"Not in the least," Koenma assured him. "But I haven't been able to get away, and so I was hoping someone would come see me."

"I came because Kurama -- "

"Is dying," Koenma interrupted, showing him a piece of paper. Hiei took it, frowned. He had deliberately learned to read after meeting Kurama, in order to pass the time while Kurama studied. It had not come easily to him, and he had stopped as soon as he had a working knowledge of the written language. It took him a few minutes to read the form and understand what it was about.

"Who did this?" he wondered finally, pointing to the paper.

"It comes through the system," Koenma told him defensively, taking back the form. "I only stamp approval or disapproval."

"Well, disapprove," Hiei snapped.

"I can't disapprove of his death, only of his form." Hiei stared; this sort of petty bureaucracy was beyond his comprehension.

"Well, disapprove the form, then," he growled. Koenma sighed. "Don't tell me you can't."

"I can't, because he's legitimately dying. And I'd like to know why."

"He was tortured," Hiei told him, "for about a year." Koenma blinked. Hiei bared his teeth. "Where's Enma Daiou?" he demanded. Koenma blinked again.

"You can't just walk in and talk to him," he pointed out. Hiei scowled, waited for an explanation. "He's _Enma Daiou_," Koenma protested. "You can't -- "

"Where is he?" Hiei interrupted.

"His office -- "

"I'll find it myself," Hiei snarled, and whirled out of the office, ignoring Koenma as the deity trotted after him.

Yukina sat in her rocker, eyes closed, rubbing her belly, enjoying the quiet snowflakes Yuume was summoning for her. A fat flake landed on her nose, melted; she caught the icy drip on her tongue. Yuume laughed. Yukina smiled absently.

Hiei's son had given her some of his ki. All that he'd been able to spare, actually, which hadn't amounted to a great deal. But while he had knelt on the bed beside her, he had deliberately focused on her unborn twins, and had almost but not quite touched her -- and his hand had been plenty close enough for the voracious twins to draw his ki from his fingertips.

And now they were demanding more.

Yukina sighed, wondered where her brother had gone with his children. They had vanished from her house without her noticing, and she had not been able to contact Hiei since. She reached out with her thoughts, tentatively seeking the twins; her mind came up against nothing, and she sighed again, worried.

Kazuma, wearing his jacket for warmth, tiptoed into the snow- filled nursery, knelt at her feet, put his head in her lap. Yukina pushed her fingers through his curly hair and smiled.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her, softly.

"Just fine," she promised. "A bit tired. The twins are restless today." She did not tell him why; he did not need to know what her nephew had done. He pressed his ear against her belly, eyes shining, and a slow bright smile crossed his features as one of the babies kicked. Yukina smiled as well; he really was a wonderful husband, and extremely sensitive. He had even suffered sympathetic labour when she had given birth to Yuume.

"I was worried about you," he told her. "I don't want you running around after that -- " He hesitated. " -- after your brother, like that. I don't care how upset he is."

"Kazuma-san," Yukina told him, "you don't understand what he's suffering. Please don't judge him on the fact that you don't really like one another." He closed his eyes as she continued to stroke his hair. "I can't find him," she went on, finally. "If I don't hear from him by morning, I want you to look for him, because I'm afraid he's in a great deal of danger." He did not respond. Yukina looked down at him, frowning slightly, and petted his cheek. He murmured a little, tucked his hand around her thigh.

Yukina smiled. He was sound asleep, tired from the battle he'd fought that day.

"Touchan no baka," Yuume declared solemnly, moving to curl up in his lap.

They had found more than blankets and food in the crevice in the cave wall, and Juei helped her brother very carefully put on their father's extra set of clothing. He stood perfectly still as she fastened and tucked and folded, and looked down at himself when she stood back to admire him.

"You look exactly like him," she smiled. "Except for the Jagan." He touched his forehead, frowning slightly. Juei shook her head. "He wasn't born with one, remember?" He shook his head; he hadn't inherited as many memories as she -- or perhaps he simply didn't remember them as well as she did. Juei smiled, touched his cheek, felt him stiffen, and pulled away. He reached for her, apologetic, resting his fingers lightly on her arm for a second. "It's all right," she assured him, sitting down and pulling a blanket around her shoulders. "Sometimes I forget."

He sat as well, mimicking what she did, drawing a second blanket around himself. Juei watched him a moment.

"Would you like to know," she asked softly, "what he taught me?" His dark eyes brightened; he wanted very much to know.

They both closed their eyes, and Juei showed him the night she'd spent in the Makai, with their father.

He burst through the great golden doors and braced himself, expecting a grand assault of bodyguards, or even a blast from Enma Daiou himself.

Instead, he saw nothing and no one. He turned to Koenma. "Dou?" he snapped.

"I don't know where -- "

"Konnichi wa," a voice rolled through Hiei's body like an earthquake. He turned again and grew suddenly dizzy. Ignoring all known laws of physics, Enma Daiou appeared in the office, taking up more space than was actually there, and Hiei felt tiny and insignificant and suddenly, inexplicably afraid.

"And I know _why_ you've come," rumbled the god of the dead, sounding almost amused. "Have a seat, little youkai. I believe you have a question for me."

Behind him, Koenma swallowed audibly.

Hiei sat down.

She held his bony fingers, tried to warm his hand. "You know, Shuuichi," she said softly. "Hiei-kun told me about you. That you're -- a youko. He didn't tell me everything, just that you chose me, to save your life." She fell silent a moment, looking down at his hand. "Even knowing that you're not really Human, and that you were a terrible person before, I still love you dearly. I can't help it. You're my son." She pressed her lips tightly together. "I don't care who gave birth to you _first_, you're still mine." Sliding off her chair, she knelt beside the bed, lay her head next to his, cupped his cheek in her palm.

"And I raised you to be obedient," she went on. "And so I'm telling you to get better, Shuuichi. I want you to tell me all about your life before -- before I had you. Because Hiei-kun won't tell me more than ten words in a row if he doesn't have to. And I want you to tell me how long you've known him. And I want you to tell me what else I've missed in your life that you've thought to protect me from." She drew her thumb along his eyebrow, touched his nose.

"Maybe I will be frightened and hurt and upset," she murmured. "But I think I can deal with it. I'm not as frail as you might think I am, Shuuichi." She thought a moment. "Should I call you Kurama? I don't even know. I _think_ of you as Shuuichi, because you've always been my Shuuichi. But I can't help wondering if you'd prefer to be 'Kurama'. Hiei-kun calls you Kurama, even in front of me." She smiled.

"I want you to wake up and tell me all these things, Shuuichi," she said, getting slowly to her feet. "And there's no need to take your time."

"If you're done staring," Enma Daiou roared in his calmest tone of voice, "you may ask what you came to ask." Koenma ventured a glance at his father; the god of the dead was being unusually mild-mannered.

Hiei was quiet a moment, as though forming the words he wanted to speak. "Kurama," he said finally. "Minamino Shuuichi. He's going to die."

"I know that," Enma Daiou replied, baring fangs each larger than Hiei.

"I don't want him to die," Hiei said, quietly.

"I know that, too."

"So undo that form and let him live."

Koenma cringed. No one gave orders to Enma Daiou and lived. He didn't want Botan to have to escort _two_ of his friends into the other world. He tried to imagine what he could do to save Hiei's life, to gentle his father's anger, to --

But Enma Daiou did the one thing Koenma least expected.

He laughed.

Koenma knew his father was perfectly capable of laughter, and had heard it on several occasions during his centuries of existence. But he had never heard Enma Daiou laugh at someone who certainly deserved at the very _least_ a slap on the wrist for his insolence.

Hiei scowled, looking up at Enma Daiou. "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"The form isn't what's killing him, little youkai," was the booming reply. "The form reflects only his status. With or without the form, he is going to die. The form merely makes his death more easily processed. Do you understand?" Hiei's scowl deepened.

Enma Daiou's hand descended, and Koenma winced, well-knowing the force behind it. But instead of striking Hiei, Enma Daiou merely pinned him to the floor with one finger on his chest.

"Your friend," he rumbled, "is killing himself. There is nothing anyone can do about it. He doesn't want to live and so he will not live. That is why his form was processed and is currently in my system. If by some chance he decides he wants to live again, and he succeeds, then his status will change and his file will reflect that. In the meantime, my irresponsible son will stamp his approval of the form and keep the system flowing properly." Koenma hung his head, his cheeks flushed.

Enma Daiou lifted his hand. "Now," he roared, "get out of my sight." Hiei got slowly to his feet, turned, and stalked out without another word. Koenma moved to follow him.

"You stay right here," his father said. "I want to talk to you."

A trickle of sweat slid down his cheek, as Koenma turned to face his father.

He had found the cave quite by accident the first time, attempting to hide from Kurama during a game of hide-and-seek. Kurama had gone past the mouth of the cave at least a half-dozen times, until Hiei began to suspect he was being patronised. Kurama had been stunned to see him come out of the cave, for he had not sensed Hiei anywhere near it. It had not taken them long to figure out the protective qualities of the cave, and Hiei had made it a sort of base for himself in the Ningenkai, when he was not at the Minamino home.

He slipped in through the mouth of the cave and felt his stomach lurch; he could see nothing, no one inside. He turned a circle, despairing, and his shoulders slumped.

They were gone. Again.

A quiet rustling alerted him and he whirled, sword flashing in the dark; just as quickly he dropped the blade, swallowing hard and muttering an apology.

"We didn't know if it was you," Juei explained softly. "So we hid, to make sure. Just in case -- someone else -- came." She lowered her eyes a moment. Her twin kept his gaze on Hiei. "Kurama-sama," Juei went on. "Is he -- all right?"

"He's dying," Hiei replied, tucking his sword into its sheath, removing the sheath from his hips, moving to the back wall of the cave and sitting down with his back against it, his sword on the floor beside him. His children followed him, sat on either side of him. He rested his head against the cave wall and closed his eyes.

What was he going to do without Kurama? He could barely remember a time when he hadn't known him, hadn't been relentlessly pursued by Kurama's gentle coaxing love, hadn't been so very easily seduced by Kurama's fingers and mouth and strong, slender body.

He was tired. He wanted to sleep, knew he couldn't, because when sleep came _she_ would come, and she would steal them away from him again --

-- they weren't going anywhere --

-- and he could never bear losing both of them again on top of losing Kurama.

Cool fingers fluttered across his forehead, gently soothing. It was tempting to curl up in a warm blanket and rest for hours, to sleep until he was strong enough to face the wrongs that were beginning to pile up in his life.

Someone tucked a blanket around him, and he tried to protest; but the blanket had already been warmed by a body and he was too drowsy to push it away. As he sank into sleep, he realised that Hiei had just touched him, twice.

He slept without dreaming.