A/N: LONG CHAPTER IS LO-ONG…

Chapter 23: Terribly Naked

Mukuro leaned forwards cautiously, peering down at the creature sprawled on the floor. There were only three demons still in healing tanks, the others having all been released and cured thanks to the ferry girl's assistance, but apparently she had reached the limit of her abilities and collapsed from exhaustion. She was snoring, so she was clearly not too badly worn-out, and, frankly, it was something of a relief not to have to listen to her prattle on about kittens and raindrops and all manner of other insignificant things that she delighted over far too readily.

"Should I move her to a bed?" Kirin offered.

"No, that won't be necessary," Mukuro replied. "Just let her rest as long a she needs to, she'll need her energy to heal the others and get to and heal Hiei."

Kirin nodded and left the room again. Realising that it was probably a bad idea to leave a ferry girl, dressed in a slightly sultry nurse's uniform, unconscious and vulnerable on the floor of a room frequented by demons with little or no scruples, Mukuro made the effort to collect a blanket from a nearby recovery bed and place it over Botan's sleeping form. Ordinarily she would have moved the girl to a bed, but moving her risked waking her, and waking her meant having to listen to her talk, which was always a painful experience: in fact, unconscious and silent, the ferry girl was almost tolerable.

Mukuro carefully tucked the blanket around Botan and then started towards the back of the room, intending to lie down on one of the recovery beds and get some rest herself: but before she reached her goal she realised she had not been so lucky as to escape waking the ferry girl.

"Princess Mukuro?"

Mukuro stopped, growled, tensed her shoulders and turned around.

"I'm sorry I feel asleep," Botan said to her as their eyes met.

"Rest if you need to," Mukuro replied. "If you work yourself to death, you'll be no use to anyone."

"Oh, you're so kind," Botan said. "Are you kind because you're a princess, or are you a princess because you're kind? I'm not really sure how things work here in demon world, I just wondered if you're kind because you are a fair princess or if you were made a princess because you are so kind–"

"Syrup," Mukuro cut her off. "Cherry-vanilla flavour. Not cherry flavour, not vanilla flavour, it has to be cherry-vanilla."

Botan blinked at her curiously and Mukuro found herself giving a small, wry smile.

"I think I understand what you want," she explained. "And you'd be wasting your time if you used taramosalata or honey. Use cherry-vanilla syrup."

"Oh," Botan said, a lazy smile growing on her still sleepy face. "Thank you very much, Princess."

Mukuro's smile vanished and she groaned.

"Just… Keep it far away from me," she added.

"Of course, Princess," Botan replied.

Mukuro started to correct Botan again on her title, but the ferry girl yawned, closed her eyes and rolled over onto her side, and so Mukuro stopped, deciding that it was better just to let her sleep: at least she was quiet when she slept.

"Someone remind me why we did all this in the first place?" Yusuke muttered.

"The kids," Kuwabara offered, pointing towards two young ice maidens who were hugging each other and staring up at the sky fearfully.

"We have to play this very carefully," Kurama warned them. "We can't fight our way out of this one, and, in light of what Tsubara told us earlier, the ice maidens aren't exactly an innocent party in any of this."

"I'm not exactly the president of the Subaru fan club right now, but if we just hand them all over to be used as slaves again, doesn't that sort of the defeat the purpose of everything we've been through in the last week?" Yusuke asked.

"Just stay calm," Kurama insisted. "This isn't a battle we will win with our fists."

Kurama glanced back and forth between Kuwabara and Yusuke, the lost expressions on each of their faces doing little to ease his concerns: he was, after all, talking to two individuals who solved the majority of their problems with their fists. He turned his attention back to the village overhead in time to see Enki and three of his closest advisors take to the air onboard flying eyeballs like those used during the demon world tournament. Puu was still being held in place, but he had managed to take hold of the rope in his beak and he was trying his hardest to chew threw it. The ice maidens all huddled together, strategically moving themselves behind Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara. The five elders who had been attempting to construct a physical connection from the mountaintop to the village had become still and quiet, but they did not leave their position. Enki and his men landed between the elders and the others and dismounted their rides.

"Get him down here," Enki said to one of his men, pointing up at Hiei as he spoke.

As his aide set about signalling to those still up in the village to pass down the rope tied to Puu, Enki turned his attention to Yusuke, Kurama and Kuwabara.

"What happened?" he asked. "I thought you came to me to have Hiei cured, so then why did you steal from me, attack my men and countless sick demons and take away the one effective cure we have for the virus?"

"We didn't come to you to have anyone cured," Kurama replied. "We came to you because we had witnessed the ice maidens being sold at auctions and treated poorly, and we wanted to report it to you. At the time, we had no idea that the auctions were your idea. We thought you were unaware of it and would disagree with the methods employed there."

"I see," Enki said, nodding his head. "None of you live in demon world permanently, so do any of you have any idea how devastating the virus has been in the last few weeks?"

"No," Kurama said. "We've seen some of the victims, but we haven't travelled far enough or spent long enough in any of the affected areas to really get an appreciation for how bad the situation is."

"The death-count is in the thousands."

Yusuke quietly cursed under his breath.

"Those ice maidens are the only way to stop the death-count reaching the tens of thousands," Enki continued. "When their abilities became public knowledge – after someone leaked the information to the press – I had to do what I could to control where they went, to make sure we had enough healers in the areas they were needed most. It maybe wasn't a very humane system, but it was an effective and efficient system. And you boys need to try to remember what we're dealing with here: ice maidens aren't the same as you or I, they don't feel any sort of emotion."

Hiei yelped as he fell to the ground upon Puu being forcefully pulled down to the mountaintop with a jolt. He pushed himself up, fixing already angered red eyes onto Enki, baring his teeth as he got to his feet. He started towards the ruler of demon world but was cut off partway there by one of Enki's advisors who grabbed an arm around his neck, pulling him into a chokehold that turned the anger in Hiei's eyes into panic.

"Witnesses tell me this little guy orchestrated the whole thing," Enki said, pointing a thumb in Hiei's direction. "If that's true, if he did all this and the three of you are caught up in this in some sort of attempt to talk sense into him, then I'm happy to let you three go. As far as I'm concerned, my only quarrel is with Hiei."

"What will you do to him?" Kuwabara asked, earning himself a sharp elbow in the ribs from Yusuke and a glare of disbelief from Kurama.

"I'll detain him for now, my first priority is to get the ice demons back to work," Enki replied. "Once I know the virus is being taken care of then I suppose I would consult with Mukuro for how best to deal with Hiei."

"It was my idea."

Despite there being more than sixty bodies on the mountaintop, the air suddenly became deathly silent. Kuwabara and Yusuke were clearly confused and it was arguable whether the ice maidens or Hiei looked more shocked.

"It was my idea," Kurama said again. "I orchestrated the whole thing. Hiei was acting on my instructions. As I already said, I don't believe that what you were doing was morally correct, and so I enlisted the help of my friends to put a stop to it. The four of us generally support each other's decisions, but this one was mine, and these three were merely complying with my wishes as any loyal friend would."

"Nuh-uh!" Kuwabara said. "It was my idea! I was the first one to say we had to rescue those ladies!"

Yusuke groaned and pushing Kuwabara and Kurama out to either side of him, stepping forwards to stand ahead of them.

"What they're trying to say is that we all did this," he said. "It wasn't just tiny over there, it was all of us. We all thought it was wrong and we all wanted to make it stop."

"I see," Enki said.

He nodded at his ally, who opened his arm in response, letting Hiei fall to the ground. Hiei paused long enough to rub a hand at his throat before scrambling away from them and hurrying back over to the others. As he reached them Kurama put a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

Hiei looked up at him with large eyes, looking vaguely pleased about something. He nodded his head and it almost looked like he was smiling. Kurama wanted to ask him what he was so happy about, but he knew that it was neither the time nor the place to do so.

"You leave me in a very difficult position here, boys," Enki said. "You understand I'm going to have to take those women back?"

"No!" Hiei shouted.

Kurama caught Hiei's arm in fear that he was about to charge at Enki, though it shortly seemed that he had not intended to do so, as he made no attempt to move.

"You don't have to… I mean, you don't have to take all of us, right?" one of the ice maidens asked.

Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara all turned to look back at her in disbelief.

"I think we probably cured many of the sick already," she continued. "And if you agreed to let the children and their mothers return home, and to treat the remainder of us fairly, to let us rest when we needed to, we might be willing to help you."

"Shut you mouth, you silly girl!" Tsubara snapped.

"But we were part of the cause, we have an obligation to help!" the young ice maiden continued. "You heard what the fox said: we should have told Mister Enki about the demons building the gateway."

"You knew about the gateway before it was completed?" Enki asked Tsubara.

"It wasn't our problem to fret over," she tightly replied.

"I would be willing to stay here and help," the young ice maiden said. "But you must promise that you will let the children and their mothers go free. And if I do stay and help, you must promise that you won't keep me in a cage, you will let me sleep when I need to and when my work is done, when all the sick have been cured, you will let me return to the ice village and you will never come after us again."

"You won't be welcome back in the village if you leave now!" Tsubara warned her.

"I think we should help too," another young ice maiden volunteered. "So long as we are not mistreated and we are allowed to return to our home in peace afterwards then I think we should help."

"Does anyone else feel that way?" Enki asked, looking around the other ice maidens.

The ice maidens who had been talking stepped forwards, but, despite them both glaring back at the others, no more stepped forward to join them.

"I'll stay behind and help."

"Oh great…" Yusuke grumbled as the demented elder stepped away from the other four elders.

"What are you doing?" Tsubara hissed.

"Seems ridiculous not to," the old ice maiden replied as she crossed the mountaintop towards Enki. "And quite embarrassing. Look at the lengths Yukina went to for our sake."

"What?" Kurama echoed.

"Oh Sir, thank goodness you're back!" George gushed, standing up so abruptly that he knocked over the chair he had been anxiously sitting in since Koenma's departure from spirit world.

"Yes, and I'm incredibly tired, ogre," Koenma replied, yawning through his words. "I'm going to bed, I need you to stay there a little while longer."

"But Sir, I'm tired too!" George moaned.

"Just stay there, keep pretending to be me, I have to get some sleep," Koenma said, waving a dismissive hand at the ogre. "There is only one other thing I need you to do, one very, very important thing: you must wake me at six o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Wake you at six o'clock so that you can return to your desk and I can go to my bed?"

"No!"

Koenma thumped his fists on the desk, sending papers flying everywhere.

"Oops…" he muttered, looking down at his hands. "I forgot I was still tall… Anyway, no! I need you to wake me up then because I need to go on a mission."

"Can I go to my bed when you get back from your mission?" George asked meekly.

"You can go to bed when you start doing some work!" Koenma snapped.

"Aw… Oh Sir, Yusuke called earlier."

"He did? What did he want?"

"He was very angry, but Kurama told me that the team are all coming to spirit world tomorrow morning."

"Perfect. Now it's absolutely vital that you remember to wake me at six o'clock. Knock three times on my door and bring me a pot of tea and an omelette. And bring a fan and fan me while I eat. It's hot up there at that time of morning."

"…But Sir–"

"Six o'clock, ogre."

"Alright Sir, six o'clock."

"Don't forget! Six o'clock!"

"Six o'clock."

"I had a super time with you Princess Mukuro," Botan said cheerfully.

Mukuro said nothing in reply, but Botan assumed that was just because she was choked up with emotions: she was a quiet woman, but Botan knew that, deep down, she was a benevolent and gentile princess.

"We should do this again some time," Botan suggested.

"The genocide of my people is not something I'm keen to witness again any time soon," Mukuro flatly replied.

"Oh, no, not the virus part!" Botan hurriedly corrected herself. "Of course not the virus! Oh you, you're terrible! I meant we should spend more time together! Why do we never spend time together? Isn't it just dreadful that it took a worldwide virus to get us to spend some time together like this?"

"Leave," Mukuro growled. "Now."

"Oh, is this goodbye then?"

Mukuro lowered her head and pinched her fingers at the bridge of her nose again. She drew in a deep breath, counted tensely under her breath and then sighed and lifted her head again, flinching as her eyes landed on Botan.

"Did you just change your clothes?" she asked.

"I was wearing my tending the sick clothes, but since we are parting ways, I thought it was more appropriate to wear my saying goodbye to a good, and royal, friend clothes," Botan replied.

"Right, of course," Mukuro groaned.

"Can I have a hug?" Botan asked, opening out her arms and grinning radiantly.

"No, but there is something I would like to give you," Mukuro replied. "I had one of my men craft you a new oar. I understand you use the wood of a spirit world tree to make your oars, and I obviously couldn't do that for you, but this should suffice."

Mukuro turned to the small group behind her, waiting as one of the men stepped forwards and passed her the oar.

"Here you are," she said, turning back to Botan. "He modelled it on your old one, so it will at least the right size – did you change your clothes again?"

"You wouldn't hug me," Botan replied. "And if you won't hug me, the goodbye ceremony is over, so now it's time for me to wear my adventuring clothes again."

"How do you do that?" Mukuro asked.

"I dress in layers," Botan whispered, winking at Mukuro as she spoke.

Mukuro thrust the oar out towards the ferry girl.

"Take the damn oar and get out of my sight!" she barked.

"Alrighty!" Botan said, accepting the oar. "Goodbye, Princess!"

Mukuro muttered something that sounded anatomically impossible to Botan, but she smiled regardless and leapt through the portal, sitting onto the new oar and taking up into the skies of living world. The oar was a little awkward and the wood was rough to the touch, but it was good enough to allow Botan to fly through the late evening skies towards Genkai's temple again to find Hiei: though she already knew that he would not be there, because he was in demon world with Yusuke, Kuwabara and Kurama.

In fact, Botan was not really sure why Mukuro had not understood that point when she had tried to impress it upon her: Hiei was obviously still with the rest of the team because Botan had spoken to him there very recently. Maybe Mukuro was stressed out and had become forgetful.

But Botan had decided to give Mukuro the benefit of the doubt – it was the least she could do for a princess – and so, as she flew over the vast forestland surrounding Genkai's temple, Botan pulled out her Demon Compass, which she had already loaded with Hiei's hair in preparation for searching for him when she had gone to demon world (conveniently she had found a few strands of his hair on the Velcro fastening of a Hello Kitty raincoat inside Genkai's temple), and she switched it on.

Botan almost fell off her new oar when the compass screamed into life.

Despite being sure that the equipment must be malfunctioning, Botan followed the direction the compass was pointing. Her mastery of the oar was not quite up to par, and, as she neared her goal, she was forced to land early on the temple steps. She hooked the oar under one arm and looked down at the compass, seeing that it was telling her to climb the steps higher. She started to do just that before stopping as she stepped in something slimy. She peered over the compass to see a wet and sticky green pool by the edge of the steps. She stepped out of her shoes, which were now covered in the substance, and continued in her socks, managing a few steps more before the Demon Compass exploded. She muttered a complaint and she wafted away the cloud of smoke it had engulfed her head in, she discarded the redundant device over one shoulder and stomped up the steps, only stopping when the scent of the stringent chemical that the healing chambers in Mukuro's basement had been filled with reached her nose.

Turning her head towards the source, Botan saw a dark pile of clothes and limbs laying a short way into the trees.

She hurriedly leapt from the steps, picking her way through the undergrowth the way that Hiei had shown her to the day she had found him in that exact spot, and dropped to her knees by the fallen body. She grabbed handfuls of black material and pulled and then pushed to turn him over, gasping in surprise and then smiling in delight at what she found.

"Hiei!" she said.

He did not so much as flinch at the sound of his name, his eyes closed, his face pale and clammy and his mouth slightly open, that innocent look he only had when he was asleep making his face look blissfully serene.

"Hiei?" she said again, shaking him experimentally.

Still he did not stir, and another glance up at the sky reminded Botan that it was getting very late and the sun would soon set, which would make their current location impossibly dark.

"Come on, mister," she said, placing her oar down on the ground and lifting Hiei's head from the ground. "Let's get you to bed."

She hooked her arms under his and dragged him over her oar before sitting onto it herself and awkwardly lifting them into the air, clutching the uncomfortably abrasive oar in one hand, her other arm around Hiei to hold his limp form in place.

"Don't worry sweetie, I'll take good care of you!" she whispered to him as she flew them towards the temple.

"What did she just say?" Kuwabara asked.

"Hey, grandma!" Yusuke yelled. "What did you just say about Yukina?"

The old ice maiden stopped and slowly turned to face him.

"I said she's very confused," she called over. "Always getting herself in trouble, usually without meaning to. Just like her mother. Except that her mother wouldn't have done something as ridiculous as this."

"As what?" Kurama asked.

"She's insane," one of the young ice maidens said suddenly, her voice almost uncomfortably loud. "She's crazy," she said when Kurama turned to her. "She doesn't know what she's talking about."

She started towards Enki, slowing as she passed Kurama.

"She says the craziest things sometimes," she said. "It's best not to listen to her. Right Hiei?"

The ice maiden glanced at Hiei, giving him a strangely amiable and knowing look that did little to ease Kurama's suspicions that something had transpired between Hiei and the ice maidens back in Dardani when he had joined the women in their fight against the motorcycle gang.

"Well, if enough of these ladies agree to come back and help me cure the sick, I'm willing to let the others go and forget about the trouble you boys caused in Illyria, Gandara and Dardani," Enki said.

"Cool," Yusuke said.

"And if you pay me back for the damage you've done to my military grade tank, I'll forget you stole it and misused it so badly," Enki added.

Yusuke started to argue but Kurama held up a hand to stop him.

"That's fair," he said.

"Where are we gonna get the money for that?" Yusuke hissed.

"Maybe some of our ice maiden friends will help us out with that," Kurama whispered back.

Yusuke nodded, and they both watched as two more ice maidens moved over to join Enki.

"Hey, can you untie my bird now?" Yusuke called over.

One of Enki's aides nodded and began freeing Puu, who finally relaxed his ruffled feathers in relief. The four elders remained where they were, and the ice maidens with children clung onto their daughters and held back, and the remaining forty women gradually split up, twelve lingering back with their own kind and the other twenty-eight joining Enki. It was quite a slow and awkward process however, with the defectors moving singly or in pairs, and, because they were moving that way, it was even more obvious to Kurama watching on that every ice maiden that passed them looked at Hiei as she went, and every one gave him that same amiable, knowing look that the first woman had.

Kurama began to wonder if Hiei had used his jagan eye to hypnotise as many of them as he possibly could into compliance.

"I'll call for you once we've finished tending the sick," Enki said to Yusuke.

"That's fair," Yusuke agreed.

"And I'll be taking my vehicle back now," Enki added.

"Could you give us a ride back down the–"

Yusuke stopped as Kurama poked him in the back. He looked back over his shoulder, mouthing out the word "what?" and Kurama simply raised his eyebrows in return, watching as Yusuke's face slowly changed from one of irritated confusion to panicked realisation: the vehicle was a wreck on the outside from the fight in Dardani, and the inside was a wreck from their drunken exploits – not to mention the priceless collection of poitin that had been consumed or else turned into water, the remainder disposed of.

"We'll wait for your call," Yusuke said, smiling and nodding at Enki. "And we'll turn around and run very fast this way," he added under his breath as he turned back to the others, ushering them ahead of him.

Kuwabara gladly moved on with him and Kurama followed at his own pace, but Hiei lingered where they had been, his head flicking about as he looked between the three groups of ice maidens.

"They'll be fine now," Kurama assured him. "They're not as vulnerable as they seem. Your friend Rui needs us now."

Hiei snapped back to attention at the sound of his friend's name, turning to face Kurama abruptly.

"Let's go," Kurama said softly.

Hiei nodded and they both began walking briskly after Kuwabara and Yusuke, back down the mountainside.

"They'll be alright," Kurama said as they walked. "Once we've taken care of things in spirit world, we can return here and check on them, if you like."

"Would you do that?" Hiei asked, looking up at him with an almost sad expression. "Would you come back here with me and check on the other ice maidens?"

Kurama frowned, something about Hiei's choice of words seeming a bit odd, but the needy, worried look on Hiei's face quickly reminded him that his friend was waiting for an answer.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I would."

"Thanks Kurama," Hiei said.

Kurama nodded and they walked on in silence until they heard Enki roaring out a curse, at which point Yusuke whistled to Puu, who obediently landed by him. Kuwabara and Yusuke scrambled onto the spirit beast and Kurama and Hiei ran over to join them.

"I think Enki just found his tank," Kuwabara said.

"State the obvious," Yusuke groaned, rolling his eyes. "Hurry up, you two!"

Kurama leapt onto Puu's back and held out a hand to help Hiei up behind him. Hiei took his hand and Puu took off. Hiei yelped, grabbing at Kurama's arm desperately.

"Get on already!" Yusuke shouted down to him.

Kurama held out his free hand, taking Hiei's other hand and he pulled him up onto Puu's back. He looked a little more anxious than he usually would after such a minor near miss, so much so that when Kurama opened his fingers to release Hiei, he found his friend still gripping tightly onto him. Kurama decided to just keep hold of Hiei's hands, trying to ignore the way Yusuke and Kuwabara kept looking at their joined hands and smirking at each other.

After a few minutes of flying around the mountainside and then down the slope Yusuke ordered Puu to land, much to everyone else's confusion. Puu took them down amongst a particularly rocky outcropping midway down the mountain, and Yusuke eagerly leapt off his back.

"Why are we landing here?" Kuwabara called down to him.

"Hot spring!" Yusuke called back up.

"What?" Kuwabara echoed.

"Hot spring!" Yusuke repeated. "There's a huge one right over the other side of these rocks! It's still light, let's go for a swim before we head back!"

Kuwabara looked up at the darkening sky sceptically.

"I guess it would be nice to relax before we get into a fight in spirit world," he eventually concluded.

He slid down to the ground and he and Yusuke turned their attention to Kurama and Hiei.

"Shall we?" Kurama asked Hiei.

"Okay," Hiei agreed, sounding slightly lost but looking eager nonetheless.

Hiei finally let go of Kurama's hands, and together they jumped down to the ground. Hiei was smiling slightly but the gesture vanished when Yusuke threw his shirt down and began loosening his pants.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Going for a swim, are you deaf?" Yusuke replied, stepping out of his pants.

"Is it a really hot hot spring?" Kuwabara asked.

Hiei gasped sharply as his eyes moved to Kuwabara, who was stripped to his underwear.

"Hot springs in demon world are really, really hot!" Yusuke replied, whipping off his underwear in one smooth movement.

Hiei gasped again, one hand flying over his mouth. He turned his head at an angle that would remove Yusuke from his field of vision, only to turn again when he found Kuwabara completely naked before him.

"Let's go!" Yusuke shouted, punching a fist in the air.

He and Kuwabara began scrambling over the rocks towards the faint steam cloud beyond them.

"They can be like children sometimes," Kurama commented. "You'll be joining us, won't you? You're usually the first to get into a hot spring, and the hot water will do you good in your condition."

"What condition?" Hiei asked, turning to face Kurama directly.

Kurama started to answer Hiei but stopped when Hiei let out a short, sharp scream and abruptly turned away from him again.

"Hiei?" Kurama asked. "Is everything alright?"

"Well… Um…" Hiei began, his voice suddenly an octave higher than it usually was. "It's just that… You're terribly naked now…"

"That is the best way to be for a bath," Kurama replied.

He smiled at Hiei, who was holding his head at an unnaturally high angle, his eyes watching a point in the air above the top of Kurama's head.

"We should take advantage of this opportunity to relax and get some rest," Kurama reminded him. "Join us."

"Oh, I don't think that I should really…" Hiei said awkwardly.

"You've been the most determined of us all to keep clean during this mission, so come on!"

"I think I should probably just–"

"I insist."

Kurama held a hand out towards the rocks Yusuke and Kuwabara had just disappeared over, and Hiei looked over that way, looking almost afraid of what he saw.

"Go on," Kurama insisted.

"W-well I suppose I could just dip my feet in," Hiei said quietly.

After another nod from Kurama Hiei started towards the rocks. Kurama walked along at his side and together they climbed up over the ridge, the pool beyond it coming into view. The expanse of water was substantial and Yusuke and Kuwabara had already waded a quarter of the way across it, where they were submerged up to their chests. Hiei hesitated by the edge of the water but Kurama continued, moving into the water.

"Is it very hot?" Hiei called after him. "I-it feels like it might be very hot…"

Kurama looked back over his shoulder, frowning curiously as he watched Hiei poke bandaged fingers into the water experimentally, squeaking and retracting them as the water soaked through his bandages to the skin underneath. It was not like Hiei to be so wary of hot water, but Kurama decided to just leave him be: in light of some of their more recent discussions, Kurama was not really sure that he wanted a naked Hiei in the water with him anyway.

"What's up with him?" Yusuke asked as Kurama joined him and Kuwabara.

All three turned to the water's edge, watching as Hiei carefully removed his boots, neatly folding the laces back inside and standing them on a flat rock well above the waterline. He then shuffled closer to the water's edge and prodded at the surface of the water with his toes, his face creasing at the contact.

"Hey, Hiei!" Yusuke shouted over to him. "Get in here!"

Hiei gave Yusuke a dark look from across the pool, slowly easing his feet into the shallow water before him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Yusuke snapped impatiently.

"I don't want to get into this any deeper than I already have," Hiei replied, his voice barely loud enough to reach Yusuke's ears.

"Get your clothes off and get in here!" Yusuke shouted back.

"I absolutely don't want to do that," Hiei replied, his voice still barely audible. "That would be a very bad thing to do."

"What's wrong with taking off your clothes and having a bath with us? Don't be so gay, Hiei!"

Kurama and Kuwabara exchanged confused looks behind Yusuke's back, but the mazoku failed to notice their reaction as he had already begun wading back towards the water's edge.

"I'm fine here," Hiei assured him as he drew closer.

Hiei turned his head sharply and distinctly to one side as Yusuke reached the point where the waterline no longer covered the more intimate parts of his body, but Yusuke continued regardless, only stopping when his feet were mere inches from Hiei's in the shallow waters around the edge of the pool.

"Get in the water, Hiei," he said.

Hiei shook his head, making sure to keep his eyes directed as far away from Yusuke as possible.

"What's the matter? Are you scared?" Yusuke asked, his tone becoming mocking.

"What would I be scared of?" Hiei asked.

"I get it," Yusuke said, nodding his head. "You're pissed off because we can all stand in the middle of the water but you can't because you're too short."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you're scared."

"I'm not scared."

"I think you are. I think you're pissed off that this is something Kuwabara can do easier than you can."

"That's not true."

"Scared I beat you in a swimming competition?"

"The water is too hot for that sort of behaviour."

"Scared you can't keep up with me?"

"I can keep up with you!"

Hiei stood abruptly, his head snapping around and his eyes glaring directly into Yusuke's.

"I can keep up with all of you," he added.

"So then get in here already," Yusuke said.

Hiei faltered slightly, peering down at the water.

"The water is very hot…" he muttered.

"So you are scared," Yusuke sighed.

"No."

Hiei began wading into the water, wincing and twitching as more and more of his body became submerged.

"Was that so hard?" Yusuke asked, joining him as the water reached his waist in depth.

"It's really very hot in here," Hiei quietly replied.

"That's the whole point of a hot spring, idiot," Yusuke muttered.

Hiei moved a little further before stopping with a small gasp.

"This is far enough for me," he said when Yusuke looked back over his shoulder at him.

"You're like six feet from the rest of us," Yusuke pointed out as he rejoined Kurama and Kuwabara. "Get over here and stop being so weird."

"No," Hiei replied, pointing at the waterline, which was resting midway up his chest. "I don't need to go any deeper than this."

He swiped his bandaged hands at the sides of his face to clear the sweat gathering there.

"Just leave him alone," Kurama whispered when he noticed Yusuke rolling his eyes. "He has a lot on his mind right now."

"Don't make excuses for him!" Yusuke groaned. "He's been acting weird ever since he got sick. This Rui chick had better cure him when we find her."

Yusuke turned to look at Hiei again.

"Hey Hiei, you'll let your friend Rui fix you up, right?" he asked.

"When we find Rui, I can go back to normal," Hiei quietly replied, his voice muffled and vague, his attention more focused on watching the surface of the water and wiping the sweat out of his eyes than answering Yusuke's question.

"If you take your shirt off, you won't sweat so much," Yusuke reminded him.

Hiei's entire body went still, except for his eyes, which gradually sought out Kurama, as though he needed the fox demon's approval before responding to Yusuke's suggestion.

"These waters are very soothing," Kurama reminded him, sensing that Hiei was waiting for him to say something on the matter. "And it sounds as though the worst of the infection is still in your chest, your voice is still very uneven. Taking off your shirt and letting the water at your skin is probably a good idea."

Hiei's eyes lowered and his face twitched slightly, but then he slowly dipped his hands into the water and began pulling his shirt out of his pants. The other three watched in varying degrees of bemusement as Hiei huddled his shoulders forwards and wriggled out of his shirt, ending with his arms clutched up against his chest and his shirt hanging between his hands, hiding himself from the chin downwards.

"Does that feel better?" Kurama asked him.

Hiei nodded mechanically in reply, but his eyes looked strangely vacant.

"The water helps cure illnesses?" Kuwabara asked Kurama.

"It can aid the recovery process in some cases, yes," Kurama replied.

"So it's not really his chest that needs to be in the water," Kuwabara muttered. "It's his head, since that's where he's the sickest right now…"

"Good idea," Yusuke agreed.

"What are you doing?" Kurama asked as Yusuke started towards Hiei.

Hiei clutched his shirt closer to himself and narrowed his eyes threateningly at Yusuke as he approached, but Yusuke remained cheerfully unfazed.

"You heard what Doctor Kuwabara said, three eyes," Yusuke said, stopping directly in front of Hiei. "And since your jagan eye needs fixing too, let's kill two birds with one stone here."

Hiei barely had time to draw breath before Yusuke planted a hand on the top of his head and violently pushed him down below the surface of the water. Yusuke held Hiei down for a few seconds, waving off Kurama's complaints and only letting go when he saw Hiei's shirt float to the surface. He released Hiei and grabbed his shirt, pulling it along the surface of the water and around his back out of Hiei's line of sight. Hiei surfaced abruptly, gasping desperately as though he had been under the water for much longer and not been able to breathe for several minutes rather than several seconds. His spiked hair was suddenly plastered down all around his head, the flattened ends covering his ears and eyes. His bandaged arms slapped at the water at his sides a few times before he managed to secure his feet on the bottom of the pool and stand steady once more.

"Feeling any better?" Yusuke asked him.

Hiei looked about for his shirt before suddenly noticing that the tight white vest he was wearing was wet, which made him jerk in shock, almost losing his balance and falling under the water again. He stared down at himself for a long time before his head suddenly snapped up and turned towards the water's edge. He started to wade back in that direction, and Yusuke turned to the others, grinning mischievously.

"Yusuke, he isn't well and he has a lot on his mind," Kurama reminded him. "Just leave him be."

"Yeah, he's not really my favourite person but maybe you should just let him go," Kuwabara agreed.

"You guys are no fun," Yusuke snorted.

Kurama opened his mouth to protest but stopped as Yusuke dropped under the water. He turned to Kuwabara, who was already looking at him with worried eyes.

"Let him go," Kurama said. "If he insists on tormenting Hiei, he'll just have to find out the hard way why doing so is a bad idea."

Kuwabara nodded and together they turned to watch as Yusuke swam under the surface of the water towards Hiei. Hiei remained completely oblivious to his approach, only responding with a cry of alarm when Yusuke grabbed one of his legs and pulled him under the water. After a few splashes and flashes of colour beneath the water Yusuke surfaced with a dripping wet ball of black cloth that he immediately threw as far as he could across the pool. Hiei surfaced behind him, breathless and horrified, his visible areas of skin flushed red.

"Now you just need to take off that stupid vest," Yusuke said, turning to Hiei.

Hiei's jaw opened wide and closed again, his eyes moving to the point at the other side of the pool where his pants had landed. Yusuke took a step towards him and Hiei scrambled back to maintain the same distance between them.

"Why are you trying to undress me?" he snapped.

"Don't flatter yourself, shorty, it's not like that," Yusuke replied. "I'm just doing it because it's pissing you off."

"That's a terrible reason to ever do anything to anyone!" Hiei wailed.

"It's always been easy to piss you off, but since you got sick, it's been ridiculously easy!"

Yusuke grabbed his hands at Hiei, who dropped down underwater to escape him. Yusuke's hands closed around empty air, but as he saw Hiei swim past him he smiled. He turned around and submerged himself, pushing off after him. With just one sweep of his arms he was rapidly gaining on Hiei; but as he closed in on the fire demon he briefly noticed that the water felt colder before suddenly something invisible smacked him in the face. Yusuke stopped and surfaced again, coughing up a mouthful of water he had inadvertently inhaled in shock upon the collision. He touched a hand to his nose, which was still throbbing, and as he withdrew his fingers he saw streams of blood mixed through the water running over his skin.

"Did he kick you?" Kuwabara asked, starting towards Yusuke.

"No, I didn't get close enough for that," Yusuke replied. "It was like I hit a rock."

Kuwabara peered into the water around Yusuke before shaking his head.

"I don't see any rocks," he concluded.

"It was an invisible rock," Yusuke said.

"Right… You could just admit that he kicked you, it's okay. He is a lot faster than you."

"He didn't kick me! Hey Kurama, did you see Hiei kick me… Kurama?"

Yusuke and Kuwabara looked about curiously as they suddenly noticed that Kurama had disappeared.

"This stupid mission can't get any weirder," Yusuke grumbled.

"Don't say that, Urameshi!" Kuwabara yelled, staggering back a step. "Every time you say that, it gets weirder, you just – oh my God, there's something in the water!"

"Yeah, it's about eighty-five kilos of bearded trout…" Yusuke sarcastically replied.

"It's not my fault I beard quickly, we've been on the road for days, and there is still something in the water!"

"There is not!"

"There is too!"

"Prove it!"

Kuwabara cautiously squatted down, keeping his head above the waterline and stretching an arm down to retrieve the object by his foot. He started to mutter incoherent complaints when his fingers closed around something squishy, but a biting insult from Yusuke helped him stay focused, and he straightened up again, holding up what he had recovered.

"What the hell is that?" Yusuke asked. "It looks like a stress ball."

"It's not a stress ball, it's not squishy enough for that," Kuwabara replied, squeezing the striped oval in his hand experimentally. "Wait a minute…"

He grabbed hold of the object in both hands and, after a few moments of awkward struggling, unravelled it into two items.

"A balled up pair of socks?" Yusuke muttered. "I thought even Hiei took his socks off before he got in the water, where the hell did those come from?"

"Hey, these are my socks!" Kuwabara said, his earlier apprehension giving way to anger. "These are my overnight socks I keep at Genkai's for when I stay over there!"

Yusuke snorted and rolled his eyes.

"You're a real class act, Kuwabara," he said.

"Huh?" Kuwabara echoed.

"You leave your socks on when you get in the water?" Yusuke said. "It's no wonder your feet stink."

"It's a bacterial condition!" Kuwabara yelled defensively.

"Whatever you say…"

Next Chapter: Hiei has something incredibly important to tell Kurama, but he is saved the bother of actually saying it, because Kurama has already guessed what it is – that little incident in the water sort of gave it away to a more observant fellow like Kurama. The team find a place to stay for the night, but Hiei has trouble sleeping: and upon waking he finds that he has acquired a highly convenient and multi-functional ally. Chapter 24 – Telling Nerves