Mukuro orders that the duel between Hiei and Shigure should begin.

"It is pointless to prolong this combat," Hiei thinks. "My chances of winning would be better if I used my fire powers."

Mukuro's thoughts go in the same direction: "If this duel were limited to the swords, Shigure would have a chance to win."

"I used to fight to survive," Hiei ponders silently. "Then I would make use of all my resources to win. I had a goal. Now, I don't have any. So I should die."

Raising his katana, Hiei runs to attack Shigure.

A flashback starts and sends us back to the Ice World, the floating glacier where the koorime live. Encouraged by the Koorime Elder, Rui was about to drop the Forbidden Child from the border, while Hina begged her not to do it. "Please come back alive," Rui whispered to the baby, putting the necklace with Hina's hiruiseki in his little hand. "And the first thing I want you to do when you come back is kill me. This is the only way I can make up for Hina's death. Forgive me."

She dropped the child, and we hear Hiei's voice narrating. "I am Hiei, the Forbidden Child, the evil orphan of the Ice World."

A thief found the baby, still wrapped in bandages and amulet-papers, in a river of Makai. He took the Forbidden Child to the leader of the gang of thieves. The leader tried to take the hiruiseki away, but the baby clenched it firmly and bit the leader's hand.

Hiei was "adopted" by the leader then. We see a pair of thieves running after Hiei -- older at that point, but still merely a child --, trying to steal his hiruiseki. Hiei killed then with a sword that was longer than he was tall. "I love to see the ripped flesh just before the blood gushes out," Hiei narrates. "To listen and enjoy the screams of pain. I actually understand why I was thrown out from the Ice World. The koorime feared me. I kept wearing the hiruiseki necklace around my neck just to taunt the thieves."

We see a grown Hiei contemplating a rocky landscape of Makai from the top of a cliff. "Blood was always in my path. After years of life and killing, I no longer thought of finding the Ice World. I meditated about life while staring at my hiruiseki."

We see Hiei returning to the lair of the gang. "Look, it's Hiei!" yelled one of the thieves. To Hiei's surprise, all the thieves immediately stopped what they were doing, turned their backs on him and entered the caves they lived in, closing the curtains.

Hiei stood there for a moment, before walking away. "I was tired of living as a killer. People kept pushing me away because they feared me."

We see Hiei sitting on a tree branch, staring at the hiruiseki on his palm. After parting ways with the gang, "I had more time for myself, so I would spent more hours staring at the gem. That soothed me, filled me with pleasure. Those were moments of peace."

We see Hiei dueling with another swordsman on a cliff. "Different places, different enemies. Some were very powerful." During the fight, the other youkai's sword severed the cord of Hiei's necklace, and the hiruiseki fell to the fast waters of a river. Hiei was pushed over the cliff as well, but he managed to stop his fall by sticking his katana into the cliff's wall. The blade curved at Hiei's weight and catapulted him back up to the top, where he caught the youkai by surprise. His katana cut through the youkai's chest, killing him instantly.

Then he looked down at the river where his hiruiseki had disappeared. "Now I had two things to look for: the Ice World and my hiruiseki. I needed the Jagan so I could see farther."

We see Hiei entering Shigure's house and telling him he wanted a Jagan to be implanted on his body. At first, Shigure ignored him. When Hiei insisted, Shigure said, "The pain of that surgery is unbearable. You're nothing but a kid. You wouldn't survive it. Give up and leave."

Hiei pulled his katana and stuck it through his palm of his own hand to prove that he could stand the pain.

Shigure said he would only agree to the surgery after judging Hiei's character, and for that he would have to learn everything about Hiei's life. "It's not worth telling," Hiei replied. "I loathe my life."

Eventually, Shigure performed the surgery. "To get the Jagan implanted, it was necessary to stand the pain and lose all the youki I had." From outside Shigure's house, we hear Hiei screaming in agony.

Then we see Hiei waking up after the surgery. The top of his head was wrapped in bandages, and his clothes and katana were at his feet on the bed. Stepping out the door, he found Shigure practicing with his circular sword, throwing it like a boomerang to cut through the trunks of several trees before it returned to his hand. Hiei asked him about the sword, and Shigure told him it was a special weapon, made from the bones of a Makai bovine.

Hiei turned to leave, but Shigure warned him that his youki had been depleted; he wouldn't survive if he were attacked. Hiei shrugged the surgeon's concern off.

"I can teach you my sword techniques," Shigure proposed then, enticing Hiei to stay. "If you die now, my work will have been in vain."

"I changed my mind," Hiei narrates. "I had nothing to lose by staying. I learned his techniques. I never thought I'd face him again. But this is also part of my fate. This is a perfect way to die."

Back to the present, Hiei attacks Shigure with his fantastic speed. A chopped, bleeding arm flies.

Hiei falls on his knees, in pain. His katana is broken, his chest is bleeding, and his left arm was reduced to a stump.

From Shigure's mouth comes the word, "Splendid." But the upper half of his head is on the floor, cut off.

"Intelligent maneuver," Mukuro remarks.

We see the duel again, this time in slow motion. Hiei held his katana vertically in front of him, using it as a shield against the circular sword. By consequence, when the two blades met, Hiei's was pushed back, cutting Hiei's own arm off. Shigure recognized this as a deliberate strategy.

Then, Hiei stepped on the circular sword, pushing it down, while at the same time swinging his katana to chop off Shigure's left arm as well. Shigure raised his sword then, lifting Hiei, who reacted with a somersault.

When he landed back on the floor, the two swords clashed again, and the tip of the katana broke. The circular sword hit Hiei's chest, and Shigure spun it to open a deep, broad wound on the flesh.

They walked two steps past each other, and Hiei managed to swing his katana one last time to slash through Shigure's head, right under the eyes.

The duel is over. Shigure falls.

"A direct attack," Hiei thinks as he kneels on a pool of his own blood. "This kind of death isn't so bad."

Mukuro walks to him and compliments him for his victory. He offers Hiei a reward. "It's your hiruiseki," he says, showing his tongue, on which the hiruiseki necklace lies. "It's the gem you've been looking for all your life. I've obtained it on a mere whim. Take it."

The hiruiseki falls on the floor in front of Hiei.

"Hn," Hiei snorts. "I don't want the hiruiseki if it's smelling like your foul, stinking mouth." Hiei falls prone on the floor, unconscious.

Mukuro kneels beside him. "Hiei, why did you look for this kind of death? Why are you in a hurry to die? Why?" He presses his fists against Hiei's back and images of the Forbidden Child's past fill his mind.

We see Hiei taking off the bandages around his head, and the Jagan opening.

"With the Jagan, I quickly found the Ice World," Hiei's voice narrates. "I was born there and from there I was thrown down. I hadn't seen my birth land for many years, but I didn't have any memories of it either."

We see Hiei entering a village and the koorime fleeing from him, hiding in their houses as he passed by. "All the koorime had warped minds, but that wasn't reason enough to kill them. I wouldn't lower myself to do this. The village was already dead anyway."

From a distance, Hiei saw the Elder saying goodbye to Rui. "Rui, I'm leaving everything under your care."

"Yes, madam," Rui replied. "Rest in peace."

Hiei recognized Rui as the woman who had dropped him from the glacier's rim. He approached her after the Elder left. She got scared.

"Don't be afraid," he soothed her. "I won't hurt you. I just want to ask you a question."

Next, we see them both standing before Hina's grave. She died soon after Hiei was banned.

"She had a daughter named Yukina," Rui said. "She is a very beautiful girl, but she vanished some years ago. We don't know where she is, no one has heard from her since then, although we have looked for her."

But Hiei was already leaving. Only then Rui remembered the Forbidden Child and asked him if he was that boy. Hiei didn't answer. Rui tried to run after him, but she stumbled and fell on the snowy ground, in tears.

Then we see Hiei jumping from building to building in Ningenkai. "I went to Ningenkai, looking for Yukina. There I found Kurama, turned into the shape of a human. I joined Kurama and Gouki to steal the Reikai Treasures. That was how I met Yusuke Urameshi, the Reikai Tantei."

We see Hiei's duel against Seiryuu. "I changed a little."

We see Hiei punching Gonzou Tarukane over and over when he, Yusuke, Kuwabara and Botan rescued Yukina. "In Tarukane's manor, I found Yukina. She didn't know who I was. I didn't reveal my identity to her. That was my wish."

We see Hiei letting out the Kokuryuuha during the Ankoku Bujutsukai. "And when I was fed up with Ningenkai, I was invited to come here."

We see Yukina saying goodbye to Hiei before he left to Makai, when she gave him her own hiruiseki. "If you find my brother, give him this," she asked.

"That wasn't my hiruiseki," Hiei narrates. "When I looked at Yukina, I thought she might be the gem I was looking for. But I didn't have a goal anymore. I no longer had a reason to live."

We see scenes of Hiei fighting youkais in the underground of Mukuro's citadel. "Only fighting had any meaning. I already accepted death without reservations."

We return to the present as Mukuro breaks the connection with Hiei's mind. "I didn't know, Hiei. I didn't know that story. Out of all the people I've ever met, you are the one I feel most comfortable with. Rest in peace, Hiei."

In a strange-looking lab, Hiei's body is encased in a tank filled with green liquid, countless tubes connected to his body. His eyes are closed, but the Jagan is open.

Mukuro stands in front of the tank, looking at Hiei, and removing the bandages around her face. "The hiruiseki is very precious," Mukuro says. "I feel it has sucked away all the evil inside me. Thanks to it, I was saved." He takes off his clothes as well. "I've always been a prisoner, since my birth. I've become powerful and defeated everyone who stood in my way. If it weren't for this gem, my life would be nothing but hatred and war."

Mukuro stands completely naked before the tank, revealing to be in fact a she. "As I had promised you, this is my true body," she said. "Look, Hiei. I will show you my entire body. Live, Hiei! You can't die yet. Live and join me."

The narrator says, "Some time later, Hiei became the commander of Mukuro's army."