Chapter 22: Transcending Nepotism

"Can't you stop that damn noise?" Yusuke moaned, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Just make it stop!"

"I'm not making the noise," Hiei calmly replied, keeping his eyes on the road.

"Every time you go over a bump in the road, it goes "geshnurkle"!" Yusuke complained.

"And the rest of the time it just goes "gareeka-gareeka"," Kuwabara added.

"It's been making that noise since we were attacked yesterday," Hiei reminded them. "The wheel axle is broken, remember?"

"Does it have to be so damn noisy?" Yusuke growled.

"Can't it make the noises in the same pattern?" Kuwabara asked. "I don't mind the noises so much, but when it breaks the pattern my head hurts."

"The two of you don't have to sit up here with me," Hiei pointed out.

"Yeah we do," Yusuke replied. "Kurama is upstairs doing something really weird with plants and that snowbaby keeps screaming in the back. This is the only place where things are quiet."

"There's a baby crying?" Hiei asked, looking back over one shoulder at the door.

The vehicle quivered slightly as his hands moved with his head, momentarily jerking them off course. Yusuke and Kuwabara groaned and Hiei quickly turned back to face the road ahead.

"Why is the baby crying?" he asked.

"I don't know, but I wish someone would shut it up already," Yusuke muttered.

Hiei drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and wriggled uneasily in his seat.

"We're nearly there," he said, glancing at the navigation screen. "I think we should arrive in Arbeinia in about two hours. We probably shouldn't go directly into the city though. What do you think, Yusuke?"

Hiei turned to Yusuke, who stared back at him from his position sitting on the floor of the cabin with Kuwabara.

"What do I think about what?" he asked.

"Weren't you listening?" Hiei asked.

"Come on Hiei, give me a break!" Yusuke groaned. "All I can hear right now is geshnurkle, gareeka-gareeka, wah-wah, plants growing and a high-pitching whining sound in the back of my brain!"

"You can hear plants growing?" Kuwabara asked.

"On the top deck," Yusuke replied.

Kuwabara groaned and dropped his face into his hands.

"I need Kurama," Hiei sighed. "He always knows what to do…"

Hiei began drumming his fingers against the steering wheel again, oblivious to the dark looks his actions earned him from Yusuke. After several minutes more of Kuwabara groaning, Yusuke growling, Hiei drumming his fingers, the vehicle creaking and metal grinding against metal and the faint sound of a distressed baby crying, Kurama entered the cabin, once more in his human form and looking considerably calmer and more like his usual self.

"Hey," Yusuke greeted him. "Hiei said he needs you."

Kurama's face twitched at Yusuke's words and he turned his head sharply to glare at the back of Hiei's chair.

"I-I just wanted to know if it would be alright to drive directly into the city or not," Hiei said nervously.

"Never mind about that for now," Kurama softly replied, approaching the console as he spoke.

"But…"

Hiei watched Kurama from the corner of his eye as the redhead leaned over the console and peered out the windows as though expecting to see something.

"Are we being followed?" Hiei asked. "Or is someone waiting for us in Arbeinia?"

"Neither, as far as I am aware," Kurama replied. "I was looking for a suitable place to park off the road."

"Why are we stopping?" Yusuke called over.

"The ice maidens have asked us to join them in the back of the vehicle before we return to Arbeinia," Kurama replied. "They want to tell us something."

Kurama frowned slightly as he saw the colour visibly drain from Hiei's face.

"What-what do they want to talk about?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know yet," Kurama replied. "Do you?"

Hiei shook his head, but something about the panicked strain in Hiei's eyes told Kurama that the fire demon was hiding something: and maybe the ice maidens knew exactly what it was.

Shizuru threw down her coat and sat down just as Keiko entered the room carrying a tray of tea.

"I got here as quickly as I could," Shizuru said.

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Koenma said, nodding his head at her from across the room.

Keiko placed the tray of tea down onto the low table and sat down on the couch beside Shizuru, facing Koenma who was sitting tensely in the armchair opposite them.

"I'm sorry to call you both here like this," he began. "But this is an emergency, and I can't reach Yusuke or Botan."

"Why can't you reach Yusuke?" Keiko asked.

"I tried calling him earlier today, and he seemed a little distracted," Koenma replied. "He spoke gibberish, hung up on me and then switched off his communicator, and now I can't call him back."

"Do you think he's in trouble?" Keiko asked.

"No, but I know Botan is, which I why I need your help. I've already figured out that you have Botan's communicator, and without it, I can't reach her myself."

"Oops…"

"She wouldn't answer it when you tried to call her before," Shizuru explained. "I took it because I thought I could use it to call my idiot brother and ask him what he was really up to, but then I realised that I don't actually know how it works."

"Well, there's not much we can do about it now," Koenma said. "But hopefully the two of you can at least help me figure this out: Botan borrowed this book from the spirit world library about three weeks ago."

Koenma lifted up the book in question to allow Keiko and Shizuru to read the title before again employing Yusuke's trick to find the relevant chapter. He then placed the book down onto the table, turning it around to allow the girls to view it the right way up.

"It's a book of spells?" Keiko asked.

"Not exactly," Koenma replied. "It's a book of talisman combinations that was outlawed many centuries ago, long before the language they are written in was forgotten. The wards in there are far more powerful and much more dangerous if misused than the modern talismans we use nowadays."

"What has Botan done now?" Shizuru asked.

"That's what worries me," Koenma said. "You see, the book keeps opening at that page, as though she was studying that specific chapter. And I found these lying around the temple."

Koenma laid a pile of papers on the table, spreading them out to allow Keiko and Shizuru to clearly see the contents of each page. Both girls sat forwards and picked up a piece of paper each.

"Botan drew these," Keiko said. "We saw her do it."

"She said an evil magic bubble made her do it," Shizuru added.

Koenma screwed up his face and Shizuru smiled.

"That's exactly how I felt when she told me that," she said.

"Well, evil magic bubbles aside, cross-referencing the symbols Botan drew against those in the book, it appears as though she has been working on two specific talisman combinations," Koenma continued. "One of them I can understand her using – it's a sort of blocker, something she might use to keep herself hidden if I was to go looking for her. But the second one, the more powerful of the two, is not something a ferry girl would have any use for."

"What is the second one?" Keiko asked.

"It's a power distortion trick," Koenma replied. "It's usually used by a demon. It cancels out the signals typically emitted by a demon that indicate what sort of demon he is."

"What sort of demon?" Shizuru asked. "So you mean if Kurama used it, he wouldn't appear to be a fox any more?"

"It would scramble his energy signal, basically," Koenma said. "Rendering tools like the Demon Compass useless. Botan doesn't have a specific power, so she would have no need to use it. I think she's misunderstood what the talisman does."

"What's the worst that could happen if she is using this talisman?" Keiko asked.

"That's the problem: I don't know. I've never studied these old-style runes because nobody uses them any more. I really only called you here because I had to know if you thought Botan might, for some reason, want to disguise herself somehow. She wrote a comment in the library check-sheet about wanting to go an "adventure". Is there a chance she might have used these talismans to disguise herself and attempt to join the boys in their fight in demon world?"

Keiko and Shizuru exchanged worried looks.

"I see," Koenma said, nodding solemnly. "So my worst fear is a reality: Botan has done something insurmountably stupid, and is probably in a terribly dangerous place right now."

"You have such lovely hair, Princess Mukuro."

"I'm not a princess, please stop calling me one."

"It looks red, but in the sunlight it shines with lovely golden highlights. What's your secret, Princess?"

"I'm not a princess."

"I've tried all sorts of conditioners, but I've never managed to get a shine like that."

"Are we nearly done here?"

"Done with what?"

Mukuro gritted her teeth and turned her head to look directly at Botan.

"Have you done what you need to?" she asked firmly. "Can I safely make contact with the sick without contracting the illness myself?"

"Oh yes, I did that ten minutes ago," Botan replied with a wave of her hand.

"If you did it ten minutes ago, why are we still sitting here?"

"We were just enjoying some girl-talk."

Mukuro growled and stood up abruptly, pinching at the bridge of her nose in the vain hope of staving off the migraine that seemed to be looming.

"Listen to me girl, and this time listen very carefully," she said tightly. "I just need you to use your powers on the sick here, and then I will take you back to the portal to living world, where you will track down Hiei and make sure you cure him too. My medics don't think that Hiei will last until sunrise tomorrow morning if he is not cured or returned to a healing chamber, so we don't have time to waste on frivolous matters. Is that clear?"

"Oh dear, yes, I understand," Botan said, nodding keenly. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise Hiei was so sick. He seemed fine the last time I saw him. Well, not fine, not his usual self at least, but he certainly didn't seem to be at death's door."

"Yes, well, are you still talking about the Hiei you saw four days ago?" Mukuro asked, turning back to face Botan.

"Yes," Botan replied.

"Even though I've already told you that Hiei was here four days ago?"

"Yes."

Mukuro sighed.

"Let's not waste any more time," she said decisively. "Follow me, we should tend to those in the basement."

Botan skipped after Mukuro as she began striding back through her fortress, aiming herself towards the basement full of sick demons.

"I have a question," Botan asked as they walked.

"I don't have time to answer it," Mukuro bluntly replied.

"You said you would give me anything I needed in return for my services here."

Mukuro inwardly cursed herself before grunting in a non-committal manner.

"Oh goody!" Botan said cheerfully. "So my question is this: what does Hiei prefer? Taramosalata or honey?"

"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this, but I simply have to know: why?" Mukuro asked without breaking stride or looking back at the bubbly ferry girl.

"I have a plan," Botan replied. "But I can't decide between the two. One is quite smelly and the other is quite sticky, so I don't think I have to worry about practicality…"

Mukuro slowed to a halt inside the basement and turned to face Botan, flinching involuntarily as her eyes landed on her.

"When did you change your clothes?" she asked.

"Back there," Botan replied, pointing back over her shoulder. "I was wearing my adventuring clothes, but these are my tending the sick clothes."

"But we were walking fast the whole way, and you don't even have your other outfit with you… Never mind. How long do you think this will take you?"

"I will work as quickly as I can. For Hiei's sake."

Mukuro nodded and approached the nearest tank, hitting the switch to deactivate and drain it.

"It's freezing in here!" Yusuke hissed.

"I would have suggested we all wrap ourselves in a space blanket before coming here, but, rather unfortunately, someone destroyed all the blankets last night," Kurama whispered back to him.

"Where is everyone?" Kuwabara whispered.

"Just watch where you put your feet," Kurama reminded him.

Kurama was walking along the frozen over metal walkway that ran the length of the sleeping quarters of the vehicle with Yusuke, Kuwabara and finally Hiei behind him. The doors on either side of them were all closed, though they were barely noticeable as every surface was coated with crystallised ice, including the walkway beneath their feet. Kurama had stolen Kuwabara's drunken suggestion of the night before and taken a bag of salt from the supplies closet, which he was sprinkling out ahead of himself to help break up the ice a little to give their feet something to grip to as they walked. The door to the compartment had been open when they had approached in anticipation of their arrival, but there had not been anyone there waiting to greet them. Kurama already knew that the entire village had probably chosen to gather in the luggage bay at the very back of the vehicle, a room that was big enough to comfortably fit fifty-six bodies.

And, after just a few steps more, Kurama reached the steps down to the luggage bay, and found himself facing a roomful of pale woman dressed in fine, handmade silk kimonos, all watching him warily.

He let out a shuddering breath and tightened his grip of the bag of salt. The smell of the ice village flowers was so strong he could taste it in the back of his throat, and he could not help but notice the way some of the young adult women were eying him over in an almost appreciative manner. He tried to keep his thoughts focused on the negatives, and, as he exhaled again, he was reminded of one thing he had always found disconcerting about the ice maidens: his own breath billowed from his lips in a cloud of condensation as warm air met cold, but the ice maidens never had that problem. Apparently even air they had held in their bodies remained ice cold.

Kurama found himself briefly wondering if that meant that the inside of their mouths were cool too, and again he had to fight to remain focused. He scanned the room until he located the unstable elder he had encountered naked the night before, finding that the sight of her did at least help him regain some degree of self-control.

"We don't typically associate or collaborate with other races on anything," Tsubara said. "In fact, we don't ever associate or collaborate with other races, but, in this instance, it's clear that we have used and needed your assistance. Whilst some of us may have escaped and returned home regardless, I know that most of the number you see before you would not have managed to flee without your help."

"Perhaps this humbling experience should serve as a lesson to you all," Kurama suggested.

"We have never welcomed anyone into our village," Tsubara continued. "It's not our way."

"Hey lady, if your village is even half as cold as this room, we don't want to go anywhere near it!" Yusuke said over Kurama's shoulder.

Kurama carefully made his way down the steps to allow Yusuke to see over the top of his head. Yusuke and Kuwabara leaned to opposite sides of the walkway, affording themselves a better view of the room beyond and blocking out Hiei completely.

"However, we understand that you have made fugitives of yourselves in your endeavours to help us, and so now we feel obliged to help you," Tsubara said, ignoring Yusuke's comment.

"You are not obliged to do anything," Kurama corrected her. "We don't expect anything from you. We did not lend our assistance with the expectation of receiving any form of payment for our services."

"We will allow you to enter our village when we return," Tsubara replied. "You may stay one night. After that, you must leave."

"That's not much of a reward, you old hag!" Yusuke complained.

"So you do seek compensation for your efforts?" Tsubara asked him.

Yusuke grinned, his eyes wandering over to a pair of young ice maidens who were holding hands.

"No," Kurama quickly said before Yusuke could suggest something that was likely to be incitement to riot. "We don't want anything from you, and I don't think it would be appropriate for us to enter your village, far less to spend the night there."

"You will be required to enter the village when you return us there, you might as well stay," Tsubara said.

"Oh, I get it!" Yusuke said, turning from the girls to their leader. "You need us to come back there with you! You're too scared to go back there alone in case there's a trap waiting there for you! You need our protection, but you're too damn stubborn to admit it!"

"Your obnoxious and smelly male servant needs to be taught some manners," Tsubara told Kurama.

"Who the hell are you calling obnoxious?" Yusuke snapped.

"He raises an interesting point though," Kurama said to Tsubara. "Is he correct? Is this "favour" you are offering us actually just a thinly veiled disguise for what is perhaps a desperate cry for a help, an admittance of your own weaknesses?"

"You talk very bravely for a fox demon facing an entire clan of women his kind has wronged many times over in the past," Tsubara coldly replied.

"Fox demon?" Mizore echoed.

"His?" another ice maiden said. "She's a man?"

"One of the foibles of my people is their naivety it's true," Tsubara said. "But we are not fools. You will need a place to hide just as much as the weaker amongst my people will need your assistance to return home."

"So I was right all along," Yusuke said. "You bitches aren't grateful, you're just using us!"

"We are not without honour," Tsubara replied. "We believe that some might think that we are indebted to you, and, as such, I am willing to offer a reward to you. What is it that you want from us? Tears?"

"I don't care about getting your tears, but I wouldn't mind being the reason you cried them!" Yusuke growled.

"There is one thing you could give us," Kurama said, holding up a hand by his shoulder to warn Yusuke to remain silent. "We would like a moment with Rui."

Silence filled the room and Kurama could not help but notice the way Tsubara's expression shifted almost imperceptibly into a look of mild amusement. Behind him he heard Hiei pushing past Kuwabara and Yusuke to stand at the top of the steps behind him. Kurama tensed slightly as all the ice maidens moved their eyes to Hiei and the air became noticeably colder in an instant.

"Where is she?" Hiei asked quietly.

He started down the steps, his eyes desperately scanning the ice maidens in the room. As he reached the floor below he stumbled slightly and Kurama instinctively caught his arm to hold him steady – he had probably forgotten how slippery the ice was without any salt to break it up.

"She's not here," Hiei concluded, his eyes resting on Tsubara. "Where is she?"

"We are missing several of our people," Tsubara replied. "Some were killed trying to escape, some were worked to death. We've accounted for everyone. Those who stand before you now are all that remains of our clan."

Hiei covered his mouth with a shaking hand and shook his head.

"Rui perished?" Kurama asked.

"I can't confirm or deny that," Tsubara replied.

"What do you mean?" Kurama pressed.

"I take great care, as the supreme leader of my clan, to protect my people, fox," she said. "And so, when some of my number made their most recent visit to demon world and encountered trouble, I did what I had to do to ensure their safety."

"You closed off the village because Rui was abducted by cruel men!" Hiei said suddenly, pointing an accusing finger at Tsubara. "She was in trouble and needed your help, but you shut her out!"

"Don't be so dramatic, child," the elder calmly replied. "A particularly troublesome and persistent fox demon managed to follow my girls back to our village. He was the first outside of our clan to enter the village for many centuries, a determined and ambitious monster. He wanted to take one of my girls, and I refused."

"What did he want an ice maiden for?" Kurama asked.

"I thought you said fox demons just wanted ice maidens for sex?" Yusuke said.

Kurama and Hiei both turned to sharply scowl at Yusuke, who recoiled fearfully.

"Sorry!" he hurriedly apologised.

"He wanted to build a gateway from demon world to spirit world, a direct link between the two realms, and he said he already had demons in his employ who could perform such a task, as well as an army who would help him advance into spirit world and enact the details of his plan once he got there."

Kurama and Hiei turned back to Tsubara abruptly.

"Fumio came to your village before he created the gateway to spirit world?" Kurama asked. "You knew about this before it happened? Why didn't you report it to Enki?"

"Demon world affairs are not my business," she casually replied.

"But that gateway unleashed a terrible virus on all of demon world!" Hiei pointed out. "And that virus was the reason you and everyone else from the ice village were taken prisoner!"

"You were part of the cause, you ought to have been part of the solution!" Kurama added.

"The fox mentioned the possibility of an illness resulting from his gateway," Tsubara replied. "That was why he wanted one of my girls. He wanted a young and pretty girl who could protect him and his men from falling ill, and, when he felt like it, she could satiate his darker needs too. I told him I wouldn't hand over one of my pure and virtuous girls, but that he was welcome to take the filthy one who turned her back on us: Yukina."

Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara all turned to Hiei, who was shaking his head, his mouth moving soundlessly.

"Yukina's mother was filthy too," Tsubara continued, watching Hiei through thinned eyes darkened with disgust. "We had a name for her: Hina the whore."

Hiei lunged forwards but Kurama caught him by the arms before he could reach Tsubara.

"The truth can be difficult, can't it?" Tsubara asked him.

"You sent Fumio after Yukina?" Kurama asked. "We haven't seen her in over a week, no-one has. Does that mean she's with Fumio?"

"You see girls, these men and that fox know Yukina personally," Tsubara said, looking around her fellow ice demons. "These lawless creatures are the sort Yukina has chosen to bed with."

"Bed with?" Hiei echoed, his voice almost breaking. "You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't let her provoke you," Kurama whispered to him, pulling him back against his chest. "Is Yukina with Fumio, Tsubara?" he asked the elder.

"Obviously not," Tsubara replied, her tone more sarcastic than seemed necessary to Kurama. "He thought we were trying to trick him when we told him to go to living world and take Yukina, he didn't believe that an ice maiden would wander so far from her natural habitat. He refused to leave, and so I did the next best thing that I could: since he would not take away my people's biggest disgrace, I made sure that he took its biggest disappointment: I gave him Rui."

Hiei made a small squeaking noise, one hand slapping against his chest. Kurama released him and leaned forwards to see if he was alright, as he appeared to be choking. He looked as though he was suffocating, and, after a few seconds of his silent struggle, Rikka stepped forwards from the ice maidens and held out a paper bag towards him. Hiei gladly grabbed it from her and pressed it to his mouth, breathing into it in the same way Rikka had done when Kurama and Hiei had first found her.

"So, with fourteen dead from our recent struggles, Rui in spirit world and Yukina… Behaving as despicably as any child of Hina the whore could be expected to, everyone is accounted for," Tsubara concluded. "Now going back to my offer: the three of you – fox, human and the smelly one – may stay the night in our village. I will concede to allow this disgrace to our people to sleep on the rough ground beyond the village perimeter, but I won't have it any closer to any of my good and decent girls. You three men may sleep in one of the empty houses, there will be a few after our losses this week."

"Screw you, old lady!" Yusuke snorted. "You let us all stay, or none of us will!"

"Yeah!" Kuwabara agreed. "And besides, we're not friends with anyone who would betray Yukina like that!"

"We'd rather not stay in your village," Kurama said. "We will make our own arrangements. We will escort you back there, but after that, we must continue on our way."

"In that case I have no more to say to you," Tsubara said before snatching the paper bag from Hiei.

Hiei continued breathing heavily, his face twitching in agitation and his eyes staring unblinkingly at her. Kurama frowned slightly as he noticed then for the first time that Hiei, unlike Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara, did not create little clouds of steam when he exhaled – which was unusual, because the air was bitterly cold and a fire demon like Hiei's breathing ought to be creating an even more dramatic effect than Kurama's, Yusuke's or Kuwabara's were. But, just like the ice maidens, Hiei's breath was invisible.

"I got something more to say to you," Yusuke began. "First of all, I saw those two in the corner finger fu–"

"Yusuke!" Kurama hissed, cutting him off. "Let's just finish this."

"Right!" Yusuke agreed.

Kuwabara and Yusuke turned around and began back along the walkway. Kurama took hold of Hiei's shoulders, turning him around and pushing up the steps ahead of himself. Hiei felt cold and tense to the touch, but his feet moved with surprising ease back along the icy walkway. Kurama resisted the urge to look back as they left, closing the door behind himself and feeling less than surprised when he saw it start to freeze over as soon as it had clicked into place. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Hiei, who was leaning against the wall, one hand covering his eyes the other arm wrapped around his waist.

"We'll get your friend back," Kurama assured him. "Fumio won't have killed her, she's too useful to him. And when we do recover her, she doesn't have to return to the ice village, she could stay at Genkai's temple with Yukina. I'm sure she would be happy there, and she would definitely be safe there."

"I don't know what to do…" Hiei whispered, keeping his head down. "I'm so confused. I have to get to Mukuro, I have to help cure him, but I want to find Rui and take her to safety as soon as I can!"

Kurama nodded, touching a hand to Hiei's shoulder.

"Look, I know you're concerned about the sick in Mukuro's healing chambers, but remember what Jin told us: he said their condition doesn't deteriorate as long as they are in the chambers," Kurama reminded his friend. "So although they will not be cured, they won't get any worse no matter how long they are left there. They are safe there for now, so you can come to spirit world with us and defeat Fumio and recover Rui. You can return home after that."

"I can't ever return home."

"Not to the ice village, I meant your new home, the home you've made for yourself now, where you do have people who actually care about you."

"It's my fault Rui has suffered. She's suffered so much, and it's all my fault!"

"Look, let me drive us the rest of the way, we can offload the ice maidens, return them to their habitat, and then we can get some rest, which I think we all need. Go and have a drink of water and try to relax for now."

Kurama started to move on, intending to take his place at the controls of the vehicle and finish their journey, but he stopped abruptly as something hit the walkway with a light clatter. He looked down, watching curiously as a glittering and perfectly round little hiruiseki rolled along the ground before coming to rest against the side of his foot. He glanced at Hiei to be sure that the fire demon was not watching before crouching down to retrieve the gem. A quick examination revealed the sort of hiruiseki that would fetch an exceptionally high price in demon world because it had been formed from a tear shed in total despair. The quality of the stones was directly related to how hurt the woman crying them was, and, in this instance, it was obvious that Hiei was deeply, deeply upset.

Kurama had always wondered if Hiei would produce hirui stones when he cried, but he had never expected to ever find out for sure, since Hiei claimed that he had never shed a tear, and it had never seemed likely that he ever would.

"We'll get her back, I promise," Kurama said softly.

Hiei took a step away from the wall and Kurama turned fully towards him. They both made a few awkward movements, both avoiding looking directly at the other, before colliding with each other and somehow becoming tangled in a desperate and slightly awkward embrace. Hiei hugging him drunk had been almost forgettable to Kurama, but a sober, tearful Hiei wilfully hugging him was something else entirely. Kurama was torn between the strangely comforting feeling of holding his friend and the disturbing idea that Hiei had gone insane and may never go back to being his old self again. And he still had a worrying feeling that Hiei was harbouring deeper feelings for him, feelings that he could not return. Their relationship seemed as though it would never be the same again, and Kurama began to wonder if he might have to break all ties with Hiei for both their sakes: but just then Yusuke stumbled across them hugging, and Hiei abruptly broke away from Kurama, turning his head from him.

"Let's go already!" Yusuke said.

"Right," Kurama agreed. "I'll drive the rest of the way. Hiei, you could…"

Kurama looked about himself, but Hiei had disappeared.

"It looked like he was going up to the top deck," Yusuke said when Kurama looked his way. "Worry about him later, let's just dump our load first."

Kurama paused to see if Yusuke would turn his last words into a joke, and when he did not, Kurama was reminded of the gravity of the situation, and he hurried onwards to take control of the vehicle once more.

The steps up to the temple had never looked so steep, and there seemed to be a lot more of them than there ever had been before. The sky was still blue, but it was becoming that shade of azure that warned of the imminent approach of sunset and ultimately nightfall. Nightfall in the forest meant darkness that even a full moon would do little to compensate for, and darkness would only make the task ahead all the more difficult.

Hiei took a deep breath and climbed two more steps before stopping again. He tensed briefly and then leaned over one side of the steps and vomited. He spat and dragged the back of his bandaged hand across his lips, eying the mess he had made curiously. He could not remember the last time he had eaten a solid meal, and as such he wondered how it was still possible that he could have anything in his stomach to throw up. What he had brought up was really just a sticky green mess, and looked far less impressive than it had felt coming up. He grunted and forced himself onwards up the temple steps. He was not about to let a collection of stone blocks defeat him.

Ten steps later, Hiei stopped again. There was a very specific reason he was going up the steps, but unfortunately, it had temporarily escaped his mind. He looked up at the sky, watching a cloud pass over in the hope that his purpose might return to him if he waited there a little longer. He knew it must be something important, because it had been important enough for him to leave demon world, despite there being a desperate need for him to be there. He had come to living world to do something important and to do it as quickly as possible, but somewhere along the way he had drained what little energy he had and now found himself standing halfway up the steps to Genkai's temple feeling very confused and, as much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, very tired.

A bird flew overhead and Hiei managed a loose, half-smile as he suddenly remembered where he was going and why. He started up the steps again, glancing at the trees to one side of the steps as he climbed, watching for the right place to stop. Since falling ill – not that he had really been ill, because, of course, he was too strong to succumb to a stupid little infection – Hiei's jagan eye had been a little on the unreliable side, and a lot of what it had shown him recently had seemed too bizarre to be believable, and so, before he embarked on a murderous rampage of unquenchable wrath, he had decided to physically go to the one place his strange visions had been emanating from to literally confirm them. He was partly expecting to be proven wrong – or rather, he was desperately hoping to be proven wrong – though some of the things he had witnessed since did seem to suggest that his initial vision had been accurate.

Hiei finally sighted a broken, hollowed out tree, easily visible through the other trees because of the paler colour of its long dead trunk. He hopped from the steps to the forest floor and started through the trees, one foot inadvertently stepping into a deep pot-hole that offset his balance badly enough to leave him lying facedown in the dirt, one leg partly buried in dirt and roots. He growled and lifted his head, moving his arms around to push himself up. He saw the hollowed tree ahead of him blur as he started to push his shoulders up from the ground, and before he could fully lift his upper body his vision failed him entirely.

He was unconscious before his face hit the ground.

"What's his problem?" Kuwabara asked Kurama.

Kurama shook his head as they both watched Yusuke curse and kick at the back wheel of the tank.

"Apparently Hiei took off with Puu," Kurama eventually said. "And now we have to wait. It probably would have been quicker to have Puu fly the ice maidens back up to their village, despite the fact that it would have required several trips on his part. Without Puu, we now have to wait for the elders to create a walkway up there by freezing water particles in the air."

"How long is that gonna take?" Kuwabara asked.

"I don't know," Kurama replied.

Kuwabara nodded, before looking around their surroundings. They had travelled to the top of a mountain which looked alarmingly like a barely dormant volcano in order to get as close as possible to the floating ice village, which, without any ice maidens in it to shroud it in snowstorms, was plainly visible. Looking up at it was like watching an ocean liner from below: it looked far too bulky and heavy to remain afloat and yet somehow it did. The elders were generating cold winds and the sticky pool at the centre of the mountaintop was creating hot air, meaning that the temperature around where Kurama and Kuwabara were standing kept fluctuating according to which direction the cold winds took. Kurama had tried to explain to Yusuke and Kuwabara that there was a scientific reason for choosing a hot place to freeze the air, but neither of them had particularly paid any attention, least of all after Yusuke had discovered that Puu and Hiei were both gone.

"Yusuke, maybe you should call Koenma," Kurama called over to Yusuke. "Let him know we'll be arriving in spirit world tomorrow morning."

Yusuke nodded and marched over to join Kurama and Kuwabara. He retrieved his communication mirror from his pocket and flipped it open, pushing a button to call Koenma. After a brief pause George appeared in front of him, sitting at Koenma's desk with the prince's tall hat balanced on his head, neatly covering his horn and bald top.

"My Koenma, what big teeth you have," Yusuke said flatly.

George cleared his throat before answering him.

"Lord Koenma is currently out of the office, but if you would like to leave a message, he will attend to it as soon as he returns."

Yusuke started to growl in frustration and, sensing that he was about to become unpleasant, Kurama took the communicator from him.

"Where is Koenma?" he asked George.

"I can't answer that Kurama, sorry," George replied.

"Can't or won't?" Kurama asked.

"Can't," George answered. "I can't answer you because I don't know where he is. He didn't tell me where he was going before he left."

Kurama nodded his understanding.

"Alright, well, when he gets back, let him know that we are almost finished in demon world, and we expect to be in spirit world early tomorrow morning," he said.

"I will do," George replied.

Kurama snapped the communicator shut and held it out towards Yusuke, who made no attempt to take it back. He was looking up at something, and, by the look on the face and the feeling of the cold winds dying down behind him, Kurama already knew that it was not going to be something good. He slowly turned around and looked first at the elders of the ice village, finding them all standing still, their heads tilted back. He followed the direction they were looking and saw Puu struggling desperately in the air above the ice village, Hiei barely remaining balanced on his back. There was a length of rope caught around one of Puu's legs stopping him from escaping, and, following the rope back to its origin, Kurama found Enki's second-in-command holding onto it, and Enki standing at his side.

"This couldn't have possibly been simple, could it?" Yusuke grumbled.

Next Chapter: The team have a showdown with Enki over the fate of the ice maidens that leaves the ice maidens themselves divided, Koenma returns to spirit world and prepares for the team joining him there and Botan returns to living world where she makes a fortuitous discovery. And finally, in the heat of the moment, Hiei sees Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama in a way he had never expected – and possibly never really wanted to. Chapter 23 – Terribly Naked