DISCLAIMER: I do not own YuYu Hakusho, or any of the content and characters therein. They belong solely to their respective copyright holder(s). I am making no profit from this work of fanfiction.

AUTHOR: claustro_phobia (Ikuni Kea Ko)

TITLE: Hearts of Ice

FANDOM: YuYu Hakusho anime-verse.

RATED: R

WARNING: Strong adult content, sexual situations, and language.

PAIRINGS: Hiei x Yukina, Kurama x Botan, Koenma x Kurama, (one-sided) Kuwabara x Yukina.

SUMMARY: Two very different women must face the cold truth, and confront the fact that their realities are not at all what they seem to be.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING CONTENT: This notice shall serve as your first and final warning: THIS FIC CONTAINS INCEST, AS WELL AS HETEROSEXUAL AND HOMOSEXUAL CONTENT. If ANY of the aforementioned offends you/grosses you out/squicks you in any way, then I suggest that you refrain from reading this particular fanfic. If you do not heed this warning, then that is on your own head, not mine. So, don't cry to me about it and expect any level of sympathy, or anything really, except perhaps a few snide words in response.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic has been heavily inspired by Utada's album This Is The One, as well as the drastic drop in temperature in my home town of late.

Hearts of Ice

Prologue: Melting Snow

The snow crunched beneath her feet. Yukina turned burning red eyes to the pale sky, and the misty orb that was the sun of the Human World, shining dimly through the haze of clouds. She stood still, as if frozen like the trees all around the clearing, their bows bent beneath the weight of glittering icicles. She breathed in the cold; it seemed to reach right down to her core, like liquid ice in her veins. Her breath did not rise in white fog; the oxygen her body expelled was just as chilly as the air around her.

She did feel the cold, but she imagined that it was more like basking in the summer heat for humans. Feeling herself filled with the cold was better than visiting a thousand sun-kissed beaches.

She drank in the frigidity, allowing it to slow her heart rate. If someone had come along and placed their fingers on her throat, they would have felt nothing stirring under their touch. She knew that her body temperature was low enough that if someone had indeed made physical contact with her, their warm skin would have stuck to her frozen skin. And if a mirror were held up to her, she would not see eyes staring back anymore. No pupils, no irises; just two pale, glowing slits.

She was alone, and in the thick of winter. She didn't have to play human in this moment.

Alone?

Yukina spun 'round. Her heart was suddenly beating rapidly against her ribcage. She could have sworn that she had sensed someone. Yes, someone watching her. She had been plagued by this sensation periodically for some years now, and it always seemed to happen most when she was isolated and away from her friends.

The Maiden of Ice scanned the trees, their branches and between their shadows. No one was there, and she could find no evidence that anyone had been. Even so, she could still sense the lingering remnants of a definite presence. It was too faint for her to pin it down, but it was warm and strangely familiar. Whoever they were, they were at odds with her element. She knew that for sure, and yet…It was something her guardian had told her years before, "A flame born of the snow burns warmest of all."

An echo of a long lost childish notion drifted across the years to her. When she had been younger, she had believed that this feeling, this presence, was of her brother's doing. Truthfully, somewhere deep, deep within her soul, she had never really let herself stop believing that, silly as it might seem to her adult mind. Was it possible?

"Don't be a fool," she muttered.