Hiei is dead.

He held out for as long as he could, but in the end it was a mercy for him to go.  Even I could see that.  I still wish that he could have stayed longer with me, but not at such a cost to him in pain...

I gave him what ease I could, even abandoning my mother to nurse him in his final weeks...  But all my knowledge of plants could not provide a cure for his ailment - could not even reveal to me what it was!  I was able to keep him in blissful slumber most of the time, unaware of the passage of time and just how ill he truly was... At least, until he neared his end.

He asked me to protect his sister, then, in one of his last brief moments of lucidity.  I realized then that he knew... and he had accepted his fate.  In the fading light of his blood-red eyes, I was forced to accept it too.  No matter that it nearly shattered my heart.  At least that was something he would never know.

So here I stand in Genkai's garden, watching over the one person who had occupied his last thoughts.  Yukina is sitting quietly on the steps, her arms wrapped around her knees.  The pigeons she so often feeds flutter around her, but she pays them no heed.

A single tear slips silently from the corner of her eye to clatter down the steps onto the ground.

"Yukina-chan."

She turns to face me, a slight smile barely visible over her sorrowful expression.

"Kurama-san, would you like some tea?"

"Hai."  I accept,  and we move inside.  Tea is such a comforting institution, especially when one is the bearer of sad tidings, as she knows I must be.

I watch her closely as she prepares the tea.  It must be painfully obvious to her that Hiei is no more.  I would not leave his side if he was still amongst the living.  She surely knows this, just as she surely felt the death of her twin.  What I am here to say will merely confirm what she feels in her heart, and perhaps explain a little why Hiei never told her...

Hiei.  I catch sight of the cup that Yukina always served him his tea in.  Such a sweet gesture of hers, that we all have cups that match our personalities in some way...  For me, a fox motif; for herself a snowy landscape; for Hiei, a dragon...

I pick up his cup, staring at it in my hand, my eyes misting over.  I shut them tightly against my tears and bow my head, clutching the cup to my chest.

A familiar scent  causes my eyes to burst open.  His cup.  Hiei's cup.

It smells of his death.

I hear a sharp intake of breath, and am fast enough  to catch the ever-so-brief flash of annoyance in Yukina's eyes as she glares at me holding the cup.  Then it is gone, as if it never existed.

But it did.  And I am chilled to the bone.

"Kurama-san, what's wrong?"

Her words and expression are full of concern, but now I do not believe it.

"How could you?"  My voice is no more than a whisper - that is all I can force through my dry throat.  "Your own brother!"

She blinks innocently.

"Kurama-san, what are you talking - "

I cannot bear to hear it, be it lies or explanations.  Whatever she says, it will never be able to compensate for what she has done; not in my eyes.

"You killed Hiei!"

I am at her throat in an instant, my hands clamped around her neck and squeezing for all I am worth.

Her eyes widen in horror as she realizes that I am quite serious.  She killed Hiei.  She killed one of the only two people in either the Makai or the Ningenkai that I have come to truly love.  And I never had the chance to tell him.  She killed him before I could tell him!

She struggles futilely in my grasp, her red eyes pleading up at me.

I hesitate.  Her eyes are so much like his...

A chill runs down my spine as icy fingers clutch at me, pulling me away from her...

Hiei was never so cold.

My hands clench - there is a sudden crack, then her body goes limp in my arms.  I slide to the floor with her, my hands still locked around her throat.

I have killed Hiei's sister.  The sister he asked me to protect.

The sister who killed him.

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