7th Year
Chapter One: The Mission
"Koenma, I want those women back." The old woman demanded in a frozen voice. The seven hundred year old prince of the Spirit World shivered in his chair as the woman's slate colored eyes bored into him.
"Of course," Koenma said, pleased that his voice did not shake as much as he thought it would. "I will send the spirit detectives as soon as possible. We will inform you when we hear anything." The leader of the Ice Maidens continued to stare at him, and for an awful moment, Koenma thought she wasn't going to leave.
"Thank you for your cooperation Spirit Prince. I will leave everything to you now." With that, the old woman stood up and, in her usual dignified manner, exited Koenma's office.
Koenma slumped in his chair, letting out the breath he had been unconsciously holding in. For a moment he only sat there, reviewing in his head what the elderly Ice Maiden was asking of him. When he had it straightened out, he pushed a button on his desk.
"Botan? Please get Yusuke and the others as quickly as you can. Thank you." He released the button and rubbed his temples. Today was going to be a very long day.
*******
Yusuke Urameshi, Spirit World detective, was walking up Genkai's evil, giant staircase with Kazuma Kuwabara. School was out for the day and for some reason, Genkai had told them to come over today. Well, school wasn't actually over, it was only noon, and Genkai wasn't expecting them for a few more hours, but since they had nothing better to do, they were going to Genkai's.
They were almost there when Kuwabara looked up. "Hey," He said. "Isn't that Botan?"
Yusuke looked up too and saw the bright, pink speck against the pale, blue sky zooming towards Genkai's Temple. "Yeah, I think so. What's she doing here?"
"I don't know." Kuwabara said as they started climbing again. "Let's hurry up and get there so we can find out."
When they reached the top of the evil staircase, Yusuke saw a very anxious Botan talking to a very concerned looking Genkai. So, Yusuke called out to them.
"Hey basan! Botan! What're the long faces for?"
Genkai looked over at him. "Be quiet Yusuke. Koenma wants to see you. I suggest you go now and not make him wait. You go too Kuwabara." Then she turned around and went inside.
"Come on." Botan said. "Koenma sounded worried, we should hurry. Hinageshi is getting Kurama and Hiei. They should be there by the time we arrive." Botan's oar materialized in her hand and Yusuke and Kuwabara held on for dear life as she flew through the portal to Spirit World.
Yusuke tried not to hurl when they landed. "Jeez Botan, that was worse then Genkai's staircase!" Kuwabara nodded but didn't say anything. Yusuke had the feeling he was trying not to hurl too.
"Come on guys. I don't want to keep Koenma waiting." Botan pleaded.
Yusuke grinned mischievously. "Of course not Botan, We wouldn't want to keep your little boyfriend waiting." He started laughing.
BANG! BOP! BAM!
"This is no time for jokes Yusuke!" Botan yelled at him after she finished beating him with her oar. Her cheeks were flaming red, which was partly because she was so mad at him and partly because she blushing. "Now come on and hurry up!!!" She yelled back at them as she strode through the mess of scurrying ogres that were trying not to stare.
"Yes ma'am." Yusuke said weakly as Kuwabara started to laugh.
When Yusuke entered Koenma's office, he had three large bumps on his head and a downcast look on his face. Kurama was trying not to snicker as they came into the room. He, along with Hiei and Koenma, had heard everything that had happened because Yusuke and Botan had been so loud.
Koenma cleared his throat. "Are you two quite finished yet?"
Botan was standing huffily next to Koenma's desk, pretending Yusuke wasn't there. "Yes Koenma."
"Good. Then in that case I'll begin." He picked up the small remote on his desk and pointed it at the large TV screen on the wall in front of him. A picture of a stern looking old woman with slate grey eyes and grey hair stared back at them "This is the leader of the Ice Maidens." Koenma said clearly. "She came to me today demanding that I send you four to look for a group of young Ice Maidens who she said had 'poisoned' them. I told her that I would send you as soon as possible and also that we would send any information we received about them to her."
"Okay Koenma." Yusuke interrupted. "So where are we going?"
"Will you listen for once? I said 'as soon as possible.' We don't know where they are so I can't send you yet. So for right now I want all of you to keep your eyes and ears open in case they come to the human world."
Kuwabara stared blankly at him. "That's all?"
Koenma nodded. "For right now, yes. I'll let you know when we have an idea where they are."
"But Botan said you were freaking out. Is there a problem?" Kuwabara continued.
"No. It's just…" Koenma said as he closed his eyes. "She's a psycho! I swear she would freeze this whole entire place just because I refused her anything. She terrifies me!" He finished in a whine as he pointed up and the picture of the Ice Maiden leader. Yusuke started laughing until Botan smacked him over the head with her oar again, sending him to the floor. Then everybody else laughed as Yusuke sat there holding his head.
*******
That evening, Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara were all tromping up Genkai's evil stairs. Hiei had left them behind to climb up by themselves, as usual. Yusuke was a few steps behind the other two, grumbling.
"Why couldn't she have dropped us off at the top of the stairs?" He whined again.
"Maybe this will teach you not to make fun of Botan's feelings for Koenma." Kurama called over his shoulder.
"But I heard Keiko making fun of her about it just the other day and she didn't hit her. Or leave her at the bottom of basan's freaking stairs!" He all but yelled the last part.
Kuwabara shrugged his shoulders. "Well duh Urameshi, Keiko's a girl. Girls can talk to each other about stuff like that. But we can't because they would think we were just making fun of them, which you were."
Yusuke glared at Kuwabara. "And how would you know so much about what girls can and cannot talk about with guys? Huh?"
"Because Shizuru kicked my butt whenever she thought I was making fun of her when we were kids. And besides," Kuwabara added with a mean smile. "Your always such a pain anyway that it's no wonder that Botan-"
"Shut up." Yusuke thwacked Kuwabara over the head, leaving a bump.
Kurama ignored them and kept climbing. He smiled to himself thinking about something else as Yusuke and Kuwabara started to bicker. Kurama just shrugged his shoulders and kept climbing.
This is probably why he reached the top a good fifteen minutes before the other two. He saw Genkai sitting on the porch waiting for them.
"Good evening Kurama." She said calmly as she sipped her tea. "The others are already waiting inside. Where are the dimwits?"
"They should be here in a few minutes, unless they've fallen back to the bottom. (What Kurama didn't know was that Yusuke and Kuwabara were just then starting their re-re-climb.)
Kurama entered Genkai's home and saw that most of his friends were already there, so all they had to wait for was Yusuke and Kuwabara. Thankful for a shorter wait then he had expected Kurama sat next to Lavena in the corner.
Eventually, Yusuke and Kuwabara did make it to Genkai's, but by then it had started to rain and they grumbled as they dried off with towels that Yukina brought them.
"Okay Genkai, what do you want?" Yusuke asked as he wrung the rain out of his hair.
Genkai calmly sat down wit her tea. She took a long sip before answering her former student. "Nothing, I didn't call you hear." She told him cryptically, looking forward to Yusuke's reaction.
Yusuke, who was already in a bad mood because of having to climb Genkai's stairs three times in one day, Botan's own black mood, and now the rain (which had soaked him through and through), was really in no mood for Genkai's tricks. "What do you mean you didn't ask us to come here?! It's your house, if you didn't call us then who did?"
Kurama and Lavena smiled at each other.
"We did."
Everyone looked over at two in surprise. "You guys?" Yusuke asked. "Well, what is it?" He said in a slightly snappish tone, but no one really paid attention to that.
In fact, Lavena's smile grew bigger as she took Kurama's hand and said, "Guys, we're getting married!"
The room exploded in smiles and congratulations, immediately erasing any darker feelings. Lavena was surrounded by her friends, who were all, trying to ask her questions at the same time.
"When did he ask you?"
"Have you already started planning?"
"When's the wedding?"
Lavena held out her hands. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I can't answer you all at once. There's only one of me and five of you!" The girls slowed down and Lavena's good friend Emi repeated the last question.
"Hopefully May 1st." Lavena answered excitedly.
"Ahhhh," Emi said. "On taian. I thought you too didn't believe in those silly superstitions."
Lavena smiled. "No, I don't, but I don't mind having a little extra luck if it's true either. Besides," She added as an afterthought. "My mother and Shiori believe in it and they're going to be helping me with the planning and this taian is on Tuesday."
"Tuesday?" Keiko asked raising one of her eyebrows. "What's so special about Tuesday?"
"Nothing really. I just like Tuesday. But then again, I also like Thursdays and Fridays. Oh well, I'm just hoping that everything will work out alright."
*******
Fortunately, everything did work out. The weather decided to cooperate in a beautiful fashion. The sun was shining, but it was still cool enough to be comfortable. 'That's a good thing.' Lavena thought to herself as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was all ready. Her hair was coiled and braided on top of her head with small, pink flowers placed throughout. Her floor length, white dress hid her legs and feet in its soft folds and her veil, kept in place with a small, silver tiara at the top of her head, floated gently down her back.
"You look beautiful." Her mother said from behind her.
Lavena looked at herself again. She felt beautiful. Although she hoped she never had to wear this dress again. Apart from the fact that she wanted to be happily married for the rest of her life, the dress was darn heavy.
With one last look to make sure nothing was wrong with her appearance, Lavena turned around and took her place outside the closed doors of the Sanctuary. Her stomach was full of lively butterflies as the wedding march started and she gripped her bouquet tighter. She walked steadily up the aisle unaccompanied since her dad had died in a car accident shortly before she and her mother had moved to Japan. When she reached the front, the music stopped and the preacher began to speak. As he finished leading the guests in the opening hymn and started to read 1st Corinthians chapter 13, Lavena thought to herself how much faster the ceremony had seemed during rehearsal. Finally, after what felt like a slow moving eternity, Lavena and Kurama recited their vows and said, "I do."
As they both kneeled before the Alter for the blessing, Lavena felt relieved that Yusuke and Kuwabara hadn't done something stupid. She was worried for awhile that they were going to play some awful trick on them. She had seen them whispering together in a conspiring way. But it looked like everything would be fine.
That's when she noticed the snickers coming from those two dimwits.
But she couldn't see anything wrong, so she did her best to ignore them. She paid attention to the preacher and blocked them out of her mind. Then she rose from her knees as the preacher finished his blessing and declared them man and wife. Things were moving quicker now, she thought somewhere in the back of her mind as she received her wedding kiss. Then she took her new husband's arm and walked back up the aisle.
*******
The reception afterward was much more causal then the actual ceremony, but then again it was basically a party. Shortly after cake, the newlyweds noticed that Yusuke and Kuwabara were in the corner laughing.
"Do we want to know?" Lavena asked as they waded through the people to their seats.
"Probably not, but I have a feeling we'll find out anyway." Kurama said as their mothers came up to them.
Kurama's mother, Shiori, was trying not to smile. "Shuichi, do you realize that you have something written on the bottom of your shoes?" She asked placing a hand over her mouth to hide her smile.
"No I don't, and I probably don't want to know that I do." Kurama replied looking over at Yusuke and Kuwabara. "So I think I'll just stand up for the rest of the evening so that I don't ever realize that two of my friends wrote 'Help save me' on the bottom of my shoes." Both his and Lavena's mother laughed a little.
"Don't worry about it." Ms. Skylark told her new son-in-law. "I remember once when-"
"Excuse me!" Botan said loudly from behind Lavena and Kurama, making her friends jump.
"I'm sorry," She said with a slightly nervous look on her face. "But I need to speak with Ku-uh Shuichi for a moment. Would you please excuse us, we'll be right back." Then she practically dragged Kurama away to the spot were Yusuke and Kuwabara were standing. The three ladies watched for a minute as Botan began to talk to the three guys, but then they were distracted by their friends who came to chat. They didn't see the guys shocked and angered reactions to what Botan told them and they certainly didn't see them fall unsuspectingly through the large, dark hole that suddenly appeared beneath their feet.