Lunesca: Well, here it is! I'm finally getting to my re-write of "Guilded Cage"! I don't know often I'm going to be able to update, it should go by fairly quickly, but I did find many things that I wanted to change from the original story…to think it's been about 10 years since I actually wrote it…*sigh* Well…enough reminiscing! On to the new and improved "Guilded Cage"!

Legend:

"Talking"

'Telepathic Speak'

Thinking to oneself

Dream/Memories

YYH = Pagebreak/Scene Change/Etc

Chapter 1: Summer Vacation!

'Shh, keep quiet' Raven calmly scolded her sister, mentally, for giggling. Her black leather pants and shirt helped hide her in the shadows as they waited for the guards to pass by. She flicked a strand of red-black hair out of her face, the color of it imitating blood in the dark. She kept her black feathered wings wrapped around her shoulders to hide her pale skin from sight. She turned her burgundy red eyes to her sister as she gauged their approach. A black sheath hung at her side, the hand of a sword barely visible.

Hawk rolled her silver eyes at her sister's chiding. Raven was older by a decade and never let her forget it. She kept her cloak tight around her to hide the fact that her wings, shirt and hair were light enough to give her away as they snuck through the castle. Her black leather skirt hung to her ankles and had slits up the sides for easy maneuverability. In contrast her white long sleeve shirt showed the top of her cleavage and everything between the ribs and waistline. Nestled just above her chest was a silver chain holding a black hawk in flight. Her hair sparkled with silver and gold highlights despite it being mostly black.

'You know I can't help it!' She replied the same way. 'We're sneaking around a dark lord's castle in an attempt to find a portal to earth. And why, you might ask? Because my psychotic older sister decided that she wanted to go to Ningenkai for a summer vacation!'

Raven mentally sighed as Hawk continued on her rant. 'I mean it's not like it's dangerous or illegal right? Oh wait! It is!' Hawk was nearly yelling and it was causing a twitch to start behind Raven's left eye. She turned to her sister and glared. 'Not to mention if Lord Koenma, or worse, Lord Enma found out we'd find ourselves in Spirit World Prison faster than you could blink…'

Raven cut her off, trying to focus on the timing and route. 'Well it wouldn't be a problem if you would just keep your mouth shut about it! Now be quiet I'm trying to concentrate here, unless you want to get caught?' She glanced over her should again. Hawk meekly shook her head no.

'You were a lot more fun when we were younger…' Hawk mused to herself, forgetting that her and Raven were linked for a moment. Her voice was sad enough that Raven mentally flinched at the hopelessness of her words.

'I'm sorry Hawk' Raven whispered. She had become her sister's protector at a young age and it caused a rift in their friendship. Raven wished things could have been different but she could not change the past and keeping Hawk safe was her first priority. Thus, the sudden trip to Ningenkai.

Just before they moved to turn around the last corner and make a break for the exit, four boys came running down the hall to the right. Raven tucked Hawk in behind her and just barely missed the two of them being seen by these unknown enemies. 'Those were not any kind of guards I've seen.' Raven mused to Hawk.

Hawk shook her head and used her abilities to cloak them in shadows. It wouldn't last long but with Raven cloaking there energy it would last long enough for the two of them to make it to the portal and escape. If they got caught now they'd be in serious trouble. The two of them waited for a group of guards to pass before running for the portal room.

'I wonder what's up?' Hawk mused to Raven as they ran. The guards had run to the East wing while the girls were running West, the direction the boys had gone. 'It couldn't have been us or they'd have gone to the portal room to wait.'

They entered the portal room to see the four boys fighting with some guards. One turned and faced their direction for a moment before having to turn back and battle another guard. Raven grabbed Hawk's hand and made a dash for the portal, leaping in before anyone noticed them.

YYH

"Yes! We made it!" Hawk yelled as they landed in a cave somewhere in a remote forest. Her voice echoed a bit since they were well towards the back of the cave. "Let the vacation begin!"

Raven looked around at where they had landed. Even if someone were to use this cave for shelter, chances are they wouldn't even want to come this far back. She thought to herself and followed her sister out of the structure.

"So what are we going to do first?" Hawk mused as Raven only half listened to her sister. She was more on the look out for potential dangers as the forest would be a good place for low level demons to hide. Even a "C" class demon was dangerous under the right circumstances. "Raven! Are you even listening to me?" Hawk demanded with a small pout.

Raven sighed and gave her sister a small smirk. "Okay so we're here, what do you want to do?" She asked assuming her sister had planned out several things to do since hearing about the trip over a month ago. Raven had heard rumors about the portal and upon further inspection she found them to be true. So, she planned to keep her sister safe by getting the two of them out of Makai for a while.

"um I'm not sure." Hawk sweatdropped and put her hand behind her head in embarrassment. "I heard a few rumors, but I don't know much about humans or their world." Raven stopped in her tracks. They had been walking down a small trail that looked like it was uncommonly used but not forgotten.

"You mean to tell me that you didn't do any research on this place? I only followed the rumors because I thought you wanted to visit here!" Raven growled, her voice never raising but the tone said plenty about her temper. Hawk chuckled nervously. She knew her sister wouldn't really hurt her but the threat of it was enough to make her shake in her sexy black boots.

"Well, I'd heard rumors about it and then you said you found a way through and I had trouble finding any real information was all." Hawk mumbled in apology. Raven sighed and muttered to herself as she turned and began walking away. In the distance the two could see what appeared to be a park at the edge of the woods.

Before Hawk could mutter any more apologies the two reached the edge of the park, just inside the treeline, and a rubber ball rolled up to them and landed at Raven's feet. A group of boys no more than twelve or thirteen came running up to them. "Can we have our ball back please?" The oldest one asked politely. Hawk picked up the ball, causing her cloak to fall backwards and reveal her white wings.

The boy who had called out was almost to them when he saw the wings and her claws. A quick scan revealed that the two sisters were demons and the boy rand off without his ball, yelling at his friends to run from the demons of the forest.

Raven began chuckling darkly at the response of the boys until Hawk gave her a light slap on the shoulder. 'Raven you baka! We need to look human.' Hawk demanded and Raven sent her an image of confusion. Hawk rolled her eyes. 'I'd forgotten that one of the things about these humans is that they don't trust demons. Often times they shun and try to kill them…with good reason if you ask me.' She explained to her elder sister.

'But it's so fun to scare the lowly humans' Raven teased. 'It's not like they can really hurt us anyways.'

Hawk was not pleased and glared at her sister. She really didn't want to spend their time here running from weak humans just because Raven didn't want to 'blend in'. 'Change now!' Hawk yelled mentally, putting some force to it to get her point across.

Raven grumbled and complied with her sister's demand. It was rare for Hawk to be angry but Raven did her best to keep her sister happy and if that meant playing human so be it. As soon as Raven's wings disappeared, her hair color darkened even more and her eyes turned to a lilac blue color she turned to her sister. Hawk's hair turned a platinum blonde and her eyes darkened to a silvery grey color that was less noticeable but stunning all the same. Their claws and fangs greatly receded leaving them virtually defenseless in that stead, but they still had access to their Ki and demonic abilities.

After all was said and done, Hawk did a small skip out of the forest and turning around she walked backwards, looking at Raven. "I'm hungry! Let's go find something sweet!" She said before skipping off and wandering around the area.

Raven gave a small chuckle, following her sister to an ice cream stand Hawk was already ordering a triple vanilla cone. Raven ruffled her hair and told the man that she wanted mint chocolate chip. The vendor gave them the cones and told Raven the cost. Not familiar with human currency she handed him some Makai coins, more than enough to pay for the treat. The guy started to smile then realized it the money was different.

"Hey! What is this?" He cried out to them before they'd gone more than a few steps away. "I want real money now or I'm going to call the police!" He threatened, his fist wrapped around the coins tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Raven frowned and turned to him, glaring.

"Those are perfectly good coins! Either you can take them or leave them I really don't care which." She growled at him. The vendor got smart and backed down. The coins appeared to be of an old variety, maybe they were still worth something to the right person. Satisfied Raven continued walking with Hawk directly on her heels. Wanting to punish the man for challenging her, Raven sent a small fireball at the cart, taking out one of the wheels.

Raven smirked at her sister who simply glared back. Hawk so rarely got mad that, that small glare upset Raven and she felt some minor guilt. 'What?' She asked hiding how she felt. Hawk finished her cone and increased her pace so she was ahead of her sister.

'You very well know what.' She hissed mentally. 'You can't do things like that here! If we cause enough people to notice us then the Reikai police force will be hunting us down in no time. I will be really upset with you if our vacation gets ruined because we're locked in a cell somewhere in Reikai for who knows how long.'

With that she stalked off and turned a corner down a small side street. Halfway down the block was a partially hidden alleyway. Raven got an itchy feeling between her shoulders signaling "danger" but she followed on her sister's heels anyways, determined to protect her. As Hawk hit the edge of the alleyway a group of guys stepped out and quickly surrounded the two girls. Raven could hear traffic in three different directions from where they were but knew no one would see what was going on. These fools had done this plenty of times before.

One of the boys, presumably the leader, stepped forward and began circling Hawk. Raven noticed his greasy brown hair and sickening smile that showed he had no intent of letting them leave without a price. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he asked lifting a strand of Hawk's hair to his nose and taking a long whiff. "Is this a couple of young girls with no escort? Don't you know it's dangerous in these parts? Something could…happen, if you know what I mean"

"Yes something could happen so I suggest you leave now before it happens to you and your boys." Raven growled at him her eyes shifting color slightly. The man's smirk turned to a frown. He obviously wasn't used to females standing up to him. In fact most would be in tears or screaming by now. These two seemed to confuse him.

'Raven, no killing or mortally wounding.' Hawk sent her sister without even glancing her way. It was highly obvious where this was going. These fools weren't going to back down. In fact, the leader had moved towards Raven while his men began inspecting Hawk; their intents showing plainly on their faces. 'We don't need the RPF coming after us over some smelly jerkwads.'

Raven merely gave a very slight nod as she analyzed the situation. She let out a small smirk as the leader made his way back to the front of her. He looked at her and frowned harder. His face showed that he had had enough games and was ready to put these two in their place. Raven appeared to be ignoring him so he backhanded her across the face. "Pay attention bitch! You're going to be my slave for the foreseeable future."

Raven took her time recovering from the slap, it hadn't truly done any damage, but she felt like playing with the idiots in front of her like a cat with a mouse. The other men were grabbing Hawk with their free hands as weapons had appeared in their hands to force the girls into submission. "Is that all you've got?" She asked unamused.

Seeing trouble the men once again surrounded the two and the leader now had a gun in his hand, pointed at Hawk. This was going nowhere good, fast. Hawk trusted Raven to get them out of their situation with as little damage as possible, but she was still a bit worried. "You had your chance to come willingly." The greasy leader announced and with some unseen signal the group attacked.

Raven and Hawk fought off the men as their leader watched. As the last one fell to the ground unconscious, Raven looked at the man left standing. He still had the gun pointed at Hawk but this time with fear in his face. Hawk was checking one of the men that had been hit harder than necessary so she did not see the danger. Raven knew what a gun could do even though they were very rarely used by demons.

As the hammer clicked back she heard the man say something and within seconds she had Hawk on the ground, safe from the bullet. A sharp, burning pain pierced her shoulder and it hung limp at her side as she landed hard. She rolled and threw a fireball at the man, hitting him in the chest and the man instantly hit the ground. "Burn you son of a bitch!" She growled and pulled herself up.

Hawk, having recovered and seeing what happened, checked her sister over. Bandaging up the wound as best she could she went to check on the man. "He'll live." She said and helped Raven to stand.

The bullet hadn't hit anything vital but it did a lot of damage and was bleeding a lot. Hawk gave her sister her cloak and Raven used her free hand to cover the wound from sight. "Thanks." She said and Hawk nodded. She seemed a little worried. "Let's find some shelter and properly tend to this. Are you alright?"

Hawk shrugged. "They got a couple of scratches on me but nothing serious. I didn't have nearly enough room to maneuver so I couldn't block everything." Raven nodded and glanced at her sister but none of the scratches seemed too serious or obvious. The two left the side street and made it out to an area with lots of people.

Stores lined both sides of the street and it was crowded. Raven didn't care for the risks, but figured they were better off with more people around them than less. No one was as likely to notice anything wrong with the sisters. Hawk stayed close to her sister and her head swung back and forth trying to take everything in. This amused Raven but she kept to herself, she was glad that Hawk was happy for a change. It had been too long since she had seen the girl truly smile.

They arrived at a corner and were getting ready to cross the street in front of them when a group of girls came around that same corner. None of them saw each other and the two groups ended up colliding. "Ouch!" The brunette said as she landed on her butt. Raven flinched as the contact send more fiery pain up her shoulder.

'What no warning?' She grumbled to her sister. The younger demon was the better of the two at sensing energies, so Raven had been relying on her to sense the humans around them.

'Sorry' Hawk muttered back, feeling bad that she had failed to take care of her sister. 'There's so many energies floating around that I didn't sense them coming.' She said apologizing again. Raven ruffled her hair and gave her a small smile. Hawk perked up slightly but still felt guilty. It wasn't often that Raven needed her and she hated failing when those rare times did appear.

"Hey are you two new around here?" asked a blue haired girl with pink eyes. Raven found this strange but didn't dwell on it too much. She did feel like she recognized the girl and by the look on Hawk's face she did too. Then it clicked…she was a "ferry girl" one of Lord Koenma's escorts for the spirits of the dead.

'Keep cool, I got this.' She said to Hawk before adopting a confused look on her face. She had gotten by for a long time with her acting abilities. She glanced at the third girl and immediately recognized her as an ice maiden. Strange what is an ice maiden doing in Ningenkai? Wait, the only one I heard of living here is that one that was rescued by the Spirit Detectives…that means…shit!She relayed her thoughts to Hawk who agreed immediately. They had to get away from these girls and quick.

"Um yeah, sorry about the run in, we're kinda new around here." Raven said cheerfully, hoping the two blue haired girls wouldn't recognize them for being demons. After the dark tournament everyone in Makai knew to avoid these girls or it would be a death sentence. "Sorry but we should get going. We've still got to get home and unpack."

The ferry girl squealed and grabbed Raven's hand, fortunately it was the uninjured side. "Oh we have to go shopping then! The mall is just right around the corner and we were heading there ourselves anyways! Please say you'll join us?" The girls didn't even get to take a breath before she continued. "Great! Oh, Gomen nasai! We haven't introduced ourselves! I'm Botan, the brunette is Keiko and this one is Yukina! Oh I just know this will be so much fun!"

Feeling a bit cornered and unable to find a way out of this she offered an awkward smile. "I'm Raven and this is my younger sister, Hawk." She tried to move away. "We really should get going…"

Before she could finish Botan grabbed both of them by the hands and began dragging them behind her. "Nonsense! We insist that you join us. Unpacking can wait, it's not going anywhere." The other two girls seemed to be a little embarrassed by their friends actions but shrugged it off and smiled at the two sisters. Raven sighed and finally relented. Botan let go and the group made their way to the mall.

Raven glanced over her shoulder a couple of times, feeling like they were being watched. The energy felt like a fire demon but it kept disappearing so quickly that she couldn't be sure. Instead she was determined to keep the other girls safe. Maybe if she protected their friends the detectives wouldn't be so harsh on her and Hawk if they were found out. Which, Raven had the feeling would be sooner rather than later.

At the mall the girls dragged Raven and Hawk through so many different stores she was having trouble keeping them straight. After about an hour of browsing, Botan squealed again and pulled a dress off one of the racks and held it out to Raven. The dress was a dark, royal blue color and had many intricate cuts and designs on it that it almost appealed to Raven.

"You have to try this on!" Botan insisted. Yukina and Keiko agreed that the dress would look lovely on the darker sister. Raven tried to turn it down, not wanting to get her blood on such a beautiful item. She couldn't use that excuse though so she tried to just decline. "Oh, but I insist!" Botan said shoving the dress into Raven's hands.

Hawk was amused up until the point that the cloak Raven had been wearing slipped open enough for the girls to see the blood covering Raven's shirt. She tossed the dress back to Botan and closed up the cloak once again, hiding the damage. The girls began to insist on taking her to the hospital, making comments on the injury and trying to inquire as to what happened.

Finally Raven lost her temper and growled at the girls. "Enough, I don't need to go to some human hospital…" She trailed off realizing what she had said and paled a little hoping the girls didn't notice. Keiko and Yukina frowned and looked a little worried while Botan was upset.

"You're demons?" Yukina asked, a small look of fear crossed her face. Keiko's face mirrored the ice koorime's almost exactly. Looking Yukina in the eyes she had the feeling of seeing eyes like hers before, only much colder looking.

The two girls were dragged out of the store to the alley behind it. Once they were concealed Botan let go of Raven and pulled out her compact mirror. Well this is an odd time to be looking at her make up. I thought she was going to report us to…

"Lord Koenma?" Botan said into the mirror and a glance over her shoulder told Raven that the mirror was really a concealed communicator. "I found the two that you were looking for. One is injured and in need of medical attention, but we can't do it here." After a few seconds of jumbled instructions from the mirror Botan nodded. "Right, we'll wait here then."

"Yusuke and the others are just down the street, they'll be here in moments and then we'll all take you to Reikai for treatment and a trial. Lord Koenma is going to have to decide what to do with you." Botan said in that perky voice and it began to grate on Raven's nerves. "Though I'm sure he'll go leanient on you two. He feared that the demons that had crossed were more dangerous to the humans around here, but you two seem okay…"

Her and Hawk began talking while Raven rested against the wall, keeping her senses alert as much as possible. The drain from the wound was starting to take its toll on her. She blinked and when she opened her eyes Hawk was standing in front of her, a worried look on her face. At some point Raven began breaking out into a sweat and Hawk was concerned.

Before the girls could say anything to each other, a big carrot top oaf was flying around the corner. He stopped at Yukina and grabbed her hand asking if she was okay, wanting to know if the demons had done anything to her. Yukina blushed and stuttered that she was fine.

A boy with black, greasy, slicked back hair was next and had a similar look of worry on his face as she saw Keiko next to the sisters. Glancing at the situation he seemed to decide that the girls were okay and made his way over to the group at a slower pace. He said a few words to Keiko and examined the two sisters.

A boy with long red hair and emerald eyes was the next to appear. He calmly examined the situation and made his way over, greeting the girls. He came up to Raven and introduced himself. "I'm Kurama Minamino. May I look at your wound so I can see how much damage has been done?"

Surprised at his politeness Raven agreed. As he poked at the injury, Raven kept her face stoic and did her best to avoid swaying. This injury was kicking her ass more than she had expected. "What is your name?" He asked. Raven told him as her vision began to flutter. Kurama looked at her curiously and stepped back just in time to avoid a sword at his throat.

Raven reacted to the blade, by pulling her own and knocking the sword away. The demon she faced was just a couple inches taller than her, not counting the spikey black hair. His eyes looked very much like Yukina's and she wandered if the two could be related. The demon did a few swings of his sword before appearing behind Raven, ignoring the yells of his comrades. Kurama held Hawk back from the battle, sure that his friend would not hurt the girl any more than necessary.

Hiei used the pommel of his sword to knock the girl out. Picking her up he glanced at the sword that Kuwabara was just getting ready to pick up. "Stop!" He snapped at the idiot. He didn't care if the idiot got himself killed but Yukina seemed attached to him and he didn't betray his teammates. And, letting the dumb oaf get himself killed out of ignorance struck him as a type of betrayal.

Kurama glanced at the sword and recognized it as well. "Keiko, please grab the sword and place it back in its sheath." He asked her gently. Keiko complied and the group traveled through a portal, leaving no evidence behind that they had been there, except for some small bloodspots.

Chapter 1 End!

Lune: Wow! That was a great Re-write! It's nearly twice as long as the first time I did it and it seems to be a lot better. The characters seem to be more properly in, well, character. Please tell me what you think! Ja ne!