Without the jagan the city was completley different.

It was quieter, slower.

Hiei himself moved cautiously between the buildings.

He hated this.

Coming to a standstill on the edge of a skyscrapper, Hiei sunk to a crouch. Someone looking up would have thought him a gargoyle poised at the edge of the building. Hiei reached up and pulled the ward from his jagan. It was hard just opening the eye now, but it opened. He closed his two red eyes and concentrated. Slowly, a blurry outline of the city came to view, accented by neon lights and the loudest thoughts of the humans below. Hiei growled in frustration.

What was wrong with him?

Leaning back, Hiei let his legs go under him until he was half-leaning, half-laying against the building.

Ah, but he was tired.

He knew that were he to close his eyes for too long, he'd sleep.

There wasn't time to sleep now.

He couldn't feel Yukina anymore. It had happened slowly. He hadn't even noticed at first. When he sought Yukina through his jagan, the image had started to...flay at the edges, like an old piece of paper slowly rotting. Then, when the image was gone and he couldn't see her face anymore, the sound of her faded, and now, he couldn't sense her. It was like she had suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.

It was temporary.

Jagans do not just break.

But Yukina...he peered across the distance of the city and the distance in his memory. About her he had a bad feeling.

Something was wrong.

"Yukina..." he whispered.

But it wasn't just Yukina. Now Kurama was no where to be found. Hiei frowned. He had fallen asleep in a tree outside the fox's home and when he had woken up, Kurama hadn't come home. He had even gone to the human school, but there was no one there. Kurama had made no mention of going anywhere. Hiei had checked Genkai's temple, but the old woman had merely cocked an eyebrow at him, smiled and said, "So you're the "friend"?"

"Hn." he muttered, but something bothered him about the way the woman had looked at him. There was that smart-ass half-smile, sure, but she had been surprised to have seen him, and the look behind the smile and old eyes, was, strangely, pity.

Why pity?

"Idiot human." Hiei whispered under his breath now.

He had been searching for Kurama since sunset. He looked up at the stars. It was after midnight now.

He wanted the fox. It was a thought like a low drum in his mind. He wanted to see Kurama. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to bring his mouth to Kurama's. He wanted him.

Hiei sighed and his eyes slid shut. He could taste the fox in his mouth. He could hear his own desire on the air. It was a song he had grown used to over the past months. Youko blood was indeed amazing stuff, but it wasn't just the blood, was it?

But lately, Kurama had been acting strangely on-edge.

Hiei remembered the look on his face the night before when Hiei had taken Kurama's hands off of his eyes. Those green eyes were haunted. Why haunted? For a moment, Hiei had thought he had overstayed his welcome, for a moment, he truly thought the fox would push him away again, and when he hadn't, it only confused him more.

He laughed. He had been around the fox too much lately. He was thinking too much.

In the end, there was little to think about.

"Kurama..." Hiei whispered as a spell of dizziness caught him unawares.

Slowly, his eyes closed and he slumped forward.

Far below, a pair of green eyes watched, widened and turned away.

...to be continued...