Seven Days of Falling

a fanfiction by andrivette and psychoheidi

chapter one
"Into The Void"

Today had started out normally.

She had verified the patrol shift with Kirin and went along. There hadn't been any humans seen yet, and the bored demons in the group chattered amongst themselves as usual, and as usual, she paid them no mind.

Mukuro's thoughts had slowly drifted to other things in her own boredom—and, inevitably, the thing she had the most to ponder about: Hiei.

It had been a while since their last fight and neither of them had spoken much about it. It was almost as if they had an understanding, a silent agreement, where they put forth more effort to be civil to one another. "Civil" being the highest treatment they ever gave to anyone, which would by any normal standards be "nice" and "gracious."

Mukuro could sense that Hiei was uncomfortable with it, and if she was being honest with herself, she was uncomfortable, too. She had never trusted anyone to so much as stand anywhere near her door at night, and she always let Hiei into her room, and once when he was injured, into her bed to rest. This was because she knew him better than she knew anyone—perhaps too well—but still, it was so incredibly difficult to adjust to such a thing. If he even so much as moved while she slept, her instincts jumped in a flurry, her mind leaping to images of someone coming to harm her while she was vulnerable, until her mind and senses returned to the present.

Neither of them knew best how to react to their situation, because they had never trained themselves for it. Never once had they woken up and expected to be happy that day, or expected something good to happen. Never had they prepared themselves for the best, rather than the worst. And now that they had been thrust into that likelihood, they stared confusedly into their hands, fumbling with the reins to such a beast.

"—heard one of them looked like Lord Mukuro, but that's just—" someone muttered, but she ignored it. She didn't care if anyone looked like her. She saw herself more than enough.

"—slaves escaped, and they're tracking them down—"

Mukuro's train of thought was shattered in an instant when that word pierced through. She turned suddenly toward the apparition that had spoken it, and she would have grabbed his shirt, had he been wearing one. "What?" she growled.

He was obviously baffled. "I-in area 6-F, some . . . slaves escaped. From a, a dealer, I guess," he answered.

Area 6-F. Mukuro knew that place, and the first time she had been there was so very long ago.

Mukuro's mind pieced the information together all too rapidly.

"Where did you hear this from?" she demanded.

"Someone else back at the fortress. . . ."

She flew back in a hurry, commanding every apparition to tell her about the slave trade's latest news. Most of them had nothing to say, but finally one of them confirmed what the other one had said, and then another.

Mukuro had made up her mind. She was leaving, and she was leaving now.

And just minutes later, as she walked purposefully toward the South-East exit, Hiei had positioned himself directly in her path.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked pointedly.

"Leaving." Her face was stony and her tone simmered with anger. She did nothing to further acknowledge his presence, merely adjusting her path a foot to the right and walking straight past him. "Look after things here while I'm away."

And just like that, she was gone.

—.—

Mukuro had already traveled halfway through the forest before she realized he was following her.

It must have been in the haze of her confused feelings that she had barely even noticed him to begin with. Her mind was miles away, mired in blackness and possibilities.

She almost blew up on him, but she stopped herself. He wasn't a stranger to her life, to her past. Mukuro certainly had not invited him, but she couldn't simply turn him away either. He was the only one with any ounce of understanding.

"You have a habit of disobeying me," she croaked, his presence shoving a cold sliver of ice into her burning emotions.

Hiei leaped to the next branch, not missing a beat. "And you have a habit of being completely irrational," he said. "Clearly, you require my supervision far more than the fortress does."

"I don't require anything of you," she hissed, every fiber of her self-control working to keep her reactions focused on words rather than violence. All she could hope was that he would keep his mouth shut long enough for her restraint to return to some semblance of normalcy.

This was her venture.

And he blatantly refused to let her go on her own.

But she didn't have time to focus on what she felt for this man. Everything was too jagged, too hazy. This world she was seeing was one he didn't seem to fit into. That sliver melted, encased in the heat of her memories.

Mukuro continued moving forward.

"You aren't thinking clearly," he said, leaping to another branch. "You ought to turn back. Surely you realize this is pointless."

Mukuro rounded on him, her gaze burning holes into the tree he stood in. "Don't you dare tell me my search is pointless," she snapped, the anger in her eyes reflecting her memory of his own life's pursuits. This seemed to quiet him, and he only gave a muffled grunt in response.

She couldn't handle this. Him, and this. Not now.

She couldn't. She had to focus. Move forward.

Forget him and his nature, just for a while.

Otherwise she'd break.

—.—

They traveled for hours in tense silence, passing through trees and over hills, forests blending into grasslands blending into forests blending into mountains. As night began to fall, Mukuro knew they were getting closer. The trees here were thickening, making travel increasingly difficult. She only had her sense of direction to go by, her memory . . . memory that she cursed for having to begin with.

Something moving in the cover of the trees caught her attention. Mukuro increased her pace and closed in on the creature—it was a demon, appearing to be searching for something in the forest.

Mukuro felt her anger rise like bile in her throat. "You," she started, a hint of venom in her voice, then she softened, "tell me where the Plains of Shadow are." He would certainly have a clearer direction than she would, though she had only just caught herself from saying 'slave ring.' She would need to keep her mouth in check.

The creature had its back to them and something told her that it had not heard their approach, yet when it turned to face them, the expression on his weathered, ogre-like face was one of cold control. "You have interrupted me," he said, in the dull, matter-of-fact sort of tone one might use to describe the state of the weather.

"Tell me where the Plains of Shadow are," Mukuro repeated levelly, "So that my companion and I won't be an interruption to you anymore."

The demon stared at her expressionlessly. Then it said, "I have been interrupted."

Mukuro's flesh hand clenched into a fist. Her more diplomatic nature was escaping her, her emotions betraying her coolly calculated strategies.

That couldn't happen, not if she was going to make it through. She had escaped the first time of their own will. Finding what she was looking for and doing what she intended against their will would be harder.

Much harder.

Standing a few feet behind and to the left of Mukuro, Hiei saw her body tense and felt her inevitable surge in power, signifying her growing impatience and rage. Aiming to end this interrogation swiftly, Hiei darted in front of her and began a slow walk toward the creature, purposefully sliding his sword from its sheath as he drew closer.

"Answer her question," he spat. "And do it in the next five seconds, or I will have the pleasure of ridding the world of one more fool."

The demon tilted its head awkwardly to one side. "You are an interruption," it said.

Hiei bared his teeth in what he hoped was a menacing growl. "Do you want me to show you what a real interruption feels like?" he asked in a low, dangerous voice.

Then the demon said, "An interruption has occurred."

And just like that, Hiei's patience snapped.

In one quick motion, he jerked the entirety of his sword from his sheath and sliced the demon completely through. There was a moment in which Hiei's eyes widened as he was able to see its insides.

"Hn?" he grunted in confusion.

Then there was simply light, fire, and noise.

For an indeterminable period of time, Hiei felt nothing. He could not even see, though he was certain his eyes were open. He groaned, but the white fog shrouding his vision refused to leave. Lying on his back, sprawled awkwardly against something which was definitely not a tree, he grasped blindly around him to confirm his surroundings, and when his fingers clutched at what felt like fabric, his confused mind tripped over its own warbled thoughts as it desperately tried to decipher the stimuli.

Then, Mukuro's voice cut through the fog of anxiety:

"Damn it," she cursed. "I should have known."

Hiei relaxed and let out a sigh, blinking repeatedly in an attempt to abolish the floating dots of color that danced in front of his eyes. He looked vaguely down and realized that the fabric currently bunched into his fist was in fact Mukuro's pant leg, and that her arms were wrapped firmly around his midsection. The explosion had disintegrated most of the front of his cloak, revealing the singed and shredded undershirt beneath, and even the material of it was torn and burnt. Mukuro's hands and sleeves were stained in red, and it took Hiei a moment to realize that it was his own blood.

He groaned. "What was that thing?"

"A robot," she breathed. "Things like that . . . are more common around here."

He shifted slightly in her embrace, and the movement caused a horrible, searing pain to flood his formerly numb body. Hiei gasped and lurched foward, his hands releasing their hold on Mukuro's clothing to clutch aimlessly at his own person, where his nerves burned at multiple points of contact. He squeezed his thigh in an effort to stop the pain in his leg, though it only made the sensations more unbearable, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out in agony.

His hands flew to the pain of arms wrapped around him. He tugged urgently at the sleeves of Mukuro's shirt, uncertain as to whether her touch was worsening the pain or not, but too stunned to make a proper decision on the matter. "Dammit!" he snarled, for the splotches of color still refused to stop obstructing his vision and were now moving even more wildly in front of his eyes.

"We should stop," she said suddenly, and he was too disoriented to argue.

She maneuvered herself away from him, every movement she—and consequently he—made causing the pain to worsen. "I'll look around," she said.

Returning a short time later, she helped him to his feet and supported his weight as they moved, despite his protests. With every step, Hiei tried to will the pain away, though it was proving ineffective. He had experienced much more excruciating pain in his life, and he had dealt with it in silence before. His pride would not permit him to show any sign of weakness now. The thought of being unfit to travel on because of some silly hunk of exploding metal made him sick. Showing vulnerability to Mukuro was infinitely less frightening than being a burden to her.

He had meant to aid her, not slow her down.

But Hiei feared that if his right leg was causing him this much pain now—as he limped beside Mukuro on his left—a full night's rest would not be sufficient to heal it completely.

Mukuro guided him to a small clearing and eased him to the forest floor. As the darkness of night enveloped the forest, temperatures began to drop rapidly. They established a fire, and the warmth helped Hiei to focus. He defensively pushed Mukuro away each time she attempted to help tend to his injuries, wary of trusting her with the problem when he could not seem to solve it himself.

He salvaged the remainder of his cloak and used strips of the material to wrap his wounded leg, where the blood was seeping heavily through his pants and dripping onto the ground beneath him.

There was a rustle nearby, what sounded like the flapping of wings—probably a only a bird. Still, Hiei instinctively grabbed at his hip, his stomach dropping unpleasantly when he did not find his weapon there.

"My sword," he said suddenly, looking over at Mukuro. "I need it."

She nodded once and left the clearing. While she was gone, he tried and failed quite miserably to remove his shirt and attend to the large hole blown into his gut. The sensitivity of his raw skin made the task difficult, and by the time he heard Mukuro's returning footsteps, he was lying on his back next to the small collection of metal he'd removed from his skin, halfway extricated from his shirt, his arms thrown above his head, and his eyes closed in exhaustion and momentary defeat.

Mukuro dropped Hiei his sword, expecting to be able to relax for a while when he asked her, "What do you intend to do when you find them?"

The question made her stop and think. What did she intend to do? She hadn't been entirely sure. With this, she had let her instincts carry her, and hadn't stopped to plan out her moves. It was completely stupid. But she came here on a rumor, a hunch, and she couldn't let it go.

She could at least stop it, even if she didn't find what she was looking for.

"I'm gonna end them," she answered. The dark, simmering part of her resolved that things would go her way and nothing would stop her—no mercy, no remorse.

This wound that had so delicately started to heal was fraying at the edges and spilling out, two parts of herself battling for dominance. Mukuro didn't want Hiei to know her this way, but now, this was the only way she could be. Until it was over.

Mukuro sat next to him, batting away his objections as she began to aide him in removing his shirt and tending to his wounds.

Time passed until the two of them were finally settled to rest in their makeshift camp, as comfortably close to the fire as they could be, and as bearably close to each other as they would allow for the sharing of warmth.

Mukuro had barely claimed sleep when she sensed something coming for them.

"Hell," she muttered, frustration bubbling her momentarily suppressed rage back to the surface.

A group of demons came into sight, darting between the trees toward them. Mukuro stood and took a stance slightly in front of Hiei, waiting for an ideal moment, and leaped out, punching one with her left hand. She had to know for sure what she was dealing with.

It flew into the trees a slight distance away, snapping limbs and tearing tree bark with metal screeches and clatters.

They were all mechanical. All of them.

Mukuro took a split second to assess their numbers and turned back to Hiei. They were already beginning to surround them, and Mukuro grit her teeth. The most efficient way to kill them would be to explode them into each other, but how could that be done reasonably safely, and without further injury?

Mukuro grabbed a robot and slung it into the trees again, determined to keep them away, to possibly discover a weakness. The trees weren't enough to pierce the metal, and retreat was most certainly the safest option, but Hiei was in no condition to escape on his own. She had to take him with her, and as the robots swarmed, the chances of that were slimming.

"Mukuro, we're leaving!" she heard him bark at her, and was grateful they were on the same page. He took off ahead of her and she followed, glancing behind her at their pursuers. The blanket of darkness was not easy to see through, but she could tell that they were losing them.

Then she heard the sound of objects whizzing through the air. Spear-like limbs began to fall around them, shattering as they hit the earth, wooden splinters spraying. Then, an awkward thud and subsequent cry as her partner had not been able to dodge in time.

"Hiei!" she shrieked, unable to go back in time to stop the swarm of robots that now surrounded him. She tried grabbing them and slinging them off again, but they grabbed her back, and it became more and more difficult to prize herself away.

She couldn't destroy them. If she did, she'd likely kill them both.

"Hiei!" she screamed again, hoping, needing him to escape them. All she could do now was get away, and hope.

But when they eventually cleared away, and Mukuro scaled the woods, there was no sign of Hiei.

There was nothing.

He was gone.