It took a while to calm Kuwabara down from his excited chatter about how great his children must have been and the great deeds they would have completed. After getting irritated as their attempts to divert his focus failed, Kuronue decided to play dirty with the truth.
"You last two known descendents are circus performers," he said loudly, speaking over Kuwabara. "And they're probably going to be the last of the line because they're both gay as jaybirds." (1)
That gave the curly haired man pause for sure. "You positive?"
"Went to both of their weddings," the chimera said. "Very interesting affairs seeing as the entire circus was invited to both and your great-great-great-etcetera grandson married a man with twenty nine older sisters, some of which have been getting their first grandchildren in the last couple of years. Don't worry, Tro and Cathy already know about you and the Makai and all of that love, so it's safe to take you to meet them."
"Actually, it was quite the oddity that, when we looked for them, it turned out that we already had met both, and Trowa, your grandson, had fought with Heero and Kuronue during the last ningen war," Kurama said. "Now, where to start?"
"Well, it's been 225 years since that Dark Tournament, and 124 since your death at one hundred and seventeen," Yusuke said, glaring at his empty cup. His mouth quirked sideways as he glanced up at his old rival. "Go ahead and ask."
"If it's been that long, then how are you alive?" Kuwabara asked, quickly checking that Yusuke did indeed have feet. "Kurama and Hiei, I can understand, they're youkai, but you're human. Right?"
There was a brief moment of silence between the other three tentai as they tried to figure out how to best break the news.
"Half."
"What?" the ginger-haired man asked, looking to Kuronue, only to blink. Distracted, he hadn't noticed the chimera's transformation, but the eyes gave him away.
"He's half human," Kuronue said calmly. "From what I understand, he discovered that he had a powerful youkai in his line about a year after the tournament. He died a second time fighting a human psychic named Sensui, and his blood reviving him as a hanyou. Until then, no one knew."
'So they weren't hiding it from me,' Kuwabara thought, somehow relieved. "What about the two of you? You call yourself Kurama's brother, but you don't exactly look like either of his forms."
"Oh, there's never been blood connecting us," the chimera said, smiling as the tension in the room began to relax. Mission accomplished, as Heero would say. "But most siblings in the Youko clan aren't actually of blood. We're mostly a clad of adoptions. Kurama raised me, and I became his brother. I lost count of how many species our clan includes. Kitsune, human and chimera are just a few."
"Because Kurama's got a soft spot for kids a mile wide, even if he denies it," Yusuke said with a laugh, grinning at the scowling fox and catching the amused glint in red eyes over Kurama's head as Hiei fought not to snicker. "So, you're not mad?"
Broad shoulders shrugged. "You can't pick your ancestors, and I know that not all youkai are evil. And Kurama, I already knew about your soft spot. Kind of obvious with how you acted around that kid whose dad was dating your mom. Say, they ever get married?"
"Yes, they did," the kitsune said with a sigh. "You attended the wedding, actually. You attended all of ours, even mine and Hiei's." For some reason, the thought seemed amuse Kurama. Even Hiei smirked.
"Let's see… Keiko and I marred at twenty-one, Kurama and Hiei two years later, and you were twenty-five when you and Yukina got married," Yusuke listed off. "She found out about Hiei being her brother right before his ceremony, because otherwise she couldn't have stood in as his family. You, on the other hand, didn't get told until your daughter was born."
Kuwabara's mouth ran dry. Daughter. Of course, with the announcement that he had descendants, he knew he had to have at least one kid, but it hadn't really sunk in before now. "Is- is she here too?"
There was silence once again.
"When you died, Hina had recently married a human man by the name of Edward Bloom. Since her coloring was normal enough to pass as human, she never told him that she was hanyou," Hiei said quietly, his eyes sad. "The last of us that had remained in the ningenkai up until then left for Makai, Yukina included. Hina stayed behind with her husband and we lost contact. We haven't heard from her since." (2)
"What'd she look like?" the human asked, searching their faces.
"Your eyes, Yukina's smile," Kurama said before allowing a small chuckle. "Hiei's hair. That's why you found out when you did. Apparently, Hina took after her grandfather, and in more ways than one. She was more attuned to fire than ice. You had to be told why."
Yusuke laughed, trying to lighten the mood. "Man, Hiei used to spoil her rotten whenever he visited or came to help her train. Definitely his favorite niece. Adored her almost as much as he did Fuji. His name was my idea, by the way."
"And I still can't believe you managed to talk us into it," Kurama said with a groan. He caught Kuwabara's look of confusion. "Our son. You were… sixty when he was born."
"Same year as the first colony went up," Kuronue said cheerfully. "L1, where my darling Hee-chan was born over a century later."
"We'd planned to go watch the launch, but Hiei just happened to go into labor that day," Kurama added with a wry look at his mate, whose face colored as he noticeably scowled, baring his teeth at the kitsune.
"It was your damned fault," the fire demon growled.
"You broke him again," Heero stated, amused.
"Then would this be a bad time to tell him that he's been reminiscing about old times with the three kings of the Makai?" Kuronue asked innocently.
If he'd been conscious, Kuwabara would have reflected on how it was a good thing that he'd already been sitting down. But he wasn't conscious for the very same reasons that it was good to be seated. He had just fainted.
1. See upcoming side fic, "Koorime to Circus Performers."
2. Kuwabara Hina, named for her maternal grandmother.