Hiei jumped when his phone rang in his pocket. He grabbed it and answered it quickly, "Hello?"

"They came home."

"Where, where are they? Genkai's?"

"Kuwabara's."

"I'm going now." Hiei hung up and bolted. Yukina had to be safe, and he really wanted the oaf's head for letting this happen. As he passed through the nearest portal, he realized Kurama hadn't said "Yukina" was home, but "They" were home, both of them. Why had they been together? Sure, they both disappeared at the same time, but the two didn't even talk to one another. Why were they both gone and why did they come back together?

When Hiei landed in Kuwabara's yard, he could sense Yukina's strong energy, and immediately knew she was trying to heal someone, but who? He hadn't been there to beat up Kuwabara yet. Was she injured? That spurred him all the way into the living room where he saw Riva laying prone on the couch in just her tank top. She had a black scrawl on her upper chest down along the middle of it between her breasts. It was welted and an angry red. Yukina was trying to heal it. There were also bloody bandages strewn on the coffee table.

Hiei came over quickly, "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine Hiei, please, get back," Yukina demanded.

"Is Riva okay?"

"I don't know Hiei," Yukina replied stiffly. "I'm trying to fix her, but every ounce of my energy that goes by that tattoo gets drained."

Hiei stepped closer to look at it, "Is it a sutra?"

Yukina nodded shakily. "Oh, what did they do to her?" she whined, her arms trembling.

"What if we cut it? Break her skin, would it break the sutra?"

"It might, I don't know. Tattoos are very deep thought, it would have to be a deep cut. She might bleed out."

"Would you say it's worth a try?" Hiei rested his hand on his hilt. He didn't want to hurt her, but if it meant saving her life or potentially his by giving her a cut, he'd do it.

"No. I can heal most of her injuries. You'd have to cut off too much of her skin to make it useful." Yukina pushed up her shirt and looked up at him. The sutra was so big, that it traveled all the way down to her navel.

"Could I just cut it down the middle? A line? Not cut it off?"

"You know how sutras work Hiei. If the skin knit back together with the two lines touching and just a thin part separating it, you could change the spell and make it worse."

"What if we removed a patch of it, like the main part of it?"

"Hiei! I can't let you do that now give it up!" The room chilled.

"I want to help her too! She's helping me!"

"You can't help her!"

Hiei stared at her in bewilderment.

Yukina sighed and shook her head. "Hiei, I need to focus. Get Kurama over here to examine the sutra."

"Fine." Hiei stomped off and grabbed his phone from his pocket, punching in Kurama's number, "Fox."

"Yeah?"

"We need you here, now."

"Alright." Kurama hung up.

When Hiei turned around, he saw Kuwabara on the porch looking out at him. He looked like he'd been run over by a truck. His face was haggard, eyes sunken, his hair was shaggy and unkempt, and his clothes were all messed up, twisted like he'd slept in them and pulled out of shape. He had blood splattered across his clothes too.

Hiei still wanted to throw him across the yard though.

"Hiei, I'm sorry."

"You fucking bastard! Why didn't you tell me or Kurama!" Hiei drew his sword.

Kuwabara dropped his head.

"Huh? I have a jagan eye!"

"I told Yusuke to tell you."

"Well he didn't!" Hiei seethed.

"A lot of good it did! Even with that eye of yours you couldn't find her!" When Kuwabara looked up, he had tears streaming down his eyes.

"But maybe I could have if it was within hours of it happening! Don't you know what she is Kuwabara!"

"I thought she was at work."

"All night!"

"Yes!"

"You have to realize she's a koorime and people want her! They want to enslave her, and they want to use her to get rich!"

"She told me she was going to a conference on new technologies to detect demons, and it wasn't until she didn't check in that I knew something was wrong."

"You're such a fool!" Hiei shouted at him.

"I don't know when she was taken Hiei, but I called Yusuke to tell you guys about it around eleven when she didn't call to say goodnight, then I headed over to where she was supposed to be staying and started searching."

"You should have just called Kurama!"

"Obviously! Just-" Kuwabara sighed and sat down on the porch with his feet on the steps. "Hiei, Riva-" his throat choked, and he dropped his head into his hands.

"What!" Hiei barked.

"Yukina said, when they got here, that Riva saved her. She said they used her as a-a control and Riva as an experiment because Riva saved her."

"And now Riva is hurt! And Yukina could've been hurt!" Hiei wanted to scream in frustration.

"And now," Kuwabara swallowed and looked up. "All because I didn't go with her. I should have gone with her."

"Yes, you should have!" Hiei yelled loudly.

"Hiei!" Kurama snapped. "This isn't helping!"

"He's pissing me off!"

"Can't you just be grateful that they're back rather than attacking Kuwabara for something that could have happened to any of us!"

Hiei growled but he didn't sheath his sword.

"You couldn't find her, and neither could I. Kuwabara couldn't find her. Yusuke couldn't find her. Fuck, Botan and Koenma couldn't find her!"

"Maybe I could have if this stupid oaf had called you instead of the Detective!"

"No, you couldn't have!"

"You don't know that Fox!"

"Yes, I do! You started searching for Riva the night she disappeared, and you couldn't find her. They were together!"

"Whatever you say isn't going to calm me down Fox!" Hiei barked.

Kurama drew his whip and swiped it at Hiei.

"This isn't between us Fox! Fix Riva, that's why you're here!" Hiei blocked it.

Kurama continued his attacks anyway. "Kuwabara is in no condition to knock you off your high horse, so I'll do the honors."

Hiei bolted away instead of humoring the Fox, taking a seat on the roof of house, "Fix Riva."

Kurama glared at him. "If I hear you out here picking a fight with Kuwabara, I'm coming back to kick your ass." He turned and strolled past Kuwabara going inside.

Hiei really wanted to punch Kuwabara and run, but he wasn't sure if Kurama would let him get that close, so he stayed put. He would get his revenge later.

Kurama came outside nearly an hour later deep in thought. He sat down next to Kuwabara on the porch.

Hiei hopped down, "Well?"

"I don't know. She's-" Kurama frowned. "It's weird. Yukina took pictures of her injuries when she first got her home, and it looks like she's been through the wringer, but I can't figure out why she's unconscious right now."

"Hn."

"I think she needs a human to remove the tattoo."

"Kuwabara."

"I can't remove tattoos. They have a tool for that."

"Let's do it then."

"We can't just wheel in an unconscious woman to a tattoo removal parlor and ask them to get rid of it." Kurama replied stiffly.

"Well, let's wake her up and then do it."

"I don't know why she's unconscious. I can't wake her up." Kurama paraphrased.

"Hn."

"On top of that, she is still bleeding internally from several of her injuries. I've given her some plants to help keep the blood out of her stomach and from drowning her lungs, but she's going to have bruising for a while."

"This is bad." Hiei sighed.

Kurama nodded. "I need to figure out a way to check on her brain, make sure she doesn't have too much pressure causing this situation or something like that."

Hiei sat down heavily and rested his chin in his hand. He wasn't sure what to do.

"I can't just remove the tattoo because of the scarring though. Right now, her skin is having an allergic reaction to the symbols, and if we just color them in, the intent and energy of the sutra will still be there. if we just remove the skin, we would have to do it multiple times to get down far enough or cut off too deep in her body for her to heal well unless we healed as we went, in which case, the intent would cause an allergic reaction until we finished, thus scarring her again."

"Hn."

"What the humans will do is saturate the ink with super concentrated light, and the ink will break up rather than setting with her skin. Her blood will then be able to remove it."

Hiei sighed heavily.

"You don't think you could make an intense enough light for that, do you Hiei?"

"Not without burning her." Hiei shook his head, "I haven't tried to make bright lights before, I'd have to practice."

"I'll ask around, see if I can convince a tattoo remover to hear me out." Kurama stood up.

"Alright."

"Until then, she needs to be monitored closely. I just wish we had a tank. If we popped her in one of those, we could stop the internal bleeding and it might remove the ink from her skin on its own."

"Hn." Hiei sighed, "It'd probably take too long to get her to Mukuro's."

"Consider it. That might be our only choice."

"Alright."

Kurama nodded. "I need to go make some calls."

Hiei nodded too.

Kurama left.

Kuwabara went inside leaving the door open for Hiei to come in as well. Hiei took his time coming in, but eventually he settled near where Riva was and stayed quiet.

Riva now had a mask over her nose and mouth which connected to a small plant pinned to her tank top which was laced together with a vine, having been cut down the middle. It rested open enough to reveal plant leaves laying against her skin underneath it, covering the tattoo.

Hiei still wanted to beat Kuwabara to a pulp, but if he wanted anything to get done, he was going to have to wait until after she was okay. He could still feel the frustration in his bones as he sat and watched her, unable to help.

Yukina was asleep curled up on the chair, and Kuwabara put a blanket over her. He tucked her in and then turned on Hiei, staring at him.

"I still want to fight you."

"You know Hiei, if I didn't know you were her brother, I'd find it weird how attached you are to her."

Hiei stiffened and grabbed the hilt of his sword, glaring, "Shut up."

Kuwabara sighed, "She's asleep. Don't worry."

"Still."

Kuwabara glanced over his shoulder at him, then pointed to the kitchen.

"What?"

Kuwabara sighed again and shook his head, exhausted. He went through the door to the kitchen leaving Hiei in the living room alone with the two sleeping girls.

Hiei let him go. He was going to keep them safe.

After a few minutes Kuwabara poked his head back into the living room. "Hiei, just come here for a minute. We need to talk about this."

Hiei sighed and got up, making his way into the kitchen, tense. He kept a hand on the hilt of his sword, glaring.

"I figured it out when you got that chip in your arm."

"How?"

"Well, I didn't realize how important it was at the time, but when Yukina got her chip, she overheated."

"Hn."

"You froze."

Hiei crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't know why you haven't told her, but I expect it's got some stupid reason behind it."

"Because maybe I don't want that on my shoulders, maybe I want to keep her safe." He nearly seethed.

"Uh huh, because clearly keeping her in the dark keeps her perfectly safe."

"It does. My enemies won't go after her."

"Yeah, but, Hiei, your enemies aren't the biggest problem here. If the worst thing that happens is I have another person to watch out for, then it's not worth keeping her in the dark, if she is."

"No, you won't tell her."

Kuwabara crossed his arms over his chest. "Hiei, she might already know."

"So, you will not tell her, and I will not tell her."

"Hiei, we both know you froze."

"Shut up, I don't need this from you after what you let happen."

"This wasn't just my fault!"

Hiei growled, "The only reason I'm not throwing you across the room is because Kurama would kick my ass."

Kuwabara glared at him. "Look, I just wanted to warn you that Yukina might know who you are to her, and if she does, and you're not telling her, then that's going to be bad on you."

"You don't think I've thought of that?"

"It's not like we're going to tell the whole god damn universe that you're her brother."

"I still don't like it, so be quiet about it."

Kuwabara sighed and shook his head. "Fine, whatever. I don't give a shit if you ruin your relationship with her. Obviously, you've got it covered."

"Hn."

Kuwabara headed for the exit. "Oh, and Hiei, until you decide to admit you're part of this family, you're not invited to family functions."

Hiei followed him, "You really think that's going to stop me?"

Kuwabara ignored him and continued through the living room towards his bedroom.

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Hiei huffed at him.

"Ask your friend," Kuwabara shut the door of his bedroom in Hiei's face.

Hiei scoffed and returned to the living room. He took a seat.