Now Yusuke and the gang are trapped beneath the ceiling and it is about to crush them, as the flying monster watches in awe.
"This has always been my favorite part of the trial. Watching the way you squirm as your muscles begin to pop and tear under the ceiling's weight." The Eye Bat continuously began to mimick while watching them struggle, "But of course, the best is your eyes. Seeing the gears of thought turn in desperation, thinking, questioning yourself. How long can I hold this? Will I die this way? Will one friend betray us and escape while we flatten? Or should I be the one?"
"Just ignore that punk! Stick together!"Kuwabara tries to encourage the others that were struggling to hold the ceiling as much as they could. However, the ceiling was still lowering itself almost crushing them alive. "And if anyone tries to run I swear I'll drag them back myself!"
"And I suppose you think it'd be noble if we all died as a team." Hiei mocked.
"That's right!" Kuwabara said.
"Here's a thought. Let's shut up and find a way out!" Yusuke grunted as his eyes glanced over to see the lever the Eye Bat pulled to caught the ceiling beneath them to lower down. That's when he remembered that one of his teammates was fast enough to reach the switch.
"Hiei!" Yusuke called over the fire demon to get his attention. "You're a lot faster than any of us! We'll hold the ceiling while you go and flip the switch."
"You crazy?! We can't trust that guy! Just look! He doesn't care at all about us!" Kuwabara protested.
"Your ugly friend has a good point, detective." Said Hiei with a smirk.
Nezuko looks over at Hiei feeling her cheeks puffed out as she let out some steam. Hiei didn't care about how displeased he was to upset her by insulting Kuwabara.
"Who's ugly?! Come here your mouse!" Kuwabara exclaimed by calling Hiei a short nickname for him viewing him to be "Short".
"Are you sure you want to trust me? I've already vowed my revenge on you and your demon partner of yours. Maybe I'll handle that now."
Yusuke smirked, "Yeah, but I don't think quick deaths are your style." Hiei was completely perplexed by Yusuke's response as he sensed the power of his spirit energy rising to allow him to give it all he had to keep the ceiling from lowering down any further.
"I'll let out all of my Spirit power I have left to buy us a little time while you run to the switch. Just don't trip." Said Yusuke.
Nezuko and Yusuke looked over at Hiei desperately and he said, "We trust you. Now, go!"
Hiei gritted his teeth responding, "Right!"
So Hiei speeds out and Yusuke doubles his power to compensate Hiei's disappearance but the ceiling continues to fall, and is about to crush them in seconds. Hiei reaches the lever and is about to pull it down, but is seemingly tempted by the flying eye monster.
"What's the deal? Pull the stupid switch already!" Kuwabara shouted.
"There is no need to make snap judgments, my friend. What have they ever done for you?" The Eye Bat implied as he continued to tempt Hiei, "Leave them, and you can come with me into the castle."
"Don't you dare you to creep! If it hadn't been for our help you'd still be here screaming like the rest of us!" Kuwabara cried out. Hiei on the other hand moves away from the switch chuckling to himself. "What are you laughing about?!"
"Take a guess, you fool," Hiei said with a small grin on his face.
"Damn you!" Kuwabara gritted his teeth thinking that Yusuke made a big mistake to send Hiei to flip the switch when he really wanted was to enter the castle.
Leave his comrades behind and conquer the human world with the sacred demons. As the ceiling begins to lower down the main four were being crushed underneath its weight feeling their body go numb like jelly. Nezuko looks over at Hiei letting out a painful whine begging him to flip the switch, so they won't die like this. The eye monster reveals that the lever was trapped, which causes Hiei to react.
"Thanks for the clue!" Hiei shouted.
In a blink of an eye, Hiei flies up and slashes the flying eye monster with his sword, and pulls the lever up. When he pulled the lever, a trap was set up to be a boulder that landed on him as the others were slightly shocked as the ceiling began to stop crushing them. That's when they came out to see Hiei standing on the boulder and the Eye Bat was flying around with blood in his sight.
"Tell your masters..." Hiei starts by talking to the Eye bat. "This is their chance to beg for mercy."
Nezuko sighs tiredly, "Hey are you alright?"
"Oh yeah, I just can't feel my arms right now," Yusuke spoke up in between the two along with Nezuko returning a short nod.
Hiei jumps down as Yusuke gave him a thumbs up, "I knew you'd save us! Ya' punk."
Looking over to see Hiei pouting a little as Yusuke approached over to him firmly gripping his shoulder. He wore a smile on his face continuing to say, "But you did have me worried! Hell of a knows not everyone can pretend to laugh at their dying friends!"
"Friends are just a crutch against the weak. And I wasn't acting." Hiei protested.
"Say what?" Kuwabara was disbelieved to hear this coming from him.
"Don't confuse it. The only reason I saved you was because I might need your help." Hiei implied. He acted like he was persuaded to learn of the trap.
Nezuko genuinely smiled up at Hiei knowing that he didn't want to show his sympathy towards them only to keep it to himself.
"It's his way of saying you're welcome. You will learn." Kurama explained.
"Right," Yusuke said.
"Well, he still ticks me off," Kuwabara muttered.
"What I want to know is what that Eye Bat was saying about someone being Suzaku's bride?" Yusuke inquired.
Kurama looked over at Nezuko before speaking up, "I think...he may have been talking about Nezuko being the bride of Suzaku."
Yusuke and Kuwabara were in disbelief to think that Suzaku wanted to have Nezuko as his bride. Nezuko looked a little surprised and deadpanned in the face to hear this coming from Kurama that someone who wanted her hand in marriage was not what she expected. The fire demon behind them growls silently for them not to hear after overhearing Kurama's statement about Nezuko being the bride for that wrenched male that was sitting on his throne waiting for them to arrive.
"I can't blame him though. Nezuko would make a good bride." Yusuke lightly chuckled looking over at Nezuko who looked unflattered by his statement.
The five enter a very dark room. Just then someone creeps in, and a rock demon appears right in front of the gang. He was Genbu, one of the sacred demons that lived in the castle. He challenges everyone and swears to crush them to bits. Kurama steps forward and decides he will face the monster by himself. But unknown to him the rock demon can hide part of his rock body beneath and attack his opponents from behind, and this sneak attack surprises Kurama. However, Kurama has something up his sleeve (or his hair) and unleashes... a ROSE! seems like one hell of a counterattack, but then the rose turns into Kurama's patented weapon, the Kagon Retsuzanshi (Rose Whip), and with this, it chops Genbu off, and down he goes. Nezuko was amazed by his power as she caught one of the petals that belonged to his rose whip trying to remember when she was playing in the flower garden her mother had made with her help.
Kurama thinks he won the battle but then Genbu's separated body parts start to stick back and Genbu reforms his body, but this time he's got a new attack, and he hurls his body at Kurama making a rock storm attack.. this injures Kurama, but while this attack was unleashed Kurama sees an odd-looking rock from the storm and desperately grabs it while absorbing much of the storm's shock. Kurama goes down, and Genbu starts to reform again for his finishing blow, but then something happens. His body does not reform the way it should! Now his rock parts are all messed up, and Kurama explains that he found his source of energy, the odd-looking rock he had grabbed. Then he throws the odd-looking rock and with his rose whip slashes it to pieces, and Genbu disintegrates. Now one of the demons is gone, Yusuke and the gang start to proceed further into the castle.
The main five warriors kept moving further into the castle when their next demon was a very wild one to deal with. The demon had long black hair, pale skin, orange eyes, sharp teeth, and long, very sharp claws. As the group had to make sure that they don't come across any of them as a target. Nezuko was far away from the demon when she picked up a scent of blood coming from one of the cells that the demon appeared in. Her eyes caught a corpse of a human which she wasn't expecting to see as her mouth began to water as she stared at the corpse knowing that she was hungry to want some blood. But Nezuko couldn't allow herself to eat a human because she didn't want to hurt them.
"That ugly-ass freak show is trying to kill us!" Yusuke shouted.
Just as the demon launch himself trying to get to them they were only avoiding its sharp claw-like nails to lay a scratch on them. Not paying any mind to Nezuko was when Hiei noticed something was off about her when he saw droplets coming from her mouth falling onto the concrete.
'Is she...drooling?' Hiei thought knitting his eyebrows together as the demon tries to attack him, but it clearly missed him.
"He's so fast!" Kuwabara anxiously said.
When the demon was kicked to the side by Hiei, he looked over noticing that Kurama was aching in the gut and wasn't able to fight back. So, they decided to directly head straight for Kurama to get rid of him as he pulled out a sharp blade ready to strike.
"Kurama!" Yusuke shouted.
Kurama was still holding onto his wound from the previous fight he was in against Genbu when the demon was striking his sharp blade towards him. Suddenly, Nezuko snaps back into reality and comes in between to strike a kick to spin the demon's head into a three-sixty degree as she stood in front of the four males protectively growling and sneering at the demon. The demon she kicked was stumbling backward to land on the ground to get a few feet away from them as possible.
'S-She kicked him so hard causing his neck to spin and stay twisted.' Hiei thought quite shockingly of how strong Nezuko's kick was.
As Nezuko simmers down her possessiveness her attention drew back to the others as her expression had now softened. She approached them as they watched her raised her hands to touch one side of Kurama's cheek and the other end was Hiei's. A vision of her young siblings appeared in front of them knowing that they needed to be protected and not harmed. Hiei stared into her pink eyes to see a sign of kindness and warmth into the pupils of hers when they saw the demon's head spun around back into place.
"You brat! I'm gonna make you pay for that." The demon spatted.
Nezuko glanced over her shoulder and turned around to face the demon directly as Yusuke stared at the girl quite worried if she was capable of taking this demon on her own.
"Nezuko!" Yusuke shouted her name only to see that she wasn't listening to him.
Instead, Nezuko took a couple of steps to walk over to the demon casually when her facial change back to her dark letting out a growl with her veins popping out of the side of her head. She then runs to take charge over towards the demon as the other watched what she was going to do. Nezuko stops in front of the demon raising her leg to stomp on the demon's face really hard making a large crack on the ground forming small smoke.
"Damn. Those are some strong legs." Kuwabara said.
Nezuko noticed that the demon wasn't under her feet when she glanced over to see it was trying to stab her with a small blade. She dodged his every move and upper knees him in the gut and then grabs a fistful of his hair to throw him on the other side. Then, Nezuko charges over to the demon when she saw it trying to strike her again, but then he manages to grab her arm yanking her forward, and drew multiple punches before tossing her to the side against the wall.
"Nezuko! Get up!" Yusuke encouraged.
The demon looks over at the other four smirkings, "Now, it's time for me to finish you four off!" The demon charges straight towards them ready to pierce his weapon into them and was too excited to see their blood spilling out, or so he thought.
When they were prepared for his attack, Nezuko was back on her feet and grabs the back of the demon's ripped-up t-shirt and strongly gripped him. She let out a growl before using her strength to swing his body like a ragdoll and slam him so hard against the brick wall. The demon gurgles out blood feels something so sharp stabbed right through him that appeared to be his weapon he used to fight against Nezuko. He looks up feeling Nezuko's handgrip on his hair as he watches the girl raised her head to do a strong headbutt making him groan in pain and feeling his body just go numb and cold with the blade strike through him.
"...Whoa. That was amazing." Yusuke said bewildered.
Nezuko returns to her natural stage as she released the dead demon before meeting her gaze with the boys. She faintly smiled at them as Yusuke slightly grins at her before patting her head making her happier to see that she did what she did to protect them.
"I-I didn't think Nezuko would be this strong to take on a demon that size." Kuwabara stuttered.
"Neither did I." Kurama agreed.
Hiei was quite impressed by the girl's strength and was by far stronger than the others. Nezuko seemed to enjoy Yusuke giving her head pats that she did a good job defeating the demon on her own.
"Let's keep moving," Yusuke said.
They moved on to the next part of the castle, Kurama starts to recover from his wounds.
"Kurama, how terrible is that wound?" Yusuke inquired.
"Fine, as long as I can walk," Kurama replied.
"He'll survive but he's in no shape to fight. That means we only have four fighters left and one of them is worthless." Hiei said.
Out of nowhere Kuwabara springs out and begins showing off to the gang how strong he has gotten after being ranked third at Genkai's test.
"Hey, don't be so hard on yourself, short stuff!" Kuwabara replied with a small grin.
Yusuke quirks an eyebrow over Kuwabara, "Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I think he meant you."
"Is that so? Then maybe I should show you something!" Kuwabara said, "What in the world do you think I was doin' for the last six months while you were off training with Genkai? Letting you get better than me? Nuh-uh!" Kuwabara began to concentrate to summon out his Spirit Sword.
"Hey! Watch it!" Yusuke shielding in front of Nezuko making sure she doesn't get hit with Kuwabara's Spirit Sword.
"'Ya see what I've learned Urameshi? I don't gotta use the tip of that wooden sword to make it work anymore! It's just my pure energy!" Kuwabara proudly said. "And I bet it could kick the crap out of your Spirit gun!"
"That depends on what finger I use." Yusuke flips off Kuwabara with a poker face. Hiei smirked at Kuwabara a little impress that the weak fool wasn't showing a weak side to reveal his spirit energy.
"Well, as it turns out he's only partially worthless." Said Hiei.
"Okay, wanna die?!" Kuwabara pointed his sword over at Hiei glaring at the shorty. Hiei smirked to anger him as an amusement.
"I dare you." Hiei grinned.
Just when Kuwabara was about to step in front of him Yusuke prevented him to lay a finger on him. Nezuko grunted under her muzzle to let him know that he shouldn't hurt his teammate on this mission.
"Yeah, yeah, let him live. I'm pretty sure he'll be saying sorry after he sees what else I can do!" Kuwabara said.
Yusuke calls Botan on his communicator to query about the situation back at the human world and Botan says that things are getting pretty worse as she gets chased by another possessed person and smacks him down with her baseball bat. Kuwabara regains consciousness by the way upon seeing Botan then the place suddenly begins to crumble as the gang runs out to the clearing. There they meet the next demon they have to face, Byakko, a tiger-demon. Hiei was about to face the monster but Kuwabara breaks in and tells them that he will beat the monster with his powerful spiritual sword, and displays his power again..but even the tiger-demon Byako laughs at the puny display of energy. Byakko then summons four mini-tiger demons from his hair and the tiger confronts Kuwabara.
Kuwabara tries to attack the tigers with his sword but they are much too fast for him, as the four tigers slaughter him and Kuwabara goes down badly wounded. Yusuke begs for Kuwabara to give up the fight and let them handle the situation, but Kuwabara's pride stands up and he refuses to do so. Nezuko knew Kuwabara needed help and he denied to let them come help him fight against those creatures that were harming him. She growled as she began to charge after to help Kuwabara and Yusuke watched her run to help, but he couldn't let her do that.
"Nezuko!" Yusuke shouted her name making her stop running as she turned to face him. "Don't help out Kuwabara. He said to leave the rest to him." He stared into her pink eyes begging her not to go. "Come back to me."
Nezuko didn't go against Yusuke as she turned her heel to run, but then one of the beasts started to chase after her. The three on the other side noticed that it was coming this way towards them.
"No, Nezuko!" Yusuke protested.
In a stroke of luck, Nezuko knew that the creature was following behind her as she turned around sending a strong kick to knock it off the edge. She then approached back to Yusuke who looked puzzled after watching what she just did by showing no expression.
'Nezuko isn't afraid of anything that comes to target her. She is capable of protecting us and fighting any demon that comes in our way.' Yusuke thought as he merely smiled down at Nezuko as she stood beside to watch Kuwabara still struggling to fight those mini creatures that Byakko sent out.
Just then Kuwabara thinks of a plan and suddenly runs back to his comrades. Byakko laughs as Kuwabara finally thought of retreating, as the mini-tigers follow him straightly. But Kuwabara's plan is about to begin as he confronts the tigers, who have followed him running and has now lined up in front of him in a straight line, and there he uses his spiritual sword and makes it longer, nailing all four in one straight attack.. however, the tigers are much too powerful and they continue to force their way out of the sword, so Kuwabara to decides to give chase once again, but this time he goes round in circles and traps the four tigers around his sword, leaving them stuck for good.
Now Kuwabara confronts the now pissed Byako, and Kuwabara attempts to kick the guts out of the tiger-demon with his sword. He successfully slashes the monster, but Byako is unaffected by the hit. Kuwabara tries again and again, but Byako still is unaffected. Kurama then realizes something that Byako absorbs all the energy that Kuwabara gives off with his sword attack and in turn, Byako gets stronger and stronger as Kuwabara's energy lessens by the minute. Now we see Kuwabara's sword getting shorter, as he loses his energy continuously. But still as stubborn as he is, he again uses all the strength left from his body and unleashes another spiritual sword, and Byako again absorbs the energy from it. Now Kuwabara is down and is exhausted from losing all his energy, and Byako the tiger-demon gets stronger and stronger. Nezuko was relieved that Kuwabara wasn't hurt when figured out a way to defeat Byakko on his own so they continue this mission.