Chapter 7 pt 2: The carnival...Hiei's fate

"Jun...Pei..." Yusuke whispered in shock. A chilling smile slowly crept across her features.

"So, you do remember your dearly departed old teacher. I truly do love to leave an impact on my students,"

"I can't believe it, she's alive, and she's one of them!" said Kuwabara in complete shock

"That's right Kuwabara, Yusuke and Keiko, I am a dragon keeper, and my brother Cheng Pei and I are going to give you a night that you'll never forget."

The two demons began to emit a mixture of green and blue energy. Keiko held on tightly to Yusuke's arm in fear of the impending attack. "Wait Jun! Why are you doing this? Why are you fighting with the enemy?!" Yusuke shouted.

Jun chuckled slightly, amused at Yusuke's and the others naïveté. "You really don't get it do you. I was never attacked you moron, it was a set up from the very beginning!"

"WHAT!" both Kuwabara and Yusuke said in unison.

"But why? I don't understand," Yusuke gritted out through clenched teeth. He was pissed to say the least. The teacher he was trying to avenge turned out to be his true enemy. He and his friends and the whole freakin' school were played like a damn violin from hell. She had used him, used them all! But, for what purpose?! To what end?! What was she trying to do?! Yusuke's thoughts were interrupted by Jun Pei's cynical laugh.

"You really want to know...ask your boss." She said cryptically.

"Who, Koenma?"

But, before Yusuke could inquire anymore, Jun pulled out an exotic flute that looked like it was made out of light blue crystal. It had silver dragons winding up and down its length. She lowered her lips to the glassy surface, powder blue waves falling in her face, and began to play. The darkly, exotic melody wafted through the air and gave everyone a disillusioned heady feeling. As if on cue, a multitude of strange slithering sounds began to emanate around them.

"Urameshi…What the heck is that," Kuwabara asked already fearing what the answer would be. He didn't have to wait long to find out. Hundreds of cloaked figures began to emerge from the shadows.

"This is not good," said Yusuke.

Kurama and Yumi had stopped running through the crowds as they heard the melodious flute playing its alien song. Yumi glanced towards the direction from where the music was coming from. 'Damn it, who the hell ordered an attack?' she looked, discreetly, towards Suuichi. His eyes were surveying the crowd, most likely searching for his friends. "Suuichi…what is that music? What is going on?" He ignored her questions as he felt a dramatic increase of Youki.

'They must be making their move, just as I expected,' Kurama thought. He was snapped out of his thoughts by Yumi's screams as well as the screams coming from the crowds. An army of cobra like beings as big as humans, with arms surrounded the area. Without warning the demons began to viciously attack the crowds. The blood and limbs of the unfortunate serpent victims flew into the crowd.

"Oh my god! What are we going to do?!" She said in complete horror, clutching at his shoulder, at what she was witnessing.

Kurama glared at her, 'determined to play the part to the very end aren't you,' he thought. A low growl sounded from in his throat as he grabbed her arm and made a run for it. He had to get away from all of this chaos if he was going to reach Yusuke and the others. When they finally escaped the stampeding crowd Yumi slumped down on her knees in fright and exhaustion. Kurama pointedly ignored her. Even though he believed she was part of the dragon keepers' plot, he had to save her back there. This was mainly because he didn't have any real proof that she was one of them. For all he knew she could just be an exotic looking and acting human, however that was highly unlikely. In any case he couldn't let her be a casualty without proof that she was indeed their enemy.

Kurama was about to get her up when he heard some hissing noises coming near. About twenty serpent demons came from around the corner. One of them jumped towards Kurama. He parried the demon's attack and then slammed the palm of hand up under the demon's chin. There was an audible "crack" that could only mean that the demon's neck and jaw had been crushed. After that, he flipped the demon over his shoulder and threw him across to the other serpents. "Would you all care for more?" inquired Kurama in a soft but deadly voice.

With that all of the demons lunged towards Kurama. In an excellent show of martial arts, he took out three serpents in one move: right uppercut, roundhouse, elbow combination. The uppercut smashing one of the demon's skull from the bottom on up; the roundhouse, breaking the other demon's neck; and the elbow move breaking the third demon's ribs causing major internal bleeding and damage. The rest of the demons surrounded him, making the fight somewhat difficult without the use of his powers. 'Wherever you are Yusuke, I hope you are faring better than I am,'

Keiko screamed out as a serpent coiled around her, "Keiko!" Yusuke screamed as he ran towards him with his reiki growing around his fists. He smashed his fists into the demon head multiple times causing it to pop like a party balloon and fall to the ground. Kuwabara and Botan had their hands full keeping the dozens of demons from killing them: Kuwabara, slashing with his spirit sword and Botan, beating back the demons with her oar.

The two dragon keepers were watching the sight below them highly amused. "It doesn't seem as though they'll make it does it sister," said Cheng.

"No it doesn't brother, what a shame." Jun said without a trace of sympathy.

The fighters continued to battle through what seemed like an endless war; each one fighting with every ounce of strength they possessed. For each demon they took out it seemed like five more took its place. The infinite wave of demons pressed more and more against the group until finally Yusuke had had enough. "Forget this shit!" he pulled his fist back into his side and began building up his reiki. "SHOT GUN!" he shouted as he released a huge blast of energy. The blinding blue energy, which had accumulated around his fist, divided into hundreds of energy bullets that spayed, scattered and eradicated the unfortunate demons in their path.

Both Jun and Cheng jumped up in shock when they saw a huge chunk of their demon army splattered on the ground. "This one is strong," said Cheng, "it would be wise if don't underestimate him."

"We have had enough fun for now; let's leave them to deal with the rest of this prattle," said Jun. With that both Jun and Cheng disappeared.

"Hey Urameshi, Jun and that other creep just disappeared," said Kuwabara.

"Who cares, look I'm gonna finish off these creeps, you and Botan get Keiko out of here and try to find Kurama. Who knows what that dragon, Yumi bitch is doing to him."

"Yusuke, don't be foolish," Keiko said as she ran up to him clinging to his arm. "I'm not going to leave you alone." Yusuke smiled at his girlfriend, she really did care about him.

"Listen to me Keiko, I'm not going anywhere. You and me, we're going to be together for a long time 'kay,"

"Promise me you won't die," she pleaded, her eyes welling up with barely suppressed tears.

He smiled gently, "I promise Keiko," he said as he brushed his hand against her cheek, wiping away a stray tear. She backed away from him and sat next to Botan on her oar; Kuwabara glanced over at his long time rival and friend. Yusuke already knew that he wanted to stay and fight, but, he needed him to stay with Keiko. "Oy, Kuwabara, take care of Keiko will ya?" Kuwabara stared at his friend and then nodded, grabbing on to the wedge of the ferry girl's oar.

"Hold on tight everyone," Botan announced before she took off. The three of them flew away leaving Yusuke to deal with the rest of the demons.

"Alright you scaly ass demons, let's do this." Since Keiko and the others were with him, he had to check his power so that he wouldn't hurt them...but now...

Yusuke began to screaming as he unleashed the full force of his power. A blinding blue light engulfed his body as well as the surrounding area. The ground trembled from the awesome power being displayed before it. The demons, terrified beyond belief, began to back away from Yusuke. "Where did this boy get all of this power," one demon said.

Kurama and Yumi both had their hands full fighting demons. They had begun attacking Yumi after many of their comrades had fallen to Kurama's expert moves. Yumi had idly wondered how he learned to fight like that. Every one of his moves were perfectly executed, it was as if he had been fighting for an entire lifetime. Suddenly, a demon lunged at her attempting to deliver a roundhouse to her head. 'stupid,' she thought to herself. She caught the demon while still in midair and threw him to the ground. When he landed she jumped on him and smashed her fist into his throat. The blow wasn't strong enough to show and external damage but, internally, his entire throat was turned to mush.

Another demon came from behind her. Almost instinctively she turned around in time to catch his fist. She smiled slightly at him just before punching him in the socket which connects the arm to the shoulder. The demon screamed out as his bones ripped through the back of his shoulder from the force of her blow. Kurama turned around to see her with the demon trapped in her grasp. She threw him forcefully down on the ground, leaving him writhing in pain.

'Since when can a human girl over take two demons with hardly any effort,' he thought to himself. The battle had continued until Yumi and Kurama had defeated, killed in Kurama's case, all but one demon. Kurama glared at the final demon causing him to back away out of fear. The demon was about to turn and run until they backed into something very solid.

The demon turned around to find the cheerful countenance of Cheng Pei smiling in his face. "And where do you think you're going?" he asked in a pleasant voice. The demon seemed petrified that he had been caught by this man.

"I...I... was,"

"You were fleeing from battle? Tsk tsk tsk. My, aren't we a little coward." With that Cheng thrust his hand into the demon's chest. The demon's knees buckled under the intense pain of the blow. Cheng let his hand slide from out of the demon's chest; blood was left down the length of his hand after he removed it. Cheng looked up from the fallen victim and smiled at Kurama and Yumi.

"Sorry about that, the one thing that just absolutely frizzles my brain is a coward," the man talked to them as if he were a happy go lucky camp counselor who was as high as a kite.

"Ok, this guy is too happy, he's freaking me out," said Yumi.

"Yes, I find that especially shocking since he is bathed in the blood of his comrade." Said Kurama.

"Well now, it seems as though we have a dilemma here; I've just killed your opponent and now you have no one to fight. Now what are we going to do about that?" he asked as if he were truly perplexed. He tilted his head as if deep I thought.

Kurama was very leery of this new demon that had appeared. The serpent, before he was slain, seemed especially frightened of this man. Kurama stayed on guard as he watched this all-to-happy demon and wondered what type of power he would display.

Suddenly, Cheng's head popped up and he gasped, "I know, how about I be your opponent. Yes. The more I think about it the better it sounds. Well enough chit chat for now," his eyes began to glow and his eyebrows lowered giving him a darker visage, "let's fight," he raised his hands slightly from his sides and a gold aura surrounded his body. Kurama noticed that dark vine-like objects began to grow from out of Cheng's hand, "By, the way, just so you know, my name is Cheng," after he said that he screamed and the vines became sharp shards that looked like they were made out of black wood with red veins.

Kurama gasped as he realized what it was Cheng was about to attack them with, 'the Kuro tree of Makai,' he thought, this tree was especially deadly especially if one was pierced by it. The poison of the bark could kill someone in a matter of hours and during that time the victim would be in excruciating pain.

"Take this!" Cheng shouted as he threw the shards at them. Kurama grabbed Yumi and threw her away from the shards and then began dodging them himself. Having dodged all of the shards, Cheng smiled at him, "impressive, you're no ordinary fighter are you,"

Yumi watched Suuichi as he dodged the deadly shards, 'he's incredible,' she thought. After Suuichi had finished dodging the shards, she noticed that as Cheng spoke to him, the fallen shards were rising from the ground and were positioning themselves to attack Suuichi. 'He doesn't know,' she thought. Suddenly, the shards charged towards Kurama, "NO!" she screamed as she ran towards him without thinking.

Kurama, not realizing what was going on turned around just as Yumi pushed him out of the way, 'what the,' he thought until he saw three shards rip through her body from behind her. "YUMI!" He screamed as she fell. He ran up to her and caught her before she hit the ground, "you stupid girl," Kurama whispered. Her eyes fluttered open.

"I'm sorry, Suuichi," she said weakly.

"Why did you do this?" he asked

"I couldn't ... let...him..." she passed out without finishing. Kurama closed his eyes and laid her gently on the ground.

"Wow, I really didn't think she'd do that, tough break man," Cheng said with a little chuckle.

Kurama got up from the ground and stared stonily at Cheng. He reached into his hair and pulled out a seed. "You will pay for that," he said as a bright red light surrounded his body. Since he was in Yumi's presence before, he could not truly use his powers, lest she would figure out who and what he was. However, since she had been knocked out, he could use his full strength without holding back.

Cheng's eyes widened at the sudden rush of youki coming from Kurama, "Man, was it something I said?"

When the energy finally dimmed Cheng saw the same red headed teen except now his were gold. Kurama's narrowed eyes stared at him with a cold and deadly expression.

"And just what the hell are you?" asked Cheng sarcastically.

The kitsune turned human smiled coldly, his Youko side was truly starting to take over, "Your executioner," with that Kurama reached into the depths of his crimson locks and removed the seed of his trusty rose whip. With a slight flex in his energy, the rose budded from the seed, emerging in all of its fragrant beauty. "Rose Whip!"

On impulse, Kurama lashed the whip out towards Cheng, who narrowly dodged his attack, fainting to the left. Cheng, in an impressive show of speed, 'disappeared' from Kurama's view. In a split second, Kurama felt the dragon keeper's energy signature behind him. Kurama sprinted forward and turned before Cheng could thrust his fist into his back. In a master display of martial arts Cheng attacked Kurama with a flurry of punch and kick combinations. Kurama smirked at Cheng's display, and the fact that the young demon couldn't seem to land a single blow on him. After a multitude of unsuccessful attempts, Cheng broke off his attack.

"Hn, you're pretty good. TRY THIS!" just as Cheng was about to attack, the ground beneath them trembled as a bright blue light, which came from about 1 mile away, lit up the area.

"Yusuke," Kurama said, immediately recognizing the energy signature of his friend and comrade.

"Whoa, now that's power." Cheng said in awe at the magnitude of the spirit detective's attack. He turned to face the now distracted Kurama and smirked slightly. "Well as much as I'd like to stay and fight, I really ought to be going, especially since our whole damn army has just been eradicated," the last part Cheng said very low. 'Man, Jun is going to kill me,' he thought.

"You're not going anywhere!" Kurama said as he launched his rose whip at Cheng one last time, but before it could reach him Cheng waved merrily at Kurama and disappeared in a flourish of verdant leaves. "Damn!" Kurama said.

He looked towards Yumi, passed out on the ground. He walked towards her, analyzing her condition. 'She won't make it not unless...' Kurama, who was still in his Yoko form reached into his hair again and pulled out another seed, it sprouted into a pink flower with purple tips on each petal. The Thylix, its petals will cure any poison in the bloodstream.

He plucked off three petals, just to be safe and placed them under her tongue. "Live," he whispered to her as he smoothed her hair out of her face.

Yusuke withdrew all of his reiki. It had surrounded and engulfed not only him but the entire demon army. When he withdrew his energy, all of the demons were disintegrated and all that was left of the area where his energy engulfed was a plane of ashes and blacked ruins.

"Whew," Yusuke sighed, wiping the sheen of sweat away from underneath his chin, "they could've made their point some other way,"

-:-

At Genkai's Temple

-:-

"HIEI!" Yukina awoke violently, once again from the same dream of Hiei's demise. She couldn't stand it any longer. She rose from her futon and ran from out of the temple into the dark forest. She ignored the threat of the deadly demons surrounding her. Something was pulling her, something was calling out for her; calling her to this forest.

She came to a clearing with a hot spring across from it. She stopped running from exhaustion and sunk to her knees. Tears began to fall from her eyes at the thought of Hiei dying. She cried for the frustration she felt from not being able to find him.

"...Yu...ki...na," a weak voice said. Yukina looked up wildly. Who was calling her? The voice sounded again. She looked around the area, but could see no one. "Who are you? Where are you?" she asked. The voice said her name again, only this time it was fainter. Suddenly, she saw a mound of something that resembled a body. She ran towards it. She sank to her knees in front of the bundle, it was a body caked in leaves, dirt and dried blood. She looked closely at the body and when she saw the face a surge emotion welled up in her.

"Hiei..." she said through her tears. She fell upon him sobbing. Hiei reached his hand up weakly and placed it on her back. Yukina looked up into his eyes which were semi-glazed over.

He attempted to say something but the words came out choppy, "...Don't..." she placed her finger on his mouth to silence him.

"Shh…It's alright, everything is alright now," she closed her eyes and placed her hands on his abdomen. A golden aura surrounded her as she released every ounce of her energy and healing power into him. "Everything will be fine now, Hiei, you're going to live, I found you, and you're going to live."

The two stayed like that for about three hours until Hiei was finally healed enough to move. When the healing process was finished, Yukina collapsed onto Hiei, exhausted from the whole ordeal and Hiei held her in his arms. This was the first time ever in his life that he felt loved and the first time in his life that he let his love show when he cradled his sister in his arms, 'You're right, everything is alright now. Sleep now little sister.'