The great forest had grown silent; the plant-like demons that had previously run rampant were now nowhere to be found. The ground was covered in blood and purple ooze, several fallen demons laid across the ground, some missing limbs, and others were drawing their final breaths. There were scorch marks on a few trees and several patches of grass were burnt away. Many of the fallen bodies were covered by burns as well as deep cuts from a sword.
"Man, Hiei definitely didn't go down without a fight." Yusuke stated as he observed the after math of the recent battle. Judging from all of the scorch marks everywhere their little fire demon had put up quite a fight. But where was he exactly? They hadn't seen him amongst the dead nor had they seen him lying around injured anywhere nearby. Glancing around for a moment the tall orange haired boy stepped forward and tried to sense Hiei's spirit energy, but there was nothing except a few slight traces of it. His face looked strained as he tried harder to sense their friend's energy, but still he barely felt anything and not enough of it to pinpoint where their missing teammate was.
"I'm not sure what happened exactly, but all I can sense is slight hints of Hiei here and it seems to be moving somewhere off in the distance guys." Kuwabara replied frowning as he did so, looking at the other boys his face full of confusion and worry. He and the shrimp might not have always gotten along, but he still didn't want anything bad to happen to him. Truth be told he considered the little guy a friend, not just a teammate. Even though he was the most spiritually aware of his team he was still having trouble locking onto Hiei's spirit energy, almost like it was being masked.
"Hey, Kurama, did you happen to see where they took him?" The young leader asked as he looked at the much older red haired teammate of his. "You did say they took him right? " he questioned as he squinted his eyes not completely trusting the other, after all they were separated and this could be a trap still. He looked into the green orbs of his teammate as he questioned him, hoping to find answers and to find them soon. Kurama merely stared back his green eyes staring back into the brown orbs of Yusuke's, his concern had grown for the smaller demon's safety as well. He looked down sadly as the younger boy questioned him, His eyes seemed glassy almost as if he had wanted to cry, but they held their soulless gloss. "I am truly sorry, Yusuke, but I was unable to keep track of Hiei as we were thrown into that scuffle, I am afraid I lost his whereabouts amongst the entire ruckus. By the time I managed to get to my feet and close enough to the fray, I am afraid that both Hiei and those odd plantlike beings were gone." The elder fox demon looked down at his feet sadly and slightly ashamed, if he had been at his true power, none of this would have ever happened, but now was too late for regrets Hiei was out there and he needed their help. Kurama held his hand tightly over his still bleeding wound, wincing as he gripped it tightly still trying to stop the bleeding from earlier. He crinkled his nose slightly as it was more sensitive than the others to the deep stench of burnt leaves and the musky fresh blood that enveloped the immediate area from the battles aftermath. The longer that the three boys stood there however the more nauseating it was becoming to the three of them. Sure they had all seen things of this nature several times before, but perhaps it was the situation of one of their friends possibly being the remnants of the display of gore or something maybe potentially worse awaiting them.
'I have a bad feeling about this….' The younger dark haired boy thought quietly to himself as he looked upon the scene before him. Yusuke felt quite uneasy about the events that were currently being presented to him. This sick uneasy feeling, he couldn't seem to shake from his mind, the more and more as he gazed at the scene still searching for even the slightest of hints to show him of Hiei's current whereabouts. He could barely feel the spirit energy of the little demon at all and that worried him greatly. He was beginning to feel a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach as he thought about the possible whereabouts of his teammate. The whole thing felt uneasy and sketchy to him, not to mention that the fire demon's spirit energy was almost nonexistent. His first thoughts had been that perhaps Hiei was simply masking his whereabouts, more especially if he was severely injured…or worse dying. A large, but gentle hand placed itself upon the shoulder of the group's most young and most hot headed member, Yusuke Uremeshi. He flinched slightly a bit surprised by the kind and caring gesture of his teammate.
Kuwabara stared at him momentarily with a pair of kind eyes as he began to speak with hopes of slightly comforting the other boy. "Hey Urameshi, I am sure that the shrimp is fine and can more than take care of himself, sides he's too much of a jerk to die that easily anyways." The much taller boy tried his best to joke with the other, in hopes of easing his mind, but with his own mind racing and worrying almost as much as the other, this became a difficult task for him to do. If anything bad happened to the little fire demon, Yukina would be devastated. She had only just recently discovered his true identity as her twin brother, though she has searched for years and there he had been right under nose all along. He refused to allow that to happen, Yukina deserved to be happy and he was going to make sure that her brother came home to her. Despite their difference, Hiei and himself did have one thing in common…their love for the quaint and beautiful blue haired ice maiden. The thought of the heartbroken koorime gripped his heartstrings and threatened to rip them at their gently sewn seams. 'Don't worry, my darling, I'll bring him home to you…' The boy mused as he looked off towards the distance, scanning the area. Something in his gut told him that their friend was alive, but yet he had a sickening feeling lurking behind those thoughts. "Something is telling me that we should leave this forest guys."
" I think Kuwabara is right, Yusuke. I don't think we will find Hiei here any longer." The fox replied to the others, wincing and resting a palm over his wound. Though his body was healing, it was healing quite slow, much slower than normal, perhaps because of those strange pheromones. He was going to need time to recover; hopefully they didn't run into anymore of those things anytime soon, he was in no condition for another battle.
Meanwhile in the Spirit World
The self proclaimed 'Brave and Almighty' ruler, Koemma was busy stamping away at the vast mountains of paperwork that seemingly always piled around him, his desk, and well just everywhere…As he stamped away, George, the ever faithful ogre, came running through the large stone doors of his office, nearly tripping over several stacks of paperwork as he made his way next to Koemma's desk. He struggled carrying what appeared to be yet another large stack of paperwork. "You have got to be kidding me...I am already up to my neck in paperwork, and you bring me more, Ogre…" The mini sized god pouted and sighed as he glared at the stack being placed on his desk.
"I do apologize Koemma sir, but there appears to have been quite a large amount of deaths here quite recently." George replied setting the papers down carefully in front of Koemma.
"Well Yusuke better hurry and get that urn back! My poor stamp is nearly out of ink!" he replied in a slight uppity sounding voice as he waved his arms and stamp frantically in the air for dramatic effect. As we all know it is clearly the spirit detective's fault that he is currently surrounded by all that damn paperwork and it had nothing to do with the fact that he procrastinated a week's worth of work so he could watch his favorite cartoon marathon the other day…..
"Well there is more ink in the…"before the ogre could even finish his sentence his mini superior had clamped a toddler sized hand over his mouth.
."No! Yusuke just has to hurry, since due to your incompetence at ordering more ink for the stockroom, I am almost out of it!"He glared at his subordinate with a look that just screamed, I dare you to retort to this…He then went back to stamping his stacks of paperwork, his arm aching from the constant motion of stamping, not to mention it was way past his naptime dammit and a tired ruler was a cranky ruler.
Back in the Makai
The remaining three boys travelled out of the strange forest and continued their search for their missing companion. Another hour or two had passed since they had emerged from the woodwork and by the luck of Enma they had not encountered anymore of those odd plant-like beings, but instead they ran into several low class demons as they made their way out. There had been one S-class demon with the lower classes, but despite that fact the three boys had managed to put all the beasts down quite swiftly and soon had been back on their search. The trees of the dense forest gave way to a richly colored valley, quite large in size, with from what could be seen at their distance, a few villages spaced about, some ponds, and a large lake. Flowers of red, gold, violet, and several shades of blue flourished, covering the vast majority of the valley's ground. There was also a small river in the far distance flowing next to what appeared to be a small Kappa village, Kappa demons were well known to build their fishing villages next to rivers, so by this knowledge they assumed this was one of those villages. Everything appeared to be so normal, well normal for the Makai at least, no sign of those strange plant creatures, no gross looking purple ooze, and no sex-crazed overpowered, mutating demons roaming about.
"Perhaps this pheromone hasn't reached this far into the Makai yet?" Kurama thought out loud scratching his head with a long fingernail and scanning the area for signs of the pheromone. So far so good, he guessed as he examined a few local plants that were nearby. They appeared to be uninfected at least from first glance, so it would appear that they were in luck at least for now, no mutations, just normalcy.
"So I thought this pheromone thing was suppose to create a bunch of sex-crazed super demons? So far all I've seen are some over grown weeds and a weak band of morons…." Yusuke stated jokingly, an attempt to lighten the somewhat grim and desolate mood clouding the vicinity, despite being just as worried as everyone else around him about their friend's unfortunate disappearance.
"Maybe they're all….you know…getting busy?" The taller, gingery haired boy commented in response to the other, not really attempting to be funny, but more or less being logical, despite his efforts however, he got a small chuckle from both Yusuke and Kurama. They both looked at him oddly each cracking a small, but apparent smile at the taller boy. "What?! That's what mating season is all about, right?!"
"Yes, you are quite right, Kuwabara." The fox smiled a little wider at the other and for this moment things felt almost normal, almost as if they were all back home in the human world.
BACK IN THE HUMAN WORLD
Keiko ran, her heart racing at an alarming and painful pace, her lungs screaming at her, as they attempted to catch breath, she was angry, no….scratch that…she was beyond anger, she was pissed. To make things worse, her anger was laced with an intense worry, which only fueled her rage at her newly learned knowledge (thanks to Yusuke's mom) that Yusuke had once again left on a dangerous mission without so much as a single goodbye or mild warning. Pushing several long brown strands of her hair that had fallen from her loose pony tail, from her sweat moistened face, the young girl scaled the vast amount of steps that led to Genkai's temple, taking two to three at a time in her stride. The calves and thighs of her legs burned with intensity with every step they mastered. As she finally neared the top, what waited at the end of that nearly endless staircase caused a startled scream to escape from her lips and she felt close to faint. The usually neatly kept and orderly temple of the spirit wave's master was sickening. Everything was in crazy disarray, littered by mass amounts of broken concrete and other debris, blood splattered across nearly the entirety of the temple grounds, splotching across as a form of imaginative art. The putrid smell of death quickly assaulted her nostril's sense of smell, causing her stomach to up churn and she felt an immense need to vomit, but managed to hold her bearings. Quickly she scanned the area with her eyes for its source and upon its discovery she released a small sigh of relief. Two large ogre like demons laid face down in pools of dark red blood, the heavy burns across their bodies gave her indication that perhaps they had a run in with Genkai's legendary spirit wave. Much more relieving to her was the sight sitting on the porch of Genkai's home, the master herself and the young ice maiden, Yukina. The small, elderly woman, Genkai was sitting in her favorite wooden chair as the beautiful and soft spoken Koorime, was pouring her some green tea from a snow white tea kettle into Genkai's blue shaded tea cup.
"Genkai! Yukina! I am so glad the two of you are okay! What happened here?!" She said as she happily ran towards them greatly relieved they were unharmed. "When I saw all the blood, I became very worried something terrible had happened to the two of you."
"I may be old, but I am by no means decrepit or helpless…."The ever cranky Genkai replied as she lifted the cigarette in her left hand to her mouth and took a few long drags from it. Straggly strands of faded pink hair cradled her face as an old ragged mop would, around her worn face, the wind lightly blowing those strands to and fro. She may not be as young as she used to be, but she was one tough cookie and could more than hold her on in a fight. The prior fight's events had merely been a warm up for the old coot, she was quite disappointed that it had ended so quickly. "I am assuming that you had come here to inquire about our favorite dimwit." This had been more of a question than a statement to the young girl as she sipped from her freshly poured tea, steam rising from the tiny blue cup.
Keiko stood there momentarily before responding, shuffling her feet a bit nervously, no longer angry at the dark haired delinquent. Her eyes watering up with a great worry, she couldn't shake this foreboding feeling of darkness she had begun to feel. "Yes, his mother had told me he had left on another mission and I became concerned…"
The much older woman smiled a small but kind smile, the dimwit was lucky to have such a caring girl at his side and that put up with all his shit. Despite the mild kind dipped smile, her voice was quite gruff sounding as usual. "I am sure that the dimwit is fine. Though I am not positive what or where his mission is I am almost certain it has something to do with the mass amounts of demons that have been passing through recently. For now I suggest you remain at the temple with Yukina and I until the situation is resolved.
Keiko nodded to the elderly woman in agreement and sat down beside the two women on the small porch. "Would you like some tea, Miss Keiko?" Yukina asked kindly and smiled her usual sweet smile as she offered the brunette a cup of tea to calm her nerves, which she of course graciously accepted. Once she had finished serving the guest she picked up her own cup of hot tea, taking a few sips of it. "Don't worry, brother won't allow anything to happen to any of our friends, and Kazuma is there as well as Kurama.
Taking a small sip of her own tea, Keiko nodded and instantly felt a sense of guilt wash over her. She had forgotten that Hiei had gone with them as well, she was sure Yukina must be worried greatly about her twin. "I'm sorry Yukina, I didn't mean to come off insensitive, I am sure you are worried about Hiei and the others, You're right though, our boys will be fine, they can handle themselves. I'm sure they'll be back in time for dinner. Genkai watched the other two women a moment before rising from her chair to leave. She faced away from them, her back facing to the porch as she began to walk away. They had every reason to worry. She had lied to the girls, when she said she was in the dark about this whole ordeal…the ferry girl, Botan, had come to see her three days prior to Yusuke leaving. She warned her of what was to come and to make preparations; she hadn't wanted to worry the girls even more than they already were so she had opted to keep the two in the dark about this whole mess. She walked away down the steps of her temple grounds, she had work to do, and not a lot of time to do it in.