I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Thanks Miyako14 and Revlis for reviewing.

-------------------------------------------

Chapter 14

"Era?" Touya was beginning to panic as Jin came quickly over to look her over.

He squatted a bit and put one of his sensitive ears close to her mouth and heard her faint breathing, he sighed in relief and smiled a bit knowing that she was alive.

"She's just unconscious," he told a very worried looking Touya.

Jin put one of his arms around Era's upper back, making sure not to bother her wound, and with the other he gently swept up her legs so that she lay gingerly in his arms. He then walked back towards the group so that Yukina could look at her wound, Touya beside him.

When Jin had gotten to his friends he put Era on the ground and took a few steps back to give Yukina room as she came over and sat down on her own legs (she was on Era's left side). Touya sat on Era's right, he put his hand below her neck and lifted her back off the ground so Yukina could look at her wounded shoulder.

Jin looked down at his arms, one of them was covered in Era's blood from picking her up. He looked back to Era, worry etched on his usually happy face. The blood on his hands did not worry him, it was the fact that from just carrying her the little ways he did she had bled so much.

Yukina brought her hands up to the horribly bleeding wound and stopped a few inches away from in. "It's quite deep," Yukina said worriedly, "This is worse than Touya's wound, but I'll do my best." As she finished talking her hands glowed a light yellow.

Everyone waited on baited breath as Yukina worked. After a couple of minutes Yukina took her hands away, "I've stopped the bleeding, for now anyways," she said with a sigh of despair, "The wound is too bad for my meager healing skill. We need to get her to someone who knows the art of healing." She then noticed a small cut on her face and quickly healed that with the same method she had used before and with in a few seconds it was healed.

"They both took quite a pounding," Chu said, "It's amazing that she lived with just a single deep cut, from a tree and not the attack it self no less, and we would have been easily killed.

"Uh huh," Rinku agreed, "And that would have stunk... But what's really weird is that he had this whole thing planned out, how else could he have known we were coming and in the direction we did."

"What also proves this, is the fact that we all were hiding our powers, so he couldn't have sensed us," Hiei said bitterly.

Yukina stood, "We have to get moving so we can get her healed."

"Right," Touya said lightly. Jin came over and picked Era back up, Touya would have but they were about the same size and his own wounds would not allow it.

"We came in through..." Kuwabara trailed off as he realized something for the first time, making him cry out.

"What is it Kuwabara, is he back?" Yusuke asked as he looked around, overlooking somehow what Kuwabara had seen.

"No, the forest!" Kuwabara yelled while he put his hands up to his hair and pulled on it, "It's different! We're lost!" with that he screamed again.

"Calm down Kuwabara, you're embarrassing," Yusuke said before looking around, "Eeee! You're right."

"Van-Garth must have placed some sort of hologram... no he changed the image of the forest completely before. If it had been a hologram we would have run into trees or something else," Hiei said.

"That means he's a shadow demon, a very powerful one to say the least. He's more powerful than I originally thought," Koenma said quietly. "I should have known that from the book and from when he went into the shadows."

"It doesn't matter at this point," Suzuka informed him. "Let's just pick a direction and go, we're bound to find our way eventually."

Rinku kicked him hard, making Suzuka yell and grab his now bruised lower leg and hop a bit. Shishiwakamaru flew of his shoulder and away from his hopping friend to avoid being hurt.

"Era's hurt and needs to get to someone with great healing power," Rinku yelled at Suzuka as he put his leg down and began rubbing it, "Stop thinking about your self for a change. Our only hope of survival lies in Era's hands and she's badly hurt you idiot."

Suzuka growled, "What do you think I was trying to do kid." With that said he made a fist and hit Rinku on top of his head, in turn making him scream "OUCH!"

Botan huffed at their behavior and held out her hand, her oar appeared in it and she promptly smacked both of them with it on their heads making them scream again. "Now will the two of you STOP IT!" she yelled at them.

The two of them just rubbed their soar heads and nodded. "Good," Botan declared, "Now let's get going."

"We came from that direction," Touya pointed to where he meant. Everyone nodded and headed off in that direction.

As the gang walked through the dark forest it occurred to them that they had come this way once before, before Van-Gareth's spell that is. Yusuke brought this fact up. "We came this way when we were looking for Era."

It then hit Touya like a ton of bricks; they had found Era in this general area (when coming to help Era they had taken a short cut and did not pass by her village). That meant that they were near her old home and that she would be all right because there was a healing spring... or rather a healing lake, there. He quickly reminded his friends of this, everyone except Rinku, Chu, Suzuka, and Shishiwakamaru, who was on Suzuka shoulder again, knew what he was talking about.

They headed of in the general direction of the ancient water village; they had sealed it off when they had left the last time so to keep thieves from destroying it. So now they were going to have to look for it again.

All they could do was hope Era would make it that far.

------------------------------------

Will Era survive?

I need a minimum of 2 reviews to continue.