Hiei

About Hiei

Hiei is one of Team Urameshi's core fighters in Yu Yu Hakusho, a fire demon swordsman with an implanted third eye, the Jagan, and speed few characters in the series can follow. Small, silent and openly contemptuous of almost everyone, Hiei starts as a thief and enemy. He stays because the team earns it. His deadliest weapon is the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, a black fire from the depths of Demon World that even he can barely control. Under the scorn sits a man fiercely loyal to exactly a handful of people.

Appearance

Hiei is short and slight, with spiky black hair standing straight up with a white streak, red eyes and a permanently unimpressed expression. He wears dark, simple fighting clothes, often a black cloak and a white scarf or headband that covers the Jagan eye implanted in his forehead. A bandage wraps the forearm where the Dragon of the Darkness Flame waits. He looks like a shadow standing next to the taller team members, and he likes it that way. Everything about his design says speed, edges and contempt.

Personality

Hiei says he cares about nothing, and says it so often that the team learns to translate. He is proud, blunt and allergic to sentiment, preferring to sleep in trees and let others do the talking. In a fight he is cold and efficient, finishing enemies without ceremony. But his actions keep betraying him: he saves teammates, carries the wounded and keeps promises at personal cost. His loyalty is never declared, only demonstrated. He also has a strict personal code about his sister, protecting Yukina from the truth and from anyone who threatens her, at any distance.

Background & Story

Hiei is born to an ice apparition whose people throw him from their floating island for being a male fire demon, a forbidden child. Raised by bandits, he grows into a thief and killer in Demon World, hunting for the tear gem his mother cried at his birth and for the sister he never knew. He has the Jagan eye surgically implanted to help the search, losing much of his natural power in the trade. After stealing Spirit World treasures with Kurama, he is caught and pressed into Yusuke's service. Slowly, and entirely against his stated intentions, the team becomes the first place he belongs, and his search ends in a choice he makes quietly and never explains.

Powers & Abilities

• Jagan eye: An implanted third eye granting telepathy, hypnosis, remote viewing and control of flames. It also lets him track people across worlds.
• Speed and swordsmanship: Hiei is one of the fastest fighters in the series, able to strike many times before opponents register a single move, with a plain sword he makes terrifying.
• Dragon of the Darkness Flame: His ultimate technique, summoning black hellfire in dragon form. Devastating and barely controllable, it once cost him the full use of his arm for a time.
• Jaganshi form: A transformed state covered in eyes across his body, increasing the Jagan's power, used rarely in the early story.

Key Relationships

• Kurama: His oldest partner, from their thieving days. They understand each other without explanations and cover each other in every fight.
• Yukina: His twin sister, an ice apparition searching for her brother. Hiei protects her from afar and keeps his identity from her by choice.
• Yusuke Urameshi: His leader, much to Hiei's stated annoyance. Their respect is real and was earned in combat, repeatedly.
• Mukuro: A Demon World king who recruits him in the final saga, and one of the few people who understands his past.

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