Hinote Kyou Mizu

Chapter 6


No tears were shed for Harime, daughter of Yukina, by anyone who knew her. Not even her mother mourned her much. Yukina deemed it unnecessary to cry for her daughter, believing that Harime’s soul was in a better place where she could be kind and good. Amaya, Hiei, Kurama and Yusuke never even found their bodies, both Harime and Mukuro seemingly lost beneath the snow.

Yukina confronted Hiei the night that they had returned from the ice lands, and the truth was brought out. There was no pomp and circumstance, simply questions asked and answered. Yukina accepted her brother with open arms, happy she had truly found the one she sought for so long, right within her midst. She had a bit of anger about being lied to for so long, but it was quickly replaced with feelings of relief as he told her the whole truth, beginning from the day he had been thrown from the ice island. Of course there was a little encouragement from Amaya to get him to open up.

Hinote and Ryu entered Tokyo University several weeks after her first battle, the death of her cousin affecting her more than she originally thought it would. She mourned for a time, but with Yukina’s encouragement, she healed and let go of the death. Within a few years she had grown, along with Ryu, to be a very good Makai fighter, accompanying her parents on missions and in battle when it was possible. Even Ryu followed in his father’s footsteps, the young man officially apprenticed to his father in order to take his place as a spirit detective. They had both graduated from the university with honors, Ryu accepting a somewhat freelance position with the Tokyo Shimbun and Hinote choosing to complete a master’s program.

With the job at the newspaper, Ryu was finally able to propose to Hinote with Hiei‘s full permission. While she had proposed to him long ago, when they were both just out of high school, he had declined, telling her he wanted to wait and do it right. He would be the one to propose to her, to buy her the ring and provide for her. She had accepted this and waited until he asked her. He gave her the ring he had bought in high school at their college graduation party, in front of all their friends and family. Many others openly exchanged money; the many bets on the fate of the young couple being completed. Even Yusuke got caught getting money from Kuwabara, the red-headed man not exactly happy looking to be handing over so much yen in such a short time.

Shortly after their engagement and the resulting announcements, Ryu and Hinote made the decision to marry as soon as they could, tired of putting off the inevitable. This sent the Urameshi and Jaganshi households into a slight frenzy, at least where it came to the women of the families. Amaya was excited to help her only child plan her wedding and Keiko was just ecstatic they were finally to be married.

Thankfully for Hinote and Ryu, Amaya and Keiko agreed to not force anything on them and let them have the wedding they wanted. The pair chose to have a very small wedding, inviting only aa few trusted humans and demons. Some of their families’ friends were not humanoid and a few of their friends such as Enki and Jin would probably not pass for human no matter what they did. Others, such as Chuu, would not fit in with many, if any, humans they invited. The bride and groom only hoped that the humans invited would think the demon’s ways were just strange behavior and that they would not frighten the humans so bad that Hiei would have to use mass hypnosis.

In the back of Hinote and Ryu’s minds was not just to be married as quickly as possible for their own benefit, but for Keiko’s. Mrs. Urameshi was not well at all, and hid it well from the public eye, letting only those closest to her know of her illness. Keiko had a rare form of brain cancer; terminal, already golf ball sized and growing. She had the mass in her left temporal lobe for years, sometimes giving her headaches and bouts of irrationality. That was when Yusuke insisted they do whatever they could to help her, Keiko being the most rational of the Urameshi family. That was when they found the tumor growing in her brain, right around the same time that Hinote and Ryu entered college. Yusuke was incredibly thankful for Amaya and Hiei caring for his son’s education, as the chemotherapy and treatments for his wife exhausted not only their personal savings, but also their physical bodies. The spirit detective had even asked Botan and Yukina to try and heal his wife to no avail.

So they stuck with the human treatments. Keiko was constantly tired, sick and depressed, her entire body sometimes wracked with pain and discomfort. Yusuke was completely exhausted from caring for his wife, thankful for his friends’ help. Kuwabara, Yukina, Kaida and Ryu spent as much time as they could the past few years helping keep the Urameshi family business open. Thankfully, within the last month, the doctors had deemed the tumor stable, not shrinking but not growing for the time being. They slowed down their chemo just enough for Keiko to recover her immune system a small bit. Now the older woman, aged by the treatments the human doctors gave her, wore no wig around the city and was proud to admit she was sick. She assisted as much as she could in the wedding of her only son to a family she knew and loved as her own.

As they all prepared for the wedding they were due have in less than two months, Hinote and Ryu decided they might as well move in together, the two finding an apartment they could afford a short distance away from Yusuke and Keiko’s. It wasn’t terribly small, but had two bedrooms and was big enough for them for the time being.

It is in this apartment building that the story beings again.