Yu Yu Hakusho:Kōrudokēsu

Chapter 11 A Tearful Reunion, and a Dreadful Defeat

Tatsuo barely felt anything at all as the blizzard buried him in a thin layer of snow and ice which felt like a massive weight on his body. For the first time in his life, he felt cold. Not due to the inclimate weather, but beause of the defethe had just suffered at the hands of the Spirit Detective Romano Hideshi. The reality began to settle in quickly, as he realized his plans to convert the glacial village had finally come to an end...

Mother... I failed you... I failed you, Hina, Hiei, and all the other mothers and children who fell victim to this corrupt society... I'm sorry that i wasn't strong enough...

The two gaping holes on his shoulder blades where his wings in his dragon form used to be where oozing his hot, red blood, changing the color of the pure white snow which would soon make his grave.

It's a shame my powers of regeneration doesn't apply to lost limbs... Tatsuo thought to himself pitifully. How ironic, at birth, i could not save myself from being thrown from that cliff... And even now, when my powers were at their peak, I still cannot save myself from the cold, unfeeling cliff-side.

Tatsuo turned his gaze toward the cliff he was to be thrown fro as a chld, and for a breif moment, has a faint memory...

"Please Rui," an ice apparition woman who appeared to be several months pregnant said as she followed Tatsuo's mother into an ice cave similar to the one Tatsuo took his kidnapped victims to "Please let the twins stay here with Tatsuo! I cannot bear the thought of anyone finding out about them..." The woman stopped trailing behind her for a moment and began to shed a tear from her left eye, the thought of losing her children leaving a tremendous weight on her heart.

Rui stood still holding her child in her arms. The son she was able to keep a secret from her entire village. "Hina..." she began and then sighed. "No Hina... I can't afford the risk..."

"R-Risk?!? What risk?!?" Hina demanded, outraged at her friend's response.

"Your children were born from the evil fire demon Kioge... Mine were born of a dragon, yes. But he was the sweetest, kindest man in all of Spirit Realm..."

"Wait, you think my children are going to be blood-thirsty monsters just because their father was a fire demon?!?" Hina shouted in an angered tone, provoked by Rui's unkind words.

"Please Hina... He murders good, innocent people for his own sick, twisted pleasure... Kiorge's children may be no different, and I don't think I can trust them around my Tatsuo..." Rui states as she looks down upon her child lovingly.

"Rui..." Hina said as tears began to form in her eyes.

"You'll just have to find another place to hide the children." Rui says, giving the cold shoulder to her best friend in favor of the safety of her child.

The tears came faster now as Hina turned back around, breaking into a fit of crying as she turned around and ran out of the cave, sobbing loudly as she went.

A few weeks later, Hiei and Yukina were born, and it was discovered that Hiei was obviously a powerful fire demon while Yukina remained inconspicuous due to her innocent, normal appearance. The unfair circumstances lead Yukina to survive while Hiei was sentenced to death by being from the side of a cliff. Rui was selected by the village elder to carry out the deed. Upon throwing the child from the cliffside, Rui asked for Hiei, upon his return to the Glacial Village, to kill her first for what she was about to do. The greif held heavy on her heart until the very end of her life...

If only she had allowed for Hiei and Yukina to stay in the cave with Tatsuo...

Now her only child lay helpless, his face buried in the snow as his boy shivers and his blood runs thick. I don't understand... I did this all for their own good... That damn elder was a corrupt leader who started a sick and twisted religion of controlling the village population. I was going to free them from their enslavement...