"Ah… aah! Stop it! Aaah… it hurts… stop… please…."

He had heard it a thousand times before. Her pained, pleading voice, coming from the darkness… but he could do nothing about it before, and he could do nothing about it now.

"Help… someone… Hiei-chan…."

There it was. She always called out his name… right before…

The light came from nowhere, but it came nonetheless. A scene unfolded before him; one in which an unknown assailant attacked her. Mercilessly.

"Ah! No! Please don't—" her words were cut short by a blow to the back of her head. Her dark eyes went blank, and she fell to the ground. Her assailant unsheathed a sword—

No. Not a sword. His sword. Her assailant meant to kill her with his katana.

This had never happened before.

Her assailant brought the sword up over his head; he positioned it so that one stab would pierce her heart. The light glinted off of the blade.

And then her assailant spoke.

"Say goodbye."

The sword came down.

All was silent.

Hiei woke with a start. He was panting, gasping for breath. Damn this, he thought. I hate these nightmares. He closed his eyes, and attempted to calm himself.

It wasn't working.

He got to his feet; found his cloak and sword. There was nothing more calming than a midnight—

He froze.

The sheath was empty.

There was a trail of blood leading… where? No matter, he would follow it to its source. But… whose blood was it? Could it be—

No. He wouldn't allow himself to consider that.

It was raining outside, but the trail of blood didn't wash away. He followed it. There were tracks… one set of footprints, heavy, and one… other trail… possibly of someone being carried.

Or a body being dragged.

Damn it! Stop thinking like that! he told himself. This can't be what it seems… it just can't!

Hiei stopped. A slight noise had caught his attention. He jumped out of the way, for no other reason than a hunch he'd been standing still too long. He whirled around.

Nothing.

He blinked. What? I could've sworn there was something… there…. No matter. There was still a trail to follow. But… where was it leading him…?

There. He stopped again. His sword was laying along the trail. It was covered almost completely in blood; hilt and blade. Despite the rain, the blood was still bright red.

He picked it up. The blood dripped from it. Whose blood…? he wondered. It didn't matter; he kept going along the trail, pausing every few moments to listen for footsteps.

He looked ahead of him. There was someone… lying… just lying there, on the ground….

Unmoving.

Hiei ran up to him— no, her. It was a female. She was drenched in blood. He checked for a pulse; nothing. She was dead.

She was also familiar. Too familiar….

Oh, no… not her… please, no….

But it was her, to Hiei's dismay. The girl from his nightmare.

No…. He fell to his knees. She can't be… she could always escape…. Could always cheat death….

All of a sudden, her body disappeared. The trail of blood was gone. A few meters ahead, the tracks stopped.

No, "stopped" isn't the right word, he told himself. "Vanished" is more like it. On a whim, Hiei turned to look at the rest of the trail behind him.

It wasn't there.

He looked down at his blood-stained sword. The blood was gone. It was spotless. What the…? What kind of trick is this…?! he wondered.

And then Hiei woke up.

Damn it, Hiei thought. I'm sick of these stupid nightmares. Nightmares within dreams within nightmares…

"Hiei-kun! You're up!"

Hiei jumped. In less than a tenth of a blink of an eye, he had unsheathed his sword.

Botan came within .08 seconds of being sliced into pieces.

She, however, seemed oblivious of the fact. The blue-haired deity of death smiled at him. "No need to get jumpy, it's just me…."

He put his sword back in its sheath and glared at her. "Hn. What do you want?"

She smiled again. "Oh, nothing. Just wanted to see if you were up yet."

Baka on'na, he thought. I nearly kill her, and she doesn't even notice. "Goddess of Death," indeed.

Hiei went over to his favorite windowsill and sat down.

It was raining.

"So, I just have to… arrest her?" Yusuke asked. "That's it?"

Botan nodded in agreement. "Just arrest her, and bring her back here. Koenma's yôkai will take it from there." She had gathered Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuwabara into one room to tell them their next mission. The room just "happened" to be the same one Hiei was in.

"Hm. Seems simple enough. Then again… you can't forget what happened when I tried to 'just arrest' Hiei…."

A soft "hn" was heard from the windowsill.

Botan laughed. "True. But she should be a bit more— um… agreeable."

Yusuke raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Now, don't look at me like that. It isn't my fault you're the Spirit Detective."

"But, wait," Kuwabara interjected. "Why do we have to catch her in the first place? What'd she do?"

"She escaped from her captors; she is – or was, until now – a prisoner in a Makai penitentiary." Hiei looked marginally more interested at that statement.

"So, we simply detain her, and give her back to the Makai?" Kurama asked. Or, started to ask, at least.

Kuwabara butted in again. "But why was she in jail?"

"Um… the Makai officials weren't too… generous… with that information. They only said they wanted her recaptured and brought back to them."

"Friendly, aren't they?" Yusuke muttered.

"Yeah, about as friendly as—" Kuwabara stopped in midsentence. About as friendly as Shorty, he finished mentally.

Kuwabara glared at Hiei. Hiei glared back.

Botan stepped between them. "Now, now, children, let's not start anything we may regret…."

The tension in the room slowly descended to a roughly …volcanic level. "Hn," Hiei said, and resumed staring out the window. It was still raining.

"Well, we'd better not waste time," Yusuke said. "Let's get going!"