Hinote Kyou Mizu

Chapter 3

Amaya stared across the table at the blue haired woman, gripping the up of tea in her hands, not sipping it, but taking small comfort in the warmth it gave off. The girl to her right sipped the tea, holding the green cup at the bottom, eyeing Amaya herself. The old man to her left however chatted animatedly about what Amaya thought was absolutely nothing.

“So, I told Jiraya that he need to stop hitting on the shrine Maidens. When you are trying to peek in on every single one, it is definitely at a point past pervert.”

The blue haired woman nodded, sipping her tea calmly as the old man kept talking. Amaya was attempting to keep her calm, despite the fact that her knuckles were turning white was she gripped the cup. The brown-haired girl quickly grabbed the cup out of Amaya’s hands as it began to crack and liquid beginning to overflow and spill out the sides.

Amaya looked toward the younger girl, her eyes glazed over as she realized the cup was gone and the table as well as her hands were wet, not from tea but from water, water so dark it turned the light green table covering nearly black.

“Learn to control yourself Night Rain. I won’t have my linens turned colors, just because you can’t control your own powers.”

Amaya whirled on the other demon, eyes radiating a dim green light, her anger evident. “Control myself? If I could I wouldn’t be here. If I could control all this damned power, I wouldn’t have to stay away from my friends, my work, my…. Hiei, Hinote. I would be…”

The old man smiled and placed his hand on Amaya’s giving her hand a Squeeze as he spoke. “Oh don’t take Ayame’s words to heart, dearest. Her bark is worse than her bite.”
Amaya simply looked down, watching the water spread out from her, stopping as it approached Ayame and visibly evaporating as she spoke. “Amaya, there is so much you need to learn.”

She nodded. “Can you start by telling me who you people are?”

*~*~*~*~*~*

Hiei stood out on the balcony of Hinote and Ryu’s apartment, feeling Hinote’s presence within the apartment, with a twist. He had not seen her in a few weeks, having been in the Makai for the time Amaya had been away. He returned to check on the status of his daughter as well as the health of her mother-in-law, the human woman in the hospital on high doses of chemotherapy. Hiei felt nothing for the dying woman, but he could consider her a close acquaintance due to her connection to Yusuke and her relationship with Hinote and Amaya. The woman would most assuredly die within the year, and was quite aware of it. He had been told that much over the phone, that she had accepted the human drugs and medicine to prolong her life, and that she had a reason, but Hiei was not told that reason. Now he was pretty sure as to what that reason was as he opened the screen door and stepped into his daughter’s apartment, sniffing the air.

“Hinote.”

The younger girl turned, her eyes ringed in red, bloodshot and filled with tears. She turned from the table she sat at staring at her father. “Dad? When did you get back from the Makai?”

“A few hours ago. Has the human died? What has happened?”

Hinote shook her head. “No, Keiko is alive, she has been sleeping off and on the last week or so.”

“Then why are you crying? Has that filthy little demon hurt you? I can castrate him for you.”

Hinote’s eyes filled with tears. “No Dad, Ryu hasn’t done anything. I am crying because I can. Damn it, just let me, alright?”

Hiei was at a loss as his daughter turned back to the table and began crying anew. He sniffed the air again and the memories of Amaya being in this state flew through and flooded his mind. Through the smell of the salt of her tears, he could smell the state his daughter was in, silently vowing to emasculate the boy. He sat down next to the girl at the table, trying to keep calm.

“Did he leave you like this? Because if he did I swear I will remove that which makes him male.”

Hinote looked up and shook her head, tears streamed down her face. “Dad, leave Ryu alone. He has done nothing to hurt me, and he did not leave me alone by choice. He returned to Kyoto to see Keiko this morning. I am just feeling down. Just me right now dad. Deal with it. And what do you mean ‘like this’?

“The child.”

“How did you know?”

He touched his nose and smiled slightly. “I remember what happened when your mother became pregnant Hinote. In my time it was not so long ago.”

The demon girl smiled, wiping away tears. “I forget that you have a better evolved sniffer.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

Eight weeks had passed since Amaya had been summoned to Kyoto. She had no contact with the outside world except to send a message out with Lily, who would deliver a letter once a week to her apartment door to be found by either Hinote or Hiei.

She had been told the whole truth of why she was summoned to that place and who exactly she was. Even though Amaya had known she was truly descent of a demon, and not the humans who ‘raised’ her, she had never known or sought out her demon ancestor she knew she possessed. Now she knew the whole story.

The female demon, Ayame, had met a young, but very powerful Psychic by the name of Seishin Keiji. He was in the train of Iyouko, the father of Master Genkai. They were old friends, though Ayame was fourteen years Iyouko’s senior. While he was training under Iyouko, a demon woman came to stay there, injured from a battle with a woman called Kouroko, the first Spirit Detective in the human world. As she recovered on the temple grounds she spent an increasing amount of time with the young man, learning about the human world. When she was healed, she told Keiji how she felt about him and vowed to stay with him. When he finished his training he took a position as an assistant priest at the shrine on Mount Hiei, his father holding the position of head priest there. The demon and the young priest were soon married in the human fashion, Ayame’s powers concealing her demon heritage as the daughter of one of the Lords of the Spirit World before the rise of Yomi, Mukuro, and Raizen.

A year after their marriage, Ayame gave birth to a daughter, a girl they named Night Rain, Amaya. When she was a few months old, a rogue demon broke in and began to destroy the temple. Ayame sent the four month old Amaya away during the battle, entrusted to a Shrine maiden of demon descent. The girl was attacked not far from the temple grounds, but somehow managed to get away from the demons that attacked her. She was found dead the next morning, the cloth the infant was wrapped in the only thing left behind. Because of the rain the night before, tracking by human hunters was near impossible and the baby had such a weak demon energy that they could not find her. They gave up hope only after Koenma had told them she had died, sixteen years later in a fire and had her memories erased. Lily had been born two years after Amaya was lost to them and became spirit world spy. It had only been a few months since that they had heard Amaya’s memories had returned and her demon blood awakened, even though it had happened years before. Koenma had approached Ayame at that time and informed her of Amaya’s status, letting her know she would need her mother’s help.

Thus Amaya had come to be where she was, training almost to the point of exhaustion in the forests of the mountain that bore her husband’s name. She had learned many valuable skills working with Ayame, such as how to defend herself instead of simply attacking with her powers. She learned how to not only shield herself but others, hardening the water around them to almost metal hardness. She could use this technique in many ways, most of them defensive. Ayame stressed defense and defusing situations before fighting, Amaya easily absorbing her more pacifist style when shown that it could win more quickly when you made you opponent lose their temper.

She was working on simple skills when Lily returned from sending a message to Hinote and Hiei, this time bearing a message from Ryu. The brown haired girl approached her older sister and mother as Ayame put Amaya through some of her final paces, a mock battle in progress. As she watched to two female demons spar she smiled. Amaya had come far in the last six months, fully accepting her powers over water, calling forth the water from any substance or being that contained it. At that point, she had Ayame pinned to a tree, waterborne arrows piercing the gi and hakama she wore. Amaya still had the bow she had used to shoot in hand, water trickling slowly from the bow as she let it drop to her hip.

“Well done Night rain, I think your have enough control now. Not even Enma will challenge you.”

Amaya smiled, waving her hand , making the arrows disperse in millions of tiny water droplets. “Glad to know. Being here has been entertaining, but I do probably need to get home.”

Lily chose then to walk up to Amaya and hand her the envelope Ryu had given her. “Your daughter’s husband entrusted this to me when I delivered the note for your daughter. He said it was very important that you read it as soon as you could.”

Amaya took the note from Lily, recognizing Ryu’s kanji on the front. She opened it and read, smiling then frowning at the words on the page. She dropped it on the ground and ran for the temple, disappearing in a flash through the trees. Ayame kneeled to pick up the note, glancing over it quickly as Lily stood before hear, letting her Read it out loud.

“ ‘Amaya, first off congratulations, you are to be a grandmother. Hinote is expecting our first son next month. We have decided to name him Kyo. We have both tried to care for Hiei as best we can, but he has spent much time in the Makai, returning only when your messenger was around. We have let you do what you have needed up until this point, but now we need your help here at home. My Mother is dying, currently at the hospital in Kyoto, I cannot help care for her, my dad and Hinote. If my mother dies, my father may lose his mind, and I am not on a level as of yet where I can stop him. I will need your help if he goes off the deep end.

“ ‘The world may need you to save it once again Amaya, from one such as you are. Signed Ryu’. It is time for her to return home Lily, and not to save the world from her friend, but to show the world exactly what she is truly capable of.”