Surprise!

Are you happy to hear from me again? Good, I knew you would be. You may not be so happy to read the actual contents of this update though...

Oh no, don't worry! I won't delete it or anything horrible like that! (I'd have to be a fool, after putting off so much other crap to finish this...) This is the ending of Yukina, my (sniffle) pride and joy. Ok, so I'm going a bit overboard. Oh well. Anyway, prepare for the TWIST ENDING of your life! The dangling bits of this story are at long last tied up (after, holy hell, over a year). I strongly encourage you all, especially you guys who read the original, who I lurve, by the way, to re-read the story before reading this chapter. And you know, tossing in a few comments here and there wouldn't hurt... (smile wink nudge).

Yukina

Chapter 10: The Double

I turn away from him, smile, and vanish.

But this time, it's for good.

I won't come back to haunt his dreams, to give him hints, to make him remember.

He can be happy as happy as Hiei can be now just as he is.

A tear rolls down my cheek, transforming, predictably, halfway through its journey into a perfect, round tear gem.

I lift my hand from my side to catch it in my palm, and start as I gaze at the first pearl I have ever cried that is a sorrow-filled black. A smile touches the corners of my lips as I think of Hiei's white pearl, and how completely the color switch was made in his tears and mine.

It seems we who harbor dark and horrible secrets in our minds are cursed to have them reveal themselves in their own little ways.

Hiei's secrets were in his own mind, mysteries even to himself. Now that they have been rediscovered and he can start learning to make peace with them, his sadness will be pure and simple.

He will only cry for that which others can understand.

I rest my eyes on the pearl lying on my flat, open palm.

These hands once were soft and warm. Once they could have held my brother, my twin, my protector.

But I knew Hiei as none of these things until I was ripped from him.

I had wanted so badly for him to catch me. I had hoped to, for one moment in my life, hold my brother's hands in mine and feel our connection.

But I felt the icy impact of water before a warm embrace.

As I left him I saw his failed attempt to save me. I cried and screamed when I thought he might have died.

But I felt a guilty, awful glimmer of hope.

He might have died.

He might have followed me.

I stayed at his bedside all those months. Those long, long months I half-hoped he would wake, and half-hoped he would leave them for good.

And then his eyes opened.

And he remembered nothing.

My heart broke.

I died again that day.

But now I see him encircled in a bittersweet happiness he could not have with me. We have no warm hands to hold.

Another tear falls from between my closed eyelashes, but this one I let drop off into nothingness.

Hiei was almost mine, but I pushed him away. I pushed him into the embrace of a lie.

But the lie is not his, and so long as some things are forever unknown to him, he will be at peace, finally.

I stare at Kurama's retreating back, as he leads Hiei away from me. Hiei will never see me again on this earth, but I can still savor these last precious moments.

Kurama.

He can make Hiei happy, and I know he will try his best. I know he did what he did for Hiei, and Hiei alone.

But did I have to pay such a price?

Was my brother's happiness doomed to only ever be incomplete?

I was with him that day...the day he created that thing...

"Yukina, could I speak with you for a moment?" he asked politely.

It was an innocuous request, and she accepted. "Of course." She nodded to him, then turned to bow to the old woman sitting beside her, "Please excuse me," she murmured, and hurried outside, following the redhead.

He led her around the back of the temple, and motioned for her to enter the forest. She trusted him, even though the woods frightened her.

They walked for some time, until they reached a small grove.

She stared, open-mouthed, at the hideous colossus before her. It looked like a very ugly demon, but the practical side of her assured the alarmed part that it was only a massive amalgamation of vines intertwining. It only looked like a monster.

"Don't be afraid," he said gently, "It is not alive, it won't hurt you."

She whispered, "What is it?"

He smiled. "Something I need your help with…"

He had wanted to fuse life, his green vines and plants, with my dead, cold ice magic. It had created a fearsome, strange breed of monster. He told me it was to protect someone he cared about.

He wasn't lying about that.

He had told me, though, that it wouldn't hurt me. And that was his terrible lie.

He set that thing on me to remove me from the picture.

In a twisted way, Kurama was right all along.

Hiei could never inform me of the bond we shared, and the secret ate him alive. It prevented him from being happy with Kurama, whose fondest wish was to see my brother smile.

But he could not smile. Not until he had my approval...and my silence.

The monster took care of both in an instant, revealing the secret and silencing me. I was no longer a threat, a liability, to Hiei's safety.

Kurama was brilliant.

Without a sister, Hiei had no weaknesses, other than his own grief.

But grief would never kill my twin. Though he believed himself weak for only trying his best to save me, in his heart he was always the strongest person I have ever known.

And so Kurama knew he could heal my twin's sadness, replacing a bond that could have been, and could have also been a danger to us both, with a bond that could be safely reciprocated.

So while I float above the mortal plain and watch my brother live beside a lie…he, at least, will have the best chance at happiness he could ever have had.

My twin will be content, trusting of his friend the youko, ever the sly fox…

So long as some things are left unknown.