Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of its characters. I do however own Kythe.
Ch. 4- Calamity Cave
He couldn't see anything. His eyes wouldn't open. He couldn't feel anything, even when he tried to use his Jagan.
Something light brushed his skin and he freaked out.
'Where am I?' Hiei thought frantically, 'Where the hell am I!'
Suddenly, there was light, he could see in front of him. But what he saw made his stomach turn. What normally would have made him grin was causing him to shiver. There was a trail of crimson blood on the floor that continued on into the darkness.
His vision returned, Hiei set off following the trail of blood trying to find something. Anything that would soothe the worry and fear that was starting to rise in his chest.
However, he wouldn't be so lucky.
When he saw it, he froze, glued to the spot as his blood ran cold. Botan.
'No, it's not her!' he thought desperately, 'It can't be her, not now!'
He kept trying to convince himself that it wasn't her, but her bright blue hair and wide terrified pink eyes, devoid of any other emotion made it impossible.
"B-Botan!" He shouted running towards the deity. He fell to his knees as he reached her and quickly grabbed her wrist, looking for a pulse.
Nothing.
He touched her cheek. It was ice cold.
"Botan! Please no! Not now!" he repeated as tears rolled down his face and hit the ground with a soft clunk as they turned into obsidian colored tear gems.
"Botan, Botan, BOTAN!"
There was nothing but silence. And then a soft whisper, "Hiei." He ignored it; he knew it was just a trick. Then again, "Hiei, wake up."
'Wake up!' he thought, but before he could do anything else he was met with a blinding white light.
On the way to his return to consciousness, Hiei became aware that he was lying on something soft.
It was so soft in fact, that he just wanted to stay like this forever lying on whatever his pillow was.
However, someone had different ideas as another worried whisper met his ears.
"Hiei?"
Then Hiei felt a gentle hand start stroking his face. He loved the way it felt. It was a gentle caress, something he'd never felt in his life, and it made him feel loved.
And he found that he knew that touch, he found that he longed for that touch, and he found that he wanted to return it.
"Botan." Whispered Hiei unconsciously.
"Hiei!" There was a relieved sigh from Botan as she spoke, "So you're finally awake?"
Slowly, so as not to be blinded by the expected bright sun and/or light that was sure to come, he opened his crimson orbs and was met with a rather…dim cave, and Botan's caring eyes of course.
"Hn, where are we?" Hiei asked somewhat groggily.
Botan giggled softly, "Straight to business as always." She shook her head still giggling slightly. "We're in the Tenken's cave Hiei," Botan continued, "he, uhh, caught us by surprise two days ago."
"Two days ago!" Hiei exclaimed sitting upright rather hastily, and immediately regretting it a second later as pain exploded in his head.
"Hiei!" Botan cried in worry as she brought his head to rest gently back in her lap. "Don't move like that, you got conked over the head with a pretty nasty blow, remember? You're in no condition to be moving about so suddenly!" she snapped sounding almost like an overprotective mother talking to her child.
Hiei just smirked up at her.
"Hn. Well can you at least tell me why nobody has come for us yet?" asked Hiei curiously.
"You mean you don't remember what happened?" gasped Botan.
"Well, like you said, I did get hit over the head pretty hard and it would help if you would tell me…ooommff!"
He was cut off when Botan's lips were pressed against his. Stunned at first, Hiei slowly leaned up into it wanting to get the fullness of her lips. Hiei gently passed his tongue over Botan's lips, as if asking for permission to enter.
She granted it as their tongues met. This "dance" as it has been described, went on for a minute and then, when their air supply ran out, the two broke apart, albeit reluctantly.
Hiei looked Botan in the eyes and said softly, "Now that, I remember." Botan giggled. "I love you Botan." He finished lovingly.
"And I love you Hiei." Responded Botan as she started to play with his gravity-defying hair.
Hiei was in a daze, this whole situation felt like a dream, them being captured in a cave probably going to be killed, and yet, being here in Botan's arms or, lap rather, made this predicament a whole lot more bearable.
It took Hiei a while to remember the question he had been meaning to ask. "Botan," he started, "where are the others?"
Botan nodded towards the corner of the cave a little bit away from where they were situated. There lay Yusuke, Yukina, and propped up against the cave wall was Kurama.
"How did they get caught? Is Yukina hurt?" Hiei asked the second question with an obvious concern in his voice.
"To answer your first question, I don't know, none of them have woken up yet. And to your second question, Yukina is fine. I saw the Tenken bringing them in yesterday and he seemed to be more careful with Yukina than with the other two."
Hiei let out a sigh of relief, then asked, "Have you tried to get out?" Botan shook her head.
"That was the first thing the Tenken told me not to try. He said something about being there without actually being there."
Hiei raised an eyebrow in question.
"My thoughts exactly."
There was a shout and then Yusuke sat bolt upright, drenched in a cold sweat.
"Keiko!" he shouted in a loud voice.
Then he saw Hiei and Botan, the latter gently stroking the others face, and smirked, all thoughts of Keiko and whatever mortal peril she had been in gone.
He was about to open his mouth to comment when there was more noise, this time from the mouth of the cave.
There was a lone figure walking toward them, in an almost mockingly casual way.
As the figure came into Botan realized that it was their captor and for the first time got a good look at him.
The "Tenken" as they would continue to refer to him as, had dark silver hair that would probably win second place in a gravity defying hair contest, second only to Hiei's of course, due to the fact that it spiked out in every which way, the only difference in the two's hair, aside from the color, was the fact that the "Tenken's" silver bangs hung low over his eyes and nearly past his nose.
His face was thin and looked malnourished and pale. Due to his pale and drawn face, his eyes stood out. His eyes were a vibrant blue/gray that seemed to question one's very soul when gazed into.
He wore a hooded light blue/white sweat jacket, under which was a black shirt.
His pants were black cargo pants with many different pockets and zippers adorning them.
A black leather belt, the end of which fell to a little past his first pockets, held up the pants.
His hands were gloved with black gloves that appeared to have a metal/brass knuckle connection on them, that were cut off mid finger. (Think Zell from FF8) On his feet he wore sneakers colored blue, white, and gray.
Finally, there was a piece of rope that came up from the left side of his waist and went over his right shoulder. And strapped on to his back, supported by the rope, was a sheathed katana.
The sheath itself was covered in an ancient Japanese kanji that was currently unreadable due to its position.
As the Tenken walked towards them, Botan, Hiei, and Yusuke noted the smile on his face, empty and emotionless.
"Oh good," he said in a cheery voice, "some of you have decided to wake up!" He continued to smile at them and then added, "In case you're wondering, I do have an actual name, aside from the one that's been given to me. My real name it Kythe Razalas, but most people call me the Tenken."
The empty smile met silence, until, "Umm, Ten….Kythe," Botan corrected herself, "where in Makai are we exactly?"
The newly dubbed Kythe seemed to ponder this for a second then replied, "You're in, what I have named Calamity Cavern. I don't know what the actual name for it is but, I've come to know it as home." He said this last part fondly, acting as though he had never lived in a better place before.
"Hn. For your information Tenken," Hiei spat, "it's called the Cave of the Tormented."
The Tenken nodded enthusiastically, "There you go, I knew it was something like that!"
There was a sudden rumble that rang through the cave. At first, suspecting rain, all eyes looked towards the mouth of the cave.
"Strange," muttered the Tenken to himself, "I didn't thing Makai was due for rain until tomorrow."
"Ha ha well," Yusuke started while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, "you'd probably still be right, 'cause that wasn't thunder." Kythe looked over at him with questioning eyes. "Hah ha, that was my stomach!"
The Tenken sweat dropped as his right eye twitched in annoyance. He slowly got up and put on his smiling façade once again.
"Well, the good news is, I've got you your food already," He stated, then in an almost compassionate tone of voice, "however, you'll need to decide how to, what's the phrase, oh yeah, ration it."
Yusuke looked slightly puzzled. Seeing this, Hiei put it bluntly, "It means he's giving us so little food that each of us is probably gonna starve to death."
Yusuke blinked, took a few breaths, and said, "Oh."
Botan shook her head at the idiocy of the world's greatest savior and wondered, really wondered, for the first time, how in the hell Yusuke had survived for as long as he had, starting after he died the first time, of course.
All eyes followed the Tenken as he strode over towards a small niche, probably made by him, and pulled out a small knapsack. Unzipping it, he stuck his hand in and withdrew, not the trademark candy bars and junk food usually brought by runaways, but six empty water bottles and a dozen or so apples and assorted sandwiches.
"Well, since you're the first three up, it would appear you get first dibs on the food." Turning back toward the front of the cave, he called over his shoulder, "I'll be back in half an hour or so, seeing as the nearest healthy stream is a good ways away."
And with that, the Tenken was gone.
There was silence for a while, not counting the ecstatic chewing of Yusuke's food as it entered his mouth. He was about to pick up his second sandwiches when Hiei spoke again.
"Detective, you do realize that that is all the food we have for however long we have here?"
Yusuke nodded still going for the sandwich.
Hiei continued, "And neither Yukina nor Kurama have eaten, so you need to stop shoveling food into your mouth."
Yusuke blinked, grumbled to himself, and picked up an apple, taking a large bite out of the crisp fruit while moving away from the food.
Botan picked up her sandwich and apple and was about to get Hiei's for him when he said, "No thanks Botan, I'm not really hungry, you can take it if you want."
"That's alright, but are you sure you don't want it? You're gonna need to keep your strength up."
Hiei shook his head and smirked, "I'm fine, thanks though Botan."
As he said this, he leaned up out of her lap and kissed her again.
Silence.
And then…
"KURAMA! WAKE UP YOU'VE GOT TO SEE THIS! KURAMA! YOU WERE RIGHT! KURAMA!"
As if on cue, or maybe it was because of all the noise being yelled into his ears, Kurama immediately woke, jumping a good ten feet in the air, causing him to crash his head into the stony ceiling of the cave, and come back down nursing his now bruised skull in pain.
"WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING SCREAMING INTO A MAN'S EAR LIKE THAT? YOU SCARED ME SHITLESS!" Kurama yelled angrily.
"That part is physically impossible my friend." Yusuke stated, then continued, "But I was trying to get you to wake up because of that." He finished, pointing his finger at the still obliviously kissing couple on the opposite side of the rather narrow cave.
Kurama's rage seemed to subside quickly as he saw the fire demon and deity kissing, but quickly rounded on Yusuke again so as not to let Youko's anger go to waste.
"Why couldn't you just tap me on the shoulder or give me a little shove or something civil like that?" He seethed at the still bewildered Yusuke, who just ignored the enraged fox demon.
"Why do I even bother?" He mumbled to himself.
Yukina had woken up two seconds after Kurama's outburst and was just gazing fondly at her friend and her brother.
"You see Hiei," she whispered, "wasn't it luck that I made you realize your feelings for Botan?" She giggled softly, then, "I told you so!"
A/N: Well there is chapter four! Sorry for the delay but things have just been so hectic with school and all that crap! Anyway please R&R! Chapter five will be posted soon seeing as it's already written! Laterz!