The Silent Strength: Chapter 1

A teenage girl stared up at the stars. She was lying on top of a roof; her wild black hair glistened in the pure light of the glowing moon. Her void expression caused the distant skies to wonder what she was. There was nothing to her once bright eyes. Now they were two cold slates, her right iris and pupil both a milky white color while her other eye was normal-looking, even though it was an icy blue. That eye was destroyed when she acquired the scare that ran from her lip, through her eye, and up her forehead. She moved one of her hands from her side. There was a puddle of blood that had formed around her, and it was gushing from her side, from a large gash. The skin around it was fading into black. It was a poison that she knew she could not stop on her own from taking over her body.

            “What is wrong with me?” she asked the sky as she sat up. The wound was slowly healing before her eyes but the black had stayed, spreading slightly. She slid off of the roof and into an open bedroom window, the black blood that was still slowly dripping from her side landed on the roof and the windowsill as she silently touched the ground inside of the house. She would have to be fast; her sister expected her home before dawn so they could attempt to go to a high school that morning, though she did not know if either of them was in any kind of condition to go anywhere.

            This house was recognizable to her even though it was not her own. She had dreams of her, wandering the halls and bedrooms of this house, looking for someone, anyone to help her. She had never seen anyone in the house in her dreams, but she quickly found out that there was someone here. Before her, sleeping peacefully in a black bed was a boy. From what she could tell about him from watching him, she knew that his peacefulness was not something anyone got to see him like. His black hair sparked her interest as she stood in the moonlight, and his shirtless form slowly moved to his breathing. She watched him silently. She walked around the bed, trying to take in all of him. Her eye changed color, the once icy color now a deep crimson. The way she looked at him changed.

            “Who are you?” she asked to the silence, hoping her whisper was low enough to not wake him. His figure stirred then rolled over so he was lying sideways on his bed. If she stayed any longer, she would surely wake him and the sword that lay at his side told her that he would not take kindly to people entering his room.

She closed her eyes for just a moment to try and block the pain of the advancing poison and tears formed even though she tried to stop them. A single tear fell to the ground before she wiped them with her bloody arm. As she left the room through the window, the tear that had hit the ground slowly formed a small crystal as it mixed with the drops of blood that were left on the ground. The crystal shone the lightest crimson as the curtains flew into the air, and she disappeared from the room.

Seconds after she had left, the boy opened his eyes, the crimson crystal catching his attention. He reached out and grabbed it from the ground, the strange swirl of black and crimson that lay within it intriguing him. He knew this crystal was not lying on his floor when he went to sleep, and his first instinct told him that someone had been bleeding. He got out of the bed and walked over to the windowsill, his hand resting for only a moment in a small puddle of blood that was dripping from the rooftop. Once he noticed the color, he was even more interested in what had fallen onto the house and trespassed into his room.

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            “Hiei, are you in there?” someone yelled banging on the door to the boys room.      The black curtains waved in the light breeze still, but the bed was empty. He was on the ground, looking at the small crystal in his hand. It was still crimson but it was slowly fading into black. He had not seen anything that compared to this before. Not even the ice maiden’s pearls were similar to the crystal.

            “Kurama, I asked to be left alone,” he said back to the banging. A boy walked in, ignoring his words. His emerald eyes traveled around the room until he spotted the other boy. He was on the ground next to his bed, staring at something in his palm. He looked towards Hiei’s gaze then saw the object. From his angle, it appeared to be only a common crystal. He shook his head at the boy then turned away, ready to walk out. He paused, and looked back towards the crystal. There was a swirling red aura dancing around it. A curious look came across his face and he knelt down by his friend to get a better look.

            “Where did you get this, Hiei?” he said, looking around the room. There was no evidence that he had smuggled in the crystal he held, but he noticed the blood that had yet to be cleaned off of the floor and windowsill. “Whose blood is this? I’ve never seen such a poisoned amount of blood before.”