Chapter 16 – Out of the Fire

Leaping out of the top floor window of a three-storey house, the curtains flapping at either side of her exit and with her arms firmly wrapped around a ball of beige fur and pink chiffon, Fubuki looked like the hero of an action movie; and, judging by the grin on her face as she landed on her toes with the grace of a true acrobat, she thought she actually was an action hero. Kurama watched as she strode past the perplexed firefighters and on towards the family group huddled by the end of the garden, whereupon she opened out her arms and passed a Pomeranian in a pink tutu to a frantic little girl. The girls' parents began showering Fubuki with praise and gratitude, which she was less than humble about accepting. Kurama decided to use the moment of distraction to do what neither Fubuki nor Akira had bothered to, and he quickly sought out the cause of the blaze that was ravaging the large mansion, eliminating the pest with a single lash of his Rose Whip. He then carefully made his way over to join Fubuki, who was still enjoying the attention she was receiving.

"It was nothing," she said. "I've jumped out from greater heights, carrying heavier weights and with something much scarier than fire chasing after me!"

"We're so glad you managed to rescue our dog," the father of the family said. "My little princess just adores her dog and she would be lost without her."

"It's all in a day's work for me," Fubuki casually replied.

"Did you find my cat, Miss?"

Fubuki and Kurama looked down at the little boy looking up at them through tear-filled eyes.

"It's too dangerous for the nice lady to go back inside again," the boy's mother told him. "We don't even know if your cat was in the house when the fire started."

Kurama and Fubuki slowly lifted their heads, their eyes meeting.

"Don't even think about it," Kurama quietly warned her.

"We've gotta go back anyway, right?" she whispered back. "We still have to stop the little pest, don't we?"

"I've already taken care of that," Kurama replied. "Because you and Akria both forgot to."

Fubuki leaned closer to him.

"So the fire isn't getting any worse, right?" she asked. "So now we could sneak back in and get the cat."

Kurama leaned closer to her.

"We shouldn't even have shown our faces to anyone here," he pointed out. "If we are seen at events like this, we will gain a reputation as vigilantes."

"So?"

"So we have to keep a low profile – not only because we don't want trouble with the authorities during the Dark Age but also because we need to have a life after the Dark Age and that could be complicated if we are remembered as troublemakers."

"We're not troublemakers, we're heroes!"

"Trust me, that is not how we will be remembered."

Fubuki moved closer to Kurama again and he moved closer to her, waiting for her to answer him.

"You know you actually have really good skin for a 2000 year old fox," she whispered.

Kurama was momentarily unsure of how to respond, but he was shortly saved the bother of having to as their exchange was abruptly interrupted.

"Not interrupting anything, am I?"

At first, Kurama merely registered the voice addressing them as a familiar one, and did not associate it specifically with any one person, and so only when he turned to the source of the voice did he realise who had spoken.

"Oh hey, you!" Fubuki said cheerfully. "What are you doing here? Oh wait, are you here to give us more bad news?"

Botan gave Fubuki a slightly disapproving look before turning her attention back to Kurama.

"Where's Akira?" she asked him.

Kurama hesitated before answering as he realised that Akira was still inside the burning house – not that it ought to be a major problem for a fire demon, though it could be if he had become trapped beneath one of the falling roof beams – and that Botan looked a little harried. Her ponytail looked a little scraggly, she looked slightly sweaty – stray strands of hair were clinging to the skin around her hairline – and her chest was heaving as though she was out of breath.

"Do you have a message for Akira from Spirit World?" Kurama asked her.

Botan opened her mouth to answer but suddenly gasped and visibly started, almost as though she had been stabbed in the back by something invisible. She turned around and stumbled slightly, and as Kurama followed the direction she was facing, he noticed Akira returning to the group, at an unhurried pace, apparently oblivious to the fact that his clothing was smoking all over, and there was a small patch of flames licking over his right shoulder.

"I found a cat," he said, holding out a slightly grubby, slightly distraught, fluffy tabby cat.

The little boy ran forwards and grabbed the cat from Akira's hands, hugging it into himself and smiling brilliantly: but the remainder of the group, including Kurama, Fubuki and Botan, all had their eyes on Akira.

"What were you thinking running into a house that's on fire?" Botan snapped suddenly.

"It's fine, I'm fire-proof," Akira answered.

"Yes you are," Botan said, bunching up one of the sleeves of her kimono. "But your clothes aren't!"

She began frantically slapping her bunched up sleeve against the small smouldering hole in Akira's outfit by his shoulder.

"Are you allowed to be here?" Akira asked her.

Botan slowed her actions as she looked over at Kurama with what was easily the strangest look he had ever seen in her eyes.

"Excuse us," she said, before bustling Akira away from the group.

Kurama turned back to the family still standing next to them, who had gone from looking distraught to relieved to downright confused.

"Let's get out of here," Kurama whispered to Fubuki.

Fubuki nodded and, despite Kurama's tone, said her goodbyes to the family and wished them luck getting their house repaired before joining Kurama as he moved away from them. He was heading towards Botan, who had taken Akira away from the group. The two appeared to be having an urgent conversation about something in hushed tones, but they quickly stopped when they noticed Kurama and Fubuki approaching.

"Is everything alright?" Kurama asked, directing his question at Botan, who he had – as Fubuki had – assumed was coming to deliver more bad news.

"Yes," Botan replied. "I was just checking that you were alright. I heard you had some trouble at a shopping mall earlier today and now this fire… I just wanted to check that you were managing alright."

"We're doing great!" Fubuki cheerfully replied. "We've got it all under control, so don't worry about it. And you can tell Koenma not to worry too, since I know he's probably the one who sent you here to check up on us."

Botan laughed nervously.

"Yes, you know how Lord Koenma worries!" she said.

"Actually Botan, if you could spare us some time, we could use your help back at the safe house," Kurama said.

Botan turned to him and again she had a strange look on her face – though this time it was simply what seemed like an inappropriate level of optimism.

"Kuwabara has suffered a quite brutal injury and his recovery will not be a simple or speedy one," Kurama explained. "Yukina's healing magic alone will be insufficient to help him, I wonder if you could come back with us and tend to Akira whilst Yukina and I tend to Kuwabara?"

Botan smiled and put an arm around Akira's shoulders.

"That would be fine by me," she said.

"Thank you, Botan," Kurama said. "We came here in Kuwabara's car, it's parked just along this road if you'd–"

"It's fine, we can fly back," Botan cut him off.

Kurama looked down at Akira who, despite having been rendered unconscious from exhaustion earlier that day and despite his clothes being ruined, looked remarkably well.

"Will you come in the car with Fubuki and I or will you go with Botan?" he asked.

"Let the kid go with Botan!" Fubuki said, waving a hand in the air. "Akira loves to fly! Right?"

Fubuki turned to Akira, who nodded.

"There you go," Fubuki said, turning back to Kurama. "Let's go."

She put her hands on Kurama's shoulders from behind and began pushing him away, leaving him with little other choice than to leave Akira with Botan in the hope that Botan would manage to get the skittish emiko back to the safe house.

Something had definitely changed. Yusuke was still not sure what it was or even when it had happened, but he was acutely aware of how much it had changed as he stood with Hiei, Touya and Chu by the pyre they had carefully constructed over Suzuka's body. Watching Hiei light the sticks had given Yusuke a strange feeling – and not just because he had been opposed to the idea of burning Suzuka's body. (Yusuke had specifically made sure that both Rinku and Shishiwakamaru were buried carefully in clearly marked sites that could later be excavated, as he was sure that they could yet be saved, but he had been over-ruled on the decision of how to honour Suzuka's death after the other three remaining members of the team had agreed that digging a grave would be too time-consuming and energy-draining.) Yusuke could not help but feel that Hiei was somehow partly to blame for all the bad things that were happening. If he felt distrustful of all of his team-mates, he would have dismissed the feeling as just a side-effect of either the dire situation, his earlier experience with Risho or else just the psychological effect the Dark Force's attacks were starting to have on everyone in Demon World; but Yusuke's suspicions were solely directed at Hiei.

Hiei had always been a little blunt and quite vocal about hating anything outside of Demon World and he had always had a tendency for the reckless and chaotic, but Yusuke had always assumed that he could rely on Hiei to do what was right when faced with a difficult situation. However, since the start of the Dark Age – or possibly even earlier than that – Hiei seemed to be doing the opposite of what was right in every situation they faced. And, to make matters even worse, he had lost his sense of humour.

Of course, Hiei had never had a sense of humour in the traditional sense. Yusuke could not share jokes with Hiei or goad him into participating in pranks like he could with Kuwabara and even Kurama, but that was not to say that Hiei did not enjoy exchanging sarcastic one-liners and indulging in the occasional bout of witty – if also slightly morbid – banter. Yusuke had always used humour as tool to connect with people and Hiei had been no exception to that rule. At first, in the very early days of their acquaintance, Hiei had rejected Yusuke's jocular manner, but, over time, he had come to accept and ultimately even indulge it. But lately it was as though the Hiei Yusuke had come to know had been swapped out for an older version of himself: one that did not understand or appreciate the quirks of Yusuke's character.

And so, as he stood watching the flames crackle away, instead of silently remembering his fallen friend, as he was sure the others were doing, Yusuke tried to figure out exactly when Hiei had changed. His first idea was that it had happened around about the time that Hiei had moved back to Demon World, at the time when he had first gone to live and train with Mukuro: but even that was wrong, as Yusuke could remember joking around with Hiei during the first Demon World Tournament. The Demon World Tournament was – according to Koenma – the main reason why the Dark Age had come early, but Yusuke's memories of the very first tournament were all quite positive. He remembered the excitement of the drawing of lots, the frantic action of the elimination rounds and then how awesome it had been to be both a participant and audience member of the actual one-on-one bouts that followed. He remembered Koenma turning up dressed as Tuxedo Mask as though he thought that look would not make him conspicuous in Demon World, he remembered Kurama's incredible transformation into Yoko during his inspired battle against Shigure and he remembered that hilarious joke he had successfully managed to play against both Hiei and Botan.

Thinking about the joke he had played on Hiei and Botan back during the first Demon World Tournament, Yusuke realised that Hiei had still at least had a sense of humour back then. He could even remember Hiei being in good spirits in all of the subsequent tournaments, with the possible exception of the last one, three years ago, when Hiei had lost to a surprisingly weak opponent: though Yusuke thought that Hiei's poor humour back then had been more down to his loss than any general change in his demeanour. Yusuke had not seen much of Hiei after that, and he supposed that, if what everyone else had said was true, the Dark Age had already been approaching by then and maybe it had been during that time that Hiei had changed. There had been a slight dip in Hiei's responsiveness to Yusuke's jokes over the years, but, since the last Demon World Tournament, it had taken a positive dive. Yusuke did not really want to be butting heads with Hiei – least of all at such a time of crisis – but it seemed almost impossible to hope that, after what they had been through and how Hiei had deal with Rinku's death, they could ever go back to the same level camaraderie they had shared during that first Demon World Tournament.

The first Demon World Tournament seemed to have been the peak of everything, Yusuke thought bitterly. It had been the peak of his ability to balance his life between Demon World and the living world, it had been the peak of his friendships with Hiei and Kurama and it had been the peak of all his other friends in general. Since that time, Keiko had grown older and become more closed-off, Kuwabara had lost interest in even humouring Yusuke with a sparring session, Hiei had changed and even Botan had gotten weird. Maybe, Yusuke thought, he was being too hard on Hiei. Maybe Hiei was not the only one who had changed. As much as Yusuke felt he could no longer play pranks on Hiei like he had during the first Demon World Tournament, he was equally as sure he would no longer be able to play that same prank on Botan that he had back then: which was unfortunate, as it had been the best prank he had ever played on anyone. The fact that he had managed to play it on both Hiei and Botan just made it all the more perfect and hilarious.

Yusuke could still remember every detail of his little trick too. He remembered how he had stumbled across Hiei – almost literally – standing in by the edge of the foyer of the hotel adjacent to the tournament arena, staring up at the fixtures board with a look that was as close to anxious as Hiei ever got: his eyes were a little wider than usual, his face was a little paler than usual and there was a faint glistening of sweat by the edges of the bandana around his forehead. Seeing his expression as an excuse to tease him, Yusuke had sidled over and grinned at the emiko until he turned to look at him.

"I don't know what you're grinning about," Hiei had grumbled.

"Watching you busting your balls," Yusuke replied, his grin widening.

"Hn, have you even looked at the tournament groupings?" Hiei asked him, holding out a hand towards the board mounted on the wall ahead of them.

Yusuke turned and looked at the board, really seeing nothing more than a long row of names at the bottom and lines and empty boxes moving up the way to a final box at the very top. Unlike the Dark Tournament, there were no oddly weighted battles – Yusuke had made sure that the tournament was arranged fairly, with every competitor being made to fight in every round, and without the sneaky additional rounds for certain fighters only like the Dark Tournament had – and so he saw no reason for Hiei to sweat.

"There's not that many rounds to get to the top," he said, assuming that was Hiei's concern.

"Idiot, it's not the number of rounds, it's my potential opponent," Hiei brusquely replied. "And yours too."

"Oh really?" Yusuke said, leaning forwards with one hand on his hip and the other rubbing at his chin as he scanned over the bottom row of the tournament board.

"Not the first round, fool," Hiei said. "The third."

Yusuke straightened up and tilted his head to one side.

"We're not at the third round yet," he pointed out.

"No, but if you project ahead, you can see who your potential opponent could be," Hiei replied. "And in some cases – like yours and mine – it's painfully obvious who our opponents will be in the third round."

"It is?"

By that point, Yusuke had noticed what Hiei was referring to. By following up from his own name to the third round and then following the line back down, Yusuke could see that his opponent in the third round would probably be Yomi, and he supposed that was a reason to be anxious; though for Yusuke, any nervousness was more from excitement than apprehension. And, looking over at where Hiei was placed, it was also obvious that Hiei would face Mukuro in the third round, which was obviously why he was getting edgy. But Yusuke could also see that Hiei was getting severely irritated by his apparent inability to read the tournament board, and Yusuke loved irritating Hiei, so he continued to feign ignorance.

"Don't you see it?" Hiei growled. "You will be fighting Yomi and I will be fighting Mukuro!"

"Really?" Yusuke responded. "Gee, how do you know that? Did your extra eyeball tell you? Was it that magic 8 ball in your forehead that predicted who your opponent would be? Maybe I should get me one of those. Don't really like the idea of looking like a three-eyed freak though…"

"I just looked at the damn board!" Hiei snapped. "Which is what you should try doing!"

Yusuke grinned but Hiei remained fired up. Usually at such a moment, when Yusuke flashed such a huge, self-satisfied, grin, Hiei would realise that he was being mocked and back down or else throw an insult at Yusuke and pretend not to enjoy the joke: but this time he seemed too far gone in his own concerns to see any humour in them.

"Hey, are you seriously freaking out about fighting Mukuro?" Yusuke asked. "Isn't that what you wanted? To test yourself against her? I thought that was one of the main reasons you signed up for this tournament because, you know, you're not fooling anyone – least of all me – with pretending that you actually want to win and become the new ruler of Demon World. Everybody knows you don't want the responsibility of being the new boss around here."

"Yes, I do want to fight Mukuro and yes, I don't want to become the new king," Hiei tightly replied. "But that doesn't mean I'm not…"

"Nervous?"

"I don't get nervous."

"Worried?"

"I don't get worried."

"Scared?"

"Do you want to die?"

Yusuke grinned again, but Hiei still looked miserable. Undeterred and still determined to find a way to make Hiei forget about his stresses – because Yusuke was determined that the Demon World Tournament was going to be a fun thing that everyone involved enjoyed participating in – Yusuke began racking his brain for an idea of how he could distract Hiei from fretting about what might come to pass, even if only temporarily. After looking around the relatively empty foyer, he felt bereft in inspiration: and so his mind resorted to the one subject area it always did when he was trying to concentrate too much on something that was just too complex to find a solution to.

"Well, if you're looking for a way to keep your cool until the third round comes around, why don't you just go get laid?"

Yusuke was sure he had never seen Hiei look so horrified in all the time he had known him. For a long moment, Hiei had stood, frozen on the spot, his face pale and his eyes wide, his fingers twisted awkwardly and his shoulders tensed. After some time, his eyes slowly moved to glare up at Yusuke in a sidelong sneer.

"I'm just saying," Yusuke continued. "It always helps me relax and takes my mind off things that are bothering me."

"Really?" Hiei asked.

"Yeah, sure," Yusuke replied.

"You expect me to believe that you've ever "gotten laid"?"

"Hey!"

"Am I supposed to believe that Keiko has ever actually succumbed to any of your smooth advances?"

"Hey, watch it, three eyes!"

Yusuke and Hiei turned from each other moodily, and another long moment of silence passed between them. Yusuke was sure that he would have been the first to recover from the wound to his pride regardless of what might have happened next, but what did happen next both made him forget Hiei's insult and offered him the perfect opportunity to recommence tormenting Hiei. Turned from Hiei, Yusuke was facing the hotel entrance, and so he saw before Hiei did someone racing inside, waving her hands about frantically. Yusuke started to grin as he watched Botan – still dressed in her ridiculous disguise – flapping a fan about her head as a pesky, over-sized mosquito buzzed around her head. She was so caught up in wafting the bug away – and eventually successfully swatting the mosquito into a pile of goo – with her fan, that she failed to notice a second insect buzzing around her ankles. As she tried to wipe the gunk off of her fan with the aid of the leaf of an ornamental plant, the second insect disappeared in the folds of her kimono. She eventually gave up trying to salvage her fan and dropped it into a nearby waste bin. She took a step forwards but then made a small squeaking sound, her face twisting in panic. Yusuke's grin widened as she thrust one leg forwards and whipped aside the folds of her clothing, exposing so much skin, he was almost sure she thought she was alone in the foyer. The mosquito had landed on the outside of her thigh, just above her knee, and she began trying to haul it loose.

Yusuke slapped the back of his hand against Hiei's arm, earning himself a grunt in response. He slapped Hiei again, this time causing him to turn around. Yusuke then pointed over at Botan and looking down at Hiei, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

"What do you expect me to do about that?" Hiei hissed.

"Get on it, Hiei," Yusuke replied.

"I'm sure even a creature as weak as she is can vanquish a simple insect," Hiei replied.

"No, not that," Yusuke corrected him. "I mean you were asking me if I knew anyone you could hook up with to help take your mind off fighting Mukuro, and now I'm throwing you a bone."

"…Apart from Mukuro, I literally don't understand a single word you just said."

"I said you could get busy with Botan."

Hiei's face dropped.

"Come on Hiei, why not?" Yusuke asked. "She's single, you're single, she's desperate, you're desperate… She's got nice legs, right?"

Hiei looked over at Botan for what seemed like longer than was necessary given his next remark.

"Idiot, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" he growled at Yusuke. "She and I are from different worlds – in every sense – and I can't imagine anything worse."

"Really?" Yusuke asked.

"Really," Hiei sternly replied.

"So you can't imagine it, huh?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"No."

"Not even slightly?"

"No."

"Then why are you blushing?"

Hiei clenched his fists and sneered, but did not reply. He did, however, start to turn a little red in the face, making Yusuke's false accusation suddenly true. Yusuke's grin widened further still and he started to walk away from Hiei, who very naively turned back to the tournament board, apparently under the assumption that Yusuke had finished winding him up. Grinning all the way, Yusuke walked over to Botan, who was still desperately clawing at the insect biting into her leg.

"Hey Botan, are you okay there?" he asked, pretending to be genuinely concerned.

"Oh Yusuke, these horrible insects have been harrying me all day and now one of them is biting me and it won't let go!" she wailed.

"Let me get that for you," Yusuke said, kneeling down at her side.

"Thank you so much Yusuke," she said as he pinched his fingers around the insect, squishing it effortlessly. "Oh dear…"

As Yusuke removed his hand, he revealed a circular sore in the side of Botan's leg around the bite site.

"This day has been so stressful," she said with a sigh as she rearranged her clothing over herself again and Yusuke stood up at her side. "I'm going up to my room and I'm staying there for the rest of the day because that way, nothing else stressful can happen!"

Yusuke nodded.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," he said. "But, you know, you shouldn't really come in here flashing yourself around like that."

Botan looked genuinely horrified, staring up at Yusuke with wide, pink eyes and her lips formed into an "oh".

"You were opening up your outfit," Yusuke reminded her.

"I was trying to get to the insect that was biting me!" she protested.

"Well, that's all well and good for you, but all I'm saying is, from where we were standing, it kinda just looked like you came in here, did a little fan dance and then whipped open your kimono and started showing off your legs," Yusuke said.

Botan gasped, her face flooding with colour.

"You were flapping about so much, at one point, we even got a glimpse of your panties," Yusuke casually lied.

"Oh my goodness, no you did not!" Botan gasped, her hands flying to her face and her blush intensifying.

"Oh yeah, we did," Yusuke replied. "We saw it all. We thought you were doing it on purpose."

Botan's shocked expression slowly gave way to one of concern, her blush draining and leaving her deathly pale.

"Why do you keep saying "we"?" she asked in a small voice.

Yusuke flicked a thumb over his shoulder and Botan leaned past him, gasping as she noticed Hiei, still standing by the tournament board.

"Hiei saw it all too?" she asked, straightening up again in front of Yusuke. "But then why is he just standing over there like that, pretending he can't even see or hear us?"

Yusuke had to fight back a grin at the fact that he had so perfectly set it up that he would be able to torment both Hiei and Botan.

"Because he's shy," he whispered.

"Shy?" Botan whispered back. "Hiei? No!"

"He's not shy about most things, sure," Yusuke said. "But he's really shy about… Well, you know…"

Botan shook her head.

"You don't know?" Yusuke asked, acting incredulous at this apparent revelation. "Gees, I thought everybody knew…"

"Knew what?" Botan asked.

She was literally hanging on his every word. It was so perfect. The only thing that could have made it any more amusing for Yusuke would have been if Kuwabara had been there to enjoy the joke with him and Keiko had been there to fret about it.

"Hiei," he said quietly, giving a small motion of his head in Hiei's direction. "He's got the biggest crush on you, but he's too shy to tell you about it."

Botan covered her mouth with her hands, but by the shape of what he could see of her face, it was clear to Yusuke that her jaw was hanging open.

"I can't believe you didn't know already!" he said. "Everybody else knows about it – it's so obvious!"

"It is?" Botan asked.

"Oh yeah!" Yusuke replied. "He's had a crush on you for like the longest time ever!"

"Really? How long? Because the first time we met, he wanted to kill me…"

"Oh, gee, I dunno exactly how long it's been…"

"Then are you sure it's true?"

"Hey, the only reason I can't remember when it started is because it's been going on so long…"

"No!"

"Yeah, seriously. He's got it so bad, seeing you coming in here and shaking yourself all about and then taking off your clothes–"

"I wasn't taking off my clothes!"

"Poor little guy – it was more than he could stand…"

Yusuke purposefully turned to look at Hiei and Botan copied his action.

"I had no idea Yusuke!" she whispered.

"Don't worry about it Botan," Yusuke said. "It's been going on so long, I'm sure he knows by now that you're not interested."

Botan gasped.

"I told him he should let go and move on, but…"

Yusuke paused for dramatic effect, waiting until Botan was leaning towards him and holding her breath in anticipation.

"I guess he's just got it so bad, he just can't let go," he concluded. "Poor guy."

"That's so awful!" Botan whispered. "I swear, I had no idea! I've always liked Hiei, it pains me to think that he's been torturing himself all this time over me!"

"You like Hiei?"

"Well of course I do! I like all my friends–"

"That's great! You should let him know. He's too shy to make the first move, so you should go over there and just let him know that you like him too."

"But I don't know if I like him like that–"

"Wow Botan, you really are a cock tease, huh?"

"What?"

Yusuke sighed, leaning forwards and pressing the call button for the elevator.

"You just go on ahead, back to your room," he said. "And I'll just have to tell Hiei that you don't care about him."

"Yusuke, don't say that!"

Yusuke jogged away from Botan – he was going to have to time his next move very carefully, as the elevator was already rapidly descending – taking himself back to Hiei, who appeared not to have heard or even noticed the interchange he had just shared with Botan.

"Hey Hiei, let's go for a drink," he said, putting an arm around Hiei's shoulders.

"Fine, but don't bother trying to force any women upon me," Hiei grumbled, allowing himself to be steered away from the tournament board by Yusuke's guiding arm.

"Sure thing, buddy," Yusuke said as the started across the foyer. "It'll just be you and me, on a guys' night out."

"And don't bother making a fool of yourself, either."

Yusuke heard the ping of the elevator arriving and then the whoosh of the doors sliding open. He angled Hiei slightly as Botan stepped through the doors, waiting until she had pressed the button to select the floor she was staying on before gripping his hand into Hiei's shoulder. Just as Hiei started to complain about Yusuke's hold, the elevator doors began to slide shut and Yusuke hurriedly shoved Hiei through them, seeing only a brief glance of Botan's confused face and Hiei glaring out at him from the awkward position he had landed in at her feet. Yusuke started laughing – because he was sure that his little practical joke was now apparent and would soon be over – as he stood outside the semi-reflective elevator doors, waiting for the inevitable moment that they would reopen and both Hiei and Botan would come charging out accusing him of mocking them.

When the elevator made that noise it did when it was readying to move, Yusuke's laughter eased, his eyes moving to the display above the door.

When he clearly heard the elevator start rising upwards and he clearly saw the display counting up the floors, Yusuke slowly stopped laughing.

He waited for the elevator to reach its destination floor, as he was sure that, by then, Hiei and Botan would have talked and figured out what he had just done to them, and the elevator would promptly drop back down and deliver them both back to him, irate and embarrassed.

The elevator stopped on the seventeenth floor and did not move again.

After about ten minutes of standing expectantly in the foyer, Yusuke finally accepted that neither Hiei nor Botan would be coming back. He thought that maybe they were planning to pull a retaliation prank on him: but neither of them were that way inclined and so their continued absence just seemed all the more odd. But Yusuke carried on, eventually ending up meeting up with Kurama and some of his other friends who were in the tournament, before arriving back late to the hotel.

By the next morning, Yusuke had forgotten all about the trick he had played on Hiei and Botan, and so when he encountered Koenma standing in the foyer – still dressed in his supposed disguise that made him look like a bad Tuxedo Mask cosplayer – Yusuke was at first confused.

"Hey Koenma," Yusuke greeted him. "You look kinda pissy. What's up, are you teething now?"

"Very funny, Yusuke," Koenma grumpily replied.

"Seriously, what are you doing hanging around here on your own?" Yusuke asked him.

"I'm not alone, it just looks like I'm alone because I made the lycra-clad ogre sit down over there because his outfit is so embarrassing," Koenma replied, pointing at his faithful assistant George, who was sitting on a bench by one corner of the large entrance foyer.

"Okay…" Yusuke said slowly.

"And if I look angry, it's probably because I've been stood up!" Koenma added snippily.

"Huh?"

"We agreed – Botan and I, that is – that we would meet back here at nine o'clock this morning. It's nine forty-five already and she still hasn't shown up!"

Strangely, hearing Koenma lament about Botan's lackadaisical time-keeping still did not remind Yusuke that he may be to blame for her absence: it was only when the elevator doors opened ahead of him and Botan staggered out that Yusuke suddenly remembered what he had done the day before. When he saw Botan looking a little drowsy and far less presentable than usual, rubbing one hand at one side of her face, Yusuke grinned. When he saw that she had been sharing the elevator with Hiei, who looked edgy and tense, he started to laugh. When Hiei fled the elevator and the hotel itself in a frantic dash, Yusuke started laughing harder. And finally, when Botan stopped rubbing at her face and revealed a red mark on her cheek, Yusuke broke into a fit of hysterics, ignoring the looks he was earning himself from everyone else around him. After all, it was obvious what had happened, and it was hilarious: obviously Botan had actually believed what he had told her about Hiei having a crush on her and that she ought to make the first move, and obviously that was exactly what she had done on the elevator down that morning, and obviously Hiei had panicked and slapped her across the face. The only thing that could have made the whole situation funnier would have been if Yusuke could have been in the elevator to see it all happen.

Later that day, when he had eventually tracked him down, Hiei did not mention anything about Yusuke's trick, and acted disinterested – if a little awkward – when Yusuke had asked him about it. But despite that, Yusuke and Hiei had maintained their usual rapport throughout the tournament. It was only after the tournament that things had seemed slightly off, and, ever since then, things had just seemed to get progressively worse. In fact, Yusuke thought to himself, that really funny prank he had played on Hiei (and Botan) had been the last time he had actually felt relaxed in Hiei's company and it had been the last time he had been able to really laugh with him (or at him). Something had definitely changed since that time, which maybe meant that the Dark Force had actually started waking up back then, and not four years ago on High Road like everybody else thought was the case.

As the group started to move on again – something they all did instinctively, without the need for words – Yusuke found himself thinking about what Touya had said earlier about how they should try not to split into groups with less than three members to allow for two members to objectively listen to anything outrageous the third member might have to say. Taking Hiei away, that only left three members of the original eight, and Yusuke wondered if he ought to confide in Chu and Touya about his concerns, if only to hear them tell him he was wrong and that the doubt he felt was just a side-effect of the what they were going through. He was only really considering talking to them because he expected their reassurance, he expected them to back up what he already hoped was true.

He was not really sure what he would do if they both said that they too doubted Hiei.

Botan sat forwards as Keiko entered the room. The temple was so quiet, Botan was sure everyone else had already gone to bed, Keiko included.

"Wow, it's dark in here!" Keiko commented.

Botan had been sitting alone in the living room with all the lights out. The TV was on, but she had turned the sound down as far as it would go and fallen into a daydream watching the silent movie playing before her.

"Do you want me to put a light on?" Keiko asked.

"I didn't want to put the light on in case it woke anyone up," Botan replied.

Keiko looked about the room as though she expected to find someone sleeping nearby. When her search proved fruitless, she sat down on the sofa beside Botan.

"So why are you still up?" she asked. "And sitting in here alone. In the dark. With the TV on. And the sound off."

"I suppose I was just delaying going back to Spirit World," Botan replied.

"Are you allowed to stay here?" Keiko asked.

Botan turned to her and smiled humourlessly.

"Probably not," she replied. "But I'm not ready to leave yet."

"Will Kuwabara be okay?" Keiko asked.

"Kurama had some special healing liquid he thought would be able to fully heal the wound," Botan replied. "It was quite severe though."

"It's really scary, seeing him hurt like that. I guess I forgot how scary what they do is. It's been so long since I've seen them fight."

Botan nodded.

"Hey, maybe instead of turning the sound on, we should pick a character each in this film and make up lines for them," Keiko suggested. "We could just ad-lib the dialogue and make it our own film!"

"I really don't want to wake anyone," Botan quietly replied.

Keiko nodded.

"So, um…"

Botan turned to Keiko expectantly, waiting for her to finish her thought.

"I guess I didn't keep track of what everyone was doing at my birthday slash dawning of the apocalypse party," Keiko continued. "And I didn't notice if… If you got a chance to… You know… Talk to Hiei?"

Botan hung her head, suddenly preferring to watch her fingers picking at the stitching of the hem of her kimono than to look at either the silent film or Keiko.

"I did, yes," she replied.

"And?" Keiko asked.

"It went about as well as it did the last several times I tried to talk to him," Botan answered. "He refused to listen, he misunderstood and he thinks I'm crazy."

"So… You didn't tell him yet?"

Botan's head snapped up abruptly and she looked about herself.

"Everyone's asleep, Botan," Keiko assured her. "It's just you and me."

Botan sighed and shook her head.

"He must know by now," she said. "After everything that's happened… He must know!"

"I don't know Botan, I still think you should tell him," Keiko said.

"It's not easy!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want him to think that… I don't want him to think that I'm trying to manipulate him somehow. That's always been the reason why I didn't want to tell him. I wanted to know how he really felt about me before I told him but… Clearly he doesn't feel anything for me… And now there's just no easy way of telling him. I don't even know where to begin…"

"Well, Genkai would have told you to tell the story from the very beginning. Which was the first Demon World Tournament, right?"

"For him, yes. For me, no."

Botan sighed and sat back into the cushioned backrest of the sofa.

"How do you tell someone that–"

Botan stopped abruptly, tensing as she heard footsteps approaching. She turned panicked eyes to Keiko, who shrugged and whispered that they were not doing anything they ought not to be and that she should relax: but despite that, Botan remained tense, and flinched visibly when Kurama entered the room offering them tea.

"No thank you," she said, standing up on shaky legs. "I really must get back to Spirit World. Lord Koenma will be looking for me,"

She nodded at Keiko and smiled at Kurama, before hurrying out of the temple and taking to the skies.

Next Chapter: Botan remembers the day Yusuke shoved Hiei into an elevator with her during the first Demon World Tournament – but her version of events tells a slightly different story from Yusuke's memories of that day. The DW team walk in on a tense three-way confrontation between Shura, Jin and Yomi which quickly escalates when they learn that at least one of the three has succumbed to the Dark Force. Chapter 17 – Temptation

A/N: I got carried away with the flashbacks, and the next chapter is predominantly a retelling of exactly what went down between Hiei and Botan during the 1st DWT – and what that might have led to since…