A/N: Yeah…um…here's another chapter.

O/C25: Hiei is chased by a pair who asked him about his team. Somehow knowing he was defeated before he started, Hiei refuses to answer them, instead choosing to fight. He is inevitably struck down, innumerable cuts and slices on his body, causing blood to seep quickly from him. He goes unconscious, dreaming of a warm light but it turns from him, becoming cold and harsh and telling him, the forbidden child, that he cannot have the first light. Slowly he is pulled away as he feels his body being healed. His eyes open…

--

"...Misaki?" He rasped; the cuts across his throat not healed yet.

"Shh." She reprimanded, hands moving over his chest and stomach as she repaired the damage done. "Save your strength." He was lucky. Lucky that Yukina's precious gift had been given. He had stayed out the whole time she had healed his legs. "Even with my help, you'll be lucky to stand any time soon." There would not have been time to fetch the koorime healer, Hiei would have died long before the girl could have come.

Because the two were so closely related, the jewel had sensed Hiei's danger just as if it was Yukina in trouble.

He remained still, eyes watching her every move now that he could focus them.

"...I didn't ask for your help...didn't want it..."

Misaki was reminded of her own words to him when he loosened her muscles after an unsuccessful attempt at a smooth transition from molecules to human form. She smiled sadly, shaking her head, "No, you needed it."

Just as he had known then, she knew now that he needed help and she willingly gave such, ignoring his protests.

She silently helped him into a sitting position, moving behind him before settling down again to work on his back.

He closed his eyes, feeling her fingers lightly brush the slices, each time leaving a healed warmth he was strangely familiar with behind.

"Who are you?" He asked suddenly, his voice quiet.

Misaki regarded him with amusement, though he did not see.

"Who is anyone?" She countered, "Do we ever know ourselves?"

"Who are you?" He asked again, his expression was dark as he turned his head slightly to hear her response more clearly. She did not answer.

Misaki's amusement faltered, then slid away.

"Who are you?" His question was harsher this time. The pair that attacked him wanted to know who the third member of their team was and Hiei realized that he didn't even know the answer to that question.

Somehow he felt betrayed by something and it frustrated him that he did not know what. The light. Cold and harsh and warm and comforting. Two sides of the light. Or was it two separate lights? It all broke apart in his mind, as if through a strainer and he rapidly began losing the words spoken to him.

"They are gone." Kurama said, coming up beside Misaki. He saw the look in Hiei's eyes and glanced between him and Misaki. "So that's what it was." He saw Yukina's necklace that circled Misaki's neck, the glow within the bauble receding as it became a simple blue stone.

"She should never have tried to do what she did." Misaki frowned as her hand passed over another cut underneath Hiei's shoulder blade. "She could have died. Even with Aldeve's help, the girl must have practically sacrificed herself to put her powers within it."

Hiei jerked his head around to see, a small grunt escaping his lips as a muscle that wasn't healed twitched in spasm.

"Stop moving." Misaki ordered.

Hiei grudgingly turned back around and sat still.

Standing over them, Kurama kept his eyes moving, watching every shadow and every tree for any sign of a return of the attackers.

When Misaki finished she sat back, resting for a brief second before getting up and brushing off her pants.

The next thing she knew, she was pinned against a nearby tree, Hiei's sword at her throat. It took a moment for her brain to catch up; Hiei had stood up and turned on her, drawing his katana while shouldering her into the tree where she now looked calmly into his eyes, her heart beating wildly as the steel pressed into her skin, causing an indentation but wasn't piercing, not yet at any rate. She had never realized had truly quick Hiei was until that moment.

"What do you want Hiei?" Misaki kept her voice as steady as she could, trying to get beyond the fierce crimson gaze but unwilling to venture into his mind herself.

He continued glaring at her but when she made no move to resist, to fight back, he took a step back, sheathing his katana slow enough that the 'shink' was audible and ominous.

Kurama relaxed after Hiei backed off, having been prepared for something even if he didn't know what he would have done if something had happened.

"Explain yourself." Hiei demanded.

"What needs explaining?" Misaki countered.

Not answering, he glared at her, unsure himself.

The forest silently loomed about them, not a single leaf shifting.

"Who are you? Where do you come from?" He finally provided, snarling the words out of his mouth.

Misaki shook her head, "If I am to explain, it will be to all of you. Let's go."

Misaki took off, Kurama peeling off behind her, leaving Hiei by himself until he at last followed them.

--

Yusuke yawned, "Shouldn't we be sleeping? The semi-finals are tomorrow, you know."

"Hush Yusuke." Kurama reprimanded.

Yusuke saw something in the kitsune's eyes that immediately woke him up and he turned his attention to Misaki, her face shadowy in the dim light.

As she began speaking, her words were clear as if what she said had either been rehearsed a great deal or inbred in her nature already.

"Many people believe that there is light in the world and there is darkness in the world. To an extent such a statement is true. And as there has always been light, so has there been darkness, for one could not exist without the other. Yet so it is that you do not know of one or the other, but only realize they are there when both are present. Like two sides of the same coin.

"And yet at the same time, they are in fact four sides of the coin, for there is darkness which is not and light which is not.

"More than light and dark, larger than good and evil, there is much grey; that which cannot be defined as one or the other, or when looked upon creates great puzzles holding no answer of either 'good' or 'evil'. And so the true battleground is not in fact good and evil, but instead the area between, ever growing, expanding, contracting as a living thing. More often than not, light is darkness and darkness is light and those who cannot understand this are broken. Black and white, heat and cold, air and earth, life and death, prayer and curse, each must provide an opposite, a balance. But which belongs to light and which to dark? It matters not for they are linked together eternally by something above their understanding."

All of them felt as though Misaki was desperately trying to tell them something though she could not say it, something they knew and yet could not understand; her words seemed foreign and distant.

"Forever locked in battle are these two entities. Darkness can never overcome the light and yet it continues to pursue that goal. Light knows that neither can exist without the other, for there must be balance. Some say that this is light's downfall, light's inherent flaw: compassion. Compassion for the darkness which even when surrounded by the light is unable to understand it.

"And so the war wages constantly, on one front or another. Sometimes darkness wins a battle, other times light is victorious. It is the way of the universe. Without such balance, there is chaos and with chaos there is nonexistence. These things are told to us in our dreams, these things we know are true deep within ourselves and we are born with them. We will die with them. The time will come to pass and some may pass with it. These truths will echo endlessly through the corridors of time. And beyond."

And all of a sudden, she was finished. Whatever she had been trying to say, it was up to them to discover for themselves. Through her words they could almost feel the ties that bound every living being, and they almost understood something they knew they never figured out, something that was truer than the light and darkness, something beyond it.

"I tell you this for reason that you won't understand until later, when you are ready to understand, but perhaps such thoughts will come to you then and you will make sense of them. That is who I am."

"What of your past?" Hiei broke the silence, at last understanding what he really wanted to know. The memories he gleaned from her while they shared one mind were blurred and distant now and if he tried to reach out for them they shrunk back farther.

Her smile was small, "My past? My past is my own; a tale which if told in its entirety would take countless pages if written and eons if spoken down to every last detail. Even I who lived through it cannot account for every hour, every day. Weeks and months pass by in the merest blink, for as one grows in age, the years shrink in size.

Misaki shook her head, "Maybe one day when the time comes, my past can be written down." She smiled again, suddenly becoming the old Misaki, "But only when they figure out a way to transfer everything simultaneously and have some sort of storage saving space for it." Misaki stood up. "Alright. I'm going to bed. Which means you all have to leave the room." She shooed them away, eventually able to nestle herself under a blanket on the couch when they were gone. She sighed and waited for morning.

--

There were more seats filled in the coliseum than ever before. Of course, now that the semi-finals were taking place, none of the other combatants who lost had anything else to do but watch.

Hiei, Misaki and Kurama stood at the top of the stands, peering down at their comrades who waited below them in the coliseum for their match to start.

Misaki caught sight of Ike and Soren and as they waved, nodded to them.

"You aren't going to join them?" Kurama wanted to know.

"They are the enemy after all." Misaki responded after shaking her head.

"Hn."

--

"Man I hate waiting." Kuwabara frowned, his arms crossed over his chest. "The fighting I don't mind but the waiting I don't."

"I hear you." Yusuke agreed.

The short sensei who stood between them kept quiet, her face drawn and troubled. She had heard about the opponents they would be facing. In all of her long years, Genkai had never come across any of the ancient winged races of the youkai. She knew of them of course, but they mostly kept to themselves and appeared only on rare and important occasions. The fact that one of their opponents could be a chanter isn't what was bothering the old woman—the chanting would only affect youkai, not humans—it was the fact that they appeared so rarely. And usually when they appeared it was in response to something cataclysmic or would be cataclysmic itself. That bothered her. Something big was going on and it was something that stirred in the back of her mind, something she knew and yet could not recall…what was it?

"Team Urameshi, Team Lanora, please make your way to the center of the arena."

Automatically, Yusuke, Kuwabara and Genkai walked forward, the team across from them doing the same until both were about ten feet apart.

Yusuke's eyes searched his prospective enemies. Two men, one built sturdier than the other, the second quite slim. And one woman. Or girl really.

The girl reminded Kuwabara of Yukina. He smiled at her warmly, only getting a cold glare in response. Kuwabara frowned. There was something in her eyes that concerned him.

If they did in fact belong to the race of the winged ones, Genkai knew on sight that all three of them belonged to the Heron race. The long blonde hair, porcelain pale skin, and white robes with gold trim gave them away immediately. Genkai's thoughts turned darker. Herons were the rarest kind, even though they ruled over the others, and the only other time she could think of when a Heron was spotted had resulted in a long war. To see three of them? She did not wish to think of the consequences.

"Yusuke Urameshi." The tall slim one spoke up, a dazzling smile on his face, "Your name has even reached our tiny corner of the Makai."

"Well it's nice to have a fan." Yusuke quipped.

"Yes of course! That would be nice wouldn't it." The man raised a delicate eyebrow, his smile looking to be frozen on his face.

"Man, I feel like I could break him just by looking at him." Yusuke whispered.

"And yet he is probably the one who could literally do such to you." Genkai responded just as quietly.

Yusuke kept his opinion about that to himself for once, anxious for a good fight.

"Semi-finals, Brackets 3 and 4. Last man standing."

There was a huge rush of air and Kuwabara almost fell over as the ground beneath them rose several thousand feet into the air.

"First to fall loses. Choose your fighters."

"First to fall does what?" Kuwabara gaped over the edge of the small island, about fifty feet in diameter, all six of them now stood on.

"I think they meant to say 'dies'." Yusuke smiled.

"Not funny Urameshi!"

--

"What are the rules here for last man standing?" Kurama asked Misaki.

Her head leaning back slightly so that she could watch the match, Misaki glanced at Kurama briefly, "One on one. Fighting goes on until one combatant can't fight any longer. Then the next steps on to the field. The battles continue as such until there is one man, or team, left standing." She frowned, "And from the semi-finals on, death counts."

--

I have this urge to go 'dun dun dun' so I will. DUN DUN DUN For anyone who is reading this who keeps up with this story, I am so sorry that updates have been so slow. This one should have come sooner but I didn't realize exactly where chapter 25 stopped and so I had more written for this chapter than I first thought. Thanks for being patient. And as always, thanks for reading.