Disclaimer: I've just realized, I really dislike my school. The people (that is, my friends—at least, most of them, a great percentage of the time) are great, but I truly cannot wait to get out of there.

Fall

I wanna know
If you'll stay for sure
So tell me now
Make it clear before I'm in too far

Bellefire, "Don't Let Me Down"

Chapter Ten: If I Said to You

Gravatus put her head in her hands and opened her mouth, panting heavily. Kurama frowned at the purposeful dramatic intent, finding it unnecessary. Again, she panted. Her chest heaved enticingly, and Hiei frowned, as well. She was not trying to hit on them.

After a time, Gravatus glanced up as though the movement took great effort. Her eyes drooping thin, she heaved another few breaths for good measure and Hiei noticed her gauging their reactions. He was pleased to note she seemed frustrated with what she saw. Raising his eyebrow, he silently requested her response to their questions.

She sighed. "I don't know exactly what she was trying to say. Probably dissuade me from telling you where she was."

"And the blood?" Kurama interrupted. Hiei looked down at him curiously, surprised at his nervous tone. Gravatus seemed not to have noticed as she closed her eyes tightly and shook her head; Hiei was sure it was more theatrics, but he wouldn't call her on it, lest she stop being so helpful.

She blinked and looked at them again, her eyes teary. "I-I don't know about the blood," she said thickly. Now Hiei was sure she was putting on a show, probably for Kurama. He found himself moving between annoyance and mild anger. "A knife was cutting into skin, but the skin wasn't bleeding—it, it turned into a snake—"

"What did?" Hiei asked curtly.

Gravatus looked more than a little irate at the interruption as she diverted her attention from the fox to the fire. "The flesh did," she said with a whimper, making sure to stress her words and make them sound as gruesome as possible. Unfortunately for her, Hiei had seen far worse, so a little word choice would be no problem for him. "The knife was cutting into a snake," Gravatus continued to whine, sniffling with a loud snort. Hiei cringed. "There was blood everywhere, and I was so frightened…"

Kurama rolled his eyes. "I suppose you would be," he said. Hiei let his mood lighten a little as he detected a fine layer of impatience in his friend's voice. Kurama was not falling for her act, either. "But what was the point of it all?"

Again, Gravatus seemed more than a bit put out at her melodramatics not being taken seriously. Was she seriously trying to woo Kurama, of all people? It was a foolish undertaking; Hiei could speak from experience. The fox effectively rendered any potential suitors, human and demon alike, into nonsensical, blathering fools. Although, he pondered, that could be to their advantage…

"I'm…not sure," Gravatus said finally. "I think it was a—warning. A warning not to tell you anymore about her, or where she might be hiding. But I…I'm tired of taking orders. I used to be so much stronger than her powers allow her to be, and I used to be so much greater than I am now, but…but I don't know what happened. It all sort of fell away. And now I'm here, and no one remembers me—I'm sure she doesn't, either. She's only sensing me now, and she knows I'm a threat of some small degree. So I'll tell you everything I know."

Her poor attempt at a seductive attitude had fallen away all at once, and Hiei nodded his approval at her willingness to talk. This girl was not deluded by promises of power which would never be fulfilled, nor by the offer of being saved by her captor if she complied with certain rules and regulations. She was not quite battle worn, being so young—Hiei estimated her at about 60 or 70 years of age—but she had seen some horrors and certainly experienced a few in Miru's hold.

As Gravatus talked and Kurama listened with rapt attention, Hiei found his thoughts trailing elsewhere. No doubt Gravatus's attempt to romanticize her condition had been due to years, however many, of entrapment without any intelligent contact. Yet Kurama had shunned it smartly, not falling for her tricks at all, as though he was not even considering a romantic partner. Hiei suspected, if he wasn't sure, that Kurama was still—unless it was "again"—interested in him, but that the fox would make a move or shun an alternative was not foreseen.

And that Gravatus would attempt to attract either of them was weird. Did she even know who Kurama was? It depended on several things, most of which involved her upbringing, but even if she did, she probably would not recognize his prettily green-eyed human form. So her attempts at attraction had been purely desperate, but knowing that she had a better chance of eliciting help from them by giving them information, she had changed tactics at once. She was a strange creature, but probably the most helpful they had found so far, leaping several stages beyond her intended purpose to move their quest along faster than expected. If Hiei had been in a position to do such a thing, he would have made sure she was heavily rewarded.

Or…

…rewarded enough.

No sense in going overboard.


Yûsuke peered curiously at the screen where the field was still visible. Kuwabara was pointing to a recently trodden path and claiming that Kurama and Hiei had certainly just been there. Koenma reclined against his desk, watching the pair critically.

"…I'm sorry," Yûsuke said, shaking his head. "I just don't see it."

Kuwabara stood up straight and stamped his foot out of impatience. "You are impossible!" he cried out, waving his hands. "I thought you were good at this whole 'sensing' business!"

A badly muffled chuckle filtered out from the desk behind them. Yûsuke turned with an instinctive glare and Kuwabara glanced over curiously, his frustration momentarily forgotten. The two looked at each other, then back at Koenma.

"What?"

Koenma snorted, pinching his nose in a weird attempt to stop his laughter. "Nothing!" he cried out amidst further giggles.

The pair exchanged a skeptical glance.

"But…?"

Laughing again, Koenma grinned widely and closed his eyes, looking a little creepily excited. "You sound like an old married couple!" he exclaimed.

Kuwabara rolled his eyes and Yûsuke shook his head, sorely disappointed. Both had heard the claim several times before and both were firmly set in and quite comfortable with their masculinity, so neither took offense, but still…it was more than a little annoying.

"Whatever," Kuwabara said, brushing off the claim. Yûsuke nodded his agreement and studied the screen once more before drawing back and shaking his head.

"Sorry, Kuwabara, I don't see it. Sense it. Er…notice it. But you do, obviously, so why not pan out in the direction you sense they've gone? Maybe we'll find them quicker that way than if we wait for Koenma to get his ass on the job."

Kuwabara put his finger to his chin, his eyes narrowed. "True," he said ponderously, "very true. So," he turned to Koenma, "how do we move the lens on this thing?"

Koenma proffered a remote control and pointed to the large, flat buttons on its surface. "These are 'zoom in' and 'zoom out,' " he explained, "and this one is 'pan left' and this one is 'pan right.' "

"Simple," Yûsuke said approvingly. Koenma offered him a dry glare and backed away, leaving them to do as they pleased. At least, leaving Kuwabara to do as he saw necessary.

Meanwhile, the view had already zoomed in on the ground, a most disorienting shot from the grass's perspective, and Kuwabara guided the lens along a specific, seemingly step-by-step path. Yûsuke looked from the screen to his friend and back…and settled in for a long wait.

Koenma yawned.


The walk was long and the talk was cheap. Kurama made no move to begin some insightful conversation and Hiei had since resigned himself to a heavy silence. Anything that was said was more along the lines of "Have you been counting kilometers?" or "We're nearly there, I think." Once, Kurama even deigned to say: "Nice weather today."

They were, in fact, growing close to the caves, and Hiei was hyperaware of how tense they were to one another. If they were so tense in such close company, he could only imagine how they were going to deal with ripping answers from Miru's throat (or ripping Miru's throat from Miru's neck, he thought blithely). Kurama might completely lose his head and kill her without delay (or try to, at least), which would solve nothing. He needed apologies—sincere ones—and explanations.

Hiei idly noticed that he had been frowning an awful lot lately. He had thought it all warranted at the times, respectively, but in hindsight, was he overreacting? Kurama was recovering—slowly, but he had made great progress. Gravatus had not seen men (or women, he thought, in all likelihood) for several years, and she might have been something of a slut before Miru had locked her in the dungeon where they had found her. If so, it made a lot of sense that her first reaction would have been to hit on them. Yes, he decided finally, he was probably frowning too much. He wouldn't mind so much if he wasn't thinking of his image. That was to say, his presence as a stoic. Perhaps Kurama needed someone to be a wall for him to lean on, and if that was the case, Hiei could not afford to show any emotion at all, anger and frustration included.

"Hiei?"

"Mm?"

Kurama was smiling wryly, leading Hiei to believe he had done something wrong, at least marginally. He quirked an eyebrow a bit and Kurama turned away, his smile changing into an amused grin. Hiei was sort of cute, in a weird way, when he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong when, in fact, he had done nothing at all.

"We're nearly there," Kurama said, gesturing vaguely to the caves and forested areas before them. "How do you think we ought to search the caves and all that?"

Almost silently, almost unnoticeably, Hiei breathed a small sigh of relief, and Kurama smiled again.

"I could…well," Hiei said thoughtfully, "I could rush in and check each cave and rush out before I was noticed, but that wouldn't be very wise, I suppose."

"No," Kurama agreed, "it wouldn't."

Hiei blinked at the interruption, but didn't turn his head. He frowned and furrowed his brow in contemplation. "The only reasonable solution I can see is for us to sneak into each cave and be prepared for Miru to be hiding in each one."

Clearly, this conclusion did not sit well with Kurama, but unless he could come up with a more plausible alternative, Hiei was prepared to insist his plan be carried out. It appeared that Kurama had assumed as much and come to the same standstill in his mind, and he shrugged, trying to pretend it didn't really matter, even when it did.

"All right," Kurama said dismissively. "Shall we begin with the cave closest to the edge, then?"

Hiei nodded, suspicious of Kurama's lack of protest. Kurama had surely interpreted his words and intentions correctly, but still, a sly word or subtle resistance should have been slipped into his agreement. Well perhaps he was not quite over his…mental incapacity yet. Hiei would wait. The air seemed to be doing wonders, anyway.

The pair wandered over to the cave casually but upon reaching the entrance, instantly slid into "undercover mode," lowering their energies sufficiently and doing their best to blend into the darkness. Neither really suspected Miru to be making residence in the first cave (too obvious and easily spotted), but she might have been going for the typical "they think I'll be there so they'll look elsewhere, so I'll be there." Kurama was doing an admirable job of keeping his steps silent, and Hiei's black cloak was blending him into the walls. Neither was especially detectable.

Hiei jerked his head toward the back of the cave and widened his eyes meaningfully, hoping Kurama would get the hint. It seemed he did, and nodded in return. The pair slid another few steps down the path and then, simultaneously, glided noiselessly and nearly invisibly into the far chamber, finding it empty but for a few decaying skeletons. Kurama wrinkled his nose in distaste, but the pair walked back out with no further reaction and positioned themselves at the second cave's gateway.

"Breathe, Kurama."


Yûsuke stood and stretched, yawning exaggeratedly. Kuwabara nearly shot him a mild glare, but refrained, keeping his eyes on the screen as he jostled the "pan" buttons.

"Find 'em?" Yûsuke asked, watching the screen as though he understood what Kuwabara was doing. The taller boy shook his head.

"Not yet," he said, frowning. "I don't know if they're just moving quickly or if they tried to hide their tracks, but it's hard to follow them to wherever they've gone."

Koenma took a step closer and cocked his head, nodding at the image. It moved through the grass like some sort of rabbit, the view barely skimming the blades as it moved left, then right, then sort of sideways at a funny angle. Kuwabara noticed the demigod's interest and raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"So, Koenma," he deadpanned, turning slightly. "What do you think of this shot? I was trying to decide if they'd gone south southeast or south southwest. Any opinion on the matter?"

Nodding conspiratorially, Koenma leaned in towards Kuwabara as though to convey some secret thought. "Well," he whispered, "I didn't want to say anything, you know, to disrupt the process, but I was distinctly picking up the impression that they were moving south southwest."

"Yeah?"

"Indeed."

"Because they're moving north northeast."

"…oh."

Yûsuke muffled his giggles (chuckles, as he would call them, because boys do not giggle) and wandered in aimless circles until Kuwabara had shooed Koenma away so the big boys could do their work. Feeling it was his duty to…do some work, Yûsuke made his way over to the monitor and studied it, all the while knowing he had no hope of understanding any of the imagery until Kuwabara explained it.

Koenma scowled.


Kurama graced Hiei with a sour glare. "I don't want to hear that everything will be all right," he snapped. Hiei made sure not to look perplexed or affronted.

"I know," he said instead. "That's why I didn't say that, or anything like it."

"You were thinking it."

Hiei sighed tiredly. He was sick of Kurama's outbursts, emotional or violent it didn't really matter. He wanted to comfort and help his friend, but there was only so much he could put up with. He thought he had been amazingly tolerant already, not even showing signs of his limits being pushed to their furthest extents.

"No, Kurama, I wasn't," he said in a dull monotone. "I was thinking that you need to relax a bit. That won't make everything all right, but it will help you to calm yourself before something bad happens to you."

Kurama snarled like a misunderstood teenager. Hiei blinked at his mind's odd choice of analogies, but let it slide all the same. They walked at a slow, silent glide, though either was in danger of blowing their cover to any potential threat at any moment. In fact, Hiei was nervous that Kurama would step too hard or trip over a small stone. The normally graceful fox was walking with jerky motions, soundless and ungainly all at once. His was really more of a tiptoe than anything, used for hiding but not sneaking.

The pair continued slowly, Hiei trying his best to set the pace and keep Kurama under control. He didn't sense anyone in the corridors ahead, but that might have been all the better; he wanted to have as much time as possible to sort out how Kurama would react before he actually had to do so.

Successfully, they approached the final room exactly as they had approached all the others: silently and pressed to the dark walls in the hall. Kurama's hair was thickened with dust and grime from pressing against the slimy caves and Hiei made sure to tilt his head forward slightly so as not to dirty it. He didn't really care, but it seemed like the thing to do, making up for Kurama's lack of usually anal cleanliness.

Then for seemingly no reason, Kurama stopped short, all semblances of normalcy vanishing as he looked at Hiei curiously. "You know," he said finally, "that good doesn't always triumph over evil, right?"

Hiei needed a moment to recover from that question and he took one, stopping as well to peer at his companion with his head cocked slightly to the left. "Are you serious?" he asked suspiciously. Kurama blinked and nodded a few times. Three, Hiei counted.

"Of course I am. What else would I be?"

"I…I don't know," Hiei admitted. "Joking with me, I suppose. Trying to make me look the fool."

Kurama shook his head. "Well I'm not. I can't give you more than my word. But," he reminded, "you didn't answer my question."

"True, true."

A moment passed in which Kurama awaited a response and received none.

"Are you planning to?"

"Hm?" Hiei looked at Kurama tiredly, as though he had been awoken from a pleasant slumber. (Though truthfully, he had not had one of those in several years and thus did not know quite how one would look upon coming out of it.) "Good and evil, was it?"

Hiei did not need to look at Kurama to know he was frowning deeply as he spoke, but he did anyway. "Yes," the redhead snapped, "you know exactly what it was, and you are deliberately treating me as some inferior. Stop it right now!"

"I am treating you as no such thing," Hiei retorted smartly. "I am merely speaking to you as I feel, which is tired of you and tired of this mission and tired because I have not slept well in years!"

There was no reply which could be given to this outrage besides a stunned, somewhat slack-jawed gaze, which Kurama exhibited perfectly. Finally he found his voice, and he was clearly Not Pleased.

"Not sleeping well?" he asked, his voice low.

"That is hardly the most pressing of concerns and you know it," Hiei snapped, eager to skip right past his idle filler complaints.

"Bored with Hell?" Kurama continued, ignoring him completely.

"I didn't say that, you're twisting my words," Hiei said, working himself up into a rage despite himself.

"Sick of me?" Kurama asked in the quietest tone of all, so that even Hiei had to strain to catch it.

And everything became a little too hard.

"What if I am? Eh? What then?" Hiei was furious and raging, not at Kurama but at Miru, at what she had done to the man he might have loved, once, at what she had done to countless demons all throughout Hell, and what she doubtlessly continued to do to more of them and certainly continued to do to him. She had not only forced him into feeling love, but maybe even forced him out of it, which, as far as Hiei was concerned, was a most serious infraction. "Well, Kurama?" he continued, the volume of his voice rising with every word. "What will you do if I am sick of you? My God, Kurama, I'd be the first to admit I that loved you, but you are certainly making it as hard for me as you possibly can!"

Kurama smiled a secret little smile and Hiei, hearing his own words as if on a playback reel, found that he did not regret finally letting them slip. Maybe things would become simpler now.

Then again, maybe they would not.