"What happened?" Yukina asked as she moved in closer, "Can I ask that?"

Hiei explained, "You already know the first betrayal. That entire ice maiden race thought I deserved to die from birth, so they attempted to kill me."

"I'm sorry," she whispered and let a tear escape from her eye just thinking about how horrible that moment must have felt like for him.

He continued, "I was found by bandits after that, like I mentioned before. I spent years of my life considering them my family, but as I grew older they feared me. I never would have hurt them. I guess they didn't believe that, so they abandoned me as well. Just like the ice maidens."

"I know bandits aren't known to be great people," she said, "but I do feel bad that they did that to you."

He glanced down and said, "I spent time alone after that, too afraid to really get close to anyone. When I met Kurama, I alligned myself with him out of desperation. Somewhere along the way I stole the artifacts of darkness from the vault with him but he left. I remember that now, he said he was leaving that alliance."

"Kurama betrayed you?" she asked nervously.

"Yes," he remembered, "after he got what he wanted from the forlorn hope he helped Yusuke defeat me. I still don't know what came over me back then. It's all hazy, but I trusted Kurama again and nothing bad has happened since. Now this. Genkai fought hard in the dark tournament on the same team." He leaned back against the tree he was sitting at the base of, "She didn't need to orcastrate all of that."

Yukina inched her way closer to him and said, "I agree. She didn't need to do all of that. We've wasted precious time."

"Hn," he smiled, "you should tell her that. Give someone a piece of your mind for once."

She replied, "I've told you it feels like their's a fire burning within you, right? Well, when I was standing beside you in that house I could feel it fading."

"I felt sick the whole time we were in there."

"That must be it," she said, "snuffing out your internal flame, now that's unforgiveable."

Hiei stayed within the trees by the time daylight came. Yukina on the otherhand ventured back to the old mansion and found that the groups had just left for Mushiori city. She followed them and found the entire place covered in bugs and quickly found Kurama's group. [Kurama, Kuwabara, Botan, and Kaito]

"I'm glad I found you," Yukina said happily.

Kuwabara asked, "So you're back with us now?"

"Why not?" she asked, "What are you doing, anyway?"

Kurama explained, "We're trying to find the centerpoint of this tunnel to demon world."

As they walked, Yukina noticed they were being followed. She figured since it was a human they weren't much of a threat and didn't say anything. It wasn't until they found an empty field that Kurama mentioned something. "Someone saw us," he said uneasily.

"Well of course," she said, "that human has been following us for miles. I didn't deem him him a threat so I didn't say anything."

"What?!" Kuwabara shouted, "You could have said something before!"

Yukina said, "He's still nearby, he's just getting better a concealing himself now. I don't know where he is." She looked around but couldn't tell which direction the presense was coming from.

Kurama said, "As a precaution we should meet up with Genkai's group. It would have been better if we knew about this before, Yukina."

"Did you just scold me?" she asked, "I didn't come here to help you and then get scolded for it, I'm leaving."

"Yukina!" Kuwabara shouted after her, "wait!"

As Yukina left the city she felt Hiei's energy appear beside her. He was sitting on a branch in a tree in the forest she was walking beside. She turned and walked over to him and he met her at ground level. "Did you watch?" she asked. He nodded. "Why?" she asked.

He answered, "I can't bring myself to betray them."

She smiled and replied, "Well they don't have much of a start. They went to what they thought were the center point but nothing was there."

"It's underground," Hiei explained, "in a massive cave system under the city. You were at the center, just hundreds of feet above it."

"You can see all of that?" she asked, "How come you couldn't before?"

"I didn't check this human city," he explained as he jumped down to her level, "but they're wrong. 3 weeks too far off. There's a demon at the center of this tunnel and he's carving it out on a regular basis. It'll be open within a week, I'm sure of it. Humans and demons are working together in order to do this."

She asked, "Do you know how many?"

"One was following you," he said, "and one is in the tunnel. The one following you retreated to where two other humans are, making 4 so far. Wait, there is 1 more waiting at the cave they're in, making 6 total." He turned and looked in that direction. "No..." he whispered in shock.

Yukina asked, "What's wrong?"

"One of them has an odd energy. It's like it was human at one time but it definetly demon now," he explained, "and the demon energy, it's the same as elder Toguro's."

"But he's dead."

"Apparently not."

Yukina said, "I might be mad at them but they should probably know."

Hiei grabbed her arm and said, "Don't go. Something just happened." He took his headband off so he could see better and tried to trace where he saw the strange energy appear.

"What?" she asked.

"Someone got shot," he said, "but it wasn't with a bullet. It was with pure energy, obviously human. Where is he?"

"Who was shot?" Yukina asked nervously.

Hiei stared into the forest and saw sniper. "There," he said, "he shot a human they decided to team up with. He's not going to die but they're in a panic." He let go of her.

She said, "I'm glad it's no one we know, is it the enemy? Why would they attack without the intent to kill? Did he miss?"

"No," he explained, "it's more likely that he only wanted to injure and scare them." He covered his jagan eye again.

"What's wrong?"

Hiei shook his head and said, "It's that loud human machine that shoots off crazy lights. It always gives me a headache." He turned away.

"They must be taking them to a hospital, right?" Yukina asked, "I'll meet them there and tell them what we know."

"Wait," Hiei said, "they would go to the hospital. It's a trap, someone must be inside there. That's why they only injured him. There has to be at least 7 people working together on this." He took off his jagan and searched the hospital. "Stay back for now and let the situation play out."

"Shouldn't we tell them?"

He frowned at her and said, "I'll tell Kurama telepathically."