All charas copyright Togashi Yoshihiro and all respective owners. Standard disclaimers apply. This is a YYH, non-yaoi Hiei adventure fic. Enjoy! ^_^

Heart of Fire

by Ri-chan
 
 
 

    "Help me!"
    The scream came from somewhere behind her, rising above the screaming howl of the wind. Shizuru whirled, shielding her eyes from the tiny stinging particles of ice, seeing nothing in the blinding whiteness but fleeing forms. Around her the people ran to the ski lodge, seeking shelter from the vicious cutting wind, heads down to escape the bite of the blizzard.
    Cursing, she swiftly dropped her ski equipment, turning away from the beckoning lodge and plunging blindly into the storm. Bakana...she thought, crushing the surging panic within her ruthlessly as she floundered forward into the rapidly deepening snow, seeking the source of that cry. Don't lose your head, she admonished herself, though her heart was threatening to leap to her throat.
    She nearly tripped over the girl lying there in the snow, a dark bundle of parka and cap and mittens, mewling piteously, her eyes shut against the painful driving wind. At Shizuru's touch her eyes snapped open, and giving a glad cry, she clung to the taller woman with a fearful grip.
    "My ankle's twisted, I...I can't stand on it..!"
    "Hold on," Shizuru admonished, placing a strong shoulder under the girl's arm and hefting her to her feet, fear and adrenalin lending her strength. There was obviously no time to splint it; something told Shizuru this unnatural blizzard would freeze them alive. The girl nodded, biting her lip to keep from screaming at the pain as they trudged forward, laboriously making their way through the howling storm and deep snow, trusting Shizuru's instinct rather than sight to guide them to shelter.
    When they finally stumbled through the doors of the lodge, exhausted and ready to drop, Shizuru only half-listened to the chatter of voices around her, praising her, lifted in disbelief, worry and anger that the weather reports hadn't forecast this, that countless others were still out there on the slopes. She was almost too tired, too bruised by the cold, to care.
    As she dropped into one of the chairs by the fireplace, drowsiness nearly blacked her out right then and there, but for a tiny worm of dread that ate away at her, holding sleep back enough for her to think: this was no ordinary blizzard, this monstrous gale of sharp tiny shards of ice and snow, that had swooped down from clear skies, out of nowhere..where only an hour before, the sunhad shone tranquilly down on the snow-covered slopes.
    The last glimmer of thought she had, before the darkness closed in and she fell into oblivion, was that she obviously wouldn't* be going on another skiing jaunt for a long, long time.

Chapter Two
Prelude to Winter
 

    I didn't know when the summons came.
    I traced my slow thoughts to the others, probably there by now, gathered before Koenma's desk like the expectant fools they were. I snorted to myself, half in amusement, half in disgust, as I flitted like a phantom of old through the trees. Ancient, twisted trees, their boles wrapped in tangling vine and clumps of moss...the perfect jungle for a flying shadow such as myself. Curious that some primeval things here in this dull, ordered world still reflected the savagery that was Makai. My home.
    Faster through the darkness, nearly flying now, though secretly I mused what they'd do, if I were *purposely* late. I smirked to myself as I blurred through the aged forest, Ningenkai falling away once more as I prepared to pass over to the spirit world. They could do nothing if I didn't even come at all, though as always I planned to arrive there a split-second within the appointed time.
    Because, brat child that I was, I'd been given the trump card.
    Ironic that it reminded me of the roots I'd so ruthlessly cut. Ironic that this next quest would need my heritage, and this precious gem, this tear-pearl, as a key. And at the time that my past felt as though it now traversed an irreversible path of separation from the rest of my life. Yukina.

    As I expected, outraged faces met me at the halls where Koenma held sway.
    Yusuke came forward to meet me, a mixture of helpless amusement and irritation in his dark eyes. Yusuke, who'd defeated me once, child of Raizen the battle-god of Makai. Yusuke, hopelessly human, a tall boyish figure with black eyes and hair, straight shoulders, and the mischievous, good-natured confidence I'd come to tolerate long ago.
    "Oi, Hiei...don't make us wait on you that long again...just because we really need you this time." He struggled to keep a straight face, to hide his amusement, though obviously it was a losing battle. Damned bastard had known what had been running through my head. Brat child?
    I gave him a glare that snapped his mouth shut, and made Kurama chuckle.
    The kitsune nodded to me, a faint smile on his lips. "Yo."
    Kurama, red-haired, green-eyed, slender and handsome enough as to seem almost effeminate, youko turned ningen-child. Gentle and soft almost to a fault. But nothing was soft about the cruel youko that he truly was, the deceitful thief and cold-hearted fox-demon. An unlikely companion, but we were best of friends. For now, the emerald eyes held a strange, misted expression that I found alien, but registered itself as amusing to my receptive mind. The stupid fox was probably in one of his little love affairs, and I felt a little mental snicker of satisfaction at the thought that Kuwabara would know, too, the agonies of losing a sister, so to speak.
    He blinked at me distractedly, pale skin puckering in a small frown as I gave him a knowing, if not nasty, smirk, flashing fang teeth, and sauntered past him, resisting the urge not to snicker aloud.
    I glared down the indignant Botan, who yelped and promptly took refuge behind Kuwabara's idiotic hulking figure. The baka, who for once hadn't carped on my on-the-dot arrival, was absently twisting the golden ring on his finger, twisting, twisting, as though by turning the circle of gold he could conjure himself back to Yukina's side.
    Grinding my teeth, feeling as though the frustration, and pain, twisted like a live thing, I shifted my cold gaze to the tall, brown-haired young man who stood behind the desk before me.

    Cold, bitter cold.
    Trapped in ice, beneath the stone...so cold. A temple, empty and desolate, as lost and soulless as the wind that howled through its ancient rotted ruins... skirling snow through the gaping mouth in the ice mountain. Bodies of those who had failed, frozen in horror for eternity, gaping mouth shrieking silent screams.
    Cold. Bitter, freezing cold.
    Koenma gasped, his eyes snapping open.
    The dreamlike image had lasted only a heartbeat, but he felt faint, his heart thudding painfully and dully against his chest. When his vision had cleared, the members of the Reikai Tantei were gazing at him puzzledly, their faces tight with concern. Except for Hiei, of course, who stared back at him as impassively as a church statue.
    Involuntarily he shuddered, wiping the sweat from his clammy brow.
    She wakes.
    He heard himself giving out the details of the mission they were going to undertake, almost numb with a creeping terror that seemed to sink into his very marrow. He'd been having these images, often like a flicker of a half-remembered dream, flash across his sight, blinding and blocking out reality. *Don't dwell on it now. Speak.*
    Speech found him.
    Gazing at the faces turned toward him, familiar faces that had seen so much, yet still had the stamp of youth, with all its strength and spirit, yet without the softness…he felt a cold defiance rise against the terror, quelling it in a kind of desperate wanting to believe, that this time, as always, the Tantei would prevail. *Ah so we hold on to what we hold dear.*
    So, almost angrily, he began.
    "You might wonder why I've summoned you again. It has been a long time, a long stretch of years since this Tantei has once more been assembled. It is fortunate that Kuwabara's wedding had brought you together, to buy us more time."
    Kuwabara flinched visibly, at the reminder of Yukina. I scowled.
    "Why, you might ask, the members of this Tantei in particular? Isn't it true you've been training potential detectives, and even recruited the ones who've shown more promise than most? Why not let them handle this?
    No matter how good they are, I still wouldn't entrust them with this mission.
    You are still the strongest and most experienced Reikai detectives we have. And the importance of this case is reflected in the mere fact that I called upon you."
    I half-listened to the debriefing, my gaze directed at a far wall, seething, refusing to glance at Kuwabara or any of the others. It was only when Yuusuke gave me a sympathetic glance that I turned my attention to the proceedings. Giving him a daggerlook in return - I need no pity - I folded my arms and focused on Koenma, only to see him watching me, eyes intent. I stared back at him unflinchingly.
    "Hiei, as was stated in the summons, you are needed.. .As one of the last children of the Koorime, and the only one who could possibly face this danger and live....you're needed as the key. The key to unlock an enemy that was ancient before the human world as you know it was ever born."
    A faint wave of cold shock passed through me, as though something old and dark, instinctive, had risen within the depths of my soul...recognition, fear, and even more terrifying, a song, a clarion call that threatened to drown me, enmesh me...come hither, said the snake..
    Koenma's voice cut through thought like a knife, in the half-narrative reminiscent of a fairy tale.
    "The Snow Queen, the Oyuki, was one of the demon rulers of old. In the truly ancient days, this world belonged to the mighty among the spirits and demons...
    *The Court of Ice was renowned and mighty upon Earth. This Oyuki knew, this she was proud of. The Ice Queen she was, ruler of the northern lands and frozen wastes, and the heart of winter in even the lightest snowflake. Her daughter, Oyuki-hime the beautiful, Yukiko Rei in other tongues, could bend the will of the fiercest storms to her, and her loveliness was as the sun shining on the blueness of glaciers…. In the Queen’s pride she sent her ice fingers to grip the world in the throes of a mighty winter, freezing the ends of the earth, pushing back the borders of Summer.
    Glaciers stabbed into the heart of the northern lands, where Oyuki's power lay greatest, inexorable rivers of ice that none could stop or withstand.They crushed all before them...The lands were afflicted with ice, and many died as the ice marched southward…
    The other spirit-rulers lodged a complaint with the courts of heaven, and the forces of heaven struck down the proud snow queen, breaking her rule forever, and casting her daughter to sleep for millenia in the ice mountain. To sleep in darkness, until the end of ages and the world changed. Now, when Rei stirs, the forces of Winter assault the Earth once more, a faint breath of their power of old, and the northern lands are blanketed in snow. But slumber lies heavy upon the snow-maiden, and always, as she falls back into dreamlessness, Summer breaks the spine of Winter for Spring to come.*
    "And now she wakes."
    At the end of his brief retelling of a story that I had never heard from another’s lips, yet knew, Koenma fell silent, his brown eyes fixed upon me.
    *How long ago had this legend been born? How far back did my memory serve me?*
    Unknown to me the others had noticed my shift of attention, the slight glimmer of fear and glassy-eyed rage in my gaze…it was well that they kept silent, but I felt their eyes boring into me….only the great lump of a baka didn’t…hadn’t, even paid the shift of atmosphere any mind. Likely he hadn’t even felt a thing. As usual.
    Yuusuke’s voice, soft but hard-edged as steel, broke the silence, even as I opened my mouth to speak.
    "Tell us what you want done with her."
 

*to be continued*
 
 
 

Back to Chapter One
Chapter Three