Hiei might have been on his thirty-fifth week of pregnancy, but no matter how far along he was, he would always have energy enough for something as important as this. It was safe to use the Jagan eye during pregnancy, too, as long as he didn't use it on himself or the baby—and that, of course, was crucial.

Justice at last, thought Hiei, smirking to himself as his fingers brushed against the huge hunting knife in his pocket. It seemed almost as hungry for blood as he was. Soon it would all be over.

Eventually, the Jagan led him to a dirty, run-down area, with cheap, hole-in-the-wall apartments and an underlying, foul odor of cigarette smoke and garbage. Hiei knew he was getting closer when one of the cars parked near the apartments looked significantly damaged. So he hadn't even bothered to get it repaired? Well, he'd have bigger worries soon.

It was a good thing this apartment building was old and in disrepair, because, unlike at Yukina's apartment, he didn't need to be buzzed in. He just opened the door and walked right in. The lobby was busy, so he was able to sneak past the front desk and get to the elevators. An apartment in a nicer area might have had guards or something similar, but this one lacked them completely.

Hiei got to the correct floor, still following the Jagan's guide, and used it to find the correct door. The owner must have been home, because Hiei could hear the sound of the television coming from inside. When he finally got there, Hiei wasted no time in kicking down the door.

"Who's there?" came a voice from the couch.

"I should be asking the same thing," said Hiei. "Stand up and face me like a man, why don't you?"

"What—um—how can I help you?" asked the man, looking a little nervous as he stepped out in front of Hiei. He was a scrawny man, unshaven, wearing clothes that looked secondhand, and he smelled strongly of drink, although he looked sober at the moment.

"That depends," Hiei replied. "Where were you last Wednesday evening?"

The man's face flushed. "I-I was at work."

"Did you drive at all that day?"

"No," he replied nervously, his eyes darting away from Hiei.

"Liar!" Hiei shouted, and he pulled out the knife, the sharpened silver blade gleaming under the dingy lights of the apartment.

"Woah!" The man's eyes flashed with fear as his hands flew into the air. "I-I don't want trouble! I don't have any money, but you can have my car, I've got the keys in my pocket if you just—"

"I don't want your junked-up car," said Hiei, still pointing the knife in the man's direction. "Get down on your knees!"

"This isn't going to work! My older brother is a judge!" the man blurted out.

"Today, I'm the judge," Hiei snarled. "Down on your knees! NOW!"

It didn't matter if it was a bluff or not. Hiei didn't flinch. The man, now visibly trembling, sunk to his knees, his hands still raised in surrender. Hiei went to his side and pulled him back by his sweaty hair with one hand, the other hand holding the knife to his throat.

"I happen to know you were driving on Wednesday," said Hiei quietly, "and you hit another car."

The man swallowed. Hiei pressed the blade closer to his prey's throat, almost enough to draw blood.

"My husband was driving that car," he continued, his voice now a deadly whisper. "Right now he's in the hospital, in a coma, and they don't know if he's going to make it. Not only did he leave behind a baby son and a family…but he left behind one very pissed-off husband." Hiei felt his face contort into a twisted grin. "Any last words?"

"I-I'm sorry!" the man choked, his throat fighting against the knife. "I…I was drunk! If I got another DUI, I'd lose my license, and I couldn't afford to pay the fine—"

"Bullshit!" Hiei barked, yanking the man's head further back by his hair. "You have money enough to spend on drink, but not on a little fine? You lost my husband his life, and you're worrying about losing your license?!"

"Believe me, I-I know what it's like to grow up without a dad!" the man pleaded. "I didn't know—I didn't mean to—"

"You left him there!" Hiei shouted. "You fled the scene and you didn't even stop to see if he was okay! You're nothing but a filthy coward! And today is the day cowards die!"

"Hiei! Stop! Don't kill him!"

Shocked, the pregnant demon turned to see none other than Prince Koenma standing in the doorway, with his hands in the air, just like the man who was on his knees in submission now. How he got there, Hiei didn't know, but he certainly wasn't going to let Koenma get in the way of today's plans.

"Drop the weapon, Hiei," said Koenma, his face pale.

"Are you crazy?!" Hiei snapped. "This man killed Kurama, just as surely as if he had held a knife to his throat!"

"I understand, and Kurama didn't deserve that," Koenma said quickly. "But think, is this really what Kurama would have wanted?"

"We'll never know, will we?" Hiei said back. "Thanks to this fool I have here, he can't tell us."

"If you kill him, Hiei, you'll go to prison, and he won't," said Koenma. "Please, just set the knife down and we can talk."

"I'm done talking," said Hiei, "and you're really insane if you think I'm going to prison."

"I won't be able to bail you out this time," Koenma insisted. "The punishment for killing a human is out of my jurisdiction. And my dad won't show you any mercy. They will never let you out. You'll stay in a hole in the ground forever. Is that what you want?"

"Don't act like you care about me, fool!" Hiei shouted. "You just want me to spare him because you don't want to get in trouble with your dad!"

"What—what's going on?" said the man, his voice still constricted by Hiei's blade.

"You shut up!" Hiei barked at him, and turned back to Koenma. "There's nothing you can say to stop me from what I need to do."

"Listen to me!" Koenma pleaded. "You do not want to do this! It's not what Kurama would have wanted, you know it isn't! Do you want your baby to grow up without both his parents? They're not going to let you keep him in prison. He'll be taken away from you the second he's born. He'll never know you or Kurama. And what about Yukina? There's too much on the outside for you to be stuck on the inside! Drop the weapon!"

Hiei gritted his teeth, his eyes clenched tight. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear a familiar woman's pleading, desperate voice.

"My baby! I'm begging you, give him back to me!"

If he went to prison, Reikai authorities would snatch his baby right out of his arms, just as the Koorime had snatched him away from his own mother. Hiei's hand tightened on the handle.

"This is my sin. Please don't punish my son for it!"

The baby would be paying for Hiei's sin. Did he really want that to happen? Did he really want to rot in prison for the rest of his life, missing Kurama and the baby both, his choices haunting him, while this idiot had been given the sweet release of death? It was all closing in on him, his memories clawing at him, blending in with the present day. His life had been nothing but loss and pain. Every time he thought he had something important, it was taken away. He remembered what Rui had said about his mother's suicide, only a few weeks ago.

It was too much…She wasn't right…She wasn't all there…She couldn't even look after Yukina properly, and I had to take over…Even though she had only taken her life that day, she had been gone for a long time.

Finally, Hiei removed the knife from the man's throat, though he still used his other hand to hold onto the hair. The man on his knees and Koenma both visibly relaxed just a little.

"You're right," Hiei said quietly. "This bastard isn't worth it."

"Good." Koenma's face was still pale, but he looked relieved. "Now just drop the weapon, and we can get out of here. I promise this man will pay for his crimes."

"Not just yet," said Hiei. "First I have to ask you something important."

"Anything." Koenma eyed the knife in Hiei's hand, probably thinking Hiei would go for him next.

"If an unborn baby is thirty-five weeks along, can it survive outside its mother's body?" Hiei asked him.

"I-I suppose," said Koenma, looking confused.

"Good," said Hiei quietly, running his finger calmly along the blade's edge, enjoying the sight of the red blood that trickled out of his slightly broken skin, relieving the pain just a little. "I want you to save him."

Dawning comprehension quickly led to horror on Koenma's face.

"Hiei, no!" he cried, rushing over, but it was too late. Hiei let go of the human man, held his breath, and dug the knife as deep as he could into both his arms, thankful that the delicious physical pain would replace the intolerable pain in his heart in his last moments. And the apartment faded out, just as he'd planned all along, as he sunk into peace, a release for the agony, the final dark night of the soul.

…

Hiei wasn't sure where he was at first. The light was blinding. His arms hurt. He could hear voices, but he couldn't quite make out whose. The spirits of the dead?

Maybe I can find my mother now, he thought…but then, he certainly wouldn't have gone to the same place she had. All his crimes had certainly been weighed, landing him in a place not much better than the prison he'd been trying to avoid. Yet he felt so weak. And why did he still feel so much pain? He blinked, trying to get a feel for his surroundings.

"Hiei," came a familiar-sounding voice from somewhere to his right. "Hiei, can you hear me?"

"M-Mother?" Hiei mumbled.

Yes, it was her. They were in the same place, even if he couldn't understand why. But even though he hadn't seen her since he was a newborn, and everything was blurry and muted, she looked just the way she did in his memories. Now, he could finally tell her he loved her. Perhaps Kurama would be joining them soon. She would like him.

"I'm here, Mother," he told her, trying to hold out his arms, but they hurt too much. He wanted to feel her arms around him, just once, even if it was at the end of his life and not the beginning.

"I don't think he's awake yet, guys," said another voice, this one also familiar—but what was he doing here?

"Silence, fool," he demanded. "You won't even leave me alone in death?"

"You're not dead, Hiei," said the female voice, but it didn't sound like Hiei's mom anymore. She was becoming clearer, and that was when he realized his mistake.

"Yukina?" Hiei said in disbelief. "Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital." Hiei opened his eyes to see Koenma staring down at him, his expression stony. "You were sure lucky to have a demon body. An ordinary human would have bled out before the paramedics arrived."

Hiei looked down to see white hospital bandages covering the lengths of both his arms. And then it finally hit him. His plan had failed.

"I…I'm still alive?" he said.

"Yes, you are," said Koenma. Hiei looked around him. Koenma, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Yukina, and Keiko were all there around his bedside, all of them looking just as disappointed as Koenma. Yukina and Keiko both looked as if they'd been crying.

"Look…," Hiei began, addressing Yukina, but she turned away.

"Yukina's disappointed in you," Kuwabara informed him. "She was really scared."

Hiei hung his head in shame. All he wanted was for Yukina to be happy. Kuwabara's words cut into him much worse than the knife ever could.

"Reikai is officially putting you on suicide watch until further notice, Hiei, including a house arrest for your own safety, and a removal of all potential weapons from the house," Koenma told him, and sighed. "That is within my jurisdiction. My dad doesn't understand why I care about some demon's life."

Hiei didn't have the energy or the heart to argue about it. What did it matter? He didn't understand why Koenma cared about his life, either.

"Why didn't you just use your pacifier to save me, if you wanted me to live so badly?" Hiei said finally. "Didn't that thing bring that kid back to life? In fact—why don't you use it to heal Kurama?"

"It can only bring back souls that want to come back," Koenma explained. "Gamemaster didn't want to die. Obviously, that didn't apply to you, and Kurama's soul shows no pull, either."

"I can understand that for me, but why would Kurama have lost the will to live?" said Hiei. "There's still so much for him here."

"It's funny you would say that, Hiei, as it's what everyone else thought when they learned of your decision," Koenma replied. "And to answer your question, I don't know why Kurama's soul isn't willing to make the effort. Have you been in to visit him yet?"

"Of course not," said Hiei. "I don't want to see him like that." He paused. "Why didn't you save the baby, like I asked?"

"You think I could have performed a C-section on you with just a knife?" Koenma said in disbelief. "The baby would have died right along with you, and then what?"

Hiei felt tears in his eyes. "I-I didn't think—"

"That," said Yukina coldly, "is obvious."

The combination of shame, humiliation, and guilt Hiei felt was unbearable. He couldn't take everyone staring at him like this, somehow making him feel even worse than he already did. They still didn't know he'd tried to do this once before, when he was living with Mukuro. The two of them had sort of silently agreed to never mention it again; neither had really considered the possibility that Hiei would ever return to that dark place in his mind.

"Can you all please just leave me alone?" he said miserably.

"Part of a suicide watch is not leaving you alone," Keiko spoke up. "So no, we can't."

"I'm not going to do anything now!" Hiei snapped at her. "I can't, not in this hospital bed with all these wires and things on me, and in this stupid gown."

"I'll stay with him," said Koenma in a tired voice, sitting down in a chair near the back of the room. "You all go home and get some rest."

Hiei silently watched everyone leave the room, his heart still aching. This was the very pain he'd been trying to escape, and yet it was somehow worse than ever.

"Well?" said Koenma, once everyone else had left. "Aren't you going to ask me how I found you?"

"I don't really care," said Hiei, turning his face away.

"That's not very polite, but I'll tell you anyway," said Koenma. "The truth is, I had Jorge keep an eye on you ever since we caught wind of Kurama's situation. I figured you would use your Jagan eye to go after the man responsible for this. When he tipped me off, I knew I had to stop you from doing something stupid."

"You should have just let me die."

Koenma didn't say anything, just sighed and stared out the window. Hiei didn't know what he was looking at. It was dark, and there was no moon. Hiei couldn't take the silence, so he tried to think of something else to talk about.

"Did the doctors think I was a pregnant woman, or just fat?" he asked.

"They had to undress you to put you in the gown," Koenma replied, "so I think you know the answer to that."

Before Hiei could think of what to say back, though, the door to the room opened and a nurse stepped in.

"Oh, good, you're awake," she said. "You gave us quite a scare, Hiei, but I'm pleased to say that you're going to be fine."

Hiei just glared at her. Couldn't she understand that he wasn't "fine" at all?

"Since it's night and you need your rest, I figured I could give you a little bit of sleep medicine," she continued. "How does that sound?"

"That sounds great," Hiei mumbled, as he really did want to sleep.

"Okay," said the nurse. "Drink this."

Hiei drank the sedative she gave him, and not much later, he was sinking into nothingness once more.