Last Chapter: Shizuru found it hard watching on as Hiei tried to free Botan from the Lure's clutches, but Botan seemed to be further gone this time around. As she observed and waited, Shizuru plotted to kill the Lure.


Chapter 29: Never Thought I Would

As Kurama and Keiko began the arduous task of turning away early morning park users at the park gate, a lone little bird started towards the tree Botan was suspended from, before squawking in alarm and awkwardly altering its trajectory to avoid the Lure. Shizuru sighed softly. Her brother had fallen asleep at her feet, bundled up in blankets, but Yusuke remained alert, watching the Lure through narrowed eyes, his fists clenching and unclenching intermittently as though he was trying to pick the right moment to attack. Shizuru was glad Kuwabara was sleeping, as he would need his energy to cut Botan free, and, silently, she wished that Yusuke would take a break too. She knew she ought to let him come with her after they had freed Botan and the Lure fled, but logic was leaving her in favour of a cold, focused rage, and she determined to be the one who, alone, would kill the Lure.

She tightened her hold of the camera again and refocused her attention as Hiei gripped at the webbing around Botan with what seemed like feeble hands, and pulled himself closer to her, bringing his entire body very close to hers.

"Now remember Hiei, keep your dick in your pants this time," Yusuke called up to him.

Hiei turned his head, fractionally, towards Yusuke.

"Focus," Yusuke added.

Shizuru sighed and took a step forwards, thumping a fist into the back of his head. He yelped and stumbled forward a step before turning to face her with a grin that made her regret intervening.

"I like that too, you know," he said, a sparkle appearing in his eye that defied both their situation and his extended lack of sleep.

"You won't like it when I shove my fist down your throat and rip that smart-ass tongue out of your head," she warned him.

Yusuke straightened up.

"That wasn't sexy," he complained.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara moaned, pushing off the blankets covering him and throwing his friend a disapproving look.

Kuwabara groaned in complaint and stood up, smoothing out his clothes. He opened his mouth to continue protesting, but stopped short when Hiei spoke above them.

"Can you see this?" he asked Botan.

He moved his hands up to either side of his face.

"Your hands?" Botan asked.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Do you see them?"

"Yes…" she said slowly. "Is this some sort of test?"

"Take my hands," Hiei immediately replied. "Both of them. Now."

"Okay."

Shizuru winced and shrank as the Lure shrieked, the sound physically painful to her tired ears. Once the initial shock of the sound had passed, despite the throbbing buzz in her ears, Shizuru smiled darkly as the Lure hissed and recoiled and Botan broke both of her arms out of the webbing. She reached up and took Hiei's hands, and although it seemed like a victory, the mumbled exclamations of her brother and Yusuke reflected the inward curse Shizuru uttered upon seeing Botan's pale, pale arms, each with sickening, slimy tendrils bored deep into them.

"You're hurt," Botan said, in that soft, floaty voice she used when she was under the Lure's control.

"Never mind about that!" Hiei snapped back urgently. "Just listen to me."

"I'm listening," she replied.

"Listen carefully, and do exactly as I say, understand?" he said.

"I understand."

"You must do this."

"Anything."

"This is a simple thing. Just wake up."

"Wake up?"

Shizuru lifted the camera off her shoulder and pushed it into Yusuke's hands. In his confusion, he accepted it. She began rolling up her sleeves and fixed her narrowed eyes onto the retreating Lure.

"Just wake up," Hiei said.

Botan flinched and the Lure scampered into the shadows of its lair. Shizuru did not need to see or hear anything more: she started to run.

The Lure moved about as fast as Shizuru could at a brisk jog, and, initially, it moved in a straight line. A surge of adrenaline shot through her and she broke into a ruthless sprint, her feet pounding against the ground. She crossed a road, caring little that she did so in front of a car that screeched and swerved to avoid her. She was gaining on the monster, and she was ready to eviscerate it. At the other side of the road, she turned sharply and ran down a narrow alleyway between two tall buildings, only stopping when she almost collided with the wall at the end of the passageway. She yelped out a curse of frustration, and, inside her head, she was sure she could hear the Lure laughing at her. She slapped a hand against the bricks and lifted her hair back off her face with her other hand, before turning in time to see Hiei lumbering towards her. He started to attempt to scale the wall before falling back down. Shizuru cursed again and awkwardly caught him, his weight and her weakness sending them both crashing to the ground. They both lay there for longer than either of them would ever admit to before slowing hauling themselves apart, shuffling until they were sitting at opposite sides of the alley, their backs against the wall, facing either other. Shizuru sighed and looked down at her hands, starting when she saw the fresh blood on them.

"It's mine, relax woman," Hiei told her breathlessly.

She sighed again and met his eyes, which were staring across the alley at her in a strange way.

"You're in no state to be hunting that thing right now," she told him.

His eyes narrowed, and yet somehow seemed to brighten, almost as though they were glowing.

"This isn't the way Kurama came," he said, his voice thick with suspicious irritation.

Shizuru shrugged.

"Why did you come this way then?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

"Because I think you were following the Lure," he replied.

"Oh yeah?" she casually responded.

"You just told me I wasn't fit to hunt it," he ground out. "Why would you say that unless you knew I was pursuing it?"

"You were running in one direction with determination," Shizuru began.

"Don't play games with me, Kuwabara," Hiei cut her off. "Just tell me how you knew which way to go."

Shizuru considered spinning out her lie, but the glare Hiei was giving her, combined with how utterly pathetic he looked in his battered, bloodied state, made her acquiesce.

"I can feel it's energy," she said quietly.

"Even now?" he asked.

She nodded.

"It's miles away now though," she said forlornly. "I think it can fly."

Hiei nodded.

"You couldn't have fought it," he said.

Shizuru swallowed down her instinctive response and smiled tightly.

"But I can," he said, as though oblivious to the fact that he had just literally fallen into her arms in his attempt to scale the wall. "I will enter into an alliance with you."

"Gee Hiei, with lines like that, I can't imagine why you haven't managed to ask Botan out on a date before now," Shizuru sarcastically replied.

"I need some time – a day at the most – to regain my strength," he continued.

Shizuru was doubtful he would recover his wounds in such a short stretch of time but decided to say nothing just as he had ignored her jibe.

"I will find you at that time," he said plainly. "And you will take me to the Lure so that I can destroy it."

There was something strange about both the look in his eyes and his tone, but Shizuru nodded. She had absolutely no intentions of leading anyone to the Lure or letting anyone else kill it. Her need to vanquish the demon had long since overtaken her common sense.

"Deal," she lied.

She stood up and brushed the dust from her pants, silently telling herself that, as soon as she was sure Hiei had retreated to wherever it was he retreated to when he had wounds to heal, she would set out again and hunt down the Lure on her own. Once she was sure she was free of dirt, she turned her attention to Hiei, who had not moved. She held out a hand towards him, but he growled and made a feeble swing at her offer, his hand missing hers by several inches.

"Okay big guy," she said curtly, withdrawing her offer. "I'll wait for your call."

Shizuru walked away from Hiei without a hint of remorse that she had lied to him: after all, she was certain that he was lying to her too. As she made her way back to the park, she came to the conclusion that he would probably just ask her to locate the Lure, read her mind to find out where it was, and then race off to track and kill it himself, and she could not – and would not – let him do that.


Shizuru awoke with a groan. She slapped at her alarm with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other. She had allowed herself two hours of sleep, purely to sharpen her mind before setting out after the Lure. She threw back her covers and rose from her bed, fully clothed. She fumbled over her vanity desk for a scrunchie, using it to clumsily gather her hair up into a messy bun. She then opened her wardrobe, reaching under piles of clothes to retrieve a decorated katana she had once confiscated from her brother, tying it to a belt-loop of her jeans before pulling on her cosy long coat, its length and thickness successfully concealing her weapon entirely.

She closed her wardrobe and started to turn, pausing only briefly to scowl at her still sleep-puffy face in the mirror on her vanity desk, before swiftly exiting the room and running down the stairs on light feet. She headed for the door, pulling on her hiking boots. At the same moment her hand reached for the door handle, she heard a creak behind her, and, in her heightened state of alarm, she spun around, finding her father standing at the other end of the hall, watching her curiously.

"Oh, hey, dad," she said, trying to look and sound casual.

"Everything okay, sweetheart?" he asked her.

She nodded. He smiled warmly and walked towards her.

"Don't you want something to eat first?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine until…"

Shizuru looked about herself for a clock: she genuinely had no idea what time of day it was, despite having set an alarm to wake herself. She had only considered that she needed 2 hours sleep, she had not cared or retained the time she had actually set the alarm to.

"Okay," her father said, nodding his head. "Take care."

"I will," she lied, meeting his eyes again.

He smiled warmly again.

"You look so like your mother sometimes," he said.

Shizuru smiled and quickly put her arms around him so that he could not see the blurring of her eyes: at times she found she struggled to remember clearly her mother's face, and the thought that she might be seeing it every time she looked in the mirror was more heartache than she could handle in that moment. She intended to hold onto her father until the moment passed, but was forced to break away early and turn her back on him instead when he asked her a question she had no energy to formulate a suitable lie to answer.

"Sweetheart, are you carrying a sword under your coat?"

Shizuru sniffed and opened the door, briskly moving out of it and continuing out into the street. Her father did not call after her for an explanation, nor did he attempt to stop her: but she had already known that would be the case. He had never had it in him to hold anyone back at any time, even when he really ought to have.

She crossed her arms over her chest and picked up her pace, walking briskly, in as straight a line as the streets of Sarayashiki city would allow. Within half an hour, she found herself back in the park the Lure had caught Botan in. She slowed her pace as she passed through the park gates, squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes suspiciously. She thought that perhaps the Lure knew she was tracking it, and had created a deceptive signal to lead her there, to distract her from its true location: but, as a shadow swept across the land before her, she looked up, seeing the familiar, wriggling black shadows overhead that accompanied to Lure when its energy had flared. She looked about herself as she continued into the park, a sickening, jarring sensation jolting her entire being as her eyes landed on something that contradicted the dark feeling she was sensing.

"Well hello there, Shizuru," the sweet little girl sitting on a park swing greeted her.

Shizuru stopped and turned towards the girl, who looked just like an ordinary human girl: she had spent so long glowering up at the Lure's ugly, true form, she had forgotten that it more typically disguised itself as such a sweet-looking child. Shizuru opened her coat and drew out the katana and the Lure smiled, letting out a sweet, girly little giggle.

"Silly, you won't touch me!" she said, with a saccharine cheer in her tone.

"I'm going to cut your pretty little head off," Shizuru plainly answered her.

"I don't think so, Shizuru," the Lure replied, it's tone suddenly serious.

"You won't stop me."

Shizuru took a step forwards but halted again as the little girl slipped off of the swing.

"I won't stop you, no," the Lure said, tilting her head slightly as she regarded Shizuru. "But I'm pretty sure a grown woman cutting down a small child with a sword is a serious crime in your world."

Shizuru hesitated. The Lure grinned. Shizuru's mind went blank, and the only thing that made any sense to her was the firm grip she had on the katana as she charged at the little girl.

Shizuru cried out a curse of alarm and pain as something hit her hard from one side, her body flying a short distance through the air before hitting the ground. She paused momentarily, the dull ache of places she knew she had just been bruised momentarily looming large in her mind: but, at the sound of the Lure's sickening laughter, she threw a weight off of herself and sat up.

The Lure was gone. She could not see it, and, when she felt for it, it was already some considerable distance away. Her face twisted in rage and she rounded on the body that had tackled her so ruthlessly to the ground.

"What the hell were you thinking?" they both yelled at each other in unison.

Shizuru's anger was the first to falter when she realised, with some degree of horror, that when he had thrown himself at her, Hiei had grabbed a hand around her sword. His fist was still clenched tightly around the blade, blood blooming over his bandages.

"You can't murder a human in a park full of humans!" Hiei growled.

He sounded a lot more like usual self. He looked a lot more like his usual self.

"You can recover all those wounds in two hours?" Shizuru asked in disbelief.

"Idiot, it's been six hours," Hiei answered her.

Shizuru frowned. It vaguely occurred to her that she did feel quite refreshed, as though she had enjoyed a lot more than just two hours of sleep, and she began to suspect her father had snuck into her room and changed her alarm: but before she could give either idea any more thought, she was struck with another, more significant realisation.

"Okay, six hours, and you're back to one hundred percent already?" she asked.

Hiei looked over his shoulder and Shizuru followed his glare, spotting a curious teenage boy looking over at them.

"We should talk somewhere more private," Hiei concluded, turning back to Shizuru.

She nodded as she slid her sword back into its sheath. She stood up and swiped her hands at mud stains on her clothing in vain before closing her coat over to conceal her weapon once more.

"We can talk at…"

Her voice trailed off as she looked about herself.

"My house?" she added feebly, after failing to locate Hiei.

She sighed, hoping that he had already understood she would make that suggestion before he had taken off, and she started after him.

When she eventually returned home, Shizuru stopped at the garden gate, looking up at the hunched shadow high in the tall tree there. She nodded her head towards the door and Hiei dropped to the ground behind her, following her wordlessly inside. Her father greeted them both, neither asking who Hiei was nor why he was accompanying Shizuru up to her bedroom, but rather offering them drinks and snacks. Shizuru politely declined his offers and continued up the stairs and into her bedroom, waiting until Hiei had joined her before closing the door.

"You agreed you would lead me to the Lure," Hiei said sternly.

Shizuru sighed as she removed her coat, hanging it up in her wardrobe before hiding her sword back into its original hiding place.

"Sit down, Hiei," she said as she closed the wardrobe doors.

"Answer my question, woman," he shot back.

"You didn't ask me a question, big guy," Shizuru pointed out.

Hiei looked momentarily confused before once more adopting a scowl: he did, however, trudge towards her bed, sitting onto the edge of it and looking over at her expectantly.

"The thing is, Hiei, I have to kill the Lure," she admitted.

Hiei scoffed as though she had said something ridiculous. Shizuru growled in frustration and began to pace back and forth.

"I can do it," she insisted. "I have to do it. I need to do it. This isn't your fight – you've already done your part – this is my fight, and you need to stay out of my way and let me fight it."

"After the Lure has fed, it is at its strongest, fastest and most dangerous," Hiei warned. "It could easily kill you. It could easily have killed you today."

"Maybe I don't care about that, did you think about that before you interfered?"

Hiei gave Shizuru a hard look and she sobered a little.

"I'm going to be the one who kills it, Hiei," she insisted. "I don't care how well-healed and battle-ready you think you now are."

"You never intended to lead me to the Lure," Hiei said, his tone strangely neutral despite the accusation his words contained.

Shizuru stopped, closing her eyes and pressing the fingers of one hand to her forehead. She was not about to explain to Hiei why she needed to kill the Lure, but equally, she was aware that he was going through his own emotional crisis. She turned to him and walked up to him, looking down at him where he sat, looking strangely small and pitiful. She softened even further when she noticed that the bandana he usually wore had been replaced with bandaging, the faint red spotting on the cloth bringing her to a saddening realisation.

"You didn't heal the wound to your eye?" she asked quietly.

"I can't," he said, a wry smirk appearing on his face. "I need to keep my connection to her open. It makes it easier to reach her."

Shizuru placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned down, bringing her face closer to his.

"You won't have to go through that again," she assured him. "Because I am going to kill that bird-faced bastard."

She gently kissed the spotted part of his bandaging before straightening up again, finding he was glowering up at her sceptically.

"I'm not attracted to you," he told her.

"That's good," Shizuru replied with a smirk. "The last thing I need is another on of my brother's stupid friends awkwardly flirting with me."

She sat down next to Hiei.

"At least Yusuke is just fooling around," he told her. "Your brother's awkward flirting with Yukina is no joke."

Shizuru turned her head towards Hiei and he copied her action.

"Are you saying my brother isn't worthy of your sister?" she asked him.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Hiei replied. "He is unworthy."

Hiei looked thoughtful for a moment.

"But you are a useful Kuwabara," he added. "From now one, I will call you Worthy Kuwabara."

"And what, you're gonna call Kazuma "Unworthy" Kuwabara?" Shizuru asked.

"Yes."

Shizuru smiled and shook her head.

"Your sister isn't the innocent little angel you think she is," she said. "And your sister and my brother have a lot more in common than you might think."

"The last time we had a gathering, your brother told us all about how pretty he thinks my sister is," Hiei sneered.

"So?" Shizuru responded.

"He spoke about her hair and her eyes and her hands."

Shizuru tried to conceal her reaction to Hiei's last word, but he immediately stiffened and bristled defensively.

"It's disgusting," he said. "He should show more dignity."

Shizuru sniffed and looked up at the roof, contemplating telling Hiei exactly what his previous statement had brought to the forefront of her mind.

"I don't need to hear your brother talk about my sister's hands," Hiei pressed.

"Oh yeah?" Shizuru said, meeting his eyes again abruptly. "Did he tell you why he likes her hands?"

"Because they make food he likes and they are "gentle"," he replied with a scowl.

"Wow, that must have been hard to listen to."

"It was. You should rein your brother in."

"See, I think you should rein your sister in, Hiei."

Hiei's eye doubled in size. For a brief, fleeting moment, he looked horrified, before reverting to a more typical look of irritated anger.

"The last time we had a gathering – the last time us four girls got together – I had to listen to your sister tell us all why my brother likes her hands so well," Shizuru said.

"Because she cooks for him," Hiei said.

"Is that really what you think?"

Hiei looked vaguely horrified, and this time, the look did not fade from his face.

"You need to rein your sister in," Shizuru repeated, lowering her voice and giving Hiei a hard look.

Hiei froze.

"It's great that your sister has become more liberated since moving to the human world," Shizuru continued. "But that's still my little brother she's talking about."

Hiei swallowed hard, his throat visibly moving as the sound of his gulp reached Shizuru's ears.

"We shall enter into a new deal, Worthy," he said, his expression neutralising once more. "I shall allow you to kill the Lure, but in return, you shall allow me to kill your brother."

"I've got a better idea," Shizuru countered. "I'll kill the Lure, I'll keep your little secret about your crush on Botan, and neither of us will interfere with each other's siblings."

"I don't have a crush on Botan."

Hiei stood up abruptly and moved over to the window, opening it. Shizuru started to make a joking remark about his last words, but stopped short when he spoke again.

"Crush is a stupid little human word, and it isn't big enough to encompass what I feel."

Shizuru watched him leap from her window, frozen in place in surprise at his last remark. By the time she had recovered and moved to her window, he was nowhere to be seen. She sighed and closed the window, a horrible, sickeningly familiar feeling washing over her as she clicked the latch into place. She closed her eyes and whispered a plea that she was wrong before opening her eyes again and looking out at the sky.

Although she was not surprised to see it filled with black, wriggling tendrils, her heart sank regardless.


Keiko looked tired, but she drove Shizuru silently and diligently (and often at speeds well above the speed limit) all the way up to Genkai's temple. She barely made a grunt as she forced her little car up the last stretch of bumpy, uneven ground that was never meant for vehicles of any kind. Keiko even kept her face straight when they got out the car and she noticed one of her tyres deflating rapidly. Shizuru made her way quickly around to the front entrance of Genkai's temple, but there she stopped, so shocked by what she saw, she was frozen on the spot long enough for Keiko to catch up to her. Keiko gripped her arms and sunk behind her slightly, her face becoming animated for the first time since she had arrived to collect Shizuru.

"This is most unexpected, I must say!" the Lure declared, leering over Botan's encased body at the lone figure standing on the ground facing it.

"I will not let you away with this!" Yukina shouted back at it. "You are an evil monster, and I will make you suffer for everything you've done to my friend Botan and my brother!"

"What?" Keiko grunted.

Shizuru turned her head sharply and scanned over the other group standing behind Yukina, sighing in relief when she noticed Hiei was not amongst them.

"Yukina's brother?" she heard her own brother mutter.

"Perhaps he also fell victim to a Lure," Kurama calmly lied to Kuwabara.

"Pathetic little ice maiden, you cannot touch me," the Lure goaded.

"Maybe not right now, but you can't touch me either!" Yukina shot back, clenched her fists at her sides.

The Lure started to stretch one of its long, insect-like fingers towards Yukina, but she visibly tensed, and the already luminous barrier around her glowed brighter still. The sharp tip of the Lure's finger stopped short as it hit her barrier, sparks and smoke swirling around the point of contact.

"Yukina, back off!" Kurama cried suddenly.

Yukina bared her teeth and the barrier became blindingly bright, so bright Shizuru and Keiko were forced to turn from it: but the moment only lasted briefly before the light snapped out. Shizuru turned back to where Yukina had been standing, finding the Lure's finger stabbed into the ground the ice maiden had been standing on, blood dripping from ever hooked claw on the underside of its finger.

"Yukina!" Keiko wailed, starting towards the area.

Shizuru quickly grabbed her friend's arm to halt her progress, nodding her head to one side to direct Keiko's attention there: Yukina was on the ground several feet away, cradled in Kuwabara's arms, and there was a vicious bloody gouge down his back, clothing and skin torn alike by the Lure's finger.

"I can't take it any more!" Yukina wailed, balling her fists around Kuwabara's sleeves.

"I know it's hard, Yukina," Kuwabara said softly to her. "But we will win this. You gotta believe in us. And you gotta believe in Botan. You gotta believe she's strong enough to come back after all this."

"It's too much!" Yukina cried. "It's just too much!"

"Well, since Hiei's not here, we're doing this my way!" Yusuke declared, pushing up the sleeves of his coat and stomping towards the Lure.

The Lure grinned and retracted its finger out of the ground, arcing it back before aiming it at Yusuke. Kurama and Shizuru began trying to warn Yusuke to stop, but he ignored them, continuing towards the Lure: but, at the sound of two loud, resounding slaps, everyone froze, including the Lure.

"Oh, damnit, that felt so good!" Keiko groaned under her breath, before doubling over.

The Lure slowly lowered its wide, staring eyes to Keiko's shoes, which had fallen to the ground just below the side of its face that both had slapped against. It then shifted its eyes towards Keiko and grinned.

"Don't even think about it, you ugly bastard!" Yusuke roared at it.

It turned its attention back to Yusuke and grinned wider still.

"Remember you can't harm it, Yusuke!" Kurama warned.

Yusuke stood, chest heaving, glaring up at the Lure for a few seconds longer before marching over to Keiko, who straightened up to meet him.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded.

"It didn't seem to hurt Botan," Keiko replied.

"It didn't hurt that bastard, that's why!" Yusuke snapped back.

"I wasn't trying to hurt it, I was trying to humiliate it, and also I was trying to just feel-feel-feel…"

Keiko clenched her fists and shook all over.

"Feel less useless?" Yukina offered.

"Exactly, yes!" Keiko agreed. "Yusuke, this is really hard for us!"

Yusuke looked over at Yukina, then at Shizuru, and then finally back at Keiko.

"You think that just because you four boys go off on big adventures together that you have a strong bond like nobody else," Keiko argued. "But you don't know what us four girls have been through together! We have a bond too! And Botan is one of us!"

Yusuke looked over at Yukina, at Shizuru, and back at Keiko again, before nodding his head.

"She's one of all of us, Keiko," he said softly.

He put a hand on her shoulder and she sighed.

"Hiei!" Kurama said, drawing everyone's attention to him.

He looked as pale and small as he had the last time Shizuru had seen him, but, as the others had not seen him as she had, they all were a little taken aback, especially as his journey to join them had apparently been enough exertion to cause the still unhealed wound to his Jagan eye to bleed right through the bandaging around his head. He started towards the Lure but Yusuke moved into his path, blocking his progress. Hiei glared up at him, but, despite his best efforts, his look did not have the same effect it would have normally.

"Kurama, do we really have to send him back in there?" Yusuke asked, looking over at Kurama.

"Yes, Yusuke," Kurama replied solemnly.

Hiei stepped around Yusuke and continued on his way. Yusuke watched him pass before turning back to Kurama.

"He's not ready to go back in there!" he argued. "He's still messed up from the last fight!"

"But he is the only one of us who can go," Kurama replied.

"There's gotta be some other way," Yusuke said, sounding almost pleading.

Kurama shook his head.

"It's too bad he's so stubborn," Kuwabara commented. "I'm sure my lovely Yukina would have helped him heal that wound."

Yukina nodded in his arms.

"I don't think it works like that, Kuwabara," Yusuke said, before turning a questioning look to Kurama.

"I don't know if that would have worked or not," Kurama responded.

"Hearing you admit you don't know something is never a good feeling," Yusuke muttered.

Shizuru swallowed hard as she watched Hiei pass her. There was something odd about his aura, something she had failed to notice earlier: but as she thought about it, she remembered he had asked her for a full day to heal his wounds, and he had distinctly told her he had only been gone six hours. As she noticed a wet, sticky patch on one leg of his pants, she realised that the wound to his third eye was not the only one he had not healed. In fact, she thought darkly, as the Lure began to stretch all ten of its fingers towards him, he had barely taken the edge off of the remainder of his wounds. And, with a pang of guilt, she suspected she knew why he had ended his healing session early: he had been watching her, watching in case she hunted down the Lure without him. He had already known that she would act without him, and he had been so determined to get involved in the fight, he had foregone the self-care he so desperately needed.

As the Lure's fingers began piercing into him and he grabbed his hands at the webbing around Botan's face to steady himself, Yukina buried her face in Kuwabara's chest and moaned pitifully.

"Could he die?" Kuwabara asked, turning his head to Kurama.

"Don't be ridiculous, Kuwabara!" Yusuke said. "That bug-eyed, beaky bastard ain't strong enough to kill Hiei. Right, Kurama?"

Kurama's jaw was set, his head angled slightly downwards, casting his eyes into shadow.

"Kurama?" Yusuke pressed, which the fox demon did not offer a response.

"We must hope this is the final round," Kurama eventually answered.

Keiko whimpered a noise of defeat and turned her face away, but Shizuru refocused the camera and kept her eyes on Hiei, forcing herself to watch as the Lure stabbed into him in several places all over again. She noticed, as each of his wounds widened, as the Lure's fingers began protruding out the other side of his body, that his chest and shoulders began to heave, as though he was taking laboured breaths. She glanced over at her brother, the hardened look in his eyes confirming what she had already feared: an attack from the Lure hurt, even if the victim was prepared for it and trying to defend themselves. For Hiei, who was wilfully lowering his defences, it must be physically painful, not to mention the damage it was doubtlessly doing to his pride to allow an enemy so much weaker than he was to assault him so.

Apparently, he really did love Botan. Shizuru thought it ironic then that, during their last meeting with the Lure, Hiei had mocked Yusuke for making a fool of himself for the sake of a woman he loved, when here Hiei was doing exactly the same thing himself.

But, as time passed, as the group fell into silence, nothing else happened. Hiei hung, lifelessly, from the Lure's fingers, his own fingers embedded into the webbing around Botan's face, but his grip weak and loose, as though he had lost consciousness. He looked so pale, and when the blood from his wounds began to drip to the ground, Shizuru silently wondered just how much blood he could stand to lose in such a short space of time. He was a demon – and a very strong one at that – but, just like any other creature, he only had a finite amount of blood in him, and Shizuru had seen demons die from loss of blood before.

And so, when his face twitched, and a hint of colour seeped into his cheeks, she audibly sighed in relief. Keiko threw her a questioning look, but she shook her head, not wishing to worry Keiko by telling just how far away Hiei seemed, and how Botan seemed to be gone completely: unlike the last two times the Lure had captured Botan, this time, Shizuru could not feel a single trace of the ferry girl's energy.

She was deep, deep into the world the Lure had dragged her down into, and Hiei seemed to be not too far behind her.

Shizuru looked over at Yukina, who was now standing at Kuwabara's side, holding onto his hand. She looked like a child. Until her earlier altercation with the Lure, Shizuru had been unaware that the ice maiden knew Hiei was her brother. Part of her wondered how long Yukina had known, and part of her was sure that Yukina had known all along. Yukina's love (and sometimes unashamed lust) for Kuwabara was not the only part of her character Hiei misjudged: she was a lot more astute, able, cunning and clever than her brother gave her credit for. When alone with Shizuru, Keiko and Botan, Yukina was more open, and never intimidated by any topic of conversation or reluctant to try anything new. With the determination she had shown earlier, and knowing that Yukina was suffering arguably the most, seeing one of her best friends and her brother slowly dying before her very eyes, Shizuru felt that maybe she ought to reveal to the ice maiden her plans to fight the Lure. She was sure Yukina would join her, and gladly fight with everything she had: but, the Lure had managed to penetrate Yukina's barrier, despite her pouring all of her energy into it, and the Lure was not nearly as bloated and energetic as it was when it had finished feeding on Botan, and sensibly Shizuru knew that Yukina would be no match for it.

Sensibly, Shizuru knew that she would be no match for the powered-up Lure either, but she had already accepted that she would gladly die fighting it.

"Hey, Kazuma?" she called out to her brother.

"Yeah, sis?" he responded, meeting her eyes with a worried frown still in place on his face.

"I didn't take any spare cassettes. Why don't you and Yukina go back and pick up a dozen or so from the house, and bring us back some food?" Shizuru suggested.

"Food?" Yukina echoed. "You think this will take a long time again?"

Shizuru nodded, biting her lip to stop herself from telling Yukina that she could already tell that this time, it would take significantly longer to free Botan than it had the last time around.

"You will call us immediately if anything changes," Yukina said firmly.

"Of course!" Keiko agreed, nodding her head.

"Maybe you should go in my place, Keiko," Yukina said.

"No," Shizuru said quickly, holding her free arm out to block Keiko's progress as she started towards Kuwabara. "You go, Yukina. Keep my brother focused, okay?"

Yukina gave her a hard look, but nodded agreement regardless.

"Be careful, you guys," Kuwabara said, looking around the others.

"We will," Kurama assured him.

Kuwabara crouched down and Yukina leapt onto his back, and together they took off. Yusuke watched them go until they had disappeared from sight before turning to Shizuru.

"What's the real reason you just sent them away?" he asked, casting a glance at the bag of spare tapes Keiko had laid on the ground.

"We're gonna be here a long time," Shizuru admitted. "They both needed a break."

Yusuke nodded. He looked over at the Lure as it slowly moved its eyes to him. It let out a small chuckle and Yusuke grabbed off one of his shoes.

"No, Yusuke, stop!" Keiko wailed, grabbing his shoe in both of her hands and trying to wrestle it from his grasp.

"You did it, why can't I?" he argued back.

"Because you can actually cause harm to the Lure," Kurama calmly interjected, pulling Yusuke's shoe forcefully from the three hands holding it. "And harming the Lure harms Botan."

Yusuke's shoulders slumped and he turned his attention back to the Lure. His rage was making his entire body glow.

"Step back, kid," Shizuru told him.

"Okay, but the second that thing lets go, its ass is mine," Yusuke replied, before stomping back a few steps.

Shizuru sighed and turned to Keiko who forced a smile.

"Call us immediately if anything changes," she whispered softly, gripping Shizuru's arm with one hand. "Please. Promise me you will."

Shizuru frowned.

"I don't think we're helping right now," Keiko explained. "We'll get some blankets, and my dad has a gas stove we can use for heat and light, and to cook food. Because…"

Shizuru nodded.

"Yeah, it's gonna take a while," she whispered back.

Keiko nodded, and after one more squeeze on Shizuru's arm, she moved over to Yusuke. They argued quietly for a little, before Yusuke pointed at Kurama and insisted he call if there were any developments. The two then left in the same manner Kuwabara and Yukina had – with Keiko on Yusuke's back as he ran – leaving Shizuru and Kurama alone. Kurama moved over to stand by Shizuru's side and, for a short time, they watched on in silence. When nothing changed ahead of them, Shizuru found her mind wandering back to the moment she had first found out about the Lure: when Kurama had arrived at her doorstep, alongside her brother.

"Hey, fox boy, you were ahead of the game on this one, so why did you drop the ball?" she said bitterly, as a sickening thought occurred to her.

"I'm sorry, what?" Kurama muttered, turning to her with a small frown.

Shizuru shifted the camera onto her opposite shoulder so that she could see his face more easily.

"You made a big deal outta making us all eat that disgusting, bitter-tasting leaf to protect us from the Lure, right?" Shizuru began.

"What did you just say?" the Lure hissed, turning its head to fix its glaring eyes onto Shizuru.

Kurama lifted the camera from Shizuru's shoulder and placed it on the ground, propping it up at an angle with the help of the bag of spare tapes, aiming the lens towards the Lure, before beckoning Shizuru to follow him. She did so with purpose, her fists clenched at her sides, marching after him all the way inside Genkai's temple. She kept wanting to stop him, but reasoned that he was not stalling her by leading her further and further inside, rather he was, sensibly, moving to a place the Lure would definitely be unable to hear their conversation.

"I already have," he eventually said, turning on the spot to face Shizuru.

Shizuru frowned.

"What?" she echoed. "When?"

"I gave several leaves to one of Botan's colleagues," he replied. "She promised me she would find a way to ensure Botan consumed them."

"You didn't check it actually happened?" Shizuru asked.

"No, I trusted her," Kurama replied.

"I'm not big on trusting people from spirit world, Kurama," Shizuru said sternly. "And I'm pretty sure you feel the same way."

"This was different," he insisted. "I struck a deal with her. If she has not been upholding her end of the deal, she stands to lose everything."

Shizuru frowned.

"I made a trade with a ferry girl," Kurama explained. "She wanted to help Botan, I gave her the leaves, and to ensure she would comply with giving them to Botan, I insisted she fetch me a book from the spirit world library. The book confirmed that the leaves of the Deploro plant are the best defence against the Lure, and I do believe Botan has consumed some. Had she not, I don't think she would have woken up so quickly the second time the Lure took her, nor would she have had the energy to go out and find the Lure so quickly again."

"How exactly are the leaves working if she's still out looking for the Lure?" Shizuru demanded.

"The leaves do not break an addiction to the Lure, they merely lessen the effects of the Lure's poison, making it easier to tap into Botan when she is being held. The leaves in Botan's system may be the only thing allowing Hiei to still reach her."

Shizuru nodded.

"Who was it?" she asked.

Kurama looked back at her blankly.

"Who was it, Kurama?" she repeated impatiently. "Who was the ferry girl you gave the leaves to?"

"Her name is Ayame."


Next Chapter: Botan is deeper into her trance, and Hiei appears to be having a harder time connecting with her. Shizuru takes Kurama aside again and gets more details from him about his deal with Ayame, and, eventually, in a way slightly different from before, Hiei does manage to free Botan. Shizuru and Hiei pursue the Lure, but one is not fast enough and the other is too weak to give chase when it takes to the skies, and they vow to heal themselves up and try again later. When they finally do reconvene, their efforts are interrupted by someone who has been spying on them, and what at first seems like an unwelcome presence may end up being the answer they have been looking for to defeat the Lure (it's The DWB Show!). Chapter 30: I Could Never Say