A/N: Yay! Early update (mostly cause you guys wanted it so much :P See, that's how you motivate me. Leave me lots of love, and I will reciprocate ~)! I really hope that you guys like this and my reasoning and rationale behind it all. :P

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Upload Date: 12/20/12

Next Upload Date: In about a week


Chiryo

Chapter 53

Something like a rock dropped itself in Hiei's mind, and he instinctively pulled his arm back. It shivered painfully just from the small motion. "Excuse me?"

Her eyes glowing, Riko explained, "The damage is confined to just the right arm, so the best way to get rid of the damage… is to remove it."

Hiei stared at her. "I want to be able use my arm."

Undeterred, Riko replied, "I know." She paused, checked her reserve of power again. It seemed even lower than it had been just a minute ago. She turned her concentration back to Hiei's face. His eyes seemed darker than normal. She wondered how much she'd have to say to convince him. Well, I might as well start.

"Okay, it's like this. The kind of damage that you sustained to your arm isn't something that can just be healed or removed. I don't think that any conventional way of healing can return the use of your arm back to you." She stopped, allowed Hiei to take the words in and then continued. "What I can do however is to cut off your arm, get rid of the damage that way, and then… regrow the arm."

Behind the two of them, Jirou's eyes widened in surprise. Regeneration was not a common healing technique. It was risky. After all, if the regeneration failed, the person being healed would be completely missing one part of themselves, and besides that, it took deep concentration and knowledge of the body. One had to knit together not only skin and muscle, but also bone, tendons, fat and – worst of all – nerves.

"And," Riko added after several moments of quiet, "I can even regrow it with a spark of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame's power. It'll be small enough that it can't hurt you, but it'll let you become one with the dragon and control it." She blinked into Hiei's deep crimson eyes and then, tenuously, stretched a small hand out to him.

For a minute that seemed to stretch into forever, Hiei stared into her eyes. There was a sense of power behind them that he wasn't used to seeing from the human. After all, she was such a weak fighter… and yet here, in the moment… it was like he could see purple light around her like a halo, and in her eyes, the eyes of all those that she had healed before – most recently Kurama, Kuwabara, and Yusuke.

I would never trust her in a fight, Hiei thought. But –

He laid his arm back into her hand, ignoring the tingle that ran down it, half-pain, half-relief as their skin touched. With his left hand, he ran his fingers along the hilt of his katana and then offered it to Riko.

Carefully, Riko laid Hiei's right arm in her lap and took the sword with both hands, ignoring the weight. She glanced behind her at Jirou and raised an eyebrow. The half-demon held out a hand and send a thin thread of power into Riko's body, making the girl shiver violently and then steady. She nodded and then looked back at Hiei.

The katana's blade caught the light as Riko slowly raised it into the air. In the reflection, it was possible to discern Riko's eyes, glowing with pure lavender fire.


.


Yusuke crumpled the can of juice and tossed the aluminum ball towards the trash can. It hit the rim, bounced and then tumbled onto the ground. Scowling, Yusuke got up, picked the ball up, walked back to his seat and this time, taking more careful aim, shot the ball neatly into the container.

"Yusuke. Stop playing around," Koenma ordered. "Come listen. I need to give you a briefing on the next team."

Reluctantly, Yusuke joined Koenma, where he stood with Kurama and Kuwabara. Kurama was reading a file report over Koenma's shoulder, while Kuwabara smiled, with a silly expression, at Yukina who beamed back. Half an hour had passed since they'd entered the room. In another half an hour, they would start the final match.

"Well? What is it?" Yusuke demanded.

After giving his detective an irritated look, Koenma gestured towards the file. Inside were what looked to be profiles. "Team Rokuyukai," Koenma explained. "They are the final team. Five members, just like you, but I believe that only three will pose any kind of real threat." He pulled out three sheets of paper. "This is Chu, the team leader. From what we've seen of his fights, he is a very strong hand-to-hand combatant. This is Rinku. He uses manipulation on outside objects to fight, specifically those yo-yos he's carrying. And this is Zeru. He appears to be a fire demon."

"Fire?" Kurama murmured.

"Fire," Koenma confirmed.

"Like Hiei," Kuwabara said quietly, his attention suddenly on the file.

Again, Koenma confirmed, "Like Hiei."

There was a brief silence as thoughts drifted to the missing two, but with a shake of the head, Koenma brought his team's attention back to his sheets. "I believe the best way for us to go about this would be a simple three out of five situation. I don't want to put too much pressure on you guys by pushing another five fights. If we're lucky, they might get confident and put up one of their weaker fighters. If not… well, I expect the three of you to win." He looked at them serious. "You must not lose. The Rokuyukai's team also has some very strong sponsors. If one of you loses, even if the other two win, they might declare it your loss because there is no one to fight a deciding match."

"One of us could fight again," Kuwabara pointed out.

Koenma shook his head. "It's unlikely that they would allow that. Remember. They don't fight fair. If one of you loses… it'll be their victory."

"Of course," Kurama commented dryly. He took a last look at the files and raised an eyebrow. "Interesting." He looked at Kuwabara and Yusuke. "They're sponsored by Ferai."

Kuwabara and Yusuke looked at each other and then grinned.

"Finally," Yusuke said, cracking his knuckles. "We can get some revenge."


.


When the katana met Hiei's skin, Jirou closed his eyes, expecting a splattering of blood and some negative reaction from Hiei. Neither prediction occurred. When he opened his eyes, Jirou stared at the scene before him. Hiei was sitting, face completely impassive, while Riko tossed aside the sword and after a moment, put down the now severed arm, cut at the elbow. Not a single drop of blood had been spilled – Riko was holding it in place with her spirit energy.

Letting out a slight breath, Riko murmured, "Bear with the pain. I don't have enough power to lessen it for you." And with that brief sentence, she began her work.

Purple sparks spilled out of her, covering the stump of Hiei's right arm, each spark taking up for a strand of muscle, a weave of skin, a sliver of bone. There was a brief image of an arm traced in light where Hiei's arm should have been, and then, Riko started to build on the image.

It was a very slow process. The bone was the first to grow, first drawn in violet and then followed by an outpouring of ivory that started thin, but gradually grew thicker and strong until the likeness of an arm bone began to appear. It was joined by another, the two held apart by pale sparks for the moment. More space appeared and then smaller bones – the wrist, tiny round pieces that fitted evenly together.

A drop of sweat rolled down Riko's forehead.

Now the wrist began to solidify, and Riko moved her attention onto the hand, long bones for the palm followed by several shorter ones to make up the fingers. As she traced over the image created by her magic, Riko noted absently, He has nice fingers. The last ivory drop solidified, and leaning back for a moment, Riko surveyed her work.

Hiei's arm looked like a museum exhibit. It was cut off at the elbow, but the rest of the arm was written in light, fitted so perfectly that it almost looked real, and in the center of that light, bone, solid, shimmering slightly.

Lovely, Riko thought, very self-satisfied.

She returned her attention to the arm, focusing next on ligaments, connecting the bones to each other until the spaces between them were filled. Without stopping, she moved right on to her next task – muscles.

It was slightly harder than the bones, which had been rather straightforward. With the muscle, more technique was involved – were the muscles shorter or longer (which would affect the speed), and where in particular were they built up. The task took quite a bit out of Riko, and by the end of the process, sweat was dripping into her eyes.

To deal with the problem, she blinked once very hard, feeling the sweat roll down her face and then opened them rapidly and stared back at the limb she was dealing with.

Time passed quickly as Riko worked, and eventually, Jirou, who had been quite tense at the beginning of the process, relaxed himself into a more comfortable position. He checked his phone several times as ten minutes passed, twenty, and rounding on forty minutes as Riko finished with the muscles.

Next came tendons, connecting muscle to bone to allow movement, veins and arteries. She shifted the arm, testing the looseness, nodded to herself, and then began on the fat and skin. Both were fairly simple. Hiei didn't have all that much fat, and while skin was important, it wasn't necessary that she got ever blemish right. That wouldn't affect the functionality.

Finally, Riko reached the nerves. She took a slight step back, examining her work. From any eye's view, the arm was now perfectly attached, flowing so seamlessly from the shoulder down that it would be impossible to see where she had cut it. She took a breath, allowing herself just a moment of rest and then bore down on the problem.

Nerves were delicate. They were picky. Once they were cut, they didn't like to be reattached like all the rest – no, they had to be special.

Starting at the finger tips, Riko began to build the network of nerves, sewing gently. Her power darted under the newly formed skin, causing it to light up very, very faintly, a light that was almost invisible to anyone who wasn't expecting it. She breathed out and began to move down the hand, taking the wrist into account and then further, instilling touch and control.

As she went along, Riko made sure that the nerves remembered the feel of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, embedding it into their memory so that the next time, Hiei would be able to call on the dragon without being hurt. It was something that would have been impossible if Hiei hadn't already been hurt, but now that he was, she could use the injury to his advantage.

When she had reached the end, Riko took a group of bright purple sparks and placed one on each original nerve and then another group on the new nerves and slowly, she nudged her energy closer together until they touched, and the nerves connected. There was a bright glow, and then the sparks sank into the particles, dissipating into Hiei's arm.

Riko let out a sigh and sat back, hard.

Jirou let out a low noise, almost like a whistle. "Wow," He murmured. "That was impressive." He checked his phone, which told him blithely that almost an hour and a half had passed since the start of the process.

Tilting her head back, Riko smiled at him. "I know." Sparks danced around her face like demented little imps. She tilted her head to look at Hiei. "Okay," She said, breathless. "That's it." Her eyes blazed purple, crackling light that seemed almost feverish and gave her an insane feel. "Try it," She urged. Her voice cracked and hissed as she spoke, but Riko didn't seem to notice.

A bit hesitantly, almost as if he was afraid Hiei moved his arm. It flowed naturally, moving with no issue. He flexed the fingers and then, almost trembling picked up his sword and slashed the air before him, coming very close to Riko's face.

Without flinching, Riko watched as Hiei tested out his new arm. Her breathing was coming more shallowly, and she could feel herself starting to slide between states of consciousness. She waited patiently, however, for Hiei to look back at her before announcing, "You have about…" She made a face, estimating, "Twenty minutes, give or take a few, to get me to some other healer, and after that, I'm fairly certain I'm going to die from exhaustion, so please try not to waste any time getting revenge on anyone." She glanced at Valeina's prone body. "You can do that later."

She paused and then added, "Oh, and I do expect you to get me out alive. If you don't do it cause you didn't try hard enough, I will come back and haunt you. If you don't do it cause you can't…" Riko shook her head. "I'll be extremely disappointed."

Her eyes seemed to burn even more brightly with purple sparks in the seconds that she met Hiei's, red versus lavender in a crackling display, before they closed, and she fell heavily to the side. Before she could hit the ground, Hiei had caught her. With unusual care, he slung the girl over one shoulder. He looked at Jirou. "Are you ready, human?"

Blinking in mild surprise, Jirou nodded, scrambling to his feet.

Hiei held Riko tightly with his left hand and lifted his newly formed right. Fire flickered up from the palm, mostly red and blue-white flames, but with a hint of the black ones that had hurt him in the first place. He smiled, an expression that was torn between cruelty and satisfaction, and turned, directing the fire towards the steel wall that separated them from the rest of the house.

Twenty minutes.

End of Chapter 53


Happy almost end of the world, everyone! (Also, be sure to search "Just Dance 4 Dance Off - Week 3: Juddy" on Youtube and LIKE IT!)