A/N: The insanity continues. And gets progressively more insane.

Recap: Koenma had bad news for Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama about a band of rogue demons attempting to take over spirit world, Botan, Keiko and Shizuru were frustrated about being left in the dark, and, despite battling an illness, Hiei showed up just at the right moment to help out. How convenient.

Chapter 2: Too Near

"Are you sure you're fit to join us?" Kurama whispered.

"Huh, idiot fox," Hiei scoffed.

Kurama narrowed his eyes accusingly, but Hiei did not so much as blink. He was wearing his scarf a little higher than usual, and, combined with his hunched stance, he looked as though he was huddled against the cold, and yet still he was clearly sweating, his bandana and stray strands of black hair clinging to his forehead and the sides of his face.

"There's no shame in resting until you are well again," Kurama pointed out.

"I don't slow down for anything," Hiei spat back.

His pride and zeal were certainly recovered, Kurama thought to himself as they moved towards the front door, trailing behind Yusuke, Kuwabara and Koenma.

"Right, it's a nice day out, so let's make this quick," Yusuke said as he stepped outside.

"Let's make this quick because I have exams I have to get back for," Kuwabara said.

"Let's make this quick because there are lives at stake," Koenma said. "And because if we don't, this could spill out into – Botan!"

He jerked back, one hand flying to his chest.

"When did you get here?" he asked nervously, hoping she had not heard his last remark.

"I couldn't sleep, Sir," she said forlornly. "I was worried and I wanted to know what was really going on!"

"Do you know what the best cure for insomnia is?" he asked.

"Finding the answer to my questions about what's going on around here?" she responded.

"No, work! Lots and lots of work! If you go back to work, and work really, really hard, I guarantee you'll tire yourself out in no time!"

Botan's face dropped but before she could start an argument with Koenma, Kurama quickly stepped between them.

"Here Botan, have this," he offered, playing his fingers through his hair and producing a small seed.

She watched curiously as he closed his fist around the seed before slowly opening his fingers outwards again, a plant unfurling from the centre of his palm that shortly bloomed into a flower.

"It's the demon world flower of happiness," he added.

Botan, her eyes still on the plant, pinched the stalk between her thumb and forefinger, plucking it from Kurama's hand.

"The flower of happiness?" she asked quietly, squinting at the radiant purple petals.

"Yes," he replied.

"Okay…"

She reached up her other hand, pinching one of the velvety petals.

"We're going to die, we're not going to die," she said, plucking out the petals as she spoke. "We're going to die, we're not going to die."

"Uh, Botan…?" Kuwabara began awkwardly. "I don't think that's what Kurama meant with the–"

"We're not going to die," Botan said loudly as she removed the last petal. "We're going to die!" she said, waggling the limp remains of the stalk in front of Koenma.

"The last petal said "not"," Koenma pointed out.

"But the stalk says sot!" Botan retaliated.

"Get a grip of yourself!" Hiei snapped, snatching the remains of the flower from her hand.

"Hiei!" she yelped, turning to him suddenly. "When did you get here? And what happened to your–"

"Do you see this?" Hiei interrupted her, shaking the piece of greenery he had retrieved from her. "This is why you don't get to join the fight. This is ridiculous and it makes you look like a selfish, insecure idiot. Is that how you want to look?"

"N-no…" she slowly replied

"Then stop this hysteria at once."

Botan slowly looked around the others before talking again.

"What happened to his–" she began.

"I think you're needed in spirit world, Botan," Hiei cut her off.

Botan's eyes doubled in size, but she stopped talking.

"You are needed in spirit world Botan, and so am I," Koenma said to her. "So, shall we?"

"He's never called me by my name before," she said vaguely, watching Hiei over her shoulder as Koenma tried to usher her away from the others. "I didn't even know he knew what it was…"

Behind her Hiei gulped audibly and turned his back on her.

"Well, now that they're gone, let's get down to business," Yusuke said. "Hiei, you know your way around demon world better than any of us, and we need to find a major weapons dealer. Any ideas where we should look first?"

Yusuke watched the back of Hiei's head expectantly, but Hiei seemed not to have heard him.

"Hiei?" Kurama said, stepping closer to him.

"I think it's dead," he said, turning around suddenly. "Can you resurrect it?"

Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara all looked down at the wilted remains of the flower cradled in Hiei's upturned palms.

"No, I can't," Kurama eventually said.

"Oh…" Hiei said quietly.

"It's alright, it's not a functional plant," Kurama assured him. "It's just a flower, typically given to a… Special friend…"

Kurama glanced at Yusuke and Kuwabara, but both were still too busy trying to figure out why Hiei was worried about a flower to notice anything the fox demon had said.

"I have plenty more," Kurama said, picking the flower from Hiei's hands and tossing it aside. "For now we need to concentrate on finding that weapons dealer. I think I know which region it's in, and we were hoping you would be able to find it for us from there."

"Yeah, use your freaky eye to find out where we need to go!" Kuwabara suggested.

"Hey, I never even thought about that!" Yusuke said. "Get your eye out, Hiei!"

Hiei leapt back a step, eying Yusuke over warily as he tried to reach for his bandana.

"Let's not force him, he's clearly still feverish," Kurama warned Yusuke.

"Right," Yusuke agreed. "So you take us to where you think the weapons place might be Kurama, and maybe we can find it from there."

"Why do you need to find a weapons dealer?" Hiei asked Kurama.

"Some demons have forced their way into spirit world, and they are using specialised weaponry to gradually take over the entire realm," Kurama explained. "The SDF are trying to hold them at bay, but we need to cut them off at their source in demon world, and the easiest way to do that will to be to find the merchant supplying them and cut off that supply."

"I see," Hiei said, nodding his head. "Which part of demon world are we going to?"

"A large town within Mukuro's territory, you may be familiar with it," Kurama replied.

"What's it called?" Yusuke asked.

"Arbeinia," Kurama said.

"Arbeinia?" Hiei echoed.

"Yes," Kurama confirmed. "You are familiar with it then?"

Hiei gave a small, lop-sided smile.

"I am," he said. "There is a little stone building connected to a cave in a hillside beyond the town that sells strange and powerful long range weapons."

"Great!" Yusuke said, smiling cheerfully. "See you guys? I was right about Hiei! He always shows up just when we need him!"

Yusuke slapped Hiei on the back, taking a little longer than Kurama and Kuwabara to react when Hiei went flying into the temple wall with a clatter and then slid to the ground in a crumpled heap of black fabric. Kurama and Kuwabara turned to glare at Yusuke, who shrugged innocently.

"Oops?" he said.

Kuwabara quietly scolded him for being idiotic and Kurama moved over to Hiei's side.

"Perhaps once you have shown us where the dealer is, we should take you back to Mukuro," he offered.

"No," Hiei said sternly, standing up and smoothing down his cloak. "I'm fine. I can keep up with you. I can keep up with all of you."

"Nobody said you couldn't," Yusuke pointed out.

Hiei cleared his throat and fidgeted slightly. He was clearly embarrassed about falling over so easily and revealing just how weakened he still was from the virus, Kurama thought, and, as he dragged one bandaged hand over his sweat-soaked hairline above his bandana, Kurama also noted that Hiei was still particularly pale and uncharacteristically sweaty.

"Stay close to me, Hiei," he suggested.

"Okay," Hiei immediately replied, his head snapping up and his eyes meeting Kurama's.

Kurama was a little surprised that Hiei had agreed so readily, but thought that perhaps he was just glad that he was not being asked to stay close to Kuwabara.

"Let's go," Yusuke said.

"Slowly," Kurama added.

Yusuke nodded.

"Right, slowly," he said. "Because we've got Kuwabara with us."

"Hey!" Kuwabara protested.

Yusuke started towards the temple gate, laughing off Kuwabara's complaints as he went. Kurama followed them at a distance, with Hiei walking closely behind him.

"Is Arbeinia part of your patrol route?" Kurama asked as they walked.

"It's just…" Hiei slowly replied. "It's the first place I ever saw when I left home."

"Oh, of course," Kurama agreed. "It's very close to the floating ice village, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, I… Wait, what?"

"Well, when you were cast out of the ice village, you probably landed in Arbeinia. The thought had never crossed my mind before."

Kurama glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Hiei gulping and breaking out into another sickly sweat.

"Don't worry," Kurama assured him. "I won't mention it to the others. It's also a good reason not to linger there long though."

"What…?" Hiei echoed. "I don't want to linger there, but why don't you?"

Kurama twitched slightly.

"We wouldn't want the ice village to be exposed by any of this," he said, turning his head away from Hiei.

"I didn't know you cared," Hiei said.

"It's the right thing to do."

They walked on together the rest of the way in silence: but both of them felt distinctly aware that something was amiss, and both felt that the other was hiding something.

"Oh… God!"

Yusuke stopped short, turning his head to look down at Kurama, who was suddenly doubled over at his side, his hands on his knees, his red hair spilling over his shoulders to hang down either side of his face.

"Everything okay, fox boy?" he asked.

"Nrg, just have to keep going," Kurama replied, straightening up again with great effort.

Yusuke eyed him over before looking out ahead of himself, where Kuwabara was in the process of being talked into buying a length of silk from a busty female bat demon and Hiei was standing on the spot staring up at the sky, his eyes large and baleful.

"Well this is fun…" he muttered.

"We have to keep going," Kurama insisted.

Kurama had been fine until they had neared Arbeinia, at which point he had started to become weakened for no apparent good reason.

"Maybe you caught the virus," Yusuke suggested to him.

"I've caught something, but it's not the virus," Kurama muttered.

Yusuke lifted his shirt collar up over his nose, and finally Kurama's dilated pupils focused.

"I don't have the virus, Yusuke," he said in a more even tone. "We know humans can't catch it, remember?"

"We trusted Kuwabara to get that information," Yusuke replied through his shirt. "So, you know, probably not the most reliable…"

Yusuke pointed at Kuwabara, who was blushing and stammering awkwardly, all the while trying to keep his eyes on the wares the bat girl was trying to sell him.

"It's not the virus," Kurama insisted. "It's… Something else."

Yusuke took a step back from him. Kurama looked about himself before stepping forwards to narrow the gap Yusuke had just created.

"We can't linger here," he said in a hushed voice.

"I don't want to linger here," Yusuke replied, stepping back again. "I want to find that gun shop and kick some ass, and I want to do it right now. But try telling that to the "warrior of love" and the space cadet."

Kurama and Yusuke both turned to look first at Kuwabara, who was trying to politely stop the salesgirl from tying a bejewelled scarf around his neck, and then at Hiei, who was turning in the spot, his head tilted back looking up at the clouds overhead in an apparent state of wonder.

"Maybe we should just leave them here and find the weapons dealer ourselves," Yusuke suggested, turning back to Kurama.

Kurama still looked a little edgy to Yusuke, and he was still watching Hiei, but he nodded and again tried to focus his eyes.

"Yes, let's get out of here," he agreed. "Hiei said the weapons dealer he knew of is on the other side of that hill beyond the city limits."

Kurama pointed to the low but steep hill in the middle distance to indicate his point.

"Okay, well, let's just…."

Yusuke's voice faded as Kurama took off through the marketplace without him.

"Go then," he finished.

He sighed before jogging over to Kuwabara, who was in the process of untangling himself from a silk sarong.

"Hey, you're on nurse duty, me and Kurama are gonna go shut down that weapons shop," Yusuke said.

He then took off, grinning to himself as Kuwabara yelled complaints after him. By the time Kuwabara had managed to unwind himself from the multiple layers of brightly-coloured silks the demon girl had wrapped him in, Yusuke was long gone from sight. He turned to Hiei apprehensively, but found him staring up at the sky. Kuwabara turned his head upwards, looking about the thick clouds that filled the sky overhead but failing to find anything of interest amongst them. When he lowered his head again, Hiei was looking directly at him, his eyes looking suddenly unnaturally enormous.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"They left," Kuwabara replied.

Hiei looked about himself frantically, looking even more pathetic than he already did.

"Without us?" he asked, turning back to Kuwabara.

"Yeah, they said you're too sick to go with them," Kuwabara replied.

He expected Hiei to snap back at him with something cutting before disappearing after Yusuke and Kurama in a cloud of dust: but instead he remained still, his expression becoming slightly more pathetic.

"I can keep up with them," he eventually said, his voice barely audible. "I can keep up with all of you."

"Well now you're sick, and now you're really slow," Kuwabara bluntly reminded him. "Just wait here, they'll be back soon."

Hiei's eyes narrowed and he looked a little more like his usual, sulky self.

"So I have to wait here alone with you?" he asked.

"I'm not any happier about it than you are, tiny," Kuwabara flatly replied.

"Don't call me names, it's beneath you."

Kuwabara frowned.

"I think you're still really sick," he said slowly. "Because I don't think you just said what you meant to say."

"I always mean what I say," Hiei quietly replied.

Kuwabara nodded slowly, before yelping as the salesgirl tugged at his arm and began trying to convince him that he needed a feathered shawl. He hoped Yusuke and Kurama got back quickly and that the mission would end soon after that, because it was rapidly turning into the most surreal experience of his life.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Yusuke snapped as the hunch-backed troll strolled past him. "Hey!"

The interior of the weapons shop was dark and dusty, and there was little merchandise on display, and most of what was visible looked relatively inconspicuous: there were swords hanging on the walls, bow and arrow sets arranged in display baskets on the floor, spears and staffs laid out on a table in the centre of the room and a selection of small daggers, throwing stars, darts and an array of small bombs in a glass display cabinet by the counter. But behind the counter, the shop sunk into the cave, quickly fading into blackness, beyond which anything could be concealed.

"Have you been selling big weapons to weak assholes lately?" Yusuke asked again.

"I only answer questions asked by paying customers," the troll replied, dusting at an ornamental sword with a grimy cloth.

"Damn it…" Yusuke growled, cracking his knuckles.

He started to form a plan about making the shopkeeper wear one of his display baskets, but before he could enact it, Kurama picked up a staff from the table and swung it through the glass display cabinet, spraying glass and ammunition everywhere.

"Hey!" the troll snapped, round on him.

"Stop selling to the bandits trying to take over spirit world, or you will never sell to anyone again," Kurama warned him.

"Yeah!" Yusuke agreed.

"I'm not refusing sales because a couple of pretty boy kids asked me to," the troll flatly replied.

Kurama plucked a small grenade from the pile of rubble he had created, pulling out the pin.

"Do you even know what that is?" the troll yelled desperately.

"Of course I do," Kurama calmly replied, tossing the grenade into the darkness beyond the counter.

"What are you–"

The troll and Yusuke both cried out alarm and shielded their heads with their arms as a small explosion sounded from the darkness of the cave. Kurama remained perfectly still, his hair blasting out to one side of his head before settling back down a little unevenly down his back.

"Aw!" Yusuke complained, hooking his shirt collar over his nose again. "What is that?"

"It's a stink bomb," the troll replied before cupping a hand over his nose and mouth.

"Why did you pick a stink bomb, Kurama?" Yusuke asked.

Kurama did not answer him, instead moving into the brown clouds billowing out of the mouth of the cave. Yusuke started to think that Kurama had in fact caught the demon virus, because he was acting about as logically and sanely as Hiei, and he wondered if he could even trust the supposed "antiseptic lotion" Kurama had given him that morning: but his doubts faded again as the smoke began to dissipate and he saw that Kurama had closed off the mouth of the cave with a selection of pulsing, angry, fang-bearing demon plants that he had rooted directly into the dirt around the rocky cave-side.

"I think that should buy us enough time to find the breach and follow it into our foes' lair," Kurama said as he approached Yusuke.

"Nice work!" Yusuke agreed.

Together they left the shop again, ignoring the ranting troll behind them. Yusuke lowered his shirt as they stepped outside, but quickly hoisted it back up again when he realised that the stench of the bomb Kurama had deployed was lingering beyond the walls of the shop itself.

"Let's get back to Kuwabara and Hiei," he said through his shirt. "It's probably not a good idea to leave them alone together for too long, I don't want to have to explain to Shizuru that all that's left of her brother is a bloody head on a fence post in demon world."

Yusuke walked on down the hillside for several seconds before turning to Kurama for his response, only to find that he was alone. He stopped abruptly and turned around, looking back up the hillside, where he eventually spotted Kurama, still standing in the slightly discoloured air around the shop, seemingly unaffected by the rotten stench around him.

"Hey, Kurama?" Yusuke called back to him, his voice still muted by his shirt, which he was not ready to pull down just yet. "You okay back there?"

"Go on ahead without me, I'll wait here in case any of the criminals return here looking to purchase more equipment," Kurama called back.

"I… Guess that makes sense…" Yusuke agreed. "You don't have to stand right there in the middle of the stink though, right?"

Kurama had an unnaturally serene look on his face for anyone standing in a cloud of air so toxic: one breath of it had been enough to make Yusuke's eyes water, and he wondered how Kurama, with his super-sensitive nose, could endure such torture with such grace.

"He's got the virus," Yusuke muttered to himself, turning away from the disturbing scene. "I just hope I get it next, so that I don't have to watch Kuwabara go crazy too…"

"What are you doing?" Hiei asked.

"I have to go," Kuwabara replied, glancing about nervously before ducking into a narrow alleyway.

"Go where?" Hiei asked, moving to stand at the end of the alleyway.

Kuwabara curled his lip at the stunted fire demon.

"You're even weirder than usual, half-pint," he muttered.

Hiei looked unaffected by his words, and so Kuwabara proceeded to unzip his fly and relieve himself against the wall. He was unsure if he was surprised or not that Hiei gasped and clapped his hands over his eyes.

"Shut-up, Hiei!" Kuwabara snapped at him.

"I-I didn't say anything!" Hiei replied, his hands still covering his face.

"You didn't have to!" Kuwabara shot back. "You're just freaking out because I'm a human! I bet you wouldn't freak out if a demon took a slash in front of you!"

Hiei slowly lowered his hands, but as Kuwabara shook himself off, Hiei gasped again and again he covered his face.

"I'm putting it away, calm down!" Kuwabara grunted.

Hiei waited until Kuwabara had loudly zipped up his fly before lowering his hands again.

"Do you let other men watch you urinate, or just me?" he asked quietly.

"What the hell are you talking about "let you watch"?" Kuwabara yelped. "I didn't "let you watch"! It wasn't like that!"

"I don't understand," Hiei replied. "Where I come from, it's considered vulgar to urinate in the presence of another."

"Don't give me that crap, you've peed in front of me plenty of times!"

"I have?"

"Yes!"

"And you watched me do it?"

"Well yeah, I – wait, what? No! I didn't deliberately watch! Not like that I didn't!"

"I think it's very rude to watch someone urinate."

Kuwabara scrunched up his face, and, for the first time in his life, he was ridiculously happy to see Yusuke approaching him looking angry and ready to beat someone up.

"Urameshi!" he called out cheerfully, waving a hand above his head.

"Where's Kurama?" Hiei asked as Yusuke joined them.

"The same place as you: cuckoo land," Yusuke answered. "Hey Kuwabara, how many fingers am I holding up?"

Yusuke stuck up his middle finger at Kuwabara, who was still too happy at no longer being alone in an awkward conversation with Hiei to stop smiling.

"One!" he cheerfully replied.

"Hm…"

Yusuke lowered his hand, his face twisting sceptically.

"Can we go now?" Kuwabara asked him.

Yusuke looked down at Hiei, his face twisting further still.

"You look terrible," he frankly told him.

"I look the same way I always do," Hiei cryptically replied.

Yusuke sighed and turned back to Kuwabara.

"Let's go," he said. "Kurama's waiting for us up on the hillside, and I'm pretty sure I passed a pharmacy coming down here, so maybe we can pick up a pack of junior aspirin for three eyes on the way back."

He turned and began to walk back in the direction he had come from. He knew running was not going to be an option, as Hiei was still pale and clammy, and he was looking positively bewildered – though that was probably a side-effect from being left alone with Kuwabara, Yusuke decided.

"So uh, this virus that Hiei's got, what do we do if you catch it next?" Kuwabara asked.

"I'm not gonna catch it," Yusuke corrected him. "And even if I did, you shouldn't need to ask what you do. You keep going. Close the damn breach, get those bastards out of spirit world, and stop the virus from spreading any further. And besides, there's more chance of you catching it than me."

"But humans haven't been affected by it," Kuwabara replied.

"Kurama said that too, and he said he was safe in his human body, but he's started sweating and acting weird too, so it's only a matter of time before he's howling at the moon and talking in riddles like little loony tunes over there."

"Kurama is sick?" Hiei asked.

"I bet he's not as sick as you…" Kuwabara muttered.

"I'm fine," Hiei insisted.

"You still sound like you're trying to swallow a golf ball, you're so white you're reflecting sunlight and you're sweating more than Kuwabara after that one time he saw an episode of Girls Gone Wild," Yusuke bluntly told him.

"Girls Gone Wild?" Hiei echoed.

"It's a special television programme," Kuwabara nervously replied. "It's of great educational importance."

"No it's not," Hiei said quietly.

"Yes it is!" Kuwabara snapped. "And how would you know anyway?"

"It's a television show that depicts the heights of depravity young human women can stoop to."

Yusuke snorted in amusement and Kuwabara started to turn red.

"Well if you know that Hiei, obviously you watch it too!" he pointed out.

"I did watch it," Hiei flatly replied. "Just once, and only then because I happened upon you sitting watching it."

"I don't remember that…" Kuwabara muttered.

"I didn't make myself known to you," Hiei explained. "And you were too enraptured with what you saw to notice me for yourself."

Kuwabara stumbled to one side until Yusuke was walking between him and Hiei.

"This entire mission is stupid enough without you acting up too, Kuwabara," Yusuke warned him.

"Just don't leave me alone with Hiei again!" Kuwabara whispered to him. "He just said he snuck into my room one time when I was watching TV and just watched me, and before that, while you were gone, he watched me pee and then asked me loads of weird questions about it!"

"I wasn't watching you, I was watching the television," Hiei said sternly. "I didn't know human females behaved that way – I didn't know females of any creed behaved that way. I was appalled and overwhelmed, but mostly I was disappointed that watching their downfall was a form of entertainment to you!"

"Damn it!"

Yusuke stopped abruptly, and Kuwabara and Hiei stopped at either side of him.

"Nobody else talks until we get back to Kurama!" he shouted, glancing back and forth between the two, daring them to defy him. "Anybody talks between now and then, and I'll kick both your asses! I don't care who it is, why it is, that you're sick or that you're pathetic. I'll kick both your asses! Now let's go!"

He walked on, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. He had a bad feeling that things were only going to get more complicated, as the other members of his team all gradually became ineffective. He tried to console himself with the fact that he would get the pleasure of beating up all of the criminals himself, but it was little consolation when the price to achieve that end was watching Hiei and Kurama go insane.

By the time Yusuke, Kuwabara and Hiei were reunited with Kurama by the weapons shop the sky was growing darker, the air was growing colder and gusts of wind were occasionally whipping past them in a most unpleasant way.

"Damn it, I can't believe we wasted a whole day already!" Yusuke complained, huddling against the wind.

"It can't be helped," Kurama replied, glancing at Hiei, who still looked too ill to be out of a healing chamber.

"And it still stinks up here!" Yusuke added.

"What is that smell anyway?" Kuwabara asked.

"Kurama let off a stink bomb," Yusuke replied.

"Oh…" Kuwabara said, nodding knowingly. "That's okay Kurama, those eggs we had at breakfast have been going right through me too."

"Damn it, Kuwabara!" Yusuke snapped. "He let off a stink bomb! He threw a stink bomb, and it exploded, and it made a bad smell! This isn't a conversation about farting! And there was nothing wrong with the eggs I cooked for you at breakfast, you ungrateful son of a bitch!"

"Whilst I appreciate you generating a lot of hot air for us, we really should find somewhere sheltered to spend the rest of the night out of this cold," Kurama said.

Hiei smiled at Kurama's joke and Yusuke calmed down a little.

"Right," Yusuke agreed. "Even though we didn't do that much today, I'm still tired. Is there a hotel near here?"

"Possibly, but I think we should just camp out tonight," Kurama replied. "While you were gone I climbed to the top of the hill to get a better view of our surroundings, and there are tracks moving through the vegetation west of here. I think if we follow them, we will find the opening to spirit world."

"Oh, okay," Yusuke said, nodding. "Then let's go follow those tracks. Maybe we could finish this before the night's over and just go home after?"

Kurama shook his head.

"The tracks disappear into the horizon, their conclusion is some distance away," he said. "And they move through an uninhabited, over-grown wasteland. At the speed we're moving, it will probably take half a day to reach the end of the tracks, and that will be travelling through difficult and remote terrain. I suggest we go to the start of our path and set up camp there, since it is a little warmer at the foot of the hill, and tomorrow morning we can start our journey along the tracks."

Yusuke leaned closer to him.

"What about if we ditched Kuwabara and Hiei?" he asked in a voice that was not quite as hushed as he thought it was. "Could we get there any faster without them holding us back?"

"Hey!" Kuwabara protested. "I'm just as much a part of this mission as you are, Urameshi!"

"And you're not leaving me behind again," Hiei added.

"We should stay together as much as we can," Kurama said. "We don't know what lies ahead of us, and we don't know that the weapons those bandits are using to control spirit world won't be turned on us if they sense our approach."

Yusuke's face dropped.

"What do we do if that happens?" he asked.

"Duck and cover," Kurama replied.

"…That was just a lame joke, right?" Yusuke asked.

Kurama shook his head and Yusuke flinched.

"We'll need to approach with caution, and take advantage of our numbers if we are targeted," Kurama added.

"I thought we could just get in there and kick their asses," Yusuke said.

"If they don't notice us, it might work out like that," Kurama replied. "But that's unlikely, and we should prepare for the possibility of coming under attack as we near our destination."

"Hey Kurama?" Kuwabara began. "What did you mean by "take advantage of our numbers"?"

"He meant exactly what it sounds like he meant," Hiei sternly answered. "He means that if we are targeted, we should scatter to reduce the chances of all of us being hit, or else three of us play decoy to attract fire away from the fourth, who would move on ahead and cross the enemy lines."

"Exactly, thank you Hiei," Kurama said.

"I don't like that plan," Kuwabara muttered.

"We can go over the details in the morning," Kurama continued. "But for now we should find a place to set up camp on the other side of the hill."

All four started to move on, at first in silence as they all considered what Kurama had just proposed. After several minutes of walking, the silence was eventually broken by Hiei, much to everyone else's surprise.

"If we are sleeping outdoors tonight, how will we bathe?"

There followed a few seconds more of awkward silence before anyone answered Hiei.

"Why, is tonight time for your monthly bath?" Yusuke asked. "Gees Hiei, who cares about a bath?"

"I do," Hiei insisted. "And so should you. We've all been very active today and we all need to bathe."

"Okay first of all, stop using the word "bathe"!" Yusuke said, irritation creeping into his tone. "And secondly, we've all been on missions that have lasted a lot longer than one day, where we've been a lot more "active", and we never cared about "bathing" then!"

"You smell worse than any of the rest of us," Hiei flatly replied. "I was not so much asking for myself as I was for you. I had hoped you would understand the subtle implication of my words, but perhaps I should just be blunt: you stink, please wash."

"Hey! Shut the hell up! I do not "stink"!"

"You do a little bit…" Kuwabara muttered.

"Not any more than your feet!" Yusuke shot back.

"It's a bacterial condition!" Kuwabara argued.

"Let's not argue about something this petty," Kurama said calmly.

"Hiei started it!" Yusuke protested. "And besides, if I do smell, it's a man smell!"

"No, it's more like the smell of fresh sweat soaking into clothing already rotted with old sweat," Hiei replied.

"Hey, why don't you come over here three eyes and I'll show you something really sweaty–"

"Yusuke, please," Kurama cut him off. "Hiei is just teasing you."

"No, I was just being honest," Hiei said.

"Hiei, stop it," Kurama said to him. "If you are teasing, now is not the time, and if you are genuine, bathing is not an option now. We have to keep moving, and that means we have to sleep outdoors, and there are no hot springs near here. The water here is too cold for bathing, and none us can take the risk of letting ourselves get so cold when we are all trying to avoid catching the virus that you are still recovering from."

Yusuke waited for Hiei to argue back, but he remained strangely quiet, and looked relatively impassive about the whole affair, despite having been quite determined only moments ago to argue his point. Once he was sure that Hiei was not going to continue his argument Yusuke turned away from him, and again the group continued on in silence.

Yusuke was starting to feel cold. He was unsure if he felt cold because it was quite cold outside and he was sitting in his underwear, his body wet with lotion, or if he was cold because the lotion contained the demon world equivalent of menthol and that was making him feel colder than he actually was.

"How do I make more of this?" he asked, holding out the near empty pot of lotion towards Kurama.

Kurama turned to him, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

"Why did you use so much?" he asked.

Yusuke raised an eyebrow, wondering why Kurama even needed to ask that question. Surely it was obvious why he had to cover his entire body with a one inch layer of antiseptic lotion.

"Because two out of four of us have the virus, and I don't intend to be the third guy who gets it," he eventually explained when Kurama continued to look confused.

"Two out of four?" Kurama repeated, turning to look across the campfire at Kuwabara, who was asleep already.

"Not him, you!" Yusuke corrected him. "You're all sweaty and you're shaking and you're acting weird. Just like Hiei… Wait, where is Hiei?"

"I think he needed a moment alone," Kurama replied. "And I'm not sick, I promise."

"You look sick."

"I'm not. I'm just… We're just too close to the…"

Kurama tilted back his head and Yusuke copied his action, looking up at the sky expectantly.

"The ice village is close by," Kurama whispered, lowering his head again.

"Oh!" Yusuke said, looking over at Kuwabara. "Right! That's why Hiei's so edgy around here! He doesn't want Kuwabara to find out!"

"No, that's not what the problem is."

"Then what?"

Kurama glanced at Kuwabara, who stirred slightly at Yusuke's sudden outburst, but he did not fully awaken, and shortly eased back into a deep slumber.

"It's the smell," Kurama whispered, once he was sure that Kuwabara was asleep. "I can't bear it."

Yusuke sniffed at the air experimentally.

"Yeah, I guess Hiei had a point," he quietly replied. "I guess maybe I do stink a little bit. But I'm still not as smelly as Kuwabara's feet."

"No, Yusuke, not that," Kurama said. "The flowers. It's the smell of the flowers. I know my olfactory senses are more acute than yours, but surely even you can smell them."

"…What about your old factory?"

"Didn't you notice the smell around this town? I could smell it long before we got here, and now it's overwhelming. That stink bomb earlier was a welcome distraction."

"Oh, are you talking about that weird, salty honey smell? Yeah, this place reeks of it, but it's not like it's a bad smell or anything. And it's way better than that stink bomb. Unless… Does it smell differently to you because you're a fox?"

"No, the flowers smell exactly the same way to me as they do to you. It's not the scent itself that bothers me, it's the memories that it evokes."

"Are they super evil demon flowers? Did one of them attack you?"

"No, they're not weapons, they're simple flowers. They only grow in the glacial conditions of the ice village, and so the smell is unique to this area. It's something of a giveaway about the location of the village, but few demons actually know that the smell is coming from the ice village."

"So why is that a bad thing?"

"The smell reminds me of the follies of my youth."

"Be more specific, old man."

"When I was young, long before I was forced to use this body to survive, I came here with some other young fox demons because we knew what the smell meant. We also knew that the ice maidens sometimes have to leave the village for supplies they can't grow or make within the village itself, and when they did, we hunted them down."

"You ate them?"

Kurama turned to glare at Yusuke, who laughed nervously.

"Sorry, but you said a pack of foxes hunted them, so I thought you meant you hunted them for food," he explained.

"I've never spoken about this to Hiei, for obvious reasons," Kurama continued. "So before I explain, I need you to understand that you can never repeat what I tell you next."

"Sure, no problem," Yusuke agreed. "You can trust me."

"Alright. We hunted them for sex."

Yusuke dropped the jar of lotion, which smashed on a rock, spraying lotion and glass shards over the fire, which hissed angrily. Kuwabara grumbled something incoherent and writhed around a little before once more settling back down, blissfully unaware of anything else around him.

"I said we were young," Kurama added. "And stupid. Young and stupid. We found the idea of the ice maidens exciting. I suppose we perceived them in much the same way human society does with high school girls or nuns."

"Dude…" Yusuke said faintly.

"Pretty, naïve, malleable and virginal."

"Okay…"

"If I were still a full demon, this smell would surely have overtaken my common sense. I never came back this way again after that first time, but if I had, I would have hunted them again. My time as a human has made me realise it was immoral and dishonourable to indulge in such violent and cruel practises, but the smell still brings back those old urges."

"Can't you just go jerk o– I mean, um… Did you ever, uh, you know, how many did you…? How many girls did you catch?"

Kurama moved his eyes to Yusuke, giving him a slightly sinister look that only magnified Yusuke's already heightened sense of awkwardness.

"A lot, huh?" he continued. "Well, I guess I understand why you never told Hiei. I mean, maybe that was how he was… Wait… A long time ago you…?"

Yusuke scratched his head as his brain began piecing together various snippets of information.

"Wait," he said, looking directly at Kurama. "Are you Hiei's dad?"

Next Chapter: After a long, mostly restless night for three out of four members of the spirit detective team, the morning brings yet more confusion for all concerned. Meanwhile, back in living world, Botan is formulating a plan that Keiko and Shizuru mostly find ridiculous. Chapter 3 – Tough Night