Disclaimer: Neither Hiei, nor Yu-Yu-Hakusho is mine.

Claimer: Chichiro is mine, Kaze is BritKit, Aria is FoxWitch. While not all the characters are mine, all writing, storylines and concepts in this fanfiction (Save any YYH references) are.

I was amazed with how quickly I got used to where we trained. I began to remember how long it took to get there, but I rarely watched the land pass and I didn't know the way. It was probably too far for me to remember anyway.

We wasted no time chatting or lounging around—as soon as we landed and Hiei let me down we began to spar.

Our fight led us up the mountain. Or, shall I say, Hiei herded me toward it, probably to rub that fighting-terrain thing in my face again.

As I dodged a kick from him, I found myself backed against the broad face of the mountainside—a section of it that failed to have a way for me to get out of the way of his next attack. I considered a moment, then reached over me and pressed my palm to the stone, with my fingers facings downward. Hiei's eyes narrowed for the shortest of times before he realized what I was planning on doing, and he growled as a huge explosion shattered the cliff face.

I shot energy from my fingertips to keep myself from being crushed, and I sprang out from beneath the rubble. Only because I was expecting attack, I was able to block his fist. Even the simple impact of his fist on my arm was powerful enough to make me wince, and it reminded me of how dangerous Hiei was. I knew he was still being easy on me in fighting—he had been since the beginning—and I could only imagine what it would be like to actually fight him.

I swung around with my left arm, gritting my teeth against the pain, and as it made contact with his other arm as he blocked, I felt the wound on my arm beginning to tear.

"That was reckless," Hiei commented with a smirk, meaning the cliff explosion.

I opened my left fist, getting a good grasp around his arm. "Not as reckless as this." I began to send energy into my palm, but Hiei realized what I was doing and yanked his arm upward, and I sailed over him, but I had anticipated this and thrust my palm outward as I flipped, shooting a trail of energy out at his back. I expected to see it hit him between the shoulder blades, but he was gone from the spot before any impact was made.

And then I heard his sword slide from his sheath, and the blade came slashing toward me. It grazed my stomach, slashing through my hoodie and shirt, but the actual cut was only about the size of a long, deep paper cut.

I swung my leg upward and hit to bottom of his hilt, sliding it through his fingers and knocking it from his hold. But he caught my foot, ignoring the loss of his sword, and pressed on the back of my ankle, just below my Achilles heel, in a way that somehow inflicted a huge amount of pain that shot upward through my leg, and I growled lightly, shooting a mini energy-ball from my fingertips.

He avoided it with ease, and then retrieved his sword. As he came at me with a stabbing motion rather than a slash like usual, and I had to turn and arch my torso backward to keep myself from being impaled. But then he took me by surprise, swinging his blade sideways along with my motion, and because he must have known I wasn't fast enough to dodge, he flipped the sword around so the blunt side caught me just below my ribs rather than me getting sliced in half. My breath was still knocked from me, and I sailed backward to ram into one of the various trees that were scattered along the base of the mountain.

I picked myself off the ground as quickly as my body allowed, and then, feeling myself start to get pissed, I decided to try again on summoning my energy sword. Before I even concentrated, I felt a hilt within my fingers, and I kicked off the tree and threw myself at Hiei, my new blade slamming against his, and when our swords hit we were both thrown backward by the force.

Hiei was able to pull his legs into a position so that he could catch himself against the trunk of a tree and attack again, but I was less orthodox and I fell onto my back, raising my sword to protect myself as Hiei brought his down at me. He was suspended in the air momentarily as our swords shoved against one another, the air around us crackling with energy, and then I sent a burst of my energy through my arms and was able to shove him off.

It seemed we were beginning to fight more seriously. I grinned. Now he was actually trying.

I leapt into the air, surprised by how far I up I was able to go, and I was also amazed that I wasn't afraid of the height. I arched my sword downward, but he raised his and they rammed together with a loud clash. Both of our blades were glowing with our energy, and the entirety of the mountainside now felt electric as our energies sparked. I felt a thrilling rush of adrenaline, egging me onward to continue, and when Hiei's sword pushed me backward I pulled my own back and thrust it forward.

Hiei sprang upward, and my blade barely missed his boot. For a moment he disappeared, and then I sensed him behind me, his sword coming at my back in a stabbing motion. I raised my arm and let myself fall sideways, his sword barely missing my ribs, coming between my arm and torso. I bent my right leg drastically so that I could bring my body down around the sword, ducking as Hiei's body went over me, and his blade immediately swung around again.

Our swords met, and the sparks as the blades crossed began to form in small shards of our energy, solidified, and one of them made a small slash on the right side of my face. The pain only made me want to fight more.

It was almost a lust I had, this urge to fight—like I had something to prove.

And then our swords both rang with a strange sound, almost like they were singing in unison, and a huge black lightning slash whipped outward from where they met. I noticed then that all around us was glowing yellow with energy rather than red and blue like our own specific colors. The black lightning strike curled suddenly, wrapping around the place of contact of the blades like a long-fingered hand, becoming a large electric ball before the sound of the swords' singing increased enough to make my eardrums bleed, and then there was a huge cracking noise that was followed by a blinding light.

When the light cleared, both of our swords were broken where they had met, and the snapped-off sections of them were reeling through the air and away from us. "What just happened!" I asked, surprised, but Hiei just smirked.

"It seems our energies are too evenly matched. The blades weren't strong enough to told that high amount of demon energy."

I blinked. "Demon energy? But I'm not transformed."

"Never doubt what you are just because of your form." He chuckled lightly, in a mocking tone. "Do you think you're human right now?"

"Don't insult me!" I snapped back. "Of course not!"

"Enough." And suddenly he was in front of me—I had barely seen his form waver before he was directly before me, his fist raised. "I much prefer fighting over talking." His fist caught me square in the center of my face, and I sneezed as the bridge of my nose was crushed slightly. I could smell blood, but I figured my nose was probably bleeding.

I swung my arm around and my knuckles found his neck. He growled as we both went flying back. I had never felt so close to being as powerful as he—never before had we been so evenly matched.

Hiei flipped and landed, sliding backward. He dove for his broken sword, grabbing the hilt, and before I registered that he had recreated the end with his energy, he was in the air and diving at me.

I would have summoned energy to shoot the sword or Hiei, but then there was a sharp pain in my chest. Not the traditional kind of pain, but more like something that was purely mental or spiritual, not physical. I winced, and I think I must have cried out, because Hiei almost pulled up, but didn't. I raised my arm to block his blade, too distracted by the sudden pain to realize how foolish that was.

The sword cut into my arm with ease, nearly halfway and right up next to my bone, but for some reason I was barely able to notice it. The sudden shocking pain in my chest was gone, and Hiei tore his sword from my arm, staring at me as if expecting a reaction, but I couldn't focus on him. The pain came in another wave in my ribcage, and then I looked up at Hiei quickly, my arm still raised from blocking. "We have to go. Now."

"Do you even realize what you just did?" Hiei growled, his eyes still riveted on my arm.

"It doesn't matter. There's something wrong back home. Really wrong." The pain was coming in consistent waves now, and something told me that all of the rifts I had seen so far were children compared to usual rifts…I thought perhaps another was opening then, and that was what I was sensing.

Hiei studied me for a moment, then nodded. He picked me up swiftly. Noting my torn shirt, from when his blade had nearly gotten me before, he said, "You aren't going to need that anymore. Take it off."

I blinked, then twitched. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!"

Hiei glared at me. "Don't act like you think I'm a human. It has nothing to do with what you think it does—and besides, you'll still have your jacket—" ("Hoodie," I corrected in a mumble, but he ignored me.) "—on. It isn't like you'll be completely shirtless."

I growled lightly, but finally agreed, and used my un-cut arm to tear off the bottom half of my shirt. The only clue that it was gone was that I could see the skin that had been torn slightly in the cut on my hoodie. Hiei slowed, leaping off the branch he had just been on and landed on the ground. He let me stand, and I blinked. "I said we had to hurry," I said in a rushed voice.

"We won't need to hurry to anything if you bleed to death," he snapped back, snatching my shirt fabric from my hand and tying it around my arm, tight. I hadn't even gathered how deep it had cut until then, but I still didn't really mind the pain. It was there, yes, but I didn't take much notice.

And then Hiei began to head toward home again, though with each passing day that human place lost more and more 'home' meaning. I didn't know what I considered home now, but it wasn't there.

Within minutes I felt weakened. I would have thought it was because of loss of blood, had the waves of pain on my chest not been increasing. I looked up at Hiei, but quickly forgot what I had planned on saying. He was sweating, and his eyes looked like he was almost…afraid. Not that he was, but like he was close. "Hie—" I cut off just before his name finished spilling my lips, because my eyes had slid sideways to look past his face and at the sky. There was the largest rift I'd ever seen tearing open, black as nothingness. Because I was paying attention more than normal, I felt us cross into the human world, because the air was thicker and notably different as soon as we passed through a dark forest. The rift extended across dimensions—it never faltered, and it only widened when we passed into the human world. Demons were spilling from it and screaming, almost gleefully, and screeching.

I felt almost as though I could retch as my eyes found a plane in the sky, directly below the rift.

Humans couldn't see demons. Or rifts.

And as demons fell onto the wings and top of the plane, I watched with horrified eyes as it was somehow raised and sucked into the void of the fissure between worlds.

"H-Hiei…did you see that?"

"We don't have time to be paying attention to what casualties have already fallen. We have to return and prevent m—" But then he made a verbal protest to illustrate pain, and his word was torn in half. I immediately snapped my eyes to his face, worried, but he was wincing, and his eyes were closed. And then I saw the demon behind him; I couldn't see where he'd been injured, and I didn't feel the Ofuda's effect telling me either, but I knew that the demon had hurt Hiei. And I was overcome with bitter rage just at the fact. I shot the soldier with my energy, but I quickly realized we were falling toward the ground.

Hiei was able to catch himself just before we hit the ground, but as soon as he landed in a crouch position, his eyes rolled backward and he collapsed sideways. "Hiei!" I cried, already free from his hold, but just as I was going to see if he was conscious, I felt something rip into my back, and I was unable to cry out, my breath cut short. I summoned my energy sword without concentration, and I whipped around and slashed around my back and I heard the demon behind me scream, and his body thumped as it fell to the ground. I spun and lanced through another, but my attention was still focused on Hiei. I had never seen him hurt besides when he injured his shoulder before I made the Ofuda, and I was too worried to even realize he had still disengaged the Ofuda's power before he was wounded.

"Hiei," I tried again, slashing through a demon distractedly, and he opened his eyes into narrow slits. I was relieved, but I didn't let myself get too excited. "Where did he hurt you?"

"It did something to my spine," Hiei growled back with a wince. "It was just shock, don't worry about it. I'll be fine in a moment."

I studied his eyes for truth, but before I decided whether what he said was real or not, I sensed a larger group of demons coming toward us. At least they had mainly been coming from behind me rather than behind Hiei.

I threw my sword like a javelin, and it sliced into three demons, pinning them together, but I had no time to relish the pain on their faces, as I shoved both my hands forward and threw out a huge energy trail, no doubt the largest I had ever been able to create.

And then I felt Hiei moving with my spiritual sense, and I obliterated the rest of the demons in front of me at the moment before I looked at him. He had been able to get into a crouching position, but it looked like he would have to struggle to get any further.

But then his eyes suddenly went blank for a moment, and when they returned to normal it looked as though he had lost awareness of his pain, and he stood, turning and shooting a fireball at an on-coming demon. With his back toward me, I could see a long slash down his back, which had torn his shirt, and then, directly beneath his shoulder blades and over his spine was a strange wound that looked almost like he had been stabbed by a few swords lined up next to each other. I winced at the sight of it, but again had no time to spend thinking about it, as the line of demons was consistent.

The rift was leaking demons and Escque everywhere. They were working together, the Escque walking toward the humans they sensed, and the demons keeping us busy so we would not stop their corpse-like allies.

"Hiei," I growled, "we have to kill the Escque. The demons are just a—"

"Distraction," he finished, his voice level. I marveled at how well he was able to make himself used to the pain, and how quickly. "I know. But they're a damn good distraction, and they're powerful. We have to worry about them first."

"But the Escque—!"

"They can wait."

I was still worried about Hiei. Just because he was acting like he wasn't in pain didn't mean he was okay, and with the Ofuda being useless if he chose it to be, I felt helpless.

I shot an energy trail at the next group of demons, and I felt my heel touch Hiei's. We were both being forced inward by the demons. I didn't allow myself to be backed up any closer next to Hiei, as I didn't want to further worsen his injury. I put a hand on Hiei's shoulder, and growled, "Take some of my energy."

"Hn. Why?"

"You need it, and don't you dare deny it."

"I'll be fine without—"

"Damn it, if you aren't going to let the Ofuda work, at least let me give you some of my energy!"

Hiei was silent a moment, but then I felt energy escaping my hand and knew Hiei had listened. "Stubborn as me," Hiei commented lightly, and then he moved away from me with what seemed like new motivation, summoning an energy sword and slashing through the demons.

As I sensed him switch attacks to the Fist of the Mortal Flame, I wondered if he was too weak to try the Black Dragon Wave.

And then the demons suddenly stopped coming at us. I was surprised into stopping, but Hiei wasted no time and took the opportunity to kill off about a hundred more as they were just standing around. Kurama to the rescue again? I wondered, as the demons started crawling back toward the rift.

"Now," Hiei called back to me, "attack them with everything you have left!"

I blinked over at him, but he was taking off the bandage on his right arm. I felt my pulse quicken, and for some reason rather than anticipating seeing the Dragon in real life, I almost dreaded it. Almost. I gathered my energy into my hands, shooting at the retreating flocks of demons.

And then, I heard Hiei call, "Black Dragon Wave!" The sky was immediately as dark as the rift, and black lightning shook the earth, and then there was a piercing, horrifyingly beautiful scream as the dragon was freed from his arm. I watched it as it tore into the group of demons, incinerating them; the air around us, and everywhere I could see, rippled with Hiei's energy. Then, there was a new thrust of energy from him, blue this time, and it wrapped around the dragon and increased its size as it destroyed all of its victims before it before finally curling upward and slamming into the rift, splitting and crackling sideways along the entire length, destroying every demon visible to me, even those I had not killed on my side.

And then the Dragon faded away, screaming a single last time before it disintegrated into the sky like it had the demons in its path.

Hiei leaned onto one of his knees in a crouch before his legs could fail. I looked over at him, amazed at the attack, amazed that he had been able to do the attack when he was injured, and amazed at how much it had thrilled me to see the Dragon.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," he responded, his voice still level. "But unfortunately I don't think there's any way in hell I'll be getting you back to your humans today."

I grinned easily, just glad he was okay. I think someone could have told me that my human family was being tortured and murdered and I still would have been too relieved to care. "That's fine." I drew in a breath to sigh, just then noticing how heavily I was breathing and how rubbery my legs felt.

I sat backward—if you could call it that, as the only reason I had sat was to keep myself from falling—and brought my legs up into V-shapes, resting my arms on my raised knees and leaning my head onto them. "Hey, Hiei?"

He made his hn-like question noise, but I realized this time it was because he was too tired to muster anything else.

"This…wasn't the only rift like this, was it?"

"…No."

"There will be more…exactly like this, won't there?"

"Yes."

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the fact that my entire body hurt. After all, it was nothing compared to Hiei's wound and exhaustion, and I wasn't about to pity myself over a few scratches.

"Can we…Is the world savable?" I tried to keep my voice normal, but it was thick with signs of how tired I was.

"I don't know." I was able to open my eyes and look at him as he spoke, but he was leaning against a pair of demon bodies, his eyes closed. The pose would have struck me as funny before, but then I just felt the oddest sense of need for Hiei. "Probably not."

I smiled at that, and I closed my eyes again. He was so blunt it was almost humorous.

"I need a better name for you than 'Ningen'," he said suddenly. I didn't even try to look at him, for my eyelids refused to obey me.

"Mmm? Like what?"

"I don't know. But Ningen isn't a name."

I smiled lightly. "You had no problem calling me that before."

"Hn." There was silence, and then he said, "What do you think of Ketsueki?"

"What does that mean?"

"Blood."

"A little dark, don't you think?"

"Maybe. But by your tone you don't mind it."

"Yeah…but it's a mouthful for me. Maybe just…Ketsue."

"Hn."

I realized that anyone else who had tried to find a good name for me before had failed miserably, and he found one that suited me on his first try. "Any particular inspiration for that one?"

"It was Chichiro's last name."

I opened my eyes and blinked at him. "She had one? And it meant…blood? Was that a self-given last name or something?"

"No. You just have to realize demon names aren't like human names. We are given them for reasons." I knew what me meant without him further explaining, seeing as his last name was Jaganshi. Their last names were matched to them for certain things, like Hiei's jagan. I could only wonder what the reason for Chichiro's last name was.

I yawned, suddenly wanting something to lean back against. "Uhm…you think we could both find some way of gettin' somewhere before we pass out?"

"We are somewhere," Hiei growled back, his voice soft and tired, but he still had enough energy to remain snide.

"I mean somewhere less…in the middle of no where."

"…No. We'll find somewhere else after we pass out."

I grinned. "Oh, yeah, that makes sense."

I raised my head and looked over the expanse of rotting demon bodies, though it did not stretch as long as it would have had Hiei not incinerated the rest. I turned back to Hiei as I sensed him go unconscious, and I fiddled around with the idea of what to do in my mind. I knew I should rest, but I felt so alive, like there was something I had to do. I glared up at the rift, which was still making crackling noises and spouting black lightning, but no demons freed themselves from the demon world.

Hiei had said there would be more rifts like this one. Exactly like this one. And if this was going to become a consistent, every-other-day ordeal, like fighting the smaller amounts of Escque before, than I would need to train much harder. Hiei had an excuse for not fighting to his full potential—the demon had caught him off guard before the battle even began. But me? I was fine when it started. And Hiei still had to save me like always, even though he was the one who had been injured.

But my thoughts were suddenly slow and lagging, too tired to continue, and I pulled myself over to lay next to Hiei against the demon bodies—which were the only thing visible for me to prop myself up on—and I was knocked out as soon as I was positioned.

It was just starting to get light out when something woke me up. I knew I had been out a long while, as it was about to start getting light when I had passed out, but I felt rested. So I had probably been unconscious for a day.

I had the most annoying crook in my neck, and I cracked it sideways and opened my eyes. I was still pretty tired, but not as beat as yesterday. Hiei wasn't next to me, but I had no doubts he'd be back soon. I had no clue where he'd be otherwise, perhaps scouting the area or maybe he found a comfortable tree to rest in.

As I willed my body to move—it was incredibly limp, and it didn't really seem like it wanted to obey me—and I struggled for my eyelids to move so I could look upward. When they finally decided to allowed me to look ahead of myself, I saw the cause for my waking.

There was a human female in front of me, an older woman, looking at me with concern and almost a mild sense of fear. I didn't move—my body remained in the same position as it had been when I had woken save my head. She wasn't threatening, and I saw no reason to try and shift pose.

"What?" I growled, realizing after I said it in a snide tone that said 'What are you looking at?' even though I had left out the last four words how much like Hiei I sounded.

"Are you alright, dear? You look terrible!" I didn't respond, and I struggled to further sit up, and I realized I was against a mesh-and-wood fence rather than the demons from before, meaning Hiei had probably moved me before they decayed and I was left with nothing to lean on. "Have you been in a fight?" she continued before I replied.

I leaned on to my knees, glaring up at her. It wasn't an intentional glare, but I knew it looked like I was glaring at her. I was too lazy to shift my expression to one more welcoming; after all, I didn't exactly feel welcoming. I noted that she leaned back slightly when my body came the tiniest bit closer to her when I moved, and I had to suppress a smirk.

"You can talk to me, I'm only trying to help."

I closed my eyes and shifted my arms, wincing as I recalled the wound Hiei had given me in sparring the previous day, and I looked over at my arm and the black fabric wrapped around it. The cloth was stiff with blood, and the wound had begun bleeding again.

The woman before me seemed to have just noticed it, and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, you're in horrid shape. You need proper medical attention."

I smiled at her; it pleased me to see a human who could so easily care about someone she didn't know. "I'll be fine." I realized as I spoke again that I had dried blood at the corner of my mouth and there was a trail to my chin as well. It must have been from sparring, because I didn't recall being injured in a way that would have caused it during the actual battle. Actually, I couldn't recall being injured at all when fighting besides when the Escque cut me across my back that single time. I wondered how bad off I look, and I could understand why she looked so horrified.

"Nonsense, I'll call an ambulance. And if you won't let me do that, at least let me bandage you up."

I smiled again, lightly, and reached up to take the hand she was offering me.

"Touch her and I'll cut your arm off."

I stopped the motion of my arm and looked behind me at Hiei, who was standing roughly ten feet behind the fence I was leaned up against. He was glaring at the human woman, his words directed at her, and his hands were gathered into fists at his sides. He wasn't wearing his cloak, but he hadn't had it on since the beginning of sparring—he'd lost it somewhere in our practice fight.

"It's fine, Hiei," I called to him, "she's just a human. She's not a threat."

"Who said I thought she was?" Hiei growled back, his eyes averting toward me.

"Then why…" I sighed then, realizing Hiei's naturally suspicious nature and stopped my question, realizing his last sentence was just to make me stop suspecting. He really had seen her as a threat.

The woman was looking over at Hiei now, her eyes wide again. I could tell her mind was saying that if he was cut up, too, and making threats that he must have been the one who hurt me. I struggled to my feet without her help, as she was too distracted anyway, and I looked toward Hiei. He wasn't as tense as when I first saw him, now that I'd assured him the human was no threat, and then I averted my gaze back to the woman again. "Do you have bandages?"

"Yes…at the house." I looked where she pointed, at a house about twenty feet to my left. I hadn't realized we were so close to a human's home. "You can use them."

I smiled lightly. "That'd be nice, thank you."

Hiei followed us back, and I had to convince him to come in the house with me. "You need bandaging, too," I reminded him, as I saw no bandages on him yet.

"Hn." After the human had switched my soaked-through shirt cloth for clean white bandages and a stinging cream, I bandaged Hiei. His back wound was worse than I originally thought, but he didn't grimace a single time and he didn't seem to mind the pain. I was distracted enough by my worry for him that I barely noticed the great opportunity bandaging him brought on, since he had to take his shirt off for it.

After finishing up with Hiei, I went into the woman's bathroom and washed my face off. The conversation between us all had ended outside, and so far she'd said nothing more save directing me to the bandages. I didn't know her name, she didn't know ours, and I figured it would stay that way. I was just glad she didn't want us to explain.

But as I finished cleaning the blood off my face and arms with a wet towel, I heard her in the kitchen talking to Hiei and thought, Too soon spoken.

"Where did you get all these cuts? You're both in such horrible shape."

I didn't hear anything for a short time, but as I hung the towel up and went back through the open door I heard Hiei say, "Hn."

I was pretty sore, now, as if before washing off my face and arms I was too exhausted to care about the pain, and now, cleaned up, I was reminded of it.

"Ready?" was my greeting when I got into the kitchen, and I nodded at Hiei.

"Are you sure you don't want me to—"

"We can take care of ourselves," I told the human. "Thank you, though."

"But…you're so young," she said softly. Hiei didn't appear to be in the 'so young' category. He looked like he was in his twenties, despite his hundreds of years in existence. Besides, I figured she didn't mention him in that instance as well because of his rugged appearance. It would be hard for someone who didn't know him to worry about him with how well he handled pain and the like.

"I'll be fine." I directed a low wave at her as me and Hiei walked out, and as we reached the road I turned to him. "Are you going to wipe her memory?"

"No. I see no need—she won't tell anyone. Her mind told me that. And if she someday decides to, it won't matter."

I nodded, and I wondered how we were going to get back. Well, more like how I was going to get home. Hiei could easily by himself, but I doubted he was recovered enough for it to be possible or safe for him to try and carry me back.

"I gave enough energy from my jagan to keep your humans too distracted to notice your absence for a few days."

I sighed with mild relief as he said it. "Oh, good. I was wondering about that." I smiled. "I didn't really want to deal with their nagging when I got back." I yawned and stretched without flexing my arms enough to cause pain from my wounds from sparring or the slash on my back from the day before. "Which way?" I looked down the road both ways, but Hiei was turning to walk back to where I had been when I first woke up.

"While you were still sleeping I found a good place to rest until we can make the trip back to your home."

I blinked, turning to follow him into the woods behind the woman's house. "Where are we, anyway? Do you know?"

"Not the exact location, no, but we aren't in your country."

"We're not? Where are we, then? That lady didn't sound like she had an accent."

"I'd assume somewhere in Canada. Again, I don't know. I can only assume."

"Wow…we're farther away than I thought, then."

"Exactly why I found somewhere for us to recover for a day or two before we try to get back."

"What about the rift?"

I looked up through the trees, suddenly remembering it, but the sky was blank.

"It closed itself a few hours before you woke. It will re-open soon, but hopefully we will have had enough time to heal and regain our strength before it does."

As the trees began to thin, I could see the land drop off drastically at the edge of what I assumed was a canyon. When we neared the edge, I saw it wasn't the small ravine like at Letchworth…it almost resembled the Grand Canyon.

"It's across this canyon, and that I've found it would be easier for me to carry you across than for us to try and find a way around it."

"Are you sure? I mean, you don't have too much strength right now…I don't want you to hurt yourself any further."

"I can understand your worry, but don't. You seem to consistently forget that I'm a demon. A single wound may be enough to keep me from carrying you the entire way back, but it isn't bad enough to keep me from much else."

I nodded, and when we had crossed he let me down, and I followed him to a large over-lay on the rock-s structure. It wasn't deep enough to be called a cave, but it wasn't small enough to be called a dent, either.

"I doubt any human will be able to find their way here to bother us." I looked over at Hiei while he was talking. "It's just secluded enough that the only ningens we'd see here would probably be hikers and they wouldn't pose much of a distraction to healing."

I couldn't see what human would pose a threat or distraction, but I shrugged off the idea with a sigh, leaning against the back wall of the mini-cave. "Hey, Hiei?"

He just looked sideways at me.

"Am I ever going to be able to meet Kurama and the others?"

"Maybe. But not now, with the rifts at such a dangerously high level. You meeting them would require either them coming to Ningenkai, or us going to demon world, neither of which we can afford at the moment."

"M'kay."

I zoned out after that. Hiei still seemed to be tired—after all, he had used his strongest attack when he was already at low energy and hurt—and he slept soon after.

Nothing held my attention, but I had slept for too long for me to fall unconscious again.

Finally I retreated from the mini-cave and went above it, as it was positioned beneath a large rock formation.

It was hot out there, and it reminded me briefly of when I had lived in California before I moved back to New York. I sat down, looking across the canyon. It was huge, bigger than I had first guessed by just glancing. It extended as far as I could see, and it was wide.

I decided to use the time to train. After going through three different katas and beginning a fourth that I couldn't remember past halfway through, I sighed and stopped. I was able to summon my energy sword now without issue, and if I decided to re-absorb it I could easily. My energy balls and long trails of energy were already almost expert, so none of them posed much of a challenge or need to focus on them.

I could show you something new, came a familiar voice in my mind, but it wasn't Hiei's. It was Chichiro's.

I raised an eyebrow. Yeah? Like what?

It requires quite a bit of energy…if you think you're up to it.

I am. Just tell me what it is.

Kurayami Sakebigoe, she told me, but it remained un-translated.

And that is…?

More powerful than anything you've ever done or seen.

That description satisfied me well enough, and I nodded. Alright, how do I do it, then?

As she described it, I began to gather all of my energy into my chest. She was in her spiritual form next to me, and she told me to continue increasing the amount of energy until I almost thought I'd pass out, but then she continued and I was instructed to let it go to every corner of my body and be shot from every point, like a Black Dragon Wave, only from everywhere on my body, not just my arm. Is that…safe?

Only if you aren't strong enough to handle it, she mocked.

I twitched, and began to send my energy back into my body, but just as I was about to call the attack and release I mainly from my arms, Hiei was suddenly next to me, and he pressed his palm against my side and sent a small shockwave of energy into my body, which made me stop, flinching. "Hey, what was that for?" I snarled at him, glaring sideways.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he snapped back.

"Chichiro was showing me a new—"

"No, she was making you almost kill yourself! If you had tried that attack now you would have."

I blinked, suddenly glad for the minor pain on my side that was ebbing away. "…What?"

"Even I couldn't do that attack without probably killing myself. It's too strong."

"…What does it do?"

"Stops all magic in Ningenkai."

"All magic in…for how long?"

"I don't know. It's never been used, even in my generation. It's too reckless an attack. That I know of, all of the users at any times before have all died. The attack requires enough energy to equal an entire life force, and neither one of us can expel that much without dying."

The fact that Hiei couldn't do the attack was enough for me to never try again. "Then…" I twitched. "Damn it, Chichiro, trying to kill me again?" I glared at her spiritual form, but she was smirking easily.

Oh, come now, Hikari, I can't help it. It's my nature.

If Hiei could hear and see her, he didn't show it, and he flickered from view.

Why are you so insistent on staying with him? she asked me in a low, disgusted voice. He killed you.

"You mean he killed you," I corrected, looking at her oddly. "Or…are you saying I'm Chichiro and not you? 'Cause that would be ridiculous."

Hn. You'll just have to find out. But you still haven't answered me.

Because I love him, I said telepathically, uncomfortable with saying it out loud again.

Why, though, Hikari? Why do you persist?

Why not? I replied breezily. It isn't hurting anyone for me to love him.

Save yourself and myself, she growled back. But you're right…We're both expendable. Just don't fool yourself by thinking he'll ever return your caring.

I don't, I responded quietly. I wouldn't expect that from him.

But you think he cares about you. I denied it, but Chichiro continued on. Don't deny—you think he cares. Fool. Why would he care about you?

I don't know…but the things he does…

Are just his duties to you as an ally, she finished, killing off what I had planned on saying. He doesn't care for you and never will. He only stays for me.

It was a painful thing to hear, but I knew it was true. At least, I thought it was. Chichiro could so easily manipulate me back then.

And even though you know the bitter truth you still want to stay with him. You still want to love him.

Love can be one-sided, I replied, my voice cold and hurt. I knew I would have better been able to hide my emotion had we been speaking out loud. Just because he'll never love me back doesn't mean I have to try and kill my own feelings.

Hn. Fool.

I sat down and sighed heavily, and I sensed Chichiro fade and go dormant again in my mind.

Below me, I could sense that Hiei was still awake. And I had the slightest of suspicions that he had been listening to the conversation, but I wasn't about to throw around accusations.

I would have thought that it would be hard to care for someone you didn't believe cared back…it wasn't. At least, not in the sense I meant. I thought it would have been like when you saw someone at school when you were in elementary school you wanted to be friends with, but they didn't return the desire and you became enemies off a child's duel. But it almost felt like I wanted to love him more when I believed he didn't love or care about me back.

Sighing again, I stood and walked down to him, sitting next to him in the mini-cave, but I avoided meeting the fleeting glance he gave me.

I was suddenly tired. With how awake I had been only minutes before, I had to wonder what triggered it, but I felt my eyelids drooping, and then I slid away into the gentle bliss of nothing-filled sleep.

At least, nothing-filled until I began to dream. And the horrid ones had returned. The ones I couldn't remember when I woke, but that trapped me in sleep and made me want to die when I saw them…the ones Hiei could see and refused to tell.

Hiei woke me some time after it was dark out. I was freezing for some reason, but I realized as soon as I gathered that my body was hot that it was my spiritual sense that was making me cold. I could tell by the look in his ruby orbs that there was something wrong…worse off than usual. "Is there another rift?" I asked, and he nodded, reaching out a hand to help me stand up. I took it, but as soon as our hands linked I suddenly recalled Chichiro's words and was unable to look at him any longer.

He noted the fact, but he didn't comment on it, and instead said, "It's larger than the last."

I automatically looked at him at those words, staring. "What? How can any rift be larger than the other?"

"Just follow me."

I watched him walk out of the mini-cave, and I followed after briefly pausing after he was out of my sight.

When I got outside, I wished I had remained where I had been.

The rift Hiei had mentioned was nearly the same place as the last, only slightly wider, but I could sense the difference. It must have been longer, for I couldn't see where it ended, but my senses told me it was many, many more miles off than the one from before.

There were demons strewn across the canyon ground, covering near every inch, and they were still falling from the rift, and crawling up the walls of the canyon as well.

I stared at the countless numbers of soldiers, my legs feeling weak, and I almost felt exhausted just looking at them all.

"Great…another day of this."

Hiei looked at me from the corner of his eyes. "You ready?"

"As much as I'll ever be," I sighed, the words sounding familiar, like deja vu.

Hiei slashed through a demon as it crawled up the face of the rock formation we were on, and I noticed that I had attackers of my own. It seemed we wouldn't have to go down, after all, as I'd originally thought.

After about two minutes it became repetitive and easy to kill off the demons as I found my rhythm, but it was too time-consuming, and the demons were scaling the walls and getting closer to the top at the edge of the canyon sides. Closer to escaping and getting to the humans.

But then I was unable to pay attention to the demons, as an entity screamed and tore itself from the rift, rearing its ugly horse-skull-like head and shrieking again. Soon after it was followed by another, black rather than white. Within thirty seconds there were seven entities, all screeching and making their way toward the edge of the canyon.

Hiei had to fight for some time to kill one. And I didn't even want to think what would happen if I tried to kill one, especially not with all these demons and Escque to worry about, and with Hiei injured…

I could only gape at the entities as their simple presence made the earth shake and the sky crackle with energy. I saw Hiei turn to look at them as well from the corner of my eyes, and I could feel myself shivering. So this is what sent my demon sense all out of whack, I thought, then grimaced as the second entity reared its head again and screamed. It felt as though my eardrums were shattering, but I didn't bother to check if they were bleeding, my eyes focused on the black entity, as it randomly decided we were its target rather than the humans as the rest of the entities shot off toward the nearest humans they sensed. "…Oh, we're so screwed."

Authoress's Note: Sorry for the cliff-hanger. For once it wasn't intentional. ...Okay, so it was. But I'll redeem myself for it in the next chapter. More action, angst and "squee"-able sentimental moments to come.