I suppose that by now it is only fair to tell you, in case you haven't already figured it out, that I love to write angst. Though I suppose that offing one of the main characters in the third chapter and now offing the other main character was a strong enough hint?

Yes, readers, the story is drawing to its conclusion- but not quite yet; there's still a few things to wrap up. For example, how do you think Hiei's taking all of this?

"How could he be so stupid?" he growled. "Why did he do this!"

"Simple," Kuronue said calmly. "He wasn't willing to lay down the children's lives. Even if it meant forfeiting his own."

"But. I. Don't. Want. Him. To. Die!" Hiei hissed. "Kurama has too brilliant a mind; too much he hasn't done yet, to die. Not now, not for a long time." He paced the ground, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

"Odd. For being a 'cold-hearted, selfish fiend', Kurama hasn't been fulfilling his reputation. Of course, that was a reputation created by the mass, and what do they know? They didn't know him for the intellectual we know. And this- sacrificing everything for children he won't get to know or raise. A very admirable action."

"Not when it costs him his life!" he retorted. "He should have terminated the damned pregnancy." If he still lived, he'd have forced Kurama to abort the babies, even if he had to fight the Fox tooth and nail the entire way to the operating room. He didn't care if Kurama got angry, broke up with him, hated and cursed him for the rest of his life… he wouldn't have let Kurama die bearing his children. "This isn't right! It's not supposed to be this way!"

Kuronue was silent for a minute. "And what, pray tell, was it supposed to be?"

Hiei stared at him. "I don't know," he grumbled. What business was is of his?

"You want to know what I think?" the Bat continued.

"No!" Hiei spat. Though he knew it didn't matter. He knew he'd hear it anyhow.

"Too bad." He'd been right. "I think that you remain in this rift of yours because you think it will have some influence over the doings in the mortal realm. That your being here, and not in the hereafter where you belong, will somehow keep Kurama from harm. Keep in mind that you're dead. You can't protect him now. What's the point of staying here?" He pointed to the Sakura tree. "Are you blind? Have you not noticed this the whole time you've been here? You're buried under that, are you not? This is your grave, Hiei. Who benefits from you staying here? Kurama? He'll be passing over to the next realm soon, and when he gets there he'll be wondering why you aren't there waiting for him. You want me to go find him, and explain to him that you're not there because you're sulking in your grave, clinging to a world you no longer belong too?"

Hiei bristled. He didn't like the thought of Kuronue going anywhere near Kurama without him there to supervise. He crossed his arms and shook his head, unable to believe any of this. 'Listen to that fool,' he thought bitterly. 'Going on as though he knows more than I.'

'He has been dead longer,' his reasonable side reminded him. 'And crossed over.'

'Oh, that's really impressive,' the paranoid aspect sneered. 'He thinks that just because he could let go so easily, others can do the same? I'm staying right here. I won't leave him.'

'Leave him? What's there to leave? In a few days he won't be there anymore. You've stayed here this whole time, watching him, and it hasn't prevented him from dying. You're dead, Hiei. And soon, Kurama will be too.'

Dead. Hiei was dead. Of course he'd known he was dead all along, but not until now had he fully realized that he no longer held any impact over what happened in the living world. Kurama was dying.

Of course nothing he did now affected the living world. That was a place for the living. For bodies. He was dead, no longer needing a body. Anything he did now here could neither benefit nor burden the living world because he didn't belong there anymore….

Suddenly Hiei was thrown into nothingness. He saw, heard, felt, thought… nothing. Then his senses came back to him in a tidal wave of confusion. Before his eyes danced swirls of every color imaginable. He heard water rushing, wind blowing, fire crackling, earth shaking, babies crying, birds singing… He felt warm and cold, dry and wet, happy and sad, confused and understanding. Then very calm. Random thoughts ran through his mind, everything from Kurama to ice cream.

Then he fell flat on his face. Sputtering swearwords and spitting out bits of grass and dirt at the same time, he got to his feet and looked around.

The scenery before Hiei looked completely different. The city was gone, and the wall, and the lake. For a split-second he panicked, then for some reason it no longer mattered. All of this had been replaced by a wilderness of meadow, forest, mountain…. The Sakura remained, though why, he didn't know. "What was that?" he wondered aloud, feeling rather dumbstruck.

"Crossing over." He looked over. Kuronue was sitting cross-legged on the grass, looking as though nothing had happened. "See?" He pointed to the sky. No longer sunset, it was turning a dusky purple.

Hiei blinked. "That's it?"

"What? You expected music and singing?"

He glanced at the Sakura. "Why did that stay?"

Kuronue shrugged. "Souvenir from the Earthly Plane? I have one too." He held up his pendant. "I figure, I went to all that trouble to retrieve it, I'm taking the damned thing with me."

The Koorime was quiet for a moment. "I got a tree…." Ironic.

"Your personalized sleeping quarters," Kuronue offered. "No real need for swords or anything here."

"Hn."

"You get Kurama too," a new voice said. Hiei turned, and then stiffened. Koenma was approaching him.

"YOU!"he growled. The dreamy feeling had dissipated, replaced by the anger he'd previously been feeling.

"Don't you dare start to accuse me of being responsible for this," the godling barked before Hiei had a chance to say anything else. "I feel bad. But you know there really wasn't a thing I could do after he made up his mind."

"You should have known he'd make that choice!" he snarled. "He is, after all, a sentimental fool. He's prepared to die before if it meant that human mother of his would go unharmed. When it comes to ties like that, Kurama doesn't know self-preservation if it bit him on the ass."

"So I'm to blame?" Koenma asked angrily. "I told him what would happen. I tried to change his mind. What else do you want from me?"

"You could have made him. If it meant he'd live."

"And what do you think would have happened? After it was over with, what do you think would have happened after he left?" Hiei thought about it. His stomach flipped-flopped when he realized what Koenma was implying. "Exactly. Had I done that he would have died a lot sooner."

Hiei tried to shake off the thought. "Why have you come?"

Koenma softened his tone. "I really shouldn't be doing this- it goes against the rules- but I feel guilty, so I'm bending the rules just a little… I thought that you may like to hold your children. See them in person."

Kuronue quirked an eyebrow. Hiei stood frozen, paralyzed by shock. "There's a transitory portal not far off if you walk that way." Koenma pointed. "You have until dawn. I'm tired and don't feel like staying up looking for a temporarily-embodied spirit run amuck." The Koorime stared, the nodded dimly and disappeared in a black blur.

"Why did you do that?" Kuronue asked once Hiei was gone. "I just got him to cross over. Do you realize how much work I had to do to achieve that? Hell, I even wrenched his mother away when she tried to visit him. I forbade her from seeing her own son! Gods! If Kurama didn't care so much for him I wouldn't even bother."

"And not because you consider him a friend?" He didn't receive a reply from the Bat. "I doubt all your effort will be for nothing. I trust that Hiei won't forget." Silence fell between the two. "I notice that you don't seem upset over this."

He shrugged. "Kurama's not an idiot. I trust that he knew the pros and cons, but did what he thought was best. That's all you can ask from anyone. Besides, it's not as though he lived a short life by any means."

The godling yawned. He felt exhausted. "And, I assume, you're looking forward to seeing him again?"

Kuronue smirked, and then shrugged. "Most people want companionship. Some of us are just less vocal about it."