Chapter 3 – Dog in the Manger

"What are you implying, Kurama? Because I really don't like it when you skirt around the subject. Be direct or keep your asinine opinions to yourself."

"Hiei, if you don't tell Yukina the truth today, you will lose her forever."

Hiei leaned back from Kurama, finding for the second time that day that it was possible for even the most passionate of anger to vanish almost instantaneously.

"Hey Hiei, I don't like this either, but I think Kurama's got a point," Yusuke added, as though he thought Hiei's lack of a response was because he wanted to hear more unhelpful opinions from other people. "You know Yukina's been looking for her brother, you know she never gives up no matter what anyone says to her, so you gotta know she's gonna believe this guy and be all over him unless you tell her the truth."

"Yes, and only you can tell her the truth Hiei," Kurama said.

"Assuming you are her brother."

Hiei turned to Shizuru at her last remark, caught between the desire to slit her throat to silence her and a perverse want to demand an explanation from her.

"Really?" Yusuke said. "This again?"

"Hiei, did you know of Inukasai at all before today?" Kurama asked Hiei. "He is an emiko, just like you are, born of the ice village, and he appears to be about the same age as you–"

"What did you just say?" Hiei cut him off.

"I said Inukasai is an emiko, just like–"

"No, you just said he's the same age as me."

"Yes."

"Are you blind? He's clearly a lot older than me – yet another damn good reason why he can't be Yukina's twin brother!"

Hiei directed his last remark at Shizuru, who looked almost entirely unfazed by the glare he was giving her.

"Really?" Yusuke said.

"Yes, really!" Hiei snapped, rounding on Yusuke. "He must be nearly twice my age!"

"Really?" Yusuke asked, sounding incredulous.

Hiei growled and bared his teeth and Yusuke finally appeared to realise how insolent he was acting as he made an attempt to hide the surprise in his face.

"Well, I mean, I guess he does look older than Yukina…" he conceded. "Though to be completely honest, so do you. I guess that's just like what Kuwabara always says about you though, right? You had a rough childhood and you had to grow up way faster than most kids."

"Are you trying to piss me off?" Hiei growled. "Kuwabara knows nothing about me and is no authority on this matter!"

"I think they both look too old to be Yukina's twin," Shizuru commented.

"Didn't you hear what I just said, woman?" Hiei snapped, rounding on her. "I said Kuwabara is no authority on this: neither the stupid oafish Kuwabara nor the dour ironic Kuwabara!"

"On the contrary Hiei, Shizuru has spent a considerable amount of time around Inukasai," Kurama interrupted. "And she has an unquestionable ability to sense something improper and to see through an idle ruse. Shizuru, has your guest given you any reason to suspect that he has any ill intentions towards anyone or that he might be plotting something untoward?"

"He's pretending to be me!" Hiei said before Shizuru could answer. "That's something untoward and improper!"

"He's not pretending to be you, Hiei," Shizuru said. "He gave his name as Inukasai, he said his father is the leader of the dog demon tribe, he's from a mountain village, he said his mother is an ice maiden named Hina, and that it was Hina's best friend Rui who cast him out of the ice village at birth."

Hiei was unsure what angered him more: the fact that Kuwabara's deadpan sister was suddenly such an expert on his life or that she genuinely seemed to think he was lying about any part of it.

"Are you calling me a liar?" he asked her.

"Nobody said that, Hiei," Kurama quickly jumped in. "But there has obviously been some confusion somewhere along the line. Inukasai insists that Rui told him he was Hina's son and that he had a twin sister named Yukina."

"Rui is a short-sighted bitch!" Hiei retorted. "She's so blind, she couldn't even see properly to throw me in a straight line when she threw me off the cliff! There's a lot of fog in the ice village!"

"The two of you do really look alike too," Yusuke added. "As babies, you were probably identical. It's weird that. You both had different parents, but you both ended up looking exactly the same."

"We don't look exactly the same!" Hiei argued.

"I guess not," Yusuke agreed. "He's taller than you."

Hiei turned to Yusuke, grabbing back his sword from the mazoku's hand. Once he had his weapon back he realised he was not sure who he wanted to turn it on: Yusuke for repeating Mukuro's mistake, Kurama for being far too calm and logical, Shizuru for interfering or Kuwabara for fawning over the phony.

"Take a moment to think this over very carefully, Hiei."

"Or what?" Hiei demanded, turning to Kurama.

"As I already stated Hiei, this is very much a do or die situation: if you do not tell Yukina the truth now, you will never be able to, and you will have to accept the fact that she considers Inukasai to be her brother," Kurama replied.

Hiei looked around the others. Shizuru looked as though she almost hoped that he would not tell Yukina the truth, Kurama looked neutral – though Hiei felt that he was being patronising – and Yusuke looked as though he was about to say something stupid.

"It's not like you haven't had loads of great opportunities to tell her already, Hiei."

Hiei made to leave after Yusuke's comment, but stopped when he felt a hand on his arm. He pulled his arm from Kurama's hold and glared back at him, lingering only long enough to find out why the fox demon had halted his exit.

"Hiei, just step outside, gather your thoughts and make a decision. If you walk away from this now, you have, perhaps unwittingly, made the decision to allow this to continue as it is. And you should consider that if you choose not to tell Yukina the truth or if you just choose to just walk away, you have an obligation to return Yukina's hirui stone to her as she asked."

Hiei grunted out a noise of disgust and fled. He shortly found a way out into the enclosed back garden, at the back of which stood an especially lush tree. Hiei shot up the tree, burying himself within its thick foliage. He then stowed his sword and removed Yukina's hiruiseki from around his neck, attempting to hold it in the air to study it; but his hands were shaking too badly to hold it still.

There were simply no words to explain how he felt at that moment.

In the space of a day, his entire life had been turned on its head. It was not that he was not accustomed to having to make abrupt new beginnings in his life, but he had worked so hard to get to where he was, and he felt as though everything he had been taking for granted lately was suddenly slipping through his fingers with no way to keep a hold of it. He felt like he was losing everything and was powerless to stop it. He could barely even keep a hold of Yukina's hirui stone; he had started to sweat profusely, making his shaky grip even less certain. He eventually settled for encasing the stone in both of his fists and holding it to his chest.

He thought about his own hiruiseki, still in Mukuro's chambers. He had no real desire to get his own stone back, but the thought of relinquishing Yukina's – even to Yukina herself – was somehow impossible to fathom.

Why was nobody else as outraged as he was? Why had Mukuro not apologised for falsely accusing him of something? Why had she not realised he would never do such a thing? Why was Kurama backing him into a corner and trying to force him to do something he had always made clear he never wanted to do? Why was Yusuke so flippant about the whole thing? Why was Kuwabara – the supposedly super spiritually aware, sensitive psychic – befriending an imposter and letting him get close to Yukina? Why was Kuwabara's sister getting involved and falling for everything Inukasai was saying? And, most of all, why had Yukina believed it all, without even one shred of doubt?

A very small part of Hiei had suspected that Yukina knew that he was her brother. Sometimes, when he had tried to tell her to give up her search, tried to convince her that her brother was dead, she had said some things and looked at him in certain ways that had made him wonder if maybe she had figured it out. Maybe she had always known the truth, maybe she was just waiting for him to confirm or admit to it.

But seeing her with Inukasai, there was no doubt whatsoever that she had accepted him as her brother.

The battle was already lost.

Why did nobody else understand or care about what was happening?

"It's just such a lovely day, I just wanted to show you the garden!"

Hiei stiffened, his eyes moving to the source of the voice that had interrupted his thoughts. Through the densely packed leaves around him he could barely make out a fragmented image of Inukasai walking towards the centre of the garden, being guided forwards by a pair of hands on his shoulders.

"Isn't it delightful? Yukina planted many of the flowers herself, so I thought you, as her brother, would like to see the fruits of her labour!"

"Why yes, that is delightful."

Hiei leaned over a little as Inukasai stopped walking. He wondered when the ferry girl had arrived and why she of all people was acting as a tour guide for the faker, but she always had been an immense fool, and so he was not surprised that she had fallen for the impostor's little act too. She ought to know better because she – just like Kurama, Yusuke and apparently even Kuwabara's sister – knew that Yukina was Hiei's sister, but of course she too had fallen for the words of the silver-tongued bastard.

"Perhaps we should invite Yukina and Mister Kuwabara to join us out here?" Inukasai said in his irritatingly pitch-perfect voice. "Between them they would better be able to tell us which parts of the lovely garden they were responsible for."

The ferry girl moved to stand at Inukasai's side, her ponytail flicking about as she did a very exaggerated survey of her surroundings, her attention lingering on the house a little longer, before she turned to look directly at him.

"Alright, you can cut the crap now, "Inukasai"."

Hiei froze, the look of shock on Inukasai's face almost a reflection of what he himself felt at hearing the ferry girl's words. For a brief, glorious, moment, Hiei actually thought that someone had finally had the good sense to see what was really happening, someone had finally had the courage to stand up and point out the fact that Inukasai was a lying bastard. But, when he saw the pink and blue abomination put her hands on her hips – or rather, her sleeves on her hips, as her hands were concealed beneath her over-sized kimono sleeves – and pout at Inukasai, he realised his mistake: she was not calling Inukasai out on his claim to be Yukina's brother, she thought he actually was Hiei, and she was about to accuse him of mocking her.

"I'm sorry Miss, I'm not sure that I understand," Inukasai said.

"Listen here, you might have everybody else fooled with your little act, but I'm not falling for it!" the ferry girl snapped back at him.

"I don't understand the basis of your ire: did I say or do something to offend you?" Inukasai asked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, you did!"

"I see. I certainly didn't mean to."

"Anyone who messes with the heart of the sweetest girl I have ever known is very offensive to me!"

"I-I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you are referring to–"

"Oh, give it a rest! You know Yukina is not your sister. You have no right to come into her life, lie to her and mess her about like this! You are going to march right back into that house young man, and you are going to apologise to Yukina. You are going to tell her that you made a mistake, that you are not her brother and then you are going to crawl back under whatever stone it was that you dwelled beneath before you emerged from it and came here to ruin everybody's happiness! Do you understand me?"

A long silence followed, during which Hiei was almost certain he felt more surprised than Inukasai looked.

"But Yukina is my sister," Inukasai eventually recovered.

"Oh no she is not!" the ferry girl argued back. "And you are going to tell her the truth right now, or so help me, I will make you wear this oar!"

The ferry girl's oar appeared in her hand and, were she a creature of any great strength, Hiei might have taken her threat seriously: she certainly looked as though she intended to ram her oar – blade first – up whichever of Inukasai's orifices she could reach first if he did not comply with her demands.

"Miss, I don't understand why you are being so hostile towards me, but I'm going to have to ask you to restrain yourself," Inukasai said, his previously smooth voice gaining a slightly gritty edge to it.

"You're the one who needs restraining!" the ferry girl replied, unaffected by his threat.

"I don't like that someone as volatile as you spends time around my sister," Inukasai said, his voice even harsher.

"Yukina is not your sister!" the ferry girl argued back. "You're a liar and a fraud and you will break that girl's heart!"

"I don't know why you doubt me so. I have searched long and hard for my sister and to be finally reunited with her is a very joyous event for both her and me: your bitterness is most unwelcome here. I propose that you are the one hurting Yukina, not I."

"You are a monster and I won't allow you to continue this charade!"

The ferry girl grasped her oar firmly and drew it back. Hiei already knew she would never manage to connect with a blow, but he was mildly amused that she was even trying it, as being attacked by a servant of spirit world was quite insulting to even the lowest class of demon, and so Inukasai was about to suffer a wound of some sort. As he had expected, Inukasai effortlessly caught her oar in one hand as it swung towards him, halting it instantly.

What happened next was not something Hiei had expected, and as such, the ferry girl was on her knees before he had even registered what had occurred.

"I had to do that, you were being hysterical," Inukasai said, his voice once more smooth.

He threw the ferry girl's oar down at her side, but she was still on all fours, her head down, one hand pressed to the ground supporting her weight and the other hovering in the air by one side of her face.

"You're a neurotic mess, and I don't want you around my sister," Inukasai said.

Hiei dropped from the tree and darted across the garden, using the momentum of his forward motion to add force as he punched Inukasai in the jaw with a lethal right jab. Apparently the idiot had neither felt Hiei's approach nor expected the attack because Hiei's strike was true, and Inukasai was sent flying into the corner of the garden, where he landed in a pile of freshly raked sakura petals. When he did not get up, Hiei turned his attention to the ferry girl, who was starting to stand, one hand holding her oar at her side, the other still fluttering at her face. She took a moment to notice him and when she did she looked horrified.

"Oh, Hiei!" she said in a panicked tone. "Something terrible has happened!"

"I already know," Hiei said, deciding to save her the bother of trying to lie about Inukasai's presence at Kuwabara's house.

"You-you do?" she asked. "It's awful! It's just… It's an outrage! I am outraged!"

"…Me too," Hiei quietly replied.

He was almost certain it was the first time he had agreed with her about anything – and it seemed odd that this should be the first thing they did share a common opinion on. But he did not have long to linger on the thought as he heard the back door clicking and Kuwabara calling for Inukasai.

"Follow me."

Hiei had left the garden and crossed two further gardens before realising what he had just said. He did not really know why he had asked the ferry girl to come with him; after all, he had only been thinking that she too ought to flee after what had happened, not specifically that she ought to come with him. And as he ran, it also occurred to him that he had no idea where he would go: Mukuro was being difficult, Yusuke, Kurama and Yukina were all back at Kuwabara's house with Inukasai, and he did not know anyone else who would let him live with them until he had fixed the mess he found himself in.

And so he just kept running.

Botan was glad when Hiei finally stopped, because it had been a strain for her to fly in a straight line, let alone keep up with him. She gladly lowered herself to the ground, hopping off her oar and banishing it before climbing down the riverbank to the stretch of sand Hiei had moved to. The location was quite isolated, but she considered that a good thing, as she was sure that Hiei was going to be even more furious than she was, and he would probably vent his anger in more ways than just verbally, making him a danger to anyone else.

"I can't believe that the nerve of that boy!" she said as she joined Hiei by the water's edge. "He's a liar and a fraud and he's deceiving the most innocent girl imaginable! And why does he have to talk that way? Nobody is that polite and humble, not even Kurama! He's so fake, it makes me sick! And what is wrong with everyone else? Why aren't Yusuke, Kurama and Shizuru outraged about this travesty of justice? Even Kuwabara is at fault here: I know he doesn't know that Inukasai isn't Yukina's brother, but he should have the good sense to see what a phony the boy is!"

Botan sighed and turned to look at Hiei, finding him staring up at her, his eyes wide and his face set into an expression she had never seen him wear before.

"I can't even imagine how all this must be for you," she added, her tone softening. "You know he's a fake, but there's nothing you can do about it without either telling Yukina the truth or looking like a bad guy for sending away Yukina's oh-so-perfect brother. Seriously though, nobody is that perfect! I hate him!"

Botan's eyes wandered to the river; the sight of the sun sparkling on the water's surface was usually a calming sight for her to behold, but it was failing to ease her ire at that moment. She tried to stay focused on it and tried to calm down enough to stop shaking, but her concentration snapped when something touched the side of her face.

"Ow!" she yelped, leaning away from the source of the contact.

Hiei was still watching her with the same look on his face and his hand remained outstretched in the air between them, his fingers lingering at the point where they had prodded into her cheek.

"Don't touch it, it really hurts!" she told him.

Hiei's face changed then, finally back into an expression that Botan both recognised and found to be more typical for the fire demon: a sneer of anger.

"You shouldn't be getting involved in this, you meddlesome wretch!" he spat. "It's your own fault that he slapped you!"

"I was trying to help you, Hiei!" she argued back. "And he slapped me really hard!"

"You were about to slap him with your oar!" Hiei pointed out. "He was only retaliating. You were the one who initiated it!"

"He showed his true colours back there!" Botan replied. "You wouldn't have hit me like that, even if I had smacked you over the head with my oar!"

"No, I would have just used my sword to turn you into a kebab!"

"No you wouldn't have, Hiei! You would have just taken my oar from me, or broken it, called me a name and walked away! You're not an evil manipulative beast like Inukasai is!"

Botan faltered as Hiei's face momentarily returned to that unusual, indefinable expression. He quickly recovered his anger however.

"Why are you so angry about this?" he demanded.

"Because Yukina is my friend and that monster is lying to her and playing with her feelings!" Botan replied. "And because Yusuke, Kurama and even Kuwabara are being completely unreasonable by letting that boy get close to Yukina! They owe it to Yukina to shun him and they owe it to you to get rid of him!"

"This is my problem, not yours, or anyone else's!"

"This absolutely is my problem!"

"What?"

"I'm your friend, you obstinate idiot, and as such, I can't stand by and let this happen!"

Hiei's face reverted back to the unusual expression and Botan found her own anger fading; which she quickly regretted, as the rush of adrenaline her anger had generated had distracted her from the still searing pain all down one side of her face where Inukasai had slapped her so forcefully.

"You're not my friend," Hiei eventually said, his voice barely audible and his expression stuck somewhere between the unusual one and a sneer of disgust. "We don't even like each other."

"That's a fine way to talk to a friend who cheered you on all through the demon world tournament!" Botan snapped back at him.

"You-you were… What?"

"If I'm completely honest, I expected Yusuke to win, but I cheered for you and Kurama too, as my friends."

Hiei's face changed again, into yet another expression Botan had never seen him wear, though this time at least it looked vaguely like a pensive expression, which was slightly easier to process. Although Hiei was not exactly the pensive type, it was definitely easier to deal with him thinking than it was to deal with him looking what had almost seemed to be confused.

"Sit down."

Botan hesitated to respond to Hiei's quietly spoken order, but when he held his position, one finger pointed at a nearby rock, his eyes looking into hers unblinkingly, she conceded and did as he asked. Once she was seated, Hiei started to do something that made her wonder if she ought to have followed him in the first place: after all, he had hardly been agreeable to deal with.

"Hiei?" she said quietly. "What are you doing?"

Hiei did not answer her, instead finishing his task, his hands lowering from his head and taking his bandana with them.

"You can't control me with your jagan," she told him.

She tried to look defiant, but truthfully she was not sure about the claim she had just made. Hiei had not been able to control her with his jagan when they had first met, but he had not long acquired the third eye at that point, and since then he had honed his skills to the extent that he could use his jagan eye to master the dragon of the darkness flame. So maybe he could now control a ferry girl if he wanted to.

Botan's concern turned to confusion and more than a hint of curiosity when Hiei walked into the river, only moving in far enough that his booted feet were barely submerged, and then squatted down and pushed his hands – and his bandana – underwater. He held his position for several seconds before standing up, squeezing out his bandana and folding it over as he walked out of the river and towards the rock Botan was still sitting on. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but instead she grunted as he grabbed the underside of her jaw a little roughly in one hand and tilted her head back and she yelped as he used his other hand to press his wet bandana against the side of her face.

"Ow!" she complained, closing her eye nearest the wound.

"If you don't take the heat out of it, it will hurt longer and bruise more," Hiei grumbled.

"I have healing powers, I could just heal it," Botan grumbled back.

Hiei slowly released his hold of her jaw, his eyes focusing onto hers.

"Then why don't you do that?" he asked her.

"Because I can't concentrate on it!" she replied. "Today has been an emotional rollercoaster for me! I'm angry, I'm sore and I'm scared!"

Hiei slowly took his bandana away from Botan's face, turning it around in his hand and then touching it to her skin again – though she noticed he was a little more careful when making contact.

"You shouldn't have got involved," he said.

She started to tell him again that he was her friend and that she had a duty as his friend to get involved, but she stopped abruptly when she heard him mutter something under his breath.

"Nobody else did."

Botan paused, something about the tone and flicker of bitterness in Hiei's eyes as he made the remark catching her attention.

"I heard everything you said to that imposter, and I heard everything he said back to you," Hiei said, his voice at conversational volume once more. "He probably won't let you anywhere near Yukina again, you do realise that, don't you? Your own rash stupidity has created this situation."

"It's not my fault I can't see Yukina any more," Botan replied.

"Yes, now you see that it's my fault–"

"It's Inukasai's fault! And Yusuke's fault! And Kurama's fault! And even Kuwabara! They should have been the ones telling that pretender to sling his hook! Why did it have to be me?"

"Why did it have to be you?"

"I don't know! And now I'm too scared to go back! He hit me really hard, Hiei!"

Hiei dropped his bandana, but Botan barely noticed as her eyes were blurring up with tears.

"He shouldn't have hit you like that," Hiei muttered.

Botan sniffled and tried to squint through her tears to see Hiei's face, but she could not make out the setting of his features to define his thoughts at that moment.

"I'm just glad you were there to hit him back for me!" she said. "I wasn't fast enough or strong enough to hurt him as badly as he hurt me!"

"I didn't hit him to avenge you, you simple-minded cretin!" Hiei snapped.

"Yes you did! You were sticking up for me because we're friends!"

"No, I was hitting him because he's a disgrace to demons for attacking someone as defenceless as you are! It was humiliating for me to watch, it was a wound to my pride!"

"Stop pretending to be tough, Hiei! You did it because you were defending me, as your friend, in the same way I took him out to the garden and tried to make him leave Yukina alone because I was defending your interests, as my friend."

When Hiei did not answer her, Botan thought that maybe he was just too proud to admit that she was right. She wiped her sleeves over her face, clearing away tears and the wetness from Hiei's bandana and then looked up at Hiei, finding him still standing in front of her, his face once more in that unusual expression.

"We have to fix this, Hiei," she told him. "Maybe everybody else has fallen for that mean boy's false charm, but I know what he really is. He's a dog in the manger, and we're going to flush him out. He's not going to carry on pretending to be Yukina's brother and nor are you going to be forced to tell Yukina the truth before you want to or are ready to."

"Hn, you almost sound like you have a plan," Hiei quietly replied, a hint of an ironic smirk on his face.

"I do have a plan Hiei," she replied, nodding her head. "I'm great at making plans."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Well believe it, mister! Now listen closely, here's what we're going to do: you are going to return to demon world and see what you can find out about this "Inukasai" fellow, and I am going to go to spirit world to see what I can find out about him."

"Spirit world?"

"Yes."

"You think you'll find answers in spirit world?"

"We have a lot of information on the ice village in spirit world. How else did you think Koenma knew about your relation to Yukina?"

Hiei's eyes widened into a rare look of surprise.

"We have a liaison officer who deals with the ice village," Botan continued. "We need to maintain a good relationship with the ice maidens because they provide us with hirui stones, which allow us to send undercover agents into demon world with currency to buy information from snitches and to buy back artefacts it would be too dangerous to take back by force."

It was not something Botan was supposed to discuss with anyone outside of spirit world, but Hiei was part of the former spirit detective team and she trusted him as her friend not to divulge the information – especially as it concerned his place of birth and his ancestors.

"If this Inukasai really was born in the ice village, we will have a record of it in spirit world," she continued. "I don't know how detailed that record will be, but we should at least be able to get a date of birth and possibly his real mother's name. Then we can offer the facts to him, and if he still insists on attaching himself to Yukina, I will show the facts to her."

Hiei twitched and Botan hurriedly corrected herself.

"The facts about his own life," she said. "Not Yukina's or yours. That's none of his business."

Hiei nodded.

"Alright then," Botan said, standing up. "Let's go. We'll meet back here later. How long do you think you'll need to find answers?"

Hiei looked a little lost, but after a short pause he answered her.

"Meet me back here at midnight."

Botan nodded and summoned her oar. When she saw that Hiei still looked a little lost she took a chance and did something she knew he hated: she touched him.

"Try not to worry, Hiei," she said. "We will fix this."

When he did not push her hand away as she had expected him to she gave his shoulder a slight squeeze and smiled at him.

"I promise you we will fix this, Hiei," she said.

She then lifted her hand from his shoulder and flew up into the sky, trying to ignore the fact that, without Hiei's bandana against it, the heat and sting of the red mark on one side of her face was returning.

Hiei remained where he was, watching the sky at the point the ferry girl had disappeared, staying that way until long after she had gone. Why was she the only person who understood exactly how he felt and sided with him absolutely on how the matter should be dealt with? It was highly illogical and deeply frustrating.

Mukuro ought to have sided with him. She ought to have known it was not him in those photos and in that video attacking the border patrol unit. She should have listened to him and believed him when he denied it. She should have considered what he had said about his own unit being witnesses to the truth of his alibi. She should have at least had the decency – had the respect for him – to call him to her office alone, rather than to humiliate him in front of his peers and then reduce her knowledge of him to something as simplistic as his height. If even that idiot ferry girl could spot the difference and identify Inukasai as an imposter, why did someone as intelligent and capable as Mukuro ever doubt Hiei's innocence?

Kurama was just as bad – or perhaps more so – for being someone who ought to have known Hiei long enough and well enough not to be fooled by a stranger telling stories. Kurama was supposed to be Hiei's ally and Kurama was one of the few who knew and understood Hiei's feelings for his sister and why he never wanted her to know who he was: so why then had Kurama not done more to help him get rid of that lying, smooth-talking bastard? Kurama was supposed to be the sensible one who always knew the best and right thing to do, but he had made an erroneous judgement in this situation; one that Hiei was struggling to fathom and growing to resent.

Yusuke was supposed to be the one Hiei could always count on to see common sense. Apart from Hiei himself, Yusuke had the least patience for fakers. Yusuke was the one who usually reserved judgement of someone new until he had tested them somehow – usually with his fists – and yet he did not seem to care what Inukasai was doing. Yusuke was not the sort to stand by and watch one of his friends be wronged, but he was certainly standing well back this time, and being far too flippant about the whole issue. The way he was behaving would only really make any sense if Inukasai was ruining the life of someone he barely knew; but Inukasai was ruining Hiei's life, and Hiei thought that Yusuke was his friend. He had expected the mazoku to, at the very least, tell Inukasai to leave and suggest to Yukina that she do a little investigating before just accepting him as her brother.

Even a pity whiff of scepticism from Kuwabara would have been welcome. Hiei did not especially care for Kuwabara, but – in some aspects at least – he did respect him, and as he was so close to Yukina, Hiei considered it Kuwabara's duty to protect her from people like Inukasai. But, instead of questioning what was happening and keeping Inukasai away from Yukina until he knew otherwise, that idiot Kuwabara had welcomed the liar into his home with open arms.

Even Kuwabara's sister or Yusuke's girlfriend questioning things would have been better.

But instead, Hiei's only ally was the ferry girl: easily his least favourite of everyone who had been in the house that night. Even Koenma himself was a better choice of ally. The ferry girl was scatter-brained, loud-mouthed and thoughtless: no-one else of her pitifully weak power ranking would have been stupid enough to take a shot at a demon of Inukasai's strength – which was easily A-class – and then been surprised when she did not manage to injure him. He could hardly even believe that she thought they were friends: when had either of them ever shared a moment that implied they were friends? She was just Yusuke's secretary from spirit world and Koenma's messenger.

However, she did sometimes prove useful in turning up information, and if what she had said about spirit world holding detailed records on the ice village was true, she would be the best person to access that information – since she would give him the answers without the interrogation that Koenma surely would before parting with it.

He did have slight reservations about her ability to communicate the information back to him though. He realised then that he probably ought to have asked her to just bring him the files in question, since she apparently was unable to remember and apply information correctly.

After all, she had called Inukasai a "dog in the manger" as though the phrase meant someone who was ruining something for someone else, and that was not the correct definition of that term.

A dog in the manger was a man who wanted a woman to love him, and although he would never return or validate her affections, neither would he let any other man have her.

Next Chapter: Botan confides Hiei's problem in Koenma, and the reaction the prince has leaves her shocked – in more ways than one. Hiei overhears Inukasai sabotaging Yukina's feelings for both him and Botan and finally Botan has a very awkward run-in with the SDF. Chapter 4 – Nature Versus Nurture