Chapter 29: Twelfth Night

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Maybe your little act fooled that part-human idiot Kurama, but don't assume that a fox demon still at full-strength like I am would be so easily deceived."

"You-you don't… You're not stronger or more intelligent than Kurama!"

"I think I am. Though it doesn't really take much intelligence to see what you really are."

Fumio stepped forwards and grabbed at the crotch of the demon pereskia's victim, his fingers closing around an excess of loose material.

"It's the little things that give you away, Yukina."

"I'm not Yukina!"

"You're trying my patience."

"But I'm Hiei!"

Fumio rolled his eyes before retrieving the sword from its sheath at the hip of the plant's victim. He then stepped forwards again and laid the flat of the blade by the top of the bandaging before slowly sliding the entire length of the blade down between skin and bandages and then sharply tugging upwards, cutting through the bandages effortlessly. His actions were met with a fearful yelp, despite him having succeeded in cutting off the bandages without cutting skin. The bandages slowly fell away, exposing a pale, thin arm.

"That proves nothing!"

"I thought you might say that."

Fumio repeated the process to uncover the other arm before replacing the sword to its sheath.

"Now explain it," he said quietly. "Hiei definitely has the mark of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame on one of his arms, but you have it on neither."

"It's… I just…"

"We can play this game all day, but we're only delaying the inevitable. I can remove that bandana from your head and prove that you have no jagan eye, I can remove that bandaging around your chest and prove that you are both an ice demon and a woman, and I can even strip you naked and prove that you don't have Hiei's body in more ways than one. Is that what it will take? Are you so stubborn that we'll have to play this game for that long before you admit the truth? Or will you just admit it right now, and make both of our lives simpler?"

Fumio arched his eyebrows expectantly.

"If I go with you, and do what you ask of me, will you and your gang leave spirit world? Will you let Miss Rui go and promise never to attack spirit world or another ice maiden ever again?"

"Do you admit that you're Yukina?"

"I don't really see how I can deny it any longer. Lady Tsubara already told me she had told you to use me in your plans, but due to your impatience and refusal to travel to living world, she gave you Miss Rui instead. If you promise you'll leave this place and you'll never bother spirit world, living world or any of my people ever again, then I will help you get to where you need to go."

"How very generous of you."

"Will you let me down now?"

"I have a question before I do."

"Alright."

"If your friends all believed that you are Hiei, and their ally, why did Kurama restrain you here in a demon pereskia?"

"He didn't want me to join them in their fight to free spirit world. He didn't think I could keep up with him."

"Yet he took you all this way?"

"I wasn't good enough for him."

"You mean you weren't strong enough to fight with him?"

"That too."

Fumio grinned darkly.

"Well, well," he said in a low growl. "The old hag in the ice village told me you were a rebel Yukina, but I never expected this: an ice maiden who actually desires a fox demon. How delightfully dirty and twisted."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Yukina growled back. "Stop talking about Kurama like you know him! You don't know him at all! He's nothing like you! You'll never be half the man he is!"

"Careful there Yukina," Fumio replied. "You're getting dangerously close to sounding as though you care about that human excuse for a fox demon, and caring isn't something your people do."

"You don't know anything about my people!" Yukina argued. "And you don't know anything about Kurama either!"

"I suppose I can perhaps understand the attraction. He's in a human body, so you probably didn't even realise what he actually was, and he looks quite effeminate in that form, and you ice maidens certainly like your lovers on the effeminate side."

"I know Kurama is a fox demon, I've known since the second time I met him!"

"So you are the dirty little deviant your people warned me you were? You are intentionally seeking to satisfy your carnal desires with a natural enemy of your people? What's the matter: feeling left out that a fox demon never caught you when you lived in the ice village?"

Yukina began struggling against the plant holding her in place, but her efforts did little more than tighten the leaves around her, and as the leaf around her neck began to tighten she stopped abruptly for fear of choking herself.

"If you like, I'll let you try to run away from me," Fumio offered. "Since you are such a dirty little girl, you'd probably enjoy that, wouldn't you? You could justify it in your conscience then: you tried to escape, you fought with all you had, but the big bad fox still caught you and ravished you."

"Let me go!" Yukina yelled.

"Why?" Fumio asked with a smirk. "Are you eager to get started? In that case I'll gladly oblige."

He moved one foot forwards to the base of the pereskia and it began slowly shrinking back in on itself. Yukina sighed in relief and rubbed her hands at her throat, watching the leaves unfurl from her legs.

"I'm feeling very generous today," Fumio said. "I'm going to give you a thirty second head-start. It makes it more sporting if you get ahead of me and I'm sure we'll both enjoy the chase itself. A good chase gets the blood pumping, the adrenalin flowing – and it should put some colour into your lifeless face."

Fumio folded his arms and eyed Yukina over expectantly as the demon plant that had been holding her captive finally disappeared back into the ground.

"Well?" he said when she remained where she was. "What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to use this time to try to run away?"

"No," Yukina replied quietly. "I'm not going to run away from you."

"Really? How incredibly dull. You're worse than that miserable wench Rui: she didn't put up much of a fight either."

"I said I wasn't going to run. I didn't say I wasn't going to fight."

Yukina drew out her sword and met Fumio's eyes. He smiled and let his arms fall to his sides.

"Now this is an exciting development," he purred. "The emotionless ice maiden is going to fight for her purity! You won't last ten seconds against me of course."

"Your arrogance will be your downfall," Yukina warned him.

"Oh I like you, little ice maiden. This is going to be fun."


"What do you mean "where we left her"?" Kuwabara asked. "We didn't leave Yukina anywhere. We haven't even seen her since the start of this mission!"

"Hiei assured us that she was safe," Kurama pointed out.

"Hn, not very safe with you, was she?" Hiei spat back.

"Is this about her drawings and poems?" Kurama asked. "Or about my confession to hunting the ice maidens for sex?"

"You hunted ice maidens for sex?" Hiei echoed.

"I told you this already," Kurama calmly replied.

"Hn, I don't know what disgusts and pisses me off more: the fact that you kissed her, or the fact that you thought she was me when you did it!"

"What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about: I'm talking about what you did last night!"

"Last night I slept, while you went back to living world and lured Botan into bed with you when you knew that I liked her!"

"Last night I was floating down the River of Dreams and over the Waterfall of Ecstasy – which was not an ecstatic experience, but rather the worst case of false advertising ever! I woke up when I cracked my head on the Rocks of Eternal Fun, and then, after trekking across the Fields of Everlasting Stupidity, I got to Justice Road, where I was thrown off the path for trying to open a stupid gate, and I only managed to survive that experience because of the ogre, who I then had to carry on my back all the way to the crapped out Orchard of Patheticness, before running to here through the Forest of Smugness and over the Hill of Self-Righteous Bullshit!"

Kurama's face slowly twisted in confusion.

"I'd like to just point out that there are no Rocks of Eternal Fun or Fields of Everlasting Stupidity, and the Orchard is just called the Orchard," Koenma said meekly.

"Though there is a Forest of Smugness," Botan pointed out. "And it's the Hill of the Self-Righteous, not the Hill of Self-Righteous Bullshit. And if you hadn't run off the way you did and melted the River of Dreams in a fit of anger, none of that would have happened to you."

"A fit of anger?" Kurama echoed. "Hiei does everything in a fit of anger. He never plans ahead for anything. Though if everything he just said is true, where did he find the time to sleep with you last night Botan?"

"I didn't sleep with her last night!" Hiei snapped.

"Oh really?" Kurama asked.

"Yes, really!" Hiei retorted. "I slept with her the night before."

Kurama frowned.

"What?" he asked. "But we were still in demon world the night before last – at the hotel in Arbeinia."

"I know you were," Hiei replied sarcastically. "I saw you with my jagan eye!"

"You were there with your jagan eye!" Yusuke pointed out.

"Idiots!" Hiei roared.

"Hiei wasn't there with you," Koenma said. "Just as he wasn't with you last night, or at all during this entire mission until now."

"What?" Yusuke echoed.

"But he has been there," Kuwabara argued. "He was there making rude and sarcastic comments as usual the whole time!"

"That wasn't Hiei," Botan said.

"What?" Kurama echoed, his eyes growing large.

"It was Yukina, you idiots!" Hiei shouted.

Silence descended on the group as Hiei's last remark echoed off the rocks around them. The moment ended when Yusuke started to laugh, nudging Kuwabara in the ribs and encouraging him to join in.

"Yukina!" Yusuke snorted. "Oh sure! That was Yukina who drove the truck across demon world, and that was Yukina who just ran right in there to fight Fumio in spirit world, and that was Yukina who the ice maidens all turned on back in demon world, and it was Yukina that killed that demon tree using frosted crack… And Yukina who had the hots for Kurama… And Yukina who was immune to the wood nymphs' attacks… And Yukina who just came along Justice Road with us and watched me open the second gate… Shit."

"The second gate?" Botan echoed. "Wait, I thought the second gate was the one that could only be opened by a vir–"

"Stop!" Yusuke shouted. "Just stop."

"Yukina?" Kuwabara said. "But it can't have been! She looked just like Hiei! I mean, she wasn't so buff and her voice wasn't so nasally, but… She had a… In her pants, I felt a…"

"A pair of your balled up sports socks that you leave at Genkai's place for emergencies?" Yusuke asked flatly. "A pair of your balled up sports socks that we found in the hot spring after I took off Hiei's pants?"

"After you took off Yukina's pants…" Kuwabara said.

"But… I nearly shaved off her eyebrow…" Yusuke said faintly. "And then I nearly shaved her leg, only it was already…"

"I farted in her face…"

"I kicked her in the boobs…"

"I took a piss in front of her…"

"I got naked around her more times than I can even remember…"

"Oh God…"

"But… How?"

"Oh, I can answer that," Botan volunteered. "She was using a very clever disguise – a disguise so clever, it puts all of my previous disguises to shame."

"Yukina?" Kurama said.

"Yes, Yukina," Hiei said.

"Well I guess you've got a right to be pissed," Yusuke said, releasing his hold of Hiei. "Kurama's been behaving like a total dick around your sister. And he left her tied up in a plant on her own on the Mountain of Faith."

Hiei stepped forwards, shrugging to adjust his dishevelled clothing back into place.

"I'm not getting in the middle of this," Kuwabara muttered, releasing Kurama.

Kurama stepped away from him, but he kept his eyes down, ignoring the way Hiei was glaring at him.

"I don't care about this stupid place or a few trees," Hiei said. "You can all go on, but I'm going back for Yukina."

"I'm coming with you," Kurama said.

"Me too," Botan said. "And Rui."

She pointed at Rui, who nodded in agreement.

"And me," Yusuke said. "And Kuwabara."

"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed. "I got to see this to believe it…"

"Hey, what about the invaders and Captain Ootake?" Koenma asked.

"You and your merry men can rest up here until we get back," Yusuke suggested. "But we're not going any further without Yukina."

"Alright, let's go!" Botan said cheerfully, hoisting her oar up over her head.

She screamed in alarm and all the joy vanished from her face as something slammed into her oar, knocking it out of her grip. As her oar hit the ground, the others all looked down at it to see an arrow pierced through the blade.

"Damn it, not those guys again," Yusuke grumbled.

"Again?" Kuwabara asked.

"Yeah, me and Yukina met them in demon world just before we got to the illegal gateway to spirit world," Yusuke replied. "One of the bastards shot me and Yukina had to help me get the arrow out of my leg."

"I saw that," Hiei said. "She helped you get the arrow out and then while she was using her healing powers to close the wound on your leg you kicked her three feet into the air!"

"She cured the wound?" Yusuke asked. "So that's where the hole in my leg disappeared to!"

"That's not all she cured," Kurama said. "Yukina cured us all of the virus. We all contracted it the moment we entered demon world – the doctors at the medical transporter confirmed as much – but Yukina, as an ice maiden, was immune, and so never became ill. She must have cured us all while we slept that first night here. She saved our lives."

A second arrow whistled towards Rui, but stopped just short of her back as Hiei dashed forwards and caught it midair, burning it to ash in a short blast of black flames.

"Let's take care of these guys fast so we can get back to Yukina," Yusuke advised.

"Or not," Koenma said, pointing at something behind Yusuke.

The others all turned to see a large group of demons with a bound and angry SDF officer between them.


"Shall we make this a sword duel? Since you seem to fancy yourself as a swordsman now. Or should I saw swordsgirl?"

Fumio smiled as he drew out a blade of grass from his hair. He began lengthening it into a sword, but stopped halfway as Yukina lunged forwards, stabbing her weapon at his midsection. He arched his back in a last second attempt to avoid the attack, and although he managed to avoid being gored, he did not avoid being stabbed, the end of the sword piercing into his stomach just above his navel, penetrating deeply enough to leave behind a wound that freely wept blood as Yukina withdrew her sword.

"You fight dirty," he commented.

"I learned from my brother never to hesitate in battle," Yukina replied.

"Yes, you seem to have learned a lot from his fighting style," Fumio replied. "Including the delusion that you can compete with a warrior far more experienced than you and infinitely stronger than you are."

Fumio swung his grass blade at Yukina, who barely managed to parry the attack. She staggered back several steps as Fumio relentlessly attacked her, not really paying attention to where she was backing up to until her surroundings grew darker and her boots splashed into a puddle. She glanced around nervously upon the realisation that she was trapped in the cave she had kissed Kurama in the night before, only noticing that Fumio had stopped attacking when he said her name.

"If you stop this farce now, I'll let you heal the wound you've given me and I'll consider letting you live as one of my concubines when we get back to demon world," he offered.

"One of your concubines?" Yukina repeated. "You say that as though you expect to have several."

"I will do one day," Fumio replied. "Assuming a position of power and having one's very own harem of concubines is every fox demon's dream."

"Well dream on, Fabio!"

Yukina aimed another attack at Fumio, but he caught it with his grass sword, and, with a few expert flicks of his wrist, he worked Yukina's sword out of her grasp, sending it flying across the cave with an echoing clatter as it bounced across the rocky cave floor. She gasped, looking down first at his blade and then trying to retrieve her own weapon. She started to dive at the point where it had landed, but as she reached out her hands towards it they closed around empty air as the waistband of her pants caught against her stomach. She looked back over her shoulder to see Fumio, his blade still in one hand and his other hand gripped into the back of the waistband of her pants. She tried to pull forwards in one last bid to recover her sword before moving her hands to the belts of her pants.

"If you take your pants off now, you will only be making things easier – and arguably a lot less fun – for me later," Fumio warned her.

Yukina paused, racking her mind for an answer. She had become something of an expert at extemporising in the last several days and she was not about to quit now. Fumio began pulling her back and she let him do it, trying her best to look defeated as he pulled her back flush against his body. From the corner of her eye she saw him banish his blade, and she waited until it had vanished completely before elbowing him in the gut, trying to aim for his wound and only marginally missing her intended target. He grunted and his grasp lessened, but as she tried to repeat her attack he moved his free arm around her neck, squeezing her throat in the bend of his elbow. She coughed in panic, her hands grabbing at his arm on instinct and trying to claw it away from herself.

"That was a very stupid thing that you just did, Yukina," Fumio growled into her ear. "Because now you've made me angry, and when I get angry, I can't control how hard I hit or how hard I thrust."

Yukina choked out a cry of alarm, gripping her fingers into Fumio's arm and attempting to freeze it. He gritted his teeth and held on, squeezing tighter at her neck.

"If you freeze my arm solid in this position, you'll only lock yourself into this hold," he pointed out.

She paused briefly to consider his words and he immediately took advantage of her hesitation, unhooking his arms from around her neck and shoving her into the puddle. She fell forwards onto her hands and knees and Fumio kicked his heel into her backside, pushing her forwards face-first into the water.

"You didn't honestly think you could fight me, did you Yukina?" he asked. "Be serious: I've spent my time wisely, training my mind and body, whilst you have wasted your life learning new ways to hide. That's all you ice maidens ever do, isn't it? You hide. You hide your emotions and you hide from your emotions. You hide your lives, your hide your bodies, you hide your ignorance and you hide your weaknesses."

"And we hide our power," Yukina quietly said.

"Don't make me laugh!"

Yukina swept her hands out to one side, splashing water on Fumio's legs.

"Nice comeback," he said sarcastically.

Yukina jumped forwards out of the puddle and touched a hand to the water's edge, freezing the water behind her. As Fumio was standing with his feet just in the water, the ice quickly encased his feet and travelled up past his knees where she had splashed water into him. He smiled and tried to move one leg, apparently under the illusion that he would be able to simply break his way out. When he found himself stuck fast his smile turned into a sneer.

"I told you your arrogance would be your downfall," Yukina reminded him.

She hurried around the edge of the cave, being careful to keep herself beyond arm's reach from Fumio, and retrieved her sword. Once she had a hold of her weapon, a strange feeling passed over her, and, as she turned back to Fumio and saw the way he was smirking over his shoulder at her, she could tell that he already knew what she was thinking.

"You're bluffing," he said. "You should have run away when you had the chance, because you're not a fighter. You don't have it in you to kill me, and if you don't kill me, you won't stop me."

Yukina looked down at her sword, the tip of which was still slightly stained with Fumio's blood. She had already used the weapon to kill in her journey through demon world with Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara, but those instances had all been the result of her either misjudging what she had intended to be a maiming attack or else a demon coincidentally charging into her blade. Fumio was right: she was not a killer. She knew that she could not let him go, because he would continue to spread chaos in spirit world and probably kidnap and mistreat even more of the ice maidens when he returned to demon world: but if killing him was the only way to stop him then she was stuck.

"Why don't you put away the sword and stop this charade?" Fumio asked, his voice strangely gentle and almost welcoming. "Come with me, and together we can take back the treasures from King Enma's private collection."

"Take back?" Yukina echoed.

"Yes, didn't you know?" Fumio asked. "No, of course you didn't know, you've lived such a sheltered, uneducated life that you know little about the true history of demon world. King Enma has an entire vault full of treasures his soldiers stole from demon world when they took part of our world into their control. And the real reason spirit world has never managed to take any more of demon world into their control is because those who live near the fringes of spirit world's influence have given their most prized possessions to King Enma as a bribe to stop him from taking their homes and livelihood. Does that sound fair to you, Yukina? Can you imagine what life is like for the demons living there: they have been left impoverished and under constant threat. I suppose their lives have always been much the same as the lives of your people were for a matter of days when they were chased from their home and almost sold into slavery. You helped the ice maidens get their lives back, didn't you Yukina?"

"Yes, I did."

"But you won't help the demons living along the borders?"

"I don't see how I can help them."

"You can help them by helping me take their treasures back from King Enma and returning them to their rightful owners."

"I thought you said you wanted to steal the treasures to make yourself a rich and powerful leader?"

"You misunderstand: wealth isn't all about how much gold you have in your hand. It's all politics, Yukina. If I return those treasures to their original owners, I will become a hero to those people, and they will ally themselves with me naturally. If I can win over enough of them, I can be in a position to challenge Enki for leadership of demon world."

"But you've hurt so many innocent people, you're not blameless. You did terrible things to Miss Rui."

"I needed Rui to get this far. I needed someone with a clearer conscience than my own to help me pass through spirit world. I don't think I treated her unfairly. If you agreed to help me, I wouldn't treat you unfairly either."

"Lies!"

Yukina moved around the edge of the puddle to position herself directly in front of Fumio.

"Why are you lying to me now?" she demanded. "You told me you only wanted to keep me as one of your harem of concubines!"

"If you fight me all the way, you leave me with no other choice," Fumio replied. "But if you're a good girl, and you help me, maybe I'll change my mind. Just think Yukina: you could be my partner. Together we could liberate those poor souls trapped in poverty by spirit world and together we could overthrow Enki and rule demon world."

"I don't want to rule demon world," Yukina said. "Not with you, not with anyone else and not even on my own."

Fumio smiled, looking almost gentle and trustworthy in Yukina's eyes.

"The trick you played on Kurama and his allies, do you really think they will forgive you for it?" he asked.

Yukina twitched but otherwise did not respond.

"You lied to them," Fumio continued. "You put them all in great danger. They relied on you as if you were your brother, as if you were a capable warrior who could fight on the same level as they can. They put their lives in your hands. Us fox demons don't like dirty liars, Yukina. We rarely trust anyone implicitly, but when we do, that individual should never dare try to betray us. Right now, little ice maiden, your fox is angry, disappointed and disgusted. He will never be able to look you in the eye again. And what about Hiei? Do you think he's happy that you stole his identity and abused it to help fulfil your own silly little fantasies?"

"You don't…" Yukina began weakly. "It's not like that, I… I was only trying to help!"

"How many days do you think it would have taken Kurama and his allies to find my men and drive them out of spirit world if Hiei had been fighting alongside them instead of you?" Fumio asked.

Yukina paused long enough to count back through just how many days had passed since the day Koenma and Botan had called everyone to Genkai's temple to inform them all of the problems in spirit world. When she realised that Koenma and Botan's visit had happened ten days ago she then realised two other worrying thoughts: ten days of travelling with Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara meant that Hiei had been detained in a healing chamber, still sick, for an extra ten days without her there to cure him, and at least three of those ten days had been spent entirely on finding the ice maidens and returning them home, something she doubted would have happened if Hiei had been a part of the team in her place. And maybe those three days would yet prove to be instrumental: maybe that extra three days without a cure would leave Hiei permanently weakened or worse, and maybe arriving in spirit world three days earlier would have meant that the others would have been on time to prevent the destruction of the spirit world orchard.

"I never meant for it to go this far," she said faintly. "I thought it would be over in two or three days. I never expected it to go on this long or become this complicated. I didn't foresee what happened to my people, but once I had witnessed it, I couldn't go back. I had to help them."

"Why were you tied up in a demon pereskia?" Fumio asked.

"I don't know," she said with a sigh. "Kurama said something about Botan and something about me being a hindrance."

"But you are a hindrance to a creature like Kurama, surely you can see that now."

"Yes, I suppose I can."

"And who is Botan?"

"She's a ferry girl. Kurama is in love with her.

"Blue hair, pink eyes, ridiculous sense of fashion?"

"Yes, have you met her?"

"She was the one who gave me the spirit world eyeglass."

Yukina balked.

"I suppose she wanted the truth to be known," Fumio continued. "She had seen through your little ruse, and, as Kurama's lover, she probably just wanted to warn him about your tricks."

"But Botan's not Kurama's lover," Yukina said, her sword slipping from her grip and clattering to the cave floor. "Botan doesn't care for Kurama, she desires Hiei, she told me as much herself only a few days ago!"

"She's quite a fickle creature though, isn't she?" Fumio responded. "The sort who changes her mind as often as she changes her clothes."

Yukina gasped: Botan changed her clothes several times a day!

"I'm not really sure that Kurama would choose you over the ferry girl now, Yukina," Fumio continued, pacing his words carefully to ensure that she heard and felt the impact of every single one. "After all, your little stunt has proven to him that you're a liar, you're manipulative, you can't be trusted and that you're incredibly confused about your own sexuality and your sexual identity: what sort of girl disguises herself as a man in order to pursue her love interest? The best you could have hoped for was that Kurama might start to desire Hiei."

"I was going to tell him, I was always going to tell him!" Yukina argued.

"And yet you never did."

"It was never the right moment."

"When would have been the right moment? When he kissed you for the first time?"

Yukina lowered her head and Fumio started to grin.

"You've already kissed him?" he asked. "In that disguise? With him under the illusion that you were Hiei?"

"I was trying to tell him," she muttered, keeping her head down.

"I don't think you were," he replied. "I don't think Kurama would have found out until he was either reunited with the real Hiei or until he took off your clothes and realised that a few things were missing. And how do you think Kurama will react when he finds out the truth? When he finds out that you've been lying to him, leading his astray and, most importantly, that you didn't even have the courage to tell him the truth yourself?"

Yukina opened her mouth and opened out her hands to answer, but words failed her.

"I don't imagine Hiei will be too happy with you either, little one," Fumio added. "You stole his identity, tarnished his reputation as a ruthless and merciless fighter and kissed his best friend as though you were Hiei himself. You've potentially ruined the relationship between Hiei and Kurama too."

"I never meant to do that," Yukina said quietly.

"Kurama and Hiei will both hate you for this," Fumio insisted. "I expect they'll shun you or else return you to the ice village to live with all the other deceivers of your race. Though I doubt you'll be welcomed home. The elders of the ice village didn't have a single good word to say about you, Yukina. It seems you're making yourself a lot of enemies everywhere you go."

"But I didn't mean to hurt anyone!" Yukina cried, lifting her head and looking him directly in the eye.

"It doesn't look that way to an objective observer of the events."

"It just got so complicated, and so much bigger than I originally thought it would! It's just like Kurama said: there are so many threads tangled together in one big knot and… Only time can untangle it now, it's too great a knot for me to untie."

Yukina sighed.

"You're right," she admitted, trying to hold back the bitterness she felt. "They won't ever forgive me for what I've done. They would be justified in shunning me. And, given that I forced them to free all of my people, they probably will take me back to the ice village, where, as you quite rightly said, I won't be welcomed."

"Yes, it's quite the conundrum for you, isn't it?" Fumio said. "Your new friends don't want you any more and your clan won't let you return to your birthplace. It seems you are homeless and friendless. How terrible for you."

Yukina began combing her fingers through her hair, wincing as they caught several times. It had taken a lot of effort every morning to restyle her own hair to match Hiei's, but now it just felt uncomfortable and was clearly unnecessary, and so she began pulling it back down.

"And you look terrible," Fumio added, as though she needed to be told as much. "What will you do now?"

She paused, her fingers tangled in her hair, and moved her eyes to Fumio's. She could not tell if he was mocking her or not with his question, but either way, she had no definite answer.

"My offer still stands," he said gently. "You could come with me and together we could reclaim the stolen treasures from King Enma's vault and then return them to their rightful owners in demon world."

"I can't do that," she replied. "It's still stealing, and you did unthinkable things to Miss Rui. I can't trust you."

"You don't have many other choices," he pointed out. "In fact, your only other choice is to return to Kurama and Hiei and tell them both what a manipulative little liar you really are. At least if you come with me, you'll never have to see the disappointment in their faces."

Yukina's hands slowly lowered, leaving her hair partially flattened and looking ridiculously untidy.

"You don't want to disappoint Kurama and Hiei, do you Yukina?" Fumio pressed.

She slowly shook her head, avoiding looking directly at him. She did not want to help him do anything, but the thought of returning to Kurama, after the way he had looked at her and spoken to her that morning, was far more daunting: not to mention how irate Hiei was likely to be when he found out that she had tarnished his reputation over the last few days by failing to respond to certain situations the way he would have done.

"Set me free and within two days, I will make you into a new woman," Fumio offered.

Yukina crouched down by the edge of the ice, peering at her own blurry reflection in it. She looked about as pathetic as she felt, and, she realised, she was too scared to confront Kurama and Hiei again – so scared that taking Fumio's offer seemed like the better option. She placed her hands on the ice and carefully turned the solid block into a collection of ice crystals that allowed Fumio to step out. Once he was free she stood up again, meeting his eyes as he started to walk around the edge of the ice crystals towards her.

"Why two days?" she asked him.

"Because something very special happens on the twelfth night," he replied, his shadow falling over her.


"What happens on the twelfth night?" Botan asked. "And the twelfth night from when?"

"From when Lord Koenma left spirit world to enlist outside help with the invasion," Rui replied. "Fumio said that it would take twelve days from that day for the second part of his plan to take effect."

"What is the second part of his plan?" Botan asked.

"I'm not sure," Rui answered.

"Not sure? Didn't you think to find out?"

"My thoughts were mostly consumed with worry for Yukina and wondering if I could ever safely escape Fumio without him then going after Yukina."

"What sort of diabolical plan would take twelve days?"

"It has something to do with some seeds he planted by the site of the portal to demon world."

"Maybe the seeds take twelve days to grow?"

"Perhaps."

"There's a new moon two nights from now, maybe that has something to do with it. Oh dear, we have to put a stop to whatever it is, and fast!"

Botan sped up, forgetting to warn Rui before she did so. The ice maiden grasped at Botan's oar on either side of herself, barely managing to hold on as she began arcing around the side of a mountain. The two of them had managed to escape the fighting, leaving Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Koenma and what was left of the SDF to fight the demons holding the SDF captain hostage. When it was clear that Fumio was not amongst those fighting, both Rui and Botan had become concerned, and shortly joined together to make their escape. According to Yusuke, Yukina had been left behind by a dugout partway up the Mountain of Faith, and Botan was heading that way in the hope of finding Yukina before Fumio did.

As they reached the dugout and found no trace of either Yukina or Fumio, both Botan and Rui began to become panicked: and both processed their concerns in different ways.

"Do you think that's him over there?" Botan whispered, pointing over at a shrivelled shrub on the hillside.

"No," Rui replied. "That's a plant. Fumio is a fox demon. He controls plants, but he can't turn into one."

Botan nodded before pointing at a clump of grass between two rocks.

"No," Rui said quickly before the ferry girl could speak.

Botan nodded again, but then gasped, and grabbed a handful of Rui's kimono by her shoulder.

"Maybe it's Yukina!" she said.

"Why would it be Yukina?" Rui asked.

"Maybe Fumio used his foxy powers to transmute her into grass!" Botan replied

"…No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Botan nodded again and steered her oar over a ridge of rocks and towards the path that led down the hillside. As the length of the path came fully into her view she stopped short, her eyes doubling in size and Rui almost falling off the oar headfirst as she failed to predict Botan's abrupt halt.

"My goodness, Hiei is so fast!" Botan said as Rui righted herself at her side. "Look at that! He finished fighting those other demons and got here before us to fight Fumio! I didn't even see him pass us!"

Rui watched the scene ahead: Fumio was walking down the path with a figure dressed in black at his side – a small, delicate, light-footed figure.

"Amazing," Botan said with a sigh.

"That you can't tell the difference, yes," Rui muttered under her breath.


Next Chapter: Botan and Rui discover than Yukina has wilfully run away with Fumio, Yusuke and Co. defeat the remaining demon presence in spirit world and rescue the SDF captain but they are then all surprised (and in some cases more than a little confused) when they find out what Yukina has done and why. Chapter 30 – The Necessary

The "untying the knot with time" skit was a near-direct quote from "Twelfth Night". I'm still remembering to insert them. Randomly about without much purpose, but still, insert them I do.