He could not even turn his face away from her. The wards over every joint, over every power centre in his body, prevented him from doing anything voluntarily.

Reikaze was gone, then, and he lay silent and alone, cold all over, with her dampness still soiling his naked groin, and he wished that tears would come so easily to him as they did to Humans, for it seemed to provide them with the release he could never have for himself.

It was only a matter of weeks before she returned in a rage, cursing him for impregnating her. She had raped him, he reminded her, with the intention of becoming pregnant; so why was she angry now?

"The bastard is draining my ki," she snarled, and began tearing wards off his body. "You're Koorime, you son of a bitch. You're going to carry it." He blinked, confused. "If you can produce fertilised cells, you'd damned well better have a way to carry 'em. Or you'd better _find_ a way to do it," Reikaze warned him. "Else I'm going to kill it, and I'm going to kill you."

And so with little time to lose, he manufactured a suitable spell and with her magic Reikaze took his baby out of her womb and with his magic he placed it carefully inside his Fire spell, and he let it feed off his own you-ki, and soon he realised that there was not just one but _two_ babies inside the spell, drinking up his you-ki as quickly as he could summon it and give it to them.

And when they were too big and too hungry to feed on only Fire, the spell dissipated, and he held his precious babies to him and he gave them the food Reikaze brought him and they clung trusting to him, and he noted that the boy looked like him, and the girl looked like Reikaze.

And before he could name them, before they were old enough to recognise him, Reikaze took them away from him, warded his Jagan and all of his body, and left him alone in the cell --

But no matter how numerous or how powerful the wards, no matter how completely the cell drained his you-ki, Reikaze could not keep him from feeling as though he were drowning as the two tiny sparks he had coaxed to life were slowly, cruelly extinguished.

She returned to inform him that she had killed them both because neither had been born with his Jagan. He summoned the strength to tell her that _he_ hadn't been born with a Jagan, and Reikaze misunderstood what he meant and she put him through it all again, and a second time he watched his babies grow and thrive in the middle of his golden Fire and a second time he held them to his body, and this time he promised them he wouldn't let Reikaze take them away from him, but while he was sleeping she stole them away and when he woke the wards were once more all over his body and his babies were gone.

And this time he cried.

Yukina fell to her knees as her twin's memories overwhelmed her. When had he had babies? she wondered, gasping. She could make out no timeframe, could not even clearly see what he was seeing in his mind, years' worth of experiences in only a few seconds.

She tried to pull her mind away from his, to break the link, to stop the flow; and she realised suddenly that he was deliberately giving her these thoughts, terrified that he would forget again, making sure that someone would remember for him because it hurt too much to remember it alone.

>>Oniisan,<< she called to him, seeing black spots, >>I'll remember.<< She hung her head, closed her eyes.

>>Kazuma-san,<< she pleaded. >>I need you.<<

He would never find his way to the Makai in time to find his beloved wife. Yuume was still too young to know how to take him safely there.

He snatched up the phone, pressed the first memory button, and snarled when it took too long to dial. "Moshi moshi," Keiko answered sweetly. "Urameshi desu."

"Keiko," he howled, "where's Yuusuke??"

"He's just walking in the door," she replied, startled. "Kazuma -- ?"

"I need to talk to him, now," he interrupted. "Please. It's an emergency." She dropped the phone; he could hear her quick footsteps cross the floor, her not-quite-quiet tones, and Yuusuke's reply.

"Nan da," Yuusuke snapped into the phone. "What's wrong, to warrant scaring the snot out of Keiko?" Kazuma took a deep breath, and explained as quickly as he could.

With no hesitation, Yuusuke assured him he would help. Keiko and Yuusuke arrived swiftly at the Kuwabara residence; Keiko did not need to be asked to stay with Yuume, and Kazuma and Yuusuke headed to the Makai to answer Yukina's desperate plea.

"Otousama," Juei whispered, Hiei murmured silently, tearing at his soul. With his free hand he whipped off his cloak and scarf, handed them to Juei without looking.

"Go," he commanded them, and impressed on both their minds an image of Yukina. >>Help her.<< Still they hesitated. Hiei finally took his eyes off Reikaze's smirking face, and glowered at them; he knew in that instant that he never should have done it, for he stood transfixed by their eyes, his children's eyes, dark and wide and terrified, the way they must have been when they'd been stolen away from him.

He yanked his mind painfully to the present. "If you don't go," he informed them softly, "you'll both die, and so will she." Juei reached for her brother's hand. He shook his head, blinking, and looked at Juei. With a flicker of dark you-ki, they were both gone. Hiei returned his attention to Reikaze.

"Ja," he growled. "Iku."

She shook her head. "These aren't weak youkai, Hiei. I hope you've made peace with whatever gods you believe in." She smiled. "I've ordered them to leave you intact, of course; I still want your Jagan. And when they're done with you, they'll kill your children. Sayonara, Hiei."

She vanished.

The youkai closed in.

"Oniisan," she said, "is she the one who took your babies?" He frowned, glanced at the girl with him.

"He doesn't remember things right," spoke the girl softly. "He tried to tell her." Yukina realised this boy was _not_ her brother, but that he looked exactly like Hiei.

"Wakatta," she laughed, feeling faint again, "_you're_ his babies. You didn't die, after all."

"Yukina-san!!" She heard her husband's voice calling to her, and smiled.

"Kazuma-san," she said, as he and Yuusuke skidded into view. "You came."

Hiei's children moved protectively in front of her. Kazuma stopped, glared at them. "Out of the way, Hiei," he snapped.

"Juei," Yuusuke frowned, looking at the girl. "Is everything all right?"

"Otousama's in trouble," she replied, clasping her brother's hand tightly in hers. "Okaasama let Hiei go, but she's going to kill us all."

Yukina's head swam, and she fainted again; before she fell, however, she was aware of Kazuma elbowing the children aside, and catching her.

"I told you," he growled, lifting her easily, "that it was a bad idea to come here."

"It's about time," spoke a sultry voice, and his head whipped around to see the speaker. "Saa, Shuuichi," spoke the silver-haired youko. "What's it like being dead?" He sat down on the chair beside the bed, rested his feet on the bed, crossed his ankles, folded his arms.

"I'm not dead," he replied, frowning, recognising his own youkai self. He looked around the room again.

"You might as well be," spoke the other. "And what's it like being dead? Knowing who you're leaving behind? Knowing that you've deliberately let yourself die? Shiori wouldn't appreciate your killing yourself, would she?"

"I haven't -- " he began.

"Ah, Shuuichi," the youko laughed humourlessly. "Deciding to kill yourself and deciding not to live are exactly the same thing. I resent it, you know."

"I -- "

"I have far too much living to do, and you're denying me that. And because you've chosen to stay in this world, my soul will be reborn into the body of another Human and absorb his life, and when that one dies, I will enter yet another Human and absorb _his_ life and eventually, there will be no more Kurama. You realise, now, that you're not only killing yourself, you're killing me."

"This is a dream," he sighed.

"Is it, Shuuichi?" the youko snarled. "Is it a dream?"

"Of course it is," he replied calmly. "Because you are me, and so I cannot be logically facing you -- "

"Who are you?" demanded the youko.

"Kurama -- " he began.

"Wrong," the youko informed him icily, leaning toward him. "You are Minamino Shuuichi, and a Human. You denied your youko self in front of witnesses, declared your intent to live as a Human. At that point you denied me existence, and so you relinquished the right to call yourself by my name."

He stared at the other version of himself, unable to think of an argument.

"However, I will not go down without a fight," the youko went on. "I have lived far too long to let a mere Human carry me to death because he's too afraid to live."

"I'm not afraid," he protested.

"Then why are you lying in bed dying?" was the angry response. "Answer me that."

"I -- "

"Tell me one thing," he was cut off. "What of your proposal to Hiei? Was it made so lightly that you feel no shame at all in leaving him behind? Will you regret thrusting him into the worst situation he could ever imagine? Forcing him to live in his nightmares?" The golden eyes pierced his skull.

"Will you die happy, knowing that Hiei will be alone the rest of his life?"

"It must have been in the last batch, Koenma-sama," was the reply. "Is it not properly filled in?"

"It's filled in perfectly," Koenma frowned, and ran his fingers through his fine hair. He leaned back on his chair, folded his arms and slurped thoughtfully on his pacifier. "That's what I'm worried about."

'Pending', read the first line.

'Minamino Shuuichi', read the second.

Koenma turned to his phone.