It was already morning, Nezuko woke up stretching her arms and legs as she sat up from bed when she looked over at the other side to see that Hiei was not there. He must be out training due to his arm injury from yesterday after releasing the dragon when he fought against Zeru. Nezuko was happy that the sun didn't seem to hurt her anymore. Her body was more comfortable around the heat and not penetrated by it. As she crawled out of bed to changed out of her pajamas to wear a pale blue t-shirt wearing a light leather lime green jacket, with light brown fur around the hoodie over her bare shoulders, dark blue shorts, with white socks, and short red combat boots.
As she leaves out of the room after folding her clothes, she went to see if anyone else was awake and there was no one around. Maybe since we're taking a break after the first round of the tournament.
Well, it's still a bright day, and she can go outside and walk around the forest now that we're on this island.
Having successfully won their first round, Team Urameshi has a day to rest while they wait to see who will be their next opponents.
Yusuke is lounging in the forest when he's approached by a fighter named Rugby. He's been watching Yusuke and wants to sample his Spirit Gun. For some reason, Yusuke doesn't want to show it to him and dodges Rugby's rugby. Then, Rugby's superior, Topaz, arrives, and berates him for attacking the Spirit Detective, a job he wanted to do himself. Rugby refuses to stop, and Topaz eventually throws a tomahawk into his back. Topaz tells Yusuke he looks forward to killing him in a future round and then departs. Kuwabara appears and asks Yusuke why he didn't just shoot his Spirit Gun. Yusuke reveals that he can't, he's so worn out from the previous fights that he can't fire a single shot. Kuwabara gets really worried. Meanwhile, Hiei is on a beach alone, trying to practice. It's hard, considering his right arm is beyond useless. Using a sword with his left hand seems to be his best bet.
In the arena, the Dr. Ichigaki Team is fighting another team of demons. They take care of them easily, paving their way to the next round. Kurama is watching the fights intensely. The Toguro Team is up next, however, only the younger Toguro brother is standing in the ring. His opponents are the Spirit Warriors Team, with Topaz as their captain. Toguro asks them if it's alright if he fights all of them by himself. They laugh, but he doesn't crack a smile. They wonder who will go first, but Toguro says he wants to fight them all at once. They attack him head-on, and he easily destroys them, using only using 45% of his power, even the massive Topaz falls.
Yusuke and Kuwabara go back to the hotel room to find out who they are fighting next. Since the number of teams seems to be uneven, they're one of the two teams that have to go through four rounds to reach the finals. Yusuke curses his luck, and the masked fighter appears and speaks up. Kuwabara is surprised since he thought that the fighter was Genkai in disguise, but the female voice he heard was definitely not that of an old grandmother. Yusuke looks closer at the roster and sees that their next opponent is the sinister Dr. Ichigaki Team. Meanwhile, Kurama and Hiei are on their way to the ring, when they are sidetracked by two men, one who looks like a panther/jaguar and the other, resembling a python. The python rushes them and is quickly disposed of by the two. The other, however, is more resourceful and calls on a huge robot, built by the doctor himself, that is mostly robot, and a little demon, that knows no pain, to take care of the two fighters.
Back in the forest, Nezuko was feeling freer and opened around her space as she started to get used to the sunlight around her body. She missed the sun and being out in the daytime was the most thing she wanted to do. Nezuko wonders how her brother would react to see her standing in the sunlight without having to worry about hiding in the darkness. She then heard some noises going on in the forest, as she ran to investigate what was happening. As Nezuko ran to see what was happening, in the forest, Hiei and Kurama are busy avoiding the robot's ever-stretching spiked arms. Hiei tries whacking it with his sword, but it's to no avail, and he's quickly cornered against a tree by the robot's claw. Nezuko immediately knew that they needed some help as she ran over to the robot's head striking to easily kick it off, Kurama quickly comes and intervenes, rescuing Hiei and causing the two claws to smash into each other. He finishes off the job with his Rose Whip, easily slashing the vital circuits to the robot. He informs the tiger-man that not being able to feel pain is truly a weakness since it neglects to tell a creature about not exposing its vital points for an attack.
"Nezuko!" She looked over at Kurama and Hiei with her veins slowly disappearing as she turns back to normal. As she approached the two worriedly and touched their faces staring into them thinking about her family. Back to what they were fighting against the robot who was being controlled by the tiger-man as they were concerned why this man was trying to take Team Urameshi out.
When they figure out what was the real deal here to keep them from entering the tournament. They had to put an end to Dr. Ichigaki's team that were already fighting against their teammates.
"We'll have to inform them about what's really going on," Kurama said.
Nezuko gave him a short nod, Hiei looked over at her for a moment of silence not even mentioning that Nezuko did a strong kick after kicking off the robot's head. He wanted to thank her for that after almost getting killed especially to Kurama.
The masked fighter stops Yusuke from using his Spirit Gun and tells him she'll do it herself. She starts chanting in a strange tongue and then seems to paralyze the warriors in their tracks. She stabs them each in the heart with her finger and then stops, and they fall to the ground, presumably dead. Kuwabara and Yusuke are both shocked at her methods, but she assures them that it was all that she could have done.
Suddenly, from the sky, the two other fighters from the Ichigaki team come crashing down, along with Hiei and Kurama, standing on top of the totaled robot. They tell everyone what happened, and try to enter the fight. The announcer stops them, telling them both teams already agreed to a 3-on-3. Hiei, Nezuko, and Kurama are forced to watch from the sidelines. With that done, the Urameshi Team confronts Ichigaki himself. The coward still tries to weasel himself out, saying that their master is still sick, and only he has the cure. Hiei and Kurama prove him wrong, however, when the master of the dojo appears from the hallway, standing, although a bit weak. Hiei says that after beating up Ichigaki's fifth fighter, they found the whereabouts of the master, and Kurama easily created a cure for the minor illness.
With no other way out, Ichigaki injects himself with a strange serum, morphing him into a huge, hulking beast with stretchable arms. He attacks them all, Just as Ichigaki was about to strike Yusuke down, a splatter of blood emerged making Yusuke gasped. Kurama, Hiei, and Botan were both shocked to see that Nezuko was shielding Yusuke preventing him to be harmed by Ichigaki.
"NEZUKO!" Yusuke caught the girl in his arms to see her barely standing up as Hiei appeared beside them. He couldn't believe his eyes that she stood in front of Yusuke to protect him. "Damn you...You idiot.." Yusuke gritted his teeth holding the demon in his arms as a sign of comfort glaring towards the doctor wearing a mischievous wide grin on his face.
"That's a fine demon girl that stood up for you without even letting lay a scratch on you. She might be a good experiment to work on in my lab." Ichigaki darkly chuckled. Hiei's eyes darken over at Ichigaki as Yusuke's eyes widen when he held Nezuko tighter in his arms.
"You just want her to be one of your lab rats? Just because she protected me?!" Yusuke was now pissed after hearing that much cruelty coming from a maniac that just loves to torment other lives. "Nezuko doesn't want to be treated like one of your pets! She has feelings!"
"Save your anger for Toguro, he won't be laying a finger on any of you. I'll take him on myself." Hiei volunteered to step in and take on Ichigaki for himself.
Yusuke looks over at Hiei, "No. Let me take him on my own, Hiei. Take Nezuko." He told the demon as they stared at each other silently as Hiei didn't protest as he crouched down to pick up Nezuko to carry her off the ring as Yusuke proceeded to fight against Ichigaki.
As Hiei carries the girl off the ring, he looks down at her, to see her eyes slowly opening as she looked up at Hiei. She was concerned about what happened to Yusuke and to see if he was okay.
"It's all right, Nezuko." He heard Hiei say in a soft tone. He jumped off the ring while holding her in his arms to set her down. Kurama runs over to check on her and make sure that her injuries weren't so
"It seems that her wounds aren't that deep. She's healing herself." Kurama stated.
There was anger filling into Hiei that he wished that she didn't step into the ring after getting herself hurt like that. Yusuke was already taking care of the doctor making sure he doesn't create any more test subjects not after hearing he wanted another making Nezuko one after protecting Yusuke. Nezuko's eyes opened as she raised her hand to gently give Hiei a head pat making him sit up to meet her eyes to reassure him that there was nothing to worry about. She was going to be just fine.
"Rest while you can, so you can keep fighting," Hiei told her as she stopped patting his head, merely nodding back at him.
'I never would have thought she would pull a fatal attempt to protect Yusuke. She did the same for all of us and we're just getting hurt while she's taking the punching bag.' Hiei thought as he clenched his fist facing back to the ring to watch Yusuke giving Ichigaki a ruthless beating, yelling at him the whole time, and eventually gives him a supercharged uppercut straight into the stands. With the Ichigaki Team dissolved, the Urameshi Team has won their second round.
As Yusuke defeated Ichigaki, he ran off the ring to go check up Nezuko to see if she was all right. He came to a halt when he saw Nezuko leaning against the ring with Hiei that was making sure that she wasn't seriously hurt.
"Nezuko!" Yusuke came over crouching at her level as he pulled her in a side hug. She hugs him, Hiei watches as the two embraced each other's arms.
"No. You've got it all wrong. Nezuko is like a little sister to me." Said Yusuke as he held the girl protectively in his arms letting her know that everything is fine now. He pulled away from her as she faintly smiled with her eyes shut and reopen them again, Yusuke smiles back and gave her head pat.
"Your okay, right?" He asked.
Nezuko nods her head as she stands up along with Yusuke and Hiei that were glad to see their teammate back on their feet again.
"You really are something," he murmured. "Thanks for saving me. I didn't think that you were going to step in and take the strike for me. Still, I can't afford you getting hurt like that-you've got guts." Nezuko gave him a small smile, trying to ignore the absolute agony she was in.
"Mmm," Nezuko breezily replied.
"She's healing up quite nicely, but it will take her a while for her," Hiei informed the leader of their team, Yusuke nodded.
Suddenly, the voice of the committee blares out through the arena, stating that the next match will begin immediately and Team Urameshi will be fighting it. Everyone is in shock that they're being forced to fight two matches back to back, especially when everyone is still in bad condition. The next team appears five fighters in dark black cloaks, from Team Masho.
Yusuke reached out and lightly touched her shoulder, "Hey, don't sweat it. Now that Kurama and shrimpy are finally here, I'm sure we stand a chance against the next team!" The smile he gave her was so genuine and radiated off so much confidence, it was hard for Nezuko not to believe him. Kurama walked over to the two of them as Hiei walks away to have his space, his eyebrows furrowed with concern.
"Actually, it looks like we're down to just you and me, Yusuke." He looked over at Hiei, who was standing by himself a few feet away. Lowering his voice as he said, "Hiei is badly injured. His arm still hasn't had enough time to heal properly, despite the mask fighters' efforts to help him."
"Oh man," whined Yusuke, "this could be bad. Kuwabara is knocked out cold, Hiei's arm is still crispy, and Y/N has zero spirit energy and broke a few bones. This is just great."
"Calm down, Yusuke. Let me handle the next team. I'll fight each member until I am no longer able to. That should give you plenty of time to recover your strength, allowing you to take over when I'm finished."
"Hey, good idea Kurama," he smiled, happily accepting the fox demon's plan. Nezuko looked over at Hiei, staring hard at him as she tried to force him to make eye contact with her. "Before the next match, we will conduct an exam to ensure that the teams are fit to fight in battle," announced an official over the speakers. She turned towards the main entrance where a gate was sliding open. Walking towards them was a beautiful, red-headed nurse, who could've made a better career as a model. She winced, feeling threatened by her beauty.
Out of instinct, Nezuko looked at Hiei again, watching to see how he would react. His face remained unchanged, actually, it looked like he was disgusted by the attractive nurse. Nezuko let out a small sigh of relief, she was unsure why that made her feel better, but it did.
"Hello boys," the nurse said to the team in a seductive voice. She looked over at Nezuko and smiled, "and girl," she hurriedly mumbled. Nezuko felt her ego-shattering, and despite her injuries, she was prepared to knock that woman senseless.
"I'm here to make sure you're all healthy," she continued. She lifted her hand and allowed it to hover in front of each member's chest. "Mmmmm, you," her hand stopping at Hiei, then over at the masked fighter," you, as her hand moves towards Nezuko," and you," she said, her hand hovering near her chest. "Three of you, come with me to the nurse's tent. You are unfit to fight and need some aid."
Hiei scoffed at her, "I don't go where people tell me to, woman. And honestly, I don't care what you think. I'm going to fight the next round." Nezuko stared at Hiei, feeling both pleased with the fact that he clearly had no interest in the nurse, but she also felt annoyed with his childish behavior.
"I'm sure that you would need to be fully healed. Like for her minor injuries as well." The nurse said, staring down at Nezuko reaching her hand out as she saw the girl's eyes change and veins appearing. Nezuko glared at the nurse, she was growling moving closer to Hiei's side while wrapping her arms around him.
"Doesn't seem like she trusts her," Kurama whispered over to Yusuke to watch this go down.
Hiei glanced down at the demon girl, he could tell that Nezuko must be sensing something wrong with the nurse. But he couldn't fight under his condition with a burnt arm as he let out a low growl. "Fine. I'll go," he replied bitterly, "but as soon as she's done with the examination, I'm going into the ring." His response was a little reassuring for Yusuke and Kurama besides Nezuko.
His eyes fallen lowering whispering, "You don't have to worry. Nothing won't come interference while I'm being checked up." He sounded a little distasteful, but he was willing to get this check-up over with. Nezuko releases him as he gave her a short nod, he turns his heel to walk over to the tent. When he and the masked fighter were getting themselves checked up, there was a strange sensation run through them. They turned back around and found that they were surrounded by some sort of force field.
"Hey! What's the big idea, lady?" demanded the detective. The nurse's outfit began to rip away, leaving her body covered in vines. She gave a wicked laugh as she answered, "I'm an enchantress! My name is Ruka and there's no way for your teammates to escape my barrier once they're inside!" Nezuzko heard Yusuke let loose a wind of curses at the woman, but she readily accepts that since their two fighters were trapped.
"We'll have to carry on with the match. It's just us three against Team Masho." Kurama said Yusuke and Nezuko faced their next fighters for this tournament they will have to face was not going to be easy for them.