I do NOT own Yu Yu Hakusho, no matter how much I wish I do.

This will be placed by words that I changed. There were originally slightly different words, but I'm sure you can grasp the meaning.

Prologue: Loss

Hiei lay on the ground, drained from his fight with a very powerful demon gang. He had managed to kill most of the stronger ones, with Yusuke and Kuwabara to tire themselves out finishing off the weaker demons, leaving Kurama to fight their leader, a snake demoness, and a stronger one than any of them had ever faced before. He watched as Kurama jumped and dodged volleys of acid the snake spat. After a few minutes of watching the fox and the snake dual, he turned his attention to the other dilemma; finding what had become of Yusuke and Kuwabara. Normally he wouldn't worry, but he didn't want to have to drag all three of them out of the danger zone after Kurama killed the snake. Better to make sure they could all walk.

He saw them finally, Yusuke wrapping a cloth that seemed to have been ripped off of his white shirt around his leg, and Kuwabara wrapping another strip around his head and shoulders. They didn't look like they were hurt too bad, though they did look pretty dazed. His attention was suddenly jerked back to the fight in front of him, as he heard his red-headed friend cry out "NO!" as the beast aimed one of his acid streams at him and fired. He saw Kurama dive in front of the torrent of acid just as it was about to hit him, heard his friend scream in pain.

"Not so strong now, are you, dog?" the snake spat. "I meant to hit your loser friend. Oh, well, I'm sure this is nothing new to you. After all, this will be the second time you die. I'll kill them later." Kuramas' eyes opened wide as the demoness aimed a final volley of acid at his heart. "See you in heck, dog."

18 years later

A single tear gem fell to the earth near the empty grave where Hiei stood. It had been nearly eighteen years, now, and he still couldn't believe that Kurama was gone. Though he had witnessed his friends' fate, he couldn't accept it, couldn't accept the fact that Kurama had died, and they had survived. But then, none of them really ever could. He had been the brilliant, quiet one, and Hieis' "best friend," as far as that went.

He had seemed invincible, always standing up, no matter how hard he fell. It had been inevitable that he would fall sometime. After all, everything died sooner or later. But they had gotten soft. He had gotten soft, fighting soft demons. A part of his mind told him to forget the fox and move on, as he had with the other countless demons he had killed. Or even just go back to Demon World. But he couldn't bring himself to do that. For Kurama had been very important to him; he had accepted Hiei for what he was, had been the friend he never had. Where are you, Fox? He cried silently, anguished.

"Here again, Hiei?" came a quiet voice from behind him. Hiei didn't say anything, didn't move. There was silence for a few minutes, while he wished Yusuke would just leave. But once again he spoke. "He wouldn't want you to keep coming back, you know. He'd want you to get on with your life." Again, Hiei made no indication that he had heard. "Hiei. Kurama didn't want you to isolate yourself because of him. He'd want you to spend some time with people. Keep busy. Speaking of busy, Koenma sent Boton by. Someone's gone and resurrected a couple of demons, but we don't know who or why. All we know is the number."

"How many?" the fire demons voice was hoarse.

"Three."

"Three." Hiei repeated.

Oooo, who amI gonna resurrect? Heh, heh. not saying! This is just the prologue, there will be more, I promise. as soon asI write more, anyway. Motivate me! Review, please!