A/N: For YFate, because she's awesome, and I promised I'd try.

Chapter Six: True Beauty

"There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light, and I'm frightened by those who don't see it." - The Avett Brothers, Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise

Hurt

Despite what many believed, Hiei had known true beauty. Had seen it in the ruddy embers of the day, when the demon sun burned the sky into ash. Felt it in the warm breath of summer upon his face and the stillness of night as it drifted into place around him.

And yet, there were moments like these, when his eyes focused on the way her skin prickled, naked beneath the soft, cool wash of rain, and the sound of her shuddering, broken cries echoed into the dark. He swallowed hard from the shadows, jealous of the hurt weaving around her heart as he would never, and realizing.

Hiei had known true beauty. Now, he understood it.

Soft

They were alike in ways he'd never wanted to consider. He felt it – like a heartbeat, deep and hollow below skin stretched too thin. Every step, every pulse; he carried her burden as a warrior's drum, like the funeral droning in his chest.

"I'll find him, Sango," he told her once as she touched him, fingertips grazing the valleys of his skin, maps of his failures. "I'll bring him back to you."

She smiled, and it was so soft it crushed the air from his lungs.

"No you won't."

And he could see it, then, in the dark pool of her gaze.

At least a part of her didn't want him to.

Gift

She hadn't expected a response at all, and for one so very candid – vulnerable even – Mukuro found herself doubly surprised. She blinked. Once…twice, the baleful gleam of her metallic eye sharp in its study of his face.

It was somehow softer than she'd remembered.

"She smiles? This … girl. This slayer of demons. She smiles, and this is why you return time and again to that festering bog of evolutionary waste known as the living world?"

He sighed, the taut line of his shoulders more at ease than it might have once been.

"She smiles, and it is a gift."

Peace, all. Hope you enjoyed.