Nathaniel: Yes, finally.
Trish: I don't own Yuyu Hakusho, but everyone else in this story is mine. ENJOY!
XII: ALMOST THERE
Botan had come back a couple minutes after Tsuko finished explaining her story to everyone in the living room. Tsuko still had her eyes downcast, though she wasn't just staring at the floor, she was watching Kurama. She hugged herself close and wished that he wasn't still under the drug because she could have gone for some non-sexual comfort right then. Kurama was carefully avoiding focusing on anything, he kept his eyes closed, banishing all thoughts from being directed towards sex. He fought for control even with a rock hard erection fighting to be freed from his pants. Botan gave the room a once over, her eyes lingering on Kurama before she smirked.
"That's a new look for you Kurama," she said, meaning it as a joke.
The look Kurama spared her was definitely not funny. Botan took a step back, distancing herself from one of Kurama's most evil glares.
"So Botan, did you guys find anything?" Kuwabara asked.
"Uh, yes well. Obviously it's the old man, whom we've found out is named Richard Kruegerstein, that is behind the big topic in the news about the women. He's a big shot European chemist who actually is wanted in Europe for inhumane testing of dangerous chemicals. He claims all his work to be in the name of chemistry, though he has never once used any antidote on the victims he's released to the general public"
"So does that mean the only way for us to overcome this stuff is to metabolize it?" Tsuko asked, finally looking up.
Botan shrugged, "We're not sure if he made a cure for this lust serum, but we can only hope so when we attack his lab"
"Wait attack? You know where his lab is?" Yusuke asked.
"Well yeah, it was in his file. He's known to work with demons so we have kept a good profile of him up"
"Great, so when do we attack?" Kuwabara asked.
"When Kurama is well enough to think above the yearning for sex. I'm sure he would like to get his few punches in at the people who did this to him," Botan said.
"Hm, you think a cold shower will help his situation?" Shizuru asked.
"Maybe," Yusuke agreed.
"No, trust me it won't. It'll make it worse," Tsuko said, casting her eyes down again.
"How do you mean?" Botan asked.
"If anything touches him at all…it's like a dying fire when controlled, but when anything touches him it grows and engulfs his mind. Denying it is a maddening thing. Right now he's supersensitive to touch, the best bet would be to let him go cold turkey of touches until he has well enough control."
Everyone continued to ask Tsuko and Botan questions about Markus and his grandfather Richard, but mostly asking Tsuko about the effects of the serum. She searched her vast knowledge of words and still found herself at a loss as how to describe how it felt to yearn the wanton touch of another. Fire was just one comparison, but it lacked the full feeling. It was more an electric fire with watery properties that spread the feeling all over her body at the simplest touch. Just thinking about how to describe it and voicing aloud hopeless comparisons tightened her nipples and soon after she felt a trickle of wetness from between her legs. Tsuko hugged herself tightly, trying to deny and suppress the sexual feeling that roared through her body. Her downcast eyes wandered to Kurama and slowly wandered up his body. His chest was left to great advantage with his arms being tied behind him and his long red locks framing his shoulders and neck. She looked back down in his lap, a spot she deliberately jumped over with her eyes when she sought his body, and saw the tight bulge just beneath the fly of his jeans that demanded release. Release. The thought of that word brought a flashback to the orgasms she'd had throughout the last day. A sensory memory so strong of a man buried deep inside her brought her back arching and her arms gripping the couch around her and dragging a moan from deep in her throat. She felt movement around her and knew someone was about to touch her shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" she tried to yell but it became a long sigh.
"Are you ok? What's wrong?" Yukina and Shizuru's hands hovered over her.
"I'll be fine in a minute as long as no one touches me," Tsuko managed a harsh breathless whisper.
The hands faded from around her as Tsuko released the couch and crossed her arms over her body, her nails digging into her arms; the pain helped her swim back into control. In her flailing and wriggling, she had squeezed herself into the corner of the couch, her knees drawn together and resting on the arm, her body clenched tight to itself against the back of the couch. Tsuko looked and saw everyone's attention on her as she slowly began to control her breathing. Her gaze drifted and focused on Kurama whom was more in tune to what was happening her body than anyone else in the room. He more than any other could smell the arousal that her flashback had brought her, he more than any other knew the craving for sexual attention, he knew the scent of her nectar. He knew. Tsuko had an urge to throw herself to the floor and ravage Kurama; to free his rock hard erection from the stiff bulge of his pants and to lower herself onto it and feel the super sensitive feelings pass through her in total abandon. She squeezed her arms tighter and shut her eyes against the visual. The drug was still in her, she could control it to some extent, but she suspected that until she got a cure for it, there would always be this undercurrent of wantonness. Kurama looked up at Tsuko from his forcible spot on the floor. He watched as her eyes had traveled up his body and back down to his core. He had felt her eyes like a near tangible caress but the look on her face did not match the look in her eyes. Tsuko wanted him, that much was visible on both accounts, but her eyes held the sorrow that it had been ruined by the drug while her face showed the very visible wanting of his touch. That one shadow in her eyes helped him push more of the drug away; helped him get that much more in control.
"Tsuko…" he whispered.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Tsuko said softly and opened her eyes. "I told you it wasn't completely gone"
"We definitely believe you now," Yusuke said.
Yukina came back into the room, no one had noticed she'd even left, "Can we touch you now"
Tsuko nodded, "No lingering touches and I should be able to control it. Why"
"You're bleeding," Yukina pointed out with cotton balls, antibiotics, and bandages.
"Oh," Tsuko looked down at her bloody arms and fingers.
"Would it be better for you to clean them yourself or shall I do it?" Yukina asked.
Tsuko thought for a minute, "You do it."
Yukina set the stuff down between Tsuko and her and took the cotton balls with some antibiotics on it and started to swab at the bloody cuts and clean up around them. Then she dressed the wounds and replaced the items in the first aid kit.
"Let's go get those bastards now," Kurama said.
Everyone looked at him. He seemed angry now, though he was still packed tightly in his pants. There was a determination to fight all that stood in his way in his beautiful emerald eyes that seemed to ease whatever hesitation everyone had. They untied him. Kurama rubbed his shoulders and rotated his neck and made very sure not to touch anyone or anything.
"Well Botan?" he asked her.
"Yes well then, follow me," she procured her oar and walked out the door.
"Are you sure it's wise for you to come with us?" Hiei asked her.
"Of course not. But I'm just going to be showing you guys the place and then I'll stay high and out of sight until you come back out"
Hiei nodded, "You two must definitely stay here," he spoke to Shizuru and Yukina.
"Figures," Shizuru said, "Fine but you guys gotta give him a wallop for me"
"Gladly," Tsuko and Kurama said at once.
Just as Botan had said she led everyone to Richard's lab and then flew out of sight. The Chemist' house looked fairly ordinary, certainly not large enough to hold as large a lab as Tsuko had described. But Botan's finding had confirmed what one would guess; an underground laboratory. Hiei made a quick careful scout around the house; there was no other way into the underground except inside. He met back up with everyone and they were ready to go in. They went straight for the door, Yusuke turned the handle and found it unlocked. He looked at Hiei.
"Could they be expecting us?" he asked quietly.
"Maybe, tread wary," he replied.
Yusuke pushed the door open looking around and found the first room empty. Everyone came in and together searched the house. Nothing. The way to the underground lab was supremely hidden. Hiei pulled off the bandage over his jagan eye and looked around; there he found it. He focused on what his jagan found and saw it. He pointed it out to the others and they saw it too.
"Weird man, I swear we all looked there at one point or another," Kuwabara said.
"A spell of Reluctance," Kurama said. "Its magic that keeps the eye from noticing what's right in front of them"
"Oh."
Hiei led the way down into the underground. The stairs descended down into a long stone hallway. The floor was the only furnishings here. They walked on a few feet and saw a door to the left; looking further ahead they saw that several doors alternated down the hall. Hiei looked a question at the others.
"Should we check the doors or go straight"
"Straight," Tsuko said. "Definitely straight."
No one doubted her. They passed up all the doors and went straight ahead. At the end of the rocky hallway were three doors. They decided to split up and call for each other whoever found Richard or Markus first. Tsuko decided to go straight, Yusuke and Kuwabara went left, and Hiei and Kurama went right. The guys opened their doors to reveal another hallway that turned sharply at the end. They left their doors open and Tsuko ventured into her own direction. The room was pitch black, no lighting at all, but she smelt something. Something familiar was in the air, something she had experience before. A soft light grew in the distance and she squinted and got closer. There was a squirming mass of something up ahead. Focused on what she was seeing, Tsuko paid no heed to the smell. Upon closer inspection, the mass was in fact a group of men and women, ravenously falling into each other in a mindless obsession with desire. When she saw that the scent clicked it. She had been releasing her own version of it when she was left with Botan in the bathroom. An air of sex was drawing her closer, not her trying to decipher what she had seen. Her nipples clenched and she staggered as the dormant fire in her loins roared to life. A Male noticed her and rushed to her, pushing her against the wall and plastering his mouth over hers, down her neck and body. Something shorter but stronger than the man knocked him away in a black flash and Kurama was there pulling her quickly out of the room. He led her down the right hall that he and Hiei had started to go down. Hiei was behind them, closing the door and leaning against it. Tsuko was breathing hard, her eyes heavy lidded, her body still on fire. Kurama backed away from her, his own mind swaying with the scent of the sex-filled room. Tsuko closed down her senses, trying to regain control of her body and mind. First she focused on her breathing, slowing it from near hyperventilating to a more controlled inhale exhale exercise. Slowing her breath also calmed her pulse which slowed her blood flow back to normal and that calmed the fire in her loins. She put her head up, wiping the other man's kisses from her face and upper body.
"Thanks guys," she said.
Hiei nodded, "If he hadn't recognized that smell we wouldn't have been in time for to you gain such easy control"
"It's not easy, but thanks a lot anyways"
"Let's move on," Kurama too, had calmed down. "If you're ready"
"Yeah, let's do it."
Trish: Well judging from this chapter, the next one I post will be the last one. It'll hopefully be a long last one, but it will be the last nonetheless.
Nathaniel: I already know what's gonna happen ::smiles::
Trish: Yeah that's cause I told you. But yeah, please review! And Happy Holidays to everyone! Belated but happy either way. Lol.
