Aimi opened her eyes suddenly and grasped her right arm. It was burning again. 'What...what is it now, Guardian?' she asked.

'I want to talk.'

'Talk!'

'Yes, talk. I'm sure you have questions for me that need answering.'

Aimi thought for a moment, then asked, 'Okay. Why does it hurt my arm so much when you come to my mind?'

'I'm always in your mind, but causing your arm to feel pain is the only way the small part of your brain that notices me is put to the front of your mind; this causes you to realize I'm speaking to you.'

Aimi was silent for a bit, then replied with, 'Oh. I think I understand a little better now...'

'If you summon me, it won't hurt as much for us to speak.'

'How do I summon you?' Aimi asked, desperate for relief from the pain.

'Just wish it. Imagine a form for me, then imagine I'm in front of you.'

'All I have to do is wish you were in front of me?'

'Yes, and then it will be.'

Aimi smacked herself on the forehead for not thinking of this earlier. She quickly thought of an arm-length black dragon and imagined it was curled up on her chest (she's lying down). Slowly, the form of the black dragon appeared, first as a red flame, then changing into the dragon. Aimi 's eyes widened when the transformation was complete. 'It's...it's that easy?'

"Yes," the dragon said unexpectedly.

"Whoa! You can speak out loud when you're summoned into a form?"

"Wouldn't that be obvious?" the dragon replied with a sarcastic tone.

Aimi almost retorted, with her short temper, but calmed herself before she spoke again. "Okay. I have another question. Why is it that you can tell what's going on everywhere? Like when you warned me of coming danger, twice, and when you showed me that the others couldn't get out to me in the backyard...how do you do that?"

"Simple. I watch. I observe. I listen."

"Yeah, and I do that too, but nothing happens for me!"

"That is because you are too unobservant."

Aimi was getting confused with the guardian's logic, so tried to change the topic. "What's your name, anyway? I can't just keep calling you Guardian, can I?"

"Call me what you wish, but my true name is Kantakar." When the guardian said 'Kantakar,' Aimi felt like a wave rushed over her. She blinked a few times, then took a deep breath and let it out. It felt like she was in the presence of an all-seeing and all-powerful being...

"Okay...Kantakar," she said, still not quite used to calling her guardian by name. Yet it all seemed slightly familiar somehow. Kantkar smiled at her slight confusion, and Aimi noticed. "Why do you take enjoyment in confusing me?" she asked, becoming greatly annoyed.

"It's just enjoyable to see how much you've grown over the years. Becoming confused shows that you're trying to pay attention. You used to completely ignore me. Remember that voice you heard by the ocean that fateful day?"

Aimi blinked and asked, "What fateful day?"

Kantakar sighed and said, "You know what I'm talking about, little one."

"No I d—" she started, and then suddenly remembered what he was talking about. The memory seemed so fresh in her mind, even though it had happened around 10 years ago. It brought fear to her heart to remember what had happened.

Kurama, Aimi , and their mother had been visiting California then because their mother had gotten a temporary job there. She couldn't remember what it was, but it had something to do with a boat far, far out on the ocean. She'd been looking down into the clear blue water, leaning out far over the railing. She remembered someone yelling something to her in English, but she couldn't understand what the person had said, and she would not have listened if she could understand. She was a carefree spirit. She'd leaned too far out...and she remembered her mother and Kurama, or Shuichi's, cries of, "Stop, Aimi -chan!" and, "You're leaning too far out!" She hadn't listened, though. She fell, but didn't know how to swim. She struggled to stay above the water, but eventually fell prey to what was the ocean. She held her breath as long as she could, but a five-year-old (or somewhere around that age) couldn't hold her breath all that long, so she blacked out. While she was blacked out, she remembered a voice speaking to her. As she remembered, it sounded uncannily like Kantakar.

'Aimi ...' it had said, 'Move your arms down quickly and up slowly. Try to get to the surface.'

'Who in the world…!' she had thought, 'Like heck I will! Who are you!

'No, I'm not. I'm trying to SAVE you—' Kantakar had tried to say, but Aimi shut out her mind to his desperate cries to save her. She sunk deeper and deeper, her heart nearly loosing its ability to beat. She then remembered a man with long, flowing silver hair floating down from the darkness of her consciousness.

'Speak,' the man had said.

She tried to say, 'Momma...' and went into complete darkness.

When she awoke, she was on the boat again, surrounded by a group of people. Her mother and Shuichi were the ones closest to her. "Momma...Shuichi-kun..." she said, before going limp in her mother's arms. She was still conscious, but her body lost all its strength. It was all she could do to hold onto consciousness.

"It's okay, honey. You can sleep now," her mother said with a tired smile. Aimi smiled back and happily passed into sleep.

Kantakar brought Aimi back from memory lane by lightly nipping her on the hand. "So you do remember, Aimi ?"

"Yes..." she said, still in a dream-like state.

"You didn't exactly ignore me, but you ignored my advice."

"Yeah," she said, coming back to reality, "I guess that's more accurate."

"Have you had enough remembering painful memories?" Aimi swore she could have heard a note of serious concern in Kantakar's voice.

"No...why?"

"I was just making sure that I don't overload you with too much pain."

"Ooookaaay..." She looked around the room. "Where are the others? I thought for sure that I'd wake up to Botan cheering with joy and Hiei being antisocial by the window."

"They're outside about to surprise you when they can tell you've regained consciousness."

"Then why didn't they come in earlier?"

"I didn't want them listening in on our conversation, so I paused time. Everyone around us—" Kantakar started, but paused. He whipped his sleek black scaled head around and stared right into the crimson eyes of Hiei. He looked startled for a moment, then regained his calm composure and asked, "How did you get past my time barrier, Hiei?"

"It was simple. I just slipped through the crack," he said, motioning to a slight slit, it looked like, in the wall.

"How did that...?"

"I made it," Hiei stated simply.

"With what?" asked Kantakar, obviously bewildered.

"This," he said, holding up his sword.

"How could you...with a simple sword...?" Aimi stifled laughter from Kantakar's confusion. He was obviously a part of her. He was just as easily as confused as she was.

"Hn. I've had practice," was his simple reply.

"You're got this all wrong! Swords, even like yours, aren't SUPPOSED to be able to cut through those fields! There must be someone around with—"

"This?" asked a man. His long black hair floated around him in the gentle breeze from outside the window. He held out a purple-blue box that swirled the two colors together, never stopping with the swirling. He wore a peasant's clothes, dull green and gray, but his elegant crystal blue eyes examined the room, an air of royalty about him.

Kantakar gasped, staring at the cube. "You have an..."

"An energy-sapping cube? Yes, that's exactly what it is. I'm amazed you couldn't tell that your energy was slowly being stolen and put into this box. I weakened you so much, Kantakar," he said, staring directly into the small dragon's burning orange eyes, "that Hiei could easily slice through the field and come through the time-stop." He looked at the door and moaned on in his whiny voice saying, "Even the space outside the field is slowly going on. It's not completely paused, but for every minute that goes by in here, one second goes by out there." He laughed a dry, heartless laugh, then continued saying, "You should hurry and get yourselves ready. They'll be slowly bursting in any second."

Aimi glared at the man's eyes, seeing he obviously had no heart. 'A demon...' she thought, 'What's he after? Please don't be me this time...'

'I hate to say it,' Hiei thought to her, 'but he's after your power. These people can get so troublesome...'

'Hey, try being the one they're after!'

'Calm down, Aimi . While he thinks he's unnerving even me, we need to stay calm to think of a plan,' Kantakar said to the two of them.

'What kind of a plan? The others are going to be in here any minute with the field not working as we thought it would,' Aimi stated.

'I'm not sure, but I know we need to think of a plan.'

'Oh, that's bright,' Aimi thought only to herself. 'Okay, I still need to know what kind of plan.'

Kantakar was silent for a moment, then said, 'Aimi , I'm going to need to use you as a distraction.'

'What! What if I don't WANT to be a distraction!'

'Do you want to get out of here alive?'

'...Yes...'

'Then Hiei will help you be a distraction.'

'Why am I suddenly being pulled into this?' Hiei asked.

'Because I'm going to need all the help I can get to distract this man.'

'Hmm...I don't normally help people, but Kurama would never forgive me if I let his brat die.,' Hiei thought. Aimi decided to ignore the cruel dig at her character.

'If he's in, and helping me, then I'm in too,' thought Aimi .

'Good,' Kantakar thought to the two of them, 'now we can begin.'

'What is the plan?' asked an annoyed Hiei at the constant repeating of this whole conversation.

'You two are going to run around screaming your heads off while I prepare a spell to get that box from him and release all the energy from it.'

'That sounds too simple. What's the catch?' asked Hiei.

'There is no catch. The only thing is that he'll probably figure out what I'm going to do too early on. I won't have enough time to complete the spell. You two, if he looks at me and realizes what I'm doing, jump out the window and pull him down, if you can. Try and get to him as soon as possible, and put all your weight on him. Think you can do it?'

'I know I can do it,' muttered Hiei.

'I think I can, I think I can,' Aimi said, imitating the little blue engine, laughing at her own stupidity

'All right. Ready on my mark?'

'Ready,' the two others said in unison.

'GO!' shouted Kantakar into their heads. Aimi shivered at the deepness of Kan's voice, but trembled also at the thought that this beast had always been inside her.

Aimi dashed out of the bed to the left side of the room, gripping onto her arm which was still in pain from the burning when Kantakar was summoned. Hiei dashed to the right. All the while, Aimi was squealing as high-pitched as she could and Hiei was almost growling a yell, him not being the one to normally make any sound at all, much less a yell. Kantakar hardly took time to appreciate their work before he started muttering something in a language that sounded like a mix between English and Hebrew. The man immediately noticed this, and tried to reach Kantakar to stop his spell-muttering. Aimi and Hiei noticed this, and dashed for him, pushing him out the window and holding on to his sparse clothing, pulling him down Aimi tried not to hold on to Hiei to tightly, for fear of what she would look like, and what it would make him think. He struggled to stay up, but couldn't. He plummeted to the ground, which was five stories below. Aimi was startled when she saw the ground rising so quickly, and hung on to the man's clothing as tight as she could, hoping he would rise at the last minute to save himself. He didn't. The three of them crashed into the ground.

Hiei rose first. He'd created a quick burst of spirit energy at the last minute, so he had only scratched his knee up a small amount. "Aimi ," he muttered. Aimi groaned, trying to pull herself up. It pained her to do so.

"Hiei...over here..." was all she was able to say before falling back to the ground. Hiei stumbled over to broken chunks of cement to reach her, then dug her out of the ground, which had been broken from the fall of the threesome.

He sat her up and tilted her face up slightly. "Aimi , are you all right?" he asked, hiding his concern.

"Yeah..." she muttered, then her head went limp.

"Are you sure?" he asked again, not sure she understood what he meant.

"Yeah...I just can't...quite...hold my head up..."

Hiei held in a slight laugh and said, "Are you going to be able to move later on?"

"Yeah...just...give me some time..."

"Should we go back up to the hospital room?"

"Not a chance."

Hiei ignored her and rolled his eyes, "You're going"

"Fine, My heart hurts, anyway. Kantakar's telling me that when we separate too far from each other, it pains me. Please...take me there quickly." Hiei nodded and jumped swiftly up to the window. "Why didn't you just jump like that in the first place?" asked a tired Aimi , slowly regaining her powers.

"We were falling. I didn't have any footing."

"Oh..." Aimi said, embracing Kantakar as he crawled into her arms.

"You two did well," Kantakar praised. "Did you retrieve the box?"

"Oops..." muttered Aimi .

"I'll get it.,". He said before jumping out of the window. once again rolling his eyes

Aimi and Kantakar looked over the windowsill to watch and make sure nothing went wrong. For all they knew, the man could be at the bottom, waiting for someone to come and try to retrieve the box, then sneak up and attack them.

Hiei walked cautiously over to the man's body, not sure if it was a body or a corpse at this point, and quickly grabbed the box, then jumped back into the window.

"Now open the box," Kantakar instructed. Hiei did as he was asked. A great green light filled the room, causing Aimi and Kantakar to fill with energy. Aimi could hardly contain all the energy she was receiving at that moment. She started laughing. Whole-heartedly and care freely. Hiei started laughing as well. (A/N: Yes, very OOC, but bear with me, please!) He couldn't stop himself. Aimi 's carefree laughing, along with the sudden burst of energy from the box in his hands, caused emotions to come forth from Hiei. (A/N: -GASP-)

After the light dwindled, then faded, then went out completely, Kantakar asked Hiei to close the box. "If you leave it open, our energy will just be stolen again," he said.

"Hn," Hiei grunted before closing the box.

"So...is that the end of that?" asked Aimi , wanting all this to be over with.

"No. I should make sure that man is either dead, or disposed of," Hiei said before hopping out the window again. Aimi watched as usual, but noticed something was wrong. The man was twitching uncontrollably.

"What..." was all she had time to say before a mist surrounded the ground. It got so opaque that she couldn't see a thing on the ground. "Can we go down there? I want to help Hiei!" Aimi asked Kantakar.

"No, we shouldn't. It's another trap. He wants to lure us down there so that he can kill us in the confusion of the fog."

"Hmm..." Aimi said, obviously troubled by this news. "But...he might just kill Hiei because he know it would draw us down there!"

"You know in your heart that Hiei will not loose this battle."

As In your heart ran heavily in her ears, Aimi was silent for a moment, then grunted, "Yes, I do."

"Good. Then let's watch from up here."

"But we can't see anything! I thought we went over this!"

"Use your spirit energy. You should be able to see them just fine." Aimi was about to retort, but Kantakar glared back at her. "Just try it."

Aimi looked down at the ground, sending a quarter of her spirit energy to her eyes. 'Please...let me see Hiei and the other man in the fog!' she pleaded with herself, hoping this would somehow work. Suddenly, when she looked at the fog, it looked like normal ground. She engaged a little more energy to see if she could zoom in, but it failed. 'At least I can see them from here...' she thought again to herself.

Hiei obviously already figure the spirit energy to look through the fog trick already, but the man, who had engaged the fog in the first place, still hadn't figured it out. He hadn't thought about how he'd see his opponent apparently. Aimi chuckled at his obliviousness. Hiei saw the man almost instantly and snuck up behind him, thrusting his sword through his stomach. The man coughed up a small amount of blood, then fell to the ground. Hiei stabbed him in the back one more time, just to be sure he was dead, then summoned a small flame for a tiny cremation. He hopped back up into the window, greeted with Aimi 's cheers.

"Yay! Awesome, Hiei! That was great!" she almost hugged him….but only almost.

"Stop being a Botan," he said, blowing her off. Aimi stared at his back, near tears. Since when had he become so distant? Oh wait, he was always distant. When did he because so much more distant?

"Kan?" she asked Kantakar, "Can you go back inside me? I'm feeling slightly drained from having you out so much. Please don't get offended."

"It's all right, Aimi . I'll take down the time field when I go back inside you, though, so you have to be in non-unusual positions for when the others burst in." He looked at the door, seeing it already halfway open. "See? They're already on their way in here. You should hurry."

"Kay," Aimi said before dusting herself off, then got back into her bed. Hiei went back outside in the back of the group, like he'd never left. "Kan? How do I take you back in me again?"

"Just imagine me inside you, somehow." He noticed the odd expression on Aimi 's face and growled, "Not in THAT way, you perverted host of mine."

Aimi laughed and said, "So now I'm a host?"

Kantakar just growled and said, "Will you put me back already?"

"Fine," Aimi said through her laughter, then imagined Kantakar sleeping in a stick figure body of her.

Once he was safely 'put away,' the others burst through the door with cries of, "You're up!" and "Glad you're okay!" and "You sure got better fast!" Aimi smiled at all the excitement on everyone's faces, then shouted above them all, "I'm still tired. Can I sleep please?"

"But you just woke up!" Keiko complained.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm fully rested. Please leave now. I'll let you all know when I wake up again. I'll call you. You can go home if you want."

Botan crossed her arms and 'humph'ed. "Fine." Aimi looked sad when Botan did this, so she started laughing and said, "I was just joking, Aimi . I'm not really mad. It's just been odd without you around. We're really starting to get used to you."

Aimi smiled and said, "That's sweet. Now can you please go?"

"Sure," Yusuke said, and shooed them all out the door.

'Too bad they won't have you around for much longer,' said an icy cold voice—even colder than Hiei's.

Aimi whipped her tired head around, causing her to see stars. "Who are you? Where are you?" she asked the air.

The voice laughed a menacing laugh. "Muahahahahaaa! My name is Gurenai, and I am here to take you as my wife!" A tall man with short, choppy brown hair appeared out of nowhere, wearing a black high school boy uniform trimmed with a silver-blue color. He looked like a prince, but sounded more like a pauper who just won the lottery.

"Another one! Won't you demons ever quit!"

Hiei sensed something was wrong the room he had just left. He put his ear next to it when he was sure the rest of the group had left the building.

"Yes, I am here to take you as my wife! At first I was after just your power, but now that I see you, you're beautiful as well! An added bonus!"

'I'm not beautiful…' Aimi 's self-conscious side thought to herself. "So, what're you gonna do about it? Just take me here and now?"

"Hmmm…at first I was planning on sneaking up and grabbing you, but now that you mention it, that's not a bad idea!"

"Good job, Aimi , you just gave him a good idea. I applaud you," Hiei said, lightly clapping his hands while stalking into the room.

"Hiei! You aren't supposed to be proud of me for that!"

"I know, exactly why I'm applauding you."

Aimi glared after Hiei as he walked closer to the elegant figure in the middle of the room.

"What is your purpose here, demon?" Hiei asked Gurenai.

"To take Aimi -chan as my wife!" he said, striking a heroic pose with a burning flame in his dark black eyes. Hiei and Aimi rolled their eyes in unison

"Just get the hell out of here," Hiei said, drawing his sword and holding the blade next to the man's neck. A bead of sweat trickled down and landed on the blade of the sword.

Gurenai started laughing a maniacal laugh again. "Bwahahahaha! You'll never catch me!" He drew a sword as well, only this sword was about five feet long. Hiei stared at the sword for a moment, then attacked. Obviously he didn't know exactly who Hiei really was.

At first he dove low for a slice at the man's middle, and he hit. The body was cut in half, and Aimi stared at it. "It was that easy…?" she muttered.

Gurenai's torso looked up at Aimi and said, "Don't you underestimate me, Aimi -chan. By tonight, you will be mine!"

Aimi looked at him like he said she had a piece of cheese on her head. "Not while you're cut in half like that."

"Ah, but that's my special ability. I can grow back!" Suddenly both pieces of Gurenai started growing into separate people.

"What the—" Hiei growled before leaping out of the way. The Gurenai with the sword went after Hiei while the other went for Aimi . She was still feeling slightly drained for some reason, and she couldn't get away fast enough. Gurenai 2 grabbed her and held her close to him, pulling her into a giant embrace. She almost couldn't breathe.

"Aimi -chan…" he muttered, smelling her hair and playing with it gently.

'Does he actually…love me!' she thought frantically to herself, worrying that she might not be able to get out of the situation at this rate.

Hiei noticed that Aimi had been caught and was thinking of how to defeat Gurenai. 'I can't keep chopping him up…he's just grow back. How can I defeat him?' Then he remembered that Gurenai was obviously proud of himself in every single way possible. He snapped his fingers, this guy was just way to full of himself.

"Oi, Gurenai!" he shouted to his opponent.

"Eh?" said a confused Gurenai, not seeing why his opponent was chatting with him.

"Are you vulnerable to flame?"

"Unfortunately, yes. There was this time when I was five that—" Hiei cut Gurenai off, right before he launched into his life's story, and mumbled a curse that set his whole body aflame. "GAAAAH!" he screamed in agony as he was burned alive. His other half was obviously not affected, because he continued holding on to Aimi .

"Um..." Aimi grumbled, blushing. 'Why am I blushing?' she asked herself, completely confused. 'Talk about perfect timing for Kan to be 'put away.' Just when I need him most, too...'

"You're coming with me," Gurenai said in a menacing yet gentle voice.

"B-but what about m-my friends?" she said, slightly flustered at this point.

"You won't ever see them again, I'm afraid. I don't want you falling in love with anyone…but me."

Aimi shivered and quickly thought to Hiei, 'Where are you!'

'I can't get to you. He has some kind of force field around him.'

'Seriously?'

'Look to your right.'

Aimi turned and saw Hiei pounding on an invisible wall. He really couldn't get to her. She was all alone again, having to fight off this suitor, who she had no intention of marrying. "Please let me go," she said, trying not to cry from fright.

"Never." Aimi realized at this point she couldn't fight him off. He wanted her power—and her for that matter—too much. She started feeling drained. She guessed he was sapping her power so she couldn't get away so matter what she wanted. He was taking her over. "Now…let us go to my humble abode," Gurenai said, a gleam in his eye from getting what he wanted. He started saying something, probably a spell to transport them there.

Aimi was feeling weak, and she couldn't stay conscious for much longer. Hiei realized that Gurenai was about to take Aimi with him somewhere, and he couldn't do a thing. "Aimi !" he cried, trying to break through the wall. 'Aimi !' he cried out with his mind as well.

'Hiei…' she thought, staring directly into his crimson eyes and she and Gurenai faded.

"No, Aimi iii!" he cried as they disappeared.