Keiryi's Point of View

I came home with Hiro and Kazuma, but neither of them was very happy to be returning to the house. Hiro especially had a worried look on his face whenever he glanced sidelong at me. What is it he wants to tell me? I wondered, but nobody was in the mood for talking. After our little episode on the porch, I really didn't want to talk about what Yusuke and my mother might be doing in there.

"Hey, Keiryi," Kazuma called from the driver's seat. Both me and Hiro were seated in the back seat of their small, but functional, car.

"Yeah?"

"You'll be staying in the same room as Hiro and Mikari, okay?" I thought that over, and then realized what that meant. I would feel so awkward being alone again with Hiro. Now I knew he liked me, perhaps more, and I didn't want to be backed into a corner. I'm such a timid idiot, I thought to myself, allowing a slight chuckle as I mulled over my thoughts.

"Okay," I said, deciding that it would be better sleeping near Hiro and Mikari than sleeping alone.

The rest of the drive was short and silent. Hiro looked at me in an unnerving way the whole time, and I could see even more resemblance between him and Hiei. The way Hiei had glared at me then...if I wasn't so dazed, I would have run away then and there. His crimson eyes seemed to have the ability to peer into my soul. What else could they do if they could see what even I couldn't?

Just as I remembered, the Kuwabara house was homey and lived-in, a trait that I liked compared to our stark living space. A few possessions littered the floor, but it wasn't so bad as to be called chaos. If Yukina was sick though, chaos could soon take this harmless clutter's place. Quirking an eyebrow, I picked up an old take-out container. Usually, Mother would have yelled at me for it, but Hiro just gave me a look like I was crazy.

Upstairs, we found Mikari and Yukina. Yukina lay in bed with a warm cloth on her head. Her cheeks were pale and flushed, as if she had been severely sick for weeks now. "When did it start?" I asked Hiro in a whisper.

"Yesterday," he said, "after we got home. Kazuma knelt down by her bedside and felt her cheek. For a moment, I almost thought I caught a tear running down his cheek. No...it must have just been the lighting. Hiro had gotten his sense of humor and gaiety from his father, and there was no way that the constant source of joy in the twins' lives was...crying.

Mikari was only visible when I went around to the other side of the bed. She was curled up on the floor, asleep, though she was crying and shaking. Her shoulders heaved and Hiro sighed behind me. "She's been like this whenever she comes near Mom. I don't know what it is that happens...whenever I ask her she just says she doesn't remember."

"Maybe she doesn't want to," I offered distantly, gazing at Mikari's shrunken form. Though she had always been the quieter, understanding twin, I had never known her to break down like this. Never before had I seen Mikari really, truly crying.

"Hello," I said to Yukina, sitting down on the edge of the bed. She knew who I was, yet she looked at me and cocked her head, as if she needed to struggle to grasp my identity.

"You're...Kei...ryi..." I winced at the strain on her voice, but decided to keep on trying to offer her some comfort.

"That's right," I said soothingly, pressing the cloth down a little harder. "I'm Katie's daughter."

"She...she...brought this."

"What?" I exclaimed, shocked that my mother would wish anything like that on our family friend. "She made you sick?"

"No..." Yukina whispered, reaching out her hand to stroke my cheek. "Not...her...fault..."

"But you just said...?" I replied, confused as to how my mother could bring such a disease her without it being her fault. "How is it not her fault?"

"Let her rest," Hiro said to me, pulling me back slowly. "She can't use up all her energy to talk."

"Father..." That was the last word I heard Yukina whisper before I was quickly ushered out of the room. Whose father? Was she just hallucinating?

Once we were out, Hiro gave me a look and I decided it was best not to talk. He sounded so distressed, and I wanted to help him, but Mikari needed it just as much. We had covered her up and left her to cry over her mother.

"What did she mean?" I yelled once we were in the room I was to sleep in. "How can my mother bring about a disease like this without knowing it?"

"Relax," Hiro said, sitting across me and drinking a soda down. "I'm sure it was just a dream. Mom's said some weird stuff when she didn't know me and Mikari were around, and Dad never explains it when we ask. Just forget about it." I looked down at the Coke bottle that was sitting next to my bed. More nervous than ever, I popped it open and took a long swig.

The room was covered in posters of several favorite bands and pictures of the three of us. There was a room in my house that was just like this. It had about fifty pictures covering the wall. Before I had been able to examine the second person in the picture, Mother had told me to stay out of things that weren't my business.

One photo on the wall by Mikari's bed showed Mikari in a powder-blue kimono with a strange red ribbon tying her long hair back. In that picture, she was standing next to Yukina, and they could have been twins, except for the difference in height. My jaw dropped open and I realized it. They were so close, there must have been something deeper than the bond between a mother and a daughter. "What's wrong, Ri?" he asked. "I thought you'd seen that picture before."

He sat up to watch my watching the picture, and I smiled quietly. Out of nowhere, I could see the scene that always puzzled me when I awakened from my dreams...

A figure made of the shadows leaped from tree to tree, dragging a small sack behind it. "Kuronue," a light male voice whispered, trying to keep from being heard by some adversary. "Go back to headquarters with the rest of our men and take the treasure with you."

"Of course, sir," a slightly deeper voice replied, and I saw a dark-haired creature emerge from those same shadows that had produced this handsome man with silver hair and amber eyes. He seemed to be nothing more than a whip-like warrior, one acquainted with the ways of war and nothing else.

What happened next never failed to surprise me. The silver-haired man dashed toward a far-off building and leaped onto the roof. A silver fox tail streamed out behind him, and I enjoyed watching his snowy-white robes flutter in the wind. From his vantage point on the roof, he turned to the edge of a forest.

I saw a woman down there, one who possessed a certain wild beauty. She knelt beside the stream, dipping her hands in it to wash off blood...or some other substance. The man watched her, smiling euphorically as she stripped down and lowered herself into the river. Nothing impure showed in his eyes, just an admiration of her beauty as the moonlight shone off of her bare, wet body. She shone like a diamond, and I found it to be an awe-inspiring scene. "Amazing," I heard him whisper, and I echoed his comment.

The girl turned around to see who was there, and a frown creased her forehead once she realized that that man was watching her bathe. Her dark brown hair was slicked down her back, and I saw her golden eyes shining with an unmatched fury. Somehow, I knew that she was familiar, but I didn't remember knowing anyone like that. She was so pretty, so pure, so...perfect. Suddenly, the scene swirled, and I was slipping back into reality all too quickly...

"No!" I screamed, throwing out my arms. Hiro sat behind me, arms wrapped around my neck. His touch was simply fraternal, nothing suggestive.

"What happened?" he asked. "Were you daydreaming?"

"I guess so," I replied. "I...don't know what happened. I was watching these two people, and then I was shot back to reality. I didn't want to go back. Even though one was angry at the other, they were at peace with themselves. They knew who they were...and for a moment, I thought I was too." With a short laugh, Hiro crept around so that he was facing me directly.

"It's okay," he reassured me. "You'll find your place in the world eventually."

His words didn't seem as comforting as I thought they would. Who were those two people in the dream? The man was obviously in love with that girl, but she didn't love him like he did her and...I fell backward as I looked up to face Hiro. His crimson eyes gazed at me intently, and he stared at my smooth, bared stomach. "Stop it," I said. "All that will do is get us in trouble."

"Sorry," he said. "You're prettier than you know. Sometimes it's hard not to look."

Embarassed, I pulled my dark green t-shirt down and sat up. Hiro laughed at my embarrassment and I just turned a brighter shade of red. "Shut up," I said quickly and irritably, glaring at him. Hiro being Hiro, he smirked, taking it all as one big joke. He could be such a cocky little brat, but I didn't care as much as I should have.

Just as we were staring at each other, Mikari walked into the room. "Hi," she said in a barely audible whisper. "How are you doing, Keiryi?"

"Good," I replied, and turned to Hiro.

"How 'bout you?" Hiro asked his sister, observing the bags under her eyes.

"I stayed up all last night, and she's just getting worse. It's so slow, though, that this could take a very long time, maybe even years." I gasped at this news. Yukina already looked terrible, so how much pain would she have to go through before she finally died?

"Did she say anything else after I left?" I asked. If anyone would have known, it would have been Mikari. That bond between her and her mother had become so much more apparent after seeing the picture. Noticing that my eyes had drifted to that photograph once more, I quickly averted them and gazed at Mikari for a while.

"Not really," she replied. "She told me to stop worrying and go enjoy myself with you two but..."

Mikari just broke down and cried...hard. It was late, the Kuwabara family was going through a crisis, and I was caught in the crossfire. If I hadn't seen Yukina, I wouldn't be so curious now as to what had caused the disease. Now I knew that someone had poisoned her in some way. I moved in closer and wrapped an arm around Mikari's shoulders, smiling at her happily. "It's okay," I said. "Me and Hiro...we're here for you."

"Thanks, Ri," she said, using her brother's nickname for me. It made me blush a little, but I didn't mind it too much.

"I have a telepathic bond with Mom," she said, looking at me. "If she dies, I don't know what'll fill that void. The way she's going, I almost wish her death would come quicker. Whether I want it or not, I can always feel her pain pounding away. Something's tearing her apart from the inside, and she can't tell what it is. All I know is that it's one of the most dangerous things she's ever faced." I breathed slowly, with long breaks in between. Mikari looked so frail that I guessed she hadn't been eating for the past few days. Had she known this was coming before it actually happened?

Hiro had just looked down and ignored the conversation, but now he looked up at his sister. She started back toward me as he met her gaze with his. "So much for 'let's be good twins and share everything'!" he shouted. "Why'd you keep all those secrets? Can't you just tell me these things? I never knew much about Hiei, but you've gotten to visit him. I never knew about this telepathic bond. Anything else you'd care to share with me!"

"No," Mikari replied curtly, also growing angry just because her brother was mad at her. "Why do you have to be so nosy! Just because we're twins doesn't mean I can't have my own life!"

She glared at him one last time and stormed downstairs, most likely to sleep on the couch. Hiro flopped down on his bed and turned over, not in the mood to converse with me. That left me, and I opened up the window, feeling the breeze wash against my face. It beckoned to me so strongly, and it felt so much better than the weight of tears and outrage in this room.

When I took my first step out onto the roof, I felt freedom envelop me in all its glory. Was there anything but this wonderful feeling? For a moment, I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't been in this utopia. I spun around, celebrating my liberation, but my foot slipped, and I felt myself stumbling backward until I was on the edge, teetering on one foot.

Suddenly, I lost my footing and felt my whole world swirling around me, spinning until I had to shut my eyes. Before I fell, though, a small hand grasped mine. My eyes shot open, and I saw a lean, wiry arm leading up to that gravity-defying black hair and those unusual crimson eyes. "Hiei," I whispered. "Why'd you save me?"

"Promises aren't made to be broken," he answered curtly.

"So you made a promise to protect me?" I asked curiously, looking down at him with a smile.

"Hn."

Okay, so he wasn't the talkative type. I was still immensely interested in who he really was, and how come Hiro and Mikari had never been meant to know that he was their uncle. "So on whose side are you their uncle?" I asked innocently.

"Who?" he asked, glaring at me. His crimson eyes wanted to bore a hole into mine, but I knew that he wasn't allowed to hurt me, so I would be able to ask as many questions as I wanted to.

"If you made a promise like that, did you know my father?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. " Someone's going to try to take you eventually. I can take you with me to train. You're in no condition to fight right now."

"Why?" I asked. "How do you know?"

"We don't know," he said. "Spirit World intelligence told me that they're going to try and kidnap you. There's a family feud going on that's going to encompass all three worlds."

I took a moment to ponder that. So there were three worlds: Demon World, Spirit World, and Human World. Why couldn't these people just stick to their own realms? Here in Human World, I had so many people I would have to help to defend. Hiro and Mikari definitely couldn't be left to themselves in this state, and Mother seemed as if she couldn't really fight. What would I do with this power? I didn't even know where to begin looking for this hidden enemy.

"I'll see you in a week," Hiei said flatly. "Like it or not, you're coming." Before I could argue, the messenger was gone, and I couldn't even watch him leave. Hiei seemed so insecure up close, when he wasn't scrambling. The first time I had met him, I had thought that he was cold and emotionless, but after having an opportunity to study those eyes more closely, I noticed that he also had his fears.

Hiro came outside to check on me, and I sighed, not wanting anyone to interrupt me like that. "I heard you scream," he said, worry obvious in his crimson eyes. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I'll be fine. I just need some time to think." Hiro understood that I wanted time alone and walked into the house again.

I sat down on the roof, pulling my legs up to my chest and wondering what would happen once I was taken away by Hiei. Eventually, my thoughts carried me into sleep...

A/N- And that ends chapter four. I liked this chapter, but it was kind of sad. If only something about my preconceived plot would allow me to make Kazuma sick instead of Yukina. Oh well...Hiro and Keiryi are just friends for the time being guys. I know he says some things, but they're not legitimate bf/gf. Also, as far as the POV changes go, if there is no indication as to what the POV is, it's the same as it was last chapter. Thanks to Yuki and 4-is-lovely, my two returning reviewers, and I'm glad to see that I have another reviewer to add on. Happy to call you guys my friends!

Miari