CHAPTER 3

Hiei didn't have a very hard time finding Slade. His Jagan was a lot of help and so was the villian's location. Slade! he thought as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. You will tell me where Raven is even if I have to cut it out of you!

A short time later he kicked the doors open to Slade's lair and rushed inside, destroying anything that got in his way. He was only there for one thing and that person had better have some answers. He found Slade rather eaily. The man was looking intently at a huge computer screen and when Hiei entered the room, angry and ready to kill if he had to, Slade surprisingly knew he was there. "I don't think this is a formal meeting, Hiei, am I right?" he said not even turning his head.

"Where is Raven?" the fire demon demanded not about to beat around the bush with this guy.

"Raven," Slade turned to him. "I figrued that's why you came here."

Metal sang as Hiei unsheathed his sword. "Where is she?" he demanded again.

"Do you think it's that simple?" the man asked.

Hiei had no idea what the man was talking about but he wasn't about to let him play one of his stupid mind games. "Just tell me where she is and spare yourself a slow and painful death," he snarled getting into a fighters stance. He didn't really want to fight the guy but if it came to it he would in a heartbeat.

"Those kinds of threats don't work on me, Hiei," Slade told him, folding his arms. "But if you wish for a fight I'll give you one." then he attacked.

Hiei was more than ready for this. During his last fight with Slade he'd only lost because he'd been taken by surprise. That wasn't going to be the outcome this time. His sword met Slade's slaff and knocked it out of the man's hand before he knew what was happening. Hie kicked Slade in the face and knocked him to the floor where he pinned him down and rested his sword at the man's throat.

"I don't have time for your games," he hissed. "Just tell me where Raven is!"

Slade stared at Hiei's sword then at the demon's face and realized he was serious. He couldn't beat around the bush this time, he couldn't pretend he knew when he didn't. Not with Hiei about to kill him if he lied. "I don't know where she is," he replied directly.

Hiei brought his sword closer."Liar!" he shouted.

"I'm not lying," the man insisted. "If I were you'd know by now."

"We'll see," Hiei said, ripping the bandana off his forehead. Now his third eyes was open. He used it to probe Slade's mind. He discovered the man was indeed telling the truth but not the full truth. His eye closed and he glared at Slade. "You know who's responcible for this."

Slade had been staring at Hiei's Jagan with wide eyes and when the fire demon said that the villian couldn't exactly get the meaning. "I do?" he asked in a feeble voice.

"Yes!" Hiei told him. "Now tell me who they are!"

Slade snapped out of his awe state and looked Hiei in the eye. "If you want to know," he said. "Then you find out yourself."

Sirens suddenly started going off. Hiei looked up and saw some of Slade's robots coming toward the computer room. He growled and turned back to Slade to finish him off. Somehow the man had miraculously gotten out from under Hiei without him noticing. He looked up just in time to see the man disappear into the shadows. The fire demon almost followed him then changed his mind. He glanced back at the robots and sheathed his sword. He didn't have time for them either. Angry and frustrated his disappeared in a flash of black.

Raven hadn't been approuched by any of the cloaked phantoms since the one had taken something out of her, had come over to her. She didn't mind that too much but she got the feeling she was being ignored. All well. It was good this way and her mind seemed to be clearing up a little. Probably because they stopped filling her head with crack.

No matter. It gave her time to reflect on the one person she would never see again even if she did get out of this.

:Flashback:

Raven pressed the ready button on the portal remote. "So if you ever want to return home to your own dimension all you have to do is press this button and the portal will open." Outside a large swirling portal appeared in the sky.

Hiei nodded. He reached over and took the remote out of her hand. He pressed the power button and the portal closed as the remote deactivated it. "I see," he said. He stared at the devise a moment then handed it back to her. "You'd better keep it. If I have it I might lose it or something."

The pale girl nodded and put the remote back into the drawer of her nightstand. "Okay," she said. "So what do you want to do now?"

He took her hand and started out of the room. "The hanging out," he said imitating Starfire.

Raven giggled. He'd sounded just like her.

:End Flashback:

Now Raven smiled bitterly at the memory. If only she hadn't of shown him that device. But he'd asked and she'd been in love. Her first real love and now... he'd used that device to leave her and after all he'd done!

:Flashback:

"Okay now say this word "Arigato" Ar-i-ga-Toe. It means thank you." Hiei said as he and Raven sat on Raven's bed. He was teaching her Japanese.

"Okay," she said a bit hesitently, not wanting to get it wrong. "Arigato. Thank you."

"Good," he said smiling at her. "It's not as complicated to learn as you might think."

She smiled at him. She'd asked him to teach her Japanese since her and the others might end up going to Japan agian she wanted to know the language. She'd already started learning how to read it so why not learn to speak it too?

"Thanks for teaching me, Hiei," she said. "How did you learn it?"

"I learned it the first time I went to the Living World in my dimension," he explained. "I used my Jagan to probe into someone's mind and learned the language like that."

"Oh," she said. "That sounds...cool.."

:End Flashback:

She had learned a lot of Japanese from him. She knew the language as good as any Jpanaese person did now. But now she'd probably never get a chance to speak it to anyone.

Her last memory was about the time they'd almost... almost made love on the sofa.

:Flashback:

The movie on TV did not hold either one's interests for very long and wound up being turned off. Hiei and Raven had decided to give this home movie thing a shot and had even popped popcorn for it but... TV was just not their thing. Not when other things were on their minds. Mostly each other.

He turned to look at her and she'd slowly turned her head to look at him. For the longest time they'd just stared at each other not exactly sure if they wanted to do anything. Then Raven had asked. "Should I make us some tea?" and got up to do so.

Hiei had grabbed her arm to stop her. She looked down at him curiously. She sat down and he'd said something. She didn't bother to answer. They both knew what it was he wanted. Her. She didn't mind. Though he was the second person who had called her beautiful (something strangly unlike Hiei to do) he was the first person who had told her that she really did matter and made her feel that way too. She'd let him do what he wanted. Well first it had just been a kiss, then them making out like most boyfriends and girlfriends do but, then...

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!

And just when they'd fallen onto the couch about to start something, who would come into the livingroom but Robin.

When he'd seen what was going on his face had turned all the colors of the rainbow.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

:End Flashback:

Needless to say Robin hadn't been very happy about it and to make things worse Beastboy had come in and stared at the two with his mouth hanging wide open. Raven laughed softly as she conjured up that picture in her mind. Poor Beastboy. So young and ignorant. He could turn into any animal he wanted but didn't have a clue what mating was. But then again, Beastboy's always been a bit slow in that area...

The memory brought on a thought. Hiei had gone to visit his sister the next day after that little incident. Maybe he'd left to put some space between him and Robin so the 'idiot' as he called him would cool down. It hadn't been that much of a crime to do what they'd almost done. Lots of people did it why couldn't Robin understand that? probaly because hey were about to do it on the brand new sofa!

Maybe that's why Hiei had stayed away so long. So Robin would forget about it and get over it. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about doing that sort of thing with Starfire! But that wasn't important now. Things were a bit clearer to Raven and she just knew he'd come back. Come back to release her from her prison.

Hiei left Slade's hideout and headed back to the Titan's Tower. Maybe Robin found out something by then. Or at least he hoped so. He suddenly realized it was getting chilly out and clouds were rolling in from the east. It looked like a storm was coming but he didn't pay much more attention to it than that. Storms didn't bother him anyway, though he hated rain with a passion. It brought back to many bad memories...

The fire demon pushed that thought aside and looked back toward the tower. He'd better have found out something...

Back in the Makai someone else had seen the protal open and had gone to investigate it. Whe he'd reached it he'd seen Hiei jump in and instantly got curious. Before the thing had closed he'd jumped in as well but had landed in a different place than the fire demon. He stood on the sidewalk now looking around himself at the city he'd appeared in and realized this wasn't the same place in the Living World he'd been born to the human woman in. This wasn't even the same Living World! it seemed different somehow. Cold wind picked up and blew through his long red hair. He looked toward the sky and saw the clouds rolling in. Something inside told him something was wong. Something that somehow seemed familiar...

A/N

Sorry for any OOCness. I tried to keep them in character but it's a bit hard to do when you have Christmas music playing. lol. Learning Japanese is a bit easier if you watch subtitled anime. That's how I learned the words 'What', 'Yes', and 'Cora'l. ( in Japanese) Hope it was okay. I'm no good at flashbacks. ;;

Please leave a review okay. I love reviews and I love to hear from my readers. It helps me become a better writer. (Unless you flame me then I just get mad). Till next time!

Two reviews. That's all I'm asking for!