Hiei didn't sleep the next night. Or the next. Or the next. What might have looked like sleep could only just barely be considered a doze. He reasoned that this was because he was now living under new and sudden conditions, but reason could not shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong. Kurama had, without fail, been having nightmares every night, waking up at the same time each night, sweating and gasping for air. Hiei was just as exhausted as Kurama was, the lack of sleep had taken a bit of a toll on him.

Usually, during the day, when Kurama was at school, Hiei wandered the woods around the house, familiarizing himself with them further. Occasionally, he would flit from rooftop to rooftop in the city, looking around with contempt at the humans. Today, however, he lay in the tree outside Kurama's window and took a much-needed nap.


Hiei ran through a field of black and dark blue flowers, scattered among occasional red and white roses. He slowed to a stop and looked up at the red and purple sky that seemed to transform to Ningenkai sky blue as he watched. He was in the Makai. He was home. He closed his eyes and drank in the smell of the flowers; the sky; the blood.

When he opened his eyes, he was not alone. A tall man dressed in black looked at him evenly through calm, spectacled, cold, and hateful eyes. Hiei narrowed his own eyes and crouched into a battle position, reaching for his sword, only to realize with dismay that it was gone. He growled at the man, whose eyes now seemed to be laughing, though his expression had not changed. Hiei decided he did not like the man at all.

"You are not the fox…" the man said in a deeper voice than Hiei would have expected. "Nor are you his mother… But you are a pretty prize nonetheless. I might keep you as I plan to keep him." At this, the man approached Hiei, who suddenly realized he could not move at all. The man smiled, his eyes growing even colder and narrowing unpleasantly. Hiei had to repress a shiver as the man reached out an icy finger to trace the line of his jaw. Hiei snapped his teeth at the finger, but the man pulled it out of his reach and backhanded him to the ground.

Instead of landing in the flowers, Hiei felt his head connect with hot, hard stone. He looked around again, finding only a frigid snow field that glittered as black as onyx, littered with stark white rocks and boulders. He shuddered as the frozen air from the ebony sky entered his lungs, chilling him to his very bones. The man seemed not to notice the temperature; maybe he was the source of it? His eyes were certainly cold enough. The black snow came down softly, yet maliciously at the same time, as if it resented the world of white it was alighting upon, drowning it in the sparkling sable color.

Hiei used the stone he had collided with to stable himself as he stood, finding it was not cold, but warm. He frowned at it—why was it warm if it was snowing? The world was warm under all the ice, but the warmth seemed to sink away as the cold covered it. It wouldn't be long before the radiance in the entire realm was gone forever under cold, hard, permafrost. For a moment, Hiei was greatly saddened by this fact. It seemed a shame to lose such a beautiful place to the ugly, eternal winter.

The man, who had appeared to fuse with the landscape for the duration of Hiei's musings, separated himself from the darkness around him and laughed. Hiei whirled his head around to meet the eyes of the mysterious, somber man.

"Where are we?" he asked, a little unnerved by the echo that should not have been.

The man smiled again. "You know exactly where you are."

Hiei glared at him. "I'll ask only once more. Where are we?" The man just laughed, the silky noise sending chills down Hiei's spine. Hiei growled and flitted behind him to attack, but the second he was about to hit the man, he was paralyzed again. The man pushed him into the snow.

"You should know this place better than any who walk in the three worlds, little flame." Just how the man did not sink into the shadows when he wore all black, Hiei did not know. He shook his head.

"Then who are you?"

"That's not for you to know," the man said with a delicate giggle, though it was anything but girly. "All you need to know is that the fox you reside with will be mine, and perhaps, if you are lucky, you will be as well."

Hiei stood, wrath burning in him, and unleashed a torrent of blazing red flames from his right arm, but the only effect turned the black snow the color of blood and blackened the stone under it. The man was now a bit more visible, and his long, dark hair fluttered in a nonexistent breeze. As Hiei watched, the colors slowly faded to what they had been before.

"It's a mite unpleasant here, isn't it?" the man said tauntingly, as if he knew exactly where the two were located. "The whole world will be glacial soon, unless something happens to change it. Much unlike other places and minds I have seen. It's very strong… and yet so wonderfully fragile. Although," he added, "it could be marvelously corrupted, and then it would be absolutely beautiful in its taint…" Here he giggled again.

"You won't touch it," Hiei snarled protectively.

"Why so defensive of it? You don't even know where you are!" The tone in the man's voice seemed close to laughing.

"You're sick! Why would you want to destroy this place?!"

"Because…" He looked at the sky. "A thing ruined is beautiful. A shadow; a ghost of its former glory… Then reflecting back on the beauty it held… It's just pleasurable to me, that's all. And the more the object resists, the more satisfaction I gain in breaking it. This world, however, has more than just me to tear it apart. See? Look…" He pointed to a pedestal-like stone to his right. "This place will destroy itself. All I must do is watch. Those are the things that will break this world."

Hiei looked to where the man had indicated and frowned in confusion. He approached the large, flat stone that stuck above the snow and gazed down at the items on it.

There was a pure, clear ice crystal encircled by a necklace of small, round, pale gems. Hiei reached out to touch it, then thought better of it and retracted his hand. He didn't want to vitiate the pretty thing; it seemed too precious and beautiful for him to reach out to.

The article next to it was a large, glass eyeball. Hiei wrinkled his nose at it, as it seemed to be staring at him and insinuated a horrifying familiarity. He quickly moved to the last two objects.

The third was a mirror gilded with silver. Hiei picked it up and looked into it without hesitation, seeing only his three eyes, though his Jagan was covered. As one they began to glow, and then the mirror-Jagan started to bleed, looking much like it was crying. The mirror-Jagan's iris glowed its usual purple, then the mirror cracked at the point of the Jagan's pupil and shattered. Hiei shivered, that was about as bad an omen there could be. He quickly put down the mirror and moved to the only item left.

It was a beautiful red rose with silver tips, the almost hideously long thorns sticking out in a surreal way. As beautiful as it was, however, there was something about it that seemed… twisted, corrupt… wrong. There was something wrong with it, it was sick… dying. Hiei picked it up with concern, and as he did so, the thorns shrank, the petals' color became healthier, and the rose appeared to liven and brighten as Hiei touched it, almost caressing it. He looked back at the man, still holding the rose as if it were his own heart.

"What is this? What does it mean?"

The man closed his eyes and laughed, this time an evil, sadistic sound. He raised his eyelids just enough to gaze at Hiei as if he were a lover, though his gaze was utter hate. "You will find out soon enough, little flame. But you and the fox will be mine in the end."

Hiei growled in the back of his throat when he heard a sort of crackling sound behind him. The man had somehow gotten behind him and was now holding the gems and the eyeball, each in one hand. He cackled malevolently as the eye exploded in his hand, then the beads and the crystal. Hiei's visage turned to shock and terror as the man pointed at the rose in his hands. Hiei held it to his chest, but it was no use. It detonated just like the other two had, and it sprayed its crimson color over Hiei's torso, looking too much like blood for his comfort.

"Your turn."

Hiei's eyes went wide just before a sharp, burning pain erupted on all four of his limbs, then his breast. All five wounds bled badly, and he coughed up more of the metallic liquid, staining the inky snow with it. He shivered, dying as he stared into those cold eyes one last time as the man called out his name to him, mocking him in his death…


And then he woke up.


DAMN, I am proud of that! Yes. I really enjoyed writing this chapter. I had a lot of fun with it, can ya tell?? All right, though. A few things. NO, the villain is NOT a dementor. This is NOT an HP crossover. NO, the villain is NOT ITACHI. This is NOT Mangekyo (sp?) world. YES, I DO hate the cold. Very much so.

On another note… Kudos to anyone who can figure out the four ENORMOUS metaphors in Hiei's dream. I'll give you a hint: Three of the four items were a metaphor, and the dream-world itself was a metaphor. The items shouldn't be that hard to figure out, but I will be REALLY surprised if anyone figures out what the dream-world was a metaphor of. Or I'll be REALLY sad if everyone gets it without thinking. TT There are little hints and stuff in there, so if you look really hard, you'll figure it out. –smiles- Ta for now, then!