by Keiko no Miko
 
 

Chapter Four
 

The four headed out of the cave.

"When you say Cave of Kohiko, you should mean inside the Cave of Kohiko," Hiei heard Kurama mutter.

"And when you say midnight, you should mean twelve midnight," Yusuke said. He pressed a button on his wristwatch, causing the panel to glow. "It’s already one-thirty."

Ahead of them, the stars greeted them at the end of the cave. The sound of a nearby river flowing rapidly echoed through the air. And as they walked further, they saw an unusually large figure standing a few meters away from the exit.

Hiei couldn’t believe his eyes. Was this truly the Goushiki he had injured years ago? This one was a lot bigger, obviously stronger. But there were the eight horns, the black cape, the metal-looking clothing. It was Goushiki.

Kuwabara started running towards the exit. Yellow-orange light gathered on his open palm, creating a sword. It had been a very long time since he had last manipulated his rei ken, his spiritual sword.

"Goushiki!" Kuwabara yelled, waving his rei ken above his head. "Give Yukina back to me!"

Yusuke and Kurama ran after Kuwabara, but Hiei stayed. He felt his heart flutter nervously behind his chest. He was never nervous before a fight, until now.

What the heck, I’m now a Class-S youkai, Hiei told himself assuredly. I’m still more powerful than Goushiki, and so is Yusuke. We can easily defeat him. We can.

We can get Yukina back.

But for some reason, Hiei reached for the necklaces and looked at them forlornly. They were perfect replicas of each other, symbols of devoted love for twins. Same mother, same blood, same longing for one another.

"I want to see Hiei first," Hiei heard Goushiki say.

With a sigh, Hiei put the necklaces down and disappeared through thin air. In a flash, he was in front of Kuwabara. "I’m here," Hiei told Goushiki, keeping his face calm and cold.

"Good," Goushiki said, smirking nastily. It made him look more hideous.

"Where is Yukina?" Hiei asked angrily.

"Find her if you can."

"What do you want from us, Goushiki?"

Goushiki laughed evilly. Hiei felt another nervous flutter inside his chest. "What else, my former ally? To take revenge on you for killing o-tousan mercilessly."

"How would I know that it was your father? You left him in the first place. You also kill mercilessly."

Goushiki smirked once more. "You know what, Hiei? I think the best revenge I can give you is by killing your sister."

Hiei felt his body tremble with wrath for the Makai monster in front of him. He removed his cloak in one quick swipe. The wind blew harder, taking his white headband off. His jagan glowed, reflecting the fury he was feeling inside.

The bandages wrapped on his arm removed by themselves and the black dragon tattoo underneath moved.

"Ja-ou En Satsu Korkuyuuha!!!" Hiei shouted. Black fire erupted from his palm. Hiei charged it towards Goushiki.

The fire became a black dragon, roaring to match Hiei’s rage. It grew larger, and its jaws opened hungrily on Goushiki.

The ground on where Goushiki stood exploded. After a moment, Goushiki was gone.

"Heh, did you really think you could kill me by that?" a voice was heard to be saying.

"Damn you!" Hiei bellowed when he saw Goushiki standing a few feet from where he had earlier stood. He was unharmed.

Kuwabara was gone, searching for Yukina.

"Hiei, find your sister," Kurama told him. "Yusuke and I will take care of this monster."

"Yes, Hiei. Go and find Yukina," Yusuke added.

"No, I wouldn’t let you fight my fights for me!" Hiei argued. "Get out of here and help Kuwabara find her!"

"Kazuma-san!!!"

Hiei gasped. The piercing scream was too familiar, too painful for him to hear.

"Yukina!!!" he heard Kuwabara yell back.

Hiei’s jagan glowed as he searched for the two. In no time, he found them.

"I’m coming back," Hiei told Kurama. "Remember, Goushiki’s mine!"

Kurama and Yusuke nodded once and focused their eyes on Goushiki.

In an instant, Hiei flitted from tree to tree, his heart racing along.

He heard water rushing forth from a nearby river. He also heard voices muffled by the sound of the water.

Hiei stood on one of the treetops. Despite the darkness, he saw the two.

Kuwabara was trying to find a way to go to the river itself. He was reaching for…

Yukina.

"Kazuma-san, help me!" Hiei heard Yukina yell. "Please!"

"I can’t reach you!" Kuwabara yelled back desperately.

Muttering a curse, Hiei leapt towards Kuwabara. He was right on the edge of the riverbank, almost falling off.

"Hiei!" Kuwabara exclaimed. "Help us!"

Hiei’s eyes widened as he saw Yukina on the river. She was hugging something that looked like a rock but was too inconspicuous on the surface. Not a very small part of the rock jutted out of the water, yet Yukina held on.

The water current was too fast. The murky brown water rushed ruthlessly, carrying toppled trees and rocks away.

Hiei knew that he couldn’t just step on the water and carry Yukina away, unless he wanted to be carried away with her. He had to do it the hard way.

He stood on the riverbank to as close as he could get to Yukina without falling off. He extended his right hand to Yukina, his arm bare of its bandages. He gave his other hand to Kuwabara to act as his anchor.

He leant forward, trying to reach Yukina. "Give me your hand!" he shouted.

"I can’t!" Yukina yelped. "The current is too strong!"

Hiei leant closer, closer until his shoes were almost touching the water. Kuwabara groaned as he anchored Hiei firmer.

"Okay, this is the closest I can get!" Hiei told her. "It’s now or never! Give me your hand and I’ll pull you quickly!"

Yukina moaned in pain. Tear gems fell from her eyes and fell on the river, which carried them away relentlessly.

She pulled herself up. Slowly, she stretched her left arm towards Hiei and tried to take hold of his hand. Hiei still couldn’t reach her. As a last resort, he suddenly stretched his body out fully and grabbed Yukina’s hand.

But he only grabbed air.

He heard a girl’s scream. It faded quickly as the current drowned it.

"Yukina!!!" Kuwabara shouted, pulling Hiei to the shore. He ran towards the flow of the river. "YUKINA!!!"

Hiei, short of breath, looked from Kuwabara to the rock where Yukina held on to. She was nowhere near it.

Now Hiei’s heart threatened to jump out of his chest. He ran, overtaking Kuwabara.

After a while, he stopped. Hie eyes widened at the sight before him.

The river ended—to form a waterfall.

Hiei looked frantically at the river, his jagan glowing. Where is she? Where is she?

Then he looked downwards, at the edge of the cliff.

No.

No.

"YUKINA!!!" Hiei yelled at the top of his lungs.

He was too late.

Too late.

He jumped off the cliff, occasionally springing on tree branches attached to the cliff wall until he reached the bottom. The waterfall created white foam at the foot of it, but the stream that followed was strangely calm.

Hiei found her on that stream.

Her face was floating, bobbing up and down the water. Her eyes were closed.

Hiei found a log floating tranquilly on the water near Yukina. Hiei leapt to that log and, after recovering his balance, picked Yukina up easily. Then he went back to the shore.

He sat down, cradling Yukina’s body on his arms. He unconsciously trailed his fingers on her wet cheeks, growing colder and colder slowly. Her lips were pale and slightly parted, her fingers unmoving.

"Yukina?" Hiei whispered. "Yukina-chan, it’s me. It’s your niisan. I’m back."

No answer came.

Hiei touched his chest, reaching for the necklaces. "Yukina, I’m back. Come on, don’t you want to see me?"

Still no answer.

For the first time in his life, Hiei felt a stinging sensation inside his nose. He felt his eyes well up with liquid.

Beads of tears fell down his cheeks—the very first tears he shed throughout his life.

As they fell from his face, the tears solidified. They fell on Yukina’s soaked kimono.

Hiei’s tear gems were bluish-white, pearl-like. So much like Yukina’s tear gems.

More tears fell from Hiei’s eyes. Yukina refused to answer him. In despair, he buried his face on her clothes, shaking as he broke down uncontrollably. He held Yukina’s hand, the one that he had tried to grab earlier.

She was completely still. There was no sign of life on her at all.

"Yukina-chan…aishiteru," Hiei whispered shakily. "I love you, dear sister. I love you…."

Hiei had paid for a crime that he did not want to commit.

Yet the price he had to pay cost him more than his life itself.

He had lost the one person he cared for and he lived for. Everything mattered because she was there. But now….

Perhaps, now she knows, Hiei thought, more tears spilling down his cheeks. Maybe she knows by now that I am her long-lost brother.

I should have told her, so that at least one burden is off her heart before she passed away.

Why did I only realize this now? Now that she is dead?

Now that it’s too late for me to make her happy?

Regrets, remorse, reminiscences. They filled Hiei’s being, taunting him so that he felt like dying himself.

"No," Hiei heard someone whisper behind him. He turned around. Kuwabara stood a few feet away, his face void of expression.

After what seemed like eternity, he trudged towards him, dragging himself along. He fell on his knees right before Hiei.

"She…." Hiei couldn’t even bring himself to say the words.

"No," Kuwabara whispered again. "She can’t be…."

Kuwabara reached out to touch her face. Hiei let him take her from his arms. He watched Kuwabara gaze at her face blankly, then, as if struck by the truth all of a sudden, cried at the top of his lungs.

Hiei trembled, standing up. Without another word, he leapt away, leaving another tear gem on the ground.

"GOUSHIKI!!!"

Yusuke and Kurama turned towards Hiei’s voice. They suddenly knew that something was very wrong.

"Goushiki, I’m going to chop you from limb to limb!!!" Hiei hollered, raising his katana high up in the air. "I’m going to kill you!!!"

"Hiei—" Kurama started.

"This guy killed Yukina!" Hiei shouted to them, tears forming in his eyes once again. "He killed my sister!"

Kurama’s and Yusuke’s eyes widened as they gaped at their friend.

"Ja-ou En Satsu Ken!!!" Hiei yelled. His katana was instantly engulfed in black flames.

"I’m ready to die now, Hiei!" Goushiki growled, slightly sneering. "I’m done with my revenge!"

"Ahhh!!!" In one rapid, clean thrust of his black flame sword, he plunged it deep into Goushiki’s chest. Goushiki’s eyes bulged at Hiei.

"You’re finished," Hiei said, breathing haggardly.

"Yes. I know," Goushiki replied.

In a very short moment, the fight was finished.

I had killed Goushiki.

But what good did it do? It didn’t bring Yukina back. It was just a hopeless act—a hopeless revenge on the death of someone.

In the first place, Yukina’s death was revenge in itself.

And it’s all because of me.

All the killings I have seen through all these years do not make me happy. Seeing blood flow never made me happy, despite what everybody else thinks about me.

Happiness is…doing good things to people. Loving them.

Yukina never had the chance to see me again after she gave me her necklace for the second time. But her good deeds—numerous as they are—were always displayed in her actions, and are stored in my heart. I learned from her.

She was always happy—asides from the fact about her brother.

Well, she did tell me that she wanted me to be her niisan.

Somehow, she knew.

I pick up a tear gem I had shed earlier on the green summer grass. It had been a good six months. I have never left Ningenkai since then. I always visit her grave. Always.

No, I don’t think she wants her body buried in the Makai no Koorime. This is where she truly belongs. Kuwabara is here and so are her ningen friends Shizuru and Keiko. She had spent a good long time here, working in Genkai’s temple, helping her with things.

And besides, I found her here in Ningenkai.

And…I lost her here, too.

I look at the tear gem now. It takes me back to the time when everything else was almost a joke and nothing mattered to me except for her. Somehow, I believed that we would see one another as who we really are to each other. I wanted that day to come, but my situation forbade it to.

I never wanted anything bad to happen to her. Even if she wanted to marry my "untouchable" enemy, Kuwabara, it would be fine with me, because I trust her completely and I know that she would be fine.

You see, I have never loved another being as much as I loved Yukina.

And I still do—very much.

There are so many words left unspoken, so many of them. I guess I’ll have to say them right now.

Yukina, I love you dearly, more than you’ll ever know. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to tell you this when you were alive. You were my source of strength and the reason why I live. And you know what? You still are.

I want to thank you for showing me that you’ll always accept me for whatever I am. Do you know that I’m very thankful I found you?
 
 
 

Back to Chapter Three
Chapter Five