Soulstruck Part 2/2, PG-13/R

[onemuseleft]

Title: Soulstruck Part 2/2
Fandom: Yu Yu Hakusho
Rating: R-ish for language. Maybe PG-13
Summary: A soul-eating ice monster is loose in the city, but it's invisible and intangible, and Yuusuke's pretty sure he can't kill what he can't catch. Also, Kuwabara and Kurama might be dead. Sort of. Again.
Author's Note: This story is dedicated to kahn and is set in the same universe as her wonderful Running With the Crow. It is not necessary to read her story first to understand this one. Much love to lady_flamewing and jenjinn for beta reading.

Return to Part One



****

"Any day now, Kurama!"

The snake's tail heaved in his grasp, trying to knock him loose so it could continue its pursuit of the youko. Kuwabara set his feet a little farther apart and tightened his hold, hoping this thing was as killable as Kurama seemed to think. It wasn't the biggest demon they'd ever fought – by a long shot – but it was stronger than it looked. Kuwabara had a bad feeling that if it was allowed to feed it would become a lot stronger than it already was.

Hiei had joined the party and Kuwabara slid a glance sideways to see how they were reacting to all the unexplained excitement. Hiei had removed the wards covering the Jagan, which glowed bright violet as it examined the scene before him. No sign of recognition crossed Hiei's face, but he obviously knew that something was there. Genkai stood with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed, just a few inches away from the beast, and the way she occasionally took a step back when the thrashing increased gave Kuwabara hope she could at least sense it better than the others – although the cold this thing was putting out would probably be enough to alert her to its general location. He tried not to think about the ice-cold flesh beneath his arms. Already his hands ached from the bitter chill.

Yuusuke looked chilled, rubbing his arms absently as he surveyed the scene. The creature had crashed through him twice, trying to attack, or to feed, and he was definitely feeling the cold, even if the creature itself was intangible to him.

"All right then, we got their attention," he muttered. "Not how we planned, maybe, but never let it be said the K&K Detective Agency can't improvise." Then, knowing that two of the most powerful people in the world, and Hiei, were standing just a few feet away, trying to see or hear anything, he did something just a little bit drastic.

He really wasn't any good at this mind reading stuff, a fact which Kurama had tactfully not agreed with him on earlier. Hiei was a mind reader. Kuwabara's psychic abilities, on the other hand, tended to be more of the cold flash and vague premonitions of doom variety, which weren't terribly impressive all by themselves. When a psychic was needed, they usually turned to the fire demon – or Kuwabara's sister, Shizuru, who managed to be a lot more impressive with only a little more skill. Shizuru's vague impressions of doom usually at least came with a time and a place, while Kuwabara was limited to "well, I see a lot of blood somewhere. Not sure whose it is, really."

But he was good enough to talk mind to mind when the person he was reaching out to was also sensitive. It let him communicate with Kurama on cases, and he was fairly certain it would let him reach Genkai now that she was trying to reach back. A grim smile twisted his lips as the snake heaved suddenly and seemed to rear up. Even if she thought she was reaching out to a demon of some kind.

Genkai, he projected as focused and intently as he could. He gathered up every piece of sensation at hand, the feel of the creature's flesh beneath cold-numbed hands, the residual ache from the door wards, even the throbbing pulse of the headache he'd been nursing since he woke up. Then he wrapped it up in his need to talk to her, and shoved in her direction.

The snake's tail whipped to the side and distracted just briefly by his attempt to reach Genkai, Kuwabara lost his footing and was pulled into the air. The tail snapped again, and he lost his grip, flying back through the wall of the temple with a startled shout.

He passed through the wall easily, but hitting the ground hurt as much as it ever had. He sucked in air instinctively and rolled with it, coming up onto hands and knees. He shook his head and found himself staring into Genkai's eyes. Piercing black eyes bored directly through him. Kuwabara swallowed and tried to remind himself that he'd been too old to be grounded for several years now.

Not that it matters. Genkai's more the type to slam your head into a wall anyway.

Yuusuke appeared over her shoulder, staring grimly – probably trying to look intimidating, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he couldn't actually see anything. His glare was aimed somewhere over Kuwabara's left shoulder and was surely intimidating the chlorophyll out of the grass.

"Who are you?" Genkai demanded in a gravelly voice. "Is that creature here because of you?"

Well, technically… Kuwabara grimaced and tried to push that thought far, far away from the front of his mind. +Genkai?+

Her brow furrowed slightly, but otherwise showed no reaction.

+Genkai,+ he thought with feeling, +we have a problem.+

Recognition dawned in her eyes as the wyrm reared into the air behind her, Kurama's rose whip dangling from its mouth. Genkai must have sensed its presence because she turned away, leaving Kuwabara free to scramble to his feet without fear of being flattened by a spirit wave.

The creature roared and flailed at the air, the rose whip flying away as it bellowed. Kuwabara could see pale blue liquid dripping from the creature's mouth and face. Blood. Kurama had managed to hurt it, then. "Kurama, you alive over there?"

His partner's form materialized through the temple wall and nearly stumbled through Hiei as the fire demon appeared at Genkai's side. "It can be hurt," the youko said grimly. "That's the good news."

"The bad news?

"I'm pretty sure it can hurt us."

Kuwabara nodded. "That would be pretty bad."

"I have an idea," Kurama said as he ran past. "But it's going to be a close one. We need to go back to the warehouse."

"What about them?" Kuwabara demanded, jerking his head toward their corporeal and largely oblivious friends.

"It can't hurt them yet, remember?"

Kuwabara relaxed slightly and started after Kurama in a slow jog.

"Besides," the youko added. "I'm pretty certain I made it mad."

Kuwabara glared at the back of Kurama's head, but ran faster. "Oh, you think you're funny-"

An ear splitting shriek rent the air behind them, and a blast of cold air struck them like an arctic gale.

"-but you're not," Kuwabara said fervently.

Kurama didn't bother following the street – he hit the bottom of the staircase and kept running through the brick wall and into an alley. Kuwabara couldn't help but brace himself before he followed through the wall, but the chill creeping through his limbs warned him not to hesitate too long. The wyrm was now following them, and if it couldn't hurt their friends, it could hurt normal humans.

And them. It could hurt them, which Kuwabara felt was worth remembering.

"Stay off the streets," Kurama said flatly. "We go the back routes – it'll follow us, hopefully. Either of us would be a bigger meal than any hundred humans put together."

"If we're lucky," Kuwabara said grimly, "it won't stop to snack."

Kurama nodded. "Exactly."

"Why are we going to the warehouse?"

"To find out what Hiroshi did with your body."

****

Hiei stood at the top of the stone steps until he felt the entity move on, then slowly warded the Jagan again. He knotted the headband slowly and meticulously, every move precise, because otherwise he was convinced his hands would shake.

"Any time someone wants to chime in with an explanation of what the hell that was all about, would be fine by me." Urameshi sounded angry, but that was normal when he didn't know what the situation was. Hiei wasn't sure himself, but he had a feeling Genkai did.

"There was more than one entity here," he said definitively. "There were three."

Genkai nodded. "I felt the first two when they tripped my wards. But they were non-malevolent, so I overlooked them. A misjudgement."

"Ghosts," Hiei said.

"That was a ghost?" Urameshi cast a doubtful look over his shoulder. "Of what? A really pissed off whale?"

"A wyrm, actually." Yukina peered around the doorframe of the temple and stared thoughtfully down the steps.

Urameshi opened his mouth to say something stupid, but shut it when Hiei glared at him.

Genkai crossed her arms. "Are you certain, Yukina?"

The girl nodded. "Yes, Genkai-shihan. I've seen them before, although much smaller. This one was very weak, though. It's been starved."

Hiei frowned. "A starving ice beast is marauding around this temple?"

"That just doesn't sound good," Urameshi groaned.

"It gets better," Genkai said with a grim pleasure that Hiei found unsettling. "Since none of us can properly sense the creature, it could conceivably return at any time."

"That's what attacked those kids," Urameshi said quietly. "That worm. It killed those little kids."

Yukina gasped in horror, clasping her hands over her mouth in shock.

Genkai nodded. "Yes."

"The ghosts," Hiei said. "It killed them as well?" Something in his voice must have given him away. Urameshi and Yukina both glanced his way. Hiei focused on Genkai, blocking out the other two.

The old woman chuckled. "You sensed Kuwabara as well, then? I couldn't place the other one, but I assumed it was Kurama."

"What?"

"Genkai-shihan!"

"It was Kurama," Hiei confirmed. "I recognized him."

"Excuse me," Yuusuke said harshly, his youki flaring dangerously. "Can we go back to the part where you said Kuwabara and Kurama were dead?"

"They're not dead," Genkai said flatly. "Yet. But the beast was following them when they left, so I doubt they have much longer. Yuusuke, Hiei, find out where those two were and what they were doing that they've screwed up this badly. Find their bodies. Yukina, I'll need your help." She glared at the temple. "And somebody light a fire."

****

Yuusuke bounced on the balls of his feet, resisting the urge to move while Hiei concentrated. "I know you're home, Shizuru. I can feel you ignoring me. Answer the phone." He squinted into the wind and stared at the back of Hiei's head, urging him to concentrate faster already. "Shizuru, we think your idiot brother's gone and pissed off something very big and very hungry. You're the only one who knows where he was supposed to be this morning-"

"Last night."

"Shizuru, wow. Glad to know that it only takes a life or death situation to get your attention." Yuusuke gripped the cell phone a little too tightly and heard an ominous cracking sound. "What do you mean, 'last night'?"

"I mean, he was supposed to be somewhere last night. He and Kurama were meeting someone. As far as I can tell, neither one's been back here since." Kuwabara's sister sounded annoyed, but that was probably just from having to talk to Yuusuke.

"You're at the office?" Yuusuke covered cell phone with his hand. "Hiei – think we should head for the office? Maybe the psychic trail will be stronger there?"

The fire demon gave him a condescending look. "I am not a bloodhound."

Yuusuke rolled his eyes and spoke into the cell phone. "Shizuru, can you find out where they were supposed to go?"

A disbelieving snort came through loud and clear. "Not even my idiot brother keeps notes about secret midnight meetings with criminal informers, Urameshi."

"What about Kurama?"

There was a pause and Shizuru chuckled. "Yeah, he probably would."

"Check their office, see if they left anything. Don't they have, like, casefiles or something?" Yuusuke glared at the trunk of the tree, then tipped his head back to glare at Hiei, perched in the topmost branches. "They wouldn't just take off into a dangerous situation without telling someone."

"Since when?" Shizuru retorted. "I can name a half dozen instances off the top of my head."

There was a rustle in the branches above his head and Yuusuke jumped to the side just in time to avoid having Hiei land on his head. The fire demon smirked, and Yuusuke swore that the Jagan brightened slightly. "The creature is heading toward the water," Hiei said.

"What's at the water?" Yuusuke asked. He gazed at the horizon, narrowing his eyes against the breeze.

The look on Hiei's face said elegantly that he didn't know and would never be bothered to find out.

"Warehouses," Shizuru said. "The old warehouse district just before you hit the waterfront. Their main informant works out of there. They may have been there to set up a meeting."

Yuusuke cast Hiei a sideways glance. It sounded as likely as anything else. With a gesture, Yuusuke sent Hiei ahead, then followed.

"What's his name?" Yuusuke asked, shielding the mouthpiece of the phone so the air rushing past wouldn't interfere too badly with what they were saying.

"Hiroshi."

Yuusuke frowned. "The handcuffs guy? They still work with him?"

He could hear Shizuru rifling through papers and shoving things around. "They were hired to find a locket," she finally said. "According to this, it may have been haunted."

"By a giant, man-eating, ice whale?" Yuusuke guessed.

"No. By someone's little old grandmother. Apparently."

Yuusuke grimaced. "Well, Granny's got a stick up her ass now. Call if you find anything else, Shizuru. Otherwise, we'll meet you back at Genkai's." He snapped the phone shut before she could respond and focused on keeping up with Hiei.

The warehouses came into sight ahead, a row of square, concrete buildings like children's blocks. Largely unused if not actively abandoned, this was a part of the city that had seen better days. Those that weren't boarded up had seen better days.

Hiei paused briefly on the roof of an old construction warehouse, plastered with faded government logos and scanned the area before taking off again. The warehouse he settled on was still and silent, surrounded by a small amount of grass and one stubborn tree. Yuusuke was about to ask him if he was certain when he noticed the windows were frosting over.

"They're in here," Hiei said.

****

Kurama's plan had been a good one, right up till the part where they couldn't actually outrun the damn thing for very long. They'd made it to the warehouse with only one or two minor mishaps - he couldn't help but press a hand against his chest, where the wyrm had caught him a glancing blow with its tail. Technically there were no bones for it to break, but he'd had his ribs broken before and that's what it felt like - but now the damned thing had them more or less cornered.

The wyrm lunged through the air, unsettlingly fast for something as large as it was, and snapped at Kurama with gleaming fangs. The youko dodged neatly, and lashed out with the rosewhip. The wyrm caught a mouthful of thorns and screeched in pain, blue blood dripping from the edges of its mouth as it flopped away from Kurama and put itself directly in the path of Kuwabara's charge.

The reiken flickered to life in his palm; solidified reiki that was reassuringly warm compared the oppressive cold that was slowly seeping off the wyrm. He pushed off against the concrete floor and leapt at the wyrm, catching it head-on and driving the reiken into the skin along the side of its neck. He drove his weight against that spot and pulled, dragging the sword through the creature's side and tearing a gash nearly two feet long down its side. Ice-cold blood pumped from the wound, coating his hands.

"Shit!" He hit the floor hard and rolled into a crouch, distracted by the sudden pain in his hands and clenched his fists against his thighs. "Don't let it bleed on you!" he shouted over his shoulder, flexing his hands and hissing slowly through his teeth.

Kurama dropped out of the air in front of him, the rosewhip coiled around his fist. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live."

"We need to find our bodies," Kurama said urgently. "The locket is our best bet for stopping this thing. If we can reseal it-"

"Assuming it's still with our bodies. What if Hiroshi made off with the damned thing?"

"One disaster at a time, Kuwabara-kun."

Kuwabara sensed movement behind him and shoved himself to the side, Kurama jumping neatly along with him as the wyrm hurtled past. Its momentum took it through the warehouse wall and they could hear it bellow in fury before it turned itself and lunged back inside.

They instinctively moved to flank it, Kurama catching it with the rosewhip around the head. The wyrm heaved but Kurama used the momentum to hold it in place. It would only work for a moment, but that's all Kuwabara needed to hurt it again. The reiken sunk into the wyrm's eye nearly up to his hands, but he pulled back before he the blood spilling out of the wound could come into contact with his skin. The wyrm's scream this time was as much in pain as in anger and it lashed blindly, the hook shaped spine at the end of its tail nearly decapitating him as he dodged frantically out of the way. Distracted by the tail, he didn't realize until it was too late that the wyrm had turned to stare at him with its one good eye.

"Kuwabara!"

A blast of ice seared through his skin and knocked him against the floor. For a long moment all he could feel was cold, his skin tight and brittle, his breath frozen in his throat. Then the world kicked back in around him and he shuddered as he tried to climb to his feet. Summoning the reiken was taking more effort and concentration every time he did it, and he had a nasty feeling that if he tried to use too much reiki while dispossessed of his body, he'd end up regretting it. The ice had taken too much out of him - he couldn't afford to get caught like that again.

Kurama was attacking again, something sharp and wicked-looking in his left hand. He leapt over the wyrm, tucked into a roll and came down facing the creature, dragging the spear down the back of it. He hit the floor and immediately leapt again, putting himself out of range of any retaliation. "I'll distract it," he called. "You see you can find what Hiroshi did with our bodies. He can't have dragged them very far."

There were several things wrong with that idea, and Kuwabara was all set to list them, in alphabetical order, when the door at the front of the warehouse was pulled open and nearly off its hinges. He paused, glancing toward the door and saw Urameshi peering into the room. He rubbed his arms. "Hoo boy, that's cold."

Kuwabara resisted the urge to kick him in the head, but only because he knew Urameshi wouldn't feel it.

"Change of plan," Kurama said tightly, his voice barely audible over the sudden whining cry the wyrm was making. "We distract it and they go looking for our bodies."

Kuwabara didn't really like that plan either, but he could see they were running out of options. "All right. But if this thing eats me I'm going to blame you."

"I think I can deal with that."

****

+Hiei!+

"They're here," Hiei said finally, his jagan providing an eerie aura to the empty warehouse.

+Hiei! We need the locket!+

Hiei paused, trying to ignore the feeling creeping down his spine. There was something large and evil and very powerful nearby, and his youki was screaming in his veins. "Did Shizuru say anything about a locket?"

Urameshi nodded. "Shizuru figures they were down here to get it back or something."

+HIEI!+

"Bodies," Hiei snapped. He flung an arm out to stop Urameshi from advancing any further. "Where are their bodies?"

Urameshi paused, muscled tight with the barely repressed instinct to fight. "Their - you mean their bodies are just lying around somewhere?"

Hiei had turned his attention from the invisible battle before them and was scanning the warehouse with his jagan. "What did you think?"

"I don't know. That he ate them or something. I haven't really had a lot of time to formulate a theory or anything you-"

+Ooh, big words, Urameshi. Obviously the Word-A-Day calendar Keiko got you for Christmas is paying off.+

"-know." Yuusuke blinked. "Did you hear that?"

"No."

"Oh. Good." Yuusuke felt a rush of cold air at his back and took a big step forward. "So it didn't eat them?"

Hiei was crossing the open space of the warehouse at a steady, precise pace, apparently oblivious to what was happening around him. "It's a soul devourer," he said. "But it's weakened by its captivity."

"Yeah? So? It ate those kids all right." He stared at the back of Hiei's head. "Or are they wandering around here somewhere, too?"

"No, they're dead," the fire demon said flatly. He glanced around quickly, then pushed on toward the back door.

"But Kurama and Kuwabara aren't?" Yuusuke persisted. Somewhere to his left a whirlwind of reiki was forming. It was familiar, though normally there was a lot more of it. "I'm just making sure here."

"They aren't. Yet. The wyrm was too weak to successfully overwhelm such powerful adversaries. They resisted - albeit not entirely successfully," Hiei added scornfully. "They are still in danger, though. The soul can't survive long parted from its body - as you learned yourself."

Yuusuke froze. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait."

Hiei spared him a backwards glance as he kicked the door open. "No, Yuusuke, you won't have to kiss anyone."

"Oh, thank God."

Behind the warehouse was an alley, boasting a dumpster that didn't seem to have been emptied in several years and more rats that Yuusuke had ever seen in one place in his entire life. Hiei's sudden entrance had sent literally dozens of them running, chittering and screeching as they vanished into the shadows. Several more raced past them into the warehouse, scrambling over Yuusuke's feet. "Oh, gross!" Yuusuke hopped backwards on one leg, trying shake off one that had started chewing on his shoelaces.

Hiei had unsheathed his katana at some point and stalked toward the dumpster. More rats spilled out of the dumpster and from underneath it, startled by the demon's presence, and by the flickers of youki that were spilling off of him.

"Tell me we're not going dumpster diving, Hiei." Yuusuke glared at a rat perched atop a trashcan and smirked when it fled.

The fire demon jumped up to perch on the edge of the dumpster and peered into the refuse with a critical eye. His Jagan gleamed slightly, then Hiei was digging through the piles of trash.

"What are you looking for?" Yuusuke demanded. "The locket? Wouldn't the jewel thief have that?"

"No," Hiei said. "Kuwabara took it from him before the wyrm broke free."

Yuusuke glanced at the last few rats, then at the rapidly emptying dumpster. "You mean-" He grabbed the side of the dumpster and hauled himself onto the rim.

At the bottom of the dumpster, covered in rotting fruit skins and old chewed-up papers, half-covered by a torn blue tarp, lay Kuwabara and Kurama's bodies. A few more determined rats remained in the bottom of the dumpster and Yuusuke took a vicious swipe at them as one bit into the back of Kuwabara's hand. He wound his fingers into the front of Kuwabara's shirt and hauled, heaving the human out of the remaining piles of trash, and manhandling him over the side of the dumpster. He nearly lost his balance - Fuck, Kuwabara's a heavy son-of-a-bitch - but he managed to lower himself and the other man to the ground in one piece. Yuusuke gave him a quick once-over, but aside from some bite marks he looked unharmed. "He's breathing," he said in surprise, and splayed his fingers across Kuwabara's chest to feel for a heartbeat.

Hiei jumped lightly to the ground beside him, Kurama's inanimate form in his arms. "The locket," the fire demon snapped. "He should have it on him somewhere."

Yuusuke's eyes were drawn to Kuwabara's left fist, clenched so tightly the knuckles were bright white. Yuusuke tried to pry the fingers apart. "Couldn't just put it in your pocket, could you?"

From inside the warehouse, something roared.

Yuusuke paused. "What was that?"

"The creature is getting stronger." Hiei gave Kurama a concerned glance. "And since the only thing around here for it to feed on is them-"

"We need to hurry." No time to be delicate. Yuusuke offered Kuwabara a mental apology and pried his fist open, wincing slightly at the sound of snapping bones. "We're going to blame this on whoever dumped them in here, right?"

On Kuwabara's palm, bright against the black gloves he was wearing, lay a small silver locket and chain. Hiei shifted Kurama's weight so the youko was resting against him, supported by one arm, and reached for the locket, holding it gingerly between two fingers as he examined it. "The locket itself is heavily warded," he said thoughtfully. "A binding ward of some caliber. Very powerful, but not terribly sophisticated. There's even a secondary ward to drain the creature's life force."

"So if this setup is so impressive, how did the thing get out?" Yuusuke wondered.

"The idiot probably tripped the wards," Hiei said scornfully.

The warehouse shook with another of the wyrm's angry howls and in Hiei's arms, Kurama's body shuddered deeply and stopped breathing.

****

"Kurama!" Kuwabara ducked a blow from the wyrm's tail and vaulted over the creature's body. It was becoming darker and less transparent as the battle went on, and when Kurama fell the creature roared triumphantly. Kuwabara didn't know exactly how much energy it would take for the wyrm to regain its full strength, but he suspected they were rapidly approaching that point.

The wyrm howled again, lashing its tail against the side of the warehouse. Instead of passing through, the tail slammed into the wall with a loud crash, cracking plaster and leaving an indentation roughly the size of a small car.

That isn't good.

He reached down to Kurama, intending to pull his partner away from the wyrm, stash him somewhere until they could beat this thing, but his hand passed straight through Kurama's shoulder.

Panicking is out, Kuwabara told himself firmly. There will be no panicking.

The wyrm reared up and this time its head slammed into the ceiling, eliciting another furious roar. It glared down at Kuwabara and exhaled a long stream of white frost. The thin layer of ice settled over Kuwabara and Kurama, unnaturally cold and stealing the warmth from Kuwabara's skin. He took a deep breath, but the air around him was freezing cold.

The wyrm was about to attack, and Kurama was helpless. Kuwabara cast a grim look over his shoulder toward the direction Hiei and Yuusuke had taken, but held little hope that they'd return this quickly.

+Hiei,+ he projected with a fatalistic air, +you'd better find that fucking locket.+

He felt Hiei's startled reaction somewhere in the back of his mind. Then he charged the wyrm.

****

Hiei realized what the idiot was planning a second before he did it.

"He's going to get himself killed," he snarled, clutching the locket. "Bring him. Now." He slung Kurama's body over his shoulder and raced back into the warehouse.

The ice wyrm was visible now, although if Hiei concentrated with his Jagan he could still make out hints of etherealness around the edges. The wyrm was not quite at full strength yet. But it had obviously been gorging itself while they were distracted.

"That's your worm?" Yuusuke demanded, sounding ridiculously outraged. "That's not a worm! That's a fucking subway car."

Sometimes Hiei just did not understand the human thought process.

The wyrm was focused on a particular point, spewing ice through the air. Hiei couldn't see anything, but he didn't expect to.

"Draw its attention." Hiei set Kurama's body down against the wall of the warehouse. Yuusuke dropped the idiot beside him.

"Why do I get to be bait?" the human demanded.

"Do you know how to cast a binding spell?"

"I'm going to go be bait."

The wyrm sensed their presence - it would have to be dead not to, Hiei mused, since Urameshi was putting off enough youki to choke ten of the creatures - and screamed a challenge before flinging itself at Yuusuke. The half-blood countered the attack in his usual way - he flipped the creature off, then kicked it in the face.

Since Urameshi seemed to have the situation in hand for the moment, Hiei focused on the jewelry he still held clenched in his palm.

The locket itself was simple and plain, although probably valuable. It looked to be made of real silver, which probably had helped the original spellcaster. Lesser metals didn't hold magic as easily, except for steel and iron. The chain was unimportant and Hiei dismissed it from his examinations. Probing carefully with his third eye he concentrated on the spell pattern, tracing the binding spells and wards, which had originally held the wyrm in captivity. Four wards were worked into the metal of the locket. One was a binding spell, obviously meant to bind the wyrm to the locket, a second drained the creature's life-force as long as it was imprisoned. The third was a simple locking ward, to keep the locket from opening accidentally. The fourth, though, was troublesome. It seemed to be a release spell of some sort. The pattern was simple and effective, though somewhat... inexperienced. Hiei doubted that whatever human had originally cast the spell had much training. Hiei examined it further, and the pattern fell away.

A retrieval spell. Set so that the ward could be set aside and recast at will without having to be rewoven. Whoever had originally bound the wyrm meant to release it and call it back like a falcon to its perch. Or, Hiei realized, like a hunting dog. A small application of reiki would be enough to trip the wards, which probably explained how it had been set loose in the first place - there was no sub-spell for specific reiki signatures, or psychic impressions. Whoever the spellcaster had been, they didn't seem to have realized that anyone else with even a modicum of power could mimic their efforts.

Whatever the human who originally cast those spells had intended, their ambition had served Hiei well. The retrieval spell would make it far easier to re-bind the wyrm. All they would need was reiki.

Of which Hiei had none.

Across the warehouse, Urameshi had hurled himself against the wyrm and was busy trying to crush it against the wall, but even at a distance, Hiei could see the increasing paleness of Urameshi's skin. The cold pouring off the creature was growing exponentially, and as he watched, it blasted Yuusuke with a stream of ice.

Hiei wondered if his hellfire would be more effective against the ice wyrm than Urameshi's brute strength, but abandoned the thought almost immediately. The half-demon had no talent with the arcane, and even something as simple as this retrieval ward would require a moment for him to assess. They didn't have that time.

He scanned the warehouse, concentrating on the spot the wyrm had been prepared to attack when they entered, searching for a hint of familiar reiki, or psychic impression.

+Kuwabara, stop fooling around and take this.+

****

Crouched on the floor of the warehouse, frozen through the bone, lungs seizing from the cold, Kuwabara found the strength to glare at the fire demon. +Fooling around?+ he managed to project, although the effort it took was nearly staggering. It probably would have been, actually, if he'd been standing.

Hiei heard him; the fire demon was staring around the warehouse with a piercing gaze, and his Jagan was still wide open. Kuwabara realized he'd never seen the fire demon use his third eye for so long at once. He entertained a brief, vicious hope that it was giving the little runt a headache.

He pulled himself to his feet, his vision blurring and fading as he moved, his head pounding. His limbs were frozen logs, nearly insensate and almost entirely beyond his control. The cold was sapping what little strength he had. "Kurama," he gasped.

His partner was where he had left him, curled on and halfway through the floor. His legs and his right arm were slowly sinking through the floor, and Kuwabara could no longer reach him to pull him back. The fox demon was dying a few feet away, and he couldn't even get to him.

"Kuwabara!" Hiei was shouting now. "Kuwabara, the locket will only respond to reiki!"

The locket? Kuwabara turned his head to glance at Hiei, his head spinning with the effort. The wyrm had come out of the locket. Hiei had the locket. The wyrm- was trying to eat Urameshi on the other side of the building and was ignoring them for the moment.

+Give me,+ Kuwabara focused on Hiei, and forcing himself to cross the half dozen feet between them, but the air was as thick as water and pushing himself through it took energy he didn't have.

Hiei thrust the locket out in his general direction, dangling from its chain. Kuwabara cupped his hands under it, and concentrated on the last of his reiki. A flicker of orange glinted off the silver as the locket snapped open and he vaguely noticed Hiei's eyes widen slightly, but there was something changing in the locket, a pulling that set off his sixth sense, and it distracted him.

He didn't even feel it when the wyrm slammed through him as it was pulled back into the locket.

****

Hiei could no longer hear Kuwabara, if the human was even trying to communicate, but he felt the spark of the human's reiki in front of him, saw it reflected off the metal of the locket. Then the wyrm let out a furious bellow and abandoned Urameshi to barrel headlong toward the fire demon.

Hiei had only a moment to brace himself before the creature was on him, a blizzard of snow and ice and arctic winds that buffeted him on all sides. He grit his teeth against the cold and held the open locket out in front of him. The wyrm screeched in fury, and vanished in a cloud of ice that hung in the air around him before slowly fading. He pressed the locket shut, and even the lingering traces of the creature faded completely.

"That was almost easy," Urameshi said breathlessly, rubbing his arms as he jogged slowly to stand over Kurama and Kuwabara's bodies. "Is that thing really trapped now?"

"As long as no one does anything stupid," Hiei said scornfully. "We should get rid of it. It's too big a risk to leave it lingering in the human world."

"What about Kurama and Kuwabara?" Urameshi asked. "Can they go back to their bodies now?"

"I don't know." Hiei forced himself to focus the jagan, ignoring the spikes of pain it sent crashing through his skull. "It was hard to sense them before, but now it's nearly impossible."

"Kurama stopped breathing a while ago," Urameshi said tightly. "Even his body needs oxygen."

"If they were dead I'd have sensed it," Hiei told him. He curled his fingers around the locket and stared at his fist for a moment while he concentrated. "But their ki was sapped fighting the creature. And without their bodies, they've no way to restore it."

Urameshi's voice was tight with frustration. "Can we take them to Genkai's?"

Hiei slid the locket into the inner pocket of his cloak and turned to face the two still forms propped against the wall, Urameshi a fidgeting sentry above them. "She may know something we don't," he admitted.

That drew a snort from Urameshi. "The old hag? She probably…" Urameshi trailed off slowly as he glanced down at the bodies of their teammates. "Kuwabara?"

Hiei tensed. "What is it?"

Urameshi dropped to a crouch, a stricken look on his face. "He's not breathing anymore."

****

Humans need to breathe. Hell, even demons need to breathe, although some could get by with less than others. But humans were a bit less flexible about the little things like oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Kurama's messed-up body might not need to breathe frequently anymore, but last time Yuusuke checked, Kuwabara was still pretty hung up on the whole "inhale/exhale" process.

So this was not a good sign.

"Their souls are too far removed from their bodies," Hiei was saying somewhere to his right, using the clinical voice that he always dragged out when he was pretending he wasn't interested in what they were talking about. It was how he talked about Yukina. "The breathing instinct and heartbeat are probably the last functions that held out."

"We have to do something," Yuusuke said flatly

"Genkai-"

"Too long. Kuwabara can't afford brain damage. He's barely passing for functional these days anyway." The insult was habit. The lack of furious retort was not. "You said their ki was gone? Used up fighting that worm-thing?"

Hiei made an affirmative sound.

"So they just need a jumpstart, right?" Yuusuke cracked the knuckles in his right hand. "If they had enough ki, they could come back to their bodies?"

"What are you thinking, Yuusuke?"

"Are they still here? Their souls? You said you could still sense them."

Hiei hesitated. "Yes."

"Tell them to get ready." Yuusuke focused his ki, letting the reiki spill through his blood, pushing the youki back. "I'm going to give Kuwabara a jumpstart." He focused it in his palm, a sphere of pale blue energy held barely between the tips of his fingers. He pushed down and the sphere slid through Kuwabara's chest. The body convulsed once, and Yuusuke snarled through his teeth. "All right, you fucker." He dispersed the reiki, felt it leave him it sank into the other man's body. Beneath his hand, he felt Kuwabara's heart thud once, weakly, then stop again.

"You absolute shithead-"

A second thud. A third. His chest expanded, dragging in breath only to cough hoarsely. He sucked in another lungful of air, easier this time, and another. Beneath Yuusuke's hand, his heart was pounding double-time.

"Kuwabara?"

The human twisted away from Yuusuke's touch, eyes flying open as he rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He glanced around quickly, settled on Kurama's unmoving form, and lunged across Yuusuke.

Yuusuke scrambled out of the way. "Kuwabara?"

Reiki flared in Kuwabara's palm as he reached for the fox demon. The energy dissipated into the still form, and they all held their breath as Kuwabara hunched over his partner's form, slowly getting his breath back.

Kurama stirred slowly, and Yuusuke whooped - even Hiei looked relieved. He was pale and shivering slightly, but he blinked up at them and sucked in a deep breath.

"I told you," Kuwabara's voice was rough and he slumped forward with visible exhaustion. "We need to start charging more."

****

"Am I still on Kuwabara's shit list?"

Kurama looked away form his coffee long enough to give Yuusuke a tired look. "He's not mad at you."

Yuusuke leaned in the doorway to Kurama's office and crossed his arms. "Then I have definitely lost my touch, because I've been trying to piss him off for days."

He had been, and under other circumstances it would have been fun to watch. Kurama had seen them like this before, but never with the increasing air of frustration on Yuusuke's part. Even at his best, Kuwabara had never managed to ignore the half-demon so thoroughly in the past. And Kuwabara certainly wasn't at his best.

"Don't take it personally," Kurama finally said.

Yuusuke flopped down in Kuwabara's chair, spinning himself in lazy circles. "I shouldn't have told him about the kids."

"You didn't know he was the one who triggered the locket," Kurama said, turning the page of his magazine, "and even if you had, he would have been furious at you for hiding such a thing."

Yuusuke slouched in his chair. His air was in his eyes but he didn't seem to notice. "It wasn't his fault."

"No," Kurama agreed quietly. "But it was his responsibility. And mine. And we've both accepted that. Give him time to process it, Yuusuke. Three children are dead because of something we did. Kuwabara is not the sort of man who can shrug such a burden off." He smiled at Yuusuke and added slyly, "You would not care so much for him if he was such a man."

Yuusuke glared at him from under his hair. "You aren't going to make me knock your lights out, are you? I don't like beating up on people weaker than me."

"Kuwabara says differently," Kurama replied, but he grinned as he said it. "And my youki is replenishing nicely. Perhaps you'd like to see for yourself just how much weaker than you I really am."

His youki had been drained entirely when they revived him in his body at the warehouse. Yuusuke and Hiei had somehow gotten the two of them back to their own house and deposited them in their own beds. Kurama had woken fourteen hours later to find himself fully dressed with a blanket thrown over him, Kuwabara snoring in the next room, and Yuusuke helping himself to the contents of their fridge while watching pay-per-view fights on cable. Hiei had taken off once he was certain they weren't going to fade away any time soon and Shizuru had used their exhaustion as an excuse for a paid day off. Kurama had taken the remote away from a pouting Yuusuke, turned down the volume, and promptly fallen asleep on the couch while two American wrestlers beat each other with metal folding chairs. The next time he woke up Kuwabara had been out in the backyard, Yuusuke had been standing by the window with his fists clenched and a sick look on his face and the air had been thick with tension and grief.

"His reiki isn't recharging like it should," Yuusuke said.

"Grief and guilt will do that. Negative emotions feed on spiritual strength, you know that." He found himself putting a bit more emphasis on that last part than he had intended to and offered Yuusuke an apologetic smile. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Yuusuke waved him off. "It's true enough, I guess. We were all lucky nothing tried to kill us after you died. Or after you came back."

Kurama nodded. The unfortunate circumstances of his resurrection – such as it was – had been nearly as hard on his friends as his death, robbing them of their hopes that he had at least found some measure of peace in the afterlife or reincarnation. "Yuusuke, lots of things tried to kill you after I came back."

"Yes, but that was your fault."

He laughed softly, letting the feeling rumble in his chest for a moment. "I can't argue with that."

"You can argue with anything," Yuusuke retorted, "you just don't make it look like arguing."

"Unlike you," Kuwabara said from the doorway, "who can make even a casual hello sound like a call to arms."

Yuusuke jumped in his chair and spun around to face the door. "Stop sneaking up on me."

Kuwabara arched an eyebrow. "Kurama? Was I sneaking?"

"No," Kurama replied dutifully. "You practically slammed the front door, then you dropped something in the hallway, and I don't know about Yuusuke, but I could tell when you took your shoes off."

His partner shot him an exasperated glance even as Yuusuke snickered into his hand. "Thank you for your support."

"Always."

Kuwabara gave Yuusuke a considering glance, obviously trying to decide if it was worth trying to pry him out of his seat. Apparently deciding that it wasn't worth the fight, he took the seat intended for gests and sprawled, arms behind his head, long legs stretched out in front of him. "So whatever happened to the locket?"

"Genkai gave me a box to put it in."

"A warded cedar box," Kurama added, when Kuwabara seemed about to protest. "Which Yuusuke nailed shut."

"And gave to Botan," Yuusuke added. "And she gave it to Koenma."

And Koenma had promptly lost it in the chaos that was his office, which Botan had reported back to them with a roll of her eyes. But it was in the Spirit World now, and Koenma's office was heavily guarded. Kurama figured it was enough.

Kuwabara seemed to think so too, because he just grunted and closed his eyes. He was still tired much of the day, but Kurama knew that would pass. Kuwabara had sought the two of them out. He had mentioned the locket. That was a good sign.

"I've been working on something," Kurama said just as Yuusuke opened his mouth to, no doubt, say something utterly provocative and/or infuriating. "When you get a moment, I'd appreciate your input. I feel it's a good step forward for our business."

Kuwabara cracked an eyelid and regarded him. "Does this in anyway involve that private investigator's calendar photo shoot Yuusuke was trying to talk us into?"

"No," Kurama said. "There will be no nude photo shoots."

"I still say that could have worked," Yuusuke muttered. "You guys need the money. They were paying for hot PIs to get naked for them. Kurama at least would have made some money out of the whole thing. Kuwabara, they probably would have paid you to keep your clothes on if you played your cards right."

Kurama winced slightly as Kuwabara knocked Yuusuke's chair out from under him, then sighed as Yuusuke caught Kuwabara in a headlock and wrestled him to the floor. "You know," Kurama said, pitching his voice to be heard over the noise of their roughhousing, "I've always thought there was something very homo-erotic about the way you two always seem to end up rolling around on the floor together."

Yuusuke, who was straddling Kuwabara's hips, collapsed into laughter. Unfortunately he collapsed more or less on top of Kuwabara, who shoved at his head until Yuusuke flopped off to the floor. "Hair gel," Kuwabara said sourly, wiping his hands clean on the back of Yuusuke's shirt.

"Maybe Kuwabara and I should pose for the calendar shoot," Yuusuke said. "I can be the hot and sexy Yakuza assassin he's bringing to justice."

"And it just keeps getting kinkier," Kurama said.

Kuwabara flipped him off as he stood. "Please stop encouraging him. He's like a stray dog, you know. If you keep feeding him, he'll only come back, chew up our newspaper and piss on our porch."

"I'll piss on something all right, you son of a-" And they were back on the floor.

Kurama stepped around the tangle of limbs as Kuwabara shoved Yuusuke's face in the carpet and threatened to get a rolled up newspaper. "I'll just leave this on your desk then," he said. "For when you have a moment."

"What is it?" Kuwabara asked. "And it better not have anything to do with photo shoots-" He yelped as Yuusuke did something Kurama couldn't see from an angle and flailed. "Stop that, stop that, you suck!"

"He's ticklish," Yuusuke reported cheerfully, before Kuwabara's foot caught him in the side of the head.

"It's a revised rate sheet," Kurama said, even though no one was listening to him anymore. He was used to it. "We really, really need to start charging more."

****

End