"Is Hiei there? Yukina wants to talk to him," Keiko asked when she had been talking with Yusuke for half an hour.

"He's around somewhere, and if you're lucky he's near. I'll go find him then call you back, okay?" Yusuke offered.

At that moment, he heard the door of Hiei and Kurama's room opening. "Actually, I think I just heard him, hang on for a sec."

Keiko nodded and handed the communication mirror over to the ice apparition with a quick explanation.

"Hey, Hiei!" Yusuke said, sticking his head out of his room and spotting both of the demons who had come with him.

"What is it Detective?" the fire demon demanded, stopping in the door, Kurama staying behind him.

"Yunika wants to talk," Yusuke answered, holding up the mirror before holding it out to the shorter demon.

Hiei froze up and backed away from the device as though it were a snake about to bite him. Except that he never would have backed away from a snake.

Yusuke rolled his eyes and grabbed Hiei's non-bandaged hand, firmly placing the mirror in his palm. "Just talk to her dammit," he said, turning to go back to his own room. "She's your sister. You can't avoid her, even if you don't want her to know the truth."

"Shut up, fool!" Hiei hissed, gripping the compact tightly.

"I was right," Yukina's voice said softly from the mirror. It was closed, but apparently Yusuke hadn't actually hung up.

Yusuke smirked and ducked into his room quickly.

Hiei screwed up his face in a grimace. Of all the ways Yukina could have learned the truth – not that he had wanted her to ever know – that wasn't the most ideal of ways.

Kurama laid a comforting hand on Hiei's shoulder and gave a gentle smile. "Do you want me to go, or stay?" he asked quietly.

"Stay," Hiei said, leaning his face into the hand on his shoulder.

Kurama nodded and moved them both into their room, closing the door behind him.

Hiei opened the mirror to the face of his twin sister, who had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

"Oh Brother!" she exclaimed, seeing his face. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Hiei shifted uncomfortably. "I'm a criminal. I didn't think you would want a brother who was a convicted felon."

Yukina shook her head. "I don't care about that. You're my brother; I'll love you no matter what."

Kurama smiled as he watched a tear fall down the fire-demon's cheek, solidifying into a pure white hiroseki stone. As far as he knew, Hiei had never cried before in his life. He was glad, as the stone rolled along the ground and he bent to pick it up, that the first tear of Hiei's life was a happy one.

"Vampire activity has gone right down since the Millennium mess has been cleaned up," Integra informed the demons as they sat for lunch. "They're laying low."

"Sensible of them," Hiei commented.

"Yes, but it leaves us at a loose end," Kurama added. "We came to fight vampires, and now they are all hiding."

"Will you return to your own country then?" asked the lady knight.

"Yeah," Yusuke said. "If we're going to sit on our butts, we might as well be at home to do it. There are a couple of things I'd like to check out before we go though. You guys?"

"I still want a fight with Angel Dust and your vampire," Hiei said, smirking. "I don't want to leave before I have had a chance to fight the two strongest opponents you have to offer me."

"Alucard can fight you as soon as he wakes this evening, but I will need to contact Father Anderson with the request before you can fight him,." Integra said, watching as Hiei wiped some of the blood off his chin and then lick it off his thumb. It might not have been demon game, but a rabbit was apparently just as acceptable to the fire demon.

"We can just drop by his place on the way home," Yusuke said. "He's in Rome, right? That's on the way."

"Still, I think I'd better write to the Paladin so that he can expect you. Anything for you before you go, Kurama?" asked Integra, turning from the messy eaters to their most refined companion.

"I should get a souvenir for my mother, and perhaps see if I can get some seeds or cuttings of your European plants," the red head answered, setting his tea cup down.

Integra nodded. "The car will be made available to you for the afternoon."

Kurama bowed in his seat in appreciation and continued with his meal.

Hiei wasn't the only one who wanted a fight with Alucard, and all three of the friends took their turns, being restricted to a time limit so that they would not continue too long. Their time all ran out before a winner could be decided for their battles, but apart from Yusuke wanting to know about who would have won if they'd had the time to fight it out, they all found the fights satisfying. The three friends flew back to Japan on Puu's back, rather than taking the plane again, stopping in Rome for Hiei – and likely Yusuke and Kurama as well – to fight Anderson.

"Alexander!" Hiei called as he jumped down from the bird's back, looking around for the green-eyed priest. "I want a fight with you before I go home! I will not be satisfied until I have felt your strength for myself!"

Yusuke jumped down as well and flared his aura, hoping to get the people of Iscariot to come running. He had discovered that while Alucard was able to see and feel damaged caused by demon and spirit energy, he had no sense of it. It was kind of disappointing really. Seras hadn't been able to register it either, and it was looking like these catholic humans also had no idea of what was standing in the middle of their marble city.

"They have no idea what we are except for what we show them," Kurama observed, jumping down to stand beside Yusuke and Hiei. "Or they know how strong you are and are hiding."

"I shall be glad to oblige, Mr Hiei!" Anderson's voice rang out, the robed man charging from one of the buildings with a crazy smile on his face.

"Good. We are on a schedule, however, so we can only take a little over a half hour – ten minutes for each of us. Is that alright with you, Father Anderson?" Kurama asked, arresting the priest's charge with his calm and controlled tone.

That seemed to bring him up short. "Aye, ten minutes I suppose. No promises I'll not kill ye in that time, however."

The demons shared a look between themselves and smiled. "Not too worried about that," Yusuke answered, smirking as Hiei stepped up to fight first.

"Oh no you don't Hiei," Yusuke said, grabbing the shorter demon by the back of his coat. "If you want to fry him, wait until after we've had a turn."

Hiei frowned, but backed down and allowed Yusuke to step up first, raising his fists, which he had bandaged to protect his knuckles.

"Go!" Kurama called, checking his watch.

Ten minutes later, and Anderson was watching Yusuke's fists and face very carefully. "Ye aren't human, are ye?"

"See, the first time I died, I came back a human. The second time . . ." Yusuke shook his head with a smile. "But I managed to punch out some pretty tough demons while I was still human, and that was back when I was fourteen!" he added with a smile, walking over to Kurama to take the watch from him.

"I find it interesting that you do not even bleed," Kurama said politely to Anderson as he stepped back, the time for his fight over. Kurama himself found himself in need of changing his shirt due to the blood stains. "You have very unique regenerative abilities."

Yusuke was right, Hiei did want to test his darkness flame on the priest, and if it had not been for the small faces he saw peering around the building, and had approached tentatively during Yusuke's and Kurama's fights, he would be unleashing it now.

As he fought, he considered the questions the children had asked him, and the things they had said.

"Why is Father fighting? He always tells us that we are only to use violence against monsters and pagans," said one boy around the thumb in his mouth.

"Child, do you even know what a pagan is?" Hiei asked, dodging the question until he could think of a way to answer it.

He dodged a bayonet and struck out with his sword.

"It's someone who is bad, and doesn't believe in God," a little girl had answered.

Hiei shook his head. "Paganism is a complex belief system, with lots of gods and many rituals. All humans are capable of evil, children, whatever faith they may claim."

"Are you a pagan?" demanded another, older boy, a fierce light in his eyes.

"No."

Anderson threw several bayonets at Hiei, which he dodged, and Kurama caught in his vines so as to prevent damage to the surrounding area.

"Are you a monster then? 'Cause Father doesn't fight good people," asked the same boy.

"He doesn't look like a monster," a girl pointed out.

"Of course he does, I have seen him do so. He just doesn't fight Catholic people," Hiei said, again dodging the question, since the little girl seemed to have dealt with it.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

Hiei slashed his sword, cutting away Anderson's outer robe.

"No, it's not. In my home country, there are no Catholic people at all, does that make them all evil by default?"

"Yes," some of the children answered. "No," answered some of the others.

"Are you a monster?" the boy from before asked again. "You didn't answer my question."

Anderson's glasses crunched underfoot as Hiei stabbed through the larger man's stomach with his sword, quickly withdrawing so that he would not be hit by a bayonet himself.

"I hunt monsters," Hiei answered. "So I have to be strong enough to kill them. The strength that I have is not human strength, so I suppose I must be a monster as well."

"Father hunts monsters, and he's really strong, but he isn't a monster," a little girl with blond curls said, holding a blanket tightly to her chest. "He keeps all of us in the orphanage safe."

Hiei smiled at the girl and patted her head gently.

Hiei was just considering disappointing the children and unleashing his darkness flame when Kurama yelled to stop the fight. The time was up. Hiei sheathed his sword.

"You charge the same way Alucard does, Alexander," Hiei said, his face calm.

The priest did not much appreciate the comparison, but accepted it none the less.

"The little blond girl with the blanket, what is her name?" asked the fire demon as he watched his opponent put away his weapons.

"She hasn't one. She had no father to name her, and her mother died before she could breath it. We call her our sweet one until she decides upon a name for herself, or someone decides to adopt her and give her a name," Anderson answered, spotting the child Hiei was indicating.

"I will take her, and name her."

"What?"

"You heard me. I know an old woman who would enjoy the child's company, and my sister would doubtless enjoy having a child to care for, she's gentle that way."

There was no need to tell the blinded Catholic that he could sense tremendous energy from the girl, energy she should be trained in before she became any older.

Anderson just nodded, though he was unsure of the demon, he had no reason to distrust him with the child, and knew a family would be better for her than the orphanage. He called her over and helped her up onto Puu's back – she had no belongings besides the blanket she held. The clothes she wore were given to her by the church, but the blanket had been the quilt in her bassinet, the only thing her mother had made ready for her before dying in childbirth.

"From now on, your name will be Kiyomi," Hiei said, caressing the girl's forehead with his thumb as he sat on Puu's back with her in his lap, holding tightly to the child and the bird as it took off. Kurama and Yusuke had just been waiting for Hiei. "Now sleep, if you can. It is a long flight to Japan, where you will live from now on."