Okay, so here's the next(last) chapter for this wonderful fic. Epic fight scene = ignoring responsibilities, but hey, it's worth it.

Thanks for reviewing and reading and all that jazz, hope y'all have fun with this one.

(last)Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN YYH. EVER. Until I'm rich, then I'll buy the rights. But until then, no, I don't own it.

"You can't go up."

"What do you mean?!"

"I mean that you aren't allowed up until--"

"Listen to me, you demented retard-version of a snake, if you don't fucking move out of the way right now, I'm going to skin you alive and make myself a pair of snakeskin boots, do you hear me?!"

Hiei placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, gripping it tightly. "Shouldn't you fracts know better than to piss off a Minamino?" he asked, exasperated.

"Fine," Tytus begrudgingly answered, moving aside. "I'm just waiting for our chance to rip that girl to shreds--"

"Try me, serpent!" Umi shouted, making a move to lunge at the creature.

While the two bickered, Kuwabara turned to Yusuke. "Say, aren't these guys escaped convicts from Spirit World Jail?"

"Oh yeah!" Yusuke agreed, recalling their history.

"Shouldn't we try and arrest them?"

"Good idea." He turned to Hiei, who was having a difficult time trying to keep the volatile elemental under control. "Hey, Hiei."

"What is it, Detective? Can't you see I'm busy?" he snapped, turning his attention from the struggling girl.

"Why don't you go up and get Kurama, and we'll take care of a little detective work down here?" he suggested. "I think the girl here needs to blow off some steam..."

"No!" Umi answered. "I'm going to save Shuichi--"

"You couldn't even save yourself!" Tytus laughed.

"That's it!" she shrieked, twisting out of Hiei's impressive grip. Within seconds, she had balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into his stomach, causing him to shout out in pain. The scream was loud enough to reach the top of the tower.

"Vile wench!" he gasped, enraged. "You will suffer for your transgressions!"

"Bring it!" Umi unwisely dove at the fire fract and initiated a fight. Kuwabara dove in to assist her, and, before Yusuke had a chance to follow suit, he turned to Hiei.

"Bet we can take down these guys before you get rid of Orpheus," he grinend, prompting Hiei to run off. Refocusing his attention on the brawl, he cried, "It's ass-kicking time!" As Hiei ran off, Yusuke dove after the oncoming lightening fract, taking him down to the ground.

Ixion screeched, clawing at the detective and mildly cutting him. Yusuke was knocked off, but not for long, as he retaliated with a strong punch to his face before being hit again. The harpy again clawed Yusuke's torso; luckily, as he doubled over in pain, the semi-conscious body of Tytus went flying over him and slammed into Ixion. Both fell to the ground just as Enlil arrived on the scene.

By the time the djinn and the metal fract who followed him made their way to the group of humans, one of the said humans was already turning blue. The other two were distracted when Yusuke began choking and gasping for breath, allowing for Ferro to get an open hit on Kuwabara. As a reaction, Umi ran to Kuwabara to help him up; she heard him grumble something as she assisted him.

"What do you mean, 'not again'?" she asked, giving him a confused look.

"You have to hit that genie-guy," Kuwabara informed, pointing at Enlil. "He's choking Urameshi!"

"Okay..." Umi didn't understand why she had to hit the air creature, but shrugged and ran at him without any sort of definite plan. Ferro attempted to block her, materializing a foil rapier and thrusting it at her; Kuwabara fought him off with his freshly-summoned Spirit Sword. Before Umi was able to wonder what the hell Kuwabara was holding, she was upon Enlil, and mindlessly punched at him.

Nothing. Her fist went right through him. "Um, what the fuck?"

"Use your energy!" Kuwabara shouted, narrowly dodging one of Ferro's attacks. "Summon something!"

Enlil laughed, almost maniacally, as Umi stared incomprehensively at the fract, her mouth moving a mile a minute without any words escaping her lips. Water beats fire, lightening beats water, earth beats lightening, air beats earth, metal beats air--

All her energy having been focused on her hands, even Umi was surprised that she'd been able to summon something. It was steel, surprisingly cold in her hands, and long; her vague wish for something with which to fight had gotten her a spear. Not stopping to think why she'd summoned a spear, Umi focused on quickly identifying the balance of the weapon and gripping it right. Time was running out.

Enlil's laughter lessened to merely a look of amusement. "Girl, do you really think you can hit me with solid objects?"

"No, but I'm hoping to find out," she answered, bracing herself before swinging the pointed end at the fract. It took much more force than she had suspected it would, but the spear's edge dug into Enlil's shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain. "Cool, it worked!" Her exclamation of joy was cut short by a noise of disgust as his blood spattered onto her.

The air fract resolidified, looking enraged. He advanced upon the distracted girl, grabbing her by the shoulder and lifting her off the ground. Umi cried out in pain as his grip tightened in preparation for a throw, but the grip suddenly released as Enlil grunted in pain.

As the djinn doubled over, Yusuke snarked, "that's for choking me." He then proceeded to continually beat the creature; however, after the first few hits, Enlil was again of the air. "What the hell?!" Rage was in his countenance as he turned toward the elemental. Before he could even think of asking her what to do, the answer popped into his head. "Let me borrow that."

Umi handed him the spear thoughtlessly and watched as he began to assault the djinn with it. A few moments later, a loud cry came from a few feet away and drew her attention to its origin.

Kuwabara held the point on his torso where Ferro's rapier had stricken him, glaring at the fract with nothing but contempt.

"First point is mine," Ferro commented, amused, as he moved back into his fighting stance. "Shall we?"

Kuwabara growled, holding his Spirit sword up like a lance. "You're gonna get it this time, punk!" The fract initiated the next round, and they began again. The human ran full-force at Ferro, who easily dodged the blade, and quickly swung his blade at him. It missed, allowing Kuwabara to have another chance at hitting him. He missed. By a lot. So much, in fact, that Ferro began laughing uncontrollably. The fract nearly doubled over in laughter, and Kuwabara took this chance to strike at him. It hit squarely in the back, but nothing happened.

Or, at least, he didn't think anything happened. In actuality, a thick sheet of metal had appeared where the sword had supposedly hit the creature, and disappeared when Kuwabara drew his sword back.

"What the--?" Kuwabara's sentence was cut off by a heavy arm pounding him in the back of the head, knocking him to the ground and forcing his world into blackness for the next few moments.

"Demitrius," Ferro chided, "I wasn't finished."

"No time," Demitrius answered.

"True." The metal fract turned on the elemental, who was staring rather fearfully at the two. As Yusuke was distracted by the djinn (and would soon be distracted by the kelpie), Ferro was able to grab the girl, tossing her to Demitrius, who held her securely in place.

Rage began to accompany the fear in Umi as she attempted to struggle, but to no avail; she was held too tightly, and she ached too much to try hard enough to really call it an effort. Ferro picked up his rapier and made his waay over to the fract and the elemental, who was looking angrier and angrier by the step. When he was standing right in front of her, he murmured, amused, "Well, this seems familiar, doesn't it?" He laughed. She didn't. "Well, any last words, girl?"

For a few moments, she just glared at him, working on the perfectly snarky reply, but after that time she opened her mouth to retort something foul. Instead of words, however, flames came, burning his face.

Ferro screamed loudly, his hands clutching his face. Umi didn't have any reply; she was too shocked, too busy worrying about how she'd been able to do that. The surprise present on her face was accompanied by a strong gust of wind.

This time, Demitrius screamed, dropping her to the ground. The wind cut into his rocky flesh like so many sharp knives through butter. Umi watched, shocked, as the giant stone golem collapsed to the ground near his fellow fract. Scared, she backed up to where Yusuke was attempting to fight the water fract.

In the beginning, Yusuke had been doing well; but the fract had managed to liquefy himself in a pool of water, and Yusuke couldn't hit him, even with the elemental's spear, except for a few times when Ur had solidified to hit him.

"Come on out, you coward!" Yusuke shouted at the water that he and Umi were now standing in. As if in response to the call, Ur resolidified to attack Yusuke, but was grabbed mid-punch by the Spirit Detective. The water fract liquefied again to escape.

Absolutely truthfully, Umi was terrified when she saw Ur liquefy, and Yusuke saw her begin to spark. Just before she shocked the puddle of water that was Ur, he jumped, avoiding the electricity.

"That was pretty cool," Yusuke commented as he landed, following the lightening.

"That...was terrifying," Umi responded slowly, eyes wide.

"What was terrifying?" Kuwabara inquired, getting up while holding his head.

"Your face," Yusuke answered, earning laughter from each of the conscious humans. It took Kuwabara a moment to realize that he had been insulted, but wasn't going to argue it at that moment. They still had to cuff up the fracts and get them shipped off to Spirit World. They could sure use some help...where were Hiei and Kurama?

Hiei sprinted up the stairs as fast as his feet would carry him, cursing the constructor for making the building so damn tall. Upon reaching the top and kicking in the door, he saw nothing. Strange. And unnerving. Where was Kurama?

His answer came soon enough, in the form of a loud cracking, followed by an easily identifiable scream, which alerted him to the location of his answer. Darting over to that locale, he saw Kurama on the floor, one hand pinned under him, the other pinned behind his back by Orpheus. The succubus had his arm pulled back so far that it was popping out of its socket, causing the demon to cry out. From his vantage point, Hiei couldn't see what else Orpheus may have been doing, but it couldn't be good.

Swiftly unsheathing his sword, Hiei rammed the blade through Orpheus' chest and lifted his body off of Kurama. While the succubus gagged and sputtered through his blood, Hiei threw him off of his sword and into the far wall. He left the creature alone to check on Kurama.

"He hasn't harmed you in anyway?" he half-stated, keeping his eyes focused on the semi-conscious heap to which he was referring.

"No, nothing unmanageable," Kurama answered, getting up. A loud cracking was heard as he popped his arm back into its socket. "I still have all of my powers, but maybe not all of my energy."

"You should leave before anything else happens to you--"

"I can wait for you to finish here."

Hiei hn'd, throwing his blade at Orpheus, who had just begun to move again. The tip went right through his skull, killing him on impact and drawing a ridiculous, Hollywood display of blood and chunky bits that were once brain matter. The fire demon smiled as the blood ran down the walls, the body, and the blade.

Kurama chuckled, shaking his head. "Come on Hiei, let's go."

"I'm not going."

The fox demon stopped immediately. "You're joking."

"I don't joke," the fire demon informed, ripping his blade from the cadaver.

"Hiei, what are you saying?"

"I'm finally back in the Makai; I'm not going back to the Human World," he explained, wiping the gore from his sword.

Kurama couldn't say that he was surprised, but "caught off guard" wasn't a phrase that was out of the question, either. He knew that Hiei was difficult to persuade, but he was going to try it anyway; staying in the Makai was dangerous, and he knew of a certain someone who would object to it far more than he or anybody else would. "Never coming back? Won't you miss it?"

"No."

"Nothing about it?"

"No."

'Nobody in it?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Hiei simply turned a glare on the kitsune. Something in those crimson irises said he was lying, but Kurama was already pushing his luck. He nodded, closing his eyes. "Well, you know my door's always open."

"Hn." He paused for a moment, not looking at Kurama, but adding, "Tell her it's because I'm not human." The comment earned him a curious glance by the other demon, but he didn't bother to explain, and the other didn't bother to ask.

With that, Kurama walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Hiei sighed, looking out the window. Beyond the churning sea, he could see three humans, tired, bruised, bloodstained, but over excitedly chattering with over exaggerated gesticulation. His eyes focused on the girl. She was smiling so widely...she looked so...happy. He couldn't intrude on that. Realizing what he just thought, he shook his head. No, he didn't want to feel. He didn't want to be attached. He didn't want to be weak. That was why he was staying.

Definitely.

And that's all, folks. [/don't own that either]

I know, you're all broken up on the inside because that's a shitty ending. Well, let me explain why.

SEQUEL!

Yes, there is a sequel in the works in my brain. So look for that. The first chapter of that will be up soon enough. And it may have a slightly different...format...or something...to it. You'll see. It'll be awesome. Let me end with a bit of a precursor to this new format.

And it's been a while
Since I could hold my head up high
And it's been a while since I first saw you
And it's been a while since I could stand on my own two feet again
And it's been a while since I could call you

-It's Been a While, Staind