Welcome to the sequel to Winter's Rose! It's been a few months since Aislin enrolled at Meiou High School, and now there's a new student taking the unwilling limelight. Let's meet her, shall we?

Spring's Fire, Chapter One.

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With amber-green eyes, the newest student to Meiou High School watches as her fellow students file haphazardly out the large main doors after a long day of learning. Or, in her case, a long day of trying to keep up with her teachers and their sometimes not-very-clear Japanese.

Damn it all, why did we have to move to Japan? The girl wonders dispiritedly to herself as she sits in one of the big trees away from the main gate, knees drawn up to her chest with her chin resting on her knees. Sure, the ready access to all things anime is peachy...but it's so hard to make friends with these kids. They're either snobby 'cause this is a prep school and it has status, depressive 'cause this is a prep school and it demands hard work, or way too curious about the 'gaijin girl'. At least back in the US there was the gamer and the fantasy gangs that would accept just about anybody who could roll a decent set of stats.

The weather is cool and blustery, with a heavy damp wind that keeps trying to bite through the fabric of her uniform to the pale skin beneath, though the sky is a cloudless inverted bowl overhead. A flash of white catches her attention, and Kohaku Piers watches as the other, even more-exotic exchange student named Aislin Moors prances into the pale sunshine in the summer uniform, dragging her laughingly-protesting boyfriend behind her.

A scornful snort as she remembers some of the overheard conversations of the school's gossips. According to them, their beloved Shuichi was seduced and bespelled by the white-haired witch into falling in love with her. Judging by the comfortable space--what space there is--between them, it's obvious that the other girls are simply jealous at another's good fortune as they always seem to be.

Having remembered that, Kohaku decides to study this school-idol pair (the girls adore and despise Aislin for stealing their Shuichi, the guys envy and despise Shuichi for catching the new girl before they had a chance) from her logical perch high above nosy hormonal boys.

The male idol is named Shuichi, if she remembers correctly. He is unfairly handsome but dances the razor's edge of being bishounen, which likely as not gets him mistaken for a girl every now and then. Not that she cares--she's dressed in the boys' uniform because of an acute allergy to anything teasing boys can flip up--since she often gets mistaken for a boy herself. Yay for dressing like a boy! His hair is long and very much blood red, spiking oddly like a mane of some sort and complementing jewel-green eyes that admittedly are attention-holding.

The girl is Aislin Moors, and represents an interesting puzzle to the bored girl. Despite her claims that her hair is simply ice-blonde, it is quite obvious to Kohaku that the tresses hanging to just below the other girl's shoulder-blades are snowy white--but Kohaku most certainly approves of those dark red streaks hanging past her ears. The puzzling part is that she seems to be backwards in concern of the weather--she always wears the summer uniform on cold days and the winter one on hot days. Almost like her internal systems are reversed.

Ah, well. Feeling like she's waited long enough, the mahogany-haired girl carefully drops from the tree and searches around for the annoying fanclub that had formed around her despite her efforts to avoid such an occurrence (reason two for the boys' uniform). When no drooling hormonal boy leaps from hiding in a stupid attempt to get her to kiss him or some crap, she untenses but keeps her guard up as she grabs her bookbag and begins to trot off.

"There's the chocolate-haired goddess!" A boy from near the corner of the school shouts, waving back from the direction that he'd come in, with several more boys popping up and all of them waving posters of her.

"Aw, fuck!" she groans, and takes off running, sprinting past a startled Aislin and her beau straight down the wrong street--as she realizes about two seconds too late to do anything but run.

--

"Oh, dear, there she goes again," Aislin says in sympathy as a girl with long chocolate-brown hair and peridot eyes goes sprinting past them. Desperation is clear on her face as several boys set off in pursuit of her, no one paying the couple any attention in their chase. "I wonder how long it'll take her to get away this time?"

----

Three hours later...

"Note to self: good news is I've lost the pervert pack, the bad news is that yet again I am utterly lost." Muttering self-deprecating curses at herself as she walks, the Meiou student searches hard for any familiar landmark, not really paying attention to the space directly in front of her. So when someone a few inches shorter than her suddenly appears in that space she does not have the needed reaction time to stop.

He's a lot more stubborn than she is, apparently; she tumbles backwards onto her butt while he simply stands there and grunts from the impact. "Aw, frag, somebody get the plates on that tank?" she groans, getting to her feet and rubbing at her neck. Without even bothering to look first, she quickly bows and begins apologizing. "Geez, I'm sorry! I wasn't paying attention like I should've!"

"That," a voice full of irony says, "was obvious." Straightening up, Kohaku finds herself face-to-nearly face with a boy whose black hair defies physics. It spikes up like a crest, almost, colored onyx black with highlights of very dark blue. Spangled across the front of his bang-spikes is the white outline of a many-armed star, and below the bangs are wary wine-red eyes that brim with annoyance. The tips of his spikes are about even with her forehead. Wow, short but kinda cute, she thinks in startlement. "What isn't is you being a girl."

"So what if I like the boys' uniform better than that stupid skirt??" she retorts, tossing her own mane of chocolate-brown hair back over her shoulder and out of her face. "You got a problem with that??"

"Temper, temper," he tells her in a mock-chiding tone, "Did I say I had a problem with that?"

She sighs, reluctantly. "No, sorry. Bad day."

"Let me guess, a fanclub."

"Bingo. Hey, sorry for bumping into you, boyo. I gotta get going; I'm late getting home as it is. See ya!" With a jaunty wave she walks off again, leaving Hiei to look at her receding back with an uplifted eyebrow. Odd. Usually someone who just bumps into him is cowering within twenty seconds. Hn, very interesting.

Shrugging it off as another one of Life's little mysteries, the fire apparition continues walking to meet up with Aislin and Botan.

---

I HATE BEING LOST!! Kohaku screeches in her head nearly two hours later, even more confused than when she started and if such a thing is possible, even more lost. "Gods, but you must love watching me do this," she snarls to the open sky, ignoring the few remaining pedestrians who just give the strange girl odd looks and a wide berth.

"It never fails," she growls to herself, resuming her previous activity of looking-for-familiar- landmarks, utterly frustrated with herself and the world in general. "Ever. New territory? I have to get lost for a large amount of time at least once. More, if the gods feel like screwing me over more than usual."

Shivering as a particularly cold wind bites through the medium-weight fabric of her uniform and jacket, she gives up for the moment and finds refuge on a nearby park-bench to take stock of her situation. Okay, calm down, Kohaku. You know things have a tendency to blow up when you lose your temper. One: I am so lost it isn't funny. Two: I'm freezing my ass off. Winter uniform, like hell. Three--her stomach chooses this time to complain about missing dinner again--my spine is about to break from my stomach's deathgrip.

Putting her hands behind her head, she lies back on the bench to stare at the evening sky just beginning to spangle with stars. Stars...an image of the boy she'd bumped into earlier pops into her head, that smirk he wears in the memory just serving to rile her further.

Snarling like a pissed off dog, she sits back up and yanks on her ponytail in frustration. Despite asking for directions several times--even writing them down--it's like the whole world rearranges itself to mess up her path. "I hate...my life.." she declares wearily to the uncaring stars, flopping back down and closing her eyes as her anger vanishes as quickly as it had come. Briefly she wishes it would come back--she was warmer with it pouring through her veins.

With a long-suffering sigh Kohaku once again gets to her feet and resumes walking, but only as far as the closest tree. With feline grace she leaps for the first branch and treats it like a gymnast's uneven bars, swinging up even higher until she sits on a satisfactory branch with a decent windscreen of late-season leaves. From her bookbag a space-blanket is retrieved and she wraps the silvery substance around herself, resigned to spending yet another night in a tree. Her last fleeting thought before sleep claims her is, Tomorrow I'll find someone who can...lead me...back to my...house...

Looking for a comfy perch himself is our favorite hot-tempered fire apparition, who is still not quite comfortable with spending a whole night indoors, even if it is with Kurama or Aislin--mostly Aislin, since Kurama's mother might take his presence the wrong way. One of the last times he spent an entire night with a roof over his head was when he'd been arrested and thrown into Reikai jail. Not a pleasant experience and one that is tainting his nights as of late. But it is with great surprise that he spots a familiar tumble of dark brown hair against a rose-colored jacket in one of his favorite perches, wrapped in something silver.

Curious as to why the girl he'd bumped into earlier would be in a tree, he hops up beside her to poke her shoulder with a regrettable lack of caution. Instantly his hand is grabbed and he is nearly flipped when she jerks his arm in a circular motion. Only long practice against such maneuvers--as well as a firm grip on his own branch--saves him from a headlong tumble to the ground below.

Why is it so many females are so defensive when they sleep? Hiei asks rhetorically of himself as his wrist is released and the girl sits up, rubbing at reddened eyes in confusion. The kajihenge has to make a quick grab of his own to keep her from toppling off her branch when her stretches make her lose her balance. "Kyah!"

"You're not going to fall, baka." He can't tell what color her eyes are in the darkness, but light from streetlamps shine in them as she stares at him in disoriented shock.

"Wha? Where am...? Oh, wait, right," she groans, and tugs her arm free of his careful grip. "Sorry, reflex. Didn't hurt you though, right? 'Cause from where I'm sittin' you look just fine." And unfairly cute.

"Hn. Stronger people than you have tried and failed." And then his world tilts as she kicks one of his feet out from under him. Wind-milling his arms, he catches hold of another branch and levers himself back into place, glaring at the smug smile.

"Strength is moot when you've got the right leverage," she informs him, wagging an index finger slightly.

"Hn. What are you doing in this tree, anyway? You have a home, do you not?"

"Home is across the bloody ocean, m'lad. But yeah, my family's got a house here."

"Then why are you in a tree?"

She rolls her eyes as though the answer is painfully obvious. "Look, whatever your name is, just because we have a house doesn't mean I know where it is."

His smile leans more towards a very amused, exasperated smirk. "You mean you're lost."

"Yeah, pretty much," she agrees, dropping out of the tree and rolling her space-blanket back up. Hiei watches her curiously from his perch.

"What are you doing, onna?"

"Well, since it seems you aren't going to leave me alone, and you probably know the city around here, you can lead me back to my place while you ask all those annoying questions I can see buzzing around behind your eyes." The blanket safely stowed away, she turns to look back up at him expectantly. "Well? Are you coming or not, Mr. Brilliant-Conversationalist?"

Brilliant-Conversationalist? This girl is strange, even for a human. Wordlessly he leaps to the ground and shrugs at her raised eyebrow at the feat. "I do a lot of sports." The eyebrow does not go down, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "So what is your address, anyway?"

She gives it to him after rummaging around in the front pocket of her bag and producing a wrinkled piece of paper--he sweatdrops when he realizes that it is less than two blocks away. When he tells her this, she simply shrugs and gestures for him to lead the way. He does, looking back over his shoulder to find her ambling along as though she expected something like this to happen.

"Doesn't matter how close it is, I'd end up wandering in another circle whether I mean to or not. The gods have been screwing with me when it comes to directions since before I was ten."

"So this isn't the first time you've been lost like this," he clarifies, and she shrugs with indifference.

"No, it isn't. I've learned to be prepared for these little adventures of mine and I usually have a blanket handy. Just wait a few months though, if we stick around that long. I'll know this city back to front and I'll be able to walk it blindfolded."

"Stick around?"

"My dad's Navy; he got transferred here two months ago and we just finished unpacking our stuff. I think this'll make the...third or fourth time we've been in Japan, just the first time in this particular city." Her head tilts as something occurs to her. "Yanno, I've met you twice and I still don't know your name. What do I get to call you, anyway?"

Again that odd little quirking of his lips. "You can call me Hiei."

"That your real name?"

"Yes."

Her eyes widen in real surprise. "I rate your name on the second meeting? What did I do?"

"What are you nattering about, baka onna?"

Confusion mars her face as she looks at him. "I don't know. You just don't seem like the kind of person to give your name to a person that fast."

"Hn. It saves me from having to remember an alias. What's your name, onna?"

"I'm Kohaku Piers, but everyone calls me Candy instead. No idea why, they just do."

"Hn." And the two lapse into silence. When they reach her front door she snags his sweater sleeve and hauls him unwillingly inside, the boy digging in his heels and glaring at her as she pulls him into the front hall to ditch her shoes and her bookbag.

"Tadaimas!" she calls wearily as they enter the house proper.

"Where have you been, Kohaku??" An older man yells from upstairs. Two seconds later a six-foot man with short chocolate brown hair and the beginnings of a beard stomps downstairs, green eyes sparking. "You were supposed to have been home five hours ago!!"

"Yeah, I know, I know," she sighs, pushing Hiei ahead of her into the kitchen. "I got lost again."

"Ever hear of a cell-phone??"

"Somebody at school swiped it. When I find the baka I'll break their arm for you, will that be okay?" Hiei's annoyance turns to shock at the resigned, matter-of-fact promise that comes from a normal--if eccentric--human teenage girl.

"No fighting, and no excuses. You could have used a payphone."

"Do you see pockets on this uniform, Dad? And do you seriously expect me to memorize a hundredth phone number? I still can't keep the last three separate."

"Dear, don't work yourself into another frenzy," a woman calls from upstairs. "I'm still cleaning up after the last one. Just let her eat and go to bed, it's late." The man deflates and jerks his head at his daughter in a gesture for her to head for the kitchen. When a lifted eyebrow on her part is answered by a headshake from Hiei, she shrugs and disappears into the kitchen by herself. Seconds later the sounds of scrounging can be heard.

Turning to Hiei, the man bows slightly, embarrassed. "Eh, sorry about that. We usually reserve spats for when company isn't over. Nice to meet you, I'm Benjamin Piers. You are?"

"His name's Hiei, Dad," Kohaku chirps, voice somewhat muffled by the large peanut-butter and jelly sandwich she'd just taken a bite of. She pokes her head around the kitchen door. "He's the one who got me home. I was just gonna bunk down in a tree like always, so be nice."

And she vanishes back into the kitchen. Benjamin's smile has grown into the fatherly amused/exasperated smile Hiei is accustomed to seeing on Kurama's stepfather, when the fox-human's stepbrother does something strange. "Thank you very much for getting my daughter home safe, Hiei-san. Can we offer you some refreshment?"

"No, thank you, I need to be going. Tell your daughter to watch where's she walking instead of daydreaming next time for me, if you would." And he heads for the door, to be stopped by a large dog sitting guard in front of it. "Um..."

"Baka, get away from the door!" Looking hurt, the dog gets to its feet and pads up to Kohaku, already half-finished with her snack and leaning against the wall, shaking her head in mock-disapproval at the canine. "Honestly, you'd think you didn't want the guy to leave you and me alone to split the roast beef in the fridge."

Ears perking, the shaggy beast bolts for the kitchen, nails clicking on the wood floor. Shrugging ruefully, Kohaku smiles at her rescuer. "Sorry about that. Baka just likes to be protective of new people, but it's easy to bribe him with food. Thanks for getting me back here, Hiei. See you around?"

"Hn. Sure." And on cat-quiet feet he's gone, the door barely clicking behind him.

A few minutes later a slender woman only slightly shorter than her husband walks down the stairs, knee-length ebony tresses falling in a straight curtain down her back. Shorter locks frame her slanted amber-hued eyes set into a pixie-like face.

She walks over into the kitchen and smiles at her daughter, busy munching away through a healthy sized portion of roast beef and cold mashed potatoes. The dog Baka sits by her feet and licks chops sprinkled with shreds of more beef.

"Who was that, dear?" the woman inquires as she leans against the counter, rosy lips curved into a cheery smile. Kohaku swallows and shrugs before grinning back at her mother, good mood restored with the fanboy-free surroundings and good meal.

"Just a kid I've bumped into a couple times today, needs to ease up the bad-ass attitude though."

"His name, sweetheart, I wanted his name."

"Hiei, I think." Her expression goes from happy-full to one of concern at the sight of her mother clutching the edge of the counter in shock. "Mom? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Recovering her composure with remarkable speed, the woman smiles shakily at her daughter and turns to leave the kitchen. "Oh, I'm fine, dear. You finish your late dinner and head right up to bed, you hear?" A jaunty salute is in lieu of an assent from the girl who already has a large bite of meat between her teeth.

The woman waits until she is out of sight of both husband and daughter before leaning against a wall and letting out a very heartfelt sigh. "Oh, thank Kami," she whispers with her eyes closed. "That was far, far too close for comfort."

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Interesting. Mrs. Piers knows Hiei. You must read farther to find out how!

Starling: Read and Review! Please and thankies!