Disclaimer – "Yu Yu Hakusho" and all known related characters do not belong to me. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters.

"What Goes Around . . . "
by DragonDancer5150

Chapter 16 - The Path of the Beast

Like the wilderness, we're now Fighting to Dream.
Burying despair and such,
We run fiercely, swiftly down the path of the beast.
Becoming the wind, we're now Shooting to Dream.
Our desire is freedom.
We can't deceive our own hearts.
It's truth!

With my heart like this, I'm just Fighting to Dream.
I won't let anyone get in my way.
We can decide things like fate for ourselves.
Like the wind, we're just Shooting to Dream.
Cutting off the pain of the past,
We now decide the future with our own hands.
Get a chance!

"Wild Wind" - Kurama & Hiei, Legend of Yu Yu Hakusho:
"Sai-Kyou" Best Selection Album

Dashing through the door and up the long flight of stairs, Hiei let Kurama lead them, following the scent trail. Through Administration, several clerks and guards moved to stop them but let them through at the sight of Kurama's bracer. To his dismay if not his surprise, the trail led into the prison proper. Deeper and deeper they delved until they realized that they were heading for the Pit. "Of course we'd be chasing a snake right back into its hole," he growled.

"'Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.'" Kurama grimaced. Hiei had heard his friend use that comment before and thought he remembered Kurama telling him it was English in origin.

Cell 137 came and went as they raced down the accursed corridor. Gaining the bend in the tunnel, they pulled up short of the forbidding portal to the Pit itself. They could both hear the horrific sounds of the abominations beyond.

Kurama paused. "Hiei, there is one thing I must advise you." Hiei looked up at him quizzically. Kurama's hard emerald gaze had not turned from the door before them. His next words nearly left Hiei speechless. "Bokuma is to be taken alive."

"What?" Hiei gaped. "Kurama, if this is some mercy sentiment - "

"No, my friend. You misunderstand me." The softness with which Kurama spoke cut him off without further objection. Hiei had never heard such a tone in his friend's voice. Kurama turned to look at him then and something in that gaze made Hiei suppress a shudder. "Bokuma must be taken alive. Death would be far too easy an escape. He must be made to answer for his crimes, against those humans . . . and against us."

Hiei had not known Kurama before he had become part human but he had heard plenty of stories of the infamous Silver Fox. He had never quite been able to match those images with his soft-spoken friend but, for the first time, he saw a hint of the cruel, merciless youko in the emerald eyes he had thought he knew so well. Kurama repeated in a tone of no uncertain terms, "We . . . take him . . . alive."

A slow grin slid across Hiei's face. He should have known that Kurama - his spirit brother - would not let him down. He nodded. "Agreed."

"Then let us continue on." Pulling one rose from under his hair, he passed the stem into the keyhole. Thorns burst out in all directions, ruining the lock. Kurama shoved the door open.

8 8 8 8 8

Once again, the sights, sounds, and smells of the Pit threatened to overwhelm Kurama's acute senses. The memories of last night's horrors spiraled back up at him through the smoke and fires and he saw that even Hiei hesitated for just an instant. Kurama was forced to pause and center himself once again before following Hiei, plunging down the brief stairs to the chamber floor. From all around, guards and torturers turned from their work to stare in shock at the intruders. No one ever came here of his own volition.

"Ooh! Ooh! What have we here?" a familiar voice twittered from the other side of a wooden structure. "Come back to play again so soon, Red Rabbit? And it looks like you even brought a friend - Ah, good to see you again, Little Fire-Eyes. It's been too long, too long indeed." Dog lumbered around from the front of the structure, patting his victim with a murmur. "Be good and stay right there. I'll be right back." The squat youkai grinned at them both as though welcoming old friends to tea, a cooling iron poker and large pincers forgotten in his fists.

"Where is Bokuma?" Kurama demanded, wanting to leave the place as soon as could be achieved, ignoring the glares of hate and agony all around him.

Dog bounced from one foot to another, dropping the instruments to clap his hands in glee. "Ah! A game, then, is it? Oh, he does love games. Hide-and-Seek is his favorite." Dog paused. "Wait a minute. Now this is a new twist, though, isn't it? Usually he does the seeking. We didn't play that game with you, did we, Rabbit? Oh, but Fire-Eyes, you should remember the game!"

Hiei's eyes went wide. "That . . . that beast? That was Bokuma all along?"

Dog chuckled madly. "He only shows that to his most favorite toys. I'm sure you'll get to see it, too, Rabbit. So, come, come - what shall we start with?" He bent to retrieve his implements. From around the room, several guards had already begun to close in.

"You insane fool! We're not here for - !" Hiei snarled.

"Wait," Kurama interrupted, holding up the bracer. The guards stopped, murmuring and confused. He turned to Dog. "We have already started. As you said, we are in a game of Hide-and-Seek with Bokuma. He decided to try something new. This time, we are chasing him. Did he come through here?"

Hiei glanced up at him. -What? Lose his scent?-

Kurama grimaced. -This place makes a sewer seem like an herb garden. There are simply too many things going on here, all of them very thick and heavy.-

Dog was chortling again. "Oh, you must know that I can't answer that. That would spoil the game!"

"That way! He went that way!"

Kurama turned to see who had spoken or where he pointed. He looked in time to see a torturer slam his elbow into his victim's face. The already badly-injured oni slumped unconscious against his chains.

"Never mind, Kurama," Hiei growled. "I know where he went. Come on."

Dog waved after them. "Have fun! Come back soon!"

Hiei sped through the chambers of the Pit, darting around equipment and past prisoners pleading for help. Kurama kept close on his heels, focusing on his friend so that he did not get dizzy with the horrors around him nor his own memories and present pain. It did not help that the back he was following was nearly as whiplashed as his own. Kurama noted, too, that Hiei's left hand was tucked into his pants pocket - and the shoulder was not stable as he ran.

At the very end of the short system of caves opened a chasm the bottom of which was beyond either one's vision, the opposite side hundreds of feet away. A narrow ledge stretched along the near wall some fifty feet below them. The slope down to the ledge was steep but not so severe as to be unmanageable - for someone in top shape.

Hiei stood staring at the shelf below and Kurama could not help wondering what memories were playing behind those ruby eyes. The resigned sigh in his mannerism was almost audible. "The game was simple. The system of caverns down there is like a labyrinth. Supposedly somewhere is a permanent portal to the Demon Realm. Find it and you'd escape the Pit for good. You don't have to worry about getting lost and wandering until you starve to death, though. There's a monster down there which will find you and bring you back here - after it's played with you itself for a few hours."

"And according to the warden, that monster is actually Bokuma," Kurama murmured. Hiei just scowled. "What can we expect?"

"The only light is from the occasional lichen or mushroom bed. In parts, moss and slime make each step likely to break an ankle."

Kurama nodded with a sly grin. "That could work to our advantage."

"Some areas are frozen in ice, others heated by a lava flow. The vermin are plentiful enough. There are all kinds of traps, too. None of them are designed to kill, just capture or injure. Bokuma's not terribly creative. I've memorized where most of them are."

Kurama refrained from asking just how Hiei had found them to begin with. "And Bokuma's beast form? What does it look like? What is it capable of?"

"It's the size of a Demon Realm plains-runner or a Human Realm elephant. It's powerful, fast, and cunning. Long fangs, longer claws - watch out for the tail. There's a stinger with a slow-acting poison. It won't kill you but it makes it hard to fight until your body works the stuff out of its system. In the meantime, the beast has caught you and you will wish the poison would kill you." With that, he stepped off the edge and began a controlled slide to the shelf below. Shaking his head with a sigh, Kurama followed.

Both managed to keep their feet under them without too much trouble until they reached the ledge. The only light down here was what little spilled from the Pit above. Once again, Kurama was forcefully reminded of his disadvantages in being part human. Some youkai could see in total or near-total darkness. Hiei was one. As a full-blooded youko, he could too, once. His vision now was far sharper than a normal human's but he would still have to rely on Hiei to be his eyes down here. At least he still had his sense of smell. "He went that way." He pointed to their right.

Hiei realized his friend's handicap as well. "You can't see at all, can you?"

"Is there anything phosphorescent down here that you know of?"

Hiei nodded, taking Kurama's hand and setting it on his shoulder. That done, he turned to his left, moving along the wall. Kurama matched him step for step. They traveled so for several long minutes in silence, Hiei occasionally sending Kurama a telepathic warning to step around a rock or over a split across their path. At length, he grunted. -This is taking too long! I could just show you the path.-

Kurama understood what he meant. With their ability to communicate telepathically, Hiei could simply open his mind enough for Kurama to "see" through his eyes. Kurama shook his head. -Thank you but no. That would require too much of you. Save your energy for when it is truly needed. Defeating Bokuma is not going to be easy for either of us, not in the states we are both in.- Hiei only grunted in response, unable to argue the point no matter how much he hated to admit it. Kurama could feel ripples of the pain Hiei was experiencing echoing across their link - and that was to say nothing of his own hurt.

Presently, Hiei took a turn and Kurama was suddenly aware of a dim orange glow somewhere ahead. They had left the shelf of the abyss. Hiei led the way around a bend into another part of the cave. The walls were slick with moisture and a layer of something luminescent. "Will this work?" Hiei murmured.

"Yes, this should do just fine. Thank you." Kurama dug the tips of his fingers into the moss, scooping some onto the back of his left arm above the bracer. He startled as he realized the ache in his right hand eased everywhere the moss touched the skin, the luminance dimming. Subconsciously, he had recognized the property and tapped it with his Yoki. "Apparently, it has analgesic properties, as well."

"Ana-what?"

Kurama chuckled. "It's a pain-killer." He scraped the edge of his hand along the wall, scooping up more of the stuff, then looked at Hiei. "Turn around."

Hiei shook his head. "Thank you, no. I don't need to be a walking light bulb."

"No, no, look - accessing its analgesic property destroys the phosphorescence." Hiei frowned at him as though he had just spoken a foreign language but slowly turned to allow Kurama to apply the moss, watching curiously over his shoulder. Kurama set his palm gingerly against the torn flesh and fed the moss Yoki, nodding in satisfaction as it grew in response to his silent command and spread to cover the wounds. The phosphorescence faded out as it did so. Under his hand, Kurama felt some of the tension ease from his friend's muscles. Hiei rolled his shoulders and gave Kurama a curt nod, his way of saying thanks. Kurama smeared some over the welt on the back of Hiei's head, then applied a handful to his own injured shoulder, willing it to extend down across his back. He relaxed a little as the whipfire eased, allowing him to breath more freely. "That will improve our mobility."

Hiei shook his head with a wry grin. "Trust you to find something useful in this gods-forsaken hole."

Kurama smiled back. "Help and harm can both be plentiful if you just know how to recognize them." He turned his attention to the patch of moss on his arm. The only wound there was the chafing around his wrist from the shackle but the bracer separated that from the moss. Kurama concentrated and the luminance brightened and dimmed by degrees according to his wish. He nodded again. "This will work nicely. Let us continue."

Hiei led the way back out of the cave and onto the ledge, this time going right to return the way they had come. Despite keeping the phosphorescence of the moss relatively dim, Kurama could now see the path. He could not decide which was more disconcerting - being completely blind or having sight just enough to know that there existed a whole deep and dangerous world beyond his limited field of vision. He could see a few steps ahead but would be unaware of dangers until they were already on top of him. He dared not brighten the glow, however, unwilling to attract any more attention than was needed. He would have to continue to trust Hiei to warn him of threats, the full youkai's sight still far superior in this environment.

Neither looked up as they passed beneath the Pit once more, the distant screams of the tortured echoing weirdly off the rock in the otherwise deathlike stillness. They pressed on for several minutes in silence, moving with a careful mixture of haste and caution, until the sound of a falling stone stopped them both in their tracks. The echoing made it all but impossible to tell if the sound came from behind, ahead, or across the chasm from them but a sharp intake of breath from Hiei made Kurama turn and look the way they had come. Distantly, he thought he could make out an illumination around the curve of the rock wall. -Have you ever known Bokuma to use a light?- Kurama queried, his mental voice tight with unease.

-Sometimes, at his whim,- Hiei frowned, equally disquieted. -We can't be caught here. Come on.- Hiei did not comment further but Kurama received mental flashes of a slender stretch of stone arcing across the abyss. Presently, that bridge came into view, the span between the walls much less here, perhaps seventy or eighty feet. Hiei continued to lead, explaining, -On the other side is where most of the labyrinth is. Half the game the first time around is finding this bridge. It's thin, though - brittle. One of these days, Bokuma is going to have to build a new bridge - or find a new playground. Damn!- he swore suddenly, skidding to a stop about a third of the way across. Kurama held his arm up and willed the moss a little brighter, lips tightening to a thin line as he saw what had stopped his friend. Deep cracks spiderwebbed the arc for much of its length, whole chunks of rock missing here and there. It looked as though the apex could crumble at a slight breeze. Hiei growled audibly as he commented, -Either this bridge has been well-used in the past several weeks . . . or Bokuma is setting us up again!-

-I would believe either one at this point,- Kurama nodded. -There is no place for us to make a stand on this side?- Hiei shook his head, scowling deeply. -Then we have no choice. We simply continue - and pray.-

Hiei started across once more but a hand on his shoulder stayed him. -Hiei, wait! I have an idea.- Kurama pulled both roses from under his hair. He knelt with one in each hand, pressing them to the rock on either side of his foot. As Yoki flowed into the roses, they transformed, lengthening and wrapping themselves back and forth along the arc, fleshy feelers taking the place of the thorns to further braid together and hold the loose stone segments in place. Kurama stood and Hiei just stared at him for a moment. Kurama grinned. -Versatility is one of the primary conditions for a Quest Class ranking.-

Hiei shook his head with a lopsided grin, his arms crossed. -The longer I know you, the less I realize I know about you.-

Kurama accepted the rare compliment with a gracious grin of his own. -The support is thinly stretched but it will provide some measure of stability.- He glanced over his shoulder. The glow had brightened. Whatever was coming was drawing ever nearer. -Let us go.-

They had crossed more than half the bridge when another sound stopped them. A distant cracking noise echoed from high above. Seconds later, Hiei backed into Kurama as something large whizzed downward in front of him, narrowly missing the bridge. -Stalactite!- Kurama gasped, recognizing the huge shard of rock.

-Stella - ?- Hiei frowned, never having had the benefit of elementary-school science.

-Rock icicles. They do not simply break free on their own! But if Bokuma is above us . . . ?- Kurama glanced again uncertainly at the glow as they continued more quickly.

-On occasion, he brings help,- Hiei growled. Another crack resounded through the abyss. Kurama looked up but could not see into the blackness. Hiei could. "Kurama, look out!" Hiei shoved Kurama back a few steps as another stalactite dropped. This one clipped Hiei's leg and the bridge, breaking away the rock under Hiei's foot.

"HIEI!" Kurama dropped flat to the stone as his friend fell, barely catching Hiei's wrist in his right hand. He gasped as the dead weight threatened to dislocate his shoulder again, the hand spasming in pain. Hiei, too, grunted, the knife wound screaming through their minds across the telepathic link. Wounded arm to wounded arm, Kurama thought, grimacing. How ironic. A cold sweat had broken out on Hiei's face as he looked up at his friend. Kurama gave him a grim smile, joking, -Don't think you are getting out of this that easily.-

Hiei grinned back. -Who said I wanted out? . . . Kurama!-

Kurama shifted to look back along the bridge. Another chunk had loosened from the side of the arc, ripping free of the rose-rope's feelers. The rope snapped as the rock fell and Kurama knew that the rest of the bridge was just moments from following.

-Kurama, let me go.-

Kurama looked down in shock at Hiei - his closest friend, one of the very few in all of his centuries that he had ever truly come to consider family. -What? N-no!-

-You can't save us both! Do it!-

Kurama hesitated. He knew Hiei was right. Still . . . Gods, no! It can't end like this!

-Kurama, move!-

"Kurama!" Another voice shouted his name but Kurama was not listening. Feverishly, he tried to think what to do but both of his roses were in use, the only things holding the bridge together at this point - and they were failing. One was already damaged. He felt the stone shift under his weight as he tightened his grip on his friend, his brother. Is there nothing more I can do? Gods above and below, don't let it end this way! Help us!

The stones under his shoulders and chest gave way, the rose ropes unraveling from around them. Oh, gods . . . !

Author's Notes: Please be sure to check my bio page for any updates, etc. Thanks!