p"I'm afraid you both are being a little too loud." Kurama admitted. Yuiko stopped quarreling instantly and blushed so much her face was maroon. She looked at her feet to try and hide the blush.
p"Sorry." she muttered. Kuwabara just put his hands in his pockets and grumbled something. Hiei raised an eyebrow at the detective's strange behavior.
p"Kurama?" Hiei asked. Kurama glanced at him. "Is it normal for human girls to be maroon in the face?" Yuiko panicked and went a deeper shade of color.
p"Only when they're embarrassed, mortified, things like that." Kurama answered. It took him a second to figure out why Hiei had asked him that. Kurama turned his head to Yuiko. He smiled guiltily. Suddenly, the ground shook like an earthquake was happening. Kuwabara leaned against the hall wall to keep his balance, Hiei held onto the wall, and Yuiko ended up bunking into Kurama. When the earthquake stopped, Kuwabara was the first to ask questions.
p"What was that?" Kuwabara questioned.
p"You expect us to know?" Hiei demanded. "Idiot." he added in an undertone. Yuiko had heard it and chuckled softly.
p"Maybe if we go through those doors we'll find out." Kurama suggested. "It might be one of the Saint Beasts trying to get our attention."
p"Hm. You think of everything, don't you Kurama?" Yuiko said. Kurama flushed.
p"Not everything." Kurama insisted. Hiei let go of the wall and gazed amusedly at Kurama and Yuiko.
p"Hn. Obviously, or you would have noticed that she's clinging onto your arm like a leech." Hiei commented. Yuiko and Kurama looked confused at Hiei and looked at Kurama's right arm. Yuiko was holding onto Kurama like a girlfriend would with their boyfriend. Both blushed and Yuiko quickly let go.
p"Sorry." she muttered and walked ahead of them. Hiei followed silently.
p"You didn't have to embarrass her, you know, shrimp." Kuwabara growled at Hiei. Hiei ignored him. Kuwabara pushed his hands into his pockets and he and a blushing Kurama went after the short demon and the female. Yuiko pushed the doors open and the four entered a stone room which had torches all along the walls. "Why does this room echo dungeon? And torture chamber?" Yuiko narrowed her eyes and tried to ignore Kuwabara's rambling. He really needed to stop embarrassing her in front of Hiei and Kurama! Hiei was a strong fighter who Yuiko didn't want to look like a fool in front of, and she didn't want Kurama to think that she hanged out with a bunch of idiots. After all, people normally judge people by who they're friends with.
p"Welcome to reaching the end of your lives!" boomed a deep voice from the floor. The group stared at the floor and watched as a giant stone monster morphed from it. Kuwabara screamed a manly scream. Hiei made a "hn" sound, Kurama muttered an "impressive", and Yuiko just stared in shock. Demons . . . were getting stranger, to say the least. "I am Genbu, first of the Four Saint Beasts. You four won't even live to see the other three." Genbu chuckled to himself and he surveyed the foursome with his eyes. For a human, the detective looked really hot. Maybe Suzaku wouldn't mind having a girl toy around for them to play with . . . . . .
p"Oh really?" Kurama asked Genbu. "We're stronger than we look." Genbu laughed.
p"I find that hard to believe. Why don't you prove it by fighting me? One condition, though." Genbu replied. Kurama blinked curiously. Kuwabara crossed his arms and glared suspiciously at Genbu. Hiei growled at the stone monstrosity.
p"I know what you're thinking, Genbu." Hiei snapped disgustedly. "You filthy demon. That's just sick to do that to a female, even if it is a human girl. Hell, I would never do that, and I'm as ruthless as they come." Yuiko shivered and glared angrily at Genbu.
p"PERVERT!" Yuiko shouted at him. Kurama held out his arm to keep her from going at him.
p"What is this condition?" Kurama questioned. Genbu sniggered.
p"The other Saint Beasts and I get to keep the girl, just to play with." Genbu answered. Yuiko's hands went into fists, several very bad swearwords started leaking out of her mouth at a high volume. Kuwabara covered her mouth with his hand to help her calm down. She hit her human friend over the head, but stopped shouting. Kurama, after recovering from the shock at the girl's vocabulary, glared at Genbu. It was quite a dirty look.
p"Yuiko," Kurama started. Yuiko blinked and sent him a curious glance. "if I promised not to lose, would it be okay to take his challenge?" Yuiko crossed her arms and thought very hard. It was four whole minutes before she said anything.
p"If you lose, I'll kill you." Yuiko threatened. "And I'll also kill all four of these perverted Saint Beasts!" she added, glaring at Genbu with loathing. Kurama stepped up into the center of the room.
p"Let the fight begin." Kurama said. There was silence for a while, and no one seemed to be moving.
p"Hiei?" Yuiko stated after a while. Hiei glanced at her. "How tough is Kurama? I didn't fight him, you see. He kinda just gave me the Mirror of Forlorn Hope and didn't exactly put up a fight." Hiei was quiet for a second.
p"The reason I got Kurama on my side was because I didn't want to fight him myself. He's a highly powerful demon, and if you're weak enough, his powers are frightening. You know he's a Spirit fox. Foxes are clever and sly, and with his weapon there's much slaughter." Hiei smirked as he said the last part. Kuwabara glared at Hiei.
p"How can someone talk about death and think it's a good thing?" Kuwabara asked himself. Suddenly, Yuiko gasped.
p"Kurama! Behind you!" Yuiko shouted. Kurama turned his head around just in time to see a stone tail about to stab him. It shot at him like an arrow, and he narrowly dodged. He got a wound on the flesh where his stomach was, and he didn't notice it until he dodged the tail three more times. "He's doing something that has to do with the stone!"
p"Heh heh heh. You've figured it out. Hotness and brains, nice combination." Genbu said.
p"Get a life." Yuiko growled at him. Genbu smirked.
p"I can mold myself into any type of stone. And seeing that this room is nothing but stone, I can attack him anywhere in this room that I want, whenever I want." Genbu explained. "Is that enough to impress you, doll?" Yuiko made a retching sound, and Kuwabara and Hiei growled like bull dogs at Genbu.
p"Hey! You quit hitting on Yui!" Kuwabara yelled at him. Meanwhile, Kurama was having a bit of trouble with Genbu's spear-like tail. It kept coming at him. Unexpectedly, his tail retreated from attacking Kurama and slithered its way to Yuiko. It danced around Yuiko's face and brushed against her chest. She grabbed his tail and yanked on it as hard at she could. Genbu got sucked into the floor, came back out, was thrown to the wall, hit the wall, and finally materialized into it. Yuiko was red from embarrassment and anger.
p"That's it! If anybody pulls any crap like this on me again, I'm killing them before they have the chance to do anything as sick as that!" Yuiko exclaimed loud enough to hurt Kuwabara's and Hiei's ears. Kurama, sweat dropping, took out a rose. Yuiko turned back to the fight and raised an eyebrow. "A flower? He's going to kick butt with a flower?"
p"Hn. Looks like you don't know much about demons, or Kurama's powers." Hiei commented. "This match is as good as won for him." Hiei glanced at Yuiko as she relaxed her fists. Kurama raised the rose above it head, a smirk on his face.
p"Genbu, if you're somewhere in here, give a shout." Kurama waited for a second before he heard a deep voice laughing, a laugh which echoed in the room, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from. "ROSE WHIP!" The rose in Kurama's hand lost its petals, creating a beautiful effect that really brightened up the room. The stem elongated into a whip, and a sweet perfume freshened the dark stone room. Kurama, still smirking, attacked a pillar in the room with his newly made whip. The attack demolished the pillar, and a cry of pain erupted from the sound of crumbling. Genbu reappeared in pieces in front of them. Genbu's head glared at Kurama.
p"How did you find me?" Genbu asked. Kurama's smirk was still in place.
p"When I brought out my rose whip, it left the sweet aroma of a rose behind, and all I had to do was follow your putrid odor." Kurama explained.
p"Yeah! Go Kurama!" Yuiko encouraged, punching a fist in the air. She grinned at the Spirit fox, even though he had his back to her at the moment. Suddenly, the pieces of Genbu rose from the floor and shot at Kurama like bullets. Kurama dodged and blocked with his Rose Whip as many as he could without being hit, but he did get a few scratches. Kurama noticed a red stone glowing and then dimming, then it repeated the process like a heart beating. When he had dodged Genbu's head, the pieces of Genbu put themselves together like a puzzle. When Genbu was reassembled, he laughed to his heart's content.
p"You can't beat me! You are going to die here, along with Hiei and that orange-haired idiot, and the girl will be my prize!" Genbu sniggered. Kurama sent the stone creature a very, very dirty glare.
p"You touch her, and I will make sure you die." Kurama hissed low enough for only Genbu and he to hear. Genbu chuckled.
p"You can't make good with that threat if you're dead!" Genbu disassembled himself and his body parts shot at Kurama again. Instead of blocking them this time, Kurama ran right at them toward the red, glowing rock that resembled a heart.
p"ROSE WHIP!" Kurama shouted, the whip winding itself around the red stone. Genbu put himself back together on the other side of the room again and started to gloat until Yuiko and Kuwabara broke out laughing. Genbu looked at Kurama and saw that he was having a hard time trying not to laugh. Kurama, worried that he'd crack if he opened his mouth, showed the red rock to Genbu. Genbu let out a gasp and discovered that he obviously didn't reassemble himself correctly. Without the red stone, he couldn't do anything more complicated than talking! Kurama finally burst and the laughter echoing against the walls was beginning to do a number on Genbu's ears. Hiei, covering his own ears, rolled his eyes and walked over to Kurama.
p"Shouldn't you destroy that thing!?" Hiei asked him at a high volume. Kurama forced himself to stop laughing to say yes to Hiei. "Then do it, you baka kitsune!" Kurama threw the red stone into the air, and broke it into two with his rose whip.
p"Come on, Yuiko, Kuwabara! Time to get out of here!" Kurama called over to them. Yuiko steadied herself and attempted to cease laughing. Kuwabara didn't even try. It took them a while to reach the staircase on the other side of the room, which must have led to the next Saint Beast. Hopefully, he wouldn't be another pervert, or there wouldn't be much need for Yuiko to have help fighting, now would there?
p-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pIn the dark room with the crystal ball, the three remaining Saint Beasts sighed. "That idiot. Got defeated by a flower." one commented sadly.
p"Though I must admit, that detective is quite attractive." another one admitted.
p"Get a hold of yourself. That's why Genbu lost, remember? He found her pretty." the first one scolded.
p"I shall fight them next. They'll make a very nice dinner. Especially the girl. You know what they say. Sugar, spice, and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. I just know she'll be delicious!" laughed the third and he left the dark room.