A/N: WHY DOES BOTAN'S OAR ALWAYS END UP BROKEN (SOMETIMES AS A PLOT DEVICE) IN MY FANFICS?

Seriously though. I didn't start out this chapter or this portion of the story expecting it to break and then it totally just did.

Chapter 10 – Simple Philosophy

"Hiei? Since we are going to be travelling for a couple of days, is there a decent lingerie shop around here?"

It was not so much the fact that the ferry girl had asked the question that bothered Hiei, it was more that she had chosen to ask the question after standing by a waterfall, and when she used the word "lingerie" it was difficult for him keep his eyes on hers and not allow them wander to the droplets of water over her chest that were glistening in the light of the evening sun. He really hoped that the ridiculousness of her outfit was her own doing and not spirit world's, as surely even the authorities of spirit world were not so twisted as to send one of their workers to demon world dressed so alluringly.

"Did you notice where Inugoya was located?" he asked.

"At the top of the highest mountain back in those mountains we went to," she replied.

"Yes," Hiei replied. "Do you know where we're going next?"

"The ice village," she said.

Her voice had slowed and her perky smile had wilted slightly, which was a good sign as far as Hiei was concerned because it meant that she was starting to understand the point he was about to make.

"Yes," he said. "We're travelling from one remote village to another. This may surprise you, but there are no fashion boutiques en route."

"But Inuyusha took all my underwear!"

Hiei made a small noise of annoyance. Ordinarily he would have no sympathy for a ferry girl bemoaning her lack of frilly undergarments, but he did especially hate the dog demon tribe at that moment, and it had been quite low of them to take her underwear, especially when they had left the sack of hiruiseki untouched.

"This isn't a vacation," he said. "We can't take a detour for a shopping trip. We would lose time."

"How much time?" she asked, much to his chagrin.

"At least a day."

Arguably it would not be as long as that: the forest they were about to pass through did border a large town that could be visited in a matter of hours, but it was obscured by the trees and she would not see it. It was an inconvenience Hiei could do without.

"We can't waste a whole day," she said, much to his relief. "Unless you could get there and back faster without me?"

"I really hope you're not suggesting I play errand boy by going to the nearest appropriate location and purchasing underwear for you?"

Hiei had deliberately kept his voice low and threatening, posing his words as a question but hoping that the ferry girl would have the good sense to realise that it was a rhetorical one.

"I could write down my sizes for you."

"I'm not setting foot into a shop that sells women's underwear."

"Are clothing sizes the same in demon world as they are in the living world?"

"It doesn't matter, because I am not doing it!"

"Well, I suppose I could just wash what I'm already wearing, but that means not wearing any underwear at all while I wash it and wait for it to dry."

"We're moving towards some hot springs. You can wash there."

"Oh, alright."

Hiei was relieved that Botan accepted his answer: especially as it was only partially true. They would be passing hot springs, but not until they reached the colder region of the ice village, which was another day away yet.

"We need to move on," he said as the ferry girl began shaking out her towel.

"I've never worn the same underwear for more than one day without washing or changing it."

Hiei tried to keep the irritation and confusion from his face.

"I didn't want you to think that I had," she added, apparently sensing that he was perplexed by her words. "I'm very clean. Not obsessively so, but I am clean. And I always wear clean underwear."

"I don't need to know that," Hiei said when he felt that she would not stop talking until he said something.

"I always make an effort with my clothing."

"Are you packing that bag yet?"

"I know that most girls make an effort with their clothing, but I don't think that I make any less effort than any other girl. I always dress stylishly but appropriately. What do you think, Hiei? Do men really notice when a girl makes an effort to look good but still be taken seriously as–"

"Shut-up and pack the damn bag!"

"Don't you care what I look like?"

"No!"

"Well fine then, I'll just change into something ugly, and then you can explain to Inukasai why you married a woman with no sense of style!"

Hiei slowly narrowed his eyes, both at a loss as to why the ferry girl was apparently even more irate than he was and concerned that she knew she could blackmail him with their fake marriage for the sake him saving face in the presence of his nemesis.

"Wear whatever you want to wear," he said. "I don't care. Whatever it takes for you to stop faffing about and get moving."

She sighed and actually looked as though his answer had made her even more annoyed.

"Hiei, don't you notice how a woman looks?" she asked.

"Not really," he frankly replied.

"That can't be true!" she snapped. "You must have noticed how pretty Inukasai's wife was?"

Hiei felt his face twist. He had heard this argument before: it was the one Keiko always used on Yusuke, and there was no possible way for it to end well. It was a female tactic, used to back a man up into a corner that he could not safely escape from.

"I'm not going to talk to you about whether you or that bastard's wife is more attractive," he said sternly. "Because we are not really married and I'm not obliged to flatter your fragile ego. Unless you're hoping to seduce Inukasai away from his wife, the conversation is a moot point as far as I am concerned."

"I just want to know what it is that you find attractive about me, Hiei!" she replied, angrily cramming her towel back into her bag. "Because the only thing you admitted to was that you think I have bigger breasts than Inukasai's wife, and I'd like to think I'm more than just a pair of breasts, Hiei! They're not even that big! They are quite perky and firm, but–"

"We are not having this conversation!"

"Why not?"

"Because you're not really my wife and I'm not really attracted to you."

"Okay, why are you not attracted to me? What's wrong with me?"

Hiei twitched. When she had asked him the same question the night before he had been willing to dismiss her hysteria as a side-effect of her exhaustion and hunger, but she had no such excuse any more.

"Why are you here?" he asked her.

"What?" she echoed, her angered stance faltering as though she was surprised by his question.

"You said you came with me to Inugoya because you were my friend," he said. "Is that the truth or did you come with me because you think we are more than friends?"

"Hiei!" she snapped.

She looked indignant, which was good – mildly offensive, as it clearly indicated that she thought it outrageous that she was being accused of finding him attractive, but still good because it meant that she was not secretly harbouring some romantic inclination towards him.

"Why do you care so much whether or not someone else thinks you look pretty?" he asked.

"I just don't understand why nobody ever does," she replied, sounding and looking far more sedate.

Hiei contemplated telling her that she had made quite an impression on Inuyusha, but that was a huge insult and even Hiei had more tact than to voice it.

"Maybe you should worry more about what you think about yourself and not what everyone else thinks about you," he said instead.

"Yes, I know that's good advice, but Hiei, boys never like me the way they like other girls, and I feel like there's something seriously wrong with me," she said. "I don't know what it is and that just makes it worse."

"This is probably something you should speak to another woman about," Hiei suggested.

He thought he was being exceptionally patient with her, but she apparently did not appreciate that as she carried on talking at him.

"I've tried. They don't understand because it's not the same for them."

"Then speak to a man about it."

"That's what I'm trying to do now."

Hiei balled his hands into fists at his sides and held back a sneer of displeasure.

"Not me," he said. "Someone else."

"You're the only person I trust to be honest with me."

Hiei snorted involuntarily, at first assuming that she was making a joke. When he saw that she was completely serious, he was unsure if he found her words even more amusing or just disturbing.

"We're wasting time now," he said, stepping forward and grabbing the handle of her bag. "We have to get through the trees before the sun sets."

To his surprise she did not release the bag – which was also mildly amusing to him – as though she thought that by holding onto it she could stop Hiei from just taking it by force. He paused anyway, looking her in the eye and waiting long enough to hear her explain herself.

"Please Hiei," she said softly. "I just want to know what I'm doing wrong."

"You are asking the wrong person," he quietly replied, before tugging the bag from her grasp.

She opened her mouth and started to reach a hand towards him, but he did not wait any longer to let her say anything else, instead starting off into the forest. He moved a little slower than before until she had taken to the air and caught up to him. As he sped up again to the maximum speed he knew she could keep up with, Hiei silently hoped that she would not talk to him about her romantic obsession again: after all, it was hardly his area of expertise, and even thinking about it made him feel awkward and angry beyond reason.

Botan was still neither accustomed to nor fond of using random patches of ground as a toilet and her only consolation when she did so was that the route Hiei was taking her was remote and there was little to no risk of anyone seeing her in such an embarrassing position. She stood up from behind the bush and double-checked that she had pulled her tights up correctly before starting to move around the plant and back towards the campfire. In her first few steps she noticed that Hiei had assembled her tent again and in her next few steps she slowed to a halt as she noticed – after some looking around – that Hiei was sitting on a low branch of one of the larger trees at the edge of the forest, his eyes closed and his head down, but his bandana removed and his jagan eye fully open, emitting a soft violet light.

Had he been watching her?

Botan gasped quietly and held out one hand, her oar popping into her palm. She quietly sat onto her oar and raised herself up until she was on a level with Hiei, and she then silently drifted forwards, bringing herself alongside the branch he was sitting on. She started to lean towards him but stopped abruptly when he opened his eye nearest her and fixed an angry red iris onto her.

"What are you doing?" he growled.

"I was just about to ask you the very same question!" she said. "Were you watching me with your jagan eye?"

"Why would I use my jagan to watch you when you're right here?" he replied.

"I was behind a bush doing something private a minute ago!" she pointed out.

"Yes. Over there."

Hiei's open eye moved in the direction of the bush Botan had just left, and when she copied his action she realised that, from the height and angle he was sitting, he had a full view of where she had been without the need to use his third eye. She turned sharply back to him, ready to berate him for not alerting her to the fact that her hidden location was not as hidden as she had thought it was: but when she saw him close his jagan eye and open both of his own eyes fully, a strange look passing over his face as he did so, she changed her mind.

"What were you watching?" she asked instead, her insatiable curiosity once again besting any other instinct.

"It seems we really don't have long to get rid of Inukasai," he cryptically replied.

His answer could mean anything, Botan thought. He could have been watching spirit world and found out about her deal with Koenma, for all she knew.

"Kuwabara is trying to arrange a trip for himself and Yukina to Inugoya."

Botan's eyes widened. Hiei slowly replaced his bandana, looking far too indifferent given what he had just said.

"We can't let them go there!" she said. "Can you imagine? That nasty, lecherous old man Inuyusha will be all over Yukina! Especially since he seems to have a fetish for ice maidens…"

A sharp glare from Hiei made her break out into a sweat and grin nervously.

"I-I mean it's so filthy and smelly there, and the dog demons are so in your face, poor Yukina would be overwhelmed," she corrected herself.

"Kuwabara has asked Kurama for help to find the village," Hiei said. "He intends to take Yukina there as soon as he has finished his exams."

"And Kurama is going to help them get there?" Botan asked.

"I don't know," Hiei replied. "Kurama told Kuwabara he was unsure exactly where the village is – which is a lie – and he appeared to be trying to deter Kuwabara from going."

"Well that's something. When is Kuwabara's last exam?"

"Thursday. He intends to leave on Friday morning."

Botan tried not to show how pleased she was to hear the happily coincidental timing of Kuwabara's plans to her own.

"Well in that case we just have to make sure we get all the information we need to present to Yukina before Thursday is over," she said.

"Hn."

Botan did not really like the tone of Hiei's grunted response, but she tried to ignore it.

"I still can't find those hot springs you spoke about earlier, by the way," she said instead. "I flew up high to try to see if I could see them from the air, but unless they're buried or very small, I definitely didn't find them."

"They're at the end of the next part of our journey."

Botan, who had been having one last look around for any hint of a steam cloud or glitter of water reflecting the moonlight that might indicate a hot spring, turned back to Hiei.

"The next part of our journey?" she repeated. "You mean the ice village?"

"No, I mean the mountain pass to the ice village."

"Right…"

Botan looked about again, a worrying thought occurring to her then.

"I don't see the mountains," she pointed out. "Or are they hidden because they lead to the ice village – which itself is also hidden?"

"No, they're too far away to see," Hiei replied. "We should reach them by nightfall tomorrow though – provided we do start our journey at daybreak tomorrow."

Botan gulped.

"We're not actually arriving in the ice village tomorrow?" she asked.

"We'll go there the day after," Hiei replied.

"But tomorrow is Monday already," Botan said.

"Hn."

Botan understood then why Hiei's "hn" had the tone that it did: if they would not reach the ice village until Tuesday, they would likely never make it back to the living world or Inugoya before Thursday night. Hiei's comment about making sure they started early in the morning both made Botan feel guilty for sleeping in and gave her an idea that she hoped she could convince him to follow.

"Maybe we shouldn't stop here tonight," she began.

"It's already late, this is as good a campsite as any," he replied. "There is a small island in a lake not far from here that we could have camped on tonight, but going there means moving off-course. We're better to stay here."

"No, I mean maybe we shouldn't camp any more," she corrected him.

Hiei turned his head to look directly at her, giving her one of his looks that implied he thought she was being ridiculous.

"I'm not tired," she explained. "Not after sleeping so late. I could carry you on my oar. You could sleep while I fly. If you tell me which way to go, of course. You get the rest you need, and when you wake up… You could carry me while I sleep… It would waste less time…"

Botan felt a little awkward proposing the second part of her plan: it was one thing for her to carry Hiei on her oar, but it was quite another to expect him to carry her on his back, after all.

"Leave the tent here, and remove anything else unnecessary from your bag."

Botan was a little surprised at Hiei's response, as she had been expecting him to argue the practicality of her suggestion. She did not really want to have to explain to Captain Ootake that she had dumped the tent and some of the clothes he had given her in demon world, but she thought that maybe they could recover them later; and surely if the Special Defence Force used such things all the time, they did have some losses along the way.

"Okay," she agreed. "I can do that in two minutes."

She started to fly towards the ground, though she was disappointed when she heard what Hiei called after her.

"Don't leave the bag of hiruiseki behind, that's valuable."

Botan pouted as she leapt off her oar, silently wondering what sort of idiot Hiei thought she was that he had said something so obvious. She supposed he was still being cagey with her because she had tried to ask him about her romance problem, and he was far more uncomfortable talking about it than she had expected him to be: usually he would just be sarcastic or ignore someone if they spoke about something he found trifling, but he had become genuinely angry when she had tried to get a straight answer out of him. It was doubly frustrating because she had even been willing to deal with the consequences of him giving her a painfully blunt answer, but instead he had just been shifty and refused to tell her anything constructive.

And he was perhaps her only hope of ever getting a straight answer.

In her frustration Botan absent-mindedly threw her fleece blanket, her raincoat and most of the rest of the contents of her bag into the tent, taking only the small sack of money, the food rations, the flasks for gathering water and a small case of items she had not even bothered to open. She then tied the bag to the handle of her oar and flew back up to Hiei's side. As she approached him, she considered suggesting to him that he could sleep in her bag – as it was almost empty and quite large, he would easily fit inside it – and it would act like a hammock for him: but she thought that perhaps he might not appreciate that suggestion, and so she kept the idea to herself.

"I'm ready to go," she said.

Hiei nodded and leapt at her oar. Botan thought it quite odd that he landed so that he was sitting alongside her, as nobody had ever ridden with her in that position before; but she did not have long to contemplate the matter as she found Hiei staring at her with a slightly awkward look on his face.

"I'm trusting you not to drop me while I sleep," he told her.

Botan realised then that she had no way of guaranteeing that Hiei would not fall off her oar once he was asleep and no longer able to hold himself in place.

"You'll have to hold me."

Botan blinked.

"Obviously you'll have to hold me," Hiei said.

"Obviously," she said.

"Obviously," he confirmed.

Botan nodded.

"Which side is best for you?"

Botan tried to suppress how strange it sounded hearing Hiei ask that question, as though he was asking her which side of the bed she preferred to sleep on.

"It's fine where you are," she said mechanically. "I steer with my right hand, so I can use my left hand to… Hold you…"

"I can tie us together if you can't hold me."

"Please don't do that."

For a long and awkward moment Botan held her position hovering by the tree branch, sitting side-by-side with Hiei. Once she started to feel her heart slow a little she took a deep breath and forced a smile.

"How should we do this?" she asked, daring to look at Hiei from the corner of her eye.

"Just put your arm around me," Hiei gruffly replied, keeping his eyes forward.

"Like-like I'm hugging you?" Botan asked quietly.

"I could use my scarf to tie our arms together or to tie my legs to your oar."

"It's fine."

Botan took another deep breath and held the air in her lungs as she put her arm around Hiei's shoulders. Even though he was wearing a vest and his cloak, his shoulders still felt tense and hard against her arm. She tried not to think about it too much, sighing slowly as she gripped her hand around his shoulder furthest from her.

"That's cute, but we're not on a date, Botan."

Botan froze, silently wondering what she had done wrong.

"Move your hand lower."

"Why?"

"When I fall asleep I'll slouch and you'll drop me. Move your hand lower."

"This feels weird…"

"I can tie us together. Or I can go on alone and leave you here."

Botan opened her fingers and repositioned her hand to Hiei's waist.

"Now fly," he ordered.

"Okay."

Botan started to fly in the direction they had been moving when they had left the forest, waiting for Hiei to tell her otherwise.

"I don't need to sleep for long," he said as they flew. "The journey from here, by air, is quite simple. Do you see the bend in the river in the distance? Fly beyond that and follow the water downstream until you see the land change. Head towards the hills from there, and you will gradually move into higher ground and colder weather. That way ultimately leads to the ice village. I will probably be awake before we even reach the lake though."

"Okay," Botan said.

"Don't let me fall. I'm trusting you."

"Okay…"

Botan was torn between waking Hiei and letting him sleep. She had several good reasons to wake him and her main reason for not wanting to was fear, but still she dithered. They had passed the bend in the river, followed the water downstream and started into the hillier landscape beyond. As the ground was rising up, so too Botan was forced to fly higher to keep herself airborne, and flying higher meant thinner air and lower temperatures. Hiei had warned that the journey to the ice village would get colder, but Botan had thought that Hiei would awaken before they got that far. She was starting to regret having left all of her clothes back at their would-be campsite, and she was starting to wish that she had not proposed journeying onwards into the night, as in the dark of night, she was forced to fly low to keep her bearings, and as the ground was rocky and rising and she was flying very fast, she kept coming dangerously close to whacking one of her ankles against a jagged boulder.

And, just to make matters worse, there was an increasingly thick cloud cover over the hills ahead, and flying into it was making the air damp – which only made the cold seem colder – and it reduced visibility further still. The only thing stopping Botan from being unbearably cold was the heat of Hiei's body against her.

Which was the reason she was afraid to wake Hiei up.

Despite feeling very uncomfortable about putting her arm around him, Botan was surprised to learn that Hiei did not share her apprehension, as he quickly fell asleep at her side. Within minutes of leaving the campsite, Hiei's head was resting heavily against her shoulder and his breathing had become soft and slow. A few minutes more and his entire weight had been leaning hard against her side, making it difficult for her to keep her arm around him and keep him upright. A few minutes more again and Hiei slumped over, landing with his upper body over her lap. At first she had panicked, expecting him to slide off her oar entirely: but instead he had somehow managed to wind his arms around her leg furthest from him, using her thigh as a pillow, and bringing his legs up to rest his feet against the flat of the blade of her oar. He was incredibly warm and the heat had been quite welcome as far as Botan was concerned, but the fact still remained that, at some point, whether she woke him or he awoke naturally, Hiei would eventually awaken and find himself sleeping in her lap like a child with his mother.

And thinking of Hiei as a child and his mother, Botan had to wonder just how close they were to the ice village. Hiei had implied that if they had maintained the speed they had been travelling at – which, to the best of her knowledge, Botan believed that she had done since leaving the campsite – that it would take the duration of a day's worth of daylight hours to reach the edges of the village, and yet within just a few short hours, she had already reached high ground and freezing fog.

Maybe Hiei had misjudged how close they were or maybe she had been flying faster than she had given herself credit for.

Just as she was starting to think that maybe she had overachieved and reached their goal early, Botan's optimism came to an abrupt end as she inadvertently flew at a large, unforgiving rock. The end of the handle of her oar cleared the rock, but her legs, the bag and the blade of her oar were not so fortunate. Hiei's weight against her thighs kept Botan anchored on the oar after her legs smashed into the rock – something that would otherwise have thrown her from her ride – but when the blade of her oar whacked against the stone Hiei's legs were dislodged and he fell from Botan and the oar, and Botan was then throw over, landing painfully on the rocky hillside, her left shoulder being the first part of her to hit the ground. The momentum of her forwards motion caused her to skid upon landing, and it was only when she tried to get up that she realised she had hurt herself quite badly.

"Hiei!" she cried, trying to look about for him.

She had at least had a slight warning of the impending crash landing, but Hiei had been sleeping and had no such forewarning. When she saw blood on some of the rocks by her feet – some of the very sharp, abrasive rocks – she began to fear that he had cracked his head open or broken a limb.

"Hiei!" she yelled.

"What the hell happened?"

Botan was stunned into silence as Hiei stepped into her line of view, standing on the hillside without so much as a hair out of place or a tear in his clothing.

"I crashed," she meekly replied. "Are you okay?"

"My reflexes aren't as slow as yours," he replied, holding up one hand.

Botan squinted through the murky darkness at what he was holding, eventually realising that it was the velveteen bag of hirui stones she had taken to demon world with her. She peered over her right shoulder and saw then that her oar and the sparse remaining contents of her bag were strewn about the hillside following the collision. She turned her attention back to Hiei in time to see him stuff the money into his pants pocket before crouching down at her side.

"You shouldn't have come with me," he said.

Botan growled and tried to rise again, but pain, weakness and the sound of rushing water in her ears brought her back down to the ground.

"Don't try to move," Hiei told her. "I'll make you comfortable and then I will continue onwards on foot."

"I can still fly," Botan protested.

"Really?"

Hiei pointed at Botan's oar, which was lying dormant further down the hillside; and, as she concentrated on it, Botan realised then that there was a crack in the wood at the point where the blade met the handle.

"I can fix that," she said, turning her attention back to Hiei.

"Maybe so, but I'm not getting on it again," he muttered as he stood up again. "If you couldn't even keep us airborne when it was whole, I don't trust your ability to control it now it's damaged."

Botan sighed and closed her eyes, her body recovering from the initial shock of her accident and starting to relax, making her increasingly aware of just how many parts of her body were in pain in one way or another. She hoped that Hiei would not hold her mistake against her and leave her to find her own way back to spirit world.

Hiei hurriedly collected the contents of Botan's bag, piling everything up by her damaged oar. As they had collided with something as hard and immobile as a rock, the oar had stopped almost instantly, meaning the contents of the bag had not spread very far; in fact, Hiei noted, the ferry girl had been thrown further from the crash site than any of her belongings had. He had noticed that she abandoned almost all of the things she had been carrying, but as he had not really been au fait with the exact contents of the bag in the first place, it was difficult for him to be sure that he had found everything that had fallen from the bag: particularly so when he noticed how few items remained.

He sat down onto a rock facing the pile, with Botan ahead of him and still in his line of sight, and he spread out what he had recovered. There was a briefcase that looked much like the one the ferry girl had carried around on some of the missions they had worked on together back when Yusuke had still been a spirit detective, there was the bag of money – which Hiei had been careful to grab when everything had been thrown from the oar during the crashlanding – there were two small containers with dried food in them and two empty drinking flasks. And a pair of panties.

Simply out of curiosity – and for no other reason at all – Hiei leaned forwards and pinched his thumb and forefinger into the red lacy material on the ground, slowly lifting it up in the air. He briefly refocused his eyes onto the ferry girl, checking that she was still lying in the position he had left her and therefore could not see him, before turning his hand around in the air in front of his face. He supposed that she would be pleased that she had a clean change of underwear, and that ought to stop her moaning somewhat: but the presence of one random item of her underwear did raise two questions in Hiei's mind. First of all, he wondered why, of everything the old pervert had taken, he had not taken such a suggestive undergarment. And secondly, Hiei thought as he used his other hand to stretch out the panties in front of his face to get a better view of their shape, for a woman who had done nothing but complain about the lack of lovers she had in her life, the ferry girl certainly kept herself dressed in underwear that was clearly more aesthetic than practical.

Hiei wondered if the one item of Botan's underwear that remained had been left by Inuyusha because it was the least alluring item of her underwear that had been in the bag.

Hiei wondered if she was wearing something even more provocative underneath those skin-tight, vaguely transparent, milky-coloured tights she had on: in the prone position she was in, he could probably see for himself if he adjusted his position just slightly.

Hiei threw down the girl's underwear and quickly got to his feet, forcing himself to concentrate on the most salient issue regarding the remaining contents of the bag. He walked over to Botan, moving around into her line of sight and then crouching down so that she could look him in the eye without straining herself.

"Where is the medical kit that was in the bag?" he asked her. "Did you leave it at the campsite?"

Her light blue eyebrows slowly drew together and her lips pouted in a way that did little to ease Hiei's concerns.

"There was a medical kit in my bag?" she asked.

Hiei stood up again, mostly to stop himself from throttling her. He turned away from her, looking back down the hillside. He was relatively impressed to see that Botan had been flying at a decent speed during his slumber, as they had passed the halfway point to the ice village: but that was not entirely a positive thing, as it left him with a difficult decision to make. He glanced over his shoulder at the ferry girl, reminding himself visually that she was quite badly and quite extensively injured – he pushed aside the notion that he had never seen her wounded before she had started getting involved with his problems with Inukasai, and yet since then she had consistently gotten herself injured one way or another – and she needed better care than he could give her with the limited healing powers he had at his disposal. Healing others was a skill that most demons mastered as part of any training regime – even Yusuke had picked up some basic first aid skills – but Hiei had never bothered learning how to do anything other than heal his own wounds, as he had thought learning to help someone else with his energy was a waste of time.

He briefly allowed himself to wonder if that bastard Inukasai had mastered any healing powers.

Hiei shook his head and concentrated on the options remaining to him: he could either leave Botan where she was and run back to the campsite to recover the medical kit or he could carry her on to the ice village. He could easily go back to the campsite and be back within half a day, but during that time the ferry girl was quite exposed and vulnerable where she was, and although they were on a remote and cold path, there was always some idiot climbing the path to try to reach the hiruiseki-making ice maidens, and with her pastel colouring and pale complexion, the ferry girl would probably be mistaken for an ice maiden by one such cretin and get herself abducted. And in the time it would take to go back, get the supplies, return, dress her wounds and get her on her feet, Hiei knew that he could have reached the ice village, even if he was carrying a sleeping woman on his back.

But Hiei did not especially relish the idea of arriving at the ice village – the village populated entirely by women who hated men, and more especially, hated him – with a half-dead woman on his back. But at some point, the ferry girl was going to need help for her injuries, and Hiei could not really leave her where she was for too long, lest her situation worsen; either from her injuries draining her energy or from someone less savoury chancing upon her.

But time was not on Hiei's side: when he had been checking on Yukina before nightfall, he had heard Kurama and Yusuke discussing the matter, and, even though Kurama had not told Kuwabara where Inugoya was or how to get there, Yusuke was trying to convince him otherwise, on the basis that he thought it was safer to let Kuwabara and Yukina go to Inukasai's hometown directly rather than let them stumble around demon world aimlessly trying to find it for themselves. It was already the early hours of Sunday morning, and, after his exam on Thursday, Kuwabara was sure to be eager to set off to visit his new best friend, which meant there was only a day left to find proof that Inukasai was not Yukina's brother before the ice maiden visited the village of the dog demons and started getting too attached to them all. Hiei knew that the potential damage would very soon be irreversible if he did not act quickly; but, under his current circumstances, acting quickly and acting in the best interests of himself and the ferry girl were not necessarily the same thing.

Hiei had always been good at repressing his feelings, but he found it especially hard to suppress the overwhelming emotions of anger and resentment he felt as he packed up Botan's bag and pulled the handle over his neck, hanging the bag over his chest, and then he moved over to the ferry girl herself, hauling her up despite her muted cries of pain.

"You better appreciate what I'm about to do for you," he grumbled as he pulled her good arm over his shoulder and then lifted up her legs in his arms, holding her against his back.

"I'm so sorry Hiei," she mumbled into his ear.

"Don't bother apologising," he grunted. "Just get some rest and try not to look too pathetic when I have to confront the full extent of your wounds."

She made a small noise of confusion but Hiei blocked it out, pointing himself in the direction he was loathed to go and started running, trying not to think too much about what the morning would bring.

Next Chapter: Hiei and Botan finally arrive at the ice village, where Botan realises the only thing worse than her injuries from her accident is what the ice maidens do to her while she sleeps. Under pressure from a nosy ice maiden named Nanako, Botan continues the lie of her marriage to Hiei: something she shortly regrets when she sees how the ice maidens receive the news. Chapter 11: Back to the Start

A/N: Early warning that the next chapter has some really bad language – not the kind that contains lots of expletives, just the kind that is really bad and also really awkward – when nosy Nanako starts asking about Botan's marriage to Hiei.

Also I am now totally going to write my next fic with Botan's oar never getting harmed in any way possible – and since my next fic will be "The Dark Age", that basically means the fic will include some characters getting broken and killed, but Botan's oar will outlast them all. Like Harry's Brom…