Chapter 17: True Nature
"Do we agree with this?" Yusuke whispered.
"I don't agree with it," Kuwabara mumbled. "Just thinking about it is making me feel sick."
"And getting angry about it won't solve anything," Kurama whispered. "We all need to stay calm."
"Like Hiei did?" Yusuke asked sarcastically.
Hiei had not responded verbally or physically to anyone or anything since he had witnessed his people being forced, en masse, to use their powers, some teetering on the point of death from exhaustion. Yusuke had eventually been forced to pick Hiei up and carrying his stiff, unmoving body into the temple and lie him down in a guest room Enki had directed him to. Yusuke had then rejoined the others as they sat down to tea, but, although Kokou was being uncharacteristically gracious as a host, the atmosphere was anything but pleasant.
"Don't forget where we are," Kurama whispered. "We have been lucky in our previous escapades but we can't take those sorts of risks in a place like this."
"So what, we just walk away and pretend we're okay letting all those women suffer like that?" Kuwabara asked.
"They are curing the sick here, and when we helped some of them, they tried to kill us," Yusuke said. "But… I don't really think working kids to death like that is right."
"They were making them cry too!" Kuwabara added.
"Yeah, and when Hiei wakes up, he's gonna be mad, and he'll probably get really violent really quickly."
"Do you think that Enki guy would take better care of the ice maidens if we asked him to?"
"He's a reasonable guy, but he has to look after the sick, and the ice maidens haven't exactly made themselves likeable in all of this, so it's hard to say."
"We need to stay calm, stay quiet and wait for daybreak. We'll take our leave then."
Yusuke and Kuwabara turned to Kurama, who was sipping at his tea and watching Kokou moving about in the other room.
"So you still think we should just walk away from this?" Yusuke asked. "I know Enki makes the laws around here, and this is demon world, people aren't exactly all about kindness and sympathy here, but shouldn't we at least ask him to make sure those women don't die helping the sick?"
"We take the children and the elderly, we leave the others behind," Kurama replied. "We don't have room or time to save them all, and if we even tried to take them all, we would cause another wave of chaos and panic as the sick tried to find other ways to cure themselves."
"You-you changed your mind?" Kuwabara asked.
"We take the children and the elderly," Kurama repeated. "We leave the others behind."
"So are you saying we take the adults off our tank and trade them in for the kids and old ladies stuck here?" Yusuke asked.
"Unofficially, yes," Kurama replied. "We're not going to tell Enki or the women in our party what our intentions are, we're just going to do it. The staff here stop work at dawn for breakfast, and during their meal time the healers here are to be locked into a room at the back of the temple. I propose we forego the meal and split into two groups: one group will free the children and elderly and load them onto the vehicle parked behind the temple and the other group will take the women from our own vehicle, along with any useful supplies, and deposit the adults in the temple and load the children and elderly onto the vehicle. Then we all leave."
"Where will we go?" Kuwabara asked. "Won't the ice maidens be hunted wherever they go?"
"We take them back to their village," Kurama replied. "I counted at least three elders out there, and we already have a fourth elder with us. Four elders should be powerful enough to do what is necessary to hide their village once more, and with the children they can rebuild their community."
"And we leave all the others around the world to cure the sick?" Yusuke asked.
"The doctors told us the virus had been contained to a certain area, and I believe we've already covered the major settlements of that area," Kurama replied. "There is only one other city where there might have been auctions, and there is of course the highly likely possibility that other ice maidens fled or were kidnapped by rogue demons, but if we take the elders and the children from here, we will have saved the majority of the young and the old from the village. I think it's a fair compromise to take those we can home and to leave the strongest and most able behind to help the sick."
"I guess that sounds fair," Yusuke agreed. "I don't think Hiei will agree, but it sounds fair to me."
"And after they finish curing the sick, we come back for the surviving adults and take them home too, right?" Kuwabara asked.
"We could do, yes," Kurama agreed.
"Then I think that sounds fair too," Kuwabara said.
"Good, I'm glad we're finally all in agreement about this," Kurama said. "Now we just need to wait patiently, plan out our movements and choose our time to make our escape very carefully."
Shizuru awoke abruptly, looking first at her window to confirm that it was still dark beyond the curtains before begrudgingly rising from her bed. Botan had been jumpy all evening – probably because she was less able to handle watching horror movies than she pretended to be – and Shizuru had been reasonably tolerant of the ferry girl's skittish behaviour. However, she was not prepared to tolerate Botan shouting out frantically and thumping around her room in the middle of the night.
Shizuru headed for her bedroom door, tucking her hair behind her ears before she pulled the door open. The hallway beyond was empty, and fortunately it seemed as though the ruckus their guest was creating had not been sufficiently disturbing to awaken Shizuru's father. She left her room and crossed the hall to Kuwabara's room – where Botan was staying – and angrily pushed open the door without realising that Botan was almost immediately behind it, and inadvertently banging the door into Botan's back. Botan yelped in pain and staggered forwards a step, her head dropping into her hands as though she thought the blow might have loosened it from her shoulders.
"I told you not to watch that movie," Shizuru said through a sigh. "If you're having nightmares, you can come and stay in my room, just promise you won't keep shouting and thrashing about."
Botan's head snapped up and she ran to the window, ripping open the curtain and almost breaking her face against the window as she shot forwards to look up at the sky outside.
"Did you have a nightmare about angry ferry girls coming to take you home?" Shizuru asked.
"No…" Botan slowly replied. "It… It felt so real, I can't believe I was just dreaming!"
"Come on through to my room and tell me all about it," Shizuru offered.
She had no real intention of lending a sympathetic ear to Botan's problems; rather she was hoping that if she get Botan talking, she could at least go back to sleep and leave the edgy ferry girl recalling her dreams until she fell asleep too.
"I had the most awful nightmare about Puu," Botan said, turning from the window to face Shizuru.
"Well that's not really surprising considering the fact that he was attacking you not so long ago," Shizuru replied.
"I dreamt that he was in a forest somewhere, and there was a sword and some mixing bowls and a paintbrush and a first-aid box and some clothes and a magic bubble."
Shizuru's mouth began to turn downwards.
"You woke me up screaming out like you were being tortured over a dream you had about Yusuke's pet bird and a magic bubble?" she asked.
"The bubble had malicious intent," Botan added.
"It's hardly material for "Return of the Necromancer – This Time for Good"."
"It felt very angry and scary."
"If you keep screaming like that, I'm going to start to feel very angry and scary."
"Usually my dreams are unangry and unscary."
Shizuru folded her arms and began slowly narrowing her eyes. Botan eventually seemed to realise how displeased she was becoming and sighed in acceptance.
"I promise I won't do it again," she said.
"Good," Shizuru said.
"Unless the magic bubble comes back."
"Botan!"
"Okay not at all."
Shizuru stepped back out of the room, watching her guest expectantly.
"Are you coming with me?" she asked.
"No, I'll be fine in here," Botan replied.
"Okay, but no more screaming."
"No more screaming."
"Hey! Stop that screaming!"
Kuwabara cowered down, his arms covering his head. He noticed Kurama watching him curiously from the corner of one eye and he grinned nervously.
"Angry women make me scared," he sheepishly explained. "I don't know why…"
"I said shut the hell up!" Kokou shouted, shaking a beer bottle at the window.
"You should be afraid of her," Yusuke said to Kuwabara. "She's as tough as she is loud."
"What is she yelling at, anyway?" Kuwabara asked.
"I dunno, she's probably just drunk again," Yusuke casually replied.
He started to turn away but noticed Kokou was suddenly looking in his direction, and he ducked an instant before her bottle of beer flew over his head and smashed against the wall behind him.
"Make your bird stop that noise!" she ordered him. "I've got a headache!"
"You didn't have to nearly give me a headache, you crazy bitch!" Yusuke snapped back.
"All of this is giving me a headache," Kuwabara groaned.
Yusuke stomped across the room to join Kokou by the window, peering out to see Puu standing on the lawn calling out frantically.
"He's probably just hungry," Yusuke told Kokou.
"Then feed him, idiot!" she growled back.
"Fine…"
Yusuke picked up an apple from a nearby fruit bowl and opened the window, hurling the fruit at Puu. Puu leaned out of range but otherwise did not acknowledge the offer, instead continuing to call out his name.
"Dumb bird!" Yusuke muttered, climbing out the window. "What the hell's the matter with you?"
He walked up to Puu expectantly, noticing as he drew nearer that Puu was shaking. He told hold of his spirit beast's beak, trying to close it, and Puu seemed to take the hint, because he fell silent.
"Is everything alright?" Kurama called to him from the window.
"Yeah, I dunno what got into him," Yusuke replied. "Maybe he's scared of the dark."
"Wouldn't that mean that you're scared of the dark, Urameshi?" Kuwabara asked.
Yusuke began muttering unflattering descriptions of Kuwabara under his breath, turning around to fully face them as he did so. As he turned, he was briefly afforded a view along the side of the temple towards the front yard, where the ice maidens had been curing the sick earlier that night. The sky was still dark, but dawn was no more than an hour away.
"Hey, you guys should come out here," he said.
Kuwabara scrunched up his face in confusion but Kurama climbed out of the window, moving towards Yusuke and turning his head towards the front yard as though he already knew what Yusuke had seen there.
"So that plan you had," Yusuke greeted him. "Looks like we have to start it a bit early."
Kurama kept his head turned from Yusuke, his eyes flitting over the chaotic scene to one side of them.
"Where's Hiei?" he asked.
"I'm guessing Puu knows the answer to that," Yusuke replied. "Though we probably ought to know it too."
Kuwabara eventually joined them, frowning curiously at Puu.
"So what spooked the bird?" he asked.
Yusuke gave a slight nod of his head in the direction Kurama was still staring and Kuwabara turned, barely managing to contain a cry of alarm at what he saw: the front lawn had been massacred, trees broken apart, and the bodies of the guards and the sick were all incapacitated, either under a layer of ice or else in a crumpled heap amongst the carpet of snow that had deepened substantially since their arrival at the temple, in some places rising as high as the temple walls themselves.
"Let's just go before someone notices," Yusuke whispered, before jumping up onto Puu's back.
Kurama and Kuwabara followed after him and Puu immediately took to the skies, rising straight upwards at first, affording them a better view of the destruction that had somehow taken place in the temple grounds without anyone inside the temple being made aware of it. It looked as though the ice maidens had worked together to turn the front lawn into a deadly tundra, and, as Puu started to fly away from the temple, all three passengers on his back noticed the very obvious, clear, paved rectangle amidst the snow-covered back yard and the thick, deep tracks leading away from it.
"Was that out getaway car?" Yusuke asked Kurama.
"It was," Kurama confirmed. "I don't know if Hiei took it or the guards took it to chase after him."
"Hiei's really taking this personally, huh?" Kuwabara asked.
"Yeah, though I don't really understand why," Yusuke replied. "He hates the hags from the ice village because they threw him out and treated his mom and his sister like outcasts too."
"The ice maidens were mean to Yukina?" Kuwabara asked. "But why? She's so inoffensive, she'd never do anything to make anyone mad or want to be mean to her."
"I don't know the whole story, but Botan said Yukina never visits the village any more because she isn't welcome there any more," Yusuke said. "Maybe they found out she found Hiei. Or maybe it was just because she went looking for him in the first place. Who knows?"
"I believe Hiei still feels a strong familial bond to the women of the ice village," Kurama said.
"Is that why he goes there every Christmas time with a big sack full of gifts for every little girl in the village?" Yusuke asked sarcastically.
"He would never admit to it, not even to himself, but I do believe he feels a connection to the ice maidens," Kurama patiently replied. "This has been a very difficult period for him, not only because he has seen his people suffering, but because he has been forced into close quarters with them, forced to really experience them up close and personal."
"Hey, Hiei was the one who forced those popsicle-popping bitches on us, remember?" Yusuke pointed out.
"My point is that this has been a very difficult experience for Hiei, and all the more so because he is plagued by his illness and confused by these new feelings, and he doesn't know how to express himself."
"So that's why he's been sweaty and edgy lately?"
"I think we should all consider Hiei's current dilemma and try to be sympathetic."
"Hiei hates sympathy! And besides, he – holy crap, what the hell is that thing?"
"That is our getaway car."
Yusuke turned to stare at Kurama, hoping to find that he was joking, but instead found him nodding solemnly. He leaned forwards and peered over Puu's shoulder again at the enormous vehicle thundering down the mountainside ahead of them, partly impressed that Hiei was managing to drive it after his previous performances behind the wheel but mostly awed at just how much bigger the vehicle he had stolen from Enki was. It had what looked like a small landing deck on the back of it which could easily have housed the previous vehicle they had stolen. Puu began to dive down towards the landing deck, swinging out his feet in preparation of touching down. Kuwabara started to suggest that what they were doing was actually very fast and dangerous, but his speech was cut short as the vehicle bumped over a boulder and the deck rose up to meet them, causing Puu to bounce off the deck and fall down, throwing all three passengers from his back.
Kuwabara fell to one side, clattering into the side barrier, Kurama fell to the other side, narrowly missing hitting his head on the barrier there and Yusuke flew over Puu's neck, hitting the deck and rolling into a wall. He was the first to rise, shaking himself off and getting to his feet. He glanced at Kuwabara and Kurama, checking that they were both still moving, before focusing his attention on Puu. The spirit beast slowly got to his feet and shook all over, his ears flapping against the sides of his neck and his feathers ruffling all down the length of his wings.
"Are you okay, buddy?" Yusuke called over to him.
Puu cheerfully called out to him, a sure sign that he was unharmed, and so Yusuke turned around to face the wall he had collided with, yelping and leaping back a step as he suddenly found himself looking at a ghostly figure standing in an open doorway.
"Come inside."
"I'm not doing anything you tell me to!"
Yusuke took another step back, scowling at Mizore, who looked slightly sad – though that was very close to her normal expression, so it was difficult for him to tell if she actually felt sad now or not.
"Go inside, Yusuke," Kurama said as he joined them. "We need to talk to Hiei, and the only way to get to him is to enter here."
"Fine," Yusuke grumbled, marching past Mizore.
Kurama waved Kuwabara in ahead of him, watching him pass through the doorway before turning to Mizore.
"I did what I had to to survive," she said as their eyes met. "Surely you understand that?"
Kurama tensed, silently wondering how she had found out that he was a fox demon inside a human body: but her next words soon vanquished the thought from his mind.
"We didn't judge you for pretending to be a man, Miss Kurama."
"Most people don't," he replied through a sigh.
She frowned slightly but he did not wait around to explain his words to her, instead continuing inside and walking along the walkway beyond into the driver's cabin, where he found Yusuke, Kuwabara and the demented old ice maiden standing at the back of the room, all watching the large driver's chair, which completely obscured Hiei from their view.
"I know you didn't want to do this," Hiei said. "But I don't care any more. I'll do this without you if I have to. I asked Puu to bring you here so that I could give you the choice: you can either come with me to Dardani, or Puu will take you back to Enki and you can do what you want from there. But I am continuing on whatever you all decide."
"Hiei, we had a plan for dealing with this, you know!" Yusuke started.
"Yes, I do know," Hiei replied. "You planned to let Enki deal with this, and his plan was to work the women of the ice village to extinction. I don't like that plan, so now I've made my own one. Either you're with me, or you're against me."
"Nobody's against you!" Yusuke said. "We just think it would be better if some of the women helped the sick. We intended to save the kids and the pensioners!"
"Not good enough," Hiei flatly replied.
Yusuke turned to Kurama and Kuwabara expectantly and Kurama held up a hand to tell him to stop. He then started to approach the driver's chair.
"Yusuke is telling the truth," he said. "We did intend to return the elders and the minors to the village, and we were going to ask Enki to take better care of the others. We intended to come back to take the remainder of the women home after they had cured the sick."
"Intentions are meaningless in demon world," Hiei replied. "I can see that now."
Kurama sighed, stepping up to the navigation computer, surprised to see that Hiei had programmed it to guide him to Dardani – which was the last major settlement in the locum of the quarantined area the doctors had previously told them was rife with infected demons. It was likely that they might encounter another auction there, but Kurama was not sure that Hiei would survive another ordeal like that again.
"We have already recovered four of the elders," Kurama began, trying to talk in a gentle and calming tone. "Four elders are–"
"One short," Hiei cut him off. "There were five elders, including that one," he nodded towards the batty old ice maiden still standing in the cabin with them, "although she's not actually a part of the council of elders, she's old enough to be and she likes to think that she is. The other three are in the back, but that one's mother is missing, and so is Rui."
"Rui?" Kurama echoed. "But isn't she the one who threw you–"
"I have to find Rui."
"But I thought you–"
"If you don't want to come along, you're welcome to leave!"
Kurama looked back over his shoulder at Yusuke and Kuwabara.
"I want to go with Hiei," Kuwabara said. "There might be more little kids in Dardani, I think we should at least check it out."
"Yeah, and maybe we need to get all the elders back to fix the ice village," Yusuke added. "I'm going with Hiei too."
"What about you, Kurama?" Hiei asked, keeping his eyes on the road.
"I can't leave you like this," Kurama replied. "I'm coming with you."
Hiei smiled a tight-lipped, lop-sided smile and a strange look passed over his eyes.
"When you reach the base of the mountain, there is an under-pass below the main route to Dardani," Kurama told him. "Stop when you get there and let me drive."
"You think I can't handle this?" Hiei asked, his smile fading.
"No, but I can drive faster than you can," Kurama replied. "And I know the route better than you do, and I want to get this over with before we lose another day."
"I suppose that's fair."
Kurama patted Hiei on the shoulder, surprised that the fire demon let him do it without trying to hit his hand away or pulling a disgusted face at him. He turned to the others, pausing as he noticed Mizore joining them. Yusuke eyed her over suspiciously and she bowed her head to him expressionlessly.
"So that was quite a number you did on Enki's garden," he said to her.
"Excuse me?" she echoed.
"You know, freezing everything over and making all that snow," Yusuke explained. "And you annihilated all the trees."
"Frost crack," she replied.
Yusuke's face twisted and his squared his shoulders defensively.
"Listen lady, you even try to frost my crack and I'll shove your head so far up your ass, you'll spend the rest of your life looking for a damn light switch, you–"
"She said frost crack, Yusuke," Kurama stopped him. "It's a condition trees exposed to sudden cold suffer from. It's usually just a mild breakage in the bark, but sometimes it can penetrate deeper into the body of the tree, depending how vulnerable the point of attack is."
Yusuke nodded his head and appeared to consider this information for a few seconds before his expression gave way to confusion.
"I am talking about trees, Yusuke," Kurama insisted. "Not using coy euphemisms to perplex you."
"…It still sounds like she wants to spread–"
"Just trees, Yusuke. Just trees."
Yusuke looked less than certain, turning his attention to Mizore to eye her over suspiciously.
"If we apply our ice powers to the relevant weak point, we can make trees literally explode," she explained. "It's a useful technique for dealing with demons who use trees as weapons."
"You mean like how Hiei made that tree Fabio used against me and Kuwabara shatter open?" Yusuke asked.
Kurama turned to look down at Hiei questioningly, and he could not help but notice the way Hiei tightened his grip of the steering wheel and a fresh layer of sweat burst out across his face.
"Hey, wait a minute…" Yusuke said slowly. "If Hiei used frosted crack to kill that tree, doesn't that mean he has ice powers now?"
"…Frosted crack…?" Kuwabara echoed.
"Hiei doesn't have ice powers, he's a fire demon," Kurama said.
"Unless he wasn't a fire demon," Yusuke replied.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Kuwabara asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" Yusuke said, grinning at Kurama and Kuwabara in turn. "Think about it: Hiei got sick and ran away because he didn't want anyone to see how bad he looked. Then when he came back, he was all pale and sweaty and skinny, and he started "bathing" all the time, those wood nymphs couldn't read his desires, Chu thought he was a girl, he's really slow and weak, he can use frosty crack and, most importantly of all, even though he's got the virus, he isn't getting any sicker."
Kuwabara slowly shook his head.
"I don't get your point that you said was so obvious," he said. "Unless by obvious you meant you were about to state the obvious, which is exactly what you just did."
"Hiei isn't actually Hiei," Yusuke said.
"What?" Kurama echoed.
"See, Koenma made me detective for a reason," Yusuke said. "And Kurama, I'm kinda disappointed you didn't notice it way sooner, since you're meant to be the smart one. And even you Kuwabara, you're supposed to be the sensitive one and you didn't notice?"
"Notice what?" Kuwabara asked.
"Well the final proof is that Hiei told me he knew the ice maidens would be able to cure the virus before anyone else knew," Yusuke continued. "Don't you see? When Hiei became sick, he ran away because he knew he would die if he didn't ask Yukina for help to cure him, and Hiei's too stubborn to ask for help, so he ran away because he knew he had to cure himself."
"What?" Kurama and Kuwabara asked in unison.
"Think about it: Hiei's mom was an ice maiden, so he has ice maiden genes, right? So when he became sick, those genes were awoken, and he cured himself. Only in order to cure himself, he had to let his ice maiden genes take control of his body, and even then, because he was still a three-eyed fire demon, his frosty powers weren't strong enough to completely heal him, so now he's stuck in his ice maiden form, and that's why he was hiding from us! Hiei didn't want us to see him all girly, but he had to come out of hiding when he found out the virus was spreading and the ice village might be exposed. And now, he's on this "save the snow-women" rampage because he feels guilty because he knows that he knew that they were the cure all along, and if he had said or done something right from the start, the ice village would never have been exposed. He's not doing this because he's suddenly a caring guy, he's doing this because he's pissed off about feeling guilty and because he's hoping he can find a way to ask one of the women here now to turn himself back into his full fiery, manly self."
Yusuke smiled smugly, despite the withering look Kurama was giving him and the stupefied look Kuwabara was wearing.
"This one isn't very bright," the old ice maiden said, pointing at Yusuke.
"Shut-up you old hag, I'm right and you know it!" Yusuke snapped at her.
"Yusuke, I know you haven't been a demon for very long, but even you should know that demons don't – and in fact can't – change their powers," Kurama pointed out.
"Bullshit!" Yusuke retorted. "Hiei was a fire demon, and after his eye operation, he became a telepath too!"
"Yes, after he underwent extensive surgery, at the cost of a high percentage of his demonic power, he gained telepathic abilities," Kurama conceded. "But that operation did not change the fact that Hiei is a fire demon, and Hiei has not undergone surgery since."
"Yeah, but, like you just said, when Hiei got the jagan eye, he lost some of his demon power in order to change his abilities, right?"
"Yes, but I don't see how that's relevant to–"
"The same thing happened here! Hiei is weaker, and the reason is because he sacrificed his demon power again to master the frosty powers he needed to cure himself!"
"Hiei sacrificed his own strength so that he could turn into a girl?" Kuwabara asked.
"That's absurd," Mizore said.
"You're a turd!" Yusuke shouted at her.
"It is ludicrous, Yusuke," Kurama said. "Hiei hasn't turned into an ice maiden, either in terms of his powers or literally in his physical being. Don't you think we all would have noticed much sooner if that were the case?"
"Yeah, Kurama's right, Urameshi," Kuwabara agreed. "Hiei can't have turned into a girl, he still has a – uh…"
Kuwabara glanced nervously back and forth between the old ice maiden and Mizore.
"We were just leaving," Mizore said, moving over and taking the elder by the arm.
"These kids are all too excitable," the old ice maiden said as she allowed Mizore to walk her across the cabin. "They all waste too much time on adulterous behaviour, it's disgusting."
"Pfft, you're just jealous that you're past it, you old bat!" Yusuke muttered.
"Except this one," the old woman said, pausing in front of Yusuke. "This one doesn't waste time on lewd shenanigans. This one just wastes time talking about it too much."
"At least I've got something to talk about, grandma!" Yusuke retorted.
"Too much talking," she said again before continuing on her way.
"What the hell would you know about it anyway?" Yusuke shouted after her. "What does she know about it, right?" he asked, turning back to the others. "She's lived in that nunnery all her life, I bet she doesn't even know how to peel a banana, let alone how to–"
"Yusuke, please," Kurama cut him off. "She's an old lady, and not of stable mind: Mizore told me that lady has been kept isolated from the rest of her village because she is dangerously mentally unstable."
"She's making me dangerously mentally unstable…" Yusuke grumbled.
"Okay, let's just all try to stay calm," Kurama insisted. "Kuwabara, check the supplies closet, make sure we have enough water in the tank and the basics of first aid equipment and bedding – we're not likely to need it, but we should err on the side of caution. Yusuke, take stock of our food supplies and let me know if we're low on anything before we stop so that we can go hunting if need be. Hiei, I'm going to attempt to negotiate with the ice maidens to make sure none of them are hurt or in desperate need of anything, I'll be back before you stop."
"Wait, before any of us does any of those things, I have to know if Hiei is stuck as a half-girl now or not," Yusuke said. "So Hiei, are you–"
"Yusuke, please stop," Kurama cut him off.
"Yeah Urameshi, that's just stupid," Kuwabara added.
He leaned forwards, checking that the ice maidens were out of sight before stepping closer to Yusuke.
"Besides, when I was carrying Hiei on my back after we fought those wood nymphs, I could feel his junk against my back."
Yusuke slowly raked his eyes over Kuwabara.
"You felt Hiei's junk?" he asked.
"Yeah, it was really…" Kuwabara began. "No, wait not like that! I wasn't touching it! It was touching me!"
"You need to get laid," Yusuke said through a sigh.
"That's your answer to everything!" Kuwabara cried.
Yusuke shook his head and started towards the back of the cabin.
"It's the answer to most problems," he said casually.
"That's not true, Urameshi!" Kuwabara argued, stomping after him. "Sometimes there are better ways to feel better!"
"Like what?"
"Like… Um…"
"Why am I even asking you? You've wasted the last how many years with Yukina? And you still haven't even gotten to first base with her…"
"I'm being a gentleman!"
"A gentleman with hairy palms…"
"Shut the hell up!"
Kurama roughly closed the door at the back of the cabin, blocking out the rest of Yusuke and Kuwabara's argument.
"Thank you," Hiei said, keeping his eyes on the road. "I don't know that I could have listened to much more of that."
"Yes, under the circumstances, you've been incredibly tolerant of their antics," Kurama said, crossing back over to stand by Hiei's chair. "Perhaps though you are allowing their idiocy to go unchecked because their behaviour is distracting attention away from yours."
"I don't know what you mean," Hiei flatly replied.
"What you did at Enki's temple was simple insubordination," Kurama reminded him. "Some leaders would punish such behaviour with death – and probably not in the form of a swift execution."
"I did what was right."
"You did what you thought was right for you."
"And you wanted to let my people be tortured to death, which is what was right for you."
"I didn't say letting the ice maidens suffer was right. I never said that, and I don't believe that at all. I do however believe that they have a duty to help the sick."
"They don't have a duty to anyone or anything."
"Hiei, Mizore thought she'd poisoned you, and she didn't care if you died. She refused to help us cure you."
"What would you have done if you had been in her shoes?"
"That's not the point."
"That's exactly the point."
Kurama frowned at Hiei's last words, silently wondering why he felt like, lately at least, the more Hiei spoke, the less he really knew about him.
"I understand why you feel the way you do," he tried. "But I don't think you appreciate how many will die if the ice maidens don't help."
"They've already been made to help hundreds," Hiei replied. "They shouldn't be forced into doing any more."
Kurama started to turn from Hiei, intent on taking a moment to compose his thoughts before continuing their discussion, but he was distracted from the topic as his eyes fell to the navigation device.
"When did you figure out how to work this thing?" he asked instead.
Hiei glanced briefly at the monitor before giving a small shrug.
"I've always known," he said, his tone a little strained. "I guess it was just like the actual driving: it's been so long since I've been inside and in control of one of this particular class of vehicles that I had forgotten some of the… Pertinent aspects of the workings of the… Vehicles."
Kurama nodded slowly.
"I thought perhaps you'd given yourself a crash-course, after reading the user manual so extensively," he said.
"I wasn't reading the manual extensively," Hiei lied. "Just… Passively."
Kurama smiled to himself, but was careful not to let Hiei see his amusement: although Hiei's illness had altered his personality somewhat, his stubbornness remained as steadfast as ever.
"I'm going to talk to our guests, just to check none of them are in need of urgent medical assistance," Kurama said.
"Be gentle with her," Hiei said quietly.
"…Her?" Kurama muttered curiously.
"Just… Remember that leaving the ice village and experiencing other cultures and having to adjust from a life of repression to one where she was surrounded by people who express their emotions freely and abundantly was… Difficult," Hiei added.
Kurama nodded.
"I'll bear that in mind," he said.
He waited to see if Hiei would say anything more, but the fire demon remained silent, and so Kurama took his leave.
The sky overhead was an unsettling, eerie shade of blue. It had been almost respectably light on the approach to Genkai's temple, but down on the forest floor it was almost unacceptably dark, visibility between the trees being especially limited. Botan crept onwards, her eyes on the sky as she walked, her toes poking at the ground cautiously before she dared to place each foot down. She had a terrible idea that the evil bubble from her dreams was going to descend from the sky and devour her at any moment, and she was so distracted with looking for its imminent attack that she was not paying sufficient attention to where she was putting her feet – and, despite fumbling around with the tips of her toes, she inadvertently stepped into a pot-hole, one foot sinking down far below her and the other skidding out from under her. She hit the ground and slid down the steep slope, barely managing to bring up her feet up before the rest of her collided with the base of a tree. She took a few moments to collect her thoughts, mostly wondering why she had not taken Shizuru's offer a few hours earlier and attempted to sleep in her room, before grabbing at the trunk of the tree and pulling herself to her feet.
Botan looked about herself, her head throbbing slightly as she felt her attention being pulled in one very specific direction. She carefully edged towards the large, dead and mostly hollowed out tree she felt drawn to, kneeling down before it and clawing through the loose leaves around her. Her hands shortly collided with something hard and she began to work faster, soon uncovering two common mixing bowls, a large mixing spoon and a paintbrush. One bowl had streaks of a chalky black substance in it and the other had a layer of something white that was solid, but looked as though it had once been a liquid.
"What now?" she asked, looking up at the sky. "I don't know what this means! What am I supposed to do with this? Why is it here? What is it for?"
When the skies gave her no answer, Botan recovered her communication mirror from her pocket, negating the risks of using it on the basis that her sanity depended on finding an answer to her questions. She flipped it open and pushed the button to call Yusuke, silently formulating what excuse would sound best to give him for why she needed to speak with Hiei at such an ungodly hour of the morning; but she was saved the agony of telling an unnecessary lie when Hiei's face appeared before her.
"Hiei!" she cheerfully greeted him. "There you are!"
"And there you are," he replied, as monotonously as ever.
"Well, I did what you asked, and you were right about those things being where you said they would be," she said.
He frowned slightly.
"I don't know what you want me to do with them though Hiei," she continued. "You weren't very specific – though you were very demanding. You know, a girl needs her beauty sleep, and it's not very courteous of you to invade her dreams and pollute her brain with surreal images of scary and mean bubbles of nastiness."
"Have you been drinking?" Hiei asked.
"No I have not!" Botan yelped indignantly. "I just did what you told me to, Mister!"
"I didn't tell you to do anything," he replied.
"You did too!" she argued. "You asked me to find the tools, and you made me have horrible dreams about them and where they were, and now I've found them and you're being a meanie!"
"Botan… Wait… Are you in living world?"
"Yes! You already know that I am!"
"I thought you were ordered to return to spirit world?"
"I had to come back here. I wanted to help. And I thought you wanted to let me help, but it looks like you've just wasted my time sending me on some strange treasure hunt!"
"Botan, pull yourself together!"
"But… You told me I had to do this. You told me Yukina was in danger and I had to find these items to help save her."
Hiei's eyes grew in size until he looked almost comical.
"You're the only one on the team who thought enough of me to think that I could help you," Botan added.
"I don't know what you're talking about…" Hiei muttered.
"Oh, don't the others know that you asked for my help?" she asked. "Is it a secret? Just between you and me?"
"Botan, please listen to me, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, I understand."
Botan nodded and winked at her communicator.
"I'll just wait for your next "internal communication"," she said, tapping a finger against her temple and winking again.
"…What?" he echoed.
"I really appreciate that you thought you could trust me like this, and I promise I won't let you down," she said. "And Hiei, I… I wanted you to know that solving mysteries isn't the only thing you and I could do well together."
"Excuse me?"
"I could satisfy more than just your need for information. I could satisfy many of your other needs, you know."
"I don't know any of that."
"Do you remember that night we shared together at our last reunion dinner?"
"I… Never… Come to any of your… Reunion… Dinners?"
"I know it was very naughty of me to lure you away before you even made it to the front door, but I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten anything about that night – and I think you enjoyed yourself too…"
"Um… What?"
"You left so quickly, you never gave me the chance to tell you that I wanted it to be something we did more regularly and something we did more… Thoroughly."
"But… We never… Did we?"
"It's okay, I haven't told anyone, and I never will. Not even if we did take that extra step. I just want to know that you want to do it again just as badly as I do. And that maybe next we could… Push it just a little bit further."
"I really, really want to… Um…"
"I really, really want you too, Hiei."
"I… Can't, um, really, um… I mean…"
"You don't have to say anything. Just like that one night, you can just show me the next time we're alone together. Just promise me we can have more chances to be alone together."
"Botan, please, I need you–"
Botan yelped as the image of Hiei vanished as though he had just snapped shut Yusuke's communication mirror, prematurely ending their conversation. She pouted dejectedly and looked down at the items before her again.
"Well what am I supposed to do with some random kitchen utensils?" she moaned miserably.
"Have-have we stopped?" Hiei asked, stealing a brief, nervous glance over Kurama's shoulder.
"Why were you talking to Botan just now?" Kurama asked, holding up the communication mirror he had just recovered from Hiei's hand.
"Oh, well, Yusuke is taking a shower – at last – and he left his clothes lying out here," Hiei began. "So, um, I heard the, uh, communication device resonating with the, um, of, uh–"
"It's not like you to struggle for words or to make excuses, Hiei," Kurama said coldly.
Hiei gulped, his throat visibly moving with the effort.
"I don't think you appreciate how much that girl means to me," Kurama said quietly, his eyes on the communicator in his hand. "As my friend, as my ally, as my trusted confidant, I would hope that you would never do anything to jeopardise my intentions towards her."
"Well, she is pretty," Hiei said awkwardly. "But I don't really know that you really understand much more about her other than–"
Hiei yelped out, his cry almost a whole octave higher than seemed natural, as Kurama grabbed a handful of his shirt and slammed him back against the unforgiving metal interior wall.
"Let's make a deal, shall we?" Kurama said, his voice still eerily calm and even. "We will have our rematch after we solve the problem in spirit world. And the winner gets the girl."
Kurama lifted his eyes to Hiei on his last word, finding him looking almost distraught.
"I wouldn't fight you for most things, but I will fight you for this," Kurama added.
Hiei's mouth moved and his shook his head slightly, but no sound left his lips.
"I'm glad we understand each other," Kurama said.
He roughly released Hiei's shirt, watching him slide down the wall into an awkward sitting position, his face still twisted with horror, before walking off and leaving Hiei to digest his proposition.
Next Chapter: Shizuru and Keiko conclude that Botan has gone insane, Yusuke takes advantage of an unconscious Hiei and the act backfires on him, Koenma tells Yusuke things might be a bit worse in spirit world than he had previously alluded to and the gang arrive in Dardani to recover the remaining clutch of ice maidens – but of course it doesn't go smoothly (wouldn't be much of a plot if it did, right?!) Chapter 18 – Thoroughly Nefarious