expiationlogs | [ OPEN ] ON THAT DEMON TIME

Who: Hiei & Others
Where: Around Aldrip
What: General July Catch-All - Hiei open starters in the forest, the city’s roof tops, sword training, and glitch.
Warnings: None ATM! Will change if it happens!

✒ o1. NO ONE WANTS FLOWERS WHEN THEY’RE DEAD

No matter how many times Hiei’s tree naps have been interrupted, it doesn’t seem to stop him. In fact, among all of his attempts at fact gathering, even sticking to trees in the city center to snatch up bits of information here or there… silence calls every now and again. A break from the constant chatter of people that he can hear for literal miles to trade instead for nature or something like it. The closest he can get to some kind of peace and quiet while lacking the incredibly tall trees that he had grown so fond of in the demon world.

Hiei doesn’t take precautions to be particularly quiet or hidden, for the most part, deftly hopping from tree to tree with the kind of experienced and sure footing of someone who has done this for many years. Beyond that.. He has yet to run in to a being here that seemed much of a threat to him, and keeping his energy suppressed at this point is more a force of habit than an effort to hide himself. Long gone were the days of a young and potentially weaker fire demon who at least tried a little recon before taking on an opponent head on. Instead the black-clad demon drops down in to an occupied clearing in a flash, hands casually tucked in to his pockets as if this is the most normal encounter ever.

“Is there anything of note, out in the forest? Or is it all just people wandering?”

✒ o2. SOME KIND OF SYSTEM OVER RIDE

Hiei likes to be tall, one way or another.

Sometimes he can be spotted in the city center, standing casually atop a power pole, simply watching the foot traffic below before he disappears in a flash to the next one. Hopping roofs and trees is his best way to test the physical limits of his body, here, and assess what has or has not been lost. Thankfully most of his speed and agility have been maintained, though establishing that does more for Hiei’s urge to continue exploring the city via the rooftops than anything else.

Pushing through crowds, buskers, and the occasional rowdy group was not exactly Hiei’s favorite thing to navigate, despite being occasionally forced to do so in order to ‘blend in’ while accompanying his more human teammates back in their world. The fire demon is again criss-crossing the city via the rooftops in skillful little hops when he notices he’s no longer alone, cloak billowing slightly in the breeze.

“It’s peaceful up here, isn’t it?”

✒ o3. THOUGHT I’D SOLD MY SOUL BUT HE KEPT THE RECEIPT

Demons didn’t require much sleep. Hiei tended to be a special case, if only because he had taken on two energy sucking abilities in the Jagan and the Dragon. With the Dragon significantly weakened, so too have Hiei’s sleep patterns shrunken to match.

Which is to say it is insanely early in the morning when the little demon can be spotted in a clearing, sword drawn though he has no visible opponent. Hiei is no less focused, though, red eyes narrowed as he takes his forms, darting across the clearing with precision slices and dodges, at times appearing to the human eye for only a split second before he is gone again, already across the cleared space.

It doesn’t take him long to notice he has a spectator, but he makes a point to finish his current practice set before stopping, red eyes narrowed as he turns to his guest.

“If you are looking for lessons I don’t give them.”

✒ o4. GOING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Glitches are quite.. Strange, actually. Hiei has seen a few, here or there, people behavng oddly or opposite to how he had witnessed them only days before. Of course, he doesn’t consider that it may as well happen to him, until it does.

An even smaller fire demon will meet those he crosses looking a bit.. Different than before. There is no wrap around his forehead, nor a third eye to speak of, and those former large, red eyes are now threatening pin-pricks. He carries a sword that is now quite literally bigger than him, and wears a tattered cape that is the same. It’s almost jokingly big for such a small demon, but it is hard to dress such a small figure correctly in the demon world.

A slow, constant waft of malevolent energy follows him, an open and viable threat to anyone that may cross his path and possibly dare to confront him in the wrong way. Hiei hasn’t appeared this wild eyed in quite some time, but his appearance hasn’t changed enough that he won’t be recognizeable.

…. Still probably approach with caution, yeah?

✒ o5. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

Want to play something I didn’t list here, or we’ve talkd about somewhere else? Tag in and let’s go! I don’t mind tagging in either prose or brackets, feel free to respond how you’re most comfortable and I will follow suit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The presence that slips into the feral juvenile demon's path is mostly noticeable for it's lack of anything impressive: as if somebody had cut out a piece of reality and is now holding it to conceal a powerful entity behind it. And yet Douman is clearly there, shape slithering into focus as he prepares to casually block the fire demon's way.

"Greetings. Where are you going with so much malevolent spirit energy rolling off of you?"

There is no open aggression in the way he towers over the other, only a tall man, slightly stooped by age, wearing meiji era clothes and a gold-painted noh mask over his face. He could be any kind of youkai, from an outsider's perspective.

"Where ever I please." Cockiness is certainly not something Hiei has ever been induced to grow out of. It has landed him in more than a few tight spots, but he has yet to struggle his way out of one truly, so this tiny ball of hubris keeps rolling. The fire demon is used to being towered over at his small size, red eyes turned upward to assess just who is standing there over him.

He is odd, but.. to be fair, so were many of the demons that Hiei's run into in his short life. It's just sort of a thing with them, many outlandish and unique outfits and personalities without the constraints of more human normality.

"Why are you so concerned?"

It's worth the question, he thinks, but deep down he's almost itching for a conflict.

Hoooo. A delinquent, huh? Douman almost allows himself a small smirk at the cocky spirit. With the gopher-like boy he has met before, the youngsters here are slowly shaping up to a whole collection of school stereotypes.

Hiei's gaze is met by an equally red left and a broken white right eye behind the carved eye-slits of the mask. Douman holds the glare easily, marveling at the fire demon's ferocity as a connoisseur might enjoy the deadliness of a particularly finely crafted weapon. There's a lot of untapped potential that could grow into something truly impressive if left in the right hands.

If the kid manages to survive his rowdy phase, that is.

"I simply do not wish for you to cause any trouble."

A delinquent who was raised mostly by himself, that's true enough. Unfortunately, feral children are fairly common in Hiei's world, with how unrelenting the demon woods is to parents and children alike. If they had met under different circumstances, Douman would have first met a finely honed weapon of a demon instead of something equally deadly, but rough in its honing.

"I am walking." Hiei points out with a sharp narrowing of his eyes, annoyed to be so accused when he is, for once, up to much of nothing. Now, if he wanted to get into some trouble, that wouldn't take very much effort... for a moment he debates using his speed to dodge this newcomer, but thinks it better to see if he yet has something interesting to deliver.

"Why is it your concern anyway?"

"Your spirit energy is so malevolent that it alerted me." He shrugs his shoulders, shifting his stance into something more upright. It's still not hostile, but also a clear sign that he won't be easily chased away by whatever the smaller one might decide to do.

"I don't want you near anywhere where people are living like that."

This one is an order, even if he isn't direct phrasing it like that. Pent-up ayakashi are a bad idea close to anything breakable, be it other living beings, furniture or gas pipelines. It will be better if this one finds a way to vent a little before there will be damage fines.

"So sensitive." The little demon remarks with a little eye roll to match, taking note of the change in body language but, for the moment, still unperturbed enough to react. It strikes him that he could try to simply bolt around or over him with his speed, but to attempt such will probably set off more alarm bells than he is ultimately intending to so far.

"I don't actually see where it concerns you." Him going near anyone, that is. Yes, Hiei would consider fighting and killing humans for sport in this form, an unthinkable move in his current situation, but he hadn't been openly hunting (yet) when they had come upon one another.

"Is it really so disturbing if an animal or human disappear?"

"It'd get in the way of my designs." It's a very noble-ish answer, meant to snub and make it clear that pushing the subject idea will lead to animosities. On the other hand, it also opens an indirect 'tit for tat' possibility of handling this: if Hiei agrees to 'respect' Douman's business, Douman would be expected to show his 'gratitude' for the given courtesy in return.

"As the leader of the Hyakki Yagyo I prefer a peaceful, unsuspecting neighborhood."

He doesn't know if this little yet fierce spirit knows of the infamous Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. It's simply a little gamble, sprinkling in a big name in the hopes that it will provide further distraction from a confrontation. Douman doesn't mind fighting, but he dislikes going against unprepared opponents.

"What do I care about your plans?" Look, Hiei knows that this is a little shit thing to say, but it hasn't stopped him before and he will precisely never learn a lesson. He came up basically fucking around and finding out, and has little reason not to continue doing so at the moment. He's lived being literally thrown to Earth from a floating island, what's a little questioning someone's power?

The little demon scoffs a hn in relation to the name, shifting position to dig the toes of one foot a little deeper into the dirt. A little prepared springboard for a demon of his speed isn't a bad idea.

"I don't know or care what that is. Unless you serve under one of those lofty kings or whatever - " The irony of this will strike him later, as an adult who serves under one of those lofty kings. "- I'm not obligated."

And even then he'd simply find a work around to his own ends.

"Lofty kings? Ahh, you could say that I used to be one of them." Or rather not. The big youkai rulers of old had viewed him as little more than a lowly insignificant upstart, an ayakashi born out of a former human and thus barely worth of any notice. The lowest of the low, in an archaic youkai caste way of thinking. Power and having the right blood had been more important than anything else back then.

Douman had changed that, of course.

There is a hint of sadistic amusement and teeth in his voice as he continues. Beating up those old Tough Guys until they had learned to respect him had been fun, in retrospect. He still enjoys it when he can rub it in that any field and country spirit can go up against their 'honorable' bloodlines under his guiding hands. Knowledge had turned the tides on them good, and the smarter ones of them are sending him their offspring to teach as well nowadays. Even kings bow before their teachers.

"If you're thinking of testing your mettle against me, then by all means. But I'd advise you against it."

Mainly because he has been inching toward standing in front of a rather big tree. It could be easily seen as an attempt to keep his back protected if one doesn't know the innate powers of a Nurarihyon. If one does, it's a setup to use his attacker's momentum against them.

[ OPEN ] ON THAT DEMON TIME

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