A/N: My chapter titles are getting increasingly tenuous… But the good news is that the "adventure" is starting now.

I could now go on a rant about the difference between a hero and protagonist in a story, and why I prefer the latter in reading and my writing, but I'll spare you all and summarise thus: lots of dramatic and action-packed stuff must happen that challenges everything the protagonist(s) ever thought to be true.

Recap: Hiei and Kurama spoke about Yukina's apparent feelings for Kurama, Botan went to desperate measures to seduce Hiei, creating an awkward three-way tension (Kurama wants Botan, Botan wants Hiei, and Hiei doesn't know what he wants). Puu was acting very strangely and even turned on Yusuke!

Chapter 10: Tightening Noose

"Were you in a lot of pain?"

"When?"

"When you first entered your human body. The spirit world soldiers had mortally wounded you, that was how you were able to enter living world and take over that body, wasn't it?"

"Um, yes, that's right."

"You couldn't have entered living world before, you were too powerful, the Kakai Barrier would have stopped you."

"Yes, that is true."

"So you must have been in a lot of pain when you first entered that body?"

"Physical pain wasn't the issue. I was in shock, and couldn't feel very much towards the end, and when I entered this body, it was still just a growing foetus, so physical pain was no longer an issue anyway."

"Oh, I see. It must have been difficult though to have the intelligence and ambition of a long-lived A Class demon contained within the body of a helpless human child."

Kurama nodded and quietly sighed under his breath. Hiei's interest in his past – more specifically, Hiei's interest in his transition from demon to human – had come as quite a surprise, but suddenly he was starting to see where it had stemmed from.

"You wouldn't have done it," he said.

"I wouldn't have done what?" Hiei asked, looking up at him with that slightly bewildered and wide-eyed look his illness had made prevalent on his face.

"You would rather have died with dignity," Kurama replied. "Like Fumio."

"I'm nothing like Fumio," Hiei immediately replied.

"But you consider the decision I made to have been one of weakness. A snap decision, made out of fear. I chose life over my own pride, whereas you, when placed in the same situation, did the opposite."

"You don't know that. I've never died."

"Well, not exactly died as such, but you thought you were killing yourself when you fought Shigure. You told me as much, and even Mukuro herself has mentioned it to me. You knowingly and willingly cut off your own arm and let yourself take a mortal blow for the sake of your own pride. You chose to die with dignity, whereas I chose to live a coward."

"Dying at the hands of someone wearing plastic knee-guards and shoulder-pads could never be considered dignified."

Kurama laughed, at first assuming Hiei had – as he quite often did – said something unintentionally amusing: but when he looked down at Hiei and saw him smiling, the worrying thought occurred to him that the fire demon had actually just deliberately made a joke.

"You're in good form today, Hiei," he said.

"What do you mean?" Hiei asked, his smile vanishing.

Kurama frowned: perhaps Hiei's joke had been unintentional after all.

"Never mind," he assured his friend. "Not long now, I can see the top of Mukuro's tower from here."

"Oh, so close," Hiei said softly.

"Yes, which is good, because you need to rest," Kurama answered him. "You might even need a shot of the antidote, once it's been fully developed, because I'm not convinced that you can fight off the infection without help."

"Well that's not true, actually."

"Don't try to tell me you're coping, because clearly you're not. You've lost weight, you're very pale, you're still sweating, you've lost your speed and your strength, and you admitted yourself that you can't even control your jagan eye any more."

"But I am immune to the virus, Kurama. That's what I need to talk to you about. You see, I'm not actually–"

"Wait."

Kurama slapped a hand against Hiei's chest to stop him in his tracks. From the corner of his eye he saw Hiei stagger back a step and glare at his hand awkwardly as though the contact had embarrassed him somehow, but Kurama was too distracted to care why Hiei was looking so perturbed.

"Can you smell that?" he asked, inhaling deeper, his head almost swimming as the scent in the air around him became stronger.

"I'm not a fox," Hiei pointed out.

"Surely even you can smell that," Kurama replied, clenching his fists and squaring his shoulders as he tried to suppress his instinctive reaction to that teasing, lilting, sweet and salty smell.

"I can smell the ice village," Hiei said suddenly. "But why? We're nowhere near the ice village! Why can I smell it all the way out here?"

Hiei looked up at the sky, stumbling around in a circle as he searched the red expanse overhead for any trace of the ice village, as though he thought it might have somehow drifted away from its usual location.

"Hiei!" Kurama hissed.

Hiei looked down, already knowing before he moved his head which way Kurama wanted him to direct his attention: something was moving on the path ahead of them. They were walking along a path cut into a mountainside, the mountain stretching upwards on their right and sloping downwards on their left, and someone had apparently been scrambling up the incline to reach the path, and was now struggling over the rocks at the path's edge. Kurama turned to Hiei, who frowned and shrugged, looking every bit as confused as Kurama felt. Both turned back to the small creature ahead of them, watching in equals measures of confusion and fascination as a bundle of lilac and yellow rolled awkwardly over the rocks and onto the path, where it unfurled and stretched upwards, taking the form of a small child.

The girl peered over the edge she had just cleared, looking about cautiously before turning towards Hiei and Kurama and running. She halved the distance between them before actually noticing them, at which point she gasped and skidded to a halt so abruptly that she fell to one knee.

"Where did you come from?" Kurama asked.

"Idiot!" Hiei hissed at him. "She's from the ice village!"

"I can smell that," Kurama growled back. "I meant how did she get here. She's a very long way from home, not to mention too young to be travelling alone."

"Girls her age aren't allowed to leave the village," Hiei replied. "Something must have happened to her."

Hiei started towards the girl, but she screamed and ran from him.

"No, wait!" he called after her.

She ran straight into a large troll who had just pulled himself up over the same ledge she had come from. She tried to turn around and run back towards Hiei and Kurama, but the troll grabbed a handful of her yukata, halting her escape.

"Let her go!" Hiei said, marching towards the troll.

Kurama hurried after him, grabbing his arm to stop him before he reached the troll. Hiei glared up at him and Kurama nodded his head towards the troll. Hiei turned to look, and seemed to then finally notice that there were two other demons climbing up to join the troll.

"We saw her first, get your own!" the troll said, before lifting the girl from the ground by her clothing.

"You took her from her village?" Hiei asked. "How did you find it?"

"Never mind how we found it, get your own!" the troll replied.

Hiei tried to move forwards again but Kurama tightened his grip and held him back.

"What do you want with her?" he asked. "She's clearly just a child, and a powerless one at that."

"She's one of those ice witches," the troll replied. "What's the matter pretty boy, you all looks and no brains?"

Kurama narrowed his eyes, his free hand twitching in the direction of his hair and he contemplated drawing a weapon.

"Don't you know how valuable these things are?" the troll asked, shaking the little ice maiden in the air.

The girl's clothing tore and her entire body dropped several inches before jerking to a halt again as the tear reached a seam and stopped. She looked down at the ground with wide eyes, but did not make a sound or try to struggle.

"You're just using her for her tears!" Hiei said, trying to move and again forcing Kurama to pull him back.

"Tears?" the troll echoed. "No, this one may be small, but it never cries. Maybe just as well, I don't need it making too much noise, somebody else might hear it and come looking for it."

"Wait…" Kurama said, tugging Hiei back again. "You are taking that girl for her tears, right?"

"Huh?" the troll echoed.

"Her tears," Kurama said. "That's what you're after, isn't it?"

The troll turned to his associates, who all muttered between themselves curiously.

"Is that where it comes from?" the troll asked, turning back to Kurama. "Is it a serum that they cry out?"

"Serum?" Hiei echoed. "What are you talking about, you big, dumb oaf!"

"Stay calm," Kurama said sternly, pulling Hiei closer to his side. "I don't think this is what it seems."

"We were just gonna eat it," the troll said. "We figured that was the best way to get the good out of it. There's about enough to split three ways, but not five, so go get your own."

"You're not eating her!" Hiei yelled, pulling out his sword. "You'll have to kill me first!"

"Where did you find her?" Kurama asked, winding his fist around Hiei's cloak to help secure his hold.

"Like I already said: get your own," the troll replied.

He lifted the girl up again, moving her towards his mouth and grinning. She slowly eyed him over, as though considering her options, before kicking both heels into one of his protruding lower fangs. In his following moment of confusion she grabbed her clothing and finished the tear that had begun, her body falling to the ground, leaving ragged yellow silk dangling from the troll's fingers.

"Get her!" the troll shouted at his friends.

The ice maiden nimbly picked her way over the rocks at the side of the path and then leapt from them, landing awkwardly on the steep, rocky mountainside below. She started to run, hobbling from an injury she had clearly suffered on her landing. Hiei tried to go after her and again Kurama held him back.

"They'll kill her!" he barked impatiently.

"I need to know why," Kurama replied, watching the troll and his partners scramble down the hillside after the little girl.

"It doesn't matter why!" Hiei protested.

"Hesitation, patience and observation can be useful skills, you really ought to learn how to…"

Kurama's voice faded as he felt Hiei's previously taut cloak go limp in his hand: he looked first down at the black material still settling down, then over at Hiei, catching a brief glimpse of him before he threw himself over the ledge. Kurama threw down Hiei's cloak and hurried after him: something was clearly amiss if the troll was not chasing the ice maiden for her tears, and it was typical that Hiei would lack the patience to find out what was really going on.

Ahead of him, Kurama could see that the troll was almost upon the little girl, and Hiei was too far behind to stop him catching her again. As the troll's shadow fell over the girl she stopped and crouched down, as though accepting her fate and simply trying to shield her head from any impact blow. But a faint glow of blue and distinct drop in the temperature of the air reminded Kurama why it was always a bad idea to underestimate an ice maiden. He looked about himself, realising too late that the entire hillside was made up rocks laced with a network of small streams and rivers: with gravity helping build momentum, Kurama could not stop himself before the ground underneath his feet froze, and his reaction was barely more graceful than the troll and his two accomplices, who all promptly fell over.

Kurama managed to stay on his feet, but really only because he slid into an especially large rock that halted his descent. He grabbed onto it to steady his balance, looking down at the chaos further down the mountain: the three bandits were slipping about, trying to stand and failing miserably and the little ice maiden was sliding down a narrow river, freezing it as she went. He watched her slalom effortlessly around the rocks, eventually joining up with the main river down the mountain, which was frozen by the time she reached it. He could not help but smile in appreciation of her resourcefulness, but his smile vanished an instant later when he noticed Hiei. Somehow, despite having been behind the three thugs who had been chasing the ice maiden, Hiei was suddenly several yards over to one side and much further down the slope, gliding down the main river as easily as the little girl.

Kurama briefly wondered why Hiei did not just use his fire powers to turn the ice back into water, or even into steam, which would have stopped the girl's escape and hidden him from view, but instead Hiei slid down the river, caught the girl in one arm and stabbed his sword into the ice with his other arm, swinging around to a halt. He then stowed his weapon and put both his arms around the girl, effortlessly walking across the steep, icy incline to the riverbank.

Kurama finally came to his senses again when he realised that the troll was starting to find his footing by smashing the small streams of ice into oblivion. He released the rock and tried to slide down the hillside as Hiei and the ice maiden had done, but ended up stumbling about clumsily and banging into a few more rocks on his way down. Once he reached the area the troll had cleared, he took out his Rose Whip, hitting one of the demons with his first blow, tearing open a gash down his back. The wounded demon fled and Kurama turned his attention to the troll, catching one of his wrists with the end of his Rose Whip.

The third bandit charged at Hiei, impaling himself on Hiei's sword. Hiei took longer than seemed reasonable to let the bandit fall to the ground and recover his weapon, but Kurama was too distracted to really notice why. The troll had grabbed his Rose Whip with his free hand and was trying to pull Kurama from his feet by pure brute strength. With little time and few other options, Kurama tore his whip from the troll, leaving a deep, bloody ring around his wrist, and in the moment of distraction that followed when the troll cried out and looked down at the injury, Kurama quickly retrieved a seed from his hair and charged at the troll, feigning a slow punch, which the troll predictably blocked with his arm, allowing Kurama to plant the seed directly into the wound he had created, before leaping back to avoid the inevitable counter.

"Tell us why you wanted this girl," Kurama said to the troll. "Most hunt her kind for the value of her tears, but that didn't seem to matter to you. If you weren't after her tears, what did you want with her?"

"You know damn well what I wanted her for!" the troll bellowed.

"No, I don't actually," Kurama corrected him. "I've planted a Death Plant seed in you."

"What?"

The troll began frantically fumbling with his clothing as though he thought he could somehow loosen the seed and free himself.

"Answer our questions, and I'll let you live," Kurama continued. "Why were you chasing this girl?"

"We chased her because someone told us she can cure the virus," the troll confessed.

"How?" Kurama asked.

"I don't know! All I know is that anyone who gets the virus gets cast out and banned from travelling, and in the city back there someone told me that little girl could cure me."

"How can she cure you?"

"I don't know."

The troll cried out in pain and surprise as something began moving beneath the skin of his forearm.

"What is that?" he asked.

"The Death Plant," Kurama plainly replied.

"I answered your question, and you're still gonna kill me?"

"I think you're still hiding something from me."

"I'm not I swear!"

"Is that your final answer?"

"Yes!"

"Then let those be your final words."

The troll screamed as green shoots burst from his skin, sprouting out of several different place of his body at once. Within minutes he had been reduced to a twitching pool of blood beneath an oddly serene and pretty flowering bush.

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" Hiei asked.

"Maybe," Kurama replied. "But once I plant a Death Planet seed, I can't stop it growing."

"But you told him you could," Hiei pointed out.

"I had to tell him that to make him talk."

Kurama smiled at Hiei, who gulped audibly and lowered his eyes. He carefully crouched down, standing the ice maiden onto the ground in front of him. She pushed herself away from him and, despite clearly still being unable to put her full weight onto one of her feet, she stumbled back, staring up at him with slightly dilated pupils. Her breathing was short and shallow and her entire body was tense and rigid.

"She's just a child," Hiei said quietly. "What they tried to do to her was unthinkable."

"It was despicable behaviour on their part," Kurama agreed. "But at least she isn't distressed by it."

Hiei turned sharply to Kurama, glaring at him as angrily as he had been glaring at the girl's captors only moments earlier.

"Ice maidens don't feel emotion," Kurama reminded him. "She won't suffer emotionally from this experience."

Hiei shook his head and thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants, fumbling around experimentally.

"The first lesson girls in the ice village are taught is never to cry," he said as he searched. "If they cry, they create hiruiseki, and if they create hiruiseki, they will be hunted and abused for that ability. Crying isn't allowed, not even at a funeral in the ice village. Punishment for shedding tears is severe. Do you know how difficult it is for a young child to hold back tears, Kurama?"

"I can't say that I do…" Kurama slowly replied.

"She is distressed, Kurama," Hiei continued, pulling out something from one pocket. "She's not crying, but she is distressed."

Hiei shook out the item in his hand and knelt down in front of the girl, who, rather than look surprised that a fire demon should be carrying such an item in his pocket, looked relieved and grabbed at it eagerly as Hiei handed it to her. As she pressed the item to her mouth and sat down on a low rock, Kurama stepped forwards and touched a hand to Hiei's shoulder to catch his attention. Hiei looked up at him from the corner of his eye and Kurama leaned forwards in order to keep his voice low.

"Hiei?" he asked quietly.

"What?" Hiei grunted.

"Why did you have a paper bag in your pocket?"

"She's hyperventilating, this helps."

Hiei turned towards the little ice maiden again, apparently thinking that his response was sufficient explanation. Kurama slowly straightened up again, patting Hiei on the shoulder as he did so.

"We need to decide how to deal with this," he said.

Hiei looked up at Kurama again, looking agitated and slightly confused.

"It would be wrong to abandon her," Kurama quietly explained. "We should try to return her to her home. Now I know you don't want to approach the ice village, but frankly, neither do I. You already know about the history between her race and mine… I think, since we are already closer to Mukuro's temple, we should continue on to there, and seek assistance from the Border Patrol to take her back."

"Absolutely no way!" Hiei said, standing so abruptly that the little girl in front of him jerked, the bag pressed to her mouth inflating and deflating faster then before.

Kurama smiled gently down at her before putting his hands on Hiei's shoulders and turning him around to face away from the ice maiden.

"The journey back to Arbeinia from this point, at the speed we have been travelling at, will take until nightfall," he whispered. "We could find ourselves having to keep her over night, and that's not a good outcome for any of us."

"She's just little girl, Kurama!" Hiei whispered back. "Are you telling me you can't be around her just because she is from the ice village?"

"No, it's not that!" Kurama harshly replied. "As you said yourself, she is just a child. My concern is that if she spends a night with us, it will all the harder to approach her mother and convince her to take her back: how do you think an ice maiden would react to finding her daughter in the hands of a fox demon and an evicted emiko?"

Hiei narrowed his eyes and thinned his lips in displeasure, but soon began nodding his head.

"I see your point," he reluctantly admitted. "But your other idea is stupid. We can't take the Border Patrol to Arbeinia and point up at the sky and say "there you go, there's the ice village, right there"!"

"I didn't mean that," Kurama replied. "I… Actually I don't know how best to approach this… Maybe we should call Botan."

"What can Botan possibly do?"

"She's a woman, and she can fly. She could approach the ice village."

"Stupid idea. She's not an ice demon, and she's not even a demon. The elders would tear her apart before she even got close."

"Then we need to find Yukina."

Hiei slowly shook his head, momentarily adopting that bewildered look again.

"I know you don't want to put her in any danger, but she'll be safe if she stays close to us," Kurama added. "We just need to arrange for her to meet us in Arbeinia, and we can hand the child over to her there for her to take back to the ice village."

"It might not be safe for Yukina to go back to the ice village," Hiei said, his voice slightly higher in pitch and a little strained. "I think we should take her back ourselves. Yukina left the ice village without permission the second time around, she told me as much herself when she gave her hiruiseki and asked me to find her brother. She gave me the impression she would not be welcomed back, and I believe that. The ice maidens don't like defectors, least of all one that chose to live with men and in the living world, no less."

"I understand your concerns, but approaching the village won't be easy for either of us."

"We have to do this."

Hiei turned from Kurama before he could argue further and crouched down in front of the ice maiden again, just as she removed the paper bag from her lips.

"Thank you for helping me," she said quietly. "I saw what you did back there… You're from the ice village too, aren't you?"

"Um, yes, I am," Hiei carefully replied.

"But they made you leave," the girl added.

"Yes, but it's alright," Kurama said, kneeling down beside Hiei. "We mean you no harm, and we would like to help you get back home."

The girl shook her head.

"It's okay, we won't hurt you," Kurama assured her. "Why don't you tell us your name?"

The girl shook her head again.

"I'm Kurama, and this is Hiei," Kurama tried.

"Really?" the girl asked. "That's what you call yourself?"

Hiei and Kurama both frowned at her, but she continued to look back at them incredulously.

"So what the elders teach us is true," she said faintly. "What they say about the world outside of the ice village, it's all true…"

"What are you talking about?" Hiei asked.

"Women are second-class citizens out here," the girl replied.

"That's not true!" Hiei snapped.

"No, it's not, in fact," Kurama agreed. "Hiei's superior is a woman. She once ruled one third of demon world."

"Disguised as a man," the girl said.

"How did you know that?" Hiei asked, leaning closer to her.

"That's what women have to do, isn't it?" the girl asked. "Men don't trust women, so women have to disguise themselves as men."

"It's true that Mukuro did disguise herself as a man in order to ascend to a position of power," Kurama agreed. "But I don't understand how you know about that…"

"I don't know who "Mukuro" is," the girl replied. "I was talking about the two of you. A man and a woman disguised as a man. Those nasty men who were chasing me wouldn't have been afraid of you if they had realised one of you was only a woman."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Hiei snapped.

He got to his feet and sighed forcefully, pushing his hands through his hair, leaving his spikes slightly flattened.

"I see you've injured your ankle," Kurama said to the ice maiden.

"I can heal that," she said.

"Well, why don't you save your energy for now and let me carry you?" Kurama offered. "Climb on my back, we'll take you back home to your family."

"Will you keep me safe from that man?"

"Of course."

The girl climbed onto Kurama's back and he stood up as Hiei turned to look at him, his face almost comically scrunched up.

"What man?" he asked, peering over Kurama's shoulder at the girl.

"You," she replied, shirking back behind Kurama's hair. "You're one of those evil fire boys."

Hiei's face opened out again, his eyes changing from narrow slits of red rage to wide saucers of incredulity in less than a second.

"She thinks I'm a woman," Kurama explained.

"You are a woman," the girl insisted, playing her fingers through Kurama's hair. "You have soft hair. Only women have soft hair."

"You don't think Hiei has soft hair?" Kurama asked, winking at Hiei.

Kurama turned and bent his legs to bring the girl level with Hiei. She reached out a single finger and poked tentatively at Hiei's hair before shuddering and retracting her hand again.

"No?" Kurama asked as he straightened his legs again.

"It's all hard and coarse," she replied. "Just like a man's."

"How would you even know what a man's hair feels like?" Hiei spat at her. "You've never seen a man up close before!"

"I have too," the girl replied, scowling down at him.

"You have not, don't lie!"

"I have!"

"No you haven't!"

"Yes I have!"

"No you–"

"Hiei, please," Kurama cut in. "Don't argue with the little girl."

Hiei growled out a sigh and pushed back his hair again, again leaving it less vertical that it usually was.

"I don't think the man knew that you were in disguise, Miss Kurama," the girl whispered to Kurama.

"No, I didn't tell him," Kurama whispered back. "But I think he might know now."

"Are you going to come to the ice village with me?" she asked him.

"I might do."

"Idiot!" Hiei blurted out.

"Who?" Kurama asked.

"Both of you!" Hiei snapped. "You're an idiot for humouring her, and you're an idiot for being so blind! He's a man! And he's a fox demon!"

The girl tilted her head to one side and pouted.

"That's not funny, Mister," she said.

"I wasn't trying to be funny!" Hiei yelled.

"There's no such thing as a fox demon," the girl said with a sigh. "Only stupid people think demons can be animals."

Kurama smiled and winked at Hiei, who groaned and dropped his face into his hands.

"Nothing has changed…" he grumbled into his palms. "They're still teaching them the same myopic nonsense…"

"Let's get going," Kurama said, patting Hiei on the shoulder sympathetically. "We'll need to move fast if we want to reach Arbeinia before nightfall."

"Arbeinia?" the girl asked.

"Yes, that's the name of the town by your village," Kurama explained.

"But my mother is still in Illyria."

Kurama turned sharply from Hiei, whose head whipped up, his eyebrows twisted in confusion.

"Illyria?" Kurama asked. "Are you sure about that?"

"That was what they told us when they took us there," the girl replied.

"When they… Took you…?" Hiei said faintly.

"Illyria isn't far from here, perhaps we should go there first," Kurama suggested.

"Who told you the name of the town?" Hiei asked the girl.

"The woman dressed as a man," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Some men are actually men, you know!" Hiei snapped, stamping a foot in anger. "We're not all women in disguise, you know! Silly girl, put those ridiculous ideas out of your tiny mind!"

"She was a woman dressed as a man!" the girl argued back. "She had yellow curly hair, cut short, and she was wearing grey clothes just like the other two men she was with!"

"Wait… Yellow curly hair and a grey uniform?" Kurama asked. "What did the two men with her look like?"

"One had black hair and a nose like a bird's beak, and the other had no hair at all, and he was very small," the girl replied.

"Why are you encouraging her to lie?" Hiei asked Kurama.

"Didn't you listen to what she just said?" Kurama responded. "She just described the three SDF officers who met us at the breach yesterday."

"She just… She… What?"

"Why would those three still be in demon world? They told us they would only need two hours to seal that breach, and they swore they would return to spirit world as soon as their work was done."

Hiei started to sweat and look bewildered again.

"Something is very wrong, Hiei," Kurama said. "We have to go to Illyria right away."

Hiei nodded his agreement and together they set off up the hillside again.

"Yusuke!" Koenma said. "What a fortuitous call!"

"Shut the hell up!" Yusuke snapped, accidentally spitting on the display screen of his communication mirror in his ire. "My spirit beast is faulty, and by my calculations, he's still under warranty: I want a new one!"

Koenma tilted his head to one side. Botan sighed, pushing Yusuke's face over to bring herself into her boss's line of sight.

"It's Puu, Sir," she explained. "He's turned on Yusuke now."

"Botan, there you are!" Koenma said.

Botan and Yusuke both paused, momentarily caught off-guard as Koenma visibly relaxed, touching a hand to his chest as though suddenly deeply relieved after a great tension.

"Sir? Is everything alright?" Botan asked.

"Botan, you have to return to spirit world immediately," he replied. "It's no longer safe for you to be anywhere else."

"Safe?" Botan echoed. "What do you mean "safe"?"

"He said "no longer safe", Botan," Yusuke pointed out. "That means you're not safe."

"That's what I meant!" Botan snapped, snatching the communicator from his hands. "Sir, what are you talking about?" she demanded, glaring into the screen.

"The trio of SDF officers I sent to demon world to seal the breach got caught up in the problems there a little bit," Koenma explained. "The virus is quite widespread, and it's caused chaos in demon world, and there was a quite obvious cure the doctors had overlooked. The SDF officers didn't think they were wrong to highlight the omission to the doctors there, and they… They helped enact a plan the doctors formulated to control the spread of contamination. Botan, you have to come back here, it's not safe for you."

"Why not?" Botan asked.

"Hey, those doctors found a cure?" Yusuke asked, snatching the communicator back from Botan.

"Yes," Koenma replied. "It turns out you're not immune to the virus, Yusuke. Neither is Kurama or Kuwabara."

"But my super-strong genetics fought off the infection, right?" Yusuke asked, sounding less certain with every word he spoke.

"No, you had help fighting it off," Koenma replied.

"No I damn well did not!"

"The only way to cure the sick and to prevent infection is through exposure to healing magic, Yusuke."

Botan gasped.

"So Botan can cure people?" Yusuke asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the ferry girl.

"Yes, and in the desperation to find capable healers, demons are taking any they can find," Koenma replied. "Including ferry girls. I've asked those three officers to remain behind in demon world to recover any ferry girls they find, and I'm calling all ferry girls out at work back here immediately. Botan, please come back, you're in great danger!"

"But… Don't we need the ferry girls in demon world to cure the virus?" Yusuke asked.

"Not really," Koenma replied. "Demon world has more efficient, powerful and capable healers than spirit world's ferry girls."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes… Their clan is difficult to find, but the SDF did have a map of its location, and so they went there and flushed out the… Say Yusuke, where are Hiei and Yukina right now?"

Yusuke scratched his head as he tried to think of the correct answer, but before he could get there Botan, who had begun to hop about from foot to foot, distracted him.

"Oh no, this is terrible!" she said, tugging at his arm. "The SDF have gone to the… And made them leave the… And Hiei will… And Yukina!"

"I never was any good at Mad Libs, fill in the blanks for me, Botan!" he said sarcastically.

"The SDF have forced the ice maidens from their village, Yusuke," Koenma said. "They are the best healers in demon world, and it's not spirit world's job to aid demon world. If the SDF hadn't done what they did, demons would have hunted down ferry girls instead."

"Damn it, Yukina!" Yusuke said. "Where the hell is she?"

"You don't know?" Koenma asked. "Well, where is Hiei at least? He might not react well to this news."

Yusuke turned to Botan, and they both answered in unison.

"He's already there."

Kurama and Hiei had been running for almost an hour by the time they reached the city limits of Illyria. Hiei was sweating, he had been running fast only by human standards, he was becoming breathless, and Kurama suspected that he was struggling to keep going: but he was typically stubborn and refused to admit as much. They both naturally slowed down as the path ahead of them narrowed, filtering them towards a narrow bridge made of jagged black metal with high sides. The river it crossed was fast-flowing and impassable, and the city that lay beyond it was suitably dark and foreboding, the tall, sharp-edged buildings all made of the same black metal as the bridge, their spires and towers looking like a forest of thorns against the red sky.

"This is Illyria?" Hiei asked.

"You've been here before, haven't you?" Kurama responded. "I thought you said you had. Surely during your time with the band of thieves you grew up with you visited this city at least once: it has the biggest black market of this region of demon world."

"I knew that," Hiei quietly replied.

Kurama stepped onto the bridge and the girl on his shoulders pulled at his hair and Hiei stopped several steps back.

"Despite how it looks, this bridge is secure," Kurama called back over his shoulder.

Behind him Hiei was peering down over the steep riverbank into the murky, frothy water thundering past. He actually looked afraid, and since he had forgotten to recover his cloak on the mountainside, his neck, shoulders and bandaged arms were exposed and all were looking especially frail. Kurama knew that Hiei had a secret dislike of moving water – possibly because of the nature of his being, fire demons were typically wary of powerful bodies of water – and he knew that, if pushed, Hiei was more likely to become irrational than admit that he could not make himself cross the bridge.

"Maybe you should wait here," Kurama said, turning around and stepping off the bridge again.

He moved over to where Hiei was standing and slowly lowered himself down to one knee.

"The two of you wait here, I'll go into the city and acquire some better clothes for the girl," he said, helping the ice maiden untangle her fingers from his hair.

"Right, good thinking," Hiei agreed. "We'll wait here."

"Be careful," Kurama warned as he stood up again. "Even though her clothes are a little untidy, they still clearly mark her as inhabitant of the ice village, and, on sight alone, others around here might come after her if what the troll told us was true."

Hiei nodded his understanding and Kurama stood up again, only to almost trip over as the little ice maiden grabbed at one leg of his pants.

"Don't leave me alone with the mean little man," she whispered up at him.

Kurama tried to hide his smile from Hiei, who he could see was less than pleased with the little girl's reaction.

"I won't be long, I promise," he told her.

He then prised her from his clothing and hurried away, pausing halfway across the bridge to wave a hand at Hiei, who simply glared back at him. Hiei was not really an ideal babysitter, least of all for a child of the ice village, but he had been adamant that they should return the girl to her home, and he ought to have realised that doing so would involve looking after the girl until they reached their destination.

Kurama's smile widened: Hiei never planned ahead for anything, he probably had not realised that taking the girl home meant spending a day with her. He wondered what they would talk about in his absence – if anything at all – and if Hiei would manage to control his temper long enough not to end up throwing her into the river.

Thankfully, Kurama was very familiar with Illyria, and, although he had not visited the city for several decades, little had changed other than the faces of some of the street vendors. He easily found his way to the market square, an open plaza in the centre of the largest buildings in the city and home to one of the largest selections of free merchants in demon world. Kurama had, in his younger days, often visited the market square in Illyria with bags of loot he had stolen from other regions. It was usually a hive of activity, and, as he approached it from a connecting alleyway, Kurama began to encounter queues and crowds, and he could hear voices shouting out prices: apparently there was an auction on that day, which was only going to make it all the more hectic. He had to fight against angry and sickly demons crowding the alley to make it out onto the plaza, and once he finally got there, he saw why the crowds were so thick: a makeshift stage had been built in the centre of the square and it was lined by demons in biohazard suits like the kind the doctors on the medical transporter had been wearing, and they were holding back the throngs of demons crowding around the stage. On the stage itself, one of the doctors was standing at a podium, shouting out prices and somehow managing to monitor bids from the desperate crowds around him, who seemed to all be shouting out and raising their hands at once.

But it was not the auction, the crowds or even the number of sick that concerned Kurama the most: it was what the doctors were apparently selling. On the stage were four framed cages on wheels, like the kind used to transport prisoners, their structure specifically designed to allow the application of energy types that would contain whoever was placed inside them. And apparently the auction that day was for the prisoners inside the cages.

Quite apart from how badly Hiei was going to react when he found out, Kurama worried then that what the troll and the little ice maiden had said was true: had the SDF alerted the rest of demon world to the whereabouts of the ice village? After all, what other explanation was there for six ice maidens – four adults and two children – appearing in Illyria, a considerable distance from their home and beyond the limits of where they would normally dare wander on one of their rare visits to the outside world?

Next Chapter: Hiei finds his way to the auction and loses his self-control. Kurama tries to stop him, but things become even more complicated when Yusuke, Kuwabara and Puu join the foray, and Hiei is forced into a difficult situation. Chapter 11 – Thieves' Nest