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It was Yukina’s hundredth birthday.
For an ice maiden, this was a momentous occasion, because every one hundred years they would each give birth to a daughter—her own daughter, only hers.
Yukina had wondered if she would be the same. Would her mixed heritage have prevented her from conceiving on her own?
She held a hand protectively in front of her swollen belly as she went around the temple, doing light chores.
She had gotten her answer months ago, when she had first recognized the child that grew within her.
She had been shocked at first. Somehow, even with all her wondering and anticipation, reality had still managed to catch her off guard.
The reactions of her friends and been varied, from I’ll-kill-that-bastard rage (Kuwabara), to genuine interest in Koorime biology (Kurama), to bubbly mania at the first mention of the word “baby” (Boton).
Hiei, as usual, hadn’t been around, so she still hadn’t had a chance to tell the enigmatic fire demon. She wanted to tell him—if what she suspected about him was true, he deserved to know.
“Yukina.”
Genkai’s gravelly voice brought her out of her reverie.
“Yes, Master Genkai?”
“I have an errand I need to run. Do you want to come with me, or will you be all right on your own?”
Yukina glanced at the long set of stairs leading down to the road.
“I’ll be fine here, thank you.”
“You sure? I’ll probably be gone the rest of the day. I could get someone to stay with you.”
Yukina smiled gently. “No, I’m fine, really.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “You go on.”
Genkai looked at her for a moment, then nodded and turned to go.
“Oh, one other thing.” Genkai paused and looked back over her shoulder. “If you need any help, just ask.”
Yukina wrinkled her brow and opened her mouth to ask what she meant, but Genkai was already gone.
Instead, Yukina turned back to whatever small task she had been busying herself with before.
Yukina felt strange.
The feeling had been growing on her all afternoon, and she didn’t know what to make of it.
She felt bored, and restless, and full of nervous energy all at once. That, and her stomach kept cramping up—she certainly hoped she wasn’t getting sick. She kept finding things to do, both to distract herself and to work off that nervous energy, but no task seemed big enough. She’d already cleaned out the linen closet, reorganized the kitchen, and scrubbed most of the baseboards when something else caught her attention.
It was the noise she noticed first. It sounded like twigs snapping, only bigger. Standing, Yukina took off the apron she’d been wearing and wiped her hands on it. Was Genkai expecting a visitor?
The energy signature wasn’t nearly strong enough to be any of their usual guests, and…it was definitely demon. Not a human tourist, then.
Quietly, Yukina went up to the door and locked it.
Unfortunately, that did her absolutely zero good.
The demon didn’t bother to knock—it simply crashed through the door, taking a good portion of the wall with it and locking its gaze on her with a hungry growl.
Yukina cried out and ran for the nearest exit that wasn’t currently being occupied by a demon. She wasn’t sure where she was going, only that she had to get away.
She made it out into the yard before it caught up with her. With a roar, it leapt for her and caught her throat in one giant claw. She choked as it squeezed the breath out of her.
She tried to cry out, but without air, the plea only rang out in her mind.
Help!
Her despairing cry did two things, but at first, she was only aware of one of them.
She felt something bloom within her chest, something hot. The unfamiliar emotion tore through her like fire.
NO!
This would not happen! She would not die! This BASTARD was NOT going to hurt her CHILD!
Yukina’s fist slammed forward, breaking her attacker’s nose. It yowled in rage and pain and dropped her, finally letting her take in a breath.
She rolled away, and was just trying to get to her feet when the strange cramping sensation from earlier returned with a vengeance. She gasped as the unexpected pain, finally realizing it for what it was.
But she didn’t have time to spare on joy that she would soon meet her daughter, or on apprehension about giving birth for the first time. She scrambled up as soon as the wave passed, which was just in time to dodge another flurry of fists.
She tired of playing dodge very quickly, however, so she held out her hands to freeze the area.
Just as she did, though, all of her spare energy was taken up by the onset of another contraction.
The demon chose that moment to attack her again, a choice it would regret for the rest of its very short life.
Yukina roared, making a sound louder than she ever had in her life, and attacked back. She threw everything she had into her offence—her pain, her rage, her love for the daughter she hadn’t met yet. She struck, again and again, and each blow seemed to offer some relief from the almost overwhelming sensations inside her. She could hardly even see anymore, consumed by a need to hurt the one who had threatened her child.
When she paused to catch her breath, she immediately regretted it. Another contraction hit her like a tidal wave, and without the distraction of pounding a deserving face into the ground, it was almost unbearable. She knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was the fight-or-flight response itself that was causing her so much pain, but that didn’t help her at the moment.
The demon on the ground in front of her stirred, hissing with anger. Yukina felt a sort of grim satisfaction. Hadn’t had enough? That suited her just fine. She could never have brought herself to punch an opponent that was already down, but self-defense? That she could do. That was what she wanted to do. She drew herself to her feet and waited for the demon to attack her again.
When it did, she struck again, and was swept again into that strange state where pain didn’t matter, where all that was real was the next punch, the next kick, the next dodge or parry.
She fought with a fury that rivaled any of the forces of nature. She was the fire of the sun, the bite of the blizzard, the strength of a hurricane, the force of an earthquake.
The creature cried and hissed as it fought back, but it couldn’t hurt her. Her tiny fists slammed into it again and again.
When she looked down again, there was blood on her hands.
The demon lay sprawled unmoving in an unnatural position on the ground in front of her, its blood seeping through the cracks in the temple’s stone courtyard, and staining the whole front of Yukina’s kimono.
She stared in shock.
Had she really done that?
Did she really have it in her to kill an attacker with her bare hands?
“Hn.”
The syllable sounded almost like a chuckle. Yukina whirled to face whatever new attacker had come.
“Looks like you didn’t need me after all.”
Yukina stared up into the tree, breathing heavily.
“H—Hiei?”
“Hn.”
“How did you…?”
The fire demon shifted uncomfortably. “The human asked me to keep an eye on you while she was gone. I…heard you.” He gestured indifferently at his bound forehead.
“But it looks like she needn’t have worried.” For an instant, his eyes showed a strange mix of emotions: satisfaction, a certain sense of pride, and…was that a twinge of loss? Then his face smoothed out and he turned back toward the forest.
Yukina wanted to ask so many questions, but before she could do anything, another contraction hit her. With a strangled cry, she slipped to her knees and punched the ground in lieu of an enemy.
At the sound, Hiei turned back. When he saw her, his eyes widened. “Are you…did that bastard hurt you?” he hissed, jumping to the ground.
Yukina shook her head, trying to calm her breathing and slow her racing heart. She clutched one bloody hand across the rounded bulge of her belly, and for the first time, Hiei took in what he should have seen earlier.
He froze in shock, staring at the woman in front of him, trying to comprehend what his eyes—all three of them—were telling him.
She lifted her eyes and met his gaze as the contraction passed. For a moment, neither spoke.
“I was going to tell you,” she said softly. “But you are very good at not being found.”
It took another moment before Hiei found his voice. When he did, he turned away.
“It’s no concern of mine what you choose to do.” He stepped towards the forest, intent on getting as far away as possible.
“Hiei, wait!”
He stopped in his tracks. Reluctantly, he turned back.
“What do you want?” he asked, more sharply than he intended.
“Please…don’t leave.”
Hiei let out a short, barking laugh. “And just what sort of help do you think I’d be? I’m not a healer or a midwife, not even a woman. And I’m certainly not the child’s father. So why would you want me here?”
Yukina shook her head. “The child has no father.”
Before Hiei could recover from his shock, she plunged on. “And I don’t need any help. I can do this. I just…” She bowed her head. “Among the ice maidens, a woman in labor chooses a companion to stay with her, usually a family member or close friend.” Hiei’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “And I just…I’d rather…I don’t want to be alone.”
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists as another contraction came over her.
Hiei watched her inner struggle, as it mirrored his own. He wanted to leave, but…how could he deny her anything, especially such a simple request? And yet, he knew nothing of birth, other than the rather hazy recollections of his own…
“One hundred years…” he muttered to himself. Had it really been that long?
She opened her eyes again, and he realized she was waiting for a response.
“Hn. If you want me to stay so badly, then I guess I have nothing better to do.”
She smiled at him, and lines of tension he hadn’t even noticed drained from her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
“Hn.”
The silence stretched out before Yukina broke it.
“Um…do you think you could…help me up?” She gestured to the ground, where she was still kneeling in a pool of blood.
Hiei stared in disbelief. “You can fend off an attacker twice your size with your bare hands but you can’t get up on your own?”
Yukina laughed, and then gritted her teeth. “Adrenaline may have something to do with that,” she forced out.
True to his word, Hiei stayed with her. He even disposed of the demon’s body while she washed its blood off of her.
After that, he stayed by her. She walked in what felt like endless circles, sometimes pausing to lean on a doorway, sometimes clenching her fists to help deal with the pain. After one particularly difficult contraction, she opened her hand to reveal her own blood welling from fingernail-shaped marks in her skin.
Hiei looked on disapprovingly. “Is it really necessary to injure yourself?”
“I have to have something to hold on to!” She snapped, more harshly than she’d intended.
“Hn.”
She saw his own hands tucked safely into his pockets, and closed her eyes to try and quell her sudden anger at him. She knew it wasn’t logical, she’s already said she didn’t need help, she didn’t, and what exactly did she even want him to do anyway?
She tried to control her breathing. She didn’t have long—the contractions were coming fast and hard now. She felt the next one well up inside her and clenched her fist again…
Only, this time her fingernails didn’t dig into her palm. Instead, her hand wrapped around something much warmer than her own cool skin. She looked up in surprise.
“Hn. Foolish woman. You could have just asked.”
Her hand was wrapped around his, clenched like it was a lifeline. She tried to ease off a bit, but just then the contraction hit a peak that was higher than any before it.
Yukina gasped and gripped harder. Her world narrowed until all that existed were the contraction that tore through her, the hand she held…and a new sensation. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out what it was.
She realized just as it became utterly impossible to resist anyway. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was pushing into the contraction with all her might.
“Ah…!” The cry tore itself from her throat before she could stop it.
When the contraction finally exhausted itself against her, she leaned, panting, against the wall.
“Sorry,” she breathed.
“Hn. You really think I care? Scream if you like, it makes no difference to me. Or did you think your pathetic grip could hurt me?”
Yukina didn’t respond, at least not verbally, but she relaxed a little, surprised by the sudden sense of freedom. She really didn’t have to care what he thought, did she?
And so, when the next contraction came, she allowed herself to scream…or perhaps it was a roar, since it was a sound born as much of defiance as of pain.
She let the overwhelming sensations pour through her and over her, to come crashing into reality through the sound of her voice. It still hurt, desperately so, but giving voice to it was a tremendous relief.
She was on her knees now, grasping both of her companion’s hands for dear life. She could feel everything that was going on inside her…her child…she was so close…so close now…!
With a jerk, her body entered anther massive contraction. Her whole body arched with the effort of it.
Unclamping one sweaty hand from her companion’s, she reached under the folds of her kimono and touched her baby’s head. The contraction didn’t even finish easing before it rose again to another peak, and with one final effort, the baby turned and slipped free, only to be caught in Yukina’s waiting arm.
“My baby,” she whispered, drawing the child to her breast.
Hiei watched the simple scene, his ever-present mask hiding a tangled jungle of emotions he didn’t think he’d ever be able to sort through.
Genkai had returned shortly after that. Her reaction to the scene was a muttered variation on “can’t go anywhere” and to grumblingly help clean up and get the new mother and child tucked safely into bed.
As for Hiei, the only part of the whole process that actually managed to disturb him was the afterbirth, which he swore to forget as soon as possible.
He was going to leave immediately, of course—after all, he had better things to do than sit around here—but somehow, he found himself at the door of Yukina’s room instead, where she lay sleeping with her tiny child in her arms. His niece.
He leaned in—just to check on her—but she stirred and saw him.
“Oh, Hiei!” she called, rather sleepily. “I wanted…I wanted to thank you. For staying with me.”
“Hn.”
He turned to go. He really shouldn’t have stayed this long.
“Oh…and one other thing…”
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Happy birthday.”
Hiei froze in shock.
But when he spun back around, the demand died on his lips…Yukina was already asleep.