Chapter 1: Match Starts In...

96 Joined

This mission was bullshit.

Actual hot, steaming, fresh-from-a-cow's-ass bullshit. A load of crap that had worked its slimy, disgusting way between Yusuke's toes and jacked up his whole day. Scratch that. His whole fucking week.

Because he was not supposed to be spending tonight bolting through this stupid maze of hallways like a bat straight out of Demon World's bowels. He was not supposed to be separated from Kuwabara, Kurama, and Hiei, cursing the fox's plan to split up and search the laboratory. He was not—really, really fucking not—supposed to have been hit by the dart that was still stuck in the crevice of his shoulder blade, wedged out of reach and seriously screwing up his access to his energy.

So yeah, bullshit. By the never-ending truckload.

"You're going to pay for this, Koenma," he shouted as he whipped around a corner of the empty corridor. "I'm retired, remember? Or, really, fired? And I should've said no to this dumbass mission the second you came whining my way!"

No answer came. Obviously. Because Binky Breath wasn't here. He wasn't the one who'd been sent traipsing out to some empty, shithouse of a lab in Nowheresville, Demon World. But he was probably watching this waste of time on those monstrously huge television screens in his ridiculous office, sucking on his pacifier like the child he was.

If so, Yusuke hoped the camera caught the bird he tossed to the featureless ceiling.

Ahead, the corridor stretched and stretched, impossibly long. From the outside, this training facility had looked tiny. Hiei-sized. Nah, Koenma-sized. Yet the hall had no end in sight. There were only bland white walls and even whiter floor tiles, blurring on and on and on.

And at his back, as they had been for twenty minutes now, the lights were winking out. Bulbs in the sterile fluorescents overhead popping clean out of existence. Crackling and buzzing as if eliminated by a power surge.

Then there was only darkness.

Well, darkness and that thing. Whatever the hell it was that had been pursuing him ever since Kurama hatched their plan to separate.

It had driven Yusuke apart from Kuwabara five turns back in the maze-like halls, and he'd lost track of the lug's hollers not long after. Which meant he was alone now, sprinting away from the presence roiling in his wake. It didn't feel like anything he'd ever felt before, though considering his cruddy awareness, maybe that didn't mean all that much.

Still, there was an… inhumanness to it. Like it didn't belong to a living being. Forget spirit energy or demon energy or, hell, even sacred energy. This thing wasn't alive. It wasn't coming from some enemy fighter. He hadn't been ambushed in a sneak attack. So even if the dart in his back hadn't cut off his connection to his own power, he'd have been stumped, because he sure as hell didn't know how to kill something that wasn't breathing to begin with.

What he needed was Kurama's quick thinking, but like the dimwit he was, he'd agreed to split up and, in the process, he'd allowed Kurama to walk off with his brain matter still firmly between his ears.

Not that Yusuke would know what to do with Kurama's noggin even if he had it. But at least then he'd have something that might get him out of this mess.

Abruptly, the corridor curved left—another feat that had occurred repeatedly in the last twenty minutes. One second, he was faced with an endless stretch of white. Then boom—a crimson wall lurched into being and the hall hooked to the side.

Cursing through gritted teeth, Yusuke skidded around the turn.

And shuddered to a standstill.

A dart slammed into his throat, right in the tender flesh above his collarbone. Then another struck his bicep. A third found his thigh. A fourth his left ribcage. Dart after dart after dart lanced home, thudding into his skin until he bristled like a pincushion.

Breathless, he slumped to his knees. His hands hit the icy tiles, knuckles curled into bone-white fists. Before him, through the fall of his bangs, he spotted the turret gun that had taken him down. It had stopped firing now, a lazy tendril of smoke curling toward the ceiling from its black maw, but the weight in his muscles was too heavy for him to combat, and without his energy to bolster him, he could do nothing but watch as a glass door behind the turret slid open and a figure dressed in an oh-so-familiar uniform stepped into the hall.

"Welcome, combatant," the silhouette said, voice monotone and characterless. A pair of black shoes trod closer, powder blue pants drawn tight around narrow ankles.

That was the last glimpse Yusuke caught before his vision blurred into darkness, but he still felt the hand that hooked under his arm and hauled him upright like he weighed nothing more than a feather, and he sensed the cold scrape of the tiles against his ankles as the figure dragged him forward, down the hall, past the turret, and into the beyond.

After a moment's lull, he was hit with a barrage of sounds he could make no sense of. The click of a releasing lock. The hiss of escaping air. The clank of shifting metal. A shove at his shoulder sent his body collapsing into soft cushions, and terse hands rolled him onto his back. When they withdrew, a mask settled over his face. Metallic tasting air flooded his lungs.

The sounds came again, in reverse order now. Metal clattering into place. Wind rushing in his ears. A lock clinking tight.

The voice returned, but it echoed from a great distance, as if its owner was far from him or talking through a speaker, voice gone slightly robotic. "Thanks for joining me, Yusuke Urameshi. The Grounds will open shortly. Do put on a show."

Then—nothing.

97 Joined

"Urameshi! If you're there, answer me!"

Silence.

The sort that echoed in Kuwabara's bones, clamoring against his sixth sense, clawing icy fingers down his spine. Not even his Spirit Sword blazing in his hands was enough to combat the dread that quiet instilled in him.

How far back had he lost Yusuke?

He hadn't noticed when Yusuke disappeared. He'd been right there, jogging at Kuwabara's side, huffing out curses between breaths, and then he'd been gone—poofed out of existence like some bizarro magic trick, like someone had swept the Cape of No Return over his shoulders and banished him off to Hanging Neck Island. That kind of event didn't ordinarily escape Kuwabara's notice. Usually it set off his awareness.

But nothing about tonight had gone according to plan.

For one thing, Kuwabara hadn't banked on a mission to Demon World. Heck, it had been nearly four years since he'd had anything to do with Koenma or Yusuke's gig as Spirit Detective or anything that came with it. If this had been any other Tuesday, he'd have been in his apartment, studying for his approaching mid-term exam.

Instead, he was here. Stuck in this deserted lab. Chasing down some rogue Spirit World operative.

Only, his life wasn't like it had been in junior high anymore. He couldn't just go bolting off for days on end to compete in criminal-run tournaments against demons he had no business fighting. He was a college student now, complete with the hefty tuition bills to prove it, and he was due in a lecture hall in what couldn't be more than ten hours.

But again, he was here—not in his apartment just off campus, not in his bed, not where he was supposed to be.

Worse than that, he was alone, thanks to Kurama.

And the goosebumps rising on his arms were solidly not fans of the situation.

"Yusuke!" he hollered again. "Where the hell are you?"

Maybe, probably, he shouldn't have been yelling. If Infiltration 101 were a class at his university, he'd bet the very first lesson would focus on the importance of secrecy during a break in. But as a fresh shiver wracked through Kuwabara and his skin crawled with unease, he didn't really care about being the perfect spy.

He just wanted some darn company. Was that really so much to ask?

Overhead, the lights started flickering, the unnatural whiteness of their bulbs fading in and out, in and out. Their whining fizzle crept through the hushed stillness, and somehow, that was worse than the silence that had come before. It screamed of an unnatural wrongness, of some presence that simply shouldn't be, but Kuwabara couldn't place why it felt that way. Even after everything he'd encountered alongside Yusuke, this was still unrecognizable.

"Yusuke?" he called. This time his voice was quieter. Uncertain. Despite himself, he wavered.

As one, the lights went out entirely, the whole hallway plunging into pitch black dark. Except for the glow of his Spirit Sword, there was no illumination at all. No windows letting in the moon's silver rays. No emergency lights lining the floors. Despite everything, that struck him most strongly. Shouldn't a laboratory like this have emergency lights? Didn't government facilities—

When the click came, he was ready for it, and though he was no Hiei, he mustered the speed to dodge as a dart came whistling out of the darkness. Ripping through the space where he'd once stood, it pinged uselessly off the wall and clattered to the floor.

For only a moment, Kuwabara hesitated, staring at that dart, at its dim silhouette outlined in the light of his sword. Then another click shattered the silence, and he stumbled out of its path. Gritting his teeth, he urged his legs into motion, thundering into a graceless gallop through the dark with only his Spirit Sword to guide him.

Its golden light spilled across the tiled floor and created nightmarish shadows across the walls, turning his own body into a fiend that hounded him down the corridors, and all the while, the darts kept coming. Not constantly. It seemed whatever fired them wasn't present everywhere. But often enough. And he couldn't get a sense of where was safe, not in that infinite darkness.

So on he ran. Forever and ever.

Until he made a wrong turn. Until the hall ended in crimson without warning. Until it was all he could do to windmill his arms and keep his feet.

The darts found him, then, before he could so much as turn and face them like a man. They hit one after another. A dozen peppering his back in sharp, stinging points.

Instantly, his Spirit Sword vanished. His energy slid out of reach. His awareness dried up. But even still, he felt it. That wrongness. Pressing at his back. Walling him in. It crawled across his skin, so violating and twisted that he retched up the remnants of his dinner, spilling it all across the tiles he could no longer see.

By the time the thirteenth dart embedded itself in his lower back and unconsciousness claimed him, he welcomed it.

98 Joined

Down had been a poor choice.

Perhaps it was not the first miscalculation Kurama had made that night, but it was certainly the most grievous—the one he'd regret long after they put this affair behind them. It was the manner of error he wasn't prone to making, the sort he quite simply hadn't blundered into in years.

Yet it—this decision to descend the laboratory's narrow stairs into the basements below—was the one he'd made, and now he and Hiei would have to see it through.

They were but rabbits trapped in a warren. Prey chased by a more cunning predator, an adversary that had thoroughly outfoxed his shrewd wits.

If Hiei shared Kurama's apprehension, the surly demon cloaked it well, his sentiments hidden behind a scowling veneer, the gleaming slant of his katana more emotive than the dead glint in his eyes. Even still, there was no mistaking the careful calculation with which Hiei patrolled the corridor, searching—as they had been for hours—for some sign of the man Koenma had sent them to apprehend.

But there was no one and nothing. No doors. No windows. Not even the stairs by which they'd reached these sublevels. Somehow, without ever turning, they'd lost the stairwell behind them, this unremarkable corridor extending into infinity, no exit or entrance in sight.

"I'm growing bored," Hiei announced, breaking the quiet that had held them for long, tenuous minutes. It was a declaration meant to obscure the truth—Kurama recognized that instantly—but in speaking, Hiei had betrayed himself, and though his usual flat monotone still clung to every word, Kurama didn't miss the agitation tucked beneath, the barest clipping of the syllables that suggested the unease rattling Hiei's composure.

Rolling the seed of an unbloomed rose between his fingers, Kurama quickened his pace. Not dramatically, but enough, and the slight turn of Hiei's head indicated the demon had noticed.

Kurama pitched his voice low. "You feel it, too."

"Hn."

Not a denial.

Which mean Kurama was right. This… presence he felt was not haunting him alone.

He couldn't see it, couldn't hear it, and—most tellingly of all—couldn't smell it. But he felt it. Everywhere. Lurking. Watching.

Hunting.

"Your Jagan—"

"Is showing me nothing."

Kurama raised a singular brow. "Elaborate."

"I can't find the stairs. Or Yusuke. Or the oaf." The angle of Hiei's katana shifted, and the fluorescent lights caught on the blade, a rainbow of color cascading across the white walls. "It might as well not exist at all."

"My senses are equally inhibited."

As much to himself as anything, Hiei growled, "What is this maddening place?"

An apt question, but one Kurama couldn't answer. It made no sense to him. The endless dimensions of these halls. The creeping sensation of energy for which he had no name. The complete lack of inhabitation they'd witnessed so far.

If Koenma's target was here, he was well-hidden beyond measure.

A chemical stench hung in the sterile air, disinfectant and noxious cleaning elements blending into a vile reek. Too fresh, too potent to be old. Someone was here. Or they had been recently enough to give the whole lab a thorough scrub down that had not yet worn off. And yet, Kurama had witnessed no other sign of a living presence.

It was baffling.

Without warning, Hiei stiffened, and a breath later, the bulbs overhead went dead. Darkness consumed the hall instantly, but no sooner had it swallowed them up than did fresh light burst into being. A licking flame in Hiei's palm. A glow plant twining up Kurama's arm, its luxurious petals casting pale radiance across the shadows.

"Someone cut the power," Hiei said.

"I heard it, too." It would've been inaudible to human ears, the softest of hums evaporating into the ether as whatever generator ran this place ceased running, but Kurama had caught it, and it told him one thing: this outage was intentional. More proof their target was here. Somewhere. If only they could find him.

A flick of Kurama's wrist and pulse of energy was enough to summon his Rose Whip, the small seed he'd once clutched expanding into a thorny vine in the space between one blink and the next. He coiled it loosely, ready to lash out at a moment's notice.

For now, the hall stayed quiet, undisturbed but for their own whispering footsteps.

Or so the senses of Kurama's human body insisted. But he didn't believe them. He knew better. He'd been a thief for too long, an infiltrator born and bred and impossibly practiced, and the instincts he'd honed all those years had never left him.

So the darts weren't a surprise.

When the ceiling panel slid backward and a gun lowered into the hall fast as lightning, Kurama spotted it in an instant. Its muzzle formed a perfect circle, as black as the darkest night, not even Hiei's flame or Kurama's glow plant enough to illuminate it. And as the first dart came lancing through the flickering shadows, he sliced it from the air with innate ease, his Rose Whip blurring from its coil like a striking viper.

But the gun did not shoot just one dart.

Nor did it shoot ten. Or twenty.

No. This was an assault. A hundred darts raining down, spraying across the hall's tight confines. Too many to be dodged. Too many to be cut down.

They weren't all intended to find their mark. That was clear. Instead, their erratic flight paths eliminated escape routes, and though Hiei broke away, racing beyond the bombardment's reach, Kurama was not so lucky. Two darts struck his shoulder. A third found his wrist.

As they pricked his skin, his energy guttered in his chest like the weak flame of a candle before a dancing breeze. In seconds, it had waned entirely, and his Rose Whip shriveled up, wilting away to nothing in his grip.

A fourth dart slammed into his gut, followed quickly by a fifth and sixth, and with each new hit, a sluggishness took hold in Kurama's system. The world spun, and he staggered, a raised forearm colliding with a wall and keeping him upright for only a breath before a seventh dart landed and his knees buckled.

"Kurama!"

The bellow reached him with the odd quality of sound traveling through water. Distant. Unclear. Yet still identifiable. Hiei. Riled and unsure.

Kurama tried to raise his head, tried to find Hiei in the darkness, but his glow plant had died as surely as his Rose Whip, and truth be told, he suspected he hadn't lifted his gaze at all. Yet he forced words onto his swollen tongue and past his clumsy lips.

"Run! Hiei, run!"

99 Joined

A dart had clipped Hiei, its piercing point skimming across his bicep as he bolted out of the turret gun's destructive reach, and just that barest touch was enough to send traces of toxin threading through his system. The venom stretched dampening fingers toward his energy, seeking to put out his flames, to douse his connection to the Jagan.

An intolerable offense.

Snarling, Hiei flared his power, ratcheting his body temperature to new heights and purging the poison from his bloodstream like kindling reduced to ash in a bonfire. All the while, his legs churned and his arms pumped, carrying him away from Kurama's crumpled form, away from the fox so weak and defenseless, on and on until he was desolately alone, running from an enemy he did not understand.

But solo was how Hiei operated best. No dead weight dragging him down. No allies' lives to concern himself with. Nothing but his iron will to rely upon.

This was his element.

And it would not fail him. He refused to let it fail him.

Because if Kurama had gone down, there was certainly no hope for Kuwabara and barely any more for Yusuke. The only thing that might have kept Yusuke standing was his stubbornness, a quality that nearly rivaled Hiei's own, but given a choice between Kurama's sharp cunning and Yusuke's ornery determination, Hiei would always choose the former. That held true even now, and he knew better than to count on Yusuke to pull them out of this.

If they were to escape, it fell on Hiei to make it happen, and he'd burn this whole wretched facility to the ground if their adversary forced his hand. Hell if he wouldn't be happy to oblige.

The world could always use a little more fire.

But first, escape.

He needed a moment to catch his bearings, a chance to calibrate the lab's weak point. One existed—weak points always existed—but tracking it down would take his mind at its sharpest, and he wasn't that, not now.

A calculated retreat was in order. He needed to find higher ground—somewhere out of this wretched basement. Kurama had erred in leading him here, but that didn't mean that blunder had to define him. The fox had his wiles, but Hiei had his wits, and he could utilize that intellect, honed by years of fierce, hard won independence, as sharply as he could wield his katana.

Now, those instincts led him to an updraft, a column of air rising into an almost perfectly concealed ventilation system. Lips curling into a victorious snarl, Hiei slowed his pell-mell pace, tensed his powerful quads, and leapt for the grate concealing the vent. His full weight brought it crashing down, and he rolled to his feet a moment later, peering into the gloom above.

A flick of his wrist summoned new flames to his palm. He tossed the ball into the shaft, illuminating its innards, bringing light to his flight path.

From the vents, he'd be able to navigate anywhere in this vile waste of Spirit World resources. He'd find the source of the strange, indefinable presence that was haunting him, nipping at his heels like hellhounds, and he'd gut it. Or incinerate it. Burn it down to nothing until no more than a chalky outline remained.

The thought brought vicious, purring pleasure to life in Hiei's chest, and his feral snarl morphed into a sinful grin as he sprung for the now open vent. Without the grate to protect it, his leap carried him straight through the opening, and he flung out his arms and legs, pinning himself in place, staving off gravity's incessant pull.

A few coordinated movements later, he'd pulled himself high enough to reach the bend where the vent turned horizontal. His ball of fire bobbed ahead, lighting his way, and as he crested the lip, its flickers cast themselves down the shaft's long, empty channel.

Only—it wasn't empty.

A gun was waiting for him, its muzzle a black void that swallowed every trace of his flame's light, and at once, Hiei recognized the mistake he'd made. A blunder as idiotic as the fox's. Because here in the vents, his speed did him no good. He couldn't run when his feet had no solid ground to stand on, when even his slight frame was bent double in the shaft's tight confines.

As the darts began to fire, Hiei roared, a guttural, raging scream that tore his throat ragged. In its wake slammed a tidal wave of fire, a conflagration intended to continue without end—but the darts didn't falter. Perhaps some did. Perhaps some melted away to useless ruin. But not enough. Not even close.

It only took three.

The same small body that had allowed him into the vent—the ridiculously minute build that had enabled his miscalculation—once again betrayed him. Though the grazing of a single dart had been easy to burn off, he could not fight off a true barrage.

By the time the fourth needle pricked his cheek, his fire had already ceased. His power evaporated, boiling off like steam from a pot. His connection to the Jagan wavered, then closed, snapped as if cleaved in two.

And then he was falling. Gone limp. Unable to hold himself in the shaft any longer.

The last things he knew, right before the void claimed him, were the cold, aching thump of his shoulders careening into the floor panels and—in an unforgivable blow to his pride—the whimper of failure that fell from his lips.

Crushing. Mortifying.

Even if no other soul ever heard it.

100 Joined

AN: Whelp. I wasn't supposed to start posting this fic until I had at least five chapters pre-written, but I'm in love with it, and I NEED to share it, so here we are. My other ongoing story, 'Blinded by Light,' is still my primary focus, and I update that every Saturday, but if all goes according to plan, I'll be updating 'The Unknown Grounds' every other Friday.

This story is a new adventure for me. Prior to now, I've always written fanfic from an OC character's POV. This fic changes that. It's going to become YusukexOC, but my OC won't be a POV character. We're staying in the boys' heads all along. Honestly, I'm pretty damn excited to get all up in their psyches. I'm planning to push them to their limits.

This chapter probably raised a lot of questions (like what the heck are with those 'Joined' numbers), but I've got a plan. All will be clear soon! So I hope to see you in two weeks, my friends. I can't wait!