A/N: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of the characters herein, they are all the property of Yoshihiro Togashi.

Rating for bad language (lots of it), violence (lots of minor violence, some major), sex (mostly minor) and jerkface Hiei – because he's really that bad in this fic.

This is a very long, very complex fic (one of my top three longest and my second most complex). Inspired by the movies "The Butterfly Effect" and "Bedazzled", and intended to be an inverse of the "It's a Wonderful Plot" trope.

Above all else: THIS IS A HIEI AND BOTAN ROMANCE.

Set after the end of the anime.

Chapter 1: Tragic and Stoic

Spirit world, and everything in it, was completely detestable. There was not one single redeeming feature about anything in or from spirit world. The place was completely pointless. Demon world had been a much better place since spirit world had backed off and removed their barriers and soldiers, and even the living world functioned better without the interference of spirit world. Hiei had always felt that way, and no amount of running errands for Koenma or helping Yusuke with missions as spirit detective had ever come close to changing his mind. In fact, it was only because he respected Yusuke and made agreements of honour with him that Hiei ever bothered getting involved in any of spirit world's business. It was like the unfortunate and highly expensive toll he had to pay for Yusuke's alliance – or "friendship" as the Mazoku liked to call it.

The fact that Enki had died less than a year after being crowned ruler of demon world was nothing to do with spirit world. In fact, the dispute over leadership that had followed had already been settled, so why spirit world was getting involved was beyond Hiei's comprehension. Enki's wife had been offered the title but refused and instead insisted that Yusuke take it, as Raizen's heir. Yusuke had agreed to take over ownership of the part of demon world once owned by Raizen but no more, at which point Yomi and Mukuro had stepped forwards and taken over their own former fiefdoms. Mukuro had continued to run the border patrol, Yomi had kept his overly ambitious ways in check and Yusuke was doing just fine looking after his share of demon world. It had been that way for several months and nothing had gone wrong.

A belated complaint about the division of demon world from one of the finalists of the last demon world tournament was really no big concern. In Hiei's opinion, the three rulers – Mukuro, Yomi and Yusuke – should have just banded together and slaughtered the malcontent. He was powerful, but no serious threat as he had no support or followers. Yomi had refused to comment at first and Mukuro had insisted that the protester would soon tire of his campaign without support and she had decided to leave him be. But Yusuke had had the brilliant idea of mentioning the problem to Koenma, who had had the brilliant idea of sending the Spirit World Defence Force out in full force along the borders between demon world and spirit world – which was a truly awful plan – only he had decided to station his soldiers on the demon world side of the border, which had, of course, caused absolute chaos.

The gradual bonds of trust that had been building between the two worlds vanished within a matter of days, and somehow along the way Hiei had found himself teaming up with Yusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara and setting out to find the demon who had started the dispute and to either arrest him or kill him. After days of running from demons who saw him as a traitor and spirits who did not trust him, Hiei was hoping that he found the moaning bastard who had started the whole mess so that he could slaughter him slowly and painfully. He was forming a tasty plan that involved stringing up the demon's innards around the borders between demon world and spirit world as a reminder to both sides of what happened to anyone who dared cross Hiei Jaganshi: and the thought of it brought a smile to his face as he fled from the mountain village.

The team had split their efforts in an attempt to locate the demon they sought. Yusuke had taken some of Raizen's men with him on his search, Kurama had taken Kuwabara and Shura on his search and Hiei had gone alone. Or at least, he thought he was alone. Yusuke had become quite adamant that he should take at least one other person with him, but Hiei had always worked better on his own, so he had adamantly refused the help. He had raided the mountain village he had been assigned to check, wounded a few villagers to prove the severity of the situation and then taken off again. He was running because he knew the village he had checked had nothing to offer and he did not want to waste time there and he was running because they had summoned some sort of ancient rock monster that was drooling sulphuric acid and smashing craters into the ground in its bid to kill him: unfortunately the monster was of sufficient size and strength that only Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame would be enough to stop it, and he did not like the idea of falling asleep outside of a village full of demons who wanted him dead for what he had just done to them, and so he ran on.

But Hiei knew that he was being followed by more than just the rock monster. Something had been following him since he had split away from Yusuke and the others. He suspected that Yusuke had purposefully sent one of his lackeys after him. Hiei had insisted that he would be fine on his own, but he had known by the look in Yusuke's eyes that he would probably not be allowed the privilege of working alone. And so apparently someone was trying to keep up with him now.

Hiei felt a strange desire to look back over his shoulder. As a narrow, hissing stream of yellow, bubbling acid appeared by his right foot and began eating its way down the hillside in pace with him he decided against wasting the effort looking back. There was a monster chasing him, and that was about all that he needed to know. He did also know that he would successfully make his escape. He was far too fast for the creature to ever catch him, and he could hear that he was gradually putting more distance between it and himself, and by the time he reached the base of the mountain, he knew that he would be safely away from it. The person following him, however, would probably not be so lucky. But anyone who was stupid enough to follow him after he had already refused help deserved to die at the hands of an acid producing rock beast, Hiei decided.

A sudden scream for help told him that his follower had been caught. He was slightly surprised when he heard the voice, because it was, quite clearly, a female voice, which he had not been expecting. He stopped long enough to turn around and look back to assess to situation: several hundred yards behind him, the giant rock beast was holding one hand in the air, a female figure dangling from its fingers. She was dressed in a silk kimono and had long, flowing blue hair, and, for a brief and awful moment, Hiei thought that it was his sister Yukina. In an instant all sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind, including the formulation of a list of names of people he would have to kill for putting Yukina into such a terrible situation. But Hiei's mind stopped short when the woman cried out again.

"Hiei! Help me, please!"

That was not Yukina's voice. And, as he watched, the woman lost her grip on the item she had been holding onto, and as it fell, he realised that it was an oar: she was one of spirit world's ferry girls. The rock beast roared at her, and she was sprayed with the acid of its saliva, which made short work of dissolving any part of her clothing or skin that it touched. She screamed out in pain and despair, and apparently she was mere seconds away from being consumed by the rock monster.

But she was a ferry girl, and frankly, Hiei did not give a fuck about ferry girls: so he turned around, glad that the monster was distracted from chasing him, and he ran on, barely caring when he heard her cry out her last words.

"I caught the bastard," Yusuke said. "He was a cowardly son of a bitch, he started trying to say he wanted to be my right-hand man."

"What did you do?" Kuwabara asked.

"Did you cut off his head and hang it from the gates of your tower as a reminder to anyone else stupid enough to question the laws of demon world?" Hiei asked.

Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Koenma all stopped short and stared blankly at him. Hiei had no idea what was wrong with them, but they all looked as though they were surprised by his question. Probably they were just annoyed that none of them had thought of the idea first, he decided.

"No," Yusuke eventually answered. "I did kill him though. He had caused a lot of damage and taken a lot of lives and he was a liability we could all do without."

"Well I'm just glad that this is all over," Koenma said.

"You know you didn't need to get involved in this," Yusuke reminded him.

"I was worried it might spill out into spirit world or the living world," Koenma replied. "And, honestly, I had my arm twisted into getting involved. A certain someone in my employ always worries about you boys when you're in trouble, and she insisted that we came here and did what we could to help out."

Yusuke snorted amusedly and rolled his eyes.

"Where is she, anyway?" Koenma asked him.

"I sent her after Hiei," Yusuke replied. "Hey, Hiei, where's Botan at?"

Hiei arched his eyebrows expectantly.

"What's a "botan"?" he asked.

"What's a…" Yusuke muttered. "Yeah, real funny, Hiei. We all know you hate Botan. But seriously, she was with you, what happened? Where is she now?"

Hiei shrugged indifferently.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Sure you do!" Yusuke insisted. "Botan! The loud-mouthed idiot who's always nagging us!"

"Yusuke!" Koenma snapped. "That's my finest ferry girl you're talking about!"

"Ferry girl?" Hiei echoed.

"Yes," Koenma replied, turning to him with a smile that made him want to vomit. "She was so eager to help you boys, she always is. Yusuke sent her after you to make sure that you… To help you out in anyway that she could. I didn't see her come back with you though, where is she?"

Hiei took a sip from his bowl of tea deliberately, using the delay to try to figure out what was being asked of him.

"C'mon, Hiei!" Kuwabara moaned. "Where's Botan?"

"Hiei, she was right behind you," Yusuke added. "You did know she was with you, right?"

Hiei took another sip from his tea, though not because he needed the time to understand what was being asked, rather because he needed the time to formulate a diplomatic response. Apparently they were talking about blue-haired thing that the rock monster had killed, and apparently they were all quite fond of it, so he would need to choose his words carefully before answering their queries.

"It's dead," he said. "The villagers summoned an ancient rock beast to kill me and the ferry girl proved to be a useful distraction to it so that I could make my getaway."

"…What?" Koenma asked faintly.

"The ferry girl is dead," Hiei said again.

"But how?" Koenma asked.

Hiei shrugged.

"Maybe from the acid, maybe the monster ate it, maybe it got crushed to death, I don't know, I didn't stay around to find out," he replied.

Yusuke started to laugh nervously and loudly, patting Koenma on the shoulder.

"No, no!" he said. "Hiei's just joking! Botan's not really dead! Right, Hiei?"

Hiei quirked an eyebrow at him curiously.

"The rock monster caught it," he replied. "There's no chance it survived."

Koenma's jaw fell open and his pacifier dropped to the ground. He looked like he might cry.

"Is this a problem?" Hiei asked him. "You have thousands of ferry girls, don't you? I doubt you'll miss losing one. And besides, can't you just make another one to replace it?"

"Hiei, you dick!" Yusuke yelled suddenly. "That wasn't just some random ferry girl, that was Botan!"

"I don't understand," Hiei replied. "A ferry girl is a ferry girl. I didn't even know that they bothered naming them."

"You dirty rotten traitor!" Kuwabara yelled.

Kurama pushed Kuwabara back as he tried to lunge at Hiei, which merely brought a smirk of amusement to Hiei's face: that big orange-haired oaf seriously still thought that he could challenge him?

"Don't smile about it, you bastard," Kurama said to him suddenly. "You've done some terrible things in the time I've known you Hiei, and I've been able to turn a blind eye to them all, but this time you've gone too far."

"What?" Hiei echoed, throwing down his bowl of tea. "Are you trying to piss me off, fox?"

"Fuck you Hiei, you killed Botan!" Yusuke yelled.

"Fuck you too!" Hiei yelled back at him. "I didn't ask you to send it after me! It was too stupid and weak and it didn't belong here in demon world, I'm not to blame for what happened to it!"

"You let a monster kill Botan?" Koenma asked quietly. "My Botan? My sweet, precious, hard-working, loving, caring Botan, who came here to help you? You let her die?"

"Hn, I didn't realise it was so important to you," Hiei replied, folding his arms over his chest.

"You absolute horror of a living soul," Koenma said, his voice barely audible. "You better pray that you live a long life Hiei, because when you die, I'm going to see to it personally that you get sent to limbo where you suffer for what you did today."

Hiei turned his back on the melodramatic prince and walked off.

"Where the hell do you think you're going, Hiei?" Yusuke shouted after him.

"Home," Hiei replied without stopping or looking back.

"Good!" Yusuke said. "Fuck off back to Mukuro's territory, and don't ever bother coming anywhere near me again, you little asshole! Because if you do, I will fucking kill you!"

"Me too, you heartless dwarf!" Kuwabara added.

"I don't ever want to see you again either, Hiei," Kurama said.

Hiei slowed slightly, his eyes growing large. He did not stop or dare look back, but he was surprised to hear that even Kurama was disowning him for what was, frankly, something minor.

"I thought you had changed your old ways, but today you proved that you're rotten to the very core of your soul and truly beyond all redemption," Kurama added.

Had anyone else said those words Hiei might have laughed them off as overly-dramatic nonsense, but he knew that if it was Kurama saying them then clearly he meant them quite literally: and that thought made Hiei's feet stop.

"I don't think you should leave just yet, Hiei," Koenma called over to him. "I'm going to have you arrested for this. This isn't over, Hiei."

Hiei looked back over his shoulder. Yusuke and Kuwabara looked like they wanted to kill him and Koenma looked like he might pass out at any moment: but all three combined had nothing on Kurama, who looked disgusted and enraged, and the sight of those emotions on the normally stoic fox demon's face were so distracting, Hiei shortly found himself being dragged off to spirit world without the will to resist.

After sitting isolated in a prison cell in spirit world for several hours, Hiei was eventually summoned to Koenma's office. He was mostly pissed off at being made to go to spirit world and the way Yusuke and Kurama had spoken to him earlier, and he had been starting to think that they owed him an apology. He had, against his own better judgement, always done what they had asked of him, often running pointless errands on behalf of spirit world – and he so despised spirit world – and spending time around humans in the living world – and he absolutely detested humans and the living world – and now the people he had done all that for had turned on him in an instant over something completely insignificant.

"Hiei…" Koenma said with a sigh as Hiei stopped in front of his desk.

The prince was once more in his toddler form, though Hiei was unsure if it was an improvement or not.

"I've spent this entire time deliberating the matter," he continued. "Botan was in her human body when she died, and by luck her soul was brought back here to spirit world. We will be able to return her to her duties as a ferry girl, but she's understandably upset that you let her die, and she's reluctant to continue in her role as assistant to the spirit detective."

"Hn," Hiei snorted.

He distinctly saw Koenma square his little shoulders and ball his tiny fists.

"Does Botan's misery amuse you, Hiei?" he asked.

"You no longer have an active spirit detective," Hiei pointed out. "So why do you need an assistant?"

"Botan is a very valuable asset to the team," Koenma replied. "She has helped you all out on numerous occasions and I need her to continue to do that, but right now she's too scared to agree to working with you again. I want you to apologise to her, assure her this will never happen again, pledge your loyalty to her and agree to respect her as an ally."

Hiei's face dropped.

"Why don't you just castrate me, pull all my hair out and tell every demon in demon world that I've been working as your slave these last few years?" he said sarcastically. "It would be less painful and far less humiliating! I'm not apologising, I've done nothing wrong!"

"You let Botan die!" Koenma shouted, thumping one little fist pitifully against his desk. "She trusted you and you let her down!"

"Why are we still pretending that a ferry girl has feelings?" Hiei asked. "It's not even a real thing, it's just an illusion used by spirit world to coax lost souls into the afterlife!"

Koenma's face changed, and Hiei did not have to wonder why for long as he heard a stuttered sob behind him. He turned his head and saw a ferry girl walking over to stand beside Koenma at his desk.

"I-is that what you really think of me?" the ferry girl asked him. "You think I'm just an artificial homunculus, a thoughtless drone, a soulless being who just wanders around collecting souls?"

"Hn, that's exactly what you are!" Hiei shot back. "Am I supposed to care that this thing looks like it's crying?" he asked, turning to Koenma.

"She is crying, you heartless menace!" Koenma snapped, thumping his fist against his desk again.

Hiei turned his attention back to the ferry girl standing by Koenma. It had blue hair and probably was the same one the rock monster had killed, but he failed to see why he ought to care. It had tears blurring its pink eyes and a tissue clutched by in one hand that it kept pressing to its nose. There was something vaguely familiar about it, so maybe he had seen it with Yusuke before, but it was clearly stupid and weak, so what it use it was as Yusuke's assistant was beyond him.

"Can I go now?" he asked Koenma.

"You need to apologise to Botan, Hiei," Koenma flatly replied.

"I don't apologise," Hiei told him. "Ever. I never apologise because I never make mistakes and I have no regrets."

"Oh, so you deliberately let me die and you don't regret it?" the ferry girl asked him.

"Maybe I regret that your demise was not permanent," he spat back at it.

It gasped and tears began flowing from its eyes.

"Hiei, if you don't apologise to Botan, I have no other choice but to ban you from spirit world and the living world, and to let you know that if you ever visit either place, you will be killed instantly by an officer of the SDF," Koenma said.

"I hate spirit world and I hate the living world," Hiei replied. "Banning me from those places is not even a punishment as far as I am concerned."

"I thought you might say something like that," Koenma sighed. "Which is why I consulted with Yomi and Yusuke. They've both agreed that you are banned from their respective territories within demon world too. If you do not apologise to Botan, you will be forced to spend the rest of your existence within Mukuro's territory only, and you will never see any of your friends again – Yusuke and Kurama don't want to know you if you don't make amends with Botan."

Apparently Yusuke and Kurama had lost their minds, Hiei thought. Frankly it was insulting: what sort of idiots were they that they had chosen a ferry girl over him?

"I can't think of anything more disgraceful and painful for me than to stand here and pretend that I care about that thing beside you," Hiei said to Koenma. "I refuse to continue this charade. Send me back to Mukuro's territory and contain me there if you want. There's nothing and no-one outside of that place that I want to be involved with anyway."

"Fine then, so be it," Koenma replied. "I hope you meant it when you said you have no regrets Hiei, because there's no undoing this now."

"I don't care," Hiei said.

"I can't believe I was so wrong about you," the ferry girl said, tears falling freely down its face as it spoke. "Hiei, I… I always thought that you were so brave and strong and noble… I was scared of you, but I trusted you, and I even liked you! I simply can't believe you would just walk out on us all like this! Please reconsider! Is this really what you want? Really?"

Hiei stared at it blankly, wondering why it was still bothering to talk since he thought he had already made his feelings clear: he had no interest in it or anything it had to say.

"You feel no remorse at all?" it asked. "You can't even pretend to feel remorse for the sake of your friends, Yusuke and Kurama? Are you really that stubborn, that proud, that pig-headed?"

Hiei continued to stare at the ferry girl, silently hoping that it would stop talking and he would be allowed to leave soon.

"Hiei, if you walk out of here now without at least trying to redeem your actions today, my opinion of you will be forever cemented," it said. "I will never forgive you. I am a forgiving soul by nature and I don't hate, but I will hate you if you can't at least admit that you were wrong. At least admit that I did not deserve what happened to me. If you can't at least do that, then you truly are the most vile monstrosity ever to have graced any of the three worlds, and I will despise you until the end of time itself."

"I don't care what you think," Hiei told it. "If I was in the same situation again, I would not do anything differently. You got what you deserved today. Pointless, thoughtless things like you mean absolutely nothing to me."

"You heartless beast!" it cried. "What you did today was tragic and stoic, and that is how I will always remember you, no matter what!"

"I don't care what you think," Hiei said again.

"Enough," Koenma said firmly. "Get out of here, Hiei. Go back to Mukuro's territory, and don't ever leave there."

"Fine by me," Hiei said.

As he left Koenma's office Hiei found himself glancing back into it: and the last thing he saw was the ferry girl crying into one sleeve of its kimono.

"I thought I knew his heart," it said. "I never thought I could be so wrong about someone."

Hiei frowned slightly as he walked away. For some strange reason, hearing the ferry girl say those words had given him an eerie sense of déjà vu.

10 years later

Hiei was pissed off. He had been awake and fighting for almost three days without rest or nutrition, and still Mukuro was refusing to show her face. She had, apparently, finally perfected a new technique she had been working on for many years, and Hiei was determined that he was going to be the first to see it. She had eventually promised to show it to him and sent him down to the basement to spar with some of her weaker, A class soldiers, telling him that she would come down and show him when she was free. Three days and over 400 deaths later, Hiei was still waiting.

The last few hours had been especially hard, because he had run out of soldiers to kill. He thought that perhaps he was not meant to have killed any of them, just to have trained with them, but he had become bored after the first day, and spraying blood around had cheered him up a little. The only options he had left to pass more time were to sleep or to start trashing the room and though both were appealing options, he could not really be bothered dealing with the inevitably sarcastic rant Mukuro would deliver it she caught him sleeping or breaking things.

The basement was a very dreary and depressing place to be, and although he was not there by choice and growing bored of being there, Hiei was not really sure that it was any worse than standing out by the borders of Mukuro's territory and watching helplessly as war raged on the horizon. Demon world was in a state of absolute chaos, arguably the worst it ever had been. The Spirit World Defence Force had returned to demon world and rebuilt the kakai barrier, which had erased the last shred of trust there had been between the two worlds. The border patrol had become defunct, and any humans that did accidentally enter demon world were dealt with in the old-fashioned way: they were tortured and ultimately killed. War was raging between all three factions of demon world because of a breakdown in communications, which had actually originated from some misspoken words by Mukuro's ambassador. Hiei wanted to be out on the frontline fighting, but Mukuro was, inexplicably, holding to an agreement she had made with Yomi and Yusuke ten years ago that she would not allow Hiei to leave her territory: as pointless as that was in such a time of unrest.

Hiei often thought about just going out into the thick of the fighting regardless. He had sometimes even dreamt of it: of literally cutting his way through the masses of fighters to reach the generals of the armies, Youko Kurama and Yusuke Urameshi. Even though he was still restricted to Mukuro's kingdom, Hiei had heard that Kurama had surrendered his existence in the human world and returned to demon world permanently, once more in his full-demon form. Yusuke had also permanently relocated to demon world, no longer in contact with those humans he had once liked so much – they were his enemies, and with the kakai barrier back up, he had no way to reach them anyway. And although Hiei personally did not care that there was a barrier preventing demons from passing between demon world and the living world, the events that had led up to its erection did infuriate him.

The Spirit World Defence Force had gone to the living world for a full month, gathering up all stray demons and returning them to their rightful places in demon world: and even though it had been almost three years since that time, Hiei could still hear Yukina's screams when she had been taken, by force, from the living world, from her friends and from that big orange-haired idiot that she had been so in love with.

Yukina was miserable in the ice village. She spent most of her time shut up in a small house on her own close to the graveyard, looking out at their mother's grave. Hiei often checked on her with his jagan eye, but she was almost always just sitting alone in that little house looking out at their mother's grave. It was reassuring that she was safe, but it also pissed him off that she was so boring and miserable all the time.

Looking down, Hiei saw that he still had the hiruiseki his sister had given him as well as his own. He doubted that she even thought about her missing brother any more. He did not know if he cared about that or not. He took hold of both of the stones he wore around his neck, studying them carefully. Looking at them still gave him that odd sense of peace that nothing else ever could, which was both confusing and quite pleasant.

"Feeling sorry for yourself again, Hiei?"

Hiei closed a fist around the hiruiseki and lifted his eyes, seeing Mukuro quietly walking towards him. He was a little annoyed that he had been unable to sense her approach much sooner but he pushed the thought aside and stuffed the hiruiseki under his shirt again.

"You've made me wait long enough," he said. "Show me your new trick."

"Trick?" she repeated, cocking a smirk that he was sure she knew would piss him off. "This isn't a trick, this is a very unique attack I'm hoping to use to change the way of things in demon world."

"You think it's enough for you to win the war and take over the entire world?" Hiei asked her.

She sighed and shook her head.

"You never did understand the subtleties of war, Hiei," she said.

"Hn, your ambassador was the one who ruined things for us all," Hiei replied.

"Yes, because of his inexperience in the role," Mukuro said tightly. "Unfortunately, a short-tempered little asshole killed my last diplomatic advisor, and I was forced to replace him at short notice…"

Hiei pulled a face at his boss: he could hardly believe that she was still holding a grudge about him killing that idiotic ambassador.

"Why was it that you killed him, Hiei?" she continued. "Remind me…"

"Hn, I don't remember," Hiei lied.

"I remember," Mukuro growled. "And I know that you do too. He called you a "human sympathiser" and you lost your temper like a child."

"It was an insult!" Hiei snapped. "A severe blow to my pride, if I hadn't killed him, others might have thought there was some truth in what he had said!"

"I remember a time when you were a human sympathiser, Hiei."

Hiei grabbed the hilt of his sword and swung it sharply out from its sheath, jolting involuntarily as a glowing orange line appeared in front of him, his blade passing through it before he could stop it. The blade broke apart easily, the tip falling to the ground on the other side of the orange line with a clatter that echoed almost painfully off the walls.

"You're familiar with this attack of mine, of course," Mukuro said, moving her hand through the air.

Hiei tensed as another orange line appeared behind him. It was so close to the back of his head that he could hear it crackling and feel the static of it making his hair stiffen at the back of his neck.

"Dividing Space," she continued, creating another division horizontally through the air directly above Hiei's head. "You know, that one attack of mine that, despite spending years trying to, you've never managed to overcome?"

Hiei bared his teeth and threw aside the broken remains of his sword.

"Well this new attack of mine is something similar," she said.

She was continually moving her hand, and looking about himself, Hiei could see that she was slowly creating a web around him, trapping him where he stood: obviously so that he would be unable to escape her new move.

"Hn, this is pointless," he said, smirking confidently. "Hit me as hard as you can, I need to understand this new attack so that I can beat it."

"You're going to regret those words, Hiei," Mukuro replied.

"I have no regrets," he replied. "I never have, and I never will. Just stop stalling and hit me, bitch."

Mukuro paused, and for a moment Hiei thought that she was about to turn around and leave him trapped in her web of divisions. After a few seconds he noticed that her hands were starting to glow as though she was charging an attack and he allowed himself a lop-sided smirk.

"So what do you call this one?" he asked.

"It's another dividing attack," she replied. "And I call it "Dividing Opinions"."

"That's a stupid fucking name," Hiei said. "It sounds weak. It had better not be."

"Alright then, let's call it "Dividing Realities"."

"…That's not any better. What does it do, exactly?"

"It does exactly what I'm trying to tell you: it divides reality."

"Hn. Nonsense."

"You realise I'm about to prove you wrong? I've tested this on many of my other men already, and I guarantee, it does divide reality."

"Just shut-up and get on with it."

"Fine!"

Mukuro chopped her hands down through the air in a cross motion, and an instant later a blast of energy hit Hiei in the abdomen. He cursed her name as it burned and he felt himself bleeding almost instantly. He was thrown backwards and rolled over in the air before hitting the ground and rolling over several times. As he had been surrounded by Dividing Space he expected that he would probably die or at least have a few limbs missing: but to his surprise, when he opened his eyes and looked himself over, the only obvious injury he had was the cross that had been gouged into his stomach from her new attack, and it was surprisingly shallow.

"Fuck you!" he yelled out across the basement. "Why do you always hold back on me?"

Hiei got to his feet. He could barely feel his wound. Clearly Mukuro had been taking the piss out of him by only using a fraction of her true strength to attack him. He was so sick of her going easy on him. He poked a finger into his wound and found that it was reasonably deep, but nothing that would not heal in a day or two even without any medical treatment. Mukuro would probably put him into one of her healing chambers and it would be gone in less than an hour.

Hiei lifted his head.

Something was wrong.

Hiei looked about himself slowly, the sense that something seriously bizarre had happened slowly dawning on him. The hundreds of dead bodies that had been stinking out the room were all gone. There was not even a trace of blood left to indicate their presence. Mukuro was gone too. He was completely alone in the basement.

Hiei slowly looked himself over. His sword was at his hip. He pulled it from its sheath and found it to be once more in one piece. He replaced it and then tugged at his shirt. He was sure that it had been black before Mukuro had attacked him, but now it was blue. He released his shirt and as it touched against his chest again he felt something that made him feel sick with panic: he only had one hiruiseki hanging around his neck.

He quickly pulled the chain up and over his head, looking down at it with wide eyes. It was his own hiruiseki that he had, the one Mukuro had returned to him, but Yukina's stone was gone. He started looking about desperately to see where it might have fallen, since it had presumably been broken off when Mukuro had attacked him. Hiei scurried about the basement for several minutes, but to no avail. He resorted to using his jagan eye, focusing on trying to find his sister's stone: and what he did see made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The stone was around the neck of that orange-haired idiot, and he was dancing around the halls of a temple wearing it, followed by Yukina, who was laughing and clapping her hands at his display of idiocy. Yukina was dressed in modern human clothes, and she was quite clearly with Kuwabara, and they were quite obviously in the living world.

What the hell was going on?

Next Chapter: It's horror all around for Hiei as he realises that he has been sent to an alternate reality, one where there is no war in demon world, he can move freely between territories and he can even access the living world: where he finds that his own life is quite drastically different. Chapter 2: Dividing Opinions.