Since it took so long to update last time, I decided to put this chapter out ahead of schedule and give you guys a bit of a hint as to events to come! That and this one was entirely mine from start to finish so Yabou got a short break, though I intend to crack my whip and put her back to work very soon! (Not really .) Enjoy!

Sylvannastar

Chapter 5

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Kuwabara was shoved to the front of the line again so that his weight and height could be put to use bulldozing through the ice crusted snow drifts. He squinted around him as he went, trying to see through the glare of the sun reflecting off from the crystals surrounding them. "Damn, it's bright out here," he muttered and pushed on. "Where are we going, anyway?"

Kurama stopped and sighed. They had been walking for about half an hour and had managed to go no further then a mile. The snow was weighty and thick. The depth of the banks and drifts gave them little compensation for their efforts. That, and they still had no idea where the were going or what they were looking for. "That way," he finally replied and pointed in some random direction.

"This is stupid," Yusuke snorted through the layers of his mittens and hands he had coving his mouth. "That fucking toddler doesn't know shit. I bet he sitting in his nice toasty office watching us on his big screen and laughing his ass off." He scowled angrily at the line they had shoved through the snow that led back to the cave and huffed in annoyance. "This sucks."

"Yeah," Kuwabara agreed and glared down at the snow clumping into balls of ice on his large mittens. "Besides, I don't like leaving that girl with Hiei. What if he hurt her?"

The other two looked startled and glanced at each other before turning to the taller boy. "Kuwabara, you don't really believe that Hiei would ever hurt her, do you? He has been a member of this team from the beginning...surely you don't doubt him that much..." Kurama hesitated to assume. He knew that Hiei and Kuwabara had never had a good relationship, and most of the sparing between the two he had thought to be no more than that of good natured rivalry.

Kuwabara frowned angrily and turned his glare on the startled kitsune. "I would not put anything past that little shit," he growled.

"Aw, you're just pissed off because he told you to stay away from Yukina. Ever since you found out they were related, you've been looking for reason to hate him," Yusuke sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward.

Kuwabara snorted and rubbed the crusted snow off of his coat and ignored the mocking glance Yusuke was giving him. "That is not true," he said defensively. "I never liked that guy, related to my love or not. There is just something about him that bothers me. Always has...I just don't trust him."

"May I inquire as to why?" Kurama asked in a voice slightly harder and less forgiving then usual.

Both humans took careful note of the fox spirit's protective tone and Kuwabara thought hard about how to answer that question before he opened his mouth. He finally shrugged and pointed at the cave in the distance for emphasis, "He is dangerous. More so then you even, Kurama, though you are also a demon and all." He watched a red eyebrow twitch in anger once before hurrying on. "Hiei is just so...unstable. I can never tell what will piss him off or what will amuse him...sometimes both."

"That is true," Yusuke frowned in thought. "Hiei is hard to predict."

"He is that way on purpose," Kurama pointed out.

"I know!" Kuwabara exclaimed. "That is just it. Why is he that way? Especially with us. We are supposed to be a team and we know hardly anything about him."

Kurama fought the instinct to protect the fire apparition and seriously considered the other's words. It was true that they knew little about the half ice demon, and he knew more then they did and was still in the dark about most of Hiei's past. He couldn't expect the two humans in front of him to fully understand the Jaganashi when he couldn't either. "Hiei has...a harsh past." Kurama managed to inform them. "But I don't believe that he would hurt the girl." Kurama tried to sound firm and convinced but a doubt was starting to form in his mind as well. What did they really know about the fire demon? What was truth and what was merely perception? How much had Hiei really changed over their years together as a team? Kurama wasn't sure.

He glanced up when Kuwabara spoke again. "It isn't even that I don't like him, I just can't trust him. He has too many secrets."

Secrets...yes, the fire apparition had many of those, and each one darker then the last...what was their companion really like under that cool exterior? Did he feel anything at all other then the anger that never seemed to leave? Could they trust him? Should they? After all, what reasons had he ever given them to do so? Hiei was an enigma if ever there was one. Who knew what he was thinking or feeling? Who really knew him? Did anyone? Did the fire apparition even know himself?...

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Hiei found that he had lost his anger in a matter of moments. It had simply melted away with one look from this pale woman's eyes. He dropped to his knees beside her when he realized the she was staring more through him, then at him. He could see the burn of the fever in her reddened cheeks and glazed eyes...those eyes...so unexpected...the blue of her eyes was different from any other ningen he had ever seen. They were a gentle blue with a sheen of grey that misted over them, muting their color until they resembled an uncut gem, still raw and untampered by living hands.

He looked down to find the girl struggling to focus on him in the gloom. Her eyes moved over his face. He did not interfere as she struggled to sit up and move closer to him. Watching her with an intensity he was known for, she managed to get to her hands and knees with her injured arm held tightly to her chest. One fist was still clutching the battered sword and she dropped the broken bow as if the death grip she had held on with for so long didn't matter. She tipped over as soon as she managed to reach a semi-sitting position and fell into his lap. He caught her slight form and stared at her with confusion when she immediately relaxed in his hold.

She parted her lips and attempted to speak, her first conscious sound breaking in her throat. She swallowed and tried again. "Are you my...angel?" she whispered and raised one weak hand to gently touch his face. Her fingers carefully traced the line of his jaw and stopped at the point of his chin. With exaggerated caution, she followed with her fingers, the path of her eyes and touched his mouth. The soft whisper of breath across the back of her fingers was a detail she magnified in her feverish state.

Hiei was still staring with widened eyes at the woman curled trustingly in his arms and felt a strange tightening in his gut when she grimaced slightly with pain. She seemed even more fragile now that he could see the hurt and sadness reflected in her eyes. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted her to live. She was so broken...but still fighting. He could respect that. He could understand that. More so then the others, Hiei could recognize the soul of a fighter in the woman shivering against him. He felt his aura automatically flare in response to her need. He almost wished that he could have been there to prevent this from happening to her...he felt protective...

The sensation was...

"I'm no angel," his lips moved under her fingertips.

"No," she agreed. A frown briefly marred the delicate lines of her face. "You are too..."

He waited for her to say it. Evil. Bad. Rotten. Forbidden. Dark...He knew what he was and made no effort to apologize for it.

"...alive," she finished. "Angels don't carry mortal sorrow...do they?" she asked this as if she still thought him some heavenly guardian.

"I wouldn't know."

She let her hand fall back to his chest and rested her cheek next to it. The darkness was calling her, its emptiness providing an escape from her tortured thoughts. "I thought...hell...was supposed to...burn..."

He waited until she was sleeping again before he stretched her back out on the rocky ground. He stared hard at the limp figure with just a hint of awe flickering in his eyes. She had consciously touched him...touched him and had not recoiled. He reached up and pressed a hand to his lips where she had rested her fingers, still feeling that unfamiliar tingle on his skin. Then he remembered who and what he was, and frowned at himself. His soul was on fire...the girl had unbalanced his carefully controlled emotions with just a look and a simple brush of her fingers. He grit his teeth as he tried to regain that precious control before everything burst into flames...remembering her last words, he clenched his fists at his sides and whispered, "It does," and turned all his focus inward before he lost control of his raging powers.

His precious balance was all that held him together. He couldn't let himself loose with out breaking several of the vows he had made to himself over the long years. There was just too much at stake now. And too many secrets that would destroy him if they were ever brought to light...

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Kurama strengthened his resolve and firmed his response when next he spoke to the two human waiting on him. "Hiei would not hurt her." Kurama had battled the idea around in silence for a good while as they walked and decided to trust his instincts. "Hiei may have done some awful things in his past, but no more then I. He has become a much better person since he came to the Ningenkai. He has done nothing to warrant our disrespect or a lack of trust in his actions. He has acted with nothing but honor since he became a member of our team."

Yusuke and Kuwabara stopped dumb in the frozen track and turned around to face the serious green eyes watching their reactions intensely.

"Wha?" Yusuke wrinkled his nose. "You still thinkin' bout that?"

Kurama tilted his head to the side and hid the perplexed feeling he felt when dealing with this human's ability to let things roll off his shoulders as if they never mattered. Kawabara on the other hand was frowning again. Kurama focused mainly on him and tensed in anticipation for a fight with the stubborn human, short though it would be.

"Maybe," the larger boy finally sighed. "I hope so...for her sake and ours."

Kurama was startled by Kuwabara's quiet response. He had expected his words to provoke the human into defending his previous words and insults, but he was instead confronted with discouraged agreement. It was as if Kuwabara simply had little belief that it was true, but he hoped that it was. Kurama couldn't let his own defensive anger crush the naive human's small faith in his teammates and had to let the subject go with difficulty.

"What about the girl?" Yusuke asked, effectively turned their attention to what was interesting him the most.

"What about her?" Kuwabara tilted his head to the side until he resembled a giant lost puppy.

Kurama simply waited for Yusuke to ask what he really wanted to know before wasting his breath questioning him.

"Well, where could she have come from?" he began.

"I thought you guys said she was kidnaped by that demon that came through the barrier and then left to die."

"That was a theory, Kuwabara." Kurama answered. "We are certain of nothing at this point."

"So what other explanations are there?" Yusuke demanded. "One, she was dragged here by a demon. Two...?"

"She is the one that opened the barrier," Kuwabara offered. The other two rolled their eyes and ignored that suggestion.

"Two...?" Yusuke prompted again.

"Maybe it wasn't someone at all," Kuwabara persisted. "What if it was something like the magic stuff that Koenma has in his vault." He frowned darkly at the two teammates that were quite efficiently ignoring him altogether. He pursed his lips in annoyance.

"Twooooo...?" Yusuke sang in a high pitched tone meant to annoy the others.

"Maybe whatever did open the barrier didn't come through it at all. They may have just pushed her through it for some reason." No one could say that he wasn't persistent.

"Twoo-ooo-ooo?" Yusuke added a few dance steps to his howling and playfully bumped into Kuwabara several times in hopes of starting a fight.

"Maybe she is really some all powerful demon that is only trying to fool us into believing she's weak so that she can drain us of our power, learn our secrets and take over the world?"

Yusuke stopped howling and stared at Kuwabara with his brown eyes suddenly serious. "Damn, an we left Hiei alone with her too!" Then he burst into laughter and hung on the larger boy's shoulder to hold himself up.

Kurama snorted at the two humans and tried to think it through. She obviously had come through the barrier. Alone? Perhaps...but not likely. The weapons? Obviously belonging to whoever did drag her down into the Makai from the Ningenkai. Humans did not run around with swords and bows anymore...not that he had seen anyway. "It might not matter," he finally replied. "It is entirely possible that she will not live long enough to answer any of our questions."

Yusuke grunted and turned serious as he thought back on the woman sleeping fretfully in the cave behind them. "That is the other thing that bothers me. Those wounds..." he trailed off.

Kuwabara narrowed his eyes at the spirit detective and used the pause in the conversation to stomp his feet to keep his blood flowing. "What are you getting at?"

"Those wounds she had...what kind of demon makes those kinds of wounds? If we can figure that out, we would have a better chance of identifying and catching the demon that brought her here." Yusuke plucked at the scarf covering half his face before turning his golden brown gaze at Kurama. "Did you recognize anything? A trace of Youki that we may have missed? A scent? Anything?"

Kurama concentrated hard on the vivid memory he had in his head. His near perfect recall was a carryover gift from Youko's past life and nearly nothing ever managed to slip past the observant fox's senses. "No, nothing," he finally replied.

"What about the girl herself? Anything weird?" Yusuke persisted.

Kurama hesitated longer here and wondered if her general lack of energy counted as strange. "Perhaps," he frowned and considered all he had ever heard about demons that consumed energy from the living. That would account for her condition, the demon's desire to get through the barrier to find a more covenant food source, and their lack of success finding a trace of the demon's passing. If it ate excess energy, there would be little trail to follow, if any at all...

"Oh come on, Urameshi!" Kuwabara sniggered. "That girl is completely harmless. She is hardly alive, much less having any abilities like us," he boasted.

Yusuke snorted again and rubbed at his numb nose with the back of one hand just to be sure that it was still there. "Keh! Whatever," he said.

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Hiei struggled for some time to contain the roiling powers threatening to spill from him. When he was convinced that he had every measure of control once again in place, he went back to glaring at the strange ningen and thinking about her uncanny effect on him. He watched her in complete silence for some time before he allowed himself to lean over her still figure.

The dreams seemed to have stopped and she was laying curled quite close to his legs again even though he had placed her several feet away from him. He had been torn between amusement and perplexity as she had wriggled her way back to him until she was resting against his body again. The warmth of his body next to her seemed to calm her and he was shocked to see a slight smile pull at her mouth as she slept on, oblivious to her proximity to the youkai.

Hiei tilted his head to the side and contemplated her pale face and the contented look she held. He seriously considered shoving her away form him and in the same heartbeat took a small amount of pleasure in the contact. Uncertainty plagued the normally indifferent demon as he tried to find some sort of solid ground in the enigma this one ningen woman had cast around herself. He felt and saw her reach out with her one free hand to touch his leg right below the knee and she curled her fingers into the dark cloth of his pants.

He wrinkled his nose at the oblivious form and huffed uncomfortably. In the end, he chose not to move away, but resumed his fascinated studying of the strange woman. He noticed her other arm was placed on her chest with her fist tucked casually under her chin. The sword was still clutched in those slender fingers and Hiei gave into his curiosity. He reached confidently out to grasp the hilt of the battered katana and remove the girl's grip from the weapon. After all, just how attached to that thing could she possibly be?

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"Uh, guys, do you feel that?" Kuwabara blurted right before he was thrown off his feet and into a snow drift.

"Shit!" Yusuke shouted and struggled to keep his feet as he felt a surge of unfamiliar energy encircle them.

A silent tremor shifted the ground under their feet just enough to make the snow appear to be rolling in a giant wave. On the heals of that unnatural motion a great flash of light streaked towards them. They all ducked away from the blinding energy and dodge out of the way as it flew past them and sizzled off into the distance. In its wake, a bare trail of smoking ground led the detectives eyes through the snow and into the distance.

"What the hell?!" Yusuke stared wide eyed at the hard ground beneath his booted feet. "Where the fuck did that come from!?"

They all turned as one and followed the melted path right up to the mouth of a familiar cave. They all gaped for a moment in disbelief before the tense silence was fractured by Kurama's choked gasp. "Hiei!" he cried out in concern and launched himself down the strange road bereft of snow and ice, using what Youkai speed he would muster in his flight back to his friend and the suddenly ominous stranger that he had left him with. He could only hope that the smaller youkai was safe....