Disclaimer – I do not own anything of Naruto or YuYu Hakusho, nor any of the poems or quotes I have used.

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Author's Note: Ok, still not really satisfied with this chapter, but I'm going back to school at the end of the month, and wanted to get this out. Constructive criticism much appreciated.

Shout out to Reyka_Sivao on AO3, whose character study pieces for YYH, particularly Shigure's, were instrumental in finishing this chapter.

Also, I need a beta. If you're interested, please send me a PM.

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Little girl, be careful what you say
when you make talk with words, words—
for words are made of syllables
and syllables, child, are made of air—
and air is so thin—air is the breath of God—
air is finer than fire or mist,
finer than water or moonlight,
finer than spider-webs in the moon,
finer than water-flowers in the morning:

and words are strong, too,
stronger than rocks or steel

stronger than potatoes, corn, fish, cattle,
and soft, too, soft as little pigeon eggs,
soft as the music of hummingbird wings.

So, little girl, when you speak greetings,

when you tell jokes, make wishes or prayers,

be careful, be careless, be careful,
be what you wish to be.
- 'Little Girl, Be Careful What You Say' by Carl Sandburg

Chapter 10: Be What You Wish To Be

He doesn't quite remember the process of getting off the island. He knows he used his intended mount, and he remembers first wiping the memories of the villagers who saw him, lest the old hag find out and come after him (a voice like Naruto shouts its disapproval, but Sakura echoes understanding, if not agreement, and Itachi's adherence to security would certainly have demanded it—and the very fact that he's re-reviewing his own choices using their moral guidelines should probably be an alarm bell on his own mental state, one that should necessitate an identity check, but it all seems so very distant at the moment).

He did not wipe Rui's. He isn't sure if that is his form of mercy or revenge on her, to leave her to live with the guilt of her own actions and no executioner to look forward to. Please kill me first, and he will have to keep that promise if he ever changes his mind about leaving them to their existence; his word is only as good as he keeps it: this state of affairs leaves the promise unfulfilled-as-yet, not broken. But Rui doesn't know that there's potential for altering his decision and must resign herself to life.

(She's about as weak as Hina, both of them desiring death, but neither really having the courage to do anything about it. Hina just let herself go, fully aware that she had responsibilities and not caring about them. Rui may have raised Yukina but the fact that she let her go off so woefully underprepared appears to Hiei, even if he hasn't finished sorting through her memories, just another way of dropping her dependent as quickly as possible – and sending said dependent off to find the axe-man that hadn't come quick enough for her neck when she'd washed it in readiness for his blade. After preparing said child at the moment of exile so he would come back and play the part they'd named him for, hoping for a quick, clean death as a reward. Can't turn her blade on herself, so she makes another do it. As selfish as Itachi, to make a child kill him. As pathetic as Sasuke, to need another's help and seek his own death.)

(No, he does not care to continue that thought further. He is not Sasuke. Or Uchiha. And he doesn't want to be. He doesn't want that life back. He doesn't.)

He doesn't deserve that thread of hope that came when he heard Yukina's name. He cannot afford to risk caring for someone like that, someone who is the equivalent of a civilian medical student with two self defense classes. He can't.

Because if he loses one more person, to death or memories or the barrier between universes and lives, he will… he will…

He doesn't know what he'll become. But he's certain that, whatever name he calls himself in his thoughts, he wouldn't be there. Because it doesn't matter how much fire you nurture under ground and out of sight, once you go cold like that, you never come back. You don't know how to.

It took a double revelation of Itachi for Sasuke to break into something like sanity. He never broke from the numbness of the shocks, though. He couldn't.

Hiei refuses to be responsible for breaking someone into that state, be it himself or an innocent civilian. Even if he's never met Yukina, his first memory of her was of a smile like a sunrise. He's never seen that before in his lives.

No, that's a lie. He remembers seeing it on Itachi once, when his big brother had just started the academy and came home and agreed to play with the sugar-sweet toddling brat that went by Sasuke instead of starting on his homework immediately.

It's the only smile of Itachi's that isn't a madman's grin, or limited to the eyes, or happiness in a sunset as he enters the freedom of death.

Hiei can understand why Itachi would feel happy in the freedom that only death offers; the clan heir had been increasingly weighted down with chains of obligation and duty to multiple sources, then forced to completely sever some of the bonds that depended on him, in order to keep other responsibilities halfway intact, even if it meant delegating the care of his surviving responsibilities (Sasuke and Konoha and the nations free of international civil war – when he knew the full truth, Sasuke would try not to wonder which ranked higher for Itachi). And then, because Itachi was thirteen and inclined to blaming himself as the most fully informed person, because he was an ANBU captain and a goddamn genius and that meant he should have managed to find a third option that kept everyone alive; he wallowed in guilt because the whole world centered on him and Sasuke and yet he couldn't be comfortably selfish enough to avoid thinking of the big picture and greater good. So Itachi destroyed himself, because he couldn't bear hurting others even when he had to, and he needed to blame someone, and the only acceptable target was himself. Death is lighter than a feather; duty, heavier than a mountain. Small wonder that Itachi smiled at the freedom from the weight that choked him, crushing the air from his lungs.

Hiei can understand that. He just doesn't understand why Itachi could find it acceptable to seek his own death, seek a way out of his responsibilities. Responsibilities don't just disappear because you repay debts or delegate duties or pass on positions or knowledge.

Because as far as he can understand it (at least, what he got from lectures about fighting with his schoolmates or bothering a busy Itachi, or even from eavesdropping on the negotiations for Itachi's marriage prospects – if he ever got anything from the fangirls' rants or Karin's philosophizing, he'll deny it to the grave and beyond), love means not just doing what you think is best for the person you care for, but having the kami-damned respect to inform them of your thoughts, listen to theirs, and let them make their own choices, for good or ill. Love means letting other people make mistakes and successes that are their own.

And duty means acknowledging your own mistakes and taking care of them in full yourself. It does not mean setting your little brother up to kill you – that might wash out the clan's honor, but Itachi knows their family runs to depressive-aggressive. He shouldn't have assumed Sasuke could deal with the guilt of kinslaying. Particularly when he'd refused to stomach killing his best friend just to get a pair of eyes that might have helped his chances of revenge.

Hiei shoves away the stray question that creates, the terrifying notion that Itachi might have intended the kill of an adoptive brother to ease Sasuke into the idea of actual fratricide.

Enough of Sasuke and Itachi, damn it! He is Hiei, and he needs to consider his own lifetime's problems.

His mother is dead, indirect suicide by starvation. His father is unknown, and will almost certainly remain that way. The kōrime have no knowledge or evidence of his visit left to them, and Rui will keep her mouth shut, suffering in silence (she is so very good at doing that). The dead and the oblivious are not his problem. The living and the half-aware necessitate his attention.

Hiei knows his sister has never left the island before her departure to search for a brother she only knows through reputation and guesses and a single recounted memory. He has no idea where the hell she will be looking for him, either; the Jagan has copied her mental presence from Rui and seeks her through the Makai even as he travels; he'll know soon enough if she's in this realm.

He just hopes she hasn't gotten into any permanently damaging danger. The girl is a half-trained healer, no combat training or practice at using her ice abilities offensively, no knowledge of tracking or hunting or surviving in wilderness or strange cities, and an utter naïveté that will leave her prey to any demon with a lick of street smarts. (And an optimist, too, going off as unprepared as she was and with no way to track down a brother whose survival she had no proof of.) Memories of both lifetimes keep hitting him with images of horror, practices he's long numbed himself too suddenly dipped with disgust, replacing the faces of the victims with Yukina, her eyes wide with pain and shame and terror and, worst of all, the incomprehension of why?

Worse still, she's soft hearted with a tendency to cry. And a person that can cry tears of valuable stone is very vulnerable indeed. Hiei trained himself out of crying as soon as he had control over the correct muscles for it, just to remove that all-too-easy chance of recognition.

He didn't ask for this – when has he ever asked for anything like this? His duties in this life have been simple, and if there is ever sadness, it is soon gone from his mind as he focuses on the all-consuming business of the present.

Jerking himself back, Hiei frowns at the forest around him. He doesn't remember getting off the island and back to the plains below. He is certain he dismissed his mount properly; his lack of injury attests to such. But he does not remember doing so. Nor is hecertain how he covered the remaining distance from his landing point to Shigure's hut.

Actually, he's not even sure why he's there.

Yes, he owes the surgeon for talking him out of being stupid – not that he'll ever admit it. The surgeon is far too prone to claiming debts as it is, and has been hinting about payment for the sword lessons.

Funny. Hiei had thought said lessons had been proposed as a bribe to keep him from undoing the good of the operation. Sasuke's memories of the medics and scientists with medical skill of his acquaintance, however, are enough of a pressing nuisance that he's not going to argue. No one knows how to best mess you up good like the guy who learned how to put you back together by taking others apart and then stitching up the mess. Pissing off a healer is plain stupid.

Shigure no more qualifies as a healer than Kabuto – all the skills of a master, none of the compassion to complete the title – but the principle stands. You don't piss off a scientist either, particularly not by ruining their work.

So he will settle his 'debt' and go. He can't afford to stick around when all his priorities are mid-shuffle. He needs to sort himself out, in private, and make new plans.

He has made exactly one decision so far – find Yukina, assess her situation, keep an eye on her if all's well, adjust plans if something needs fixing. Further data is necessary before he can make more plans.

He finds Shigure in the clearing, taking advantage of the sunlight to care for his many blades. The ring sword is already cleaned and sharpened, drying in the noon sun; so are half of the scalpels in front of Shigure.

The surgeon looks up at his approach, clinically observing Hiei. Doubtlessly he's cataloguing every visible change in his patient since Hiei left him.

Time to get this over with. The less time he spends here, the better.

"You said I owed you for the sword lessons. What do you want this time?"

Shigure's eyes dance with amusement at the bold request. Hiei notes the glee with unease, and deliberatedly focuses on his physical self. He is a placid lake, free of the ripples from wind; he controls his own reactions firmly; there will be no change in breath or posture, no flicker in his eyes to clue Shigure to his thoughts. The scientist has too much to work with already.

Even the non-reaction is too much; the scientist is already making note of it as he lays his newest scalpel on the cloth to dry and picks up the next one.

"Two things. First, you didn't kill anyone. I want to know why. The second…involves the next person you seek. I'll have the details when I have your answer to the first part. That will be your final payment for the surgery." He picks up his whetstone and sets it spinning, laying the scalpel across its edge.

Hiei mentally flinches at the whirring screech of blade on stone, disruptive agony to his senses. He has full sympathy for Kiba's complaints about Sasuke's fangirls in this life, if their shrieks were anything akin to such a frequency. It will be impossible to lie outright with such a distraction, and very difficult to lie by omission.

Still, he tries. It's not just his safety and privacy on the line after all.

Carefully, he runs through the events of his arrival and first entrance to the village, the first time someone spotted him, the villagers' reactions to him. Though he tries to be clinical, he finds his bewilderment with their emotions creeping in. In a moment when Shigure pauses to check the edge of his wicked little knife, he manages to turn his words to his disgust at their selfish nature, their lack of warm emotions, the utter pointlessness in killing them.

He cannot let Shigure guess at his memories. Not when he has hidden them so well already. The doctor-patient confidentiality is only for civilians, in Sasuke's life, and nonexistent once he left Konoha's gates for sound. He cannot risk any chance on Shigure having morals.

Then he gets to Rui and the elder, and the news of his mother's suicide. He would like to stop there. He has to stop there. But the physician stares at him coldly, and D-Class demon that he is now, Hiei does not have enough spirit energy to stand up to him.

You are weak. Why are you weak?

Because…you lack…hatred.

Hiei lacks no such thing in this moment, but it cannot save Yukina, not as his traitorous mouth spills the secrets in a flood of words he tries desperately to dam. He spins it as a feeling of responsibility that he seeks her now, and is uncertain how much Shigure believes him. He cannot afford to care, under the surgeon's eye.

He rushes through the end, of wiping his visit from the minds of everyone but Rui, lest they remember and target him in a manhunt, and departing the island. He makes much of his decision that killing them is pointless, because they are already dead in his mind. He dreads the finish, knowing what will come.

If this is the hint of precognition that is a possibility of the Jagan, he does not think he wants it very much at the moment.

When the last words leave him, bleeding out of the open wound he is unfortunate enough to call his mouth, Shigure is silent, absently cleaning his last blade. Hiei, numb with his own discomfort, awaits the sentence.

"So, you wish to seek out your sister?"

He frowns. "It is not a matter of wishing. She is my responsibility; I am the last of her kin, apart from our mother's people who have willingly let her leave." His eyes narrow. "If you think of keeping from that responsibility as your price, forget it. I have little enough honor; I will not sell it so lightly."

Shigure is already shaking his head. "I do not trade in honor, little knife. I trade in irony and blood. By all means, seek out your sister. Protect her. Meet her. Talk to her—" He suddenly straightens, his eyes catching Hiei's before the fire demon can form the thought of blinking, and holds him there, trapped in serpent-worthy hypnotism.

"But you may never tell her who she is to you, who you are to her. You may never call her sister, nor name yourself her brother. Never. Nor may you tell anyone else and have them tell her." Shigure's grin is edged as fine as the blades lying between them on the grass.

Hiei stares at him a moment.

"That's what you want? For me to keep blood ties secret from her?"

That's all?

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

(He hasn't wished for a family since the hour he uncovered the true curse of the Sharingan. He didn't need to wish for one in this lifetime; he never cared for his traitorous kōrime blood kin, and he was adopted by the bandits before he could grow lonely. He is a distrustful loner by nature. Sasuke or Hiei, he has walked alone since the night of the massacre, sharing companionship only out of necessity where circumstances required it.)

Were he only Hiei, with no memories of Sasuke, this bargain would seem an easy dream. With Sasuke's memories, he knows exactly how much secrets and lies can poison and twist a life, turn an innocent smile and desire to please into a lust for blood and death and a despairing cry for why, nii-san, why?

(He has no idea how to care for a sibling. He doesn't want a sister, doesn't want to want a sister.)

But Shigure won't change his mind, and Hiei can't let him twist the bargain any further.

(He can't do this.)

"So be it. It seem the decision has been made for me," he murmurs, standing. "I will be everything a brother can be without being the brother she longs for."

(He has to.)

And with the final courtesies out of the way, he jumps into the trees, and bounds away, the poisonous promise snaking through the honor of a man who rarely gives his word but will bend over backward to keep it, breaking his spine before he breaks his oath.

His thoughts on the matter are irrelevant, Hiei reminds himself as the wind of his passing whips the tree branches into frenzy. Itachi left Sasuke behind for the sake and safety of them both, willingly donning the reputation of a kinslaying turncloak to keep his little brother clean of betrayal's taint – but didn't hesitate to stop in Konoha and arrange a personal sighting and battle, just to remind the new temporary heads of government of their promise and his retribution if they broke it.

It's almost easier for Hiei, in this case. Yukina doesn't know anything about him, not even his name. Just their shared parentage and his legacy as a forbidden child.

And Hiei has been cautious. No one knows that he is anything but a fire youkai, if a rather small and slender one. He has tested his vulnerability to both heat and cold in private, but only in private. There is nothing to trace, for her or his enemies.

As long as he keeps the connection secret and only intervenes from a distance to keep her safe (something that the Jagan will make much easier; it doesn't have to be his actions that help her), there's no reason for anyone to target her for him.

He can't be the big brother Itachi was. He wouldn't want to. He never wants to take such life forming decisions out of another person's hands. He never wants to break a child from their childhood the way Sasuke was broken from his. Nor does he want his criminal acts to be put on a pedestal.

(The brother Yukina worships is a blank faced idol Hiei can never begin to live up to, any more than Itachi could live up to Sasuke's idea of him. Kami save him if she found out the truth and actually started idolizing killing and fighting – he understands very well now why Itachi never wanted to play ninja or practice throwing shruikens, if the flashbacks he's been plagued with were anywhere near as likely to pop up for his aniki.)

(It's better she worships a dream. Reality, Hiei knows, is never anything but a disappointment.)

Track down Yukina, confirm her safety and happiness, alter situation as necessary, then let her live her life. It's the only kindness he can give her, and the only way he can fulfill his too-long-neglected responsibility towards the little innocent.

His smile curves too wide, bitter with the taste of his own blood. When did he bite his tongue?

It's not ideal, but it's the only thing he can think of to do.

Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. – Japanese Proverb

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed. Getting closer to the cannon storyline. May start time-skipping a bit soon once we get there. Since I'm a bit less interested in YYH than when I started, and I really just wanted to see Sasuke stuck in a position as close to Itachi's shoes as I could get them.

We'll get to see Yukina before the end, don't worry!

I love reviews with questions about the storyline, by the way, and particularly about character thought processes.

Next chapter: possibly a sighting of Human world, and our favorite botanist kitsune!