Disclaimer:I don't believe i aquired anything new in this time... i still don't own anything save for my OCs.


Iris's POV

Some time has passed since the Parasite incident, and while now I was officially part of the Spirit Detective Team, we have had no missions since then. Just my luck: when I join, all the excitement wears off. What I wasn't considering in my argument against Fate was that officially, we haven't had a mission since Sensui. The time spent in Demon World, the tournament held there that was all Yusuke's idea, the Parasite, those weren't official missions. But that was beside the point.

Today, however, I had a ray of hope for something new, something exciting and challenging and it seems I wasn't the only one who saw that ray either. Yusuke could barely sit in his seat as agitated as he was. He rose to his feet several times and started pacing and didn't stop until Hiei threatened him. Even then, when he sat, he tapped his foot the floor rapidly, impatiently. That time I was quicker than Hiei and told him to cut it out – he was only making things worse for all of us.

The rest, including myself, were a little better at hiding our impatience and built-up anxiety for action. Kuwabara, who was sitting on the couch by Yusuke, was simply staring into space. Hiei was standing on the right side of it looking down-right bored as he leaned on his katana that he was previously polishing with the inside of his shirt. I was leaning against the other end of the couch, with my arms folded to my chest just so they wouldn't lie limply to my sides. Kurama was standing right by me and was, naturally, the calmest of us all. I caught his eye a few times, as I did with everybody else except Hiei who didn't give anybody a second glance except his katana. I didn't look at my friends very often though, because I mostly kept my eyes glued to the door.

Yusuke sighed irritably. We have been waiting for a while. My eyes flickered at the closed door again through which Koenma should walk – or glide – though, depending on the form he was in at the moment.

He summoned us here, in his office with no explanation what so ever. I was hoping he had a new mission for us, and I was pretty sure I was reflecting everybody's thoughts on that matter. Things have been pretty dull in the past few months.

Then, finally, the door opened and Koenma honored us with his presence in his toddler form.

"What the hell took you so long?!" Yusuke demanded, getting to his feet at the sight of him.

"I am a busy man, Yusuke," Koenma answered importantly and Yusuke snorted, though I was unsure if it was because of Koenma's statement as a whole or because he called himself a "man."

"So, what's the deal?" Kuwabara got up from the couch too, sounding excited. "Do you have a new mission for us?"

"Well, not exactly—" Koenma started but was interrupted by Yusuke's angry growl.

"Damn it! Where the hell are all the bad guys? In vacation? We haven't had a mission in months!"

"Do you want bad demons lurking around in Human World, Yusuke?" Koenma raised an eyebrow at him, his tone making it sound as if he was questioning Yusuke's sanity.

"Hell yeah, so I can have the satisfaction of sending them back to where they belong!" Yusuke punched his fist in his palm and had a wide grin on his face. "I can take on anybody now, with my new bad ass demon powers!" I slapped my forehead and shook my head.

"I think he likes his job a little too much," I said in a low voice to Kurama and chuckled silently.

"Yes, I believe you're right."

"Don't get so cocky," Hiei's crimson red eyes seemed to pierce Yusuke. "Regardless of how strong you are, there will always be someone stronger out there."

Yusuke snorted, not taking Hiei's words serious in the least. "You doubt me, scrawny boy?" he raised an eyebrow at Hiei, his grin still in place. It seemed like he was taking on every chance he got to get into a fight.

"Careful, Spirit Detective, my blade is drawn. I can slit your throat faster than you can blink."

"I—"

"Shut it!" I bellowed at the two of them, particularly Yusuke. Normally I would enjoy their bickering, but not today. Although I was disappointed that we weren't asked to come for a mission, I still wanted to know what Koenma's reason for this visit was. Their bickering was very distracting and slightly annoying.

Everybody was staring at me, the atmosphere suddenly quiet and tense. They were probably surprised – it wasn't very often that I snapped at them.

"Perhaps," Kurama interceded, coming to my rescue, "we should hear the reason Koenma summed us and leave our threats for later?" he suggested in his calm, placid tone.

Koenma cleared his throat, taking his chance at the silence that settled. "As I was saying, I don't have a mission for you, but I do have something for you to do," he said and I stepped forward the slightest bit. "You could train for the next Demon World Tournament." I suppressed a groan at his suggestion, but Yusuke wasn't as thoughtful.

"But it's still like, more than two years away!" Kuwabara complained and I mirrored his thoughts.

"Precisely why you should start," Koenma pointed out and his brown eyes met each of ours in turn. "You all are strong, but even so, all of you were eliminated early in the tournament. Luna got the farthest, up until Round Three, when she was eliminated and only because she discovered her new level of power. The tournament had a total of seven rounds."

I heard Luna growl softly in my head. She acquired her new powers too late and she was obviously still frustrated about it. She probably would've felt better about her defeat if she wouldn't have gotten them in the first place – by the time she reached those powers, she was already close to being drained.

"That time we were lucky. Things could've ended a lot worse," Koenma eyed Yusuke who, by the looks of it, wasn't even paying attention. He sighed and tried a different approach. "Yusuke, do you remember that even after your Mazaku powers awakened in you, you still couldn't defeat Hokoshin? At least for a while?"

Yusuke stopped whatever he was doing and was now listening intently. "Yeah," he answered.

"It took you close to a year of training to beat him. Improvement takes time," Koenma said and I had to admit he had a point.

"Koenma's right, Yusuke," Kurama said, eyeing his unconvinced friend.

"It's been a months since we've used our powers at all," I pointed out.

"Yusuke, it's not a request, it's an order." Koenma sounded dead-serious.

Yusuke sighed and waved his hand as if it was nothing. "Fine. We're going to start training."

"Excellent," Koenma said, pleased that he was able to convince his hard-headed detective into following his orders.

***

That day, after our disappointing new assignment, we came back to my house to think things through. We were all gathered in my living room, but all I could look at was Yusuke's slumped position on the couch. He was sitting in my armchair with his head on one rest, one of his legs over the other, and his other leg stretched out as far as it would go. One of his arms was folded over his eyes and if I wouldn't have known any better, I would've thought he was sleeping.

"Where should we do it?" Kuwabara asked and I heard Yusuke chuckle under his breath. Knowing Yusuke, I suspected it was at Kuwabara's unintended perverted joke.

"How about right outside?" Yusuke pointed with his thumb in the general direction of my front yard, since he couldn't see.

I shook my head. "Tourists come by here all the time. We might be seen."

"We could go at the old arena in Spirit World where the Dark Tournament was held," Kurama suggested and I stayed quiet, not knowing to which arena he was referring to. By what they told me, I met them right after they came back home from the tournament.

Yusuke raised his arm and frowned at Kurama. "Didn't Sakyo blow it up?"

Kurama shook his head. "About half-way through, the tournament was switched to another arena. The old one is intact," he said and smiled slightly, shifting his green eyes on Kuwabara. "Kuwabara's been there a few times afterward. He can attest to its condition."

I felt was missing an inside joke, but I didn't say anything. Kuwabara looked like he was about to retort to Kurama's comment when Yusuke cut him off. He was suddenly at his feet, though I didn't notice him get up. "Ok. The old arena it is," he said, making his tone sound decisive.

***

"You know," Yusuke said, a grin forming on his lips as he was pacing on the wide arena, "I was thinking…"

I snorted and grinned at him. "You were thinking." It was a mere statement, with no emphasis, but I thought that was enough.

"Is that another power you got with your demon blood?" Hiei taunted, a small evil grin forming on his lips.

Yusuke ignored both of us. "Since we have to train, why don't we make this a little more interesting? Spice things up?" he grinned at us. I frowned, not entirely sure where he was going with this. I looked at Kurama and his expression was, yet again, thoughtful.

"What are you saying, Urameshi?" Kuwabara asked, sounding just as bewildered as I felt.

"Yes, be more specific. Unless you want us to use you as a punching bag. Now that would be interesting," Hiei commented, smirking and I grinned. Hiei was in a good mood, I noted.

"Will you guys shut your traps already? I'm going to explain," he said and jumped down from the arena and walked toward us until the circle we were previously in was united and whole again. Yusuke closed his eyes briefly, annoyed. "I though that maybe we could do this training thing a bit differently. How about we do it though a small tournament of our own?"

I considered his idea and thought that it would definitely be a lot more fun than a routine, dull training. It would certainly motivate us more. I remembered the training Genkai put me and the others though before the Demon World Tournament and I shuddered.

"I'm up for it," I spoke our first and Yusuke grinned at me, glad of my approval.

"Not a bad idea, Spirit Detective," Hiei almost sounded as if he was praising him.

"Let's do it!" Kuwabara sounded excited already.

We all looked at Kurama, who hasn't expression neither an agreement to Yusuke's idea nor disapproval. "It would certainly make things interesting," he said, "but there are a few issues with your idea." Yusuke listened intently, as he always did when Kurama gave him pointers or expressed his opinion. Out of all of us, he listened to Kurama the most. "How will we divide into teams? We have an odd number of people."

Yusuke rubbed his jaw in a habitual motion of him pondering. "Well…I was thinking that maybe we should include the alter egos in the picture also, since they will probably be fighting in the tournament too."

"That will still leave us at seven fighters," Kurama pointed out and Yusuke nodded.

"One pair should go first and then we start with the 'formal' tournament," he said, adding air quotes for the word "formal."

"But then, after the first round, we will have three fighters left. Again, an odd number," Kurama said and Yusuke looked like he was starting to get annoyed that there were so many flaws in his plan.

"Then the person who was originally eliminated will fight again in the second round."

Kurama nodded, pleased with Yusuke's immediate action. "I'm in," Kurama said and that sealed our agreement.

"All right! Anybody care to volunteer?" Yusuke asked us and I personally wasn't too keen of going first. I waited for somebody else to be the guinea pigs. I wasn't entirely surprised to see Kuwabara stepping out of our circle.

"I'll do it," he said, sounding his confident self. He stepped on the arena.

Hiei snorted, but didn't say anything. He obviously didn't step forward for the fight because he thought Kuwabara was below him. Nobody else wanted to take him up on his challenge either.

"Iris," Kurama said in a low voice and I turned to meet his green eyes. "Why don't you go? Out of all of us, I think it would be the fairest fight between the two of you, especially that you're both human," he said. I resisted the urge to grimace. As much as I didn't want to admit it and I wanted to be stronger, Kuwabara was closest to my level.

I sighed, resigned, and stepped forward. Kuwabara looked disappointed for a split second, but changed it the very next. As much as he wanted to fight against Yusuke or one of our really strong friends, it's been a while since he fought at all and he welcomed any challenger.

I braced myself as I pushed myself up on the arena, wondering if he has improved in the past year and half or not. Kuwabara drew out his spirit sword and positioned himself in his habitual offensive stance.

"Ready, set, begin!" Yusuke bellowed enthusiastically, and I had a vague impression that he was imitating Koto.

I turned everybody's thoughts on, as I always did when I was in a fight. Yusuke, as usual, was the loudest, and I tried my best to drown them out and concentrate only on Kuwabara's. I focused on him enough so that the rest only sounded as an annoying hum in the back of my mind.

This is going to be hard…if she can read my mind, how am I supposed to lead a surprise attack? Oh wait, if she can read my mind, then…oh, damn it! Shut up already! I heard him think and I bit my tongue really hard to keep myself from laughing so that he won't know I was already in his mind. If he did, he would be more prone to try to concentrate on not thinking.

"Don't hold anything back!" he yelled at me from quite a distance away.

"You wish," I muttered under my breath, then said louder, "Same to you!" I saw his face break into a grin and he charged at me. At first, he was at normal human, speed, but as I watched him, he slowly became a blur and realized he enhanced his speed in this the time we have been gone too.

I stayed in place, knowing him well enough to know that he will go for a direct attack, exactly like Yusuke would if I would be fighting him – although Yusuke would be considerably faster. I took my defensive position and just as he stepped in front of me, I decided to act quick. I used my arms to push away his armed hand, careful not to touch his spirit sword and with the other I tried to deliver a punch in the jaw. I ignored the gnawing feeling in my stomach that was protesting against me hitting a friend in the face.

I saw that coming, I heard him think.

Kuwabara took my fist into his, twisted it, making me cower and position my body so that I wasn't in pain and was about to bring the spirit sword to my neck and ask me to give up, no doubt. I had other plans. Due to my flexibility, I stretched my leg to block his armed arm and made my Spirit Energy burst out of me like a beam that made him let go of my arm and push him away.

Whoa, I didn't know she could do that!

I took him off guard, but instead of going high, like he would probably expect, I did something I rarely do and went low, trying to trip him with my leg. Kuwabara didn't see that and fell to the ground, but got to his feet to soon for me to be able to do anything.

That was close. Because he was concentrating so hard on the fight, he hardly had time to think at all and went with his gut instinct, which made him unpredictable if I wouldn't have known him so well.

When we were once again facing each other I felt at a slight disadvantage that I didn't have a weapon and he did but I didn't dwell on it for long. I had to try to win with the resources that I had. Kuwabara charged at me once again, and I charged back, starting to run in his direction. Surprise registered on his features, but it was only fleeting. I used my Spirit Energy to go even faster, and just as I was within a few feet of him, I sidestepped, turned around so that we were back to back, and tried to deliver a blow to the back of his neck – an immobilizing blow. Kuwabara surprised me by knowing exactly what I wanted to do and blocked it with his elbow.

The thought that he knew all my moves suddenly dawned on me. I was surprised I didn't realize that before. Kuwabara, along with the others, knew my strategies exactly – they knew what I would do if I was put in a situation such as this, they knew the moves that I used a lot and were usually successful against people who didn't know what to expect. But they all knew. This would be much harder than I originally anticipated, for I was like an open book to him, to them all. I had to fight in a way that I normally wouldn't just to confuse them and make my moves unpredictable, but this was much harder to do in a fight when you go purely on instinct.

I had only a split second to decide what I was going to do, and instead of retreating and trying to attack from another direction, as I normally would have doe, I spun around so that I was facing him. He didn't expect that, I saw it in his eyes. I concentrated and tried the same move as I did before. This time I was too quick for him to block it. At the last moment, I stored Spirit Energy into my fist and punched as hard as I could.

The blow made him stagger a few steps backward, but I didn't wait for him to recover. I didn't want to give him time to think about his next move. Just as he took another step back, before he looked up at me, I bend low again and tripped him. He fell to the ground and I stepped over him so that he didn't have a way to escape without passing by me.

He looked up at me and grinned. "I can easily get up from this position." He sounded smug, as if I wasn't aware of that.

I grinned back, nonplussed. "And I can easily do this." I called upon my Spirit Energy and concentrated it into my hand, making it start glowing a bright blue. I placed my palm on his stomach. "If I would send my energy through your body right now, you would start bleeding internally and, eventually, die." This was a newer strategy of mine, one I discovered during the Demon World Tournament.

Kuwabara scowled, not expecting me to have a few new tricks since going away to Demon World. He made tried to escape, but I expected that, knowing he wouldn't give up so easily. I quickly grabbed him by the wrist, bent on my knees, and put my still glowing hand on his stomach. "All right, you win," he said and I released the energy stored in my hand. I smiled triumphantly, got to my feet and then I held out a hand for him to help him up. He took it gruffly.

"Thanks. It was a good fight," he said, but didn't sound like he meant it.

I looked at him apologetically, but I couldn't help not to feel the rush of victory. "I trained for six months under Genkai. If it wasn't for that, you would've won."

He shrugged and walked away. I tried not to let his sore-loser attitude amuse me, because it would only make him feel worse. Kuwabara jumped off the arena, sat down, and rested against it. I followed him, but walked all the way up to the others. Yusuke was grinning. He gave me a high-five then walked to Kuwabara.

"A girl beat you, man! A girl!" he said as if he found that to be the funniest thing ever.

"Screw you, Urameshi," Kuwabara answered. Yusuke laughed. "Don't worry, Kuwabara. You'll get to fight again at the end," he gave him a hard pat on the shoulder and came back to our circle.

"All right," Yusuke said as if nothing happened, "One of us is out, so we can start the tournament now," he slapped his hands together, already excited. "Should we pick our partners or should we leave it to chance?"

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Hiei asked him, sounding bored.

Yusuke grinned and rummaged through his pocket, revealing a blank dice. "Luckily, I came prepared."

"Chance then. It's fairer," Kurama said and Yusuke nodded in agreement.

"Hold on a second," he said. Then, right before my eyes, I held the dice between his thumb and index finger and closed his eyes as hand alone seemed to be aflame in Demon Energy. Soon enough, names were being carved into each side of the dice. Yusuke, Kurama, Hiei, Iris, Luna and Yoko. "If the dice rolls on our name twice, we'll just roll again," he said and threw it on the floor with no further ado.

The first name that fate selected was Hiei. The next name was Yusuke. He punched the air with his fist in exuberance and took the dice off the floor.

"Payback time," Hiei grinned and stepped out of the circle.

"You're so on!" Yusuke yelled in his excitement and got on the arena. "But you're not allowed to kill me, so you can't use your Darkness Flame technique," he grinned down at his partner.

"I almost forgot," Hiei grinned back and followed Yusuke, though he set some distance between them.

"Let the tournament begin!" Yusuke hollered. "Let's see who shall win between the ever-famous Spirit Detective and Mazaku demon, Yusuke Urameshi, and the frog covered in eyes, Hiei!"

Hiei drew out his katana. "I'm going to teach you some manners," he said in what sounded like a dangerous tone, but he was grinning.

"Don't bother," Yusuke yelled from the other end of the arena, "my mom already tried and it didn't work." And with that, both he and Hiei leaped at each other at the exact same time. And so the tournament began.


A/N: To make it fit my story, I made it so that the time between them coming home and fighting against Sensui was a lot longer than it was in the anime. I had to do it.

I've been working on this for a while, and since i'm done with Scar Night (for a while), i decided to post this. I'm trying to make up for my month of absence, lol.

R&R!