Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Please bear with me, this is my first time writing a fanfiction! :) Please leave a review and tell me how you liked it (or didn't like it)! Here's a bit of a warning, this series is a bit darker than my usual stories. It has a lot of rape in the beginning, but romance will start to kick in after all the dark stuff. :)

Original characters: Yukihime, Kayan, Ice maidens, Grandma Yue

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes again, was red. A boy stood in front of me, a boy who appeared to be no older than 15, short in stature with midnight dancing in the strands of his hair. He was all black, except for his red eyes. A phantom rouge that shimmered and whispered of all the evil in my white world. His scarlet eyes gazed down at me, a matching flame atop his hand, melting away the ice that protected me. Suddenly, all the events of last night came rushing back to me.

"Hurry! Yukihime! You must protect the Winter's Essence at all costs!" Grandma Yue dragged me along by my wrist. Her seared hand left blood marks on my white kimono, blood red that starkly contrasted with the white. It was red again. Everything was tainted red. I turned around taking one last look at the home that I had known all my life as Grandma Yue hastily jerked me away.

The ice temple crumbled and shattered, engulfed in hell fire. The screams of my sisters echoed through the mountain top as fire demons slaughtered them. The crunch of my beautiful snow blossoms being trampled under the feet of fire demon soles could be heard from every corner of our supposed impenetrable fortress. Tears fell like snowflakes from my ice blue irises as Grandma Yue's tugging became even more insistent as she reluctantly turned to look at the nightmare that lay behind us. Her eyes widened and quickly she turned away, unable to watch. When she turned to face me again, her eyes held a foreign emotion that I had never seen in my gentle Grandma Yue. It crinkled her kind face and contorted it into something demonic, something evil, like those of the fire demons. Involuntarily, I took a step back, but her now vice-like grip on my wrist dragged me away towards the top of the mountain towards the altar at the peak.

"Hurry!" She gasped again. My mind was reeling from everything that had happened. It only seemed like moments ago when I was still kneeling in the Temple in front of the essence pondering what present to give Saya for the Winter's Solstice when the first cries of my sisters echoed through the dawn veil. How could this happen? Why would they destroy our Temple? Why do they want to kill us? WHY?!

By the time I realized it, we were already at the peak. The altar stood in front of us, the last remaining relic of our race. Grandma Yue pushed me to the altar.

"Yukihime, you must listen to me carefully. We were attacked by fire demons from Kayan's clan. They came for the essence. You must protect it with your life! Do you understand?" Grandma Yue shook me from my stupor numbness, "I will seal you within the altar with crystal ice, they will not be able to touch you then."

Crystal ice was an unmeltable ice and nearly indestructible. The only fire that could melt crystal ice was dark fire. But for the cost of using crystal ice was the ice maiden's life. "Grandma Yue! No! You'll die!" I cried as she shoved me forcefully atop the altar. I stumbled and fell to my knee, the Winter's Essence still cradled in my lap. I hadn't realized I'd been holding it the entire time.

"There's no other way! Yukihime! You must protect the essence! That is the lifeline of all ice maidens. If it were to be destroyed, I do not know what will happen to us all." Grandma Yue clasped her hands together as if in prayer above her heart and smiled one last time, "Remember what I said! Kill the fire demons, Yuki. Kill them all."

And with that last wish, Grandma Yue burst before my eyes into a pure white tidal wave of snow. The wave rushed towards the altar and engulfed everything in white. I closed my eyes and the blissful cold cradled me into a deep slumber as if Grandma Yue was holding me still.

I screamed into the night as the events of yesterday flooded back all at once. Rushing to my feet, I backed away with a feral glare at the fire demon that stood before me, the essence cradled to my chest.

"Stay away! I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!" I roared and threw an outreaching hand towards the abominable fire demon. Ice shards immediately flew towards him, intending on shredding his little body into ribbons, but the fire demon had suddenly disappeared.

I growled and whipped around feverishly. The fire demon had retreated back to his friends who stood just outside of the altar. There were four of them besides the little black one. One was all red from his long hair to his red attire. Another with short black hair green attire. Another with orange hair and blue attire. The last had brown hair and a blue tunic. Their dresses were so unique and unrecognizable that it stopped me momentarily. The fire demons didn't wear this kind of clothing.

When I paused to look at them further, I realized that I had been mistaken. The only fire demon was the first one. The rest of them were human. Are humans attacking us too? I let out another snarl and sent another wave of ice shards towards the enemy. They all dodged and stood at edge, but did not attack. It puzzled me further. They short black haired one started to yell something, but I did not bother to listen. They were all the enemies. I must kill all of them!

Cradling the essence in both hands, I closed my eyes and let the essence enter me. This was forbidden, but I had no choice. I could not win against them. The essence entered me in a cold rush and suddenly, I felt the strength of all that is winter bellowing inside of me like a brewing snow storm. The unbottled surge of power flew from its little container; the snow storm erupted from my body and sliced the air around me. The enemies backed away from me, shielding themselves from the snow.

"You will all die." My voice echoed, and ice began to freeze over the enemies' bodies from their feet up. They started to scream and fight off the cold, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Something foreign took grip of me, something hot and I felt my face contort the same way Grandma Yue's did when she saw the village. It was anger. I had never felt this emotion before, but I've only heard of it. It was rage. It was vengeance. And it was then that I realized just how much the fire demons' flames had tainted me that I hesitated in my attack, afraid of what I had become. Of who I had become.

That was all he needed. The fire demon melted the ice that rooted him and dashed towards me. By the time I saw him, it was already too late. The back of his sword came down and I felt a sharp pain at the back of my neck. No! The essence!... I thought frantically as I fell and darkness took me again.

The second time I awoke, I was in an unknown room of some sort. The cushion underneath me was soft and an equally soft and fluffy fabric covered me. I tried sitting up, but something bound my wrists together so that I could not move them. When I tried moving my leg, I felt the same resistance around my ankle.

"Don't bother moving." A deep voice echoed from the shadows of the room. I immediately turned to the new threat. The same set of deep red eyes glinted back at me. The fire demon! I glared at him, and let my power leak from me, covering the entire room in a blanket of ice. Just as soon as I had covered it, the fire demon let out his own aura of heat and the ice melted instantly, disappearing as fast as it had come. I glared at him again.

"I said don't bother." He said again, walking towards me. I reached into myself to access the essence's power's, but it was then that I realized it was gone.

"The essence! You thief! Give it back!" I screamed, struggling from the binds. Ice seeping from me and freezing the fabric cover and soft cushion underneath me. The fire demon appeared beside me instantly and laid a hand on the center of my chest. I felt the fire sear through the ice and covered me in a blanket of flames. I expected to feel the sharp licking flames cut into my flesh, but strangely it did not burn me. Instead, I was unable to use my powers. He had completely sealed my powers. I struggled against his touch and screamed ferally. Suddenly, the door flew open and the same humans from earlier appeared, but with a new addition. It was a blue haired girl in a similar kimono to the one that ice maidens wore. I felt the same touch of snow within me in her and I knew that she was like me. But why is she with them? I stopped struggling to take in the newcomers, assessing their intentions for capturing me. They had the essence, they did not need me anymore. Why keep me alive?

"Oh, she's awake!" The black haired one smiled. His lack of blood lust confused me.

"She's not handling the situation very well is she?" The red haired one noted.

"Well at least she's calmed down now enough for Hiei to be groping her." The black haired one grinned, noting the location of his hand on my chest. I immediately blushed and started struggling from his touch again, the supposed Hiei.

"I was not groping her." The one named Hiei glared at his comrade, his palm still pressed against my chest. I felt his palm tense when I moved as he pushed down again. We were both suddenly very aware that his hand was somewhere where no man had even laid eyes on, let alone touch.

"Right, right. Say whatever you want. I'd be happy to be where you are though." The black haired one smirked playfully.

"One more word out of you and I'll slit your throat." Hiei threatened. His friend just grinned stupidly.

The red haired human approached me slowly with a gentle smile, "We won't hurt you, don't worry. My name is Kurama, this idiot is Yusuke," he pointed to the black haired one, "This is Kuwabara and Hiei," he pointed to the orange haired one, then the fire demon that pinned me down still.

Lastly, he gestured towards the blue haired girl that had remained silent the entire time with a worried expression on her face, "This is Yukina. I think you already realize that she's like you, an ice demon."

"We're sorry for the rough welcome yesterday, but you weren't in the mood to listen." The red haired Kurama smiled sheepishly.

They did not look like they meant me harm, but the essence was still gone. And there was a fire demon. "Let me go," I said coldly.

"Hiei will let go and we'll untie you, but you have to promise to listen to us first." Kurama said again, smiling easily as if he were anyone's best friend. I contemplated for a moment and bit back the urge to run at the first chance I got, but then nodded once gingerly. I had to get the essence back anyway.

Kurama smiled and nodded once to Hiei, who withdrew his palm from my chest. They sliced the ropes and the ice maiden Yukina came forward, "They said you'd listen more if someone of your clan told you instead."

I was silent as I backed against the wall, leaning back for support and distance. I still didn't trust her, she was with fire demons.

She took the silence as a go-ahead and started explaining, "I think you still think the fire demons attacked recently, but it's already been 500 years. I'm a descendant from your clan." She smiled softly.

I blanked out. 500 years? There's no way!... It was only yesterday...Grandma Yue and the others...Saya's present...the fire demons. There's no way! "There's no way…" I let out stunned.

"I know it's hard for you to take in, but it's the truth. Alot has changed since then. You were frozen in a block of crystal ice and Hiei is the one that saved you." Yukina said easily, she continued, "We heard from Koenma that there was an artifact called the Winter's Essence that a fire demon called Kayan is looking for. How could this happen? He wanted to destroy it and it would probably kill all the ice demons so Koenma ordered us to find it before Kayan does and protect it." How could this happen? 500 years...

She kept talking as if she were reciting a history lesson, "Oh, Kayan is the fire demon that attacked the ice demons 500 years ago This can't be possible. and killed almost every last ice demon, It's a dream. A nightmare. It's all just a nightmare. but the ones that escaped are the ancestors of my village elders. Just a nightmare...Oh, Koenma is the prince of the Spirit World and- Grandma Yue...

I never heard the end of her lecture as I collapsed onto the soft cushion beneath me. The last thing I remember was a scorching hot hand catching me right before I hit the wooden post of the bed.