AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a story of two missing moments between Hiei and Kurama, one directly after Kurama abandons the theft mission in Episode 6, the other right before they go to help Yusuke and Kuwabara out with the Four Saint Beasts. The first scene is in Hiei's point of view, and the second is in Kurama's. Enjoy!

…

It didn't take long for Hiei to catch up with Kurama. For one thing, Kurama was walking at a leisurely pace, and for another, Hiei was much faster. In no time at all, Hiei had caught up with Kurama and grabbed his arm.

"Hiei!" said Kurama, shaking his sleeve out of the fire demon's grasp. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you back with Gouki?"

"What do you think?" Hiei snapped. "You backed out of our mission!"

"I can't give you the Forlorn Hope," Kurama said calmly. "I need it."

"We already had a plan to use it," Hiei reminded him.

"Hiei," said Kurama, "do you actually think that if I had the Forlorn Hope, I would use it to create an army of one thousand demon slaves?"

"Not anymore," Hiei snarled. "Not now that this time living in Ningenkai has changed you."

"How can you say that?" said Kurama. "You didn't even know me until I had already been a human for fourteen years!"

That was a good point. Hiei felt like his argument was starting to fall apart. In truth, he had no idea what he wanted, or why he was feeling like this right now. All he knew was that the thought of Kurama leaving him behind gave him a weird, twisting sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach that he didn't like.

"That doesn't matter to me." Hiei tried to pull himself together and cling to something more concrete. "Why don't you just give me the Forlorn Hope? What could you possibly need it for, anyway?"

Kurama's emerald-green eyes, which had been so deadened and flat since Hiei had known him, suddenly flashed with anger. "You are so thoughtless, Hiei!"

"I'm thoughtless?" Hiei said in disbelief. "You're the one who just walked out on us!"

"Think, Hiei!" Kurama shouted, and Hiei took a step back. Kurama so rarely raised his voice, and he had been so calm back in the clearing. "The Forlorn Hope grants your deepest desire, the thing you wish for the most in life. If I could have anything right now, anything at all, what do you think it would be?"

All of a sudden, memories flashed through Hiei's mind. Coughing…the ever-worsening scent of disease…a woman being carried away in an ambulance…last New Year's Eve, which Kurama spent in the hospital…

"Your…your mother?" Hiei's voice was quiet all of a sudden.

"That's right." Kurama turned away from Hiei again, his hands deep in his pockets, the way they always were when he wasn't using them. "Now why don't you just let me use it, if she doesn't die before the moon is full?"

"But, Kurama…" Hiei was still trying to process this, and at the same time, he was wondering why he hadn't figured it out from the beginning. "You can't get something for nothing. The mirror is going to take something from you as payment."

"I know," Kurama said quietly, leaning his head down so that his bangs fell in his eyes, staring at the ground.

"Do you know what that something is going to be?"

"The mirror often has an eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth approach." Kurama's voice was still so soft and calm, and it made Hiei uneasy. "I plan to give my mother the gift she gave me—life. Thus, I must sacrifice my own life in turn."

"What?!" Hiei staggered backwards in shock. There was that sick, twisting feeling again, a sword being stabbed into him and pushed deeper and deeper… "You can't be serious, Kurama!"

"It is the only way."

"No! You can't!" Hiei didn't know when he had ever been so angry, but suddenly he was so furious he was shaking.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Hiei," said Kurama, as calmly as ever.

"How can you be so goddamn calm?!" Hiei shouted. "You're going to die! Have you not thought this through?"

"I assure you I have, Hiei," Kurama told him. There was that look again; his eyes just looked so empty, like something within him had already died.

"Well, you're out of your mind!" Hiei could hear his voice rising out of his control, and the back of his throat was starting to ache. His stomach hurt, and he felt hot all over. "You…you can't, Kurama!"

"Sorry, Hiei, but I don't have time for this," Kurama said shortly, and he started to walk away. Hiei caught up with him again and grabbed his arm in desperation.

"You say life is so precious!" Hiei's voice shook out of emotion, yet he was trying so hard to fight it off. "And you're going to throw everything away over some stupid human?!"

Green eyes narrowed. Kurama's fists clenched, and he easily shook his arm out of Hiei's grasp. For a minute Hiei was sure the fox-demon was going to attack him; he even instinctively reached for his sword. But when Kurama spoke again, his voice was as even as ever.

"I pity you, Hiei," he said softly. "I pity you, because you have obviously never loved someone more than you have loved yourself. You have never known the pain of seeing someone you love suffer, nor the joy of having them close to your heart. The walls you have built around yourself, Hiei—I'm afraid they have become your prison."

"Kurama, wait!" Hiei hollered, his voice breaking, but it was too late. With a cry of pure anger, he reached for his sword and sliced through the trunk of the nearest tree, causing it to crash to the ground. Hiei's grip loosened, and the sword fell, too.

Hiei shut his eyes, feeling them sting. His stomach felt worse, and his throat was hurting even more. One valuable yellow stone—the mark of the Koorime blood running through Hiei's veins—started to fall, and he caught it, shoving it into the pocket of his cloak. The world around him was blurred as he stared at the fallen tree and his sword right next to it. Hiei knew he owed Kurama his life, and yet he couldn't stop this.

Not Kurama. Please, not Kurama.

But it was no use. Hiei knew wishing for it wouldn't make any difference. Kurama—the only person who had beat him in a swordfight in the past year, the only person who had asked him for his name, the only person so far who had managed to erode his prison walls—was gone.

Forever.