Hiei wasn't sure he'd heard Shigure right. It was definitely the last thing he'd expected the surgeon to say. And considering the situation, Hiei himself was not surprised when all he could do was stutter out, "What?"

"That, or the Jagan is rejecting you," Shigure explained, "Not that it matters much at this point."

"But what does that mean?" Hiei asked desperately.

"It means, Hiei, that you are now on the very painful road to your own end." Shigure told him, "When an implant is rejected, the Jagan and its user are both destroyed."

"There has to be something you can do!" Hiei cried, "You gave it to me, can't you take it back?"

"The headaches started yesterday?" Shigure confirmed.

"Yes." Hiei didn't see the point in making him repeat himself.

"The headaches are a precursor," Shigure elaborated, "They are a warning sign. The fact that you leapt from warning sign to unbearable pain in a day leads me to think you have very little time to be fighting this."

"But…" Hiei lost track of his argument as the implications set in.

"All I can do for you at this point," Shigure said, "Is pray that it is as painless as possible."


"This isn't like him. I don't remember him ever disappearing for an entire day."

Yusuke had awoken that morning to find Hiei missing. This wasn't so unusual, as the little demon seemed always to be moving. But when he hadn't shown up, not even at Kurama's or Kuwabara's house, and now the sun was setting, Yusuke had gotten worried.

"He'll turn up," Kuwabara waved Yusuke's misgivings away, "Maybe he met a pretty girl demon or something."

"Did you even look for him?" Yusuke asked angrily.

"Yeah, I did," Kuwabara shot back, "You told me to, didn't ya?"

"You just don't seem to think this is much of a problem."

"Urameshi, he's sixteen in our years, and God knows how old in demon years. I think he can handle himself."

Yusuke wasn't so quick to blow this off. It wasn't every day one of his best friends went missing.

But Hiei was closer than he thought. He listened to this whole argument from outside Kuwabara's window. He stayed in the shadows, where the boys wouldn't see him, and though he now feared the side effects, he used the Jagan's power to hide his energy from Kuwabara.

"Don't look for me, Yusuke," he whispered in the dark, "Why waste the time?"

"He cares about you, Hiei."

Keiko's words came to mind then, and produced in him the same muddled feeling they had the first time.

"So when are you going to go in and talk to him?"

Hiei hadn't heard the fox approach from behind him, but he tried to pretend he wasn't surprised. Yusuke had sent Kurama out to look for Hiei too, and he was just now returning. His emerald eyes watched the smaller demon in the shadows. Hiei didn't face him.

"When I can think of a way to break it to him."

Kurama didn't get a chance to ask what he'd meant. Hiei was gone in his trademark blur before the thought even occurred to him.

He remained on the doorstep for only a short time, debating what to tell Yusuke. When he decided, he joined the group inside.

"Any luck?" Yusuke asked him.

Kurama looked him in the eye. And lied, "No, nothing."