Locked Up

[Five]

by Lori McDonald







The walls of the prison were made of old stone, older than the human world and thick as a mountain. Dark gray and chiseled, nothing grew on or around them, and the metal which formed the great doors leading inside were ten feet thick at least, flanked by pillars that rose a thousand feet high, as tall as the doors themselves.


Just inside waited an atrium the size of a small town, filled with pillars to hold up the roof and a hundred gates leading to the different wings of the prison, all assigned to hold different types of prisoners. The center of the atrium held a desk, the computer on it looking odd next to the sheer age and solidity of everything else around it.


The demon working at the desk looked up as the main gates opened, since they did so only when prisoners were brought in, or, more infrequently, when they left. Through them came a dozen Reikai guards, bearing with them two prisoners, and two civilians who walked to one side and looking around nervously. The prisoners didn’t look up at all.


The clerk waited patiently for them, checking through his computer for the crimes of the two prisoners as he did so. Kurama and Hiei. A Fox spirit and a Fire demon, both previously Reikai detectives. He raised an eyebrow at that. The fox was to be incarcerated for revealing his powers publicly in the Ningenkai, as well as for past misdeeds which breaking his parole meant he now had to face. The koorime had murdered a human before his time, and thereby broke his own parole. The clerk nodded, finding the proper cell space for each of them. They would be in the prison for a very long time indeed.


The soldiers marched up, two each holding the prisoners up by their arms. Both the demons were pale and glassy eyed, their bodies wrapped in the wards that would hold in their powers until their time was served. Neither of them used to the restraints, they seemed to barely know where they were as the clerk stood.


"Take the koorime to the 456th level, eastern wing," he ordered. "The kitsune is to go to the 14th, south wing." He sat again as the soldiers nodded and started off in separate directions.


"Wait!"


Surprised, the clerk looked up at one of the two civilians who’d accompanied the prisoners; a strange thing to have happen to begin with. "What do you mean, wait?"


The human, his hair slicked back and his huge eyes narrowed, glared at him. "Why are you separating them??" he snapped. His big, orange-haired companion looked like he was trying to grind his teeth into stubs.


The clerk blinked. "The crimes committed are different. They belong in different sections."


The human clenched his fist. "You can’t do that! It’s not fair!"


He laughed. "This is a prison! Who said anything had to be fair?"


The soldiers, who had paused, started off again until the human abruptly lunged across the table at him, grabbing the clerk by his shirt and pulling him close. "Call Koenma," he growled.


The clerk eeped and the soldiers started to rush back, only to find the big human in their way, grinning at them eagerly. "Don’t want to fight the Great Kuwabara Kazuma, do you?" he taunted. They looked at each other and lowered their spears at him. A sword of energy appeared in the human’s hand.


"Call Koenma!" the first human repeated. "Or Kuwabara will turn your soldiers into lunch meat! See if HE wants Hiei and Kurama separated!"


Shivering at the look in his eyes, the clerk picked up the phone.


A minute later, he lowered it with a frown. "Take both of the prisoners to the 456th level, eastern wing," he ordered. "Give them the same cell."


"All right!" the two humans crowded, slapping hands.


The soldiers looked at the clerk curiously. He waved his hand at them irritably and they started off again, this time in the same direction.


"Wait!"


The clerk spun. "What is it now??"


"We have to say goodbye."


Hating it, Yuusuke knelt down before Kurama where he hung between the two soldiers and cupped his friend’s cheeks, lifting his face up. "Kurama?"


Kurama didn’t answer and he brushed his limp red hair back from his pale face, his fingers tingling from the feel of the ward around his throat. It was only one of the near dozen the kitsune had been wrapped in, and Hiei had nearly twice that number. "Can you hear me?"


Slowly, Kurama’s eyes focused on him and the kitsune swallowed. "Yuusuke?" he whispered.


"Yeah," Yuusuke told him, forcing a grin. "We got the guards to let you and Hiei have the same cell. Figured you’d like the company."


Kurama took a few moments to digest and understand that, then he smiled back. It was just a ghost of the expressions his face used to take and Yuusuke felt like pounding something until it was dust for what his friends were going through. "Arigato," he whispered.


Yuusuke swallowed, leaning close. "Kuwabara and I are gonna do everything we can to get you and Hiei out of here, okay? Just put up with it until we manage to knock some sense into Koenma’s head."


"That’s enough," the clerk called. "This isn’t a social spot."


Yuusuke glared at him, but stood quickly, angry that he wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Hiei. The fire demon, he saw, was as lethargic as Kurama, hanging in his captors grip but with the energy to growl at Kuwabara. He was still growling as he was carried past, his feet not even touching the floor.


"Miserable little jerk," Kuwabara muttered over Yuusuke’s shoulder as he watched two of his closest friends taken through iron gates that closed behind them with a boom. "Bit me when I tried to be nice to him." He watched the gates close as well. "I’m gonna miss him."


Yuusuke nodded. So would he.


Their cell was eight feet by eight feet, with two narrow beds and a hole for waste. One wall was replaced by bars and a door from floor to ceiling and the opposite had an equally barred window in it. It overlooked the barren plain more than four hundred floors below and the river Styx. Clouds drifted idly by beneath their window.


Kurama and Hiei didn’t really notice their surroundings, their bodies still trying to adjust to losing their ki. Left with only enough to power their hearts and bodies, they slept through most of their first few hours in the jail, only waking briefly as other prisoners routinely trooped by, yelling and taunting. The guards left them alone through the adjustment, leaving only water for them since long experience said the two would be somnalescent and uninterested in anything for the first few hours. It would take them that long to adjust, and until then, none of the guards were sadistic enough to throw them in with the general population of the prison. Safe in their cell, the two demons slept.


Noting the new arrivals, prisoners on their way to eat or exercise looked in at the two, seeing nothing more than red and black hair under the blankets. One prisoner, however, whistled, recognizing the white starburst in the black tangle of spikes. "Do you know who that is?" he whispered, nudging the demon in front of him.


"No," the other grumbled.


He grinned. "That’s Hiei. He’s Mukuro’s heir and the winner of the Ankoku Bujuutukai tournament." He chuckled wickedly. "This is going to be interesting."


Hiei woke up first, forcing his consciousness to resist the effects of the wards through sheer willpower. Lifting his head, he looked around at the barren cell that would be his prison for the next however long and a bitter line appeared on his brow. This was not what he’d struggled to be the best for so long to achieve. This was not what he’d planned for his destiny.


He regarded the fox sleeping in the other cot. It would be so easy to blame him for this whole mess. Blame him for being stalked by the demon which wanted to destroy them all first. For having no choice but to use his powers publicly if he was to survive. For being injured and captured by humans who pried his secrets out of him. It would be so simple to blame him for Hiei’s own capture beside him.


Kurama lay on his belly, his hands clutching the rough sheets of his cot tightly, his once brilliant red hair limp and lifeless around his pale face. His breath went in and out with little whimpers as his eyes moved fast beneath the lids, trapped in nightmare. He looked completely helpless, completely human.


Hiei couldn’t blame him, not if they both were trapped there for a thousand years. The fox was his soul. The little fire demon grimaced at that truth, still annoyed by it, but it was there. Eternity in a cell with Kurama was better than an eternity of freedom without him.


Slowly, laboriously, the little koorime dragged himself out of his bed, the wards wrapped around his body feeling like hundred pound weights to him as he struggled across the intervening space. With great effort, he crawled over the fox and collapsed between him and the wall. His arm trembled with weariness and an emotion he couldn’t name as he wrapped it around the lover he’d had only once but wanted forever. Moments later, he was asleep.


Irritated and followed by an equally annoyed Kuwabara, Yuusuke pushed past a protesting George and into Koenma’s office. The toddler looked up in irritation, his hand holding a stamp poised above a sheet of paper about to join the stacks that filled the room.


"Can’t you knock?" he asked around his pacifier.


Yuusuke stomped across the room and slammed both hands down on the desk, knocking over Koenma’s carefully stacked piles. "Why did you send Kurama and Hiei to prison?" he demanded.


Koenma glared at him. "Because they broke the rules! They both broke their parole and they both knew if they did that they’d have all previous charges brought back against them, as well as the new ones. They’re lucky they weren’t tossed into the abyss."


Yuusuke wasn’t happy with that. "They had no choice and you know it."


"They’re your friends!" Kuwabara added loudly. "Locking them up is a really rotten thing to do!"


"There are rules!" Koenma shouted back, his voice deep in spite of the round baby face. "Do you think I don’t know they’re my friends?? But I have to obey the rules! I don’t have any choice!"


"But you’re a God!"


"Who doesn’t rule!" He sagged. "Enma Diaoh does. He sentenced them, not me. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen."


Yuusuke pushed away from the desk. "Then I’ll just have to take this up with Enma Diaoh, won’t I?" he retorted and stomped his way to the door and out, a growling Kuwabara loyally behind him.


Koenma watched them go and sighed, silently wishing them all the luck in the world, even as he returned to his own job of undoing the damage the two demons had unwittingly caused in the Ningenkai.


News spread through the prison about the new prisoner. Not the redhead. No one knew or cared who he was, but that white starburst in spiky black hair was too well known. Whispers of Hiei circled through the prison, accompanied by laughter, insults and desires for revenge or avoidance.


And for one resident, it brought hunger.


Angry, Mukuro stormed into Enma Diaoh’s palace, headed towards Koenma’s office. A demon who got in her way ended up imbedded in the nearest wall and the rest meekly kept clear as she kicked the toddler’s door right off the hinges and stormed in.


"Why is my heir in a prison??" she demanded in a rage.


Koenma looked up at the ruler of a third of the Makai and sighed. "Because he broke the terms of his parole," he told her. "So Enma Diaoh sent him there."


"I don’t give a DAMN about any stupid parole! I want him back!"


He leaned back. "Then take it up with Enma Diaoh. I don’t have any authority in this case."


The woman glared at him darkly, searching for lies in his face, then spun. "Fine," she retorted and stormed back out, leaving the door hanging half off its hinges.


Koenma breathed a sigh of relief that she was gone and hoped his father wouldn’t blame him for getting so many unexpected visitors.


Humming to herself, Botan appeared in an office in the Ningenkai, seated on her oar as she looked around. It was empty, as she’d been able to sense, and she landed, hopping off her oar and sending it straight into hammer space. She didn’t want to make the same mistake of not doing so and having it taken from her if she were caught again.


"So, this is Imadate Satoshi’s office, is it?" she murmured to herself as she made her way over to the file cabinet. It was locked, but a quick spell opened it for her. Hunting through, she started looking for files on Hiei and Kurama, only to her surprise, there didn’t appear to be any.


Botan frowned delicately and checked the computer files. Nothing. As far as this place was concerned, no demons were ever brought through it.


She scratched her head. That didn’t make a lot of sense, but maybe someone else had already come through and cleared the information out. Summoning her oar, she headed back to Koenma to report.


Bored, Yuusuke slouched on a bench outside Enma Diaoh’s office next to Kuwabara. "How long we been here?" he whined.


"Dunno," Kuwabara groaned. "But the Great Kuwabara Kazuma was NOT made to wait in lobbies. They don’t even have any decent magazines to read out here!"


Yuusuke looked towards the huge doors leading into Enma Diaoh’s office. There was a glowing counter above it. Now Serving Number 24, it read. He looked at the ticket he held.


843.


Yuusuke groaned. It was going to be a long wait.


Slowly, Kurama opened his eyes, wondering where he was, only to see great, slavering jaws grinning at him. With a yelp, he threw himself backwards, almost flattening Hiei against the wall behind him, and gaped around him. He was in a tiny cell with two beds and a barred window. A demon grinned toothily at him through the bars replacing the inner wall.


"Welcome to the Reikai prison," the demon drooled.


"Um, thanks," Kurama mentioned and pushed farther away from it, until he felt something small and irritated bite him sharply in the back.


"OW!"


"Get off me, you stupid fox!" Hiei yelled.


Kurama hit the floor with an oof, remembering that he was now an official prisoner of the Spirit World for who knew how long, along with Hiei. The demon, easily an S-class, reached through the bar, its thick fingers fumbling through his hair. "Yer pretty…"


Kurama scrambled away. "Um, thanks." He looked at Hiei. "You okay?"


The little Koorime glared at him, readjusting his jaw. "Other than feeling squished I am." He glared at the demon grinning at them both. "Fuck off or die."


The demon shuffled away. "Hiei," he slurred. "You’re Hiei. It’ll like you."


Kurama watched him go. "What was that supposed to mean?"


Hiei just frowned, then got off his bed and went to the window, climbing up onto the sill to peer outside. Kurama looked at the bed he’d left, then at its twin, with one mussed blanket. He didn’t remember much about being brought here, but he did remember being dumped in separate beds.


"Did you climb into bed with me, Hiei?" he grinned.


"We’re here and you think of that? Stupid fox."


Kurama shrugged. It was better than thinking of the alternative, which was eternal imprisonment. Going to the front of their cell, he peered out. Cell doors dotted each side of the immensely long stone corridor outside, alternated along the wall so they didn’t have to have neighbours right across the hall staring into their cell. Kurama listened to the moans and curses, and other sounds he was afraid to identify and shuddered. "I don’t like this," he whispered.


"Get used to it," Hiei snapped uncharitably.


Kurama dropped down to sit on his bed. He was a fox, a wild spirit. He had always been free. He wasn’t sure he could get used to a cell.


"That’s it! I’ve had enough of this! I, the Great Kuwabara Kazuma, am NOT going to wait for someone else’s convenience!"


Yuusuke grabbed his friend’s sleeve and pulled him down as he tried to stand. "Knock it off," he ordered. "If we piss Enma off, we’ll never get the others out of here."


Kuwabara glared at him. "Since when are you a diplomat?"


Yuusuke glared right back. "Will you just listen to me for once?"


"No! You’re behaving like a coward!"


Things were about to progress to their usual fistfight when the far door boomed open and Mukuro stormed in. She pushed past the clerk who tried to hand her a number and went straight to the office doors. Throwing them open, she marched into Enma Diaoh’s audience.


"Now SHE knows how not to wait!" Kuwabara laughed.


A second later, there was a massive explosion and Mukuro flew backwards out of the office, impacting several inches deep into the wall on the other side of the waiting room. The two boys stared at her as she crumpled forward, stunned, and a clerk shuffled over to drop a number on her.


Yuusuke looked back at his friend. "Now, what was that you were saying about not needing diplomacy?"


Lunch was unidentifiable.


Frowning, Hiei stared at the gray mass that had just been glopped onto his tray. Along with Kurama, he was standing in line in a mess hall the size of a Ningenkai football field, stone tables and benches stretching from one end to the other and filled with growling, whining, slobbering and complaining demons of every description. Each and every one of them was warded, some more than others.


Just ahead of him, Kurama was staring wide eyed at the pink lump that had been dropped on his tray to join the gray mass, his brilliant red hair the only bright spot in the entire room to Hiei. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The demon ahead of him leered at the kitsune, his long horns curving around his scarred, poc-marked skull. "Pretty," he murmured. Kurama looked ill, at him and the food both.


Much as Hiei preferred to keep his feelings private, there was one thing he’d learned in his life. When one was in an environment where the strongest ruled, one laid claim to what one wanted to keep and fought for it, or it would be gone. Swinging his tray, he launched it edge first into the demon’s face.


Food flew everywhere, soaking Kurama as he leaped back and the demon howled, his nose broken. Hiei had been aiming to drive the bone of it straight into his brain, but he had to settle for the mass bleeding of his nose as he leaped at him, kicking him squarely in the side of his knee. It gave a most satisfying crack and the demon went down with a howl.


Two seconds later, the guards hit him in a flying tackle and threw him to the ground, piling more wards on him before dragging him up and hauling him off to solitary for the rest of the day. Hiei just smirked. He’d made his point.


"WHAT DO YOU WANT, URAMESHI YUUSUKE?"


Rubbing his ears, Yuusuke looked up at Enma Diaoh, the God of death. "We want Hiei and Kurama released!" he yelled.


"WHY?"


Yuusuke shot a look at Kuwabara, wondering if he should have planned his speech ahead more. "Um, neither of them have done anything to warrant the punishment they got."


More than twelve feet tall with a bushy black beard and a bizarre looking hat, Enma stared down at them. Yuusuke was usually a pretty cocky teenager, but this guy intimidated him something awful. Kuwabara was uncharacteristically quiet beside him.


YOU DEFEND THOSE WHO DO NOT NEED YOUR HELP. YOU HAVE NO INVOLVEMENT IN THIS MATTER."


"They’re our friends, and it was self defense!" Yuusuke protested. "Were they supposed to die instead?"


Enma didn’t answer.


Koenma was busily processing new souls and sucking on his fuukuman when the door burst open and Botan rushed in, followed by a nervously hand-wringing George.


"KOENMA!" she screeched.


The toddler glared at her even as George started whining that it wasn’t his fault, she’d just burst in without making an appointment. "What is it?"


The blue-haired ferry girl looked half excited, half confused. "Koenma, I was just in the Ningenkai, covering up the evidence of Hiei and Kurama and-"


"Did you get it all?" Koenma asked as he stamped another document. Maybe if they got rid of all traces of what the two demons had done, his father would let them go.


"Well, no…"


He sucked furiously, glaring at her. George moaned. "Why not?"


She scratched her head, looking confused. "Because there wasn’t any."


"Excuse me?"


"There wasn’t any." Botan shrugged and fingered her oar. "As far as the Ningenkai is concerned, the whole thing never happened. No one remembers it and there are no records."


Koenma stared at her. The memories of an entire world changed? How? Why? He hadn’t done it, he couldn’t do it, so who had? Only a full God could even attempt that sort of mass manipulation and pull it off, and the only God he could think of who showed even the slightest interest in the situation was Enma Diaoh.


The junior god leaned back in his chair and stared at his lead ferrygirl in total bafflement, as confused as she was. Why in all the worlds would Enma Diaoh clean up such a massive mistake without telling anyone about it, even his own son? And more importantly, why would he send two demons who were on his side to prison for it?


Koenma started thinking furiously. He had no proof of what his father was up to, but he definitely didn’t like the possibilities.


Hiei was sitting in the windowsill, staring out through the bars at the clouds below. Kurama had given up on looking outside, knowing it would only depress him, but he watched Hiei. His little fire demon. His. They were lovers already, for all he couldn’t remember it, and there was no doubting Hiei had laid claim to him in this terrible place. Kurama watched him. It was the only good thing to happen in here.


"Hiei?" he called softly through the darkness. The torches had been doused for the night, everyone in the cells flanking theirs asleep. Only the moon framing Hiei made him visible.


"Hn?"


Kurama swallowed his nervousness. "Are you coming to bed, Hiei?"


The koorime snorted. "What for? I can’t sleep."


He swallowed again. "I don’t want you to."


Hiei turned, looking at him for a long moment. Kurama thought for sure he was going to turn away again, or grunt or laugh. Instead, the koorime hopped down into the darkness of their cell and Kurama heard cloth rustle before his warm, bare little body slipped into his cot with him, forsaking his own.


Together, they proved there can be a touch of paradise in hell.


Because the Reikai guards of the prison were all diurnal, the prison kept a day schedule, in spite of the large percentage of prisoners there who were nocturnal instead. At night, the majority of staff went home as well, leaving the prisoners locked in their cells until morning, trusting to wards and the night crew to keep everything under control.


Which was why Kurama was more than a little surprised to be woken up by the sound of a heavily warded Oni prisoner opening his and Hiei’s cell door. Sated by their lovemaking, he barely responded to it until the demon was looming over them, grinning.


"Hey, there," he hissed.


Kurama started, even as he felt Hiei stiffen in his arms, then leap out of them. He was nowhere near as fast as he used to be, but he was fast enough to catch the Oni in a solid punch to the gut. The demon grunted and went down.


"Is that any way to treat your new best friends?" a second voice asked sweetly from the doorway.


Hiei glared at the long haired female who stood there, swishing her thick tail. "I have no friends."


"Is that why you were all entangled with your cellmate when we woke you?" she purred.


Kurama blushed. "What do you want?" he asked.


She walked into the cell, smiling. She wore wards on both arms and legs and he could see at the opening into her top that they were wrapped around her chest as well. "To invite you to a party."


Keeping firmly between her and Kurama and ignoring his own nudity even as the fox kept their pathetic blanket wrapped around himself, Hiei watched the demon. She was beautiful, in a cold sort of way, her hair and skin made up of shades of blue, her body muscled for all its thinness. "What kind?" he growled.


She nodded behind her at the corridor outside her cell. Other prisoners were making their way down it furtively, as silent as they could, and as quick. "Just one of our usual get-togethers. All the inmates are invited."


Kurama’s eyes narrowed. There was something mocking in her voice and he knew Hiei could hear it too, but they were going to be here a long time. No matter how well either of them could fight, they wouldn’t survive if they didn’t earn at least the minimal respect needed from their fellow prisoners. He reached down to pick up his discarded clothes from the floor. More demons were trooping quietly past their cell. The whole floor seemed to be moving. "All right."


She smirked. "I’ll wait for you."


Hiei glared at his lover. "What are you doing?"


"Making allies." Kurama pulled on his pants. "You want to fight the entire floor?" The Koorime looked like he was about to say yes. "Hiei, I don’t want to make things here even worse by alienating everyone who could be our friend."


Hiei frowned, but yanked on his trousers and boots anyway. "Don’t need any friends other than you," he mumbled.


Kurama smiled.


Confused, Yuusuke and Kuwabara stood outside Kurama’s high school and stared at the students going in and out of the perfectly intact building.


Yuusuke looked at his friend. "What’s wrong with this picture?"


Kuwabara frowned. "The building should be half in ruins."


"No kidding." Yuusuke started towards it, hoping he didn’t stand out too much in his green school uniform among all the pink ones everyone at Kurama’s high school wore. Dressed in navy blue, Kuwabara followed.


Koenma hadn’t been able to tell them much, just that there seemed to be some kind of cover up going on and he didn’t know why. But he wanted them to check it out and the school that had been in ruins from a demon attack only two days before was a sure sign he was right.


Yuusuke went up to a group of girls, figuring that if anyone had any information on Kurama, it would be his fanclub. "Hey," he called to them and they all looked towards him, giggling. "Have any of you seen a Minamino Shuuichi?"


In the resultant giggling and babbling, he managed to piece together that Kurama hadn’t been at school for the past few days, which was obvious, but as far as they were all concerned, he had a cold, or something else innocuous. They were all starting in on how they were planning to take him soup, flowers, cards and more when he managed to extract himself.


"Well, it’s definitely a cover up."


Kuwabara frowned. "Doesn’t make any sense at all."


It really didn’t. There was no reason Yuusuke could think of for his friends having been sent to the Raikai prison, especially since it now seemed to be for a crime they had no longer committed. Confused, the two boys headed towards Kurama’s house, to see if his mother remembered that they’d told her that her son was a fox spirit.


Hiei didn’t trust this situation one bit. Not that he was a great believer in following the rules - he never would have been on parole with the spiritual detectives if he were - but this just seemed wrong. More than a hundred demons were out of their cells and grouping in the mess hall, and there was not one sign of a guard.


"And they do this on a regular basis?" Kurama whispered. "How do they pull it off?"


The little koorime shrugged, struggling to see around the demons all about them and hating that he was too short to. Grabbing Kurama’s hand, he dragged him along behind him as he made his way over to one of the tables. Standing on top gave him a much better viewpoint, especially when he shoved the oni who’d been sharing it with him off.


The demons in the mess hall were pushing towards the back wall, which was actually open. Hiei saw heads descending and guessed they were using stairs heading down.


"Ready for some fun?" the youko who’d released them chuckled.


Hiei glared down at her. "Where are they going?"


"Oh, under the prison."


They were on the 456th floor. And they could get down underneath the prison without being detected? Hiei’s eyebrows raised in respect. This could be very interesting indeed.


Yuusuke frowned, standing on the walk outside Kurama’s mother’s house.


"You think she’ll remember what we told her about Kurama?" Kuwabara asked.


"At this point, I have no idea." They’d told Koenma what they’d learned so far, and coupled with what Botan hadn’t been able to find, the young god was trying to get an interview to see his father. When they left to go talk to Minamino Shiori, he’d been 449850th in line, and his father was talking to number 3.


Bracing themselves, the two boys went up to the door and rang. Footsteps sounded inside and Shiori opened the door. "Ohayo," she called softly.


"Ohayo, Minamino-san," they both bowed.


"Can I do something for you boys?"


Yuusuke watched her intently. "Do you remember us telling you that your son is a 400 year old reincarnated fox spirit?"


She blinked, looking puzzled. "I remember… something…" She shook her head and smiled at her. "Shuuichi is away on a school trip, boys. I’m afraid he isn’t here to play with you right now."


Kuwabara gaped at her with his mouth hanging open while Yuusuke stammered a goodbye and dragged him away. "She forgot??"


Yuusuke sighed. "Looks like it."


"What do we do now?"


"Go tell Koenma."


"Then what?"


"Try and get in to see Enma Diaoh sometime before the turn of the next millenia."


Apparently, the prisoners were going far under the prison. Kurama counted them as being at least 50 floors under the ground, shuffling along in single file on a worn staircase that spiraled downward, the walls illuminated by a dully growing gray moss. By habit, he took some and tucked it in his hair and went back to listening to his little fire demon talk with Chacha, the demon who’d let them out of the cell. They were the only ones in the press of prisoners who were, but none one else seemed to be listening.


"What’s going to happen?" Hiei growled, his head bobbing a few steps before Kurama, and looking even smaller than usual.


Chacha glanced back over her shoulder at him from even farther ahead. She was almost entirely in shadow, always just at the edge of the corner as she followed the spiraling staircase down. Kurama wasn’t looking forward to climbing back up all that way later.


"You’ll see."


"Why not tell us now?"


Her smile was cold. "Because we’re not entirely sure you’re not spies for Enma Diaoh," she laughed. "Not yet anyway. He’s tried to put spies in among us before, and we know you two were spiritual detectives."


Kurama blinked, wondering what happened to the spies, then decided he could guess. "Do you think we are?"


She shrugged. "I can’t believe Enma would be so damned obvious, but who knows." Her grin widened. "We’ll know for sure soon." She turned her back on them and kept walking. Hiei glanced up at Kurama, but there wasn’t anything he could say to him that wouldn’t be overheard, so they just kept going down.


Kurama was starting to feel positively claustrophobic when the stairs finally opened up into a cavern under the prison so huge he couldn’t see the far side or the ceiling. Moss grew sporadically up there, though, giving the effect of stars and a huge lake lapped before them. Chacha stretched luxuriously. "Finally." Some of the demons were spreading out, using flint and tinder to light torches on poles arrayed around the wide bank before the lake, but most of them just ambled around or stood there, pushed forward by the others as they came down the stairs. A few started to wade into the water. Kurama shivered, cold.


Hiei touched his side. "Kurama," he whispered. "Look at everyone."


Kurama looked and hissed in his breath as he realized that the majority of the prisoners were shambling around as though they were half dead, or asleep. He shot a look at Chacha. "What’s wrong with them?" he asked, but she just smiled and gestured for them to follow her. Exchanging glances, the two did.


She led them to an alcove in the wall, a few hundred meters from the opening to the stairs. In it sat a demon who was withered and old, shivering slightly as he looked up at them.


"This is Zalg," Chacha told them. "He’s been here so long that no one above even remembers him anymore. He’s quite useful to us. You see, his wards were faulty and they fell off centuries ago. He’s a telepath."


Kurama tried to pull back, but suddenly felt a force slam into him that froze him in place, Hiei locked beside him. Raging cold flowed into him, and then Zalg was in his mind, sifting through his memories. Kurama relived in seconds his entire life as a youko, his death, rebirth in Minamino Shuuichi and life as a human, as well as his time as a Spiritual Detective. Zalg tore through his recollection of everything that happened to bring him to the prison, while tears slid down the foxes face, then pulled away, leaving him feeling raw and violated and still frozen.


"They’re not spies," Zalg squeaked, his voice like a rusty gate. "Do you want their minds locked down like the others?"


Chacha seemed to consider that while Kurama realized what he’d meant. All those shuffling demons on the bank had gone through this, and every one of them had been programmed to turn into helpless zombies whenever Chacha and others like her brought them down here. He started to panic as she shrugged.


"Lock down the kitsune. Leave the koorime as he is, at least for now."


"As you wish," Zalg squeaked and everything inside Kurama’s head exploded.


Hiei dropped to his knees, gasping in reaction to the mental probe. Everything that was most private to him had been peeled away and he snarled at the telepath, trying to summon the ki to destroy him. Immediately the wards flashed and he convulsed in pain.


Chacha laughed. "You don’t want to do that, Hiei. You know as well as I do how much it hurts."


Hiei hissed up at her. "What was that for??"


"To see if you were a spy," she smiled. "Now that we know you’re not, you’re welcome to our little community."


Hiei was about to tell her what she could do with her little community when he saw Kurama shuffling away from them, going to join the other demons who were congregating in even greater numbers on the edge of the lake. "Fox? Kurama!" He ran after him, hating that he was no faster now than a ningen and grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"


Blank eyes looked down at him. Hiei was so startled he let go and Kurama shuffled in among the crowd.


"Why don’t you come meet the other leaders?" Chacha purred from behind him.


Hiei spun on her. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM??"


She blinked. "Who, the kitsune?"


"YES!" His fingers clenched into fists.


"Don’t worry, the spell will only affect him down here. We can’t have several hundred low class demons thinking that maybe they should run things. He’ll be himself again once he’s upstairs."


Hiei resisted the urge to grab his fox and carry him at a dead run straight back to their cell. "Kurama is not a low class demon," he growled.


She shrugged. "Well, down here only S-classes matter. Of which you are one." She walked away. "Come on."


Hiei shot a desperate glance back over to where Kurama had vanished, but he needed to know more. Reluctantly, he followed Chacha.


Deep inside Kurama’s mind, he was screaming, battering himself against the walls in his own mind in desperation. Hiei! Where was Hiei?? Was he as trapped as Kurama himself was now? Fear of that made him lash against his prison, even as his body was suddenly surrounded by an intense cold, and he felt something embrace him, something that felt as though it were about to pull him apart, and tear his body from his soul.


Chacha led him out of sight of the mind-controlled demons, to where a dozen warded S-classes were sitting around a small fire, chewing on something he didn’t want to identify. "This is Hiei," Chacha identified him as she dropped down with a smirk.


"You won that tournament, didn’t you?" one of them asked.


Hiei nodded shortly, studying them. "Hn."


Another one shrugged. "Lucky I wasn’t there." Hiei glared at them.


"Hiei isn’t one of Enma’s spies," Chacha told them with a smirk. "He’s all ours."


"I’m nobody’s!" the koorime snapped. Several of them chuckled.


"I meant you’re an imprisoned S-class, just like us," she soothed. "And you’ve got the same goal as the rest of us."


He looked away. "I doubt it."


"You mean you don’t want to escape?"


He looked at her, surprised. "Hn?"


Her eyes glinted with the reflection of the fire. "You heard me. Escape. It’s something we’ve been working on for centuries."


"And you’ve managed to get all the way down here?" he sneered. "How impressive."


Chacha’s eyes narrowed in anger. "This prison was made by Enma Diaoh himself. It’s not that easy to walk away from. But soon enough, we’ll be able to just walk away."


"How?" he asked, his eyes narrow.


"You’ll see, soon enough."


Anxiously, Botan waited outside Enma Diaoh’s office. Koenma had finally gotten in to see him and had been in there for over an hour. That was longer than he’d ever spent with his father before and she shuffled nervously, wondering what they were saying. The temptation to press her ear against the door was there, but she knew from experience that the doors were too thick for that to work.


Finally, the door opened and Koenma came out, in his teenage form and looking more than a little stunned.


Botan hurried over. "Koenma-sama? What happened?"


For a moment, he didn’t seem to see her, then he started. "What? Oh! Botan!" He shook himself and started back to his office. "Get me Yuusuke and Kuwabara!"


"Koenma-sama?"


"Now!"


"What do you mean, we went under the prison? That’s not possible. You must have been dreaming, Hiei."


Hiei looked frustrated and Kurama put a hand on his shoulder. "I’m sorry. I’m not trying to mock you, but I don’t remember anything about any of this."


"Then let me explain it to you again," the little koorime snarled. "A demon named Chacha let us out of our cell in the middle of the night. Everyone on the entire fucking floor gathered in the mess hall and went down a set of stairs hidden in the wall. We ended up at a lake under the prison where a fucking telepath put your mind to sleep, like everyone else there who was A-class and under. Then the other S-classes told me they’d been gathering up power for the last several centuries and were planning a mass breakout."


Kurama sighed. "How do they plan to do that?"


"I don’t know! They didn’t tell me!"


Kurama put his arms around him. "It’s okay. I believe you." Hiei looked dubious and he smiled. "I love you. You’d never lie to me. And if I was zapped, I guess I wouldn’t remember. It just seems impossible. Enma Diaoh made this prison himself."


"That’s what they said." He leaned against his chest, then frowned. "Why do you smell moldy?"


Kurama blinked. "What?"


Hiei sniffed him, then reached under his hair and brought out a patch of mold the size of his hand. "Where did that come from?" Kurama asked, surprised.


"I saw you peel some off the wall and put it under your hair on the staircase." Hiei frowned. "But it was nowhere near this size. What could have made it grow so fast?"


"Not me, surely." Kurama said regretfully. "Not with these wards. Only a healthy dose of water could have that effect."


Hiei paled. "You were in the lake."


"What?"


"That lake. You were in the water." Hiei snarled. "That bitch! Something happened while I was away with Chacha. Damnit!"


"Uh, I don’t feel any different. I don’t think anything happened."


"They peeled your brain and that didn’t make you feel any different either," Hiei snarled. Grabbing Kurama’s jaw, he yanked the startled kitsune’s face down until they made eye contact.


Hiei concentrated, willing his jagan to open in spite of the wards. Kurama’s eyes widened and he tried to pull away, but Hiei’s grip was rock hard.


"Hiei! Stop! You’ll hurt yourself!"


Hiei ignored his pleas, just as he ignored the pain, fighting to get the jagan to open. He could feel the walls surrounding it and battered against them, howling silently as he raged. Agony, pain, anger. His torment grew, the wards glowing in an attempt to stop him and he felt as though his head were going to split. Nothing could break through the locks of the wards.


The jagan opened. Hiei saw Kurama’s eyes open in shock as it glowed under the white cloth, then his own eyes closed and he dove into Kurama’s mind.


He could see the locks put on him by the telepath instantly, set to suppress his mind whenever he entered the staircase, then to make him forget afterwards. He saw him walking into the water with hundreds of other demons, sinking lower until he was submerged in darkness, unable to breathe, unable to fight. The water leeched the power out of him, loosened his soul’s grip on his body and let him go only because it knew he would be back. Hundreds of demons were drained alongside him, their ki sucked away by the water and something… else.


Hiei snarled in real hate and attacked the telepathic commands, erasing them and restoring his fox’s memory. NO ONE fed off Kurama while he could stop it.


Finally he finished and the kitsune hugged him desperately, shuddering in reaction. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you."


Hiei hugged him back tightly, still furious. "You okay?" Kurama nodded fractionally. "Good. I put in blocks so no one can do that to you again."


Kurama sighed in real relief. "I guess I just play dumb the next time we all go down there. And stay out of the water."


Hiei nodded, though he hated it. Neither of them were in any position to refuse Chacha, especially if she had control of everyone else on the floor. Neither of them trusted the guards enough to go to them either. They’d never believe their story. They had no choice but to play along.


Eventually, Kurama regained his composure enough to release his death grip on Hiei and sit up, sniffing. Gently, he reached up to touch the broken ward still wrapped over his now-closed jagan. "Pretty crappy ward," he teased gently.


Hiei nodded. "I’d have thought Enma Diaoh would do a better job." He’d put the wards on both prisoners himself, while ranting about how not even spiritual detectives could be allowed to break the rules.


Kurama looked at him seriously. "You’d think so, wouldn’t you?" he asked.


"I don’t get it," Yuusuke said.


Koenma glared across his desk at the two boys. Kuwabara looked even more confused than Yuusuke. Then he sighed.


"I don’t fully understand it myself. There’s a lot my father didn’t tell me. All I know is there there’s something happening in the prison, something that’s concentrating demon ki and souls, but it’s so elusive Enma hasn’t been able to pin it down. It’s putting a lot of effort into avoiding his notice, but it’s getting so powerful he can’t help but notice it now."


"Why doesn’t he just stroll in and blow it up?" Yuusuke asked.


Koenma sucked on his fuukuman in irritation. They’d already gone over this. "Because he doesn’t know where or what it is. He needs to know that first, and as I said, it’s hiding from him."


Kuwabara puffed up. "Then I, the Great Kuwabara Kazuma, will find and vanquish this whatever for you!" Yuusuke grinned in agreement.


"Well, you’re right about the vanquishing bit, but finding it is Kurama and Hiei’s job."


They both stared at him. "Huh?"


This part he hadn’t told them, since he was still reeling from hearing it himself. "My father has sent a dozen spies into the prison to try and find this thing, and none of them have reported back. Somehow, it knows who is a spy and who isn’t. So my father needed to get a couple of detectives in there who didn’t know they were spies."


Kuwabara looked baffled even as Yuusuke’s eyes widened in realization, then narrowed. "He set them up."


"Yup. That whole scene with that demon and them being captured was a fake."


"But we saw it!"


"So did I." Koenma sighed. "I don’t know if dad made a pocket universe it all happened in or if he really did change time, but Hiei and Kurama honestly believe they’re prisoners, and since they believe it, so will everyone else there, including the entity they’re after."


Yuusuke slammed his hand down on the desk. "But they don’t know they’re spies!"


"They don’t have to. An A-class and an S-class? It went to them."


"How do you know that?" Kuwabara asked, scratching his head.


Koenma grimaced. "Because some of those wards they’re wearing aren’t wards. They’re monitors. So we know that the entity touched Kurama last night."


They were silent. "Touched… how?"


"I don’t know."


"So they’re bait," Yuusuke snarled.


"Hey, don’t blame me! No one asked me if I liked it!" He watched Yuusuke stomp around the office, raging. "Now that we know they’ve made contact, we can track them. The next time they go to it, you two are going to follow them, along with about five hundred Reikai soldiers. Your orders from Enma Diaoh are to destroy it."


"And what about Kurama and Hiei?"


Koenma’s face was grim. "Your orders from me are to save them."


Chacha came for them at the same time she had the night before.


Nervous, Kurama followed Hiei down the corridor and across the mess hall towards the stairs, trying to act sufficiently zombie-like as they joined the masses of demons trooping mindlessly down the stairs.


"It’ll happen soon," Chacha was saying to a sullen Hiei. "Zalg reports we’ll all be able to break out of here. Enma’s army will undoubtedly try to stop us once we’re clear of the prison, but we’re not going down without a fight, and these wards are prison issue. They get their power from it, so we’ll have our abilities back very soon." She licked her lips.


"Who do you mean by ‘we’?" Hiei grated.


She laughed lightly. "I mean us S-classes, of course. And whatever A-classes we decide to keep as pets." Kurama suspected she added that bit solely because she knew how Hiei felt about him and from Hiei’s snort, he suspected it as well.


"What happens to everyone else?"


"Why, they pay the way," she cooed.


"To who?"


"You’ll see," she laughed and continued on, not saying anything else. Hiei shot a look at Kurama and kept walking after her, staring daggers into her back.


When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Kurama shuffled with the zombies, keeping a discrete eye on Hiei as he stood near the other S-classes. He couldn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying without tipping the other off that he was still conscious, but as the masses of zombies increased in the chamber, he found the sheer press of them pushing him towards the water. The first ones were entering it, wading out until they were submerged, and in a moment of panic as he was pushed to the edge, he kicked his way clear and bolted back to the shadows of the wall.


No one had seen him, fortunately, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was on the other side of the mass from Hiei though and he bit his lip as he waited for the demons to all get in the water so he could see his lover again.


"What’s happening to them?" Hiei asked, tilting his head towards the demons wading into the water and praying silently that Kurama wasn’t among them. The kitsune wasn’t stupid enough to risk it, he knew, but still he worried.


"They’re feeding our host," Chacha told him with a shrug and laughed at his look.


"I think you better start explaining."


She shrugged. "I don’t know what it is, exactly. Just that it spawned under here. Probably from the hate of so many prisoners. It drilled the stairs up to the surface and called Zalg down to it. He then started bringing demons down. It pulls their powers and even their souls out of them for energy, not that they need them in here. Every time they walk into the water, it gets a little stronger, and demons have been wading in there for centuries. It’s almost ready to leave now, and when it does, we’ll follow it out. Simple."


Hiei stared at her. "What does it want with S-classes if it’s so powerful?"


"Nothing." She sat down in the sand, wrapping her tail around herself. "It’s no telepath, so it needs Zalg to control the masses, at least for now. Zalg, however, isn’t powerful enough to control an S-class, so the creature ignores us. It knows we exist though, thanks to Zalg, and that we can fight along with it once we’re clear of the prison. We’re just taking advantage of the situation." Her smile was sinister. "And thanks to Zalg, we know its first move once it escapes will be to destroy Enma Diaoh. None of us want to miss that."


Hiei’s blood chilled as he watched the prisoners file into the lake, though he couldn’t care less about the God of Death as an individual. Somehow, he couldn’t believe that the creature would ignore them completely. "You’re not afraid it’ll attack us too when it’s ready to leave?"


"Better the risk of that then staying here for eternity."


Hiei let out a slow breath and turned away from her. There was no way in hell he’d ever turn his back on that lake again.


"But but but… this was NEVER here before!"


Yuusuke pushed past the gibbering prison warden and peered down the stairs that were set in the wall of the mess hall. "Well, it’s here now."


Kuwabara frowned over his shoulder at the dark square. "Anybody got a flashlight?" he muttered.


Yuusuke grinned at him. "Afraid?"


"The Great Kuwabara Kazuma is afraid of nothing!"


They started down the stairs, Yuusuke and Kuwabara in the lead, five hundred of Enma Diaoh’s finest soldiers in the rear.


"I hate traveling single file," Yuusuke muttered.


"Why?"


"Because it takes a hell of a lot longer for the cavalry to come to the rescue."


"Oh."


The water was bubbling in the lake, ripples rolling out to lash against the shore. Hiei watched it impassively, his body tense.


"That’s never happened before," Chacha hissed at Hiei’s ear. "Something’s wrong." She ran away from him, right to the edge of the water, then turned away from it, shouting towards the alcove. "Zalg! What’s happening??"


For a moment there was no answer, then Zalg surged out of his spot, standing on shaky, emanciated legs as he howled to the darkness above them.


"THEY COME! THEY COME! They want to destroy it, to destroy us! Stop them!"


Hiei gaped at him as he gibbered insanely. Chacha growled at him, then hissed at the stairs in rage as a familiar voice echoed down it.


"The Great Kuwabara Kazuma did so remember the spare batteries!"


"Then where are they??" a second familiar voice echoed back.


"Um…"


Hiei rolled his eyes. Yuusuke and the idiot to the rescue. Wonderful.


Zalg was still screaming about how it would destroy the intruders, how it wouldn’t be stopped when it was so close to freedom. Chacha, however, didn’t seem to be willing to wait for it and started towards the stairs, snarling, the other S-classes moving to join her. Hiei sneered, wondering what they expected to be able to do with those wards on. Even the idiot would be able to defeat them.


Something lashed out of the water. Huge, slimy, dark, it wrapped around Chacha and her eyes widened in true horror as it pulled her abruptly back under the water. Hiei grinned at the sight.


"It needs more power!" Zalg screeched, so high pitched the koorime could barely understand him. "It’ll suck us all dry!"


The lake was boiling now, and even with his ki crippled, Hiei could feel the huge influx of power. The creature in there wasn’t content to sample its food anymore. It was draining everything it could get a grip on completely dry, including its supposed allies on the shore.


More tentacles lashed out of the water to capture the screaming S-classes and pull them under and Hiei ducked and ran before he joined them.


Yuusuke reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to see hell rising up from the lake.


"Oh, fu-"


He dodged, Kuwabara yelping and leaping with him, as a tentacle lashed into the stairway, snatching up the soldier who’d been following along behind them and dragging him screaming into the water.


A monster was looming out of the lake, a sickly greenish black with slime coating its bulbous body. A thousand tentacles lashed out from its body and a huge mouth opened, roaring as the tentacles dumped bodies into it. The prisoners.


"What is that thing??" Kuwabara shrieked.


Yuusuke shook his head desperately. "We have to kill it!"


"How??"


"Yuusuke!"


Yuusuke looked to his right to see Hiei running towards him, dodging tentacles and swearing. "Where’s Kurama??"


"Over here!" Kurama was to his left, his back pressed against the wall. Yuusuke had never seen him look so frightened. Hiei darted over to him.


Soldiers were coming out of the stairwell, gasping as they saw the creature and spreading out, even as the monster attacked again.


"It absorbs ki and souls through touch!" Hiei yelled. "It’s been feeding off all the prisoners on our floor!"


"Well, let’s see how much it likes getting hit without being touched." Yuusuke stood and pointed a finger at it. "REI-GUN!"


A beam of pure energy arced out at the monster and it screamed as the power burned it. Then Kuwabara was beside him, lashing at the tentacles with his sword and slicing them off one at a time. They still slashed at him though, along with the other soldiers as they came down the stairs. Hiei scavenged a sword from one who’d been caught and pulled away and fought as well, while Kurama stayed at the wall. He wasn’t trained to use swords, Yuusuke remembered.


"Cut off the tentacles!" the boy yelled to his frightened army. "Worry about the main body later!"


He wasn’t sure if many people heard him, but they all seemed to get the idea anyway. Everyone surged forward and attacked the thin, soft tentacles, splashing a purplish ichor everywhere. The screaming and roars of the beast were deafening, as were Yuusuke’s blasts as he hit it repeatedly. Left with nowhere to run and not developed enough for its body to leave the water yet, it kept attacking.


Desperately, Kurama tried to think of something he could do. There was no way he’d last long with a sword, and with the wards on, he couldn’t summon his rose whip. Seeing a soldier take a glancing hit and go down, he darted out and grabbed him, dragging him to the relative safety of the wall.


"Stay where you are!" Hiei yelled at him.


"No! I have to help!" He saw another soldier fall and ran to grab him too.


A tentacle wrapped around his waist. Only a few inches thick, it was strong enough to pull him off his feet as Hiei roared in pure rage and lunged to try and cut it in two.


Kurama screamed in agony. The tentacle was draining him, sucking his ki and his soul from him both. It lifted him off his feet and high above the battle and Hiei’s reach, even as the tiny koorime leaped up, using other tentacles like tree branches to climb after him.


His wards were glowing, hurting the entity, it seemed, as much as he. While it tried to shred the pure essence of him out of his body, they resisted, holding him where he was. The creature hesitated, holding him where he was instead of throwing him into its maw, and distantly through the pain, Kurama hoped that would give Hiei enough time to reach him. Another tentacle wrapped around the kitsune, pulling at him even harder and he screamed again, the wards flashing brilliantly as they combated the massive energy usage. The monster roared, and there was a huge surge of power that felt like it was going to tear him apart.


Desperately, Hiei leaped from tentacle to tentacle, trying to climb high enough to reach the ones holding his lover.


"Kurama!" he screamed. "Fight it!" The fox was shrieking, writhing and glowing. The tentacles around him tightened, glowing themselves, and suddenly tore Kurama in two.


"NO!" Hiei saw the two parts flash away to either side and screamed in pure hate, his wards burning as they tried to keep his power in. He could hear Yuusuke and the idiot yelling below and ignored them, racing down the tentacle he rode at nearly his normal speed, headed straight for the monster itself.


"KURAMA!" Yuusuke shrieked, seeing his friend rip in two with a flash of light right above his head. No blood rained on him though and he blinked, frozen for a moment as his mind registered what he was actually seeing, impossible though it was. Kuwabara slammed into him then, knocking him out of the way of a tentacle.


Yuusuke pushed himself up. Hiei was already well on his way to the monster, beyond his ability to help.


"Go that way!" he yelled to Kuwabara, pointing. "Save Kurama!"


Kuwabara’s eyes were wide. "Where are you going??"


"To save Shuuichi!"


Hiei’s wards were unraveling as he ran. He didn’t care how that was happening. He didn’t care if Enma Diaoh himself made them do so. All he knew was that his fox was dead, and that thing was going to die for it.


The monster was lashing its tentacles at him faster, actually pulling them away from their attack on the soldiers to try and deal with him, but he was getting faster with each step. He blurred towards it and vanished for a moment, reappearing on the slick surface of its body. It thrashed, trying to throw him off, but its body was too big to give it the mobility it needed.


"JAO ENSATSU KOKURYHUA!"


It was his weapon of last resort, his proudest acquisition next to the fox he no longer had. The wards on his arm caught on fire as dragons rose up from the tattoo on his arm, roaring and growing. Yuusuke was blasting at the monster from the shore again, along with every soldier with a distance attack, and arrows and energy beams slammed into it as the dragons dove to the attack.


The monster’s screams changed, becoming more desperate and its blood filled the lake. The beams continued to burn it horrendously and the dragons dove through its open maw to bit and tear their way back out through its body. Hiei screamed his hate to match its and leaped clear as it sank, torn asunder. He didn’t care if he lived anymore, but he’d be damned if he died down here.


The water was very cold, his body frozen and unresponsive as he tried to swim to shore. Hiei felt himself going under and then something grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him up.


"Hey, shrimp," Kuwabara laughed and waded with him to shore. Hiei didn’t have the energy to bite him.


Then he forgot about him. Yuusuke knelt on the shore, looking up at him. Beside him lay the unconscious form of a silver-haired youko thief, but in his arms was the living body of red-headed, human girl.


"So, mind telling us what happened to Kurama?"


Koenma looked up at Yuusuke, then down at the two sleeping figures on the bed. Kuwabara was standing in the doorway to the chambers they’d commandeered in Enma’s palace and Hiei sat in the windowsill as always, though his gaze never left the two.


"The monster tried to absorb his powers and his soul, but the wards were made to prevent that from happening." He sighed. "They were also designed to malfunction, so Kurama would be able to fight when he really had to, only something got screwed. So Kurama’s two souls ended up getting split in two instead."


Yuusuke frowned. "So who is Kurama?"


Koenma pointed to the youko. "This is."


"And the other one?"


"Is Minamino Shuuichi."


"Then how come she’s a girl?" Kuwabara asked.


The young god sighed. "Because Minamino Shuuichi is a girl. Or rather, she would have been, if Kurama hadn’t gone into her before she was born. He made her male, unintentionally I assure you. It was just a matter of timing."


The two boys exchanged looks while Hiei continued to stare. Koenma hated this. He’d gone to his father to help, but as far as he was concerned, one half-youko getting split into two was a small price to pay for the destruction of the entity. So were the deaths of every prisoner on the floor and fifty of his own soldiers.


Yuusuke frowned. "So are they still prisoners?"


"No, they’re free to go with a commendation of thanks from Enma Diaoh."


"Oh, big whoopie."


Koenma didn’t blame them for their anger and straightened. "You’re welcome to stay in these rooms as long as you like. I think it would be best though if Kurama eventually went back to the Makai, and Shuuichi to her mother. Kurama can’t pass for human after all." With a sad smile, he left.


If helping to cause this sort of thing was what it meant to be a god, then he hated it.


Freedom felt somehow shallow, Hiei mused as he stood atop one of the tallest trees in the Makai, staring over Mukuro’s lands. She’d been relieved to have him back, but hadn’t pressed him about what happened, a fact for which he was grateful. He wouldn’t admit that though.


Both Kurama and Shuuichi had woken none the worse for wear, though his ears still rang from the scream they both uttered when they saw each other. The kitsune was now loose in the Makai woods, however, and the human returned to the Ningenkai.


He’d never have to go back to the Ningenkai with its stupid humans and even stupider human customs again, he realized, but somehow the thought gave him no peace. Kurama was the one he loved, not any human, even the one who wore the body of that beautiful red head. He wasn’t even male anymore and Hiei wasn’t terribly disposed towards females at the best of times, especially not when they were human.


He vanished, reappearing the next tree over, then flitted to the next and the next. He felt nothing for Minamino Shuuichi, nothing at all.


He remembered watching the redhead dance, shirtless and unaware of him, uncaring of who saw as he swayed to music only he could hear.


It was KURAMA that he loved, to whom he’d given his soul.


He remembered watching a red-headed human boy walk to school every morning, and home every night, always serious, though loving. Compassionate and alive.


He hated the Ningenkai. He hated everyone who lived there.


A tray flashed through the air, slamming into a demon’s nose as a warning that the red-head beside him was his, was his…


Hiei stopped, staring at nothing. He loved Kurama, he had no doubts about that. But he wasn’t sure if he felt despair or triumph to realize he loved Shuuichi still too.


Gleefully, the five tailed silver fox bounded through the Makai, his tails floating behind him as he dodged through the trees, tongue hanging out in a foxy grin.


It felt so good to be himself again, to be stripped of those human trappings of conscience and compassion. To be Youko Kurama once more, and to be free.


He leaped over a log and paused, sensing a familiar dark ki. Shifting to his Youko form, he tossed his long hair out of his face. "Come out, Hiei."


The little koorime flitted down onto the log he’d just leaped over and stared at him impassively. Kurama tilted his head to one side to regard him and smiled. He still loved the little koorime, he could feel that and he hadn’t been sure he would. "Hello, Hiei."


Hiei nodded. "Hn."


Kurama grinned at him. "What brings you by?"


"Hn."


He was probably afraid he didn’t love him anymore. Kurama grinned wider, tickling him with his tail, then wrapped his arms around him. "I still love you," he reassured him.


Had Hiei relaxed minutely at that admission? He wasn’t sure, but he pulled him closer anyway.


Some time later, Hiei rolled over to look at him, propping his head up on one arm, his bare chest shiny with sweat.


"Something on your mind?" Kurama asked.


The koorime shrugged. "You’re happy this way?"


"What, at being myself again finally?" he laughed. "I’m ecstatic!"


Hiei watched him impassively. "What about your ningen mother?"


Kurama suddenly felt cold. "I don’t need a mother," he managed to say. Why ask?" Hiei had always thought Shiori was a waste of his time before. Why remind me?


The koorime shrugged. "Just wondering." He snatched up his clothes and flitted away.


Kurama sat up, shaken. Why had Hiei done that? Why wreck a perfectly good morning by bringing up someone who didn’t matter to him anymore. Who shouldn’t matter. Kurama sat there for a long time, staring at his hands and wondering at the empty hole in him that he’d been trying so hard to ignore, but couldn’t any more.


Numb, Shuuichi stared at her reflection in the mirror, her hand tracing down her naked shoulder, over her small breast and down to the hair between her legs. Her eyes were the same, the same emerald green, as her hair was the same red, but she swallowed at the sight of her body. Her undeniably female body.


It was almost as bad was the lack of youki in her. She couldn’t feel the souls of her plants anymore. Couldn’t feel anything other than the frantic pounding of her heart.


"How am I going to tell kaasan?" she whispered.


"Flash her. She’ll figure it out."


Shuuichi spun, eyes wide, to see Hiei in his usual spot on the window sill. Essence-wise, he was invisible to her and her eyes brimmed. "Oh, Hiei!"


Hiei let her cling to him, sobbing into his white scarf until the tears ended. "I can’t feel anything in you," she whispered. "I don’t have any powers anymore. I’m just… human." The terror that Hiei would leave her for that fact, knowing he detested humans, filled her and she pulled back.


Instead, he just wiped her cheeks with his finger. "Hn. Stupid fox."


"I’m not a fox anymore."


He leaned forward and kissed her. "You’re still my fox."


Shuuichi sighed and swarmed back into his arms, relieved and contented, and happy again for the moment. She had no idea what she was going to do with her life, but for now, she didn’t care.


 

THE END




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[On to the next story: The Kidnapping]