They dealt with the two members of their next opponent's team and, after rescuing the hostage they held and curing his poisoning, they returned to the arena and won their next round. Kurama did not have a chance to consider the reason behind the return of the red kitten until he met the shinobi sect his team opposed the next day.

After Holly recovered from her injuries, at least enough to be ambulatory, she watched from the sidelines as Touya lost to her father and then Jin got beaten into unconsciousness by Urameshi. She was a bit put out by the lack of sympathy this garnered from her parent. In point of fact, she would have taken a few friends and made short work of the uppity human trash, but both her beloved and her father forbade it.

She might have ignored those injunctions, but she was still too weak to prevent her team mates from packing her onto the next boat back to the mainland. Under orders of both the men in her life. Koko made sure there was a complete exchange of contact information before they left. There would be no more unnecessary separations. Holly would watch the remainder of the Tournament on Pay-Per-View from home while she completed her recovery from her own trouncing. By the time it was done, she was glad she had left when she did.

Jin, Chu, Touya, Rinku along with Team Urameshi and all their assorted connections were on the final boat that returned to the mainland. For the most part they were all just glad to have escaped with their lives. There were a few serious discussions, however. Since there was no way that Holly and Jin were going to allow themselves to be separated again, Kurama felt it incumbent upon himself to have a little chat with his prospective Son-in-Law. Actually, he decided to have The Talk with Jin.

It started innocently enough. Kurama asked Jin for a moment of his time to discuss "family business" privately, since he was about to join the family. Jin was not old enough to remember what the family business was, but Touya mentioned that Kurama's reputation was not exactly sterling and that he had, in fact cleaned out their father's vault when last he decamped with Holly. Their father would still like to have a few words with him about that, although most of his treasures had since been recovered. Jin tried to keep an open mind, but Touya's accusations stayed with him.

Following Kurama into an empty stateroom, the Wind Master peered around himself nervously. "Jest what did ye be wantin' ta talk aboot?"

Kurama turned and poured them each a glass of sake. They sat down on opposite sides of the table and each tossed the sake down. Kurama refilled the cups before starting. "I asked you here today to try to get to know you better before I give my daughter to you."

Both of them tossed the sake back and they poured some more. It wound up being a very long discussion, taking most of the night and consuming more sake than was wise for either of them. It culminated in a pre-dawn lap of the ship at an altitude exceeded only by their level of drunkenness. By the time the ship docked, both Kurama and Jin were mostly comatose and looking forward to a few days of recuperation at the tender hands of their respective sympathetic families.

Jin was bundled off the ship by Touya through the simple expedient of an ice slide. By the time they arrived at their fathers' home, Jin had sobered up enough to understand that, while Holly would be warmly greeted by his sire, she might have a hard time taking her leave of him. So Jin did not mention that he knew where to find her and, as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to make the journey, he slipped away to her home in the Human World.

Kurama was carried between Hiei and Yusuke and delivered to his human mother with many apologies. She muttered something about boys being boys and got him settled into bed and cleaned up. Kurama was grateful for her restraint, but the next morning, on her way to work, she happened to mention his ill-advised foray into the world of alcohol to her neighbor. Said neighbor then mentioned it to her daughter, Alanna, who had been almost an institution in the Minamino household since she and "Suichi" had met in preschool.

While Alanna was a rising star in the world of music as the latest soprano diva of the opera, she still was concerned about her best friend and raced over to see if there were anything she could do to aid his recover. Or just harass him. It was that sort of friendship.

His only indication of the impending doom about to drop upon him was the quiet sound of his name being called in a soft female voice.

"Suiiiiichi. Time to get up, sleepy head."

He muttered something to the effect of begging a few more moments of rest. The voice persisted, becoming a little louder.

"Come on, you can do it. You need to get up so we can go shopping."

That was enough of an unusual thing to catch a bit more of his foggy brain. Shopping? He wasn't going shopping. He muttered again something to that effect with a few mild epithets included. He heard his tormentor move away and heard a small clinking.

"Wakey wakey silly head or your orange juice will be in your bed."

He was going to grumble and ignore the voice again, but suddenly, there was a VERY cold glass slid into the gap between his neck and shoulder and he realized that the voice he had been hearing was not his mother, but that of his best frienemy, Alanna. Moving very carefully, he took hold of the glass and rolled over enough to glare at her.

The bright sunlight shining in the window felt like a dagger through his eyes and into his brain. His mouth tasted like an assortment of furry creatures had alternately defecated and/or died in it. His stomach chose to make its extreme displeasure at his movement know by threatening to cast forth its contents that did not promise to be any more appetizing than the current interior of his mouth. Possibly worse, if such a thing were possible. He considered, briefly, allowing his body to lapse back into unconsciousness and looked over at his tormentor.

Alanna smiled at him over the top of a glass of ice water with several cubes floating perilously close to the edge. "Don't even think it, buddy boy." She waved a heavy cream-colored envelope in his direction. "You have been invited to a wedding tomorrow and it's too late to back out. We need to get you down to Gildean for your suit."

"Wedding? What wedding," he asked stumbling from the bed to the bathroom at the urging of his suddenly insistent bladder. He managed to get there sufficiently far in advance of Alanna to get the door closed and locked before she joined him, but it did not stop her from reading through the door.

"You are hereby invited to the joining of Kurama Hollyanna, daughter of Youko Kurama and the Storm King's son, Jin the Wind Master. Sounds like some silly LARP kids, if you ask me."

"Which I didn't," he muttered as he tried to defuzz his mouth with water and his toothbrush. His stomach made threatening lurches when he thought about actually using toothpaste.

"Hey, isn't this Youko Kurama guy using the same name you said that monster that lived inside you had?"

"Sounds like it," He gave up and opened the door. She handed him a cup of coffee that he gratefully took a huge swallow of before he realized it contained far more sugar and cream than his tender internal organs could cope with. It was a good thing all he had to do was shove the cup into her hands and turn around because that was all he had time for before the contents of his stomach reappeared.

"Eeewwww," Alanna shrugged. "It's your own fault. Your Mom told my mom that you were so trashed when your friends brought you back the day before yesterday that they had to drag you upstairs and practically roll you into bed."

"The day before…What day is this?"

"Saturday, the day before the wedding, obviously. Don't you ever listen to me, Suichi?"

"Not if I can help it," he muttered, breaking down and using the toothpaste this time. Anything had to be an improvement. He looked down at himself. He was still wearing the clothes he had left the island in. The disgusting smell he was experiencing seemed to be emanating from them and his senses rebelled again. He stripped them off and threw them in the hamper.

"If you are going to stick around until I am relatively human, please do me a favor and get me some clean clothes from my room," he called through the door as he turned the water on in the shower. He grabbed his soap and shampoo and climbed in to steam away the rest of his nausea. "And please bring me a cup of coffee, black. Or better yet, some tea, plain with NOTHING added."

He did not hear the reply as he was busy soaking and then soaping his hair, but the tone was unmistakable. Alanna was annoyed with him. Only fair, he was none too happy with her right now. As he scrubbed, he heard her come into the bathroom and, through the translucent shower curtain, saw her set his clean clothes on the rack by the towels. She leaned around the end of the shower curtain with a cup.

"Your tea, Oh Cranky One," she quipped, glancing down at his derriere. "Cute butt."

He grunted as he took the cup from her and drained it in two swallows. Fortunately, it was hot but not too hot. He handed her back the cup and she slipped back to her own side of the shower curtain and stopped ogling him.

"So, where were you?" she asked from her seat on the toilet. "Your mother said you were gone for over a week and she had no word from you at all. She was starting to worry when they boys brought you back."

"I was at a tournament. I couldn't tell her where I was going or how long I would be because I wasn't sure. Besides, I couldn't tell her I was going to fight. She would never have stopped worrying then."

"Oh, that's a handy excuse. And you couldn't let your best friend who loves to fight know either?"

"You were on Tour. Not expected back until yesterday. Besides, this was a Dark Tournament, lots of demons involved."

"Oh God! You went to a LARP tournament and got your ass handed to you without me there to help, didn't you?"

"No, my team won. Granted, I did lose my match in the finals to a dead man, but the team still won. I suppose I will never live that one down." He was rinsing his hair and face and missed her answer to that. Which was probably just as well. What little he caught between the shower and the scrubbing did not sound complimentary.

"You said the wedding is tomorrow?" he asked as he finished washing and turned the water off. He reached out for a towel and she handed it to him.

"Yeah. Tomorrow at noon is the ceremony and then there is a reception at some fancy schmancy hotel downtown."

"I'm surprised they could organize it so quickly. Both the bride and the groom were at the tournament. The bride left early when her team was eliminated, but the groom came back with us. In fact, it was celebrating the engagement that got me in the condition I was when I arrived home."

He wrapped a second towel around his hair, since wet and loose, it hung past the middle of his back. He wrapped the first towel around his waist and stepped out of the shower. Alanna handed him a second cup of tea.

"I don't know about that," she said, "but the invitation was in this morning's mail. Says you need a date, too. Where are you going to get somebody on such short notice?"

He considered for a few minutes while he combed the assorted products through his hair and tied it back into its usual tail. Once his hair was neat, he looked consideringly at Alanna while he started to dress.