A/N: AND THEN THIS CHAPTER HAPPENED

NB: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not try fractional freezing at home! Yes it works, but if you don't know what you're doing, you could hospitalise yourself! (And I mean this seriously, it is very dangerous.)

On the other hand, feel free to try hair of the dog (if you never have before). I've never used it myself (mostly because I very, very rarely drink alcohol), but I hear it does work in extreme cases.

Chapter 21: Trespassing Nuisance

Kurama watched the top of Hiei's head expectantly, but apparently the fire demon was having one of his stubborn, silent moments, because he was not responding. He looked pathetically small and felt uncharacteristically cold, and it was unlike him to let anyone touch him for longer than a few seconds – regardless of the intention behind the contact – and yet he was suddenly very at ease sitting on Kurama's lap and snuggled into his chest.

"Hiei?" Kurama said gently. "Did you hear me? Are you not answering me because you can't, because you don't want to or because you dislike the question?"

Still Hiei said nothing, and Kurama began to grow impatient. A small part of him knew that Hiei's feelings were a very complex and delicate matter, but, as he was still in his full demon form, the part of him that was willing to tread carefully around that matter was suppressed and strongly over-powered by the harsher and more demanding nature of his demon spirit.

"Hiei this is very important," he insisted. "I need to know if I'm right. I know you've had a lot to drink, but this isn't something I can just overlook. If my assumption is right, I need to know now and I need to explain to you exactly how I feel about it now. Hiei?"

Kurama slowly and carefully moved his hands to Hiei's head, cradling the back of his head in one hand and pushing the fingers of his other hand against the underside of Hiei's chin to gently tilt his head back. When Hiei did not resist the movement Kurama already knew what had happened, but continued easing Hiei's head back until he could see his face in full.

As he had expected, Hiei's eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted and his expression relaxed into that softened look it only ever took on when he was asleep. Kurama quietly cursed and lowered Hiei's head down again. Somewhere outside the tank he could still hear Yusuke and Kuwabara singing "Hey Now", the performance having deteriorated even further, as they were no longer even singing in sync with each other, far less in the same key as each other – which was not only incredibly irritating, but also potentially dangerous behaviour as they were making enough noise to alert even the dopiest of patrols within earshot. Kurama sighed, deciding then that the best thing he could do was to try to sleep so that at least he would be rested and ready to continue the journey in the morning. He looked down at the top of Hiei's head again, silently wondering if it was possible to return the fire demon to the bed without waking him: but before his mind could formulate an effective plan, his eyes locked onto something nestled amidst the jagged spikes of Hiei's hair.

Using his claws, Kurama lightly parted Hiei's hair over the mark, his eyebrows rising as he uncovered what seemed to be a streak of hair on Hiei's head that was a different colour from the rest. He flattened down the hair all around it, exposing a small chunk of hair that was black from the mid-length to the tip, but from the root to the middle was pale blue-green. It was odd that the section of hair was two different colours, though Kurama could clearly see why he had never noticed it before, as the colourful section of hair was usually hidden beneath the black hair around it. It looked about the same colour as Yukina's hair, as though it was a small piece of Hiei's ice demon heritage that had crept into his genes, a little reminder of where he had come from. Kurama released Hiei's hair, paused long enough to realise that if Yusuke ever found out that Hiei had such a physical quirk he would surely attribute it to Hiei's transformation into an ice maiden in order to cure himself – which had been a ridiculous theory at best – and then Kurama began combing Hiei's hair back into place with his claws, being careful to completely conceal the small strip of blue.

Koenma was growing tired of running around in circles. It was obvious that Botan was not anywhere in Genkai's temple, because he had been in every room three times and around the gardens twice, and even Botan was not that good at hiding. He sat down on a couch in the living room and sighed, throwing his arms out across the backrests and slouching low. Trailing living world late at night for a vagrant ferry girl was not really the best use of his time, least of all when spirit world was undergoing a major crisis. If he did not find her by dawn, he would have to return empty-handed, and hope that she had somehow managed to hide herself somewhere safe. She was quite ditzy at times, but Koenma trusted that Botan had good judgement and a reasonable intelligence in a dire situation that would keep her safe.

He sighed, blinking heavily, becoming even more keenly aware that he had not slept after running around in his adult form, which always used more energy than remaining in his toddler form did. His eyes flitted over the low table ahead of him, and at first he saw nothing more than a messy array of papers; but a second glance showed pencil sketches of some worryingly familiar runes.

Koenma slowly sat forwards, reaching his hands out towards the table to gather up the pages. Closer inspection revealed that the runes had not been written by someone familiar with them, or even written at all: they appeared to be drawings of the runes in a specific context, as though someone was drawing a picture that just so happened to have the runes in it. It was hard to tell who had drawn the images, but it was not hard to tell where they originated from. It had been a long time since Koenma had last studied the ancient language, but he remembered enough to know that he was looking at depictions of two very specific spells, and that both had been taken from the book George had reported missing from the spirit world library.

Koenma shuffled forwards to the edge of the couch and laid out all the pages on the table so that he could clearly see what each picture depicted. After shuffling them around a few times he started to notice a pattern. As soon as he was sure of what he was seeing, the prince shot up and ran out of the temple, forcing his tired legs to keep running across the length of the lawn to the temple gate. He jogged down thirteen steps and then leapt from the steps into the forest, scrambling over uneven ground and around tree trunks to reach one dead, hollowed out tree that was so pale against the others that it looked almost ghostly. He dropped to his knees in front of it and began digging through piles of loose leaves and what was clearly recently disturbed soil by the old, dead roots. He did not have to search for long before his fingers found the corner of a book, and, as he pulled it from its hiding place, he was not in the slightest surprised to find that it was the missing library book Botan had checked out.

Koenma shook the excess dirt from the book and opened it to the contents pages, skimming it in the vain hope of finding a definite answer to which runes he had found drawn out in the temple – because he was hoping that he had been incorrect in his initial deduction. When he realised the chapters were arranged by spell title and purpose he began to lose hope: but then an old idea occurred to him, something he had often seen Yusuke do when he wanted to prove that he only kept a history book on his bookshelf because a certain page of it depicting a nude painting took his interest. Koenma closed the book and turned it over, holding the spine flat against one palm with the pages facing upwards. He then relaxed his grip and, just as Yusuke's history book had always invariably fallen open at the page with the picture of the nude mural, the book in Koenma's hand fell open at one specific point. Koenma grinned at his own ingenious, but his joy was short-lived when he saw which chapter the book had opened to.

"Deception and Power Distortion Spells," he read aloud. "Oh dear…"

Kurama awoke abruptly to the sound of Puu crowing his own name from somewhere above his head. He turned to the window and saw that it was still dark outside, but there was the faintest hint of light in the sky as though the sun would soon be up. He sat up and yawned, stretching his arms up above his head before finally noticing two very worrying things: first of all, he was still in Enki's bedroom, on the bed he had put Hiei in the night before, and secondly he was still a silver-haired fox demon – and it was the first time since taking over the body of Shuichi Minamino that he had fallen asleep as a fox and woken up as one. He was unsure what to make of it – if his body had managed to maintain the transformation whilst he was unconscious, perhaps that meant he had reverted back to that form permanently.

A small moan drew Kurama's attention to one side, where he saw Hiei lying about a foot away from him, on his back on top of the covers, his legs sprawled out and his arms lying loosely above his head: it was the way a child would sleep, Kurama thought to himself. Hiei was apparently in quite a deep sleep, because he looked perfectly peaceful despite Puu's persistent cooing outside. Puu's call was not an urgent one warning of any danger, but it was a demanding one, informing the others of daybreak – but it had been insufficient to waken Hiei.

Kurama sniffed experimentally at the air. He narrowed his eyes slightly and rolled his weight over onto his knees, leaning his head over Hiei and sniffing again. He started to frown then and placed a hand at either side of Hiei's head, lowering his face closer to Hiei's and again sniffing.

Kurama shot back, his feet on the floor before he even realised that he had cleared the bed: Hiei reeked of alcohol, and he was surely going to be very ill when he eventually did wake up.

Kurama crossed the room to the partially open door, slipping out of it and starting towards the ladder to the lower deck. He stopped after just a few steps as his delicate olfactory senses became overwhelmed with the scents of alcohol, sweat and vomit. Swallowing down the urge to wretch he tiptoed over to the other room, poking his head through the open doorway. Kuwabara was lying on his back on one of the single beds, one leg hanging over one side, his foot flat against the floor. He was stripping to his underwear and had a stain on his vest that suggested he had thrown up on himself the night before and made a feeble attempt to wipe the mess away before falling asleep and allowing the remainder to dry in. Yusuke was lying in the opposite bed, and his appearance was far more worrying than Kuwabara's: something was bundled up beneath his bed-sheets and he was lying squarely on top of it, his arms and legs loosely hugging around it. He was at least still in his underwear, but he looked like he had been involved in a minor scuffle, and he had a few tell-tale red marks on his hands and arms that looked to be ice-burns.

Kurama carefully edged into the room, picking his way around Kuwabara's bed and over to Yusuke's side. Once there he leaned down and plucked up the covers in his fingers, untucking them and lifting them up to see what lay beneath, tensing himself in anticipation of finding an angry, naked ice maiden.

"Kurama, hey!"

Kurama leapt back, his legs colliding with Kuwabara's bed. Kuwabara gave a few raspy snores before easing back into his slumber.

"Yusuke?" Kurama said, tilting his head slightly.

"Man, I feel great!" Yusuke replied.

He did not look great, Kurama thought darkly. His lips were cracked and swollen, his eyes were bloodshot and his body was unnaturally rigid all over.

"You're still drunk," Kurama concluded aloud.

"Last night was great!" Yusuke said, climbing out of the bed. "I'm not even hungover! I don't even feel tired, and I only went to bed…"

He looked about himself before grabbing up a clock from the nightstand between the two beds.

"Three hours ago!" he said.

"This is very common," Kurama explained. "When you drink very heavily, or very strong concentrations of alcohol – or in your case, do both – a short rest doesn't sober you. The way you feel right now is an illusion, and within the hour, you will be very, very ill. I suggest you get a drink of water and then try to go back to sleep."

"Hey, don't worry about me, I can handle my drink!" Yusuke assured him. "Unlike Kuwabara and Hime!"

"Right. So since you can handle your drink, and you were never drunk, I trust you remember what that is in your bed?"

Yusuke looked back over his shoulder at the mound on his bed.

"Of course I do!" he said, grabbing the covers and flinging them to the floor. "It's a traffic cone!"

Kurama stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the bright orange plastic cone.

"That's a highway traffic cone," he said numbly. "From living world. How did you have the time and energy to go to living world last night?"

"It's tradition!" Yusuke said. "At the end of every great night out, you always take a traffic cone home with you."

"It's a living world traffic cone," Kurama said again. "Where did you get it?"

"That's part of the mystery of the cone: nobody knows where it came from. It just is."

Kurama shook a finger at the cone, words failing him.

"It was a wild night," Yusuke added.

"It's a traffic cone," Kurama said. "From living world. The kind used on highways."

"You know my throat is pretty dry, I think I might go get a glass of water…"

Yusuke stepped past Kurama, leaving the fox staring at the traffic cone in a blend of disbelief and amusement. Kurama held his position there, his mind trying to process how and when Yusuke could have gone to living world the night before, only snapping back to reality when he heard Yusuke fall partway down the ladder to the lower deck. He then turned, leapt over Kuwabara's bed and ran to the ladder, hurrying down it to Yusuke's side.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I just slipped a bit I guess," Yusuke casually replied, pulling himself up again with the aid of the ladder.

"You really should be more careful," Kurama warned.

"Okay."

Yusuke sauntered off, apparently oblivious to the red imprint of the steel floor down one side of his back. Kurama followed after him, catching up to him as he stopped by the drinking water tank.

"What happened here?" Yusuke asked, poking a finger into the jagged hole on the front of the tank.

Memories of moaning ice maidens and exactly why his face was flanked with silver tresses passed over Kurama's mind, but he covered them with a tight smile.

"The water was frozen, being so close to the ice maidens," he explained.

Yusuke turned to look at him, his eyes flicking over Kurama's form.

"You're taller," he concluded. "And you've got a couple of fluffy things in your hair."

Yusuke stepped past Kurama and made his way through to the cabin. Kurama followed him there, almost tripping over himself in shock at the mess he found. The space blankets had all been torn open, shreds of the fibre linings littering every surface and obscuring most of the controls from view, one of the sun visors had been broken off and, worst of all, there was an enormous wet stain in the back corner of the cabin, where there had obviously been a large deposit of liquid that had mostly soaked through the flooring. Kurama cautiously approached it, sniffing tentatively at the air around it to confirm what the stain had once been.

"Fabio!" Kuwabara said suddenly.

Kurama spun around and found Kuwabara suddenly in the cabin and glaring at him accusingly.

"No Kuwabara, it's me, Kurama," he corrected him.

"But you're a fox!" Kuwabara said.

"Didn't know you were into guys, Kuwabara!" Yusuke snorted.

Kurama sighed quietly.

"Did the two of you forget where the toilet was last night?" he asked, pointing at the wet patch.

"That wasn't me," Yusuke replied. "Isn't it just from the broken water tank on the other side of the wall?"

Kurama lifted his eyes to the wall above the stain, quickly realising that Yusuke made a very valid point: the tank was on the other side of the wall, and, with a huge gaping hole in the bottom of it, had the contents melted, they would surely have flooded the floor at that exact point.

"That was our drinking water…" he said faintly.

"Hey, look what I found!" Kuwabara said cheerfully.

Kurama turned to see what he was referring to and found him holding up the traffic cone.

"My hat!" Yusuke said, grabbing the pointed felt hat that was sitting on top of the cone. "This is the hat we bought at the market in the underground!"

Kurama started to ask how it was possible that the hat – which ought to have been left on their previous stolen vehicle along with all the other goods they had bought at the markets in the underground – had found its way onto the traffic cone – which ought to be on a highway somewhere in living world – but the ridiculousness of his own question left him at a loss for how to even finish asking it.

"I knew I'd be able to use this!" Yusuke said, shaking out the hat.

He started to lift it towards his head, but somehow ended up burying his face into it and vomiting into it instead.

"That happened quicker than I expected," Kurama muttered.

"That's so weird," Yusuke said as he pulled back from the hat. "I just chucked up a bunch of flowers."

"What? No way!" Kuwabara said. "Let me see…"

Kuwabara leaned over Yusuke's shoulder and together they studied the contents of the hat. Kurama set about clearing the driver's chair and console, turning the key in the ignition to test whether or not any of the systems would come online yet. He got no response, but continued clearing the mess away anyway, deciding that it was best to be prepared to take off as soon as the sun was up.

"I don't remember eating flowers…" Yusuke muttered, reaching a hand into the hat.

Kurama looked back over his shoulder in time to see Yusuke pull out a soggy white chunk from his hat.

"What kind of flower is that anyway?" Kuwabara asked.

"It's not a flower," Kurama told them flatly. "It's milk."

They both moved their eyes to the fox demon, each looking as sceptical as the other.

"You must have drunk some milk recently," Kurama explained. "It curdles in your stomach acid and forms white curds, which often take the shape of blossoms like that. I don't remember there being any milk on board, but it really only tends to happen with milk, yoghurt or ice cream…"

"I feel sick," Kuwabara said in a low voice.

"What did you do last night?" Kurama asked, narrowing his eyes at them. "You didn't come into contact with any of the ice maidens at all did you?"

"Why?" Yusuke asked. "You think we got a free drink of milk from one of them?"

"That's exactly what I think," Kurama replied. "There is at least one nursing mother back there, why not?"

"I feel sick," Kuwabara moaned.

"Oh yeah, I just went back there and had her whip me up some ice cream with her ice powers and boob milk!" Yusuke snapped.

Kuwabara took the hat from Yusuke and vomited into it. As he lifted his head his eyes grew wide.

"Oh my God…" he whispered. "I've been eating ice maiden boob flavour ice cream flowers too!"

Kurama growled in frustration and turned his attention back to the controls, sitting down hard into the driver's chair and turning the key in the ignition again. The engine made a small splutter but otherwise did not respond, but a buzzing sound, followed by a series of whirring sounds that grew in intensity, told Kurama that the power systems were all back online at last.

"Who milked her?" Yusuke asked.

Kurama wrenched the key around again, and finally the engine roared to life. He gladly shifted the gearstick and sunk his foot on the accelerator. The vehicle lurched forwards and he sharply tugged on the steering wheel to bring the vehicle back up onto the road. Behind him Yusuke and Kuwabara staggered about before falling over with a sickening slosh and a groan – both of which suggested the contents of the hat had been spilled – there was a collective, high-pitched babble of alarm from the back of the vehicle, presumably from the scores of ice maidens who had just been thrown from their bunks, and, outside, Puu took to the air with an agitated cry, flailing around slightly before collapsing back down to the roof of the vehicle with a dull thud and a low moan that sounded as pitiful as his master would doubtlessly look in about another hour.

Kurama ignored them all and drove on towards Arbeinia, determining to get them there before another night could delay them any further.

"Where am I? What time is this? What place of man? Wh–ow!"

Botan sat up sharply, touching a hand to her stinging cheek and pouting indignantly.

"I'm not really much of a morning person," a flat voice greeted her.

Botan slowly moved her eyes to one side, seeing then that she was laying on a small futon next to an enormous throne of some sorts, atop which was Mukuro, leering back down at her with what was clearly a displeased scowl. The corners of her mouth were turned distinctly downwards and her one visible eye was thinned, only the faintest hint of blue visible through her lids, and the metal fingers on her right hand were drumming lightly against the armrest of her chair.

"Oh thank goodness I landed here with you, Princess Mukuro!" Botan gushed. "I was so frightened that I might land somewhere dangerous!"

Mukuro's eyes became thinner still and her lips parted just enough to show a glint of tightly clenched teeth.

"I know I'm not supposed to be here," Botan continued. "But I simply had to come. I was going to visit spirit world, but I couldn't because Lord Koenma was so angry, if I had returned there, he would have hunted me down and had me arrested for sure, but then Lord Koenma came to living world, so it was safe for me to sneak back into spirit world, so then I came here and… Oh, wait, if Lord Koenma is in living world, it really was safe for me to sneak back into spirit world, so why didn't I do that instead…?"

"Well at least you've got one thing right: you're not supposed to be here," Mukuro growled. "And I'll say this once more and once more only: I'm not a morning person."

"That's fascinating because I'm not a night person," Botan replied obliviously. "I can rise as early as the sun and feel refreshed and chipper and ready for the world, but I get so cranky when I have to stay up past my bed-time!"

"What are you doing here?" Mukuro yelled. "How did you even get here? We received communication that all ferry girls had been securely detained within spirit world, so why are you here in demon world talking at me when the sun is still rising and I ought to still be asleep?"

"Well I suppose I came to find Hiei, really," Botan replied.

Mukuro sat back, eying Botan over curiously.

"I don't understand you at all, but I don't want to either," she said quietly. "But here's something you need to understand: demon world is in the grips of widespread panic, and an efficient little healer like you won't last five minutes outside this room without proper protection."

"I don't intend to stay long, I just came to ask Hiei a question," Botan said.

"Hiei isn't able to answer any questions right now," Mukuro replied. "But hopefully he will be soon. Since you are here, I'll make a deal with you: if you use your powers to make me immune to the disease so that I can move freely about demon world again, and if you also cure all the sick in my basement, I will personally escort you back to your own realm. I won't harm you as long as you do as I ask, and I will provide you with anything you need while you work – within reason, obviously."

"I'd like to ask Hiei about the three magic words."

"The three magic…? Okay, well, once you've healed Hiei I'll make sure he answers your questions for you."

"I have to heal Hiei?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where he is right now?"

"He's in a healing tank in my basement."

"No he's not."

"Yes he is."

"No he's not. He's on a mission with Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama."

"That's impossible. Hiei is critically ill, and only alive because I knocked him unconscious and threw his ass into a healing chamber ten days ago!"

"He's not there now."

"Yes he is!"

"Oh no he isn't."

"Oh yes he is!"

"Oh no he isn't – this is getting a little bit like a pantomime, isn't it? I love pantomimes, especially – ah!"

Botan yelped out as Mukuro grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet. She stumbled helplessly after the S Class demon, who marched briskly through a series of dark and eerie hallways and then down a flight of stairs, barely caring when Botan fell against her back several times on the way down. At the end of the staircase, they continued along a short, dark corridor and into a large room, illuminated by the green glow of twenty healing tanks, all occupied by the still, floating bodies of sick demons, who looked strangely peaceful in the bubbling liquid.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Mukuro grumbled. "But since you're clearly the sort of stubborn fool who only accepts facts presented in front of her – which is ironic, considering that you are an ambassador for an afterlife that requires blind faith from humans in living world in order for it to exist – here you can see that Hiei is in a healing tank, unconscious and very sick."

Mukuro finally stopped walking and Botan staggered to a halt at her side. As they both looked up at the tank in front of them, one smiled knowingly and the other stared in horror.

"That's impossible…"

"I told you so."

"He made quite a mess breaking out of there, didn't he?"

Botan turned to Mukuro expectantly, but Mukuro ignored her, approaching the darkened, shattered tank for herself. She reached her flesh hand into the base, dragging her fingers along the floor of the tank.

"It's still wet, he can't have been gone long," she concluded aloud.

"Eight days," Botan said.

"What?" Mukuro echoed, turning to her in disbelief.

"Eight days," Botan repeated. "He arrived in living world eight days ago."

Mukuro shook her head and crossed the room, accosting an unsuspecting medic who happened to be entering the basement at that moment. He yelped as she bunched her fists around his shirt, wincing in anticipation of his own annihilation.

"Where is Hiei?" Mukuro growled at him.

"I-I'm sorry Sir!" the medic stuttered nervously. "He broke out! I tried to tell him he had to stay because he was too sick to leave, but he wouldn't listen to me!"

"Did he say where he was going?" she asked.

"Living world," the medic and Botan replied in unison.

Mukuro glanced back at Botan, some of her cynicism towards the ferry girl easing.

"When did he leave?" she asked.

"Eight days ago," Botan said again.

"About an hour ago," the medic said.

"What?" Botan and Mukuro echoed, both as shocked as the other.

"Would you like a drink of water?"

"Yes, thank you."

Kurama took the flask being offered to him and took a long drink from it before realising what had just happened. He slowly lowered the flask, frowning down at it as he swallowed the contents of his mouth. It tasted like exceptionally pure water, but that made no sense since the only water remaining on the tank was not drinkable. And, more importantly, he had been handed the flask by an inexplicably bright, cheerful and refreshed Hiei.

"Where did you get this?" Kurama asked, watching Hiei from the corner of his eye.

"The… The water tank?" Hiei replied, his expression faltering slightly.

"The water tank is broken, the contents gone to waste," Kurama pointed out. "Where did you get this?"

"The poitin…" Hiei replied in a small voice.

"But… It tastes pure…"

"Yes, well, I extracted the water from the alcohol. Yusuke told me the water tank was broken, and I thought we had more need to have fresh water onboard than palatable alcohol, so I opened all the bottles of poitin onboard and separated the water content from them to give us all fresh water to drink."

"…How did you do that?"

"I used a… Special… Distillation process…"

"What sort of distillation process?"

"Fractional freezing. I chilled the bottles until the water froze and the alcohol separated from it, then I drained the alcohol off and defrosted the remaining ice into pure water."

Kurama looked down at the flask again.

"Where did you learn about fractional freezing?" he asked. "I understand the process, but I had no idea you would."

"Well, I learned it from someone I knew when I was a child," Hiei slowly replied.

Kurama smiled then, finally feeling a little more at ease.

"Of course," he said. "The bandits who raised you probably practised fractional freezing quite regularly. It's a common trick amongst poor men to make themselves a more stringent alcoholic drink: they purchase cheap liquor and freeze off the water to leave behind the alcohol concentrate. Well remembered."

"Oh, thank you."

Hiei carefully picked his way over to one side of the cabin, sitting down on a pile of shredded blankets there, his hands clasped around a flask.

"You must be feeling very poorly," Kurama said. "I'm surprised you had the energy to distil the water as you did."

"I feel alright now," Hiei replied. "I was sick when I woke up, but after some water and a shower I felt fine."

"You must have been dehydrated, I'm surprised you don't have a headache and a bad attitude to go with it," Kurama pointed out.

"I don't get dehydrated easily," Hiei calmly replied. "I've trained myself to do without many things. It's part of the culture of my… Um…"

"It's part of the culture of the ice maidens," Kurama finished for him. "They train themselves to abstain from everything, and as such, can endure. It's what they do so that they are more resilient to torture, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's to stop us from shedding tears readily if ever we are imprisoned and tortured for such a purpose."

"Us? Don't you mean them?"

"Yes. No. Wait, what did I say?"

Kurama turned his attention from the road long enough to glare at Hiei, who looked increasingly guilty as he watched him.

"Hiei, other than the first taste of poitin, did you drink any alcohol last night?" Kurama asked as he turned his attention back to the road.

"Yes, I did," Hiei replied. "I know, it was wrong, I drank far too much, I don't even remember how I got to bed last night–"

"I think you do," Kurama interrupted him.

"Excuse me?"

"I think you do remember. I think you remember everything, because I think you were sober. It's not possible for you to be this well-recovered – unless Yusuke's hair-brained theory about you turning into an ice maiden were somehow correct – and so I think you're fine now because you were never drunk in the first place. I think you faked it."

"What?"

"I think you faked it as an excuse to say things you could conveniently claim to forget the next morning. You used that poitin as an excuse to gauge my reaction to your words."

"…What words?"

Kurama slammed on the brakes, curses and cries greeting his action. Once the vehicle had come to a complete halt, Kurama pulled on the parking brake and got out of the chair, moving across the cabin to stand over Hiei, who had barely managed to hold himself in place on his makeshift seat.

"And since you are sober, you can take your turn at the wheel," Kurama growled down at him.

Hiei leaned his head back to look Kurama in the eye.

"What will you do?" he asked.

"I'm going to try to do something about this," Kurama replied, pointing a finger at one of the furry ears on his head.

"Like what?" Hiei asked, standing up abruptly.

"Like try to reverse the transformation, of course."

Hiei looked slightly surprised, but quickly hid his feelings again.

"What did you think my intentions were?" Kurama asked.

"I don't know, I was just curious," Hiei replied, turning his head downwards to avoid looking directly at Kurama.

"You don't trust me in this form," Kurama said. "You think I want to break into the ice maidens' stronghold and ravage my way through each and every one of them, don't you?"

"No!" Hiei quickly replied, his eyes meeting Kurama's suddenly. "I know you're a man of honour, and you would never do such a thing!"

Kurama narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"You remember nothing of our conversation last night?" he asked quietly.

Hiei shook his head.

"I asked you a very important question last night," Kurama pressed. "After studying your behaviour lately, I have a drawn a conclusion about what has been the real cause for your recent change in behaviour, and last night, I asked you whether my assumption was right or wrong."

Hiei's eyes doubled in since and he gulped audibly.

"Wh-what did I say?" he asked.

"The ice maidens are all lesbians, I just saw one knuckle-deep into third base with another one!"

Kurama and Hiei slowly turned their heads to the doorway, where Yusuke was grinning at them like a child in a sweet shop, one hand holding up a small glass object.

"Check this out," he said, pointing at the object with his free hand. "Botan gives me this crap every time we go on a mission, and usually I never bother with it, but I just found the ultimate use for the Psychic Spyglass: with this little baby, I can see right through those walls and into the bedrooms, and I saw two ice maidens naked in bed together!"

Kurama straightened up and drew a breath to warn Yusuke to discontinue with such behaviour, but before he could warn Yusuke verbally, Hiei reacted physically, crossing the room and snatching the Psychic Spyglass from Yusuke.

"Hey!" Yusuke complained.

"How dare you violate their privacy like that?" Hiei yelled at him.

"Hiei's right Yusuke, no matter how we may feel about those women now, we must at least uphold a basic duty of care to them while they are onboard this vehicle with us," Kurama concurred. "And that includes respecting their privacy."

"How long have you been using this device to spy on other people?" Hiei asked, shaking the Psychic Spyglass in front of Yusuke's face.

"I just discovered it, calm down!" Yusuke replied.

"You can't do things like that, it's incredibly indecent of you!"

"Okay, Hime!"

"You could really hurt someone!"

"What?"

"How many more of these do you have?"

"There only is one, and you're holding it!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! That's the only one in the whole of spirit world!"

Hiei moved his eyes to the Psychic Spyglass, his chest heaving from his laboured breathing.

"Where's Kuwabara?" he asked quietly.

"He went back to bed," Yusuke replied. "He's got a hangover now."

"As will you shortly," Kurama warned. "You might want to consider using the hair of the dog technique to ease the inevitable when it does occur."

"What? "Hair of the dog"? Isn't that like some kinda karma sutra thing where you bend over and stick your–"

Yusuke stopped talking abruptly as Hiei threw down the Psychic Spyglass and stomped the heel of his boot into the centre of it, shattering it.

"Uh, I don't think you should've done that, Hiei," Yusuke said in a low voice. "Koenma made that thing, and he gets really pissy if I even get fingerprints on the lens…"

"It's too dangerous to keep a tool like that," Hiei quietly replied, grinding his heel into the ground, the shattered shards snapping into even smaller pieces.

"Right…" Yusuke said slowly. "So anyway, why did we stop?"

"It's Hiei's turn to drive," Kurama replied.

Hiei looked up at him blankly.

"Follow the directions on the navigator," Kurama instructed him. "Drive at top speed, don't stop for anything. We want this over before nightfall. We'll stay in Arbeinia tonight and tomorrow at dawn we leave for spirit world."

"I might not come to spirit world with you," Hiei said.

"Why the hell not?" Yusuke demanded. "Are you still sulking with Koenma because he swapped your jacket for a Hello Kitty raincoat the last time you came to living world?"

"No, it's just that my business will be done once the ice maidens have been returned home," Hiei calmly replied. "I have no need to continue on to spirit world with you. I would rather go to Mukuro's headquarters and help in any way I can to cure the sick there."

"Hey, we helped you free the sisterhood of the frigid ice queens, the least you could do is help us get Fabio out of spirit world!" Yusuke snapped.

"If Hiei wants to return home after today then let him do so," Kurama said. "Hopefully he will use the opportunity to get himself cured, and I don't think his assistance will be instrumental in our pending duties in spirit world."

"He owes us for all this crap!"

"The three of us will manage perfectly well without Hiei."

Yusuke and Kurama turned to Hiei, expecting him to be irate at Kurama's last remark; but instead he nodded, his expression almost ridiculously neutral.

"Thank you for understanding," he said quietly.

He ground his heel into the remains of the Psychic Spyglass one last time before moving over to the driver's chair. Kurama continued on towards the back of the vehicle, leaving Yusuke standing by the doorway feeling slightly confused: he was sure he was missing something somewhere.

Next Chapter: Koenma, Keiko and Shizuru try to figure out what Botan is up to, Botan and Mukuro strike a deal with each other, and Yusuke's hangover finally hits – but he doesn't have long to dwell on it, as Tsubara has a proposition for the team and a revelation that leaves Hiei reeling. Chapter 22 – Transcending Nepotism