Inulover: I seem to have a habit for dieing over breaks, don't I? Heh, sorry bout that. Anyways, I'm on a role! I haven't had to threaten to discontinue again! Yaaaaaay! I feel loved!

Kurama: (smacks Inulover in the head) quit acting like a fool and get on with it already.

Inulover: (sniffles) you're so mean to me!

Wufei: Stupid women!

Inulover: o.0 where the fuck did you come from!!

Wufei: (shrugs and sits in a chair)

Inulover: oh lord -.-. (Sigh) lets start this shall we? Reviews at the bottom. Oh, this probably goes without saying but, italics anything flashback. 'Thoughts', "speech" obviously. I can't seem to make up my mind these days so, no one get confused.

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Hiei jumped from tree branch to tree branch all the while thinking to himself,

'I know I felt Kurama's Ki just now.' He continued his flight for fifteen minutes non-stop. 'Where in the hell is he… she… iir! Where the hell are they?!' he stammered for the words. Not wanting to say it was Kurama that had tried to kill him in the cave, it wasn't, but he didn't like thinking that the Kumo(1) had fully taken over his fox either.

The brush was thick and the canopy covered the area like a blanket. Small rays of golden-white light peeked through the tiny gaps in the leafy covering. Hiei ignored the small thorns and branches that kept nipping at him as he desperately tried to find where he had felt his lovers' energy.

The small slivers of light, after many minutes, began to widen until a bright flash of sunshine burst into the small demon's line of vision, blinding him temporarily.

Hiei leaned against the blue wall of one, Yusuke Urameshi's apartment, starring at his teammates drunken mother passed out on the couch in front of him, "hn."

"Um, Yusuke? Should we just leave her there?" Botan asked uncertainly, glancing at the detective in the kitchen over the low wall.

"Yeah, don't worry; she'll be passed out for hours,"

"That's not quite what I meant," Yusuke held up a coke,

"Want one?"

"No thank you. Where's Kuwabara?"

"Somethin' about a test," Yusuke plopped down on one of the chairs, "Shizuru won't let 'em out of the house."

"Well then, let's get down to business, shall we?"

"What business? We find Kurama, we capture him, then we figure out what to do from there," he hooked his hands behind his head, smirking.

"Do you really think it will be that simple?" The detective jumped at Hiei's sudden growl. "Kurama is a formidable opponent and Yukita won't give in without a fight."

"And the question on everyone's mind is: will you be able to fight back? Considering your relationship."

Hiei glanced at the detective, a defiant glare settled on his features which Yusuke countered easily. "I don't know how you found out, detective, but I don't let my emotions get in the way of a fight." Hiei played with the tiny pendent in his pocket and hope of being able to save Kurama flared again. 'You've made me such a sap, Kurama,' he thought, mildly disturbed by the fact. Feelings such as love were not useful to a warrior such as himself. 'But I will get you back.'

Botan and Yusuke sadly watched Hiei space out again. "We'll get him back, Hiei. Maybe you shouldn't..."

"Don't tell me what to do Urameshi. I'm fighting."

"Right then," Botan whipped out a demon compass from her pink kimono sleeve, "Let's get going shall we?"

"Uh, Botan, you do remember that thing doesn't work if he's ... uhh... she's masking his…er…her energy,"

"Unless we have a piece of his hair." Botan jumped over to Hiei and started patting him down. Hiei growled, his hand twitching, he was about ready to pull his katana out when the fairy girl held up a piece of red hair. "I thought you would have some on you." She placed the strand in the compartment in the back of the compass and the tiny red and blue needle began spinning.

After a thirty minute walk the group found themselves walking through a rather large botanical garden. Shortly after the needle spun around rapidly then sparked, giving off a tiny stream of smoke. Hiei watched from his place in a tree as Yusuke threw the object somewhere yelling obscenities at it. Hiei barley caught the flicker of Ki that passed by, instantly recognizing who it belonged to he dashed off, vaguely aware that Yusuke and Botan where calling him.

Thus, bringing him to where he was currently standing.

'Kurama would like this,' Hiei found himself thinking as ruby eyes scanned the large clearing; it was huge! A large circle, almost perfect, surrounded on all sides by large trees and bushes, various flowers scattered between them. Not so much as one weed dared mar the ring of bright green grass.

"You noticed my little signal I see. Very good." A haughty voice rang out from a tree close by. Hiei growled and looked up to see Yukita lounging above him casually on a tree branch above him.

"What do you want with Kurama, he's done nothing to you." Hiei glared as the youkai chuckled again.

"You'll find out soon enough what I want from him," she smirked and jumped down, "If you live that long that is." A puff of blue smoke appeared around them making it imposable to see where the slippery Kumo had gone.

Hiei felt long, sharp claws rake up his spine; his hand went for the hilt of his sword. The blade flashed as he pulled the katana out of its sheath with the speed of light, swinging the sword sideways behind him as he spun around. The smoke cleared to allow Hiei to come face to face with Yoko Kurama, sword frozen in place right by the neck of the kitsune. Yukita let that revolting sneer spread on her face, "What's wrong Hiei?" she asked in a sickly sweet voice, "Don't want to hurt your lover?"

"Shut up!" Hiei punched her in the stomach. Yukita collapsed to the ground coughing, trying to get the air back into her lungs. Hiei gave Yukita an icy glare, "How did you know about that?" He asked her in a growl. Yukita smirked again, pushing herself up, still panting lightly.

"The tear gem you shed of course; it had to be one of pure love from a male koorime. Granted, I never realized that any were still living." She stood up. A large burgundy colored tree grew up in front of her until it stood at seven ft. A multitude of mouths adorned the tips of the thick ligament like branches; each one owning a mouthful of razor-sharp canine teeth, dripping with acidic saliva. "You know, I never realized that the power over plants could be so fun!" Yukita's amused voice screamed manically as a lone mouth darted after Hiei.

Not knowing what else to do he jumped into the trees, climbing higher and higher as one of the many hungry appendages chased him. He stopped at the top of a tall Ginkgo tree. A tree with long wide branches and fan-shaped leaves clustered together on the thinner, drooping limbs. It seemed as if the Death Tree had stopped coming after him.

The Willow like branches floated quietly behind Hiei as he looked through the leaves. The branches grabbed him, wrapping around his arms and legs making him form a T as it pushed the small demon out of the cover of the leaves, dangling him from the top.

Hiei struggled against the strong hold the weak branches had on him as the same mouth rose up to him at a leisurely pace. He should have known better then to have jumped into a tree, of all things. He burned one of his arms free from the Ginkgo trees hold and fried the advancing mouth. The plant shrieked and three more came at him, one took a bite out of his shoulder and he screamed as he felt the acid lace with his blood. The Ginkgo dropped him and another mouth grabbed him by the side, throwing him up like a dog would a bone and grabbed him again as the third branch fought over Hiei with its twin, wanting a bite as he pulled from the other side.

The squabbling caused the plant to drop Hiei to the ground, his blood pooling around him. He felt like someone had just pumped fire straight into his veins and could feel the acid still eating at his flesh where he had been bitten. There was never a more literal use of the term of one feeling as if he were on fire.

His vision fuzzy he looked over to Yukita as she stroked the plant, now tame and calm, enjoying herself as she watched Hiei suffer. Realizing that he would most likely not find another chance, he pushed himself up and stood on shaky legs, swaying lightly on his feet. He pulled the Kumo pendent out of his pocket and with the last bit of energy he had he zipped over in front of Yukita and tried to throw the necklace around his fox's neck. With speed that matched Hiei's she gutted him like a fish.

The necklace dropped out of his hand as Yukita pulled Yoko's long claws out of Hiei's stomach, her hand covered up to the wrist in blood. The stunned, limp form of the fire demon fell to the ground. Yukita licked the blood off of a finger and picked up the pendent with her clean hand.

"Well this is cute," she tucked it into a hidden pocket on the toga like garb; "You won't need this anymore."

Her plans to sit and watch as Hiei died were ruined by the sound of the spirit detective and a feminine voice calling for the little demon. She disappeared and sat high in one of the Ginkgo trees, watching as the two outsiders approached.

The Demon Tree, with the lack of the Yoko's powers to guide it, went wild; it swung around in a livid manner and when Yusuke had tried to get close to Hiei in order to help him, the tree jutted out at him. Yukita held back her amused laughter as she watched the scenario unfold; they would never get passed the Death Tree in time to save the Koorime.

"Damn it! How do we get past this thing?"

"We have to think of something!" Botan yelled back worriedly, never taking her eyes off of the prone form of Hiei on the ground.

Yusuke took aim, readied, and fired at the demon plant. The attack covered the plant on all sides but the Death Tree got away with only a couple of singes. Now, of course, it was more pissed off then ever as it charged at Yusuke.

"Oh Shit!" he dodged a branch and punched another. He tried his shot gun but it didn't work, granted his spirit gun wasn't being used to its fullest, but any stronger and it would also hurt Hiei as well. Yusuke jumped out of the way and behind one of the Ginkgo trees as a particularly large fanged mouth tried to devour him. The mouth followed suit but stopped abruptly at the tree, seeming almost like it didn't want to hurt it, or was it even maybe afraid of it? "Oh-kaaay," he muttered at the reaction the tree had on the death plant.

"Yusuke! Use the tree! It doesn't like the Ginkgo tree!" He leapt up and snapped off enough branches for both him and Botan to use as a sort of "Shield" against the plant.

The two slowly began to make their way closer to Hiei and the Death Tree and as before, the mouths made a couple of halted jerks towards them but faltered and opted to stay away from the branches covering them.

Botan pulled out her oar and jumped on, telling Yusuke to put Hiei on as well.

"I'll take him to Genkai; she should be able to help him." She said as she flew off and dropped her shield of leaves.

"Then that leaves me to clean up," Yusuke grinned, cracking his knuckles. Botan looked back as she heard an explosion and saw a flash of blue light.

Yukita shielded her eyes from the intensity of the detective's spirit gun, and cursed her poor luck. These damn trees had foiled her plans of killing the demon. What kind of foolish creature was afraid of a ningens plant? She watched as Yusuke turned around, running back from where he came and most likely to this "Genakai's" house.

"Yuki," she addressed one of her younger children that were perched next to her. He was barely the size of a beach ball.

"Yes, mother?" The young voice replied.

"Follow that boy and then report back to me when you find out where he is going."

"Yes mother," he scampered down the tree fast enough to leave a dust trail in his wake. Satisfied, Yukita turned to go back to the underground cave.

Yukita walked through their cave in the human form of Kurama. She was thoroughly pissed off at the fact that the damn detective had to come when he had. If had stayed away for a minute more, or better yet if the tree had killed him.

"Aracnus!" she hollered. The male demon woke up with a start and glared at his mate, displeased that she had awoken him.

"What is it?" He snapped at her, earning himself a murderous stare, not that he cared.

"Don't take that tone with me!" She visibly backed up as the coarse patch of black fur bristled up on the back of is neck.

"Remember who you're dealing with Yukita. You may scare the children but not me," he growled. He had the upper hand in this fight. Yukita stood down; she was in no place at the moment to force her will on her mate. If she tried to fight him she would lose. Aracnus may normally be impassive about everything but get him mad and even Yukita trembled, though she made a point to never show it. Her children knew better then she did, they would run as far away as possible when they could tell their father was in a bad mood.

Yukita waited for the male to calm down before continuing. "Were is Cain? Has he returned from his task yet?"

"No, he's still at spirit world. Whether or not he'll be able to find your items, or if he's even still alive is not a concern of mine right now. Why so hasty? You said you liked that body."

"It seems I may have to make a change in my plans."

"You failed to kill him again, didn't you?" He said amusedly, smirking.

"Shut up. That damn spirit detective came along at the wrong time. I'm not sure if he's dead or alive now, but I'm not taking chances. Yuki is tailing them now," The sourness in her voice made Aracnus laugh.

"Always sending the young ones. If he gets squashed?"

"Then we know the demons alive."

"If he returns?"

"Then he deserves higher respect from me."

The young spider watched stealthily from the shoji, intent on making his mother proud. He was watching the smaller demon that all the people seemed to be fussing over. Not only had he trailed that ningen to this shrine but he knew his mother would like to know the state of the one she had been fighting.

Genkai had managed to stitch up the larger wounds on his shoulder, sides, and stomach while Yukina neutralized most of the acidity of the venom. It was a miracle as it was that the demon hadn't died already from the acid in his veins, any longer and it would have eaten him from the inside out until there was nothing left. The acid would no longer cause Hiei's death but was still coursing through his veins which looked to be extremely painful judging by the way he constantly tossed on the futon. His breathing was harsh and raspy, he still sounded as if he were dieing.

It was agreed that they would keep Hiei at the temple until he was well again, though none of them knew how long that would be.

Yuki dashed out of sight and up the side of the wall as the tall dark haired boy walked out of the room and out of the temple. Cautiously he looked back into the room to see the young maiden tending to the pained demon. Feeling he knew enough, Yuki turned and ran back home to relay the news to his mother. 'She will be pleased with me.'

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Inulover: and thus ends that chapter. Sorry it took so long but I had major writers block on several different parts of this story -.- I didn't quite know how to finish it off at first and the beginning was hell.

(1) Kumo- spider. (learned that from nightshadow131 smiles thank you night shadow)

Review response:

Dragonflyr: I don't think anyone likes spiders now (smiles) aren't they? But Yukita got taken down a notch by Aracnus in this chapter. Hope you liked it.

Mea: Thank you smiles

Volpe Di Spirito: lol. Thank you. He is mysterious isn't he? Even to me (sweatdrop) I know his major role but I think I want to try something with him. don't know yet, but something at the end.

Nightshadow131: Kay, I'll do that then. I still have your email in my buddy list. Oh and I finally got some info on Aphrodite (jumps up and down) took long enough, lol. Well as long as you can tell who was attacking who in this chapter, otherwise I need to rethink how to phrase my fighting scenes, seeing as their going to be more often now. Hmmmm…. Can Hiei trust Aya? (shifty eyes) maaaaybe, maaaaybe not. smile to be truthful, bunny wasn't intended, I was trying to steal Eri Yukis name from Gravitation but was to lazy to look up spelling, hence, BUNNY. lol

Kurama-Hieigirl25: I feel special :3 hope you liked it.

Shawna/Kara: yay! I never thought I could make a yaoi hater interested in my work (smiles) glad you like it enough to want to continue. I feel special again :3

Inulover: action packed chapter, ne?

"Wufei: what the hell would you know about fighting women?

Inulover: God Damn it! Where are you coming from?! This is not your story! Out!

Wufei: And if I don't?

Inulover:(growls) Hiei! Kurama! Get rid of this Guy!!!

Wufei: I'm going! (runs)

Kurama: (walks in) what are you screaming about?

Inulover: nothing -.-u

Ja ne, please review smiles