[Sorry for Hiei OOC, but it just is so sweet when he's nice...also 'borrowed' chapter title from Kikaider, if any of you have every seen it.] ............................................................................................................

Chapter Six: The Afterglow of Regret

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I slowly, ever so slowly, open my eyes and groan loudly. I must have been knocked unconscious. The pain is hurting so bad that I just want to go back to the darkness, where I can't feel anything, but I can't. I know that she's dead. My mother....Shiori....is dead. I can feel it in every fiber of my wretched being.

Someone is shaking me. My eyes focus and Hiei begins to come into view. He's shouting something, but I can't hear anything. It's like I've gone deaf. His lips are moving slowly, but there's no sound. I feel panic rise within me and I try my hardest to suppress it.

I try to assess what else has happened. I'm covered in a warm, sticky liquid. I lift up an arm and see that I'm immersed in blood...my own blood. In my hand I'm still holding that rose, my fingers clenched tight so that its thorns dig painfully deep into my skin.

I stare down at the petals that are no longer that solid gold anymore. They've changed. It's the deepest black with a dark crimson trimming that shines like fire against its beauty. My eyes shimmer with unshed tears that are just waiting to burst out. This rose, it's like a reflection....of my heart. I can sense it deep within me. I clutch it against my chest and I feel its warmth still...but it's a dying warmth, one that is quickly fading away.

There is an emptiness within my soul that has replaced my devastation and sadness. I can't feel anymore...there's nothing left of me inside, but this dying warmth that is quickly fading away. I would have given everything up right then if I had not felt a warm hand grip onto me.

My hearing seems to be coming back to me now because I can hear Hiei's voice faintly and growing louder each time he cries out to me. "Kurama!....Kurama!"

I look up into his eyes, his haunted blood red eyes almost spilling over with tears. Is he about to cry?! For me? Hiei....crying? I part my dry lips slightly as though to say something, blood leaking slowly out of the deep incision I have bit into my own lip with my teeth. I feel shaking fingers run themselves through my crimson crusted hair sending tingles down my spine. I realize that my head is now resting in Hiei's lap, and that he's leaning over me, those beautiful eyes that burn so deeply into my soul welling up with sadness and anger.

I reach up a shivering hand and grab onto the edge of his black shirt, wincing as pain shoots through my self inflicted cuts.

"Who did this?! Who did that to her!?" I ask, my voice quivery and my vision blurred.

Hiei brings me closer to him, hugging me tightly against his chest. With him holding me and being enveloped in his presence I can't help but break down again. I cling pathetically to him, crying and sobbing into his shirt trying to hold back the feeling of absolute emptiness.

I feel something hard drop lightly into my lap and I pause for a second to look down. Resting on my leg is a small black gem shaped like a tear. Slowly I pick it up and run it across my fingers, its slick coldness chilling me inside my heart. I look back up at Hiei to see that he is having trouble keeping his own ice cold composure.

"I don't know who did it....By the time I got there you were already.......You're the only one who ever knew......." He says, his voice consumed with anger. "Believe me, if I knew, that damn bastard would be fucking dead after I made him go through hell for what he did." He says maliciously, his eyes blazing with rage, but still edged with tears.

Then he turned to me and brushed the loose hair out of my face. "You must not have regained all your memories yet..." he says quietly.

My face contorts. Could there possibly be anything more than these awful memories of my mother's dead body? Who had done this? I had to remember! I just had to......but I am also scared to dig any deeper. Is it possibly that with this horrible pain I have only skimmed the surface of the events of my mother's death?

"I need to get you back Kurama...you're hurt..." Hiei whispers to me, grabbing onto my arm and pulling me up off my feet. I don't want to go back anyway. I just want to lay here and die....anything to end this pain. I slump back down onto my knees, unable to find the will.

"Damn it Kurama! I need to stop your bleeding!" he says angrily as he tries to pull me up again. I just close my eyes and turn away.

"Just let me die....it would be so much better that living..." I say quietly.

Hiei's face is contorting in pain as he pulls me up and does the thing I least expect at that moment....he kisses me, pressing his lips roughly on mine. As he pulls away from the kiss another tear drop forms in his eye and lands with a solid 'plunk' on the ground.

"You fool, don't you know that I need you! No matter what happens I promise I'll be there to stop it! I won't fail you again..." he says, his voice cracking at the end.

My eyes widen a little. Is he blaming this all on himself? "It's not you that failed...." I begin, but he cuts me off.

"Don't say anything Kurama....it's the truth...but next time....I won't let anything happen to you....damn it! If only I had..." He says bitterly, swearing continuously under his breath.

I look at him with 'renewed' eyes. Never before had I realized how much I meant to him...and how much he meant to me. I had been so blinded by my own selfish pain that I hadn't seen the agony that he was in too. Gently I reach up my hand to his face and brush my fingers gently across his cheek and plant a soft kiss on his forehead.

"Thank you....Hiei..." I say as I slowly collapse against his strong arms. I'm so tired...I just want to sleep...and his arms they seem so.....ever....so......warm.....

[lots and tons of more HieixKurama fluffiness coming! I love that stuff!...yeah....]