A/N: I love Dally, so she gets an honourable mention in this chapter…
I'm not writing recaps any more, because I'm pretty sure nobody reads them/finds them useful – considering I update frequently anyway.
Chapter 14: Tight Nook
The next morning, Kurama awoke to the sounds of grunting and snorting and feeble attempts at whispering above him. He opened his eyes abruptly, catching a brief glimpse of Yusuke and Kuwabara as they tried to dash away and pretend that they had not just been leaning over him while he slept. Yusuke had moved over to the inactive navigation device and was pretending that he could see something interesting on the darkened, featureless screen and Kuwabara was making an elaborate display of folding the blankets he and Yusuke had used the night before. Kurama started to sit up but thumped back down before his head had cleared the floor by more than a foot as he suddenly became aware of a weight draped over one side of his body. He turned his head slightly, flinching as stiffened black hairs tickled his nose.
Apparently Yusuke and Kuwabara had somehow managed to manoeuvre Hiei's still sleeping body over his, to make it look as they were cuddling.
Under ordinary circumstances, Kurama might have found the joke as funny as Yusuke and Kuwabara did; but something about Hiei's behaviour lately made the situation suddenly seem horribly awkward and tense, and so instead of playing along to see how Hiei would react when he awoke, Kurama began trying to carefully slide away from him. Yusuke temporarily lost his self-control and snorted a little louder than before, the noise apparently enough to wake Hiei, who began to stir at Kurama's side. Kurama froze, watching Hiei from the corner of his eye, bracing himself for the moment the fire demon realised his predicament and exploded in a fit of rage.
At first, Hiei merely clutched at Kurama's clothes and arched his back, his eyes opening slowly, hazed over with sleep and unfocussed. As he started to regain his senses, he moved his head slightly, his eyes studying his surroundings as though he had temporarily forgotten where he was. The movement of his head forced more of his hair into Kurama's face, and he had to suppress the urge to sneeze: but once the ticklish sensation had passed, Kurama started to become aware of something slightly amiss. He pushed his nose a little further into Hiei's hair and sniffed to confirm what his nose seemed to be trying to tell him – but the movement was enough to make Hiei fully aware of where he was and exactly what position he was in, and he promptly tore himself from Kurama's side, staggering away from him awkwardly and glaring back at him like a wary wild animal would when cornered by a hunter.
Yusuke and Kuwabara burst out laughing, and, to Kurama's surprise, Hiei merely cast each of them a brief, displeased scowl before dashing off towards the back of the vehicle.
"That was disappointing," Yusuke moaned, his smile fading. "He didn't even threaten to kill us."
"Maybe he liked it," Kuwabara muttered quietly, his voice so low it was almost as though he had not actually wanted anyone else to hear his words.
"Nah!" Yusuke said. "He's always hated when we've done stuff like that before."
"You were very lucky he didn't wake up while you were moving him," Kurama said.
"Huh?" Yusuke echoed.
Kurama stood up and stretched out a few strains he had earned from sleeping in a tense position on a hard floor.
"Hiei's instincts are to kill anything that touches him in his sleep," he explained. "You were lucky he didn't wake up while you were positioning him at my side like that and slit your throats."
Yusuke and Kuwabara turned to exchange looks of confusion, and Kurama paused, no longer able to so much as blink as a worrying though dawned on him.
"We didn't move him," Yusuke said, turning to Kurama.
"That's why it was so funny," Kuwabara said.
"I'm sure it was an accident, but it's pretty funny that Hiei likes to cuddle something in his sleep," Yusuke added.
"You didn't…?" Kurama asked, pointing down at the patch of floor where he had been lying.
Yusuke and Kuwabara both solemnly shook their heads. Kurama smiled and rolled his eyes.
"Very funny," he said. "I almost believed you both for a moment there."
"Kurama, we're not joking," Kuwabara said.
"Yeah, you guys were like that when we woke up," Yusuke added.
"We just pulled the blanket off you to see how bad it was," Kuwabara said.
"And then it got funnier, because once the blanket was gone, we could see that he had his leg over you too."
Kurama's smile started to fade.
"You're still joking…" he said slowly, glancing back and forth between Yusuke and Kuwabara, hoping one of them would dissolve into laughter again at any moment.
"Do we look like we're joking?" Yusuke responded.
"No, but sometimes that's part of the joke," Kurama said.
"Not this time, fox boy," Yusuke said. "You and Hiei slept together last night and the bedroom is still frozen shut."
"I haven't seen any of those ladies use the bathroom yet," Kuwabara said.
"I didn't know that was your style…" Yusuke muttered.
"The ice maidens are experts at restraint, self-control and repression," Kurama said. "If they think they need to, they will stay in there for weeks."
"This is back to what you were saying before about them being the opposite of Hiei, right?" Yusuke said. "Because Hiei has no restraint or self-control. I mean, he obviously couldn't keep his hands off you last night. Though since he's never told you that he likes you, I guess he is repressed."
Kurama forced a smile, though he was finding the situation increasingly serious. He tried to focus on the knowledge that they were only a few hours away from Gandara, where they should finally be able to deposit the ice maidens and return to their own lives – and hopefully Hiei would then get cured of his lingering illness and return to his usual, grumpy, aloof and aggressive self.
"Well, we should continue our journey," he said, moving towards the driver's chair. "It would be unwise to dally any longer."
"Who's Dally?" Kuwabara asked.
Kurama sighed quietly and sat down, placing one hand on the steering wheel and reaching for the key – still in the ignition – with his other hand. But, just before his fingers closed around the key, Kurama paused, the realisation that something had changed occurring to him. He slowly turned his hand over, facing his palm upwards to confirm what he had caught glimpses of, before sitting back slightly and lifting his other hand from the steering wheel to turn it over too.
The burns Hiei had inflicted on him the day before had healed completely.
He opened and closed his fists experimentally, but saw no trace of the wounds. He touched one hand to his face and confirmed that his bruising and cut lip had also mysteriously disappeared. A chilling image of one of the ice maidens using her powers on him while he had been sleeping played in his mind, but he shortly dismissed it for the lunacy that it so clearly was and started the engine, determining to get out of the situation he was in as quickly as possible.
"Come in!"
Botan watched her door expectantly, growing slightly confused when there was a short pause before the person who had knocked began to enter.
"Oh, Lord Koenma Sir!" she said as he slowly slid open her door. "What are you doing up here?"
Her suspicion began to grow when she saw that he was in his adult form – something he rarely bothered to do around spirit world – and he looked slightly angry and slightly disapproving. He opened the door slowly and stepped into her room slowly. An ogre closed the door behind him, again reminding Botan that she was still being treated like a prisoner in her own room, and Koenma began to slowly look about himself, as though expecting something to jump out at him.
"Can I return to my duties now?" she asked.
"Is that what you want?" Koenma asked, his eyes still surveying her room.
"Well, yes," she replied.
"Are you very eager to get back to your duties, Botan?"
Botan faltered slightly, one eye twitching as she tried to suppress her true emotions and fought to keep the guilt she felt from showing in her face.
"I just want to get back to helping people, Sir," she said carefully.
"Is that why you did this?" he asked.
Koenma had been holding one hand behind his back, but on his last word he held it out towards Botan, brandishing a fistful of bent and misshapen spoons.
"I didn't do that," she lied, trying her best to look innocent.
"Oh no?" he asked, one eyebrow twisting upwards sceptically.
"Why would I vandalise dining utensils?"
Koenma moved over to the side wall of Botan's bedroom and whipped her robe from its wall-mounted hanger, revealing a small collection of cracks and scuff-marks on the wall.
"Oh my!" she gasped. "This room has woodworm!"
Koenma gave her a flat look and she slowly came to accept that he was not going to believe her blatant lie.
"Botan, have you been trying to create a hole in your bedroom wall?" he asked.
"Maybe a little bit," she admitted.
"With a spoon?" he asked, holding up the damaged spoons again.
"Perhaps," she replied.
"You're trying to escape from here?"
"Maybe."
"Why?"
"Because I… I have to do something! I can't sit in all day, I'm going crazy! And you told me that I can cure that virus in demon world, and I know that Hiei is sick, and you're making me stay here when I should be out there helping him and I know that Yukina has gone somewhere mysterious and she is also a healer so maybe now she's in trouble and maybe I need to go an adventure and save her!"
Koenma sighed, stepping away from the wall again.
"I understand your concern, but Hiei seemed fit enough the last time I saw him, despite his illness," he said. "And if Yukina were in any real danger, Kuwabara would have alerted us by now. I know it's difficult for you to be kept in like this, but, as you know, we can't leave the souls of the dead wandering the earth for too long, so you'll be out and back to work before you know it. And in the mean time… Please don't try to dig your way through walls with spoons, it makes you look insane."
Botan pouted petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest and glowering at Koenma.
"You're not going to convince me otherwise by glaring at me," he told her.
"What about all those souls building up in living world?" she asked. "Maybe you should just let me out to take care of them."
"It's too dangerous to let you back into living world right now, I won't take that risk," he said.
Botan leaned to one side, looking past her boss to the door behind him.
"You know there are security guards monitoring the corridors outside," Koenma warned her. "Don't even think about trying to get past them."
"What would you do if I did?" she asked, standing up.
"Botan, this is serious," he insisted. "I need you to stay here. I'm doing this for your own good."
"But I'm not any good locked up in here!"
"You're not locked up."
"I'm not exactly free, either!"
Botan narrowed her eyes at Koenma, who merely returned her gesture. She suddenly took a step to one side, but he mirrored her action, keeping himself between her and the door.
"You're not very coordinated in that body, I could easily out-run you," she pointed out.
"But you can't out-run the guards," he reminded her. "And you need to sit down, calm down and stop breaking cutlery and walls. Damaging spirit world property is a serious offence."
"How serious?"
"What?"
"How serious an offence is to break spoons?"
"Very serious. I'm just overlooking it because I know you didn't mean it."
"…How serious an offence would it be if I had broken those spoons on your face?"
"…Botan that's not even funny."
Botan's eyes fell to the spoons in Koenma's hand, the sly look on her face making him wonder if she had perhaps spent too long in the company of demons.
"Don't even joke about it Botan!" he warned her. "I don't care how upset you are, if you even try something that ridiculous, I'll…"
"You'll what?" she asked, lifting her eyes to his.
"I'll have you spanked!"
Botan smiled sweetly, but Koenma already knew it was not a good sign. She stamped onto his toes with one foot, catching the spoons as he opened his fist on instinct in reaction to the pain. Just as he had gotten over the initial shock of her standing on his toes she smacked him over the head with a handful of spoons, shoved him to one side and ran at the door. As she tore it open he yelled out for the guards to catch her, which they diligently did, and, despite her attempt to escape having been thwarted very quickly, Botan looked unreasonably pleased with herself.
"No," Koenma said as the guards started to drag her back towards her room. "Take her down to the main hall, she's to be punished."
Botan still looked far too happy for Koenma's liking, but he reasoned that she would soon come to her senses when she realised that he was not bluffing. Absent-mindedly rubbing at the stinging pain at one side of his head, he led the way away from her room, the guards pulling her along behind him. As they exited the ferry girls' living quarters he heard Botan made a small noise that sounded like nervousness, and he turned to see if she was finally realising the gravity of the situation: but instead found her grinning like a mad woman.
"This is very serious, Botan!" he snapped irritably.
She looked back over her shoulder, watching one of the guards close and lock the door they had just come through. Once the door was secured in place she suddenly dropped downwards, leaving two very confused ogres each holding a human-shaped but hollow kimono. A few seconds later Botan – dressed in what looked like a ninja warrior's outfit, shot over their heads on her oar.
"Botan!" Koenma yelled.
"I'm sorry Sir!" she called back over her shoulder. "This is just something I have to do!"
"Get after her!" Koenma ordered the guards.
He stood on the spot, watching in horror as countless ogres stumbled about clumsily, some trying to climb on the shoulders of others in their attempts to catch Botan. She ducked and weaved through them all with almost laughable ease, slipping through the large doors an instant before they slid shut. Beyond those doors was the long corridor that led to the exit, and, judging by how long it was taking the ogres to open the doors again, Koenma could already tell that nobody would be able to catch Botan.
Having her loose around spirit world when there was a demon invasion was bad, but letting her get to living world and potentially be abducted by a sick demon looking for a cure was far worse, and so Koenma resorted to his last option and ran back to his office, intent on activating the emergency barrier system that stopped anything passing between spirit world and living world. Botan was a very proficient flyer, but he was still confident that he could beat her to it.
Inside his office he launched himself over his desk, flipping up the panel to access to activation button. He smacked one hand onto the button and with the other he grabbed the remote for his television and began flicking through the various security cameras around the temple until he found the one overlooking the access road. Still sprawled awkwardly over his desk, he watched as Botan rose up into the sky, a faint glimmer chasing after her as the barrier began closing her in. She had almost made her escape, and by the way her ponytail was flicking about from side to side, it was clear that she was nervously watching what was happening around her. She would not go much further, he was sure – only a fool would continue in the face of such a powerful repellent.
An instant later, Botan shot sharply upwards, disappearing into the crackling static energy of the barrier.
"I'm just saying, we're onboard a damn army tank, meant for soldiers fighting in wars. How the hell is it possible that you found perfume here?"
Hiei narrowed his eyes at Yusuke but said nothing.
"You stink!" Yusuke snapped.
"At least I made the effort to wash," Hiei replied.
"Hey, we're on the road, we're all guys, nobody cares what we smell like! That's what being a man is all about!"
"Or maybe it's just your excuse for poor hygiene."
"You're the only one who had to go "bathe" and spray perfume everywhere!"
"I don't like smelling of rotten sweat."
"Why? Are you trying to impress your frigid cousins back there?"
Yusuke thrust a hand out towards the still frozen over door at the end of the walkway. Hiei glanced at it disinterestedly before shrugging his shoulders.
"Are we there yet?" he asked.
Yusuke growled at him, shoved him to one side and stomped past him, heading towards the toilet cubicle.
"It stinks before I even open the door!" he complained.
He reached out a hand to open the door, his feet stepping onto the clear ice around it, and he promptly slipped, his back clattering against the handrail behind him. He grabbed at the door to steady himself, shouted a few colourful insults at the frozen door and then slid his way awkwardly into the restroom. He pushed the door hard to close it, inadvertently liberating it from its hinges with a loud clatter. He cursed at the door and then cursed again when the entire vehicle lurched to a halt and the freed door fell against him. Leaving Yusuke to find his own way out of the little trap he had made for himself, Hiei ran to the front of the vehicle, stopping by the console.
"Why have we stopped?" he asked Kurama.
Kurama glanced up at him before pulling on the parking brake.
"There seems to be something happening up ahead," he said.
"Like what?" Hiei asked, peering out the front windscreen at the large stadium up ahead of them.
"Wait here with Kuwabara, Yusuke and I will continue on foot," Kurama said, turning off the engine.
"But it's still a long way yet," Kuwabara pointed out. "Why don't you just drive us up there?"
"This is a stolen vehicle and the primary television network of this realm has a news-team based in that stadium. It's too dangerous to drive any closer."
"Take me with you."
Kurama turned to Hiei, expecting to find a demanding look on his face after he had phrased his last words as a statement as opposed to a question, but instead he found him looking hopeful and a little bit anxious.
"We won't be long, but in case something goes wrong, I need you here in the driving seat ready to make a quick getaway," Kurama told him.
"Oh…"
Hiei looked over at the driver's chair, his expression somewhat conflicted. Kurama did not wait to find out why, instead going to help Yusuke out of the toilet cubicle.
"Why did they have to freeze the whole damn door and everything else around it?" Yusuke shouted as he finally managed to duck out from under the broken door.
"Let's not worry about that now," Kurama said, leading the way back to the cabin.
He let Yusuke leave ahead of him, pausing long enough to look back at Kuwabara and Hiei, finding Kuwabara looking vaguely concerned and Hiei still looking uncharacteristically unsure. There was something strangely pitiable about the look on Hiei's face, but Kurama shook the sentiment from his mind and hurried after Yusuke.
"We're doing this quick so we can get back to spirit world, right?" Yusuke asked as Kurama caught up to him.
"Yes," Kurama confirmed.
"Good. I owe that Fabio guy an ass-kicking."
"Fumio."
"Right, whatever."
They began to run, and, without anything slowing them down, they soon reached the stadium; but they were forced to stop several hundred yards short of their goal as they were met with an unruly queue by the entrance. Kurama began trying to ask some of those pushing to get ahead why they were queuing, whilst Yusuke adopted a more direct approach and pushed his way to the front of the queue and into the stadium proper.
The stands were almost as crowded as they had been during the demon world tournament, only those gathered were far less organised – which was quite a spectacle, considering how disorganised some of the spectators had been during the tournament. But it was not the size or haphazard placing of the crowds that was cause for concern to Yusuke and Kurama, rather it was what they were all watching take place on the stage once used to draw lots for placings in the demon world tournament: more doctors in bio hazard suits were trying to organise an auction, and again they had cages of ice maidens lined up for sale.
Yusuke and Kurama exchanged worried looks before watching as the cages were wheeled around to afford the audience a better view – a camera was filming the stage and projecting the result onto the giant monitor facing the bulk of the audience, and it clearly showed six cages containing eight ice maidens, ranging from an elderly woman who looked barely able to stand to an infant cradled in her mother's arms.
"D-do we walk away from this?" Yusuke asked. "I know these people are sick and need help, but that old lady looks like she's ready to be sent to the glue factory and one of those women has a baby. Can we let them sell a baby?"
"We can't let them sell anyone," Kurama replied. "We have to get to Enki, he would be furious if he knew this sort of immoral vending was taking place right under his nose."
"So… We're just gonna turn around and go to Enki's place?" Yusuke said slowly. "We're walking away and leaving the crying baby and the dying old hag?"
"Look around you Yusuke," Kurama said through a sigh. "We were lucky to escape Illyria without major injury or worse, we can't tackle this many people. But…"
"But?"
"But we can't let them sell those women either. This crowd is becoming frenzied. Hiei and I met a troll who told us the common belief is that the best way to cure the virus is to eat those women. They will be literally torn apart by the desperate, we can't let that happen."
"Right, but how do we get them out?"
"We wait for the auction to end and then when the winners take their prizes, we move in and try to take them back. Hopefully the women will be sold to rich individuals, just like those winning the auctions in Illyria were, and once they leave this place to travel on their own or in a small group, we will have a much better chance of overpowering them."
"That was probably a great plan. Too bad we'll never know for sure how great it might have been."
Kurama turned questioning eyes to Yusuke, who simply pointed at the sky in reply. Kurama did not need to look up however to know what Yusuke was referring to, as he saw a bird-shaped shadow passing over the stands behind Yusuke. The crowds of spectators gradually grew quieter and stiller as they all turned their attention upwards to Puu, who circled around the stage once before diving down at the auctioneers, who fled in fear, allowing Kuwabara and Hiei to leap from Puu's back and land on the stage alone. Kuwabara immediately set about cutting open the cages, stopping halfway to fight off the hoard of demons that began swarming the stage. Hiei literally pushed the freed ice maidens onto Puu's back, leaping on behind them and taking off, leaving Kuwabara behind.
"Do you remember Botan telling us about those spirit world good behaviour classes?" Yusuke asked as he and Kurama watched Puu fly over their heads.
"They sounded asinine and banal," Kurama replied.
"Yeah, back then they did, but now maybe going to the class about good teamwork doesn't seem like such a bad idea," Yusuke said.
Kurama waited for Yusuke to continue, watching as the look of bemusement on his face slowly changed into an impatient scowl.
"Because nobody on this damn team is working together any more!" he finished.
"We need to help Kuwabara," Kurama pointed out.
They turned to move towards the stage, but before they could start their journey they were almost knocked off their feet by a tide of angry demons charging past them towards the exit, apparently intent on following Puu. Half of the audience had decided to chase Puu and the other half had stormed the stage and hoisted up the four remaining cages. Kuwabara was caught in the middle of the tussle, but, just as had happened in Illyria, nobody was interested in fighting him, they just wanted him out of their way, and so he was perhaps not so at risk as it had seemed he might be at first when Hiei had left him.
Kurama and Yusuke fought their way through the throngs of demons scrambling away from the stage before enjoying a temporary reprieve as they passed through the gap between one mob and the other and then finally, to reach Kuwabara, they had to battle through the demons clambering at the stage in pursuit of the remaining ice maidens.
"What the hell happened?" Yusuke asked Kuwabara as he finally made it onto the stage. "You were supposed to be staying back at the tank with Hiei and those bitches!"
"It wasn't my idea!" Kuwabara shouted back, pushing aside a smaller demon and stepping closer to Yusuke.
"You jumped off Puu and cut open those cages!" Yusuke pointed out.
"We saw the crowds and we wanted to know what was happening," Kuwabara replied. "So we went outside and got Puu to take us up into the sky so we could see inside the stadium. I wanted to turn back, but Hiei went crazy and made Puu take us down here!"
"You didn't hesitate to follow Hiei's plan," Kurama reminded him.
"One of those women had a baby!" he said.
Yusuke looked over at the four remaining ice maidens still in cages: the two who had been contained with their children had been freed, but the elderly woman was still amongst those caged, and she looked as though she had passed out.
"Why didn't you take the old woman too?" he asked, turning back to Kuwabara. "I thought you would have saved the old lady along with the kids."
"Puu can't carry that many people," Kuwabara replied.
"You intend to take all of eight of them with us?" Kurama asked.
"Of course!" Kuwabara replied.
"Hey, we've barely got enough room for the six we already have on board!" Yusuke pointed out. "We can't fit another eight!"
"We can't leave them here!" Kuwabara argued.
Yusuke glanced back and forth between Kuwabara and Kurama, waiting for one of them to give him a solid reason to choose their side of the argument; but both remained silent. Without a verbal response, Yusuke eventually decided to go with a visual one: Kurama looked quite neutral, whereas Kuwabara had look of unshakeable determination blazing in his eyes.
"Okay, we take the rest of them with us, but then we go straight to Enki, and we make sure this whole thing gets sorted out by the proper authorities!" he concluded.
"I don't trust Hiei not to use his dragon against the mob who followed after him," Kurama said. "Which would be disastrous, because not only would he kill countless innocents driven mad by sickness but he would also pass out afterwards and leave us all exposed."
"Right, you stay here and help Kuwabara get those other hags," Yusuke said. "I'll go make sure Hiei behaves."
"Why are you going?" Kuwabara asked.
"Because I'm the fastest out of the three of us," Yusuke flatly replied.
"Only because you're a demon now," Kuwabara grumbled.
Yusuke groaned but held back from retaliating, instead focusing his attention on pushing through the crowds to check on Hiei. He again faced an initial struggle to push against the bodies trying to move in the opposite direction that he was before enjoying a brief reprieve that lasted until he fully exited the stadium, at which point he saw the crowds evenly dispersed between himself and the military tank in the distance. Puu had reached his goal and landed on the roof of the tank once more, and Hiei was climbing down to the ground to face the oncoming demons who had been pursuing him. Not wishing to be accidentally caught by the Dragon of the Darkness Flame – because Yusuke already knew that Hiei was reckless enough to just launch the attack without first checking that it was safe to do so – he broke into a sprint, jinxing past the stumbling sick at the back of the crowd and then shouldering his way through the more able.
But, even moving at his top speed, it took Yusuke the best part of a minute to reach Hiei; and before he got that close, he saw something quite unusual. At the front of the crowd approaching their vehicle was a demon with some sort of long-range attack, who, once he thought he was close enough to do so, shot out a series of bright flashes of energy towards Hiei. Yusuke expected Hiei to use his famous speed to dodge the attacks or else to block with his arms if he thought they were too weak to do him any lasting harm: but instead Hiei stood perfectly still, his arms hanging loosely at his sides and the flashes of energy vanished just before they reached him. In the instant they had disappeared, Yusuke had noticed a very brief flash of something blue in the air around them, but otherwise there was no real indication of what Hiei had done to make the attacks disappear.
"Hey," he said as he skidded to a halt at Hiei's side.
"Guard the ice maidens, I'm taking Puu and going back for the others," Hiei greeted him.
"You don't wanna stay here and fight while I take Puu back for the others?" Yusuke asked.
He was a little surprised that Hiei was volunteering to remove himself from combat, especially as he seemed so determined to fight off anyone looking to exploit his people; and it was unlike Hiei to avoid any chance to shed blood in general.
"I think I can trust you," Hiei replied.
Yusuke laughed.
"And here I thought you were acting weird," he said, slapping Hiei on the shoulder and causing him to stumble slightly. "But you're still your same foul-mouthed, barrel-chested, hard-fighting, pile of ugly, ugly–"
"Please stop," Hiei cut him off.
"And modest too," Yusuke added.
Hiei gave him a strange look before waving a hand to Puu, who hopped down to the ground and lay down to allow him to climb onto his back.
"Will you be alright?" Hiei asked Yusuke as he settled down behind Puu's shoulders. "There are quite a lot of them."
"And you're still a cheeky son of a bitch, now get out of here!" Yusuke replied.
Hiei nodded and urged Puu on, the spirit beast spreading his wings and taking flight, leaving Yusuke alone to face the angry demons looking to recover the ice maidens from the tank behind him. After knocking down the nearest demons – which required little effort, as most of them were weakened by their illness and from the effort they had expended running away from the stadium – Yusuke leapt up to the roof of the tank to assess his options for chasing off the remaining pockets of demons approaching.
"I'm so glad you changed your mind, Mister Yusuke!"
Yusuke cried out involuntarily as a cold hand touched his arm, flinching away from the contact and turning to see Mizore standing by the open roof hatch, looking, he supposed, about as close to happy as an ice maiden possibly could – which was about as cheerful as Botan looked on a really bad day.
"What are you doing out here?" he snapped at her. "Get your ass back inside!"
"I just wanted to thank you for deciding to help us after all," she replied, seemingly unfazed by his ire.
"Well don't get too used to the idea, this was just an accident," Yusuke bluntly told her. "Now get back inside and shut the damn door!"
"There's not a lot of room onboard now with our numbers increased–"
"Get back inside you crazy bitch!"
Mizore hopped back through the roof-hatch, but she made no attempt to close the door, instead peering out of the open space at Yusuke. He looked down long enough to acknowledge that the ice maidens Puu had just delivered were all huddled in the minimal roof space, and the others they had rescued the day before were milling around by the base of the ladder. A quick head-count reminded him that there were now ten ice maidens – including four children – in the tank and four more would soon be joining them, which would take their total to… A number that would surely make the journey to Enki's headquarters more than a little claustrophobic.
Meanwhile, back in the stadium, Kuwabara had managed to free three of the four remaining ice maidens, but the cage containing the elderly woman was beyond his reach, and the crowds were making an earnest attempt to hold him back from reaching them. Kurama was equally as detained, standing in front of the three freed ice maidens and trying to hold back their would-be assailants with his Rose Whip. When Hiei and Puu finally returned, Hiei leapt down to urge the ice maidens onto Puu's back.
"Where's the elder?" he asked Kurama.
"We can't get to her," Kurama replied. "Get those three out of here, then we need to follow. Yusuke can't hold guard of our vehicle on his own for long."
Hiei looked displeased but dismissed Puu with the three ice maidens securely on his back, pushing back any demons who tried to grab the spirit beast's legs as he took off. Once Puu was out of arm's reach, the desperate crowds turned their attention to the last remaining ice maiden, who was still in a cage being held aloft and tugged back and forth between several groups of demons. No longer under attack themselves, Kurama and Hiei hurried over to help Kuwabara.
"They're gonna kill that old lady!" Kuwabara said as he elbowed back the last of the demons grabbing at him.
"I think she's unconscious, but that's to be expected," Kurama replied. "She seemed to be close to passing out when Yusuke and I first got here."
"Hey, you!"
Hiei spun around, his lip curling as he found himself face-to-face with a rather strange-looking goblin.
"Would you say the old ice maiden is worth more or less than a young one?" he asked. "Because she's probably more experienced and she might be more powerful, but she probably doesn't have as much energy, right?"
"Why is your life worth more than mine?" Hiei growled back.
The goblin scrunched up his already creased face.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked. "I just wanted to know if the old ice maidens are more expensive than the young ones!"
Hiei took a step towards the goblin but stopped there as Kurama caught his arm.
"We don't have time to argue pointlessly," he said when Hiei looked up at him.
"I don't think this is a pointless argument," Hiei retaliated. "This creature is putting prices on the heads of my people, he's grading them by age as though they are nothing more than tuna steaks!"
"I understand your frustration–"
"Do you?"
"Yes, but it makes more sense to focus that anger and energy elsewhere: like on recovering that elderly lady before the crowds here literally tear her apart."
Hiei turned around again and stretched up onto his tiptoes, peering over and through the crowds around them, anger giving way to worry when he noticed the one remaining cage. Kurama released his hold of Hiei's arm, assuming that he had come to his senses and was ready to work out a way for the three of them to reach the last ice maiden: but instead Hiei reminded Kurama once again that planning ahead was not his forte by charging off on his own, ducking under elbows and dodging around legs of much taller demons, most of whom failed to even notice his presence. Kurama nodded at Kuwabara and together they struggled on in pursuit of Hiei, but Hiei reached his destination long before they could reach him, and once there he simply leapt at the cage, reaching his hands out towards it as though he somehow thought he could prise open the bars using pure brute strength.
Kuwabara continued onwards but Kurama stopped abruptly when he saw a flash of blue light as Hiei's hands touched the bars of the cage, an invisible force throwing Hiei backwards. He flew through the air for a short distance before arcing down towards the ground, his fall broken by a larger demon who happened to be in his flight path. Kuwabara had reached the cage by the time Hiei had been shoved aside by the demon he had collided with, and so Kurama moved to help Hiei to his feet.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"They've done something to that cage," Hiei replied, partially allowing Kurama to pull him to his feet.
"It's quite strange, those cages are surrounded by a forcefield designed to repel the powers of the demon contained within them," Kurama said slowly. "So I'm not really sure why you were affected just now: after all, your fire powers are at the opposite extreme from the ice powers those cages have been rigged to repel."
Hiei paled slightly and Kurama instinctively tightened his hold of his friend, as he was sure the little fire demon was about to pass out.
"Perhaps it has been set up to repel all elemental attacks," Kurama suggested.
"Well, obviously…" Hiei muttered, eying Kurama over as though he was an idiot not to have said so sooner.
"Well at least those cages aren't immune to attacks from a spirit sword," Kurama said, nodding at Kuwabara as he successfully cut open the cage.
Hiei seemed to snap back to attention then and he hurried over to Kuwabara's side, followed closely by Kurama. Kuwabara caught the ice maiden as she fell limply from her prison and Hiei and Kurama held back the sick as Kuwabara started towards the exit: but the crowds around them were simply too packed and too desperate, and they were shortly unable to move, focusing all their attention on hitting back hands and claws that caught hold of the ice maiden's kimono. But with every passing second, their situation was looking increasingly bleak as they were gradually squashed closer together and grabbing hands began tearing at clothing and delivering wounding punches and scratches.
Next Chapter: Botan attempts to find a brilliant disguise to stay undercover in living world, but when she fails to impress Shizuru she realises she needs to rethink her initial plan. In demon world the boys are forced to flee to even more remote and dangerous parts of demon world to keep their passengers – and themselves – safe. Hiei is suffering after the struggle at the stadium, and when Mizore misunderstands what sort of girl Kurama really is, things go from bad to worse for all concerned – but especially for Hiei. Chapter 15 – Trying Nuisance