Who Needs Love?

You're lying out in the middle of nowhere, in a classic movie grass field, the orange sun going down over a set of trees. You smell nothing but the air and the dust and pollen in it, and you smile a little at the picturesque-ness of the whole scene, and you start walking around. You feel the wind brush the grass against you, and blow your hair into your face. You stick that in your coat collar to make it go away.

Then the sky gets stormy. You hear a funny voice behind you, and whatever it is grabs you too quickly for you to react. A hand is placed over your mouth, and one of your hands is gripped, so you quickly ram your elbow into whosever head that is, and you stomp hard on his/her instep.

You are released, and you start to run, but a strange creature grabs you and doesn't let go. When you try to fight free, it wraps its arms around you and its legs around yours, preventing any movement until you fall over. You're pinned there, even after the creature lets go, and you feel a swift kick in the gut. You look up and see a strange manling that you remember seeing a few years ago, before he came to the Ningenkai.

"Who are you?" you ask.

He vanishes, as if he didn't hear you.

Something in you suddenly summons up your gag reflex, and you start to—

WHAMWHAMWHAMWHAM!!!!!

"Geddup!" a sleepy-sounding voice calls into your room. You try to remember the dream, but it's like holding dry sand, and you forget the more you try to remember. So you sit up and glare at the wall for being there and in your way, delaying your getting to breakfast, then decide that it's not going to move any time soon and get up to get dressed. The pounding on your door comes again in case you're not up yet, just as you manage to pull on your shirt. You make an annoyed noise and kick the door in return.

At breakfast, a boy you've seen a few time, Yusuke Urameshi, is staring blankly at his bowl of cereal across from you, and… you forget his name, but he's another one of the Reikai Tantei, a fire demon… is sitting by the window, of course, staring out of it. You don't actually know the boys, but you work with Spirit World, agreeing to work for Koenma as long as he doesn't lock you up. You aren't a criminal, per se. You're more of a... Well, you have enough power that Koenma would have to lock you up to keep from becoming too much of a threat. He pays you well, though, so you have no reason to rebel.

Koenma's loudspeaker sounded through the cafeteria and you heard your name and something about office.

When you get in, you see the boy in there as well, standing near the door. He's quick, you think.

"Whaddya want, Koenma?" you ask, too tired to bother with politeness.

"Good morning to you, too, Kali," he says sarcastically. You can see that he's been up for a long time, the rings under his eyes are darkening and the pacifier is threatening to fall out of his mouth. "Look, we've got a mission, Hiei's going with you, easy as pie, just get it taken care of?" he requests, shoving a file in your direction. You notice that he seems that he's going to fall over any time soon, but something tells you that he's got something to do, and he's very busy working on it, and almost done, or he wouldn't have pulled the all-nighter.

"What the hell are you sending me with anyone for? You know I work best alone. According to what I've heard, so does this guy," you say, pointing at Hiei.

"I know, Kali," he answers lightly.

"So what the fuck?" you ask, narrowing your eyes.

"Well, there're actually two missions. Just happen to be close together." He hands Hiei the other file and you look over his shoulder to see an Aztec-looking temple's picture, like in your folder. "You just have to split at the fork in the corridors," he says, ignoring you now and starting to do paperwork again.

You look at the weird kid, who hasn't spared a glance in your direction, and then you look at Botan who is waiting outside. "Botan, portal, please?"

She nods and creates one, then hands you a remote that you can use to make your own back.