It's me again. I'm really starting to love where this story is going, aren't you? Not much to say today, except congrats to Ebbster, the only one who noticed the whole fire color thing (that'll explain itself in a minute). Here Ebbster, have Hiei and Kurama plushies. And now, ON WITH THE FIC!
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"Yep, that's definitely Hiei alright," Koenma said mostly to himself, his eyes never leaving the green fire consuming the demon forest on his TV screen.
"B-but sir," Jorge stammered, "isn't Hiei's fire more…um…purplish?"
Koenma sighed, sitting back in his chair, still staring at the screen. "That is true Ogre, but as you probably know, both reiki and youki are directly connected to a person's emotions. Take for example when Yusuke's power was unreachable to him for that brief time during the Dark Tournament. Sometimes, the emotions of the wielder can be so…shall we say 'out of whack' that the wavelengths are disrupted to the point that the color of an attack or even the attack itself can change drastically."
"So…Hiei is under some kind of emotional stress?" Jorge asked, unsure he had followed the explanation right.
"Yes, Ogre, and by the looks of it it's pretty sever." Koenma leaned forward again, studying the wild green flames. "By the looks of things…I'd say Hiei is pretty dangerously distraught and experiencing a rather strong depression."
"He's feeling all that? What would cause him to act like that?" Jorge wondered out loud.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Koenma replied solemnly.
(xxx)
Hiei finally stopped near a large cave. After burning the forest he had started to run. He didn't know why or where he was going, he just felt the urge to get as far away as possible. The cave was spacious and didn't feel as though anyone had inhabited it in a long time. Hiei crouched before it for a few minutes longer, panting heavily. No sleep had left him with little energy, almost all of which he had used to burn the forest. What troubled him most was the color of the fire. Why green?
Shaking the thought from his mind, Hiei entered the cave just as a flash of lighting lit up the dark sky and large raindrops began to fall. He sat in the very back of the cave, in the darkest corner there was. The entrance was but a pinprick of light in the distance. It didn't matter, he could see perfectly well in the dark and besides, he didn't really feel in the mood to be in the light anyway.
Delving a hand deep into the folds of his cloak, he produced the heart and stared at its glossy surface for a few minutes. "Why?" he finally asked it. "Is this my punishment for killing you? To be doomed to an eternity of seeing you when I sleep and losing you when I wake? Or is this the nightmare and the other is the waking world?" Hiei trailed off, still watching the heart. Finally he turned away and pocketed it again. He couldn't bare the sight of it any longer. It was a constant reminder of what he had had in the palm of his hand and unwittingly thrown away so carelessly.
His fists balled as anger returned to his being at the thought of his stupidity. He had done this to himself. His tormented fate had been brought about by nobody's hand but his own. He was ready to accept that now. He was ready to take the blame and stop pretending it was Mukuro or even Kurama himself who was at fault. It was Hiei, the Forbidden Child, who had been too stupid to realize his own true feelings before it was too late.
"Baka!" he growled at himself, standing and laying a solid punch into the wall of the cave. A hole appeared and blood began to drip from his broken knuckles but he swung again with his other hand, creating another hole and spilling more blood.
"Baka! Baka! Baka! Baka! Baka!" he screamed at himself as he continued his assault on the wall, smashing it away bit by bit as his arms moved too fast for even Yusuke's eyes to have possibly followed.
"BAKA!" With that last scream he laid one final punch into the wall and then stood there, panting. All was quiet for a minute, the only sound in the cave being his own labored breaths. Then he heard a sound above him, causing him to look up. He immediately understood what was happening but was powerless to stop it. His attack on the wall had weakened its support of the cave ceiling and he had maybe seconds before the rocks came crashing down on him. But he couldn't move. He had used too much energy, first on the fire than running to the cave and finally destroying the wall. He didn't have the energy to take a single human-speed step, let alone invoke his own normal speed to get out of the way.
Sighing in defeat, he lowered his head again and closed his eyes, one hand reaching up to hold the crystal heart through the fabric of his cloak. "Kurama…" he whispered as the ceiling came crashing down and he knew no more.
(xxx)
"Hiei!" Hiei was brought back to the edge of consciousness by the sound of someone calling his name and his arm being shaken rather hard.
"Hiei, please wake up! Hiei!" Hiei's heart jumped into his throat. He recognized that voice.
His eyes flew opened and he bolted upright, nearly colliding with the worried face of his beloved kitsune which had been just above him. Luckily, Kurama managed to lean back just in time to avoid smacking foreheads with the half-Koorime.
"Hiei!" Kurama cried in relief, pulling the fire demon into a tight hug. Hiei just stared at the fabric of Kurama's shirt. This wasn't happening again. It wasn't. He didn't need this to happen again and confuse him even more. He had almost convinced himself that this was only a dream and the other reality had been the real one, but being here again…feeling his fox against him…taking it his unique aroma…it couldn't be a dream. It just couldn't be.
"I was so worried, Hiei," Kurama whispered, apparently not noticing Hiei's unresponsiveness or else attributing it to shock from the nightmare his love had obviously been experiencing. "You started screaming and lashing out in your sleep and then you just stopped moving and wouldn't wake up no matter what I did."
At these words Hiei became aware of a stinging sensation on his cheek and reached a hand up to feel it. You couldn't feel pain in a dream…could you? No. So then this wasn't a dream. Right? He didn't know. He just didn't know.
Kurama felt the smaller demon's movements and looked down to see Hiei running his fingers over a red handprint on his cheek. Kurama winced slightly, a blush tinting his cheeks.
"Gomen nasai, Hiei," Kurama apologized softly, gently removing Hiei's hand from his cheek and delicately caressing the red spot with the back of his own hand. "You…you scared me. You just wouldn't wake up. Gomen nasai." Kurama leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to Hiei's cheek.
Hiei's eyes flew wide in surprise, but not in disgust like they had before, in the kitsune's bedroom on the day of his death in that other horrible reality. Kurama had been scared for him. The thought filled Hiei with a warm feeling that was utterly foreign to him. So far, all he had experienced of love was the pain of loss felt when a loved one is taken away. This warm feeling…was this what love was supposed to feel like? Tears were dripping down his face again and Kurama pulled back in surprise.
"Hiei?" the redhead asked gently. Instead of an answer, Hiei leaned up and kissed him on the lips. He half expected the fox to pull away, but to his utter delight he felt Kurama kiss him back and even run his tongue along the half-Koorime's lips, begging to be let in. Hiei was more than happy to comply and soon his head was spinning with ecstasy and disbelief as Kurama's hot tongue ran along the inside of his mouth, not missing a single spot.
"Kurama…" Hiei breathed when they finally parted for air, resting his head on the redhead's chest again and forcing all of his focus into not breaking down in a crying fit like he did last time. "Gomen nasai. I'm so, so sorry," Hiei whispered brokenly.
"Sorry? Whatever for?" Kurama asked, trying to pull back enough to see Hiei's face. But Hiei's hold on him was too tight and the fire demon kept his face hidden in the fox's chest.
"For being so stupid. For not seeing it soon enough to stop it. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! It's my fault, all my fault!" Hiei's voice cracked with emotion and he stopped cursing himself for being so weak. Kurama just stared wide eyed at the small demon clinging to him. Hiei had been rambling and he hadn't caught everything he had said, but he was terribly upset and thought that something, something rather gruesome and unfortunate by the sound of it, was his fault.
"Hiei," Kurama tried to reassure him, "nothing is your fault."
"But it is!" Hiei cried, finally pushing back and looking up to meet the redhead's eyes. Kurama almost gasped but managed to stifle it just in time. Hiei looked…broken. His eyes shone with unshed tears and he had such a horribly pained expression on his face. "I'm the one to blame. No one else. Me! It was my fault! It wasn't Mukuro's or yours, it was mine! My fault! My fault…" he trailed off, looking down and clenching his fists, his shoulder's shaking as he closed his crimson eyes and willed himself not to cry.
"Hiei…" Kurama didn't know what to say. What was Hiei talking about? Then a thought dawned on him and he wondered why he hadn't thought about it before. "Hiei, are you talking about that nightmare you had earlier? Did you have it again?"
Hiei let out a bark of a laugh that sounded more like a sob than anything else. "What I wouldn't give for it to be a nightmare," he whispered to himself.
"It is a nightmare, Hiei," Kurama tried to assure him but Hiei shook his head.
"You don't understand. It's so real, just like this. I feel it. I feel everything. The pain, the torment, the guilt. Everything! It's so real, too real. When I'm there, I'm certain that it's real and this is just some stupid optimistic dream my mind created to make me feel better. But when I'm here, I feel just the opposite. I'm certain that this world is the real one, here with you, and the other is just what you say it is, a nightmare. It's so hard to tell, I can't tell!" By now Hiei had completely lost his fight against the tears and they cascaded down his face, adding to the pile of teargems left after his last breakdown.
Kurama just stared. Once again he had only understood about half of what his love had told him and he was left at even more of a loss than he had been before. Was what Hiei was saying true? Had he lost touch with reality so severely that he couldn't tell what was real and what was a dream?
"Hiei," Kurama started, reaching out to touch him, but Hiei's head flew up and he jumped back off the bed to stand beside it.
"Don't touch me!" he cried. His expression softened and he looked at the floor. "Please…every time you touch me it just makes it that much harder when I go back to that…that…nightmare or whatever the hell it is. Every time you try to comfort me and make me believe this is real, it just makes me hate myself that much more when I have to go back to that place where I can't be with you like this anymore. So please, Kurama, just stop. Please."
"Hiei…" Kurama feared for his friend's sanity now. What had gotten into Hiei? What was causing this? He stood up from the bed and tried to reach for Hiei again, but he stepped back out of reach.
"Please…" Hiei whispered hoarsely, teargems bouncing as they hit the carpet.
"Hiei, let me help you," Kurama begged, stepping forward again. Hiei shook his head, unable to speak, more tears falling. He continued to back up. Kurama saw that Hiei was backing towards the bookcase and alarms went off in his head. He couldn't remember what, but there was something about the bookcase, something he had left until morning when Hiei had arrived, something dangerous. Looking up, he saw it. The plant! Kurama had been watering a plotted plant he kept on top of his bookcase when Hiei had come in, soaked and cold from the rain outside. Rushing to help the little demon warm up, Kurama hadn't placed the pot fully back on the shelf and it now protruded dangerously far from the edge.
"Hiei!" Kurama tried to yell a warning and lunged forward, trying to grab the demon before he hurt himself. Surprised, Hiei jumped back, jostling the bookcase. Just as Kurama feared it would, the pot came crashing down on Hiei's head. Hiei fell, catching sight of his love's very blurry and very worried face before unconsciousness took him.
(xxx)
Hiei opened his eyes slowly, groaning at the pounding in his head. He expected to be in Kurama's room but was forced to face a harsh reality when he looked around and found himself in a half-collapsed cave.
"No…not again," he groaned, unable to move. Everything hurt and he was so weak. Why did it have to be this way? Why did he deserve this? Then all the details of this world came back to him and he remembered exactly why he deserved this and so much more. He groaned for a third time and closed his eyes, trying to gather his strength to push the rocks off of him. If he didn't figure out which reality was the true one soon, he had no doubt that he would go farther out of his mind than even Sensui had been.