Please go back and read the note that I added to the first chapter!

Hello again! There weren't any questions that I could answer without giving away the story, so I'll get right to it and tell you: There will be things that are not explained right away...that is the mystery part of this fiction! If anything really confuses you, write to me and I may answer! Also, if you want to be notified of updates right away, send me an e-mail and you get a prize too! (A sketch fanart with each update) nothing fancy, but stuff I do for my own amusement...

Thank you to all the reviewers that took the time to read and tell me what you thought. It does make a difference when I know that people are reading and enjoying what I write. Thanks!

Sylvannastar

Chapter 2

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Kagome drifted back into a semi-conscious state. She couldn't focus, but she wasn't sure why. Am I hurt? Are my eyes closed? She tried to open her eyes but found them held shut. The ice crystals on her eyelashes ensured that she was left in the dark. The numbness was the same, but now, a strange floating sensation enveloped her. It was as if she was being carried. The energy around her was unfamiliar but comfortable. She felt her self cocooned by the sensation, wrapped almost lovingly in its embrace.

Kagome remembered where she was supposed to be. I'm in hell...That's right. This must be what it feels like to die. She let the blessed emptiness consume her again, her last thought, was almost comforting. It isn't so bad. I thought it would hurt more...

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"It's dark."

"Of course it's dark. It is a cave, stupid," Yusuke pointed out.

"Well, I'm not going in there first. You go in." Kuwabara peered into the dark hole, abandoning his macho attitude long enough to ensure that his life was in no danger.

"This was your idea," Yusuke reminded him even as he took the first few paces into the dark cavern.

The darkness was heavy. Kuwabara shivered and rubbed his gloved hands over his face several times. "I think it's actually colder in here then it was out there."

"Hiei?" Kurama requested quietly.

The fire demon stifled a long suffering sigh and let his energy flare to life. The sudden brightness and wave of warmth crept out ward from where he was standing. "Try blocking the entrance, moron. I won't stand here all night."

Kurama ignored the insult and pulled two seeds from his hair. "You'll have to soften the ground first, Hiei."

"Hn."

Kuramu tucked the two seeds into a few inches of soil and laid a hand over them. Two sprouts became two stalks and leafed out into a bushy tangle of vines and leaves, effectively blocking the cold wind from entering the mouth of the cave. "Will that do?" He studied the plants critically and walked around it's perimeter.

The cave started to warm immediately. The pocket of heat rapidly spread and warmed the chilled detectives. The increased temperature made fingers and toes sting and burn, causing the boys to smack their hands together in an attempt to ward off the sensation.

If the slight tingling caused them discomfort, it sent the girl into convulsions. "Kurama! Get over here!" Hiei yelled, trying to keep his hold on the girl.

Kurama and Yusuke ran over and tried to take the girl from Hiei, laying her gently on the hard floor. Kurama kept her head in his lap, to keep her from hitting it on the stone surface beneath her. Hiei, tried to dispel the sense of guilt that tugged at the back of his mind. He should have know better then to make such a drastic change so quickly. He stood back, watching with out comment as Kurama tried to sooth the girl's fit. Yusuke held her shoulders to the floor until an unexpected knee to the gut had him fighting to pull in air. Hiei watched as Kuwabara ran in to help. He crossed his arms, following every move each of them made with his observant crimson eyes.

The girl eventually calmed, the tremors that wracked her body lightening. Kurama sucked in a relieved breath and began to examine the girl with more interest. She was filthy, covered in blood, gore and dirt. The melted snow had only made her soggy as well, and did not help to clean her of the mess. His fine nose picked up the scent of several different types of blood. It was not all hers. The faint trace of demon was also on her, supporting his idea that she had fallen victim to some demon's attempt to cross the barrier.

Her grip on the sword and broken bow never lessened. She held tightly to them as if they were a life line. He would let her keep that comfort for the time.

"Well, she's alive."

The red haired kitsune looked up at Hiei. "Why do I feel you say that as if it is a bad thing?" He asked. Hiei ignored the way Kurama was now watching him so intently. He knew the fox was waiting for him to give them his opinion of the human laying there on the floor. His Jagon eye allowed him to see and sense things that others could not. In this case, however, he could barely feel the girl's living energy. She had no spirit energy at all. There was nothing to say of any importance, so he said nothing.

Hiei studied the girl in much the same way Kurama had just done. He was more apt to pick up any visual clues rather than ones gained by scent or instinct. Her death grip on the items in her hands was probably just that. He had little faith that the weak ningen would survive. And now that Kurama had insisted on an attempted rescue, the woman would have to suffer before finally expiring. It would have been more merciful to let her slip away in the snow. She had been past feeling it...now, she was doomed to fight a losing battle with all of nature against her. Humans were not meant to experience nor survive the conditions they had found the girl in. Even if she did somehow survive the physical trauma, there was no guarantee that she would be able to get past the mental and emotional scars that the demon that pulled her here was sure to have left behind, judging on her condition alone.

The matted dark hair had thawed and lay in ragged limp clumps about her. It was long, perhaps down to her hips. A thick spay of bangs hung in her face, hiding the bruised eyes and several wicked scratches. Her shirt was probably white once, but it was no more then a dirty and bloody rag now. Her green skirt was in much the same condition. Long marks and bloody slices marred the skin of her long legs and over one hip where the cloth was torn beyond salvation. It looked as if she had been attacked brutally. As she warmed, the wet patches on her clothes began to spread new blood in time with her slow heart beat.

Hiei pitied the creature.

"She's still half-frozen," Kurama gently rubbed at her exposed arms. "We have to clean her up and assess the damage."

Hiei frowned, thinking that it would be better to just let the poor woman fade away. But, he was never one to press an issue when it didn't really concern him. If the fox was determined to try to save the girl, let him. He watched with intense focus as the girl started to shiver. It meant that her body was at least attempting to warm itself. Kurama saw this as improvement. Hiei viewed it as extended torture. Some things just weren't meant to be.

Hiei's eyes snapped up when Kurama straightened the girl out and stood. The fox was tall, not as tall as Kuwabara's excessive form, but easily taller then he was himself. Hiei knew he was short. He was almost delicate in build, but with the muscles and tone that proved he was no soft youth. His height was always a sore spot with him. It make others see him as weak or lacking. Hiei could easily prove to anyone that this perception was wrong, but that usually resulted in the death of the poor fool who had insulted him to begin with and then, there was no one left to warn the next guy that Hiei was not a demon to treat with disrespect.

A violent shudder ran through the girl at their feet, pulling his eyes back down to her own small frame. She wasn't very tall herself. She couldn't be much more then a few inches taller then he was. She was definitely shorter then Yusuke. "You shouldn't have brought her here." He finally said to the fox.

"I have to at least try to save her, Hiei," Kurama replied. "If she was an innocent bystander dragged here by some demon, we have to do something to try to atone for this crime."

"You didn't commit this crime."

"I know, but I am plenty guilty of many others. Maybe this way I can at least make a difference in one life that is not my own. I am not the selfish creature that I was before."

"Hn." Hiei followed this thought of logic and concluded that if the fox was right, that made him selfish for wanting to allow the woman to die in peace...somewhere away from him. So, maybe it was a little selfish, but the fox was healing her for his own selfish reasons too. He was not doing it to help this girl, but in a way to repent for past transgressions.

Hiei started to rein in his energy, feeling that the cavern had warmed enough. Yusuke and Kuwabara has shed their ridiculous white, lumpy coats and were currently stomping around in the puffed up pants that went over their regular clothes. Kurama pulled the coat from his own shoulders, and quickly followed it with his shirt and undershirt. Naked from the waist up, the fox dragged the coat back up over the smooth skin of his shoulders and zipped the thing closed.

"What are you doing?" Kuwabara blinked at Kurama.

"Yes. What are you doing?" Yusuke repeated, knowing that the first question would probably be ignored simply because Kuwabara had been the one to ask it.

"I need to make bandages. We have nothing else to use. I'm afraid we came unprepared for injuries." Kurama quickly tore the two shirts into long strips, focused wholeheartedly on his self-appointed task. Kuwabara quickly added his own large shirt to the pile, claiming that it was only honorable to make such a sacrifice for a wounded girl. Yusuke grumbled and followed along with the others.

They all looked at Hiei. He snorted and crossed his arms. He wasn't about to let them tear his clothing into shreds for a girl who would be dead before the night was over. Besides that, he didn't have a coat, and though he wouldn't admit it, he wasn't completely weather proof.

Kurama sighed, and finished his task. He left the sleeves of Kuwabara's shirt intact to use as a wash rag and clean the dirt and blood from the girl's skin. "Hiei could you heat that puddle of water over there in that depression? I can use that to clean her injuries."

A low place in the cave had collected about two feet of water, it was enough to take a bath in, but Hiei quickly complied, and in minutes the water was steaming gently. Kurama had the other two help him carry the unconscious girl closer to the pool of hot water and settle her next to the edge. He slowly began the painstaking process of washing and cleaning the wounds that seemed to grow in number as he did what he could to mend them.

Hiei stood , tense and alert to any change in the energies surrounding the cave. They were in the Makia after all, even if it was the north ice-bound region. He stayed focused on their objective, wanting nothing more then to be free from this land and all the memories it held. They were here to discover the source of a large energy rupture that had registered on the Spirit World monitors that governed the energies of the barriers between the worlds. It was obvious something had gotten through. Now they needed to know what it was...or who.

He watched the drama in front of him with half his attention and straightened suddenly when the fox pealed the shirt from her shoulder. A gaping hole was gashed into her left shoulder, close to her collarbone.

"What the hell did that to her?" Yusuke asked, concern written in his brown eyes.

"She's worse then I thought," Kurama winced as he probed the deep wound with the edge of the blood soaked cloth.

"I wonder what happened to her."

"She was obviously injured when that Youkai dragged her through the barrier. She must have fought and managed to get away or perhaps it just lost interest in her once it had safely passed through." Kurama tensed when the girl let out a ragged moan. It was the first sound that she had made since they had found her. "Please don't let her wake up now," he pleaded to no one in particular.

Hiei closed his eyes and tried to bring the girl's energies into focus. Other then her strained life energy, she was void. That wasn't right, though. Everyone had a little bit of spiritual power. He delved deeper and was rewarded with more of the emptiness for his efforts. It was as if she only existed on the physical level...as if she had no soul.

Another moan grated in the silence. She was in pain. Hiei turned away from the sound. He had warned he fox. She was beyond aid. Trying to keep her here was a torment she did not deserve.

Hiei tried to stem the feeling of guilt that reminded him that he had helped in bringing her here, even if it was against his better judgement. He just hoped that if it were possible, that the girl be spared and whole when this was all over. However, Hiei did not put much store in hope. It was a false and bitter thing that served to only deepen a person's pain when it failed.

He wondered what her name was, and if there was someone out there that would miss her when she was gone. It was too bad...she would be just another missing person when all was said and done. He watched her shiver again and wondered at the fact that she was alive at all. Maybe she was stronger then she looked, much like himself. He scoffed at that. No human girl could begin to compare to the strength that Hiei was forced to amass inside himself for necessity sake.

No this woman would not last much longer. It was a pity, really, washed up, she was beginning to be quite beautiful. She probably had had a good life waiting ahead of her...