Among Icy Hearts

Me: Hey everyone. I'm really sorry about the length of time it took to post this, but I've been having computer troubles once again. This demented thing won't log onto our wireless network properly. You need to manually repair it in order to get Internet access. On top of all of it, I've run scans and there isn't any form of spyware or virus on here. Even when my dad erased my entire hard drive we still have a problem. Oh well, it's my fault really and I have no one to blame but myself. So, lets get on with this fic. So if anyone wants to rant to me, this time, feel free to flame. It's only what I deserve of course.

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Chapter 16 The Final Battle (Part II)

The battle looked dismal, only had the entire group of participants in the tournament, finally united for one cause, escaping from the predicament by defeating each demon before them. Indeed, it was a challenging task brought upon themselves, it was no joke to say that said fighters were far more skilled than the tournament demons. It wasn't like talking about a fight between a fight between mere D and C classes, this was like A and B class demons; all put to the task of fighting the ten S class demons. S class, as Koenma had once mentioned, were the strongest of them all, all-powerful and seemingly invincible. Everyone was displaced frpm their own groups, allies torn apart as they fought for their one goal; victory.

Kurama lay sprawled out on the ground, unconscious and a rather severe wound to his forehead. Botan knelt next to him, tears spilling out of her out of her cute, usually happy, pink eyes. Yukina walked over, and as Botan took notice again to her presence she asked with a hint of urgency and desperation in her voice:

"Yukina! please, can you heal Kurama?" Yukina curtly nodded but was interrupted from making any progress in said task but a sharp hit to the back by a club of some sort. Yukina only managed to whisper out a soft

"Oh!" of surprise before falling unconscious herself. Botan, who had forgotten about this opponent screamed and shielded Kurama's body with her own, recieving another hit meant for Kurama. She struggled in her fight with coniciousness to stay awake, while wincing and cringing uncontrollably in the pain that each attack had brought upon her. The demon picked up another club and prepared to hit the ferry girl again, but was interrupted when he rushed in carelessly for the next attack. A particularly angered looking Koenma, in his teenage form, had rushed in and blocked with some sort of spiritual energy.

"KOENMA-SAMA!" yelled Botan in happiness, glad but at the same time surprised that the toddler had actually heard her cry for help.

"Botan, Shizuru, and Keiko get Kurama and Yukina into that cave!" he ordered, motioning towards a rather odd cave they hadn't seen before.

Hiei looked at Sae frozen in the target of the demon's gaze and only left to growl at what he knew was coming. He felt a hard hit and the demon collided straight into him and sent him flying several feet backwards. Sae woke suddenly, a gasp as she saw the site before her; the demo immediately ran back to her and seized her up in a choking grip, leaving her coughing for air.

"Where's the lightning pendent girl?" Her asked harshly, tightening his grip around her neck

"W-what the h-hell are you t-t-talking about?" The demon, who seemed to be more brawn then brain, looked at what was around her neck and ripped off the necklace, casting her off too the side hastily. "Don't think you can lie to me, kitsune!" he said, picking up the necklace and holding the pendent in his grasp. He ran to her side as she forced herself to stand up, feeling herself weaken with every second. "Give that back!" The demon smirked, tossing the necklace up in the air and catching it, repeating it several times and amusing himself with her look of pure hatred, leaving Hiei clueless to everything.

"Do you truly want to know more about you 'girlfriend', Hiei?" the demon asked amusement growing.

"She's a half breed. In fact-- she isn't even a half demon, merely a quarter." Hiei glared in an untrusting way, he was ignored as the demon continued on. "Her father was a half demon; her mother as you might like to know, was a ningen, whom of which, I know you hate so much. She and her father, all because their demon spritis were stronger than most of their kind they looked simalar enough to others; enough to allow them into Makai. Do you know why her father was killed; he got farther into the predicaments of a gang of ningenkai demons then he anticipated, so he ran. The only reason the one you say you love is strong enough to fight is because she had that necklace, and now that it's gone; she'll be jut like her father. Weak, cowardly, face it Hiei, she won't side with you anymore!"

Hiei looked awestruck and mad at the same time, glancing over to Sae in an almost angry, but mostly suspicious glare. Sae looked as if to be on the verge of tears only managing to hold them back barely.

"Ms. Katana! Do we have a deal? Side with us and we'll give it back!" Sae fell to her knees in response, breathing uneven and eyes downcast. Hiei's temper finally snapped and he glared at her angrily, even more angrily the usual.

"Well, you heard him! Go and retrieve you precious treasure!" It became impossible for Hiei to believe he had ever trusted he, everything he thought he knew about her became a blur in his mind with this new information.

"But, Hi-"

"I NO LONGER CARE OF WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU, BECAUSE I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN! I HATE YOU! GOOD RIDDENCE!

With that, she got up and ran off not to the enemy in the opposite direction, but away from everything, somehow running right through the barrier, not caring enough to glance back at the scene before her.

As soon as she left a wave of guilt and sadness washed over her. Hiei, her first and only love-... she had failed him, betrayed him. It was all her fault. She walked farther and farther away, passing meadows rivers and streams and forests on her way saddening until she was unable to take another step. She collapsed and stared up at the dark sky. She looked at her hands, bathed in her own blood. How much she wished she hadn't left her katana behind, then she could do Hiei a favor and end her own life. She shuddered as she allowed a wave of tears to overcome her.

Meanwhile, everyone back at the battle seemed to be having an extremely lucky comeback, five of the ten had been defeated, only the other five remained. They were interrupted by a loud beeping noise, flashing red lights accompanied by it, and a telepathic voice ringing throughout their heads, excluding those of their enemies, that was.

"I've hacked the computer system, if we escape, it'll leave our enemies in a horrible situation, after all, this building is going to explode. Escaping from the barrier is simple, run through without thinking of it, forgot about everything for a minute. They shouldn't be able to get through, only one else who knows this is their computer expert-- he's dead. Ha! Your downfall was the upshot of deciding to wire your trap with supercomputers with only one person on your side who knew how to work them!" Numerous people disappeared through the thought to be steel barrier, the entire Urameshi team included among them. As they ran, they heard a large explosion. Hiei suddenly realized what he had done- ran away from a good fight, god, he mentally beat himself up

The all looked back towards the ashes of the recent battlefield in silence.

"So that's it? It's all over?" someone asked. Hiei walked up to the ashes and picked up Sae's pendent, which surprisingly was still intact, as if nothing had touched it in the first place. His eyes, softening considerably back to their usual distant selves reflected the youkai's sudden realization and the internal trauma he had just been thrown into. How harsh he'd been, letting his anger get the better of him, as usual, having Sae pay the price for it. Turning to look for Sae, he began to walk, although, he was almost immediately roused back to the current situation as something rose out of the ashes. Spinning around with amazing speed, he unsheathed his katana again only to find the largest and strongest demon of them all; the leader. Even worse, it was still standing and know it looked pissed beyond reasoning.

Sae forced herself to stop crying and stood shakily on her feet. Whatever the case, she'd get back there, maybe Hiei didn't want her there but SO WHAT! This new fury was like a fire was brewing in her. All her sadness and guilt transformed into an angry rage. She'd kill all those demons! Then she could disappear and cut herself off from contact with other people. After all, she'd been doing it for years, and she could do it again. She ran angrily back towards the direction of the fights. When she arrived she gasped. The demon was throwing fireballs and electricity at everyone. At least, what was left of 'everyone' out of the 80 plus the few guests accompanying the teams when everyone first started out, she only counted thirteen, excluding herself. Hiei, Kurama, Kuwabara, Yusuke, Yukina, Botan, Shizuru, for some odd reason, Koenma, Hoshi the referee girl, a nerdy looking demon who was even shorter than Hiei dodging random fireballs like a crazed madman, laughing manically at each one, and three other girls from the tournament. He saw a demon throwing an extremely large fireball at Hiei. 'Oh NO! Hiei can't even dodge that!' Hiei was ready to counter it with his black dragon attack, but both youkai knew Hiei would be hit as a repercussion. Foolishly, she ran straight in front of the fireball aimed at Hiei and conjured the strongest shield she could without using up the last of her strength.

She was cast off to the side, about to fall unconscious and unable to move another inch. Luckily, she was missed when Hiei took the chance to fire his black dragon at the opponent before him without injuring Sae further. It did the trick; the final, strongest demon fell down, on his way knocking down a tree successfully. Hiei looked around quickly and Yusuke, who had been one of the ones to notice the fallen tree. "Where are Kurama and Botan?" He asked, his voice growing in alarm. To everyone's shock, they found Kurama and Botan nearby. The pair hadn't been hit by the tree itself, rather, the broken branch, they both were very still, eyes closed, Kurama's arms wrapped loosely, yet protectively around Botan. Yusuke's eyes widened as he ran over to them.

"KURAMA, BOTAN!" he yelled, voice growing hoarse he shook Kurama roughly, and then in turn, Botan. He caught wind of what had happened, but chose to deny it.

"KURAMA, YOU STUPID KITSUNE BOY, WAKE UP! YOU TOO BOTAN, DAMN YOU!" He collapsed, a few tears falling from his eyes. Koenma and Kuwabara followed, Kuwabara began to ask:

"Yo, Yusuke is everything al-" his voice faltered

"Oh my god... Botan... Kurama they're..." He and Kuwabara looked even sadder than Yusuke, although no more tears fell.

Hiei meanwhile found himself in his own turmoil. He ran over to Sae, she had finally lost consciousness. He looked angry

"DAMMIT SAE WHY THE HELL DID YOU GO AND DO THAT!" he screamed at her, she remained unresponsive, but stirred and moaned slightly, although still unconscious, but turned muttered sadly with an obvious guilt ringing in her voice:

"I'm so sorry Hiei..." He looked gently at her, brushing a few strands of midnight black hair away from her face then stroking her cheek gently, noticing the tear stains on her cheeks. Although he knew she couldn't hear her, he continued:

"No.." this apology was hard for him to get out, after all, Hiei NEVER regretted what he did, at least he did before "I'm the one who should be sorry... Can you ever forgive me?

She opened her eyes slightly and winced, as her vision cleared, she saw Hiei looking over her with that sort of worried expression that one can just interpret and tell immediately there's something wrong.

"... H-Hi-e-i?"

With a slight exhalation of breath she fell limp in his arms. Hiei set her down gently; not bothering to ignore what had come to pass. He looked angry though, it was ALL because of him.! If only he hadn't said what he had. He punched a nearby tree as hard as he possibly could, ignoring the bark that was embedded in his fist and the blood trickling down his fingers. "Damn!"

Walking over to where he last spotted Yusuke he called over to him, only to see Yusuke's tearful face "Keiko... I just realized, she never made it out and Botan along with Kurama... they're t-they're dead. They got killed when you killed that demon" Hiei pretended not to care as the rest of his world came crashing down, Kurama...his best friend, he died trying to protect Botan... and it was all in vain on his part. Yusuke continued on... "It was a trick, the human slaves were never here, and they just lied to attract strong demons. The last members of the team walked over to the cliff as the sun began to rise, followed by the last survivors of the tournament. Out of all the participants, only seven remained, accompanied by the three guests, Koenma, Shizuru, and Yukina. Koenma tried to brighten things up.

"You guys avenge all these deaths at least... their efforts weren't wasted. We won."

Hiei glared over at him

"No. we didn't"

Yusuke added in for him:

"Because it isn't winning"

Kuwabara finished:

"If the ones you love aren't there with you when you achieve it."

Owari

End

Me: Okay, I'm finished. I hope you guys all enjoyed it 'cause it was my first ever fanfiction to ever actually show people. I need to apologize, I've been in a rather depressed mood lately and my story is a result. It was actually a lot sadder than I planed it to be in the beginning. I almost cried while writing it.

You can review, if so maybe you can tell me the following things, of course you don't have to.

1. Did my writing style improve as time progressed?

2. Did you find it as an enjoyable story to read?

3. Did you expect the ending to be the way it was?

I can always use constructive criticism, remember, as soon as possible I'll be thinking up a sequel and I need all the tips I can get.

There's another aspect to which I must apologize about. I have nothing against Botan (I like her), Kurama (What does the word FANGIRL mean to you?), or Keiko (Killing her was actually a mistake on my part, I just forgot to type Keiko made it out, so I decided it would be an odd twist to kill her off) Sae was the only one I truly decided on in the beginning to kill off. So, I'm sorry if you're displeased with the way things turned out.

If anyone has a question to ask me or tips to give to me on my next story, mail me at or send your questions to my AOL address for the quickest response.