Recap: Not really sure that anything actually happened last time… Um… (Goes and checks…) Okay, Yusuke beat Kokou and advanced to the fourth round, Botan freaked out about Hiei vs. Kurama, Koenma started to get suspicious about Botan's recent behaviour, and Botan left something behind at Kurama's apartment (plot for part three of story!).

Chapter 36: The Showdown

"I can't look," Botan said, covering her face with her hands. "But I can't look away!"

She lowered her hands again, watching the big screen as Kurama and Hiei walked into the centre of the ring.

"I can't look!" she cried, covering her face with her hands again. "Oh, but I can't look away!"

"Shut-up, Botan!" Yusuke snapped at her impatiently.

Despite knowing that Yusuke had been very rude about it, Botan knew that he was right, and so she kept quiet after that. She clasped her hands together and pressed them down against her knees to stop herself from covering her eyes again. She wanted to watch what was happening, but at the same time she had a horrible fear that it was going to go horribly wrong somehow. Kurama would transform because of her, but he would not be able to use those seeds he had been keeping Hana for because of her, and that just complicated matters further. The wait for the start of the fight alone was almost killing her.

"I hope Kurama wins," she heard a voice mutter.

She leaned forwards, looking past Yusuke, George and Koenma to see Kuwabara sitting watching the screen through a tense squint.

"What are you doing here, Kuwabara?" she asked him. "When and how did you even get here?"

"I'm here because of this," he replied, holding out a piece of folded paper towards her.

Botan took the paper and opened it out, at first not understanding the significance of it.

"This is just a picture of Hiei," she said with a shrug. "It's a very good picture. It looks like something Rui might have drawn, did you know that Rui was a very talented… Oh, I see… Rui did draw this. And she put it in her letter to Yukina…"

"Yeah," Kuwabara said, snatching the picture back from her.

"Watch it!" Koenma complained as he was crushed between Kuwabara and George.

"Yeah, and as soon as Kurama sets his death plant on Hiei, I'm going down there to kick his ass!" Kuwabara said.

"Well that's certainly brave of you…" Botan muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "Wait a minute, aren't you afraid? Because you certainly ought to be, Mister Kuwabara! You've been…"

Botan slowly stopped talking as she caught Yusuke, George and Koenma all watching her expectantly. She had been about to suggest that Kuwabara ought to be afraid that he had been physically involved with Hiei's beloved sister, but as memories of exactly what she had been doing the night before flooded her mind she started to feel too hypocritical about accusing Kuwabara of anything. Still, she mused, it was unusual that Kuwabara should be angry and wanting to fight Hiei. She had always imagined that, the day he did finally learn that Hiei was Yukina's missing brother, he would be terrified and possibly even end his relationship with Yukina for fear of turning into fodder for the Dragon of the Darkness Flame. Anger and aggression had certainly not been the reactions she had ever imagined from him; and it was, frankly, a welcome, albeit brief, distraction from what was happening on the screen ahead of them.

Hiei spun his sword around his hand and smirked confidently.

"Hn. How long do you need?" he asked.

Kurama stood perfectly still in front of him, his arms at his sides, his face almost entirely neutral apart from the slightly curious look in his eyes that warned he was once more strategising – or rather, he was once more over-thinking.

"How long until your little potion takes effect?" Hiei pressed. "I have no more interest in fighting you in that body than you have of fighting me as you are. How long do we have to stall?"

"I have no need to stall," Kurama replied. "Make your move."

"You don't need to wait for that," Hiei said, his face dropping. "You've watched me fight often enough that you don't need to hesitate like you usually do."

"You do yourself a great disservice, Hiei."

"What?"

"If I don't need to observe your strategy today, that must mean that you always fight by the same formula and are predictable. Surely that is not the case."

Hiei's face dropped further. Even in combat the fox was managing to take the piss out of him. It was a quirk of Kurama's personality that Hiei more often hated than liked, and he often wondered where stemmed from: his fox side or his human side.

"For your sake I hope you have taken your fruity little power juice," Hiei growled, tightening his grip on his sword. "Because I won't be going easy on you."

"I hope you don't."

Hiei had heard enough. He charged directly towards Kurama, who did not so much as flinch, which was as Hiei had expected. Maybe Kurama thought he knew how the first few minutes of the fight would play out, but so did Hiei. The fox would be on the defensive and probably even throw around a few flowers or something to waste time until his potion took effect, and then the fighting would start in earnest: though even then it would probably be the same old crap of trickery and over-thinking. Hiei did respect that Kurama's intelligence in battle was admirable and often very effective, but he still preferred a more direct approach himself. And so, without hesitation, Hiei began swinging and jabbing his sword at Kurama.

As he had expected him to, Kurama dodged every blow but made no attempt at retaliation. It was frustrating, though Hiei managed to contain his anger as he reminded himself that soon Kurama would revert back to his full demon form, and once he did things would get a lot more interesting. He had witnessed first hand how badly Kurama's experiment with growing his own Tree of Previous Life had gone: the fruit from the plant basically turned him into an aggressive, blood-thirsty monster; but that merely made the prospect of fighting him more interesting. Usually he was so calm and calculating, it would be refreshing to fight him when he was in a state of mind that actually wanted a true test of strength and endurance.

The one-sided nature of their tussle did not last long however, as Hiei suddenly felt something tugging his sword, almost pulling it from his hand altogether. He staggered to a halt and found himself in a familiar position with Kurama: the fox's rose-whip was wrapped around his blade, too tightly for him to have any hope of freeing it. The blade would not cut the whip and trying to wrestle it free would take too long, so Hiei simply dropped the sword and launched himself at Kurama, He punched forwards, slightly surprised when his fist actually connected with Kurama's jaw, but apparently Kurama had allowed him the first hit as a distraction, as Hiei promptly felt a fist in his gut that had been thrown with more force than his hit had. Torn between anger at being caught out and delight that Kurama was actually taking the fight seriously at last, Hiei flew at him and again punched a fist at his face – but this time Kurama blocked the blow, his other hand swinging around between them.

Hiei staggered back, looking down at himself first before looking over at Kurama. He had some sort of plant wrapped around his hand that had formed a blade, and he had apparently just used it to create a shallow but long cut across Hiei's chest. Hiei looked down at himself again, grabbing at the tear in his shirt and ripping it open further to inspect the wound he had. It really was a minor wound, but that meant nothing – surely it was a deliberate manoeuvre to plant some sort of seed inside him. Hiei poked his fingers into the gash and felt around until he found what he sought, retrieving three seeds from the wound.

"Hn, nice try," he snorted, closing his now blood-soaked fist around the seeds and destroying them in a flare of energy.

Hiei looked over at Kurama to gauge his reaction, but found himself no longer facing a red-haired human: apparently the Fruit of Previous Life had finally taken effect, as Kurama was once more in his tall, silver-haired fox demon form. Hiei started to tell him that now the fight was actually going to be interesting for him but stopped as he heard the all-too-familiar sound of a demon plant growing rapidly behind him. He spun around, tilting his head slightly as he watched a dull green plant sprout from the ground by the edge of the ring. It grew to barely half Hiei's height before it stopped, and it did not look particularly threatening: in fact it looked a lot like that stupid little thing that had been cruising around Kurama's apartment, only this one did not have any petals about its head.

"That is the male doppelganger plant," Kurama told him. "Do you know what it does?"

"I don't care what it does," Hiei frankly replied, turning back to Kurama. "A stupid little plant like that isn't going to be enough to beat me, so I hope you've planned out a better strategy."

Kurama smiled at him, which was always a slightly worrying sight when he was in his full demon form.

"I'm afraid not, no," he replied.

Botan's jaw dropped. The plant that had grown by the edge of the ring was not identical to Hana, but clearly it was of the same species. It was a lot bigger, though still relatively small compared to the sort of plants Kurama usually used in battle, but it had the same spindly body and the same top-heavy head – though it did not have any petals on its head, it still had the same set of spiked teeth and its head was instead bumpy all over as though it was covered in warts. However, unlike Hana, it sat perfectly still, rooted into the ground, its head tilted downwards facing the fighters. Botan wished then that she had bothered to ask more questions about what sort of plant it was, but she had been too repulsed by Kurama's initial answer, which was currently echoing around her head: "the male variety eats blood and spirit energy".

Botan's face twisted slightly as she imagined the plant in the ring sucking blood and spirit energy from Hiei. It was an unpleasant thought, but at the same time she wondered how something so small could be powerful enough to actually disable an opponent like Hiei, who was so fast and strong. Though, she thought darkly, Hana had managed to fit a whole demon world maggot into her mouth in one bite, and the insect had been about as big as her entire head, so it was probably not unreasonable to assume that the plant in the ring would be able to gets its jaws around Hiei and do some substantial damage. Would it just eat him, she wondered? Would it eat him in the same way Hana had eaten maggots or would it just suck out his blood and demon energy? Neither outcome was a pleasant thought, but at least with the second possibility there was a chance that Hiei would survive.

Botan then realised that what she was watching could end with only one fighter walking away alive.

"They won't kill each other, will they?" she asked, turning to Yusuke.

"I dunno," he said with a shrug. "I would have said no, but Kurama was pretty determined last night that this was a fight to the death."

"Nuh-uh, Urameshi!" Kuwabara disagreed. "Kurama said he'd leave some of Hiei for me!"

Botan turned to Kuwabara and scowled at him, though silently she was once more thankful for the distraction he was offering her.

"It's really none of your business!" she pointed out.

"Of course it's my business, Botan!" he argued back. "Hiei's been mocking poor, sweet, innocent Yukina all this time!"

"Well, not that I don't completely agree with you, but it's really not your place to interfere," she replied.

"Yes it is," he said stubbornly. "Yukina hired Hiei to find her brother, and all this time he's been saying stuff like "he's probably dead already". He must have known about this. There's no way his freaky little eye didn't see this."

Botan started to frown, and she glanced around the others, relieved to see that they were starting to look confused too.

"I mean seriously," Kuwabara continued. "If there was a guy in the living world who looked exactly like me, I'd know about it, even without having a telescopic eye to look for him. What's Hiei's excuse?"

"What?" Koenma echoed, eying Kuwabara over incredulously.

"Yukina's brother looks exactly like Hiei!" Kuwabara yelled back. "He's the same size, he's the same shape, he dresses the same, he has a fake jagan eye too, he uses a sword too and he's just as ugly as Hiei. How is it possible that there is another fire demon here in demon world who looks this much like Hiei, and Hiei doesn't know about it?"

"It's not possible…" Yusuke said slowly.

"It's not possible that he's this stupid…" Koenma muttered, narrowing his eyes at Kuwabara.

"Exactly," Kuwabara said, apparently not hearing Koenma's remark. "Of course Hiei must know the guy in this picture. He's just not telling us because he's an unhelpful little bastard!"

"…Are you seriously saying you think that the guy in that picture is somebody else and not actually Hiei?" Yusuke asked.

"Of course this isn't a picture of Hiei!" Kuwabara snapped angrily. "How could it be? If it was, that would mean that Hiei was Yukina's brother!"

"…Uh-huh…" Koenma said, watching Kuwabara expectantly.

All five sat in silence for a long time, Kuwabara looking angry and the other four looking increasingly confused and incredulous.

"Ow…" Botan said, touching her hands to the sides of her head. "I think my brain just exploded…"

"Oh well," Yusuke said with a sigh. "And all this time Hiei thought it was a bad thing that Kuwabara is so stupid…"

Hiei had been stabbing and slicing at Kurama for several minutes without connecting once but also without suffering any retaliation from the fox. It was starting to irritate him, which was making his attacks less accurate. It seemed like Kurama was stalling for something, though surely now that his little potion had worked he no longer needed to wait to fight back. This was not at all what Hiei had been expecting: he had thought that Kurama's home-grown Fruits of Previous Life turned him into a mindless fighting machine, but he seemed a lot calmer and more in control this time. In fact, the only difference between the Kurama he was facing now to the one who had stepped into the ring with him was his appearance and the increase in demon energy radiating off of him. He was still calm and calculating Kurama despite being in his full demon form; apparently his experiments with those fruits had finally paid off. But just how far had he managed to mutate the fruits he grew? Surely the effects of his transformation would not be permanent, and if time was of the essence, why was he wasting so much of it now?

Hiei leapt back from Kurama and paused. He paused to see if Kurama would launch an attack and he paused to check on two other things: first he checked to see if Kurama was out of breath or in any way injured and secondly he checked on that strange plant by the edge of the ring. Kurama was unscathed and not in the least out of breath – which was quite annoying, since Hiei himself was starting to sweat and he was breathing a little harder than usual – and the plant was still standing dormant where it had been planted. It looked harmless, though Hiei knew better than to judge anything about Kurama based purely on how it appeared to the eyes. He had no idea what the purpose of the plant was, but, thanks to Botan's big mouth, he did know that the seed for the plant had come from that bug-eating little monstrosity Kurama had been keeping like a pet in his apartment, and that thing had been easily destroyed with a single slice of his sword and a burst of flames. That being the case, the bigger version Youko Kurama had planted by the ring ought to be just as easily killed, and killing it was the highest priority in Hiei's mind right then, since he believed that it was the main part of Kurama's strategy and if it was at all like the smaller version from his apartment, it had the ability to uproot itself and start running about, which was an added complication he did not need.

With that thought in mind, Hiei tightened his grip on his sword and darted towards the plant. It was a gamble, since the plant might attack somehow, but it was one he knew he was going to have to take to force Kurama into an alternate offence and to hopefully end the fight. A short, fast and hard fight favoured Hiei, but a long, slow and strategic fight would favour Kurama, so it was imperative that Hiei took control and upped the pace of the action.

As he neared the plant, Hiei saw Kurama start towards him, which he had predicted would happen. He made to swing a backhanded swipe at the plant, altering the angle of his attack at the last possible second. Kurama somehow managed to punch him in the side of the head before his sword connected, but the blow did little to reduce the damage Hiei's sword made as it collided with Kurama's right shoulder and tore downwards diagonally across his chest, leaving a long and almost dangerously deep bloody gash.

Hiei hit the ground, his head throbbing slightly from the blow he had taken. He was forced to blink several times to clear his vision, which had blurred slightly. Kurama's punch had perhaps been harder than it had felt, his rush of adrenaline having numbed the pain, but it had not done enough damage to keep Hiei down, only to push him back from the plant. Hiei started to rise, watching Kurama stumble slightly, before a strange look passed over his features, his golden eyes widening slightly. Hiei tensed as they both fell under a shadow, and looking up he saw that the plant had suddenly become animated, as though the smell of Kurama's blood had awoken its hunger. Hiei quickly leapt back twice, taking himself out of the plant's reach. He made to take a third leap to be sure of his safety, but staggered and fell onto his rear-end in shock as the plant lunged forwards, biting its jaws down over Kurama's shoulder, one jaw covering his back the other covering the length of the wound Hiei had created.

Hiei watched on in stunned silence as the plant proceeded to suck at Kurama's body, his demonic energy lessening by the second.

"Holy shit!" Yusuke blurted, standing up and leaning forwards.

"Did Kurama just mess up?" Kuwabara asked. "Kurama never messes up!"

"Oh no!" Botan wailed. "It must be because the plant is faulty! And it must be faulty because of the way he got the seed for it!"

"I don't believe this…" Yusuke muttered.

All five – Kuwabara, George, Koenma, Yusuke and Botan – were on their feet and watching intently as the demon plant in the ring mercilessly drained blood and demon energy from Kurama. Hiei was still sitting several feet back from the plant, watching with as much horrified confusion in his eyes as the five watching them from the arena.

"Well folks, this is a definite first!" Koto's voice echoed around the arena. "In all my years of calling tournament action, I've never once seen a plant turn on the demon controlling it, and I've definitely never seen one of Kurama's strategies fail him so horribly! It looks like the plant is literally feeding off of Kurama's blood and demon energy, and it appears to be getting bigger from the feed – I only wish it would open its jaw a little so that we could actually see how the plant is doing this: it is just sucking from Kurama's open wound or did it use its teeth to bite in there? Can we get a better angle on this fight? The audience here want to see more blood!"

"I despise that neurotic, single-minded bitch!"

Kuwabara, George and Yusuke all turned to Botan in shock at her words, but she did not notice them, her eyes still fixed on the screen ahead of them. Koenma did not look in the slightest surprised at her outburst.

"Can we at least get audio on this feed?" Koto cried. "It looks like Youko Kurama is screaming in agony, and that's one sound this girl would love to hear!"

Botan growled, gripping her hands into her sleeves. On the screen the plant holding onto Kurama was undeniably getting bigger. Its stalk was growing much thicker but not any taller, and it head was swelling. The textured surfaces of its jaws were starting to turn smooth as they were stretched, and eventually the plant almost literally spat Kurama out, its head dropping to the ground with a thud. It looked like Hana had after Botan had fed her the demon world maggot: apparently the plant had just had a good feed and now it was settling down to digest its meal.

Kurama was left on all fours and breathless. His long silvery hair was hanging down around him, obscuring his face and most of his upper body from clear view, but even watching the screen the audience could see the blood dripping from his chest. Hiei slowly got back to his feet, returning his katana to its sheath at his side. Apparently even he could see that Kurama was in no fit state to continue.

"I don't get it," Yusuke said, shaking his head. "If this ends because Kurama messed up, I'm gonna be seriously pissed off! Kurama never messes up! That plant was faulty!"

Botan whimpered. If the plant was faulty, that was surely at least partly her fault. She had always known that Kurama should not have used those crazy fruits that grew from the odd-looking Tree of Previous Life her spirit energy had grown.

"You're just bitter because you bet on Kurama winning," Koenma commented.

"You gambled on this fight?" Botan roared, rounding on her boss.

"Just between ourselves," Yusuke told her. "Me and Kuwabara bet on Kurama winning."

"And George and I bet on Hiei," Koenma added.

"I didn't bet on anyone," George said, scratching his head.

"Yes you did," Koenma corrected him.

"But I don't even have anything to gamble with, Lord Koenma Sir!" George pointed out. "You took all of my money!"

Koenma sighed but said nothing more.

"I think it's deplorable that you all bet against your friends like that!" Botan scolded them.

"You're just mad that you missed your chance to place a bet," Kuwabara muttered.

"I would never do anything so low!" Botan argued.

"If you had been here, who would you have bet on?" Koenma asked her.

She gasped indignantly.

"Neither!" she hissed. "Sir, how could you even think that I would stoop so low as to–"

"Never mind," Yusuke interrupted her. "It looks like it's about all over down there anyway. Though I have to say, I am a bit disappointed that Kurama messed up with his plant. I thought this was gonna be a really exciting fight, but… It was quite crap, really."

"Hn, you've lost more than half your demon energy, I could finish you with one well-aimed kick of my boot," Hiei said confidently.

"Don't be foolish, Hiei," Kurama replied.

The fox lifted his head enough to bring his face into Hiei's line of sight. His face was as pained with exhaustion as his body, which was frankly quite amusing to Hiei.

"Foolish?" he snorted. "Me? You're the one who over-thought this whole thing, and now look: it's backfired on you. I always warned you that this would happen to you one day. I always told you that one day you would waste too much effort on strategy and thinking and hesitating, and one day you would face an opponent who would show you the error of your ways. You say I'm too direct and brutal, but let me now show you why my way is better than yours."

"Stop!" Kurama snarled, slowly rising to his feet.

Hiei stopped his advance, deciding that he would humour the fox before he ended the fight as a last favour to an old ally.

"You always say that the only thing you hate more than being underestimated is when you yourself underestimate an opponent," Kurama said, his voice slightly strained, one hand pressed to the wound on his chest. "If you think you can still defeat me with sword tricks and basic hand-to-hand combat, you are sorely underestimating me. I may have lost some blood and a substantial amount of my demon energy but don't let that fool you – I am still quite capable of beating you."

Hiei smirked, surprised to hear Kurama talk so arrogantly to him.

"Are you trying to piss me off?" he asked. "I was happy to just slap you about until you lost consciousness, but if you want something more complete, I will gladly oblige you."

"Do what you think is best," Kurama replied.

"Fine then," Hiei said.

He reached a hand up and pulled off his bandana, opening his jagan eye.

"I'll show you why a strong offence wins every time," he added.

Hiei began unwinding the warding bandages from around his right arm, which was starting to spark with dark energy. Kurama looked like he might be smiling slightly, but Hiei could only assume that it was in acceptance of his fate: Kurama knew as well as anyone that once Hiei had launched the dragon, it would not rest until it had consumed its victim. Hiei had not really wanted to use such a desperate tactic to win – killing Kurama was not something he actually wanted to do, despite having pretended otherwise going into the fight. He believed that Kurama did not intend to kill him either, but both valued honour above all else, and the most honourable death for a warrior was in combat, so perhaps it was fitting that their fight should be one to the death after all.

"Any last words?" Hiei asked as he dropped the remainder of the bandage at his side.

"I hope you're sure about this," Kurama quietly replied.

"…Strange choice of words…" Hiei muttered.

Hiei took position to launch his attack, only hesitating when Kurama held out his hands, rapidly enveloping himself in a smokescreen. It seemed like a ridiculous move – desperate, almost – as it would do nothing to stop the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, which would of course find Kurama by his energy signal. It was so pathetic it almost made Hiei feel a slight pang of pity for his old ally – but only almost.

"Dragon of the Darkness Flame!" he yelled, releasing the black dragon from his arm.

The dragon burst forth in an eruption of black flames, jaws wide, and dived into the cloud of smoke surrounding Kurama. Hiei expended his energy into the dragon to drive it onwards and it took an effort to hold himself at that point when he saw the dragon emerging from the other side of the smoke with a silver-haired fox demon between its jaws. The dragon arced upwards and around, its jaws slowly closing around Kurama, who was apparently trying to stop the attack with his hands and feet pressed against either jaw of the beast, but it was a battle he was slowly losing. Hiei doubted that Kurama could have stopped the dragon if he had been at full strength, but the way he was he had no hope of stopping it. Within seconds of the dragon catching him, Kurama had vanished into its jaws and the dragon had wound itself around Hiei's arm again, leaving only a charred image of Kurama on a rock far from the ring and Hiei feeling exhausted.

Hiei touched a hand to his chest, surprised to find that it felt tight again. It was that same strange feeling he had felt the night before when he was with Botan. What was that? It was really annoying and distracting. As he looked over at the remains of his ally he felt it get tighter. He turned his attention to the dissipating smoke instead, seeing that the weird plant Kurama had relied so heavily on had wilted in a sticky pile of goo. It looked like it had broken apart and spilled its innards. Perhaps the dragon had damaged it on its way to catch Kurama. It looked quite pitiful, and Hiei silently wondered what had gone wrong with Kurama's plan: though he did not wonder for long, as two things happened at once, and neither one was welcome. First of all he was hit by a wave of exhaustion that made him stagger and his eyelids droop and secondly he heard something that kept his mind fully alert and awake but was unfortunately not enough to keep his body fully awake.

"Do you regret trying to kill me, Hiei?"

Maybe it was madness, Hiei mused, or perhaps the start of a dream since he was so close to sleep. It had sounded like Kurama's voice, but it was not Youko Kurama's voice, it was Shuichi's voice – which made even less sense.

"Or maybe you just regret your earlier hubris."

Hiei blinked heavily, one knee buckling slightly beneath him. As tired as he was, he was almost certain that he was not imagining hearing Kurama's voice.

"I may well have over-thought this day Hiei, but perhaps you were too reckless."

At the sound of something squelching unpleasantly Hiei turned towards the dying demon plant, his eyes widening as much as they could against his heavy eyelids as he saw one of the plant's browning jaws slide aside.

"I appreciate the point you were trying to make," Kurama said, rising from beneath the plant, once more in his red-haired human form. "But now it's my turn. You never even asked me what the doppelganger plant does, despite me allowing you that opportunity. Had you known, I'm sure you wouldn't have just wasted all of your energy on that last attack."

"…How is this…?" Hiei mumbled out as Kurama started to stagger across the ring towards him.

"The doppelganger plant feeds off of blood and spirit energy," Kurama explained. "And from the blood and spirit energy that it absorbs, it creates a doppelganger – or clone – of its victim. I never intended for this plant to attack you, I needed it to attack me. I let you draw blood from me to instigate the attack, and I stalled this fight so that I would revert back to this form shortly after the plant had taken what it needed from me. With half of my energy gone and a significant blood loss, once I reverted back to this human body, my energy signal was negligible compared to the one emitted by the clone my plant created. Your dragon attacked the clone because that was the last thing you saw: Youko Kurama. All I had to do was create a small confusion to allow me to open the plant and release the imitation Youko."

Kurama gave Hiei that smile that always seriously pissed him off.

"So you see Hiei, sometimes it's good to think," he said gently.

Hiei staggered slightly, only managing to stay upright because Kurama reached out one hand and caught his shoulder to steady him on his feet. He reached his other hand into his hair and produced a small blade of grass. He flicked his wrist and the blade broke apart, frittering to the ground.

"Isn't this almost comical?" he asked, smiling at Hiei with that irksome smile again. "Neither of us has enough energy left to launch a decent attack. I suppose I could just let you fall to the ground unconscious and I would be declared the victor, but we did promise that this would be a fight to the death, and you definitely just tried to kill me."

Hiei wanted to tell the fox to just shut-up and kill him already. He was drained completely and seconds away from passing out, all this talking was just pointless gloating as far as he was concerned.

"So I hope you don't mind if I just borrow this," Kurama said, reaching a hand towards Hiei's hip.

Hiei watched helplessly as Kurama drew out his sword. He pressed the tip against Hiei's chest, twisting it slightly from side to side until blood began to trail down the length of the blade, before angling the weapon downwards and resting the hilt against the side of one of his feet.

"Now all I have to do is let go," he said, lessening his hold on Hiei's shoulder slightly and allowing him to drop forwards slightly to illustrate his point.

Hiei gave Kurama a scowl but said nothing.

"Do you have any regrets, Hiei?" Kurama asked him.

"Just one," Hiei faintly replied. "And that's that I had to die listening to you talking shit."

Kurama gave him another of his infuriating smiles before opening his hand.

Kuwabara and George hugged each other and Koenma, Yusuke and Botan stood leaning forwards, all five holding their breaths in anticipation of what was going to happen next. Kurama had taken Hiei's sword and pierced it into his chest before angling it against his foot in such a way that if Hiei were to fall forwards – which he was inevitably going to do due to his exhaustion after unleashing the Dragon of the Darkness Flame – he would impale himself on his own sword and surely die.

"Well I take back what I said about Kurama disappointing me," Yusuke muttered. "Looks like he was just as insightful and brutal as ever."

"I'm scared!" Kuwabara said. "Kurama's always been the most scary! He's always hiding something! How do we know he won't do that to us someday?"

"Let's all pray that Kurama never uses that plant on you, Kuwabara," Koenma said flatly. "One of you is already more idiot than we can handle, we definitely don't need two of you."

"He's not actually going to do this," Yusuke said. "He's proved his point already – he made Hiei look like an idiot for rushing in without planning ahead – and Kurama values his friends, so he won't kill Hiei, I'm sure of it."

"I'm not!" Botan wailed.

"I am absolutely sure of it," Yusuke said.

They all watched as Kurama opened his hand against Hiei's shoulder and took a step back. In his exhaustion Hiei did the only thing that he could and fell forwards, his actions driving his own sword through his chest completely and out his back in a burst of blood.

"How sure are you, Urameshi?" Kuwabara asked.

"…I'm not sure at all…" Yusuke replied weakly.

"Bloody and brutal ending to an unpredictable fight, folks!" Koto called out as the arena killed with a mixture of cries. "And Kurama advances to the fourth round!"

Botan shook her head and even Yusuke had paled.

"…I didn't think he'd actually do it…" Yusuke muttered.

"Me neither," Koenma agreed.

"Why?" Botan whimpered. "Why did he do it? He didn't have to! He had already won! Hiei was completely defenceless, there's no honour in that!"

"It's the nature of the tournament, Botan," Koenma told her. "Every fighter enters knowing that they may not make it through alive. Any demon who loses a fight but manages to keep his life has been extremely lucky."

"But it's unnecessary and it's unfair and it's too cruel!" she argued.

"It probably is unnecessary," Yusuke agreed. "But Kurama and Hiei promised each other that they would take this all the way. Hiei was probably happy to die like that. He wanted an honourable death, and better that he died in battle against an opponent he respected so much than in some sort freak accident doing spirit world's dirty work."

"Hey, I resent that remark!" Koenma snapped.

"You understand, don't you Botan?" Yusuke asked, touching a hand to Botan's shoulder.

"No!" she said faintly. "It's just not fair!"

She dropped back down onto the bench and buried her face in her hands, her mind only able to focus on one coherent thought: Hiei was dead and it was mostly her fault. Due to her dishevelled clothing, her sudden sitting down caused something to fall loose from one sleeve of her kimono, though in her distress she failed to notice it as it hit the ground and spun away from her along the bench. However although Botan did not notice what she had dropped, Koenma did. He looked down at the gleaming object on the ground for a long time before bending down to retrieve it, turning it over in his hand to confirm what it was. He stood up again and looked over at Botan, confirming that she was still completely absorbed in her own misery before tucking the object into his pocket: he had a feeling he might have a good use for it later on.

Next Chapter: Kuwabara still doesn't get it (he's in denial, he's not stupid) and Botan bumps into a familiar face from the past (way, way back in the past) that leads to a few complications. Chapter 37: The Realisation

A/N: I originally intended to have this fight end in a draw, but then when I decided to have Botan get involved with getting the fruit for Kurama, I figured this was better (ie more complicated – oh how I love the complications). Granted, this was a bit convoluted, but it was all relevant (I think)!

I'm not meaning to make Kuwabara stupid either, I do honestly think he would be so deep in denial he would not accept that Hiei is actually Yukina's brother – after all, in his eyes, Yukina is perfect and Hiei is perfectly awful.

It will all come together, but some of it not until the last few chapters…