damned_institute | Nightshift 31: M21-M30 Hallway

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Nightshift 31: M21-M30 Hallway

((Specifically in room M22))

This night was shaping up to be another long and tiring one. Adelheid mentally ran through the checklist of things to do: give a spear to Yukari Takeba, create the sakabatou for Himura Kenshin, sharpen Kenren's blade... and then, if he found a moment to breathe, to do something to let off some of the anger he still felt. At least he wasn't powerless tonight; that was the only good thing for him to look forward to. It had been too long since he'd gotten to fight something that wasn't a patient.

He kept one ear on the radio, still wondering if Jack was honestly gone and convincing himself that such could not be the case. Besides, he was too busy to feel grief now. He had to focus, or else this night was going to be just as frustrating as the previous one.

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Hiei didn't stop Kurikara from taking his sword, knowing the blade rightfully belonged to the dragon. He also didn't say anything about Kurikara being late, or injured, or dumping a pile of leaves in his bed.

What he did do was lean over and hit Kurikara's head with a sharp right, though not as hard as he would have hit an enemy.

"Your reason had better be a good one, or I'll do much worse than that." Hiei picked up one of the alone leaves, holding it between bandaged fingers. He'd seen his share of plants from both the demon and human realms, particulary since he'd partnered with Kurama. This one was completely unknown to the demon, however, making Kurikara's reason all the more unclear.

"You went out by yourself to bring me flowers?"

Kurikara took great care not to snatch Murakumo. Hiei had taken a huge risk to hold onto the sword for the duration of the night and his own protective instincts shouldn't be acting up at a time like this. He pulled his sword close and let it rest against his shoulder, his arms wrapped lightly around the blade. He nuzzled the hilt.

"RyuOh-sama..!" Murakumo managed to make it sound both like a fond greeting and slight embarrassment.

Kurikara chuckled, a warmth reserved for only his swords. "I missed you. Is Futsu...?"

"I do not know." Murakumo said. "Last night-"

"Yeah, last night. You did well." Protecting what was important to me. "Forget about it, ok?" He shifted his shoulder a little and settled Murakumo. They were sworn to each other. Being turned against his master would not sit well with Murakumo for some time.

At present though, he had to deal with the love tap from his demon. Kurikara wasn't bothered but he did scowl at Hiei a moment later. "I'm not made of glass. If you're pissed don't be so wimpy about it."

But he understood it was Hiei-speak for 'don't get yourself hurt like an idiot'. Compared to the last few nights though, this was just a few ugly-looking scratches.

"Of course I brought you flowers. You're my wife." Kurikara's mood had vastly improved from just being in contact with Murakumo. Now he was teasing, shifting his hold again so that he could move closer to Hiei. "It's aloe; it'll soothe the burns. Take off your shirt."

"Idiot. Do you really think that I would show mercy?" Which was to say that Hiei wasn't actually pissed. Maybe a little annoyed, but watching Kurikara practically fondle his sword did do good things for Hiei's mood, despite how strange the action was. The demon could easily chalk it up to the dragon's eccentricity, a habit that was easy enough to tolerate, or better, ignore completely.

"Are you starting that again?" Hiei frowned as Kurikara claimed him, but not for that reason. His burns were treated, and while they did hurt, it wasn't any sort of pain the demon couldn't handle. Still, he stripped off his shirt, not wanting to add to the potential of Kurikara's stupidity through his own stubbornness. For once.

"You didn't need to get anything." Hiei eyed Kurikara, wondering exactly how the plant worked, and how guilty Kurikara still felt. His words were simple matter of fact, calm for now, reserving judgment until actual idiocy could be proven. "It's nothing I can't handle."

Kurikara appeared to give the question a little thought before shrugging with his good shoulder. "..Nah, guess not. You're pretty much an ass too."

He grinned slyly at Hiei. "You're the one who called them flowers. You can be the husband if you want to fight me for the title."

Truth be told, to him it hardly mattered who took what role. They were the same standing and he was only half serious anyway. It was a good distraction. Kurikara didn't know much about modern medicine, truth be told. This was the only sort of healing he knew. Any burns more sever than that wouldn't have been accidental and he would have simply killed the victim instead of trying to heal them.

"Yeah, I know. I got bored," Kurikara replied. "I didn't really know what else to do. We have to gather metal for your sword and you'd be pissed if I tried to do that on my own and I'd be pissed if you came along and ripped off the rest of your skin."

Murakumo rested across his lap while he worked. He took the aloe leaf in hand, scoring and splitting it with his claws. He scraped the contents of the leaf onto Murakumo's blade to be mixed by hand. One, two...four leaves was enough for now. There was only one left anyway, and they were fairly large. Kurikara began applying the cool gel-like substance to the areas that hadn't been covered by bandages first. If he had any hesitation, it wouldn't show in the way he worked; his hands were always steady.

"If I'm going to spend my time fighting you, it's going to be for a better reason than that." No, their fights were much more important, much more significant than some stupid human title. Hiei had enough reason to fight the dragon, after they had freed themselves. That would be a good fight, not one filled with dirty tricks like certain tournaments he could think of, but a pure contest between two powerful forces.

And Hiei would win, of course. The demon smirked when he thought about it, though faintly. His attention was more on Kurikara than his own thoughts.

"Don't underestimate me. I've done worse than this to myself before." For the Jagan and its power. Oh yes, Hiei had felt suffering like none could know, the pain of having the foreign eye implanted, and of taming the power it contained. It was why he knew he'd be fine, eventually; the demon had already sacrificed his arm to the black fires of the demon realm, and thrust it into a bonfire as part of his training. Kurikara had done no worse.

Though the stuff Kurikara was spreading onto his skin felt good. Hiei would never admit it, of course, but it was soothing and cool.

"How did you know about this? Do certain gods have affinities with plants?" It was a curiosity Hiei rarely showed, followed by a hesitation that was all the more infrequent. After a moment's paused, he turned his eyes away. "You and Kurama could compare notes if he were still here. He uses plants too."

Kurikara snorted softly. He could count on one hand the number of times they'd actually fought for a good reason - mostly, it was to blow off steam or just for fun. He knew Hiei's smirk was because the demon thought he would win the battle they both looked forward to.

Undoubtedly, Kurikara would be the winner. But it would still be a worthy victory.

He raised an eyebrow at Hiei. "To yourself? Are you a masochist or something?"

His spiritual senses weren't nearly as sharp as they should be, so he hadn't really picked up on anything outside of a standard demon-from-another-world strangeness. To Kurikara, there were very few reasons that Hiei would willingly bring himself harm. The main one was power. The benefits would outweigh the risk for the demon.

But maybe Hiei was just a pervert. He could never really be sure.

The next question brought him pause. Not really what it was, but the way Hiei had turned away. "Sort of." He started, unwrapping some of the thinner bandages. "Affinity is a good word for it. I used to spend a lot of time out in the forests slacking off and the forest would become a refuge if I asked that of it. We got along well. I don't know much of anything about how to use plants." Kurikara was responding to the curiosity and buying himself a little time to figure out what to do. He couldn't bring Kurama back and he didn't do fancy words of comfort. So he smacked the back of Hiei's head lightly with the back of his hand. "Idiot. Don't hide your face. If you don't know what's happened to somebody, you can look depressed after you find out."

There was a difference in fighting and fighting, and Hiei had thought Kurikara would be clever enough to pick up on that. But if the dragon wasn't, it'd be his own weakness in the end, and one Hiei would take advantage of.

And of course he would win. Kurikara was simply fooling himself if he thought otherwise, despite how worthy of an opponent he was.

Hiei scowled at Kurikara, though half-heartedly, when he suggested that Hiei hurt himself for the pleasure of it. There was enough injury to deal with when everything else was trying to kill you without inflicting it on yourself for something as stupid as that. "Do I look like an idiot to you? It was necessary to master my power, and to get the Jagan in the first place."

From stabbing through his own hand with a sword, to purposely setting his arm on fire. All of it had been necessary, and with a worthy payoff in the end.

But then Kurikara hit him, and thoughts of that payoff were interrupted. Hiei had been listening, of course, but the hit was random, even if it did hurt, and earned the dragon a sharp glare. "I wasn't hiding my face, moron. And I wasn't depressed. If Kurama was foolish enough to get caught up by something, then its his own fault."

Just like Yusuke when he had gotten kidnapped. Both of them should have known better.

"Thought so." Kurikara murmured, loud enough for Hiei to hear. "Why did you get it anyway? Other than the obvious."

He finished with the shoulder and started working his way down Hiei's arm. "Fine, but we still need to find him." Kurikara replied with a slight shrug. "And my lost shinigami. And our things." He sighed. "What a pain in the ass. Don't go missing, ok? You're bad enough as-is."

"Because I had a need for its power." Not greater power; the operation and stress involved in the Jagan transplant had actually significantly reduced Hiei's natural strength. No, the demon had needed the specific psychic abilities of the Jagan, to be able to find places and people.

A certain person in particular. But Hiei wouldn't admit that fact to anyone.

Cooperatively, or as much as the demon was prone to get, Hiei held out his arm a bit when Kurikara began work on the limb. "The same goes for you, tiny dragon. I don't want to have to hunt you down." Certainly not a second time. Though there had been a definite gain in the end, over all Hiei considered the entire endeavor a pain in the ass he'd much rather not repeat. "Do you have any idea where to start looking?"

That fell under the 'obvious' category, but as Hiei didn't volunteer any more information, Kurikara didn't pry into it further. He had his reasons. That was enough for Kurikara.

He would have asked about exactly what the eye did - if Hiei got taken, it would be good to know - but the next question made him pause and sigh. "When the shinigami went missing, I thought the patient files might have some clue about where they'd gone. I asked one of the nurses about them. She said she didn't really know, but it was stuff about our 'real lives'. If they're still in this world, and if their files still exist here, there should be an address somewhere.

But that's all fake, and most of them aren't dumb enough to fall for this place. It's just that the other options aren't too bright. You could drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how anything here works...and where to start." Kurikara paused for breath. "Any ideas?"

Kurikara didn't try to find out anything further about Hiei's reasons just then, and that suited the demon fine. Those who knew enough about him had figured it out pretty easily, but even then, Hiei refused to give confirmation. It wouldn't change anything if they did know, except that they might become all the more nosy and insistent in regards to that particular matter, and that was something Hiei didn't need.

Besides, Kurikara seemed pretty talkative in regards to the issue Hiei had brought up, so why change the topic again? It was something they did need to discuss, especially with more people vanishing, the growing annoyance, and the fact that they were still stuck there. He considered the question a moment--though Kurikara had provided more information than Hiei had managed to find out--and then shrugged.

"I need a sword."

Kurikara might just try to hit him for that one, but Hiei was ready to block. "Whatever we decide to do, it's going to be a bigger pain if we have to spend all our time not only traveling, but fighting whatever we come across. The battles will go quicker if we're both armed." The logic to the demon's thoughts. Hiei had no qualms starting there, and then figuring out the next step once that part of the plan was done.

Kurikara grinned. That was a good enough answer to him.

"I think I can still manage a sword. It'll take a couple of nights though; I'll be taking a longer route than Keman did." And a more effective one. It didn't escape his notice that all of their power was about equal. If Keman could only make a small dagger with what he had, Kurikara would need to find an alternative that would work for both of them.

He would do as much as he could by hand. If his estimation was right, he would teach his method to the other dragon. Assuming Keman still wanted to learn from him, anyway.

He'd worked his way down to Hiei's hand. "We can do a supply run tomorrow night..." He murmured, lifting it to examine the burns he and Murakumo had supplied.

"That's fine. I'm not going to die before then." Hiei relaxed back against the wall, calmly meeting Kurikara's gaze. "And unless you do something phenominally stupid, neither are you." Of course, it went without saying that if Kurikara did do something that idiotic, Hiei would leave him to die simply on the basis that he deserved it.

"Do you know what you'll need? Other than metal." He watched as Kurikara inspected his hand, the burns on his palms worse than the others. Not only had they endured the heat of the air, but also the heat of the metal that Hiei had refused to release. From the looks of it, the sword had to have been ripped from Hiei's skin, leaving his palms bloody and torn.

Despite being older than dirt and a deity to boot, Kurikara could look very much like an adolescent boy with a short attention span when people called him on his blatant idiocy. "I don't plan to. Those bats tasted like ass anyway."

Kurikara wasn't sure Hiei's hands had any skin left on them. It looked a lot like raw meat to him. He spread the salve into it anyway, right up to the fingertips. He brushed his lips against the back of Hiei's hand, and continued as if the gesture wasn't the least bit odd. "I'd kill for an anvil, but that's going to be impossible to find so it'll have to be something makeshift. A couple of hammers. Something strong to sharpen the blade with. We should go after the gardening tools. They'd be the least work to reshape and meld into the sword or the tools to make it."

Hiei frowned, thinking that for a moment, Kurikara sounded disturbingly like Kuwabara. That was a habit they would have to break immediately for the sake of Hiei's sanity. "Do you really have to taste everything you fight? If you actually ate the food here, you wouldn't have to eat half-rotted wastes like the ones at night."

And speaking of tasting, there the dragon went again, licking Hiei as if he were some item of food himself. "That includes me, damn it. I'm not your meal." Of course, Hiei could only assume that that was the reason Kurikara kept licking him. Not that it particularly bothered the demon--or at least not that Hiei would admit. But it was a stupid reason.

At least Kurikara had a strong idea of what he needed, however. It was the dragon's area of specialty, and Hiei believed Kurikara's words now that he had seen and held the reluctant Makuro. Hiei had never heard of swords that had their own essence before, but certainly Kurikara's did. It was a good weapon, by far better than Hiei had ever had.

And though they would have to wait until they escaped this place to make a proper blade for the demon, even what Kurikara could manage here held incredible promise.

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Nightshift 31: M21-M30 Hallway

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