Next installment! Whew.

-YSendo

Chapter 25

Yusuke turned on the demon girl. "You did this?!"

"No!" she denied quickly, but since the team trusted Yuumei more than her, she amended her statement. "I didn't build it."

Yuumei reigned in her temper and said coolly in Lei's defense, "She drew up the plans for it; then it got into someone else's grubby hands and altered."

Kurama looked between the two girls. "Why?"

Lei glared at the floor, feeling Hiei's eyes on her back. "What I made was a large gun to absorb and focus spirit energy into a blast. I thought it would be useful on a battlefield."

Yuumei huddled into her jacket and sneezed loudly, making Kurama and Kuwabara offer to take her home. She refused, but found Hiei standing on the barrel she was leaning on, silently commanding her to sit down. Kurama turned back to the demon girl. "How was it stolen?"

"It wasn't," Lei smirked, more to herself. "I couldn't build a working model. So, when someone approached me offering to buy the piece of crap, I sold it."

Hiei narrowed his eyes at the two moronic humans, who didn't seem to get the implications. He pointed out scathingly, "This man perfected it."

Lei sighed, deciding to explain the mechanics: "My design was meant to absorb spent spirit energy from a large area into a condensed beam that would work like the human's spirit gun. This new prototype uses life energy, harvested from human corpses."

Yuumei was about to say something when Botan came flying in on her oar. "Yukina was taken hostage!"

"What?!" Kuwabara yowled, "My Love is missing?!"

Hiei looked like he bit the inside of his cheek in anger and from the small line of blood oozing to his chin he did so pretty hard. Yuumei stood up and turned to him, almost sensing the sudden tension in him. While Botan explained to the rest of the team how she found the poor ice apparition missing, Yuumei reached up and gently wiped the rivulet with her finger. "Hiei," she said softly.

He looked down at her, but she could see his mind was elsewhere, most likely locating the girl with the help of the Jagan. Yuumei told him anyway, "She's going to be fine."

Botan hesitated to reveal a small piece of information until the end. "They are threatening to test the cannon on her unless we give them Hiei."

Kuwabara crossed his arms, "Then give 'em the Shrimp. He can handle himself."

A commotion brought everyone's attention to the trio standing a little bit away. "If something happens to her, I will have your head!"

Yuumei tried to pull him away by the arms as Hiei stood, looking as scary as ever, holding Lei up by the collar of her shirt a good few inches off the ground. Lei looked simultaneously sad and frightened, having never been faced with Hiei's true wrath.

Lei said nothing in her defense. Hiei growled, "Do you hear me? If anything happens to Yukina…"

Yuumei yanked back on his arms, quite disheartened when even though she threw her body into it, his arms wouldn't even budge. How do you fit so much strength in such a little body? "Hiei! Threatening won't help anyone," she reasoned.

"You will regret the day you were born by the time I'm through with you!"

"The longer you yell," Yuumei hissed, "the longer Yukina will have to wait!"

Hiei stopped at this. He dropped Lei, who fell back on the concrete floor, still staring at him in fear, then shrugged Yuumei's hands off of him. "I'll go."

"No, you won't," Yuumei claimed. His response was to glare at her viciously, making a shiver run down her spine. Not able to look him in the eyes anymore, Yuumei opted to watch Botan. "If they gain access to Hiei's energy, they will have an unlimited supply of darkness energy to fuel attacks. I'm not saying we leave Yukina in their hands; just that we have to find another way."

Kurama broke the tense silence with a nod. "You're right. Hiei, there is no need to sacrifice yourself."

Hiei scoffed and crossed his arms, a deep scowl decorating his face. To Yuumei, it seemed that only an indomitable will kept him from jolting out of the building.

Kurama led the way to the abandoned museum where Yukina was being held. Koenma cleverly recognized a replica monument that was in the background of the video that was sent with the demands. To avoid detection, the team was using an old underground fire-escape; not exactly a smart architectural idea according to Yuumei.

Yusuke caught up to Hiei, who strode forward with crackles of black lightning exploding around him in his fury. Leaning down, Yusuke whispered to the demon, "You think we should tell Yuumei?"

"Tell her what?" Hiei growled, not in the greatest of moods.

"About you and Yukina."

Hiei stopped on a dime and said very precisely, very venomously, "She will not be told anything."

Yusuke scratched his head and followed after the demon when he started stalking forward again. "I think she deserves to know."

Yuumei hugged herself tighter, not liking the cramped, damp tunnel they were trekking through. It wasn't helping that her sneezes were becoming harder to conceal, leaving her to be a burden to the group. She distracted herself from the cold by trying to, again, figure out why Hiei was so defensive when it came to the little ice apparition. Her mind was muddled and her headache increased, so Yuumei decided to watch the Botan's ponytail bob back and forth.

They came out on the second story balcony that looked over the main hall. Smack dab in the middle of the floor below, Yukina was tied up and gagged in the center the star-like design on the floor. Other than being a little shook up, she looked fine, making Lei breathe an easy sigh.

The captors, however, noticed the spirit detectives presence, in part, by the fire demon's deadly aura.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is."

Kuwabara grabbed onto the railing with both hands, fully intending to jump down, screaming, "Let my Yukina go!"

"Stop," one of the green-skinned lizard demons called. "If you do anything, we will fire the cannon."

"He's bluffing," Yusuke said, though not too confidently. Lei shook her head, saying, "Can't you see the glow, human? It is powered."

"I'll save you, my love!"

Confident that the ice apparition will not attack them, the demons came around to stand on the right side of the floor, putting themselves between the team and the weapon.

While the demons taunted the team, and the boys ground their teeth, Yuumei leaned down to ask Lei, "Isn't there something Yukina can do?"

Lei shook her head sadly, she knew that the girl meant a lot to Hiei, "No," but then she looked up, her eyes alert and flashing to and fro, as if thinking something over. "Wait!"

She pushed between Kuwabara and Yusuke and grabbed onto the railing, calling to the girl. "Freeze the base of the cannon!"

Yukina looked up confused, but did as was told, freezing first the floor directly around her, then having the chill creep up the white metal base of the cannon. The demons looked back angry. "Fire the damned thing!"

The boys jumped forward, each with one foot on the railing, except Hiei, who just bounded over the obstacle to thrust a sword through the throat of the closest demon. A resounding explosion shook the room.

Everyone held their breath as the dust settled, revealing a dirty, but alive, Yukina kneeling with a large piece of collapsed ceiling to her right. Hiei looked a little lost as he felt his arm attract, then absorb, the remaining darkness flame from the room. With a sob, Yukina dove into Kuwabara's arms.

Lei released her breath, then glared as Yusuke patted her roughly on the back. "Good job." Botan blinked and asked Kurama what happened.

Yuumei sneezed, but answered for the fox. "The initial force starts deep within the cannon. Without the base holding it in place, the weapon was propelled backwards." At Botan's confused stare, Yuumei thrust a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the wall opposite the door. "See for yourself."

Buried a few inches in the wall, the thick white parts of the contraction were visible. A cracked, empty glass orb glittered in a sinister way.

Hiei's shoulder muscles jumped when Yuumei placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come on; let's go back."

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