It wasn't Yukina's.  The paper crumpled in his hand as he lifted blood red eyes to glare at Koenma.

/That bastard!  Making me think - /

"Read it," Koenma ordered unflinchingly.  "The end bit."  Hiei glanced at it briefly before passing it to Kireina, who frowned as she read it.

"A koorime dying of hypothermia?" she questioned, surprised.  "That sounds a little suspicious..."

/Serves them right./

"It is," Koenma agreed.  "Even more suspicious is the fact that it didn't say that a week ago - and the fact that this isn't the only koorime file that has changed in that time span."  He gestured towards a pile on his desk.  "All koorime.  All scheduled to die of hypothermia or related complications within the next week or so."

"What?!"

"What about Yukina?"

Koenma shrugged helplessly.  "Her file is missing.  I don't know whether someone's deliberately taken it or if it's just lost in this muddle..."

Hiei snarled.  /Idiots!/  He turned to leave, the despised Floating Island from which he had been exiled as a child his destination.  It was the most logical place to look for both his sister and the reason for the wave of death that seemed poised to crash down upon the unsuspecting koorime.  /Not that I care about the rest of them, but I don't want Yukina caught in anything like that.../

"Hiei, wait!"

Wait he did, but he did so with his back to the one who had made the request.  /He did keep Yukina happy while he was alive.  I owe him for that much, at least./

"Please, Hiei," Kuwabara asked quietly, his voice filled with anguish.  "Please remind her that I love her - and please tell her the truth about her brother."

/What?!/

Hiei spun around, his red eyes wide as he stared at the spirit.

"She needs to know," Kuwabara pressed, his unwavering gaze bearing a mixture of frustration, understanding and regret.  "If you love her, tell her - before it's too late."

The diminutive demon closed his eyes, shutting out the world for one precious moment.  /Too late?  It was too late from the day we were first separated./  He opened eyes that were dead to his heart.  "Let's go," he called to Kireina, his blank eyes never leaving the restless spirit.  /The fool still doesn't understand.../

It didn't matter to him.  Kuwabara was nothing to him anymore, without Yukina...

He traveled swiftly, slowing down barely enough to permit Kireina to keep him in sight.  He simply couldn't bear looking at her for long.  She looked too much like her father's human form - and Kurama was forever lost to him because of that human aspect.

Minamino Shuuichi.

Sparkling emerald eyes, delightfully scented red hair, and a welcoming smile on lips that were -

/Damn him!  Why do I keep thinking about him?  I don't need him - I don't!/  He slashed ruthlessly at a plant that was in his way.  /I should have killed him myself, and been done with it./  He paused in the midst of attacking another plant, realizing how utterly weak and foolish he was.

/I couldn't kill him./  He stared at the glistening blade in his hands.  /Nor could I tell him just how much I really cared.../

He'd tried to tell him, just as he'd tried to tell Yukina on a couple of occasions, but the words simply wouldn't come.

/I'm the fool.  And a coward./

He couldn't bear the thought of losing Kurama again, which, ironically enough, was why he'd pushed him away...  But it had hurt so much, to lose his assurance that Kurama would always be with him, to lose the youko aspect of his lover that ensured his continued existence after the death of his ningen form.

That death would now be permanent.

/Even if he reincarnates, he won't be the same.  He'll never be Kurama again./

Kurama had tried to tell him that it wouldn't matter, that he'd remember him no matter what - but Hiei simply couldn't believe him.

/Everyone forgets me in the end./

Not that that mattered either.  It just meant he should keep away from those who called themselves his 'friend'.  He didn't have friends.  Those he'd had had let him down.  Kurama had chosen his own death sentence, and it was Yusuke's inability to protect his wife that had led him to the decision.  Kuwabara was dead and so could no longer protect his sister.  Kalei had used Kurama to produce a child.  Koenma simply used them all.

"Hiei."

He looked up from the glinting metal into eyes as blue as the sky, meeting them only for an instant before glancing away.  He started to move off again, but a slender hand on his wrist held him back.  He stared at it as though it was some strange serpent, preparing to bite him.

"Have you thought about what to do if it turns out that Yukina is the problem?"  Kireina demanded, clearly not intending to let go until he answered her.

"What are you talking about?!" he snapped, holding his wrist as far from his body as he could manage.  /Her hands look like his, too.../

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Hiei-papa!"

He winced at the name.

"You can see as well as I can that she might well be destroying the Koorime one by one!"

"And what if she is?"  He met her gaze once more, his own eyes burning with anger that had been building from the day he was born.  "They deserve to die, every last one of them!  She told me so herself!"

"She did?"  Hiei was gratified at Kireina's expression of surprise.  "When did she say that?  It doesn't sound at all like her - she was always very sweet."

"She told me years ago that they should be eradicated - that no race who threw away a child simply because of its gender should be permitted to exist!"

Kireina's blue eyes widened, as she stared at him in shock.

/She believed they should die - and so they should!/

"So she's doing this for her brother."

Hiei froze.

"She's killing her own people, murdering her kith and kin for the sake of her brother."

/She's.../

"A brother who won't even tell her who he is!"

/She couldn't.../  He barely even noticed when Kireina slapped him across the face.

"You've spent several decades making poor Kurama-papa suffer for simply trying to help Keiko and Yuusuke.  You know he didn't intend for it to happen that way - he meant to keep his youko form and let Keiko's soul inhabit his human one.  It's not his fault things went wrong!  He did his best - and you should have helped him through it rather than rejecting him completely!  Of course, that assumes you loved him in the first place - which I'm beginning to doubt!"

"I - ," Hiei croaked, startled into attempting a response, but unable to utter more than a monosyllable in the face of Kireina's angry attack.

"And now you're making your sister suffer, making her kill for you - "

"We don't even know if it's her!" Hiei screamed at last, unable to stand her accusations any longer.  "It could be anyone, even a natural disaster for all we know!"  He knew that last suggestion to be false though, and his heart twisted in his chest.  /Yukina is so innocent - she could never - I could never - /

"So let's find out then, shall we?"  Kireina's eyes were icy as they glared at the smaller demon, before releasing him as she headed off ahead of him.

He was left alone again.  That in itself was nothing new.  He'd been alone for most of his life, only briefly drawing close, inexplicably close, to a very few.

They'd all betrayed him, leaving him alone.

/No.  I'm the one who left them, pushed them away./

Yukina, Kurama, Yuusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Kalei, Kireina...  It was too late to make amends, too late to undo the damage he'd done, too late to return to the precious warmth he had deliberately cast aside.

/I thought I didn't need them.  I thought I could live without their frivolous ties./

He'd thought those bonds had weakened him, that rejecting them would return him to full strength.

/I was wrong./

He was lost.

/Kurama.../  His former lover would be a very old man by now, aging swiftly as any other human.  He shuddered.

/Yukina./  She was somewhere ahead of him.  He could sense it.  She couldn't hide from him, her twin.  He would find her.  But what then?

He breathed deeply once, then relaxed his body, setting off after Kireina.

/I will be strong./

I was an accidental child.  Not unloved, nor undesired - simply unplanned for.

Mama told me that Kurama-papa fainted dead away when she told him that he was my father.  That was before I was born, but some months after I was conceived.  It took Mama some time to work out that she was pregnant, and then more time to work out who the father could be.  Understandable, given the circumstances.

Mama had been locked in a kind of prison for centuries before Kurama-papa was also thrown into it.  Apparently the prison kind of messed up their senses, because Kurama-papa thought Mama was Hiei-papa of all people, when they're absolutely nothing alike.  The prison obeyed their desires, to some degree however, so Kurama-papa got to screw someone he thought was his beloved, while Mama got what she wanted.

A companion.  Or, I guess, simply someone else that wasn't her.  I'm surprised she didn't go mad being all alone in that prison for so long.  She once told me that she had been mad, wanting a child like me.  I think I'd been particularly trying that day.

So I was an accident; but I was an extremely fortunate one as it turned out.  Given the fact that it was physically impossible for Kurama-papa and Hiei-papa to produce a child of their own, I filled that niche quite adequately, I think.  It also made Grandma Shiori more willing to accept them as a couple, I believe.

I loved my childhood years, pampered as I was by my three parents and grandmother, as well as by all their friends.

I actually liked Hiei-papa then, and he liked me, too.   Mostly because I looked like Kurama-papa, I guess.  Probably the same reason he won't look at me now.  It frustrates me to no end, the way he acts, how atrociously he's treated Kurama-papa - but I can't bring myself to hate him for it.

I pity him.  He didn't have the loving childhood I did; he was never taught just what it means to love someone, or even simply to care.  Kurama-papa tried to show him, and might even have succeeded if not for the accident with Keiko...

There's a limit to what I will endure from him, though, no matter my love for him.  Unlike Kurama-papa, I can't simply wait for him to gather the courage to trust in us.  Kurama-papa is far too patient: he's been waiting for the majority of his human life.  Soon his limit, too, will be reached - and not only his.  It seems that Yukina has already lost hope in her brother, and made her decisions accordingly.  It won't be long before we discover the truth.  What will Hiei do then?

I can only wait and see.