Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.
Blood. Blood, everywhere, on every surface. Soaking through her clothing, sticking to her skin, slicking in her hair and splattering her frail face. Not her blood, though. His blood. Hiei's.
Yukina leaned down over him, tears threatening to spill over through her lashes. His chest was split open; if he were human, he'd have been long dead. But Hiei was a demon, so there was still a chance...
Her hands pressed to his collarbone and stomach, directly adjacent to the majority of his wounds. She began to chant, a soft rising rhythm infused with power. Something Genkai had taught her, a healing charm of sorts.
Power flowed out of her in shimmering streams of cold fire. Hiei's body jerked and twisted as muscles and bones and skin wove together. Yukina bit her lip as she felt her reserves of power quickly draining. His mouth fell open in a quiet, involuntary gasp of pain. Red eyes fluttered briefly, then closed.
Yukina let a soft keening slip past her lips. "No..." Her hands gripped the front of his cloak and she yanked him up to face her. "No! No, you can't be a coward, no more running away Hiei, Hiei..." Her voice trailed off and her chin dropped down to her chest.
She'd always imagined his passing as something grand. Hiei just wasn't the kind of person to die quietly in his sleep, surrounded by sad-but-happy offspring and countless plump grandbabies. Neither was he the type to get, say, mugged in an alley, body left bleeding and cold in the dark. Yukina had often hoped that he could die happy, though, at least. Maybe in battle, striking a crippling blow against the enemy and sacrificing himself for a friend in the process - a great redemption, proving the worth of himself.
Or perhaps taken by sickness - Yukina's sadistic side almost wanted to see him suffer. To have him brought down to the level of the humans he loathed so much. To feel his body grow brittle and thin and weak, and then to feel himself break. It felt fitting in a way, especially when Yukina was upset. This was what Yukina wished for when she wished for revenge.
But never like this. Never killed by what should have been easy prey, in a frozen backwoods forest in the Makai with no one but Yukina around for miles and miles.
Wishing didn't change anything. She could hope and pray all she wanted, stand a silent vigil by his bedside for a year and a day, sacrifice virgins and lambs alike, but she couldn't bring him back. She was a demon through and through, ice cold within and soft as snow on the outside but still just a demon and still just a little lonely girl who wanted her brother back.
And of course, Yukina knew all along. Hiei thought himself so clever, her inadvertent knight in armor made from the flesh of slain enemies, keeping secrets from his sister and not deigning to tell her even that much. But Yukina wasn't an idiot, and she saw the signs and pieced them together into the lopsided jigsaw they were. It was obvious, really, and the only plausible explanation besides random magical interference. They really were family.
She lowered his body back into the snow, and he sank easily into the blood-soaked indent he'd molded earlier. Her hands slid away from him and folded in her lap of their own accord, her eyes slowly lifting up into the trees to stare at the grotesque sculpture in front of her. A demon, the one who'd tried to kill the two of them and half succeeded.
Frozen forever in his moment of victory.
Caught in an icy web of Yukina's power.