama complied with the psychic's unspoken command and crushed some different leaves under Kimi's nose. The girl growled and smacked his hand away.

 

“Don't bother. I've been awake for the last ten minutes.”

 

That statement had everybody on his or her guard, and Kimi opened her eyes to see a spirit gun, a spirit wave, a spirit sword, a katana, an oar, and a rose whip all aimed at the vital points of her body. Points that would be fatal should she be stabbed or stuck solidly enough. Carefully pushing Kurama's whip away from her neck, seeing as how that was the only weapon she could actually push away without loosing her hand, she sat up. “You can relax. I'm unarmed.”

 

“You were able to injure me unarmed. These are necessary precautions.”

 

Kimi snorted at Hiei's statement. “I was only able to pull that on you because you weren't expecting it, Hiei. And I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to use your Jagan on me. Yes, I know about your third eye, don't look at me like that. Whoa!” Kimi rolled off the bench, covering the back of her head and neck as Hiei's katana came crashing down where she had been a second earlier. She managed to land on her back threw her leg up, hitting him hard between the legs as she'd been taught in her self-defense classes and buying herself some time to run. And run she did. She sprang to her feet and ran as she never had before, knowing that her slip of tongue could cost her her life.

 

Botan rushed over as Hiei collapsed with a grunt of pain and all the other fighters raced after the American girl. “Hiei, are you all right?!”

 

“What do you think?” The fire demon shoved himself to his feet. “She's no ordinary girl. I should've listened to Kurama that first night she was here.” With that he ran after the others, joining the hunt.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Kimi soon lost all sense of direction, amazed that nobody had caught up with her yet. `Unless I'm running for a dead end, and they're waiting to corner me…that would be scary and clichéd.' With that comforting thought in mind, the girl ducked into a bookstore. `I hate clichés.'

 

~*~*~*~

 

Yusuke swore as Kimi diverted from the dead end route she had been taking and took cover in a bookstore. He flipped open his compact to reveal Botan. “Yusuke? Have you caught her?”

 

“No. Tell everybody to stop heading to the dead-end alley and come to me. She changed direction and is in a store full of people. She couldn't have picked a better place to hide. She can lose herself in the crowd, the other people will cover her scent, and we can't effectively attack with all the humans in there. We'll have to talk her into coming out, wait until she's forced to leave, or go after her and try to pick up her scent anyway. None of those options appeal very much.”

 

“I see what you mean… All right. They're on their way.”

 

“Good.”

 

Several minutes later Genkai, Hiei, Kurama, and Kuwabara arrived. Walking across the street with Yusuke, they entered the bookstore. Hiei narrowed his eyes in disgust at the amount of humans present as Kurama attempted to pick up Kimi's scent. Finally he caught her trail and motioned for the others to follow him. “This way.”

 

They followed her scent to a storeroom. When they tried the handle, it was locked. Kurama used his faint memories of thievery to pick the lock with a pin he found on the floor and twisted the handle. The door swung inward easily. Kimi, however, was nowhere to be seen in the large, mostly empty room. There were many boxes of differing sizes sitting around, but Kimi's scent led them out of the storage facility.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Kimi breathed a sigh of relief, clutching one of the bottles of perfume that had been Midori's parting gift to her. She had put on some of the scent during the plane ride to Japan and had kept the perfume fresh by reapplying it when she bathed. To set her decoy trail she had sprayed the vanilla scent in the air until she was on the edge of the sidewalk, then she retraced her steps exactly to a large, empty box she had brushed against.

 

Once her hunters had left the room she quietly stepped out of the cardboard cube, walked out of the store, and got her bearings. After sneaking past the park where Yukina, Koenma, and Botan were still waiting, she raced to the Minamino house.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Hiei, you're sure that she'll come back?” Kurama asked, crouching underneath the desk in Kimi's room. The fire demon didn't bother to dignify that with an answer.

 

They had followed Kimi's scent out of the back of the store to the curb, milled around as Kurama tried and failed to catch any of her scent lingering on the air, then figured out what she had done. Taking a shortcut to the park, Genkai explained to the three non-fighters waiting for them that Kimi had managed to escape. Then she, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, and Kurama ran to the kitsune's house.

 

Kuwabara hid around the side of the dwelling while Genkai and Hiei got into Kimi's room through her window. Kurama and Yusuke entered the house through the front door and were grateful to find that Shiori had already gone to sleep.

 

Kurama and Hiei were currently under the desk and bed respectively while Genkai and Yusuke hid behind the bookcase. They didn't have to wait long. Hearing a tapping on the window, they turned to see pebbles bouncing off the glass. It was Kuwabara's signal that Kimi was on her way. Using his Jagan, Hiei told Kuwabara that they had heard him the first time while everybody else checked Kimi's Brookstone clock. Ten thirty-two P.M.

 

“Impressive,” said Genkai. “It only took her ten minutes. Are you sure that you never showed her around that part of town?”

 

Before any the other three could respond, they heard somebody walking up to the front of the house. The metallic rattling of keys was heard, and the front door softly opened and closed underneath them. The footsteps on the carpeted stairway were barely audible, pausing outside of the room before the door opened.

 

Kimi walked in and sat down on the bed, not bothering to turn on her light. “What have I done?” she muttered, one hand covering her face. “Oh, stop!” she growled in aggravation while scrubbing at her eyes with her hands. Both of her hands were balled into fists. Finally dropping her arms, Kimi revealed brown eyes red and shining with unshed tears. There were no streaks on her face to indicate that she had allowed any of the salty drops to fall from her eyes.

 

A saying that Kurama had once read somewhere suddenly sprang to the forefront of his conscious mind. `I am crying for the one who cannot cry.' (3) Kurama took note of the fact that Kimi's right eye seemed to be a lighter shade of brown than her left, but that could have been a trick of the shadows.

 

Why did he doubt that that was the case?

 

Kimi suddenly shot to her feet, stalked over to her dresser, and yanked out her nightclothes and a change of underwear. She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. About twenty minutes and several heart-wrenching, muffled sobs from just outside the door later, the sound of the shower broke the stunned silence.

 

“Was she…crying?” Yusuke wondered out loud.

 

“Yes. She was,” Kurama confirmed, taking advantage of Kimi's absence to come out and stretch. Yusuke winced as he heard vertebrae popping back into place.

 

“I wonder why.” Genkai said sarcastically. Yusuke glared at the old psychic.

 

“You got something to say?”

 

“Dimwit. Look at it from her point of view: it has just been discovered that you know about the Reikai Tantei, a group kept secret from most humans. You're not supposed to know that they even exist, never mind who they are and what their lives have been like! You are knocked out by one of the four in the group, and you wake up in the park while the ones that are responsible for bringing the Spirit Detectives together and the Reikai Tantei themselves discuss how best to deal with you.” Yusuke looked down at his feet angrily.

 

“The first thing you say results in six weapons aimed at the vulnerable points of your body. When you reveal that you know about the Jagan, Hiei tries to kill you, and very nearly succeeds. Only your fast reflexes plus a well-aimed kick and sheer dumb luck save you. When you make a run for it, all the fighters present go after you like hounds after a fox. No offence meant to you, Kurama.” Genkai added as an afterthought.

 

“None taken,” the kitsune replied evenly as he slipped back under the desk.

 

“Good. So, you manage to fool your hunters by laying a false scent trail and sneak away while they're distracted trying to find your trail again. You have nowhere to go except back to the home of one of the Reikai Tantei. It's not exactly safe anymore, but what choice do you have? You're not going back to America for at least a year, possibly longer. Assuming that you live that long, since you now have potential enemies, all of whom are extremely dangerous in almost every kind of combat, after you so that you can be dragged who-knows-where to be interrogated.

 

“You arrived in Japan a matter of hours ago. A lot has happened to you in a short amount of time, and you don't know what is going to come to pass of your mistake. You are telling yourself that you should have never gone up to Kurama's room, and your emotions are overcoming all rationality. You are already grieving for all that you have lost and what you were never given a chance to lose. You don't know what will become of you or what the consequences will be.” Genkai's eyes could've seared holes in the back of Yusuke's head. “Frankly, she did better than I had expected from a normal human.”

 

A sigh was heard. “That's very perceptive of you.” The four warriors realized that they hadn't heard the shower running for about two minutes.

 

The door opened and Kimi walked in drying her face with a towel. Her hair was still dripping from the shower, and when she lowered the soft, white cloth covering her face she revealed a composed, almost expressionless countenance. Her cheeks and forehead were slightly red from rubbing her face dry, but the rest of her face was half a shade lighter than it normally was, revealing how terrified of this confrontation she truly was.

 

Genkai's eyes narrowed and she sent a blast of spirit energy the size of a tennis ball at Kimi, who was struck in the left side of her chest as she threw her arms up to protect her face as the ball of spirit energy disappeared into her body.

 

Nothing happened. The three Spirit Detectives and their trainer came out of hiding and Kimi lowered her arms. Her face revealed that nothing had appeared to happen. The red on her face had become the three stripes on the face of the girl who had replaced Kimi twice on Mount Fuji, and her right eye was definitely a lighter shade of brown than her left eye.

 

"...I'm alive?" Kimi looked down as though to assure herself that her feet were still on the ground.

 

"Yes. That blow wasn't meant to hurt you." Genkai explained. "It was to see how well you could handle spirit energy. You surpassed my expectations, by the way, when you absorbed the small amount of energy with minimal pain.” Kimi winced, rubbing the area about five to five and a half inches below her shoulder. Yusuke made a noise of outrage, only to be smacked on the back of the head by his sensei. “Shut up, idiot. It wasn't a spirit wave. The size was in scale with its power proportions, but it was from the lower level of the power scale. Although,” the psychic turned to look at Kimi, “I do find it interesting that you chose to protect your face instead of your heart, where I was aiming..." Genkai trailed off, her tone somewhere between delicately insulting and ponderous.

 

“If I die, I would like to be recognizable, thank you very much.” Kimi's stance indicated how angry she was. Although she appeared relaxed, her shoulders were tense, betraying her fury, and her fear-scent was being burned away by her rage, incinerating her nervousness.

 

Kimi walked over to her desk and picked up a disordered stack of loose, blank printer paper. She shuffled the white sheets back into order and slid the pile into the tray of her printer, also brought over from America. Turning around she glared at Yusuke, who was sitting on her bed.

 

“Off. Now. It is eleven twenty P.M. and I want my sleep.”

 

After Yusuke did as he was bidden Kimi turned out the lights and got under the covers, ignoring the others so thoroughly that for a moment they doubted their own existence.

 

#Come on, you three. Let's leave her alone for now. Hiei, stand guard outside her window.# Genkai sent to the three males in the room. Hiei slipped out through Kimi's window and the other three left through the door. Kurama paused in the threshold.

 

“Sleep well, Kimi. You may need all the rest you can get for tomorrow… I am sorry that you were treated so badly by my friends tonight, and I apologize for my own actions.” There was no response. Sighing, the kitsune closed the door.

 

~*~*~*~

 

At the sound of the door clicking shut, Kimi angrily clenched her eyes tightly, fighting back tears. `Gods take it! Stop crying!' she berated herself. `It was bound to happen eventually, anyway!'

 

She was furious with how she had been thrust into a situation that she had been trying to prevent from happening, going to great lengths to fortify her mind-shields. That was why just yesterday she had been dancing in the light of the full moon wearing the first dragon scale dress ever made. The dress was a parting gift from the Fae Folk to the family that had helped them the most before they completely “died into the hills.” (4)

 

Then Yusuke just had to come barging into Kurama's room when she was in the middle of trying to heal a certain fire demon's injury. And he just had to distract her, cracking mental barriers that were erected to keep out intruders that might want to discover her darkest thoughts and blackmail her into being at their beck and call. That momentary distraction had allowed the one thing she absolutely didn't want these people to know of to slip out, and Hiei had picked it up due to their close proximity.

 

So great was her fury with the world in general that she failed to notice that all of her physical senses, sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, had sharpened. She was also a half-inch taller and had slimmed down, going from normal bodyweight to borderline underweight, her figure staying the same for the most part, though.

 

Kimi fell asleep to the sound of wind in the branches outside of her window, the taste of her vanilla/mint toothpaste in her mouth. (5)

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Kimi? Kimi, are you awake?”

 

“Just open the door. She's probably giving us the silent treatment, like most girls do when they get ticked off. Ow! What was that for, grandma?!”

 

“Shut up, dimwit.”

 

Kimi cracked open her eyes as somebody knocked on her door. “Who is it?” she asked groggily, still half-asleep and wholly unwilling to get out of bed.

 

“It's Yusuke, Botan, Kuwabara, Genkai, and myself. Please open the door.”

 

“Sod off.” Kimi grunted as she pulled the covers over her head, her British accent (6) slightly stronger as she used the English version of vocally flipping somebody the finger. There was blessed silence for a few minutes before the window opened. Kimi growled warningly.

 

“Get up,” a familiar and unwanted voice said.

 

“Did you not hear me?” Kimi asked, her voice dangerously soft.

 

“No.”

 

“Then allow me to rephrase what I just instructed the idiots outside my door to do. Go forth and perform an impossible biological act upon thyself.”

 

There was a stunned silence before Yusuke spoke up. “I take it she's not a morning person?”

 

“Apparently not,” Kurama replied. “I wasn't aware that she used such language until just now, actually.”

 

“It is too early for this.” Kimi said, still refusing to look at Hiei.

 

“It is ten in the morning!” came Yusuke's aggravated shout.

 

“And I have a sleep deficit that amounts to several years (7). Deal with it.”

 

That was when the sheets and blanket were forcefully yanked off the bed. “Hey!!” Kimi shot up into a sitting position so that she could glare at Hiei more effectively.

 

The fire demon grinned. “She's up!”

 

“Rrrrgggh!!!”

 

The thud that followed Hiei's statement and Kimi's enraged growl sounded remarkably like a fist connecting with the back of somebody's head.

 

Kimi opened the door to scowl at the others. “What do you want?” she demanded.

 

Genkai stepped forward. “It is time for you to be taken to the Spirit World. Tell me, are you afraid?”

 

“I would be a fool not to be,” Kimi said, not really answering the question.

 

“That's the truth. Are you ready?”

 

Kimi looked down at her wrinkled, loose sleepwear and pointedly ran fingers through tangled hair. Then she frowned, looking at her stomach. “That's weird.”

 

“What's weird?” Yusuke asked, ignoring Kuwabara who was trying to get past him to stand in front of Kimi's door as well.

 

“That's the first time I've lost ten pounds and gained about double the muscle tone that I had overnight. I've been trying to get back into optimum physical condition ever since a knee injury killed my P.E. course and stopped my Tae Kwon Do training, but now I'm in better shape than I was before I got patellar tendonitis (8).”

 

“Just get dressed so that we can leave.” Kimi walked past Hiei, carefully stomping on his foot as she passed him.

 

“I would appreciate being allowed to eat, Heidi.” Kimi snorted, rummaging through her closet.

 

Muffled giggles could be heard from the general direction of the doorway when Kimi called Hiei, “Heidi.” The girl looked the irate demon in the eye. “To answer your unspoken question, yes, I was referring to the little girl who was sent to live with her grandfather in the mountains.”

 

The next few minutes were spent chasing Kimi and Hiei around the house in an attempt to stop Hiei from killing the American girl and doing their best to make Kimi stop infuriating the fire demon even more than she already had.

 

When everybody was finally ready, Botan opened a portal to the Spirit World. “Prisoners first,” she said, motioning for Kimi to precede them, a sad look in her eyes. “I'm sorry to refer to you that way, but technically that's what you are.”

 

“Don't worry,” Kimi said, her head held high. “I know the standard procedures.” `They're the same on practically every world that I know of, which are the Earth that I managed to be yanked from, this Earth, Makai, and the Spirit World. Prisoners always go first.' She stepped through the portal, every inch of her radiating icy dignity as her escort, which consisted of one shinigami, one psychic, and four Reikai Tantei, followed her. The interrogation at the Spirit World would not go smoothly.

 

In later years, all who had been present had to feel sorry for the demon assigned to question the fourteen-year-old girl.

 

~*~*~*~

 

(1) Think the feudal era shirt that Inuyasha wears, only in pink.

(2) Once again, another anime reference. They are the same markings that Princess Mononoke has on her face, but the girl DOES NOT wear the circlet that Princess Mononoke does.

(3) Can we say, “Dragon Knights”? I don't own.

(4) Kimi, like me, is part Irish, and the Fae Folk were also called those who “died into the hills,” for they could not bear to leave Ireland.

(5) My favorite toothpaste flavor. For safety purposes, I don't own.

(6) I am also part British, and do have something of a British accent

(7) Also true about me.

(8) That whole paragraph is true, except for the “lost ten pounds and gained muscle tone overnight” part.

 

There's more of “me” than I thought in this chapter. As an aside, my eyes are a multi-hued hazel green too, at the moment (see the beginning of the chapter, where that girl takes Kimi's place for the first time). My eyes have a tendency to change color without the assistance of contacts. Please review!!