AN: Two notes. Most important: there is torture in this chapter and the next. I don't think it's super detailed, but you have been warned. Second note: I'm done editing! I'm posting the last chapters tonight. If you catch errors, please let me know.

"I can't help but think if there was danger it would have struck by now," Kurama mused by the end of the week. "None of the traps I set at the apartment have been disturbed."

"Hn," Hiei grunted in agreement. Then he paused, reconsidered. "We don't know how long they watched her friends," he finally said.

Kurama worked out a crick in his neck. If he hadn't been set on making sure Hiei did not take advantage of Sagaku again, he would go home at nights to sleep on his own bed. As it was, having the extra body on site to protect Sagaku was important enough that he was willing to overlook the discomfort.

"It would help if we knew what they were looking for," Kurama said. He tapped his long fingers against his leg, bouncing his foot up and down. "Maybe," he said slowly, "maybe I should speak with Sagaku's friend Nenriki. Maybe he knows more than he's let on."

Hiei let the fox plot out loud. He doubted the efforts would prove fruitful, though; why would a human with no discernable spirit energy warrant information that was so important two demons across the road would die for it?

Hiei should not have been so arrogant. Kurama did not return after leaving the house; in fact, he sent out a plea to all three of his teammates to meet him in the city.

Sagaku watched Hiei leave in a black and gray blur, twisting one of her chopsticks over and over her fingers. It was then, as she wondered what could be so important she'd been left behind with commands to lock all doors, that another, unrelated thought ran across her mind: Could she make the serpentine flare when there was no danger present?

Sagaku sat, twisting a chopstick idly between her fingers while she focused on the serpentine, meditating on it just as Shoseki had taught her. The pulse against her skin was familiar, but it did nothing else. She tried changing tactics, feeding a tiny bit of spirit energy into the stone and trying to pull energy back. Then she felt it: it was the teeniest, tiniest twitch against her awareness-just the suggestion of something. That little twitch was enough. Sagaku pursued the feeling, pouring her own energy into her focus. Yellow light began flickering around the stone.

Two things happened at once, then: the glass window shattered and the stone at Sagaku's chest cracked in two.

"This doesn't make sense," Yusuke said for what felt like the millionth time. "Why would they kidnap a human?"

It clearly was "they", more than one demon, who had destroyed Nenriki's apartment, killed his girlfriend, and presumably taken the human since his body was nowhere to be found. Pawprints the size of a dinner plate smeared the girlfriend's blood across the floor. Two different size shoes smeared in the blood, too-one had walked straight through the blood. The other looked to have been dragged, slipping and sliding, through the same area. More damning than the tracks left in the blood, though, was the security footage.

"You definitely don't recognize them, right?" Kuwabara asked. He rewound the footage from the previous day on the laptop again.

Hiei resisted the urge to bash Kuwabara with the katana hilt in his hand. If he or Kurama had recognized these demons, did Kuwabara think they would waste time keeping it to themselves?

They watched the shaky footage on the small screen once more. A man walked up to the front door, looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was there, and knocked. Nenriki opened the door, looking up and down the hall also, as if to make sure the person had knocked on the right door. The man-presumably a demon-gestured to a folder that appeared in his hand. Nenriki stepped aside hesitantly, letting him step in. From the end of the hall, where it turned to stairs, a wolf crept up to the door. The thick gray tail swished first one way and then the other in anticipation.

"If the man pretended to be a lawyer," Kurama said, his brow wrinkling as he tried to put himself into Nenriki's shoes, "then he could have said he had Shoseki's Last Will to gain entrance."

The wolf lunged with no warning into the apartment. They watched the grainy feed. From this point, for a full two minutes, there was nothing to see. Then, shadows at the open door followed by the man forcing Nenriki ahead of him. The wolf followed behind, a single strip of flesh and hair hanging from his ghastly jaws. Standing beside Nenriki and the man, the wolf appeared to be taller than the man at the shoulders.

"We need to call the police," Kuwabara said. He glanced uneasily into the other room, where the woman's body remained.

"Our DNA is all over the site now," Kurama said. "We can't. Call Koenma to get cleanup here. He'll arrange something so her family can reclaim her body."

"We should keep looking, though," Yusuke protested, "in case we missed something."

"I'm going back," Hiei said. The other three turned to stare at him. "The onna is at the house alone." Hiei tried to defend himself against those looks-that smug, knowing look from Yusuke, bewilderment from Kuwabara, and vague uneasiness from Kurama.

"Yes," Kurama said slowly, "we shouldn't have left her unguarded."

Hiei was already gone. Kurama wondered a little uncomfortably if perhaps he had misjudged his friend's interest in Sagaku. Since when had Hiei voluntarily left when a fight might be forthcoming?

Something wasn't right. Before he was even in sight of his house, Hiei's stomach was clenching. He pushed his body to move faster-surely it could-running without breath until the silhouette of his house showed against the trees. Faster and faster, crashing in through the front door-

Sagaku was gone.

The window was broken, shattered.

But where was Sagaku?

Hiei spun this way and that, katana leaping into his hand seemingly with life of its own. The girl wouldn't be taken without a fight. Loath as he had been to admit it, she could deal a fair amount of damage. She wasn't as strong as him, of course, or even Kurama or Yusuke, but she wasn't weak. Why was there no damage, other than the window?

A small shadow beckoned from the floor by dark couch. Hiei stalked forward, kicking it with his toe. Rock. Hesitantly, he pressed his fingers to it. Just half a rock, with a jagged edge. Didn't the onna wear…?

Hiei began methodically tearing his house apart. Sagaku would have left a sign somewhere indicating what had happened. She wouldn't just disappear.

The sign, when Hiei found it, was not very comforting. A leather cord had been torn, slipping beneath his bed. The serpentine it normally held was cracked in half.

When Kurama arrived at the house not long after, it was to find Hiei sweating in the center of the floor, his Jagan eye wide and peering. Kurama called the rest of the team, retracing Hiei's steps lest something had been missed. There was nothing to find; Hiei sat where he'd found the first half the stone, keeping both halves of the serpentine clenched in his fists.

Consciousness slowly leaked through Sagaku's brain, bringing with it enough nausea to make her puke down the back of whoever had slung her over his or her shoulder. A sharp pain hit her in the back of the skull, and once again blackness claimed her sight.

When Sagaku came to a second time, it was to be greeted with a splitting headache and the smell of old sickness. She groaned, her head lolling back. Oddly, she couldn't feel anything at her feet or back-it took her a few minutes to make the connection. Her wrists were bound, as were her ankles, in a ridiculous 'X' pose. The bonds were just loose enough that she could barely wiggle.

"Get the stones off her." Someone's voice broke through her contemplation of the situation. Someone else argued, loudly, demanding to know if it was okay to scent her.

"Hisakata!" the other voice said sharply. "Shut up and get the stones off her before she wakes up!"

Given her past experiences with male demons, Sagaku's first thought was understandable. The demons had captured her, meaning to breed. At Hisakata's next statement, though, that thought died as quickly as it had appeared.

"Jitsu said that was bullshit and the writer was braindead. She can't fight."

Jitsu. Her father. Why would the demons need to kidnap her for breeding if they knew her father? Surely he would be pleased to arrange for one of them as a suitor for one of his daughters.

If her brain hadn't been so muddled and confused, she might have been able to focus on defending herself. As it was, she wasn't entirely sure what was happening until large fingers began stripping her of jewelry. Tied as she was, some of the jewelry couldn't be taken off the usual way. The chains and bands and cords snapped unmercifully, cutting at her skin.

One sharp tug at her ear brought another wave of pain that helped to clear the confusion somewhat. Sagaku jerked her head back. The movement was enough to shift her bangs out of her eyes. There, in front of her, was a tall, stocky man she had never seen before in her life.

"You worry too much, Harou," Hisakata said. He grinned as the girl bared her teeth. Her eyes still couldn't focus. When she tried to bite him, his grin grew. Grabbing a handful of her hair, he jerked her head to the side rendering it imobile. "She's out of it."

"Just finish," Harou sounded a little bored and a little exasperated.

Another sharp tug at Sagaku's ear sent pain spiraling through her. A little too late, she tried to call the stone's power to her. The clasp at the back of the earing gave out. One by one, the earrings were unceremoniously ripped and removed from her ears.

Her shirt was tugged up to reveal the agate piercing there. Hisakata whistled. His fingers caressed her stomach lightly and then jerked roughly at the bar. Sagaku arched back, struggling to pull away.

"Untwist it, dolt," Harou drawled. "I swear, if you didn't lead your own troops, I never would have allowed you to join me."

Hisakata growled over his shoulder at his ally (but not friend) and managed to roughly untwist the piercing. Sagaku breathed in sharply through her nose, struggling not to panic. She wanted to say something, distract them so she could come up with a plan, but even the air passing through her nose and throat stung. Had she been burned internally?

Sagaku drew on the lemurian jade around her thigh. Courage slowly pressed into her. Perhaps she would have been wiser to ask for strength to break her bonds, but the stone could only give so much at a time.

"You missed one," Harou said. Hisakata stepped back, eying the girl up and down. He had lifted her shirt far higher than necessary to exhibit a lack of other piercings or stones on her torso. Now, he lifted the hem of Sagaku's skirt. Sagaku renewed her struggling, but it was too late-the band that held the jade to her thigh was unbuckled. The stone fell unceremoniously to the floor, leaving only lingering courage in its wake.

"Anything else you've got hidden on you?" Harou asked, finally stepping close to the girl.

Sagaku squinted at him, trying to make the two figures merge into one. The closer he came, the easier it was. She tried to collect enough saliva to spit at him; instead, a wracking cough sent her heaving against her bindings.

Hisakata's hand hadn't left her thigh yet, dancing higher and higher up.

"Hisakata!" Harou spat out sharply. "Stop! I will tell you when you are allowed to have her."

"Have me?" Sagaku croaked. The hoarse voice that escaped her throat sounded nothing like her.

"It stings, doesn't it?" Harou stood close enough now that his seafoam eyes were no longer blurred in Sagaku's sight-that or her head was clear enough now that she wasn't seeing double anymore. "I've always enjoyed the feel of the sea, but I hear it's quite unpleasant to drown in."

Sagaku eyed him up and down. He wore a well-tailored suit; it was the kind of clothing you could find in the Ningenkai, not the Makai. His hair was an odd shade of brown that shone in green or blue depending how the light hit it. When he lifted his hand to jerk her chin so her gaze was back on his face, she saw the subtle webbing between his fingers. Some sort of sea-demon, clearly.

"Answer me," Harou commanded her. "Did it sting? I am always curious how it feels to others."

"Do you expect me to answer questions without getting answers in return?" Sagaku croaked at him.

Harou eyed her for a moment, twisting her face this way and that from where she hung awkwardly between wooden posts. Wooden posts and hemp ropes. They must have been prepared for her particular affinity-no chains or stones in sight, now.

"Jitsu said you never stop with stupid questions," Harou observed. He let go of her chin, letting her sink back slightly against the ropes. Then, with no warning, he hit her hard across the face.

Sagaku's shoulder popped against the sudden force sideways. Luckily, as there was little room to go, the joint settled back before it dislocated. Still, Sagaku couldn't stop the raw scream from tearing past her lips.

"He just didn't treat you right," Harou told her.

Hisakata chuckled, settling at Sagaku's feet like a dog. His hand, warm against the nippy air, circled her wrist.

"Answer me," Harou advised Sagaku. "The sooner we get past our questions, the sooner you'll get fresh water and maybe some bread. Would you like that?"

"You know my family, then?" Sagaku ignored his question.

Hisakata's grip tightened on her ankle as he chuckled again. It was a nasty laugh, she decided. He chuffed like a wolf. If she could smell anything but the dried salt and brine in her nose, she could probably tell what he was.

"He knows them. Particularly that pretty blonde one-what's her name, Harou?" Hisakata's hand twisted on Sagaku's ankle, chafing it in his absent-minded excitement.

"Does it matter?" Harou drawled out. The brief twitch of his lips suggested he was less than amused by Hisakata's interest.

"Usagi, that's it," Harou said. "She's a pretty piece. Wouldn't mind a bite of that."

Sagaku's leg twitched involuntarily, but there wasn't enough slack in the rope for her to kick. She looked around the room, trying to find anything to give her an advantage. Glass to each side and to the front. Glass on the floor, three inches below her dangling toes.

"Why a glass room?" Sagaku asked. The glass was thick, maybe a full hand's width, and it distorted whatever was beyond it. "I mean, you kidnapped me. A dungeon or a dirt hole would feel so much more appropriate."

"Too hackneyed," Hisakata snorted. His hand was traveling up her leg again.

"Hisakata," Harou growled, "leave."

Harou really didn't like attention being taken from him. Sagaku narrowed her eyes lightly, examining the well-dressed man again. The observation did her little good. She was, quite literally, a captive audience.

Hisakata growled, but stalked out of the room. His gait was graceful and purposeful. A predator's gait. Sagaku decided she was right-he was a wolf.

"Now, breeder, pay attention." Harou crossed his arms over his chest. "Answer my questions. What did the half-breeder and his mate teach you across the ocean?"

"This and that," Sagaku answered flippantly. Her mind scrabbled about uselessly, struggling to find anything that could help her.

Harou was less than amused. His palm forced her chin back, tilting her face to the ceiling. Two streams of water flowed from his fingers, clogging her nose and streaming over her mouth. Sagaku screamed, gurgling against the water.

When the water stopped, Harou stalked to the sealed door Hisakata had exited through. Sagaku hung limply forward. Water collected in a puddle beneath her feet. Her heart pounded. Her lungs tried to take in air too quickly, convinced she was drowning. Salt water poured from Sagaku's mouth in a dribble as she coughed and vomited the last of it out. She wasn't in a glass room, she realized. She was in a tank.