Hotaru walked outside to explore the land she now called home. Genkai had told her that most of what she saw belonged to her and would one day belong to the team, including her. She felt somewhat honored that even though they had just met Genkai was going to trust her with her beloved land after she passed on.

She walked around the huge forest, following a path so as to not get lost; she would have to wait for another day to explore outside the path.

"Onna," came a harsh voice from above her head, "what do you think you're doing?" Hotaru looked up to find Hiei lounging in the tree above her head.

"Am I not allowed to walk around freely here?" Hotaru asked angrily. She didn't like something about her fellow fire demon, but she didn't know what.

"Hn."

"What?"

"What do you mean what?" Hiei said confused opening a sleeping eye to look down at the confusing woman.

"You said 'hn' clearly either you have a problem with me or you're just too stupid to think of anything else to say."

"I'd watch my tongue if I were you onna," Hiei said darkly, "you wouldn't want to have it come missing."

"Oh," Hotaru said putting her hands on her hips, "so it's not either of the two, you just have a personality complex."

Quick as a flash Hiei came down on Hotaru katana drawn and ready to chop her head off. But Hotaru had seen it coming and had countered with her own fire katana.

"I warned you to watch your tongue onna," Hiei said through gritted teeth.

"Ooh I'm so scared," Hotaru countered with a smirk. She pushed with her fiery weapon and forced Hiei to withdraw his sword, jumping back a safe distance and sheathing his sword. He glared at Hotaru and she glared right back. Hiei was puzzled, usually anyone who received this glare would run to the corner of the room and fall into the fetal position, but this onna sent her own fearsome glare right back.

"Hn," Hiei said turning to walk away as Hotaru sent a fireball flying past his head, nearly singeing his hair.

"Don't 'hn' me, and don't turn your back on me either. I am not so weak that you can just turn away at any moment, you might find that tall hair of yours go missing."

Hiei looked back at her his mouth slightly agape; no woman would dare try and press their luck with him. Not just women but men too, that baka detective and his friend both knew better than to push him, but this woman didn't seem to care how pissed he got. All she cared about it seemed was for him not to underestimate her.

"I don't like you," was all he said as he returned to his spot in the tree.

"Ouch was that supposed to hurt?" Hotaru asked with mock pain.

"Do what you want onna, see if I care."

"Oh I'm so glad I got his majesty's approval," Hotaru said as she stormed off down the forest path.

'The nerve of that baka,' Hotaru thought to herself as she went down the path, 'Just who the hell does he think he is, acting like he could defeat me without breaking a sweat. And the 'hning' he did, what the hell! Does he think he's so high and mighty that he doesn't need to talk to people!'

Hotaru slowed her pace down as she began to cool off a bit. Once she saw it was getting lat e she decided to leave the forest, seeing as how it might not be the best idea to be out there alone with only a pissed off Hiei knowing where you had gone off to. She turned around and was happy to see that when she returned to where she had run into Hiei, he was no longer there. Continuing out of the forest Hotaru came to a clearing, where she could see the temple from without staining her eyesight. Taking a seat under a big tree she decided to work on her fire technique by focusing her energy throughout her body. This way she would be able to have better control of her fire by having better control over her own energy that created it. Her mind became unfocused as she sensed a familiar presence above her head.

"Can I help you," she asked rather annoyed. Looking up she saw Hiei sitting in the tree right above her head. Hotaru glared at him as he glanced lazily down at her, it was like he was trying to piss her off.

"Hn."

"That does it!" Hotaru said jumping to her feet and throwing a fire ball at Hiei's head, "what the hell is your problem? I leave and find a nice quiet place away from you, and what do you do? You follow me! Do you have a death wish, or is your hobby pissing people off?"

"I always take my afternoon nap here; it's not my fault you're in my spot onna. If you don't like it then you can go," Hiei said with a smirk, making Hotaru even more angry.

'He's enjoying this!' Hotaru thought to herself, 'He's actually trying to see how far he can push me before I turn into a maniac. Well I'm not gonna let him win.'

"Fine," she said plopping back down in her spot, "then you don't mind if I stay here."

She could sense his disappointment, but he didn't let it show on his features.

"Hn, whatever."

Several minuets went by in a tense silence, a slight buzzing in the background. Hotaru had continued her focus training, but was distracted as Hiei had begun to mess with a bee hive, the cause of the annoying buzzing. Hotaru sighed as she gave up on concentrating and watched Hiei bat the hive around with the hilt of his katana."If they come out and attack you don't look to me for help."

"Hn, you don't think I can handle silly ningen bees," Hiei replied in his usual high and mighty tone that Hotaru came to hate so much.

"I hope they sting you," she said scrunching her face at him and turning away. Just as she did the hive fell from its place in the tree, and several bees swarmed out. Hotaru had expected this, but what she hadn't been expecting was for them to grow and become twice her size.

"Oh great," Hotaru said getting up and preparing to defend herself, "Hiei you baka you just pissed off a whole swarm of demon bees!"

"Shut up onna," Hiei said jumping down from his spot in the tree, "don't you think I've realized this already?"

The two fire demons fought with the bees for several long minuets, when Hotaru sensed Nara coming up behind them.

"Stay back!" was all she yelled before another bee demon came crashing through the trees. She then saw out of the corner of her eye Nara run full speed back to the temple, her shouting something about Kurama.

She didn't know what Kurama had anything to do with the bees but she knew she had to keep fighting these damn insects until they were all dead. Looking over at Hiei she saw most of the bees were attacking him.

'And they say demon bees are stupid,' Hotaru thought, a slight smile coming to her face. A smile that faded quickly as she saw one of the bees come up behind Hiei, who was to focused on the tree or four in front of him to notice.

"Behind you!" Hotaru managed to yell. Hiei turned too late as the bee stung him in his left side, Hotaru was actually worried for his safety for a second, she had heard demon bee's stingers could be fatal for many demons if not treated. She started attacking the bees more violently, and with relief saw Nara and Kurama running to their aid out of the corner of her eye. For what seemed like an hour they fought the bees and what had managed to stay alive retreated.

Hotaru ran over to Hiei whose skin she had noticed was starting to turn purple from the poison. Kurama running over as well, in order to see how bad his friend's condition was.

"Will he be alright?" Nara asked as Kurama picked up the small demon and carried him back to Genkai's.

"He'll be fine after I give him some antidote," Kurama said. Hotaru felt some of her muscles relax as she watched Kurama prepare the antidote once inside the temple. Hiei lying, now unconscious, on the couch. Once Kurama had been sure that Hiei had received enough of the antidote he turned to Hotaru for an explanation.

Hiei was just being a dumb ass," Hotaru said truthfully, "I was sitting under a tree focusing my power on something and Hiei jumped into a tree where a demon bee hive happened to be. Of course he thought it was just a regular bee hive until he trashed it and the swarm came after us." She caught Nara rolling her eyes.

"And here I thought Hiei was smart."

"He is he just wasn't thinking. You cant sense demon bees until its too late, otherwise we would have taken care of the hive a while ago."

"But they were so big, bigger than any human!" Nara yelled confused, "How hard is it to tell the difference!"

"They can alter their size to the size of a normal bee," Kurama explained.

"Oh,"

"But why were they here?" Hotaru asked, while Kurama shrugged.

"I'll talk to Koenma about it next time I see him," Nara said since she was going to see him tomorrow anyway.

The rest of the day went by as if nothing had happened; they had agreed not to mention it to the others until they knew what was going on. As for Hiei, he woke up just as the rest of the gang was returning. Hotaru keeping a wary eye on him the rest of the night. Much to Hiei's annoyance.

"Onna," he said finally, "do you mind?

"No," Hotaru said tilting her head tilting her head slightly, "you know Hiei, you're lucky they weren't demon horses you pissed off."

A/N: Ok I have to bring this up because I find it rather funny, but as I was writing this Dane Cook popped in my head. It was his "Would You Rather" joke with people getting killed by bees and how he would punch every bee in the face. So as I'm writing this I was in tears, from laughing of course, on how Dane might handle my little demon bees here. So for those of you who know who he is think about that, and if you don't I weep for you my friend.