miscsporadic:

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“What if Youko’s band of Thieves found Hiei when he was cast away from the Ice Maiden Island and they raised him”

AU, henceforth known as Fox Dad.

Youko could tell right away what Hiei was, and decided to keep him around because he could tell he would grow up to be something interesting and rare, and thus worthy of a thief who collected precious objects.

It’s a bit of a rocky path, between Youko’s nonexistent parenting skills and Hiei’s troubled personality, but Youko manages to curve Hiei’s violent instincts much better than a less invested group of bandits could.

A bond is thus formed, and though Hiei doesn’t always get along with Youko’s men, they can at least rely on each other (as much as demons do), and trust each other to kick their ass if they do something a bit too stupidly risky. At a young age, Hiei already shows signs of becoming a much better Right Hand Man than Yomi ever was.

And then Youko goes and ruins it by trying to steal spirit world treasures and dying (thus following Kurama’s canon), the bastard. More of that later.