"She's mine," Hiei sighed. The girl looked up at him, eyes brightening slightly. "In a way." Her face fell. "Go back," he told her.

"But I -- " she began.

"Go _back_," he repeated.

"She's going to kill me," she said miserably.

"Go back," he said a third time, then turned and flashed away without another word.

Kurama watched him go, then turned back to the girl. "How can he be your father?" he demanded.

"He just is," she replied simply, looking where Hiei had gone. Kurama moved closer to her, eyes narrowed, examining her. She had Hiei's distinctive eye colour, but the shape of her eyes was decidedly more feminine. Her skin was as pale and translucent as Hiei's; her hair was pale as well, closer to silver than white. Kurama frowned, took another step closer.

He froze, his eyes fixed on the glimmering black jewel at her throat. He did not need to ask what it was. He wore an identical one. "Where," he said icily, "did you get that?" She looked up at him, put her fingers to the gem. "I asked you a question," he snapped.

"He -- gave it to my mother," she stammered, taking a step backward. "Before I was born." Yuusuke made a peculiar sound. Kurama whirled, and headed to the Ningenkai.

Hiei had some explaining to do.

"Don't be angry at me," Reikaze said softly. "I'm doing this for you."

"Everything you do," Juei replied, not looking at her, "you do for yourself, not for me." Reikaze lifted a hand to slap her; Juei did not flinch. Reikaze lowered her hand. No sense aggravating her, not yet. Juei did not yet know the limits of her power and Reikaze did not want to be there when she discovered them.

"You're an ungrateful little wretch," Reikaze shook her head. "All I've done for you -- " Juei looked sharply at her, red eyes flashing.

"All you've done for me? You've kept me prisoner here, kept me away from my father, sending ghosts of me simpering after him to seduce him back here, for _your_ sake."

"He doesn't want you," Reikaze told her softly. Juei looked away as swiftly as though she'd been slapped.

"I wish you'd let _him_ make that decision," she said.

"I'm going to have his Human toy brought here," Reikaze said with a small smile. "He'll follow. Maybe then you'll hear it from his own lips." She stood, hesitated. "Oh, wait." Her smile broadened. "You don't need to hear it from him. Let me show you how he just treated you."

She conjured a window in the air and observed her daughter's expression as Juei watched Hiei return to the Ningenkai.

Yuusuke watched Kurama leave, and frowned, perplexed. He turned to the girl, crouched to her level. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Juei," she told him, turning glistening eyes on him.

"And Hiei's your father?" he continued. She nodded. His frown deepened. "Who's your mother?" he wondered.

"Reikaze," she replied. "She's -- " She froze.

"She's what?" Yuusuke prompted. Juei stood still, her fingers grasping the pendant at her throat. Where had he seen a stone like that before?

He reached out to touch her arm, to reassure her. His hand passed through her flesh, and he had a sudden sense of deja vu, remembering his time spent in limbo, able to see and hear the world around him but unable to touch anything or anyone.

"Nan da?" he whispered.

Juei vanished.

Yuusuke jumped to his feet. He hadn't sensed any you-ki from her, he realised. He spun and followed his two friends back home.

He did not acknowledge Kurama's presence, keeping his arms folded and his back turned, and his eyes firmly fixed on the stars.

"What the hell was that?" Kurama demanded. "Who the hell is her mother? Why didn't you _tell_ me about her?"

"Because I'd rather forget it," Hiei spoke quietly.

"Dammit, Hiei," Kurama nearly shouted, "what else haven't you told me? How many other kids do you have out there somewhere?" Hiei glanced over his shoulder, casting all his malevolence into one look.

"You have no right to accuse me of that," he said, keeping his voice low, "given your own past."

"I had several hundred years," Kurama reminded him. "Naturally I had a _little_ more time to have a few more relationships than you have."

"Omedetou."

"Don't throw it in my face," Kurama snapped, stalking around to face him. "I've got nothing to be ashamed of." He pointed to the tear gem. "How many of _these_ have you given out, hn?" Hiei stared up at him.

"Do you really think," he spoke softly, "I would do that?"

"I don't know what you'd do," Kurama pointed out. "After all, you seem to have a past about which I know nothing."

"I can say the same about you." Kurama stared at him.

"You want me to tell you about every single lover I ever had?"

"Not particularly."

"Who was she?"

"Reikaze?"

"Is that her name?" Hiei shrugged.

"It's what she told me her name was, though every other word out of her mouth is a lie, so I don't know whether or not that's her real name."

"How did you meet her?"

"I was attacked by a band of youkai who had this -- thing -- that drained my you-ki. She -- brought me to her palace and I stayed there -- for some time." He scowled, hunching his shoulders slightly, turning away from Kurama.

"And so you did it out of gratitude?" Kurama exclaimed. "Hell, if I'd known that was all it took -- "

"Urusai!!" Hiei shouted, not looking at him. "That's not what happened."

"Then tell me what happened," Kurama snapped.

"I don't remember most of it," Hiei told him.

"I'm sure." He turned and glared. Kurama's ears flattened.

"Listen," Hiei said, "I don't remember most of it because I choose to forget most of it. I didn't even know she had the kid, all right?" Kurama's eyes narrowed.

"Was she the one who hit me with that spell tonight?" he asked.

"Probably one of her servants," Hiei shrugged. "She does very little on her own."

"Why did you go to her?"

"I didn't _go_," Hiei informed him, clenching his teeth. "She took me there, to show me the kid."

"Why?"

"She wants me to -- marry her." Kurama's tail bristled, his ears flattening again.

"And?"

"And what?" Hiei snapped. "Of course I'm not going to do it."

"Why does she want you to marry her?"

"I don't know," he muttered. "She lies about everything. She just said she wants me." Kurama stepped toward him.

"She can't have you," he said coldly, taking hold of Hiei's arms. Hiei winced as strong fingers closed over his injured biceps. "You're mine." Kurama leaned down and kissed him, hard. Hiei closed his eyes despite himself. Kurama's lips trailed over his cheek, brushed his ear, made him shiver.

"If I ever find another one of your tear gems out there," the youko whispered, "I'm going to take it from whoever has it, and I am going to kill that person."

"You're a selfish bastard," Hiei noted, as Kurama licked his way down his neck.

"I know," Kurama agreed, and sank his teeth into Hiei's shoulder. Hiei winced but did not pull away, and made no sound.

The little bit of her that Reikaze had used to make the conjuring 'real' had finally returned. Juei closed her eyes and felt it reintegrate into her body, her soul, her mind -- and she sorted through the new 'memories' it brought.

He was handsome, she noted; she'd forgotten that Reikaze had told her about his third eye. He was small and slim -- much smaller than he'd been in her mind; but then, she supposed with a sigh, everything she knew about him was from Reikaze's tellings and her own imagination.

He was afraid, she could sense; terrified at the thought of being a father, mostly, but there was something else beneath that. Something to do with her mother. Juei frowned. Reikaze was not an overly powerful youkai, but a devious one. _He_ was both powerful _and_ devious; what had he to fear from Reikaze?

Juei searched her new information about him, but the experience had been so short that she'd really learned nothing useful. She sighed, and turned to her side, with an effort.

Soon, very soon, she would be able to get up out of this damned bed. She reached up and took her father's tear in her fingers and closed her eyes and willed herself to dream about him.

"That kid," Yuusuke said, frowning as he drew closer to them. "She wasn't real. I put my hand right through her, and she vanished."

"She projected herself," Hiei shrugged. "I saw that." Yuusuke's frown deepened.

"You knew that she's not real?"

"She exists," Hiei informed him impatiently, "but what we just saw right now was a spiritual projection. Reikaze can do it, so I assume the kid can do it, too."

"Her name is Juei," Yuusuke pointed out. "Is that -- "

"I'd rather not discuss it," Hiei snapped. Kurama draped an arm over his shoulders.

"Let's go home," he said smoothly. Yuusuke looked askance at them, but said nothing. Hiei hunched his shoulders and glowered. "Yuusuke," Kurama went on, "doumo, for coming when she called." Yuusuke shrugged, half-smiled, said nothing.

Kurama pulled Hiei around, and toward home.

"We felt -- that if it were pertinent -- you would have spotted it yourself," the servant stammered.

Reikaze vaporised him, and sighed, summoning her Captain. He knelt at her feet. "His companion is not quite what we thought he was," she noted. "For now, watch him."

"Yoi."

"When I've readied a plan for him, I'll let you know. Until that time -- neither of them is to be harmed. Is that understood?"

"Of course."

"Go."

"Yoi." He went.

He'd been rough in his lovemaking, he knew that; he'd been desperate to assert his claim on Hiei, to prove to himself as much as to anyone else that no one, not even a long-lost daughter, could take away his beautiful little lover.

Now, in the quiet time afterward, he regretted it. He knew, he scolded himself, that nothing could come between them. Hiei had rebuffed him, constantly, for -- how long had it been? It had seemed forever at the time. When Hiei had allowed himself to be _kissed_, Kurama had been giddy for a week. When Hiei had finally trusted him enough to share his body, his soul -- his tear-gem, rare and precious -- Kurama had known he could never experience such exquisite, painful happiness. And he knew that Hiei would not have given himself over lightly; it was a lifetime commitment, as far as the little youkai was concerned.

_And that should be enough for you_, Kurama told himself, both selves, Human and youko.

He squeezed Hiei tighter to him, shifted his hips and was surprised to find himself growing hard again. No wonder, he mused, nestled against Hiei's warm flesh.

Hiei sighed and stretched. "You're not going to let me sleep, are you?" he wondered, wriggling around to face him. Kurama wrapped his arms around him and kissed him deeply, sighing, closing his eyes. He took Hiei's hand and thrust it between his legs.

"You're the one," he said, between kisses, "keeping _me_ from sleeping." Hiei snorted, grasping him obediently.

A sound startled them both, and they bounded out of the bed as the window was darkened. A black-eyed youkai crouched there, focused on Hiei. It held out its hand to him, glowing with you-ki. "That Human?" it said. "What can he offer you that I can't?"

Kurama snarled and rushed the youkai, at the same moment summoning a demonic fly-trap outside; it reached up and snapped up the youkai as Kurama knocked it out the window. The plant would devour the youkai slowly, dissolving it painfully over the next several hours.

He whirled angrily on Hiei, ready to shout at him, demanding to know why the youkai had followed them; but Hiei was on the floor, on his hands and knees, gasping and sweating profusely. His anger flew away and Kurama scooped Hiei up in his arms, depositing him on the bed.

"Hiei," he exclaimed, checking him all over for injuries, finding none that he hadn't inflicted himself. "Hiei, what's wrong?" Hiei focused on him a moment, and Kurama was afraid he was about to cry.

"Reikaze," Hiei spoke softly, his voice shaking.

"What about her?" Kurama asked, scowling.

"She -- " Hiei closed his eyes, tried to pull away. "She forced -- me."

Kurama blinked rapidly, cursing his Human emotions as he fought tears, and gathered Hiei into a little ball, wrapping the blankets around him and holding him close.

"EEEEEHHH??" Keiko sat up. Yuusuke opened one eye. "Hiei...has a _daughter_?"

"Uhn," Yuusuke shrugged, sleepily, closing his eye. "He doesn't seem too pleased by it. I don't think he's going to do anything about it." Keiko frowned.

"That doesn't seem like him," she mused.

"He's a youkai," Yuusuke replied, yawning.

"So are you," Keiko informed him. "And if you think you can get away without helping me -- " Yuusuke pulled her down to lie beside him.

"Shoulda stayed in the Makai," he murmured. "No one there to plan my life for me." Keiko opened her mouth to protest. He kissed her quiet.