"Th... Thank you!" She said, waving. She quickly ran inside. Her parents had been worried. She told them that there had been a crowd, and that was why she was late. She then went up to her room.

Hiei leapt to the roof of the building, deciding to stay close to her while she slept. He didn't need much sleep, himself, but it felt good to know she was safely home and resting.

But of course, Keiko, being Keiko, would not rest until she had her homework done. She sat down at the desk in her room and laid all the homework out on the desk. "So much... It'll be a long night..." She said to herself with a sigh.

He heard her muttering and sigh, and knew she wasn't asleep. But he chose not to accost her, not wanting to scare her. Though, to be closer, he hopped down into a tree outside her window, settling in its branches with a few soft rustles.

She didn't seem to notice the rustles. She was in the zone right now. It would take nothing short of a earthquake to pull her away from her work. She worked for about two hours, then, much against her own will, fell asleep at the desk, pencil in hand. She hadn't realized how much the day had taken out of her.

Hiei saw her fall asleep, and snorted at human weakness. Then, he dared to go into her room, put a blanket around her shoulders, and turn off the light. He then went back to sit guarding her in the tree.

The rest of the night came and went. She slept through her first alarm and woke up for the second. "Yikes! Gotta hurry." She said as she grabbed a clean uniform and went to the bathroom to change. She came out in uniform. She got in her drawer and used one hand to hop about, pulling on her socks, and the other to load her books into her breifcase. To onlookers, it probably looked very humorous.

Certainly, it looked humorous. Hiei watched from his tree, trying not to laugh. He decided to "show up" at the front door, offering to walk Keiko to school. He knocked on the front door decisively.

"I'll get it mom!" She said as she hopped towards the door, pulling up her other sock with her briefcase in hand. She finished and opened the door, while slipping on her street shoes. "Hello, what can I... Oh! Hi!" She said, relizing who it was.

"In case those thugs haven't learned a lesson, or anything else happens, would you like me to walk you to school?" Hiei realized he probably sounded stupid, offering like that. Soft, maybe he was going soft.

"Sure." She said with a nod and a grin. "Thank you very much. She looked back and called, "Bye mom, bye dad, I'm going to school now!" She then stepped out of the house and shut the door behind her.

He almost wanted to ask her now if she wanted to learn the sword. He knew she would be a prodigy at it. But how to say that? He kept thinking, not saying anything aloud yet. Her presence, he noted, was very calming.

She began walking towards the school. "So, how was your night last night?" She asked, cheerfully. The sleep had done her good.

"Good enough," Hiei said with a dismissive shrug. He of course wouldn't mention that he'd spent the night dozing in the tree by her bedroom window. But the night had been calm and pleasant, and the sunrise was stunning.

"That's good!" She said with a smile back at him. "Mom and dad accepted the story I gave them. I felt a bit bad for lying, but it was necessary."

"Hm," Hiei said, suppressing a chortle. No one knew like him how some lies could be necessary. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be a good liar."

"I'm not... It's just that I rarely lie to them, so on the few times I must, they believe me." She said with a sigh. It wasn't as though she were proud of lieing. She tried to avoid it if she could.

"That's smart. You don't want to end up with a life built around lies." Hiei's opinion of the girl was growing higher and higher by the minute.

"True... Not why I don't but a good point. I just feel really bad when I lie. I'm always afraid that my lies might hurt someone needlessly." She said with a nod. She looked back at him once again, a smiled that showed she meant what she said gracing her face.

"But what if your lies could save someone pain? Is it all right then?" There was light in her soul, so pretty and so pure. he was ashamed to think of tainting it by teaching her how to kill.

"It depends... Pain is not always bad. Sometimes pain is necessary. To grow, one must have strife and pain in their life. As much as it hurts, pain is what molds us into what we are. If it's something that needn't be said, because the pain would be senseless, then perhaps, but I'm not one to say." She said, contemplatively.

"Wisdom beyond your years," Hiei said approvingly. "You are an odd one; so young and fragile, but with the wisdom and strength of one much older."

She rubbed the back of her head. "I wasn't always. I've been lucky enough to be booksmart, but I only realized some of these things when faced with a great loss." She said in rememberance. "Of course, things turned for the best, but just as easily they couldn't have." She said, referring to when Yusuke had died. She had thought he was truly gone then, and it had put many things into perspective.

Hiei frowned. "It's a shame, then, that you've had to go through loss to become so wise." He looked away, thinking of how she'd said the detective was like a brother to her. Much closer than he had ever been to Yukina. They were almost at the school by now, and Hiei was feeling a bit edgy to be around so many humans.

She could sense the edge he felt. She turned and faced him. "I'll go the rest of the way from here. Thank you very much for walking me today." Keiko said with a smiled and a quick bow before she ran towards the school building.