Fire, destruction, and blood were all that could be seen for miles. Buildings that once stood proud against the red sky of Makai now lay as rubble. Bloody bodies of both humans and demons were strewn throughout the city and every once in a while you would see the form of a creature that was not quite human and not quite demon, unmoving. A young girl with very wild white blonde hair lay among the rubble. Her body was beaten and bruised. Large gashes covered her from head to toe. She let out a groan as she opened her golden eyes. Gripping the nearby stones she was able to work her way into a sitting position. Her eyes whipped around looking at the scattered bodies. A relieved sigh escaped her chapped lips when she realized none were of her teammates.
'We lost,' she thought sourly. There was no turning around from this. The best they could do was take as many of the enemy down with them as possible. As the girl tried to stand up she let out a yelp. Her vision blurred as she slid back down the rocks. Squeezing her eyes shut she let out a hiss of pain and annoyance.
"Rei, you shouldn't move. You're very injured," came a concerned voice. Rei slowly opened her eyes to see a very tired Koenma kneeling in front of her. If Rei hadn't known any better she would have said there was no way he could be a prince with that unkempt hair and dark circles under his eyes. She let out a small laugh but immediately regretted it. Her ribs were definitely broken. She tried shifting her broken body again, but a glare from Koenma stopped her.
"Please tell me you found something to help us defeat these bastards," she groaned. For the past three days Koenma had been frantically scouring the deepest pits of Spirit World's archives for a way to stop the beast that had attack the three worlds. His brown eyes were cast to the side as he shook his head.
"Besides the Orb, the only way to have defeated them was with the Urn… But they destroyed that," he said sadly. Rei gritted her teeth. Of course she already knew that. She was there. If only she had been just a little faster, maybe she could have prevented this. If only that damn King Enma didn't try to pin everything bad on her…"If only we'd had more time with the Orb! If they hadn't caught us by surprise…" she trailed off. "So there's nothing we can do?" Rei rubbed her eyes as they started blurring again. She was losing a lot of blood and her energy was almost gone.
"Well…" Koenma paused, brow furrowed thoughtfully, "not exactly." Rei blinked, not expecting that answer. "We can't do anything for this realm. It's too far gone to save." He continued.
Rei flinched at the cold truth. She'd suspected as much, but it was still difficult to hear the words out loud. "What do you mean this realm?"
"There are other worlds similar to this one. Realms that have their own Spirit, Demon, and Human Worlds. Under very specific circumstances, it is possible to go to these realms. Both must have a similar energy wave length. Additionally, it takes a great deal of energy to send a person to another Realm. Unfortunately, the enemy has also figured this out and begun turning their focus to crossing over to the next Realm."
"So there's another place that's going to turn out just like this…"
"Not if we can help it." A new look of determination sparked in the Prince's eyes. "Each world has its own energy source. That's how living things are able to survive on them. I can direct the Spirit World's energy into forcing a merger of our Human and Demon world with their Human and Demon world."
"What good will that do? Then the monsters will just have more to kill!"
"No. We found out about the Kodaishi too late. I'm going to send you there now, and hopefully it won't be too late for them. You can use their Orb and Urn to seal the monsters back up."
"What!? Koenma-" growled Rei. Koenma forced two envelopes into her hands before she could finish yelling at him.
"One of those is for you. It explains all of this in more depth. The other is for that Realm's Koenma. Give it to him as soon as possible. No one else must read it."
"T-that world's… Koenma?" stuttered Rei.
"While humans and demons do not have copies in other Realms, those who reside in Spirit World do." Koenma and Rei braced themselves as a large tremor crossed the land. A look of urgency crossing his face, Koenma quickly put a glowing hand on Rei's forehead. The glow from his hand spread down her body until it engulfed her and gave her a sense of stability. However, impossible as it seemed, she also felt herself grow weaker. "I was able to heal the life threatening wounds to keep you alive as long as possible."
"Wha-"
Koenma cut Rei off quickly. "I would do more but I need to save as much energy as I can to send you to the other Realm safely."
"Ko-" Rei tried to interject only to be cut off yet again.
"I also had to seal both your demon and spirit energy so that you can heal properly. You're going to need all the strength you can get."
"Koen-" she tried again.
"Not all your spirit energy. You should have just enough to protect yourself. Now-"
"KOENMA!" she yelled cutting him off this time. The prince snapped his mouth shut. "I don't care about any of that right now! What are you going to do?"
An expectant pause filled the air. "Don't worry about me. Just focus on helping the other Realm." Rei's eyes narrowed.
"When people say not to worry about them, you should usually worry about them! What the hell Koenma!"
"This is all I can do! I can't fight here and I can't go with you!" Koenma snapped. "For once will you just do as I say without fighting it?!" The blonde reluctantly clamped her mouth shut and nodded. The teen prince let out a heavy sigh. "So you understand what you must do?"
"Find the other Koenma, give him the envelope, and kick some Kodaishi ass." She was oddly calm. Maybe because of his sudden outburst or maybe because the edges of her world were starting to blacken. Koenma may have stabilized her but her body still needed to heal. His eyes softened as he put a hand on her cheek. Rei closed her eyes for one last peaceful moment, leaning into his hand. "Thanks Koenma. For everything." And with that everything went dark.
The first sense that came back to Rei was sound. Instead of crackling fire and blood curdling screams, there was the calm sound of running water and chirping birds. The next sense to come back was smell and what a pleasant smell it was. It was a clean airy smell with a hint of flowers, completely opposite of the pungent Makai air she had been breathing. Then touch came to her. The last she remembered, she was leaning against jagged piece of fallen debris. Whatever she was laying on now was soft and kind of itchy. She debated whether she should open her eyes or not. She knew she probably should, but she was still so tired. As she heard a rustling sound to her right, she slowly peeked through her eyes only to quickly shut them again. Was that what the sun looked like? It was bright; really bright. This time she opened one eye first then the other only to find two sets of eyes staring back. One was a cold set of ruby eyes and the other was a set of calculating emerald eyes. She really hoped that those eyes were attached to allies because she was about to pass out again.
Hiei looked unimpressed by this 'disruption in the woods' as the old psychic had put it. The only thing that seemed unusual about the sleeping girl was the amount of cuts and bruises she had. How she wasn't dead was a mystery to him. Even with that he was still bored with this whole situation. The only reason he was back in the Human world was because Mukuro had asked him to return. He suspected Koenma had something to do with that though. He scoffed. He'd come here to fight, not babysit a little girl.
"First, a secret Spirit World vault, one that Koenma did not even know about, gets broken into, then a strange young girl just happens to show up in the middle of Genkai's forest. Quite a coincidence don't you think Hiei," said Kurama as he crotched down beside the blonde.
"Coincidences are a fool's explanation." The fire demon walked over to stand on the opposite side of the girl.
Kurama let out a small chuckle. "I suppose that's one way to look at it. Well, it doesn't look like her life is in danger, but if we want answers we're going to have to wait. It doesn't look like she'll be up to talking anytime soon."
"Of course." Hiei rolled his eyes. Kurama's face scrunched in confusion as he stared at Rei.
"What Fox?"
"There's something…off about her." Hiei raised an eyebrow.
"Care to elaborate?" asked Hiei, annoyance now dripping from his every word. Kurama slipped his arms underneath the girl and lifted her up with ease. He continued to look at the blonde trying to find a way to explain.
"No," he said calmly. Hiei's eyes twitched. "Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I'm not able to pinpoint exactly what's making me think that. It's purely intuition."
"Hn, let's just get back to the temple. That fool Koenma can decide what to do with her." It wasn't everyday something stumped the fox. Maybe this wouldn't be so boring after all.
After getting back to the temple, Yusuke called Koenma on his compact to update him on their recent discovery. Deciding that they didn't have time to just wait for the girl to wake up on her own, Yukina was instructed to slowly heal her. Kuwabara (and secretly Hiei) protested loudly saying it was too dangerous. What if the girl woke up and attacked her? Genkai reassured him this was the best course of action and the girl will be bound with spirit cuffs. How the old lady had a pair of those was anyone's guess. Yukina put a hand on Kuwabara's arm.
"Don't worry Kazuma. I'll be okay," she said sweetly. Kuwabara quickly grabbed her hands.
"Of course you will my love because I, Kazuma Kuwabara, will be there to protect you!" Hiei's eye twitched while the others chuckled. Hiei growled as he kicked the love struck fool away from his sister.
"Please, a weakling like you couldn't protect a fly." Hiei started walking towards the room where they had put the girl. Yukina let out a small laugh and followed after him.
"But I wanted to protect her," pouted Kuwabara. Yusuke let out a hefty laugh and slapped him on the back. "Quit it Urameshi!"
"Now's not the time for goofing around!" yelled Koenma from the compact now in Genkai's hands. Yusuke rolled his eyes and went back to the device.
"So, figure anything out about this vault you didn't even know existed? Aren't you in charge of the Spirit World now? Don't they tell you stuff like this exist?" asked the former delinquent. Soon after the first demon tournament, it was found out that Enma and the ruling party under him had falsified reports of demon cruelty towards humans and even brainwashed lower class demons to commit evil acts against them. The king lost his throne and was thrown into prison. Koenma groaned and rubbed his temples.
"Yes well I tried to visit Father and get information but he wouldn't even talk to me."
"Nothing on the thief either?" Kurama asked.
Koenma shook his head in defeat. "We have video but I'm afraid there wasn't much we could uncover. We'll have to wait until the girl wakes up. With any hope she'll lead us to the thief."
"But he's not actually a thief right?" asked Kuwabara. Everyone turned to look at him and he nervously scratched his face. "I mean the SDF reached him in time and got that pottery thing he tried to take. He got away but he didn't steal what he wanted to steal." What he said was true. The thief did get stopped by the SDF and after a short battle the creature dropped what he stole and fled. After that it was decided that the gang would watch over it under Genkai's roof behind a sealed door.
"It's an urn and that might not be true. We don't know what was stored in the vault so we don't know if anything else was stolen," stated Koenma. "Just keep an eye out. Who ever went to the trouble of trying to get it will probably be looking for it."
"Like that girl?" asked Yusuke. "Do you think it's a good idea to keep her here so close to this urn? I mean, we don't even know what it does. There must've been a reason the theif wanted it right?"
"It's the only choice we have. I don't have anyone to watch over her here. All of my available ogres are trying to find any books that contain information on what this urn is for and the SDF are looking for the thief."
"Don't worry Lord Koenma we'll let you know as soon as anything changes," said Kurama.
Koenma nodded in approval. "I can always count on you Kurama." Koenma gave a wave goodbye and the communicator went black. All they could do know was wait. Kurama decided to read a book on rare plants in the Makai, Yusuke and Kuwabara played video games, and Genkai disappeared into her compound.
Rei didn't know how long she was out when she started coming to. She didn't feel like her wounds were fatal anymore but she still felt very weak and cold. Why was she so cold? An alarm went off in her head as she darted up off the bed and grabbed wherever the cold was coming from. Before her eyes could even focus she felt a sharp object at her throat. Not letting go of whatever she was holding, her eyes traveled to the person holding the sword to her throat. The boy looked absolutely livid. If she was made of wax she's sure she would have melted with the amount of heat rolling off his body. With a click of her tongue her eye ventured over to the reason he was so furious. It was a female demon with mint colored hair and red eyes filled with shock. She looked back to the boy with spiky black hair and red eyes glowing with rage. He let out a deep growl and pressed the sword into her neck a little more, drawing blood. Uninterested in the boy she turned her attention back to the female and looked down at what she was holding. She had the girl's wrist lightly gripped in her hands. They were still cold. She then noticed a pair of spirit cuffs on her own wrists. She wrinkled her nose at them. This was one of the reasons she was feeling so weak.
"It's okay Hiei," the girl said lightly. "She's not hurting me." Rei's head tilted to the side in confusion. Was that Japanese she was speaking? Rei let go of the demon's wrist and sat back down on the bed, ignoring the sword. She let out a breath and rubbed her face. She had too much of a headache for this. Cold hands touched her temples and she felt her headache fade. "I can't heal anymore of your wounds but I can at least ease the pain."
"You don't need to be so kind to her. She's our enemy," Hiei growled as he sheathed his sword. Eyes snapping around to meet his, Rei glared at him. This boy was annoying.
"We don't know if she's an enemy. Right now she's a guest."
"Yeah and pointing sharp objects at a guest is rude," Rei said blankly. When Hiei turned to glare she turned her head away.
"Care to tell us why you were in the old psychic's forest then?" Rei didn't answer him. In fact she didn't even acknowledge him. Hiei's knuckles turned white as he gripped the hilt of his sword.
"Woman!"
"Que?" she said shrugging her shoulders. Hiei bared his fangs with a growl. "No hablo japonés."
"You-" Hiei was cut off by the sound of fighting outdoors. Yukina ran to the window. The boys and Genkai were outside fighting a hoard of demons. These demons were lizard like with purple-grey scales and blank red eyes. It was a 4:1 ratio with the gang being completely out numbered. Yusuke looked like he was rather enjoying himself while Kuwabara did a very ungraceful dodging dance. Genkai was irritated and Kurama's calm demeanor didn't waver.
"Hiei, you have to help them," cried Yukina.
"I'm not leaving you alone with her!" growled Hiei jabbing a finger towards the blonde wrapped up like a burrito in the blankets.
"I'll be fine. I don't think she'll hurt me. Plus she has the spirit cuffs on." She looked out the window in time to see Kuwabara get clawed. "Please Hiei?" she asked with pleading eyes. The fire demon looked at his sister then to the burrito. He sighed and took out his katana. With a nod he went to the window. Before leaving through it he took one more look at the unmoving bundle and growled. Blurring into the fight he cut down a few of the demons only for those to be replaces by more.
"Nice of you to join us," joked Yusuke as he knocked a guy out with his glowing blue fist.
"Shut up."
Back in the room Yukina continued to watch with anxiety filled eyes. She cupped her two hands together and held them to her chest. She knew that her boys were strong, but there were just so many demons. She was so engrossed in the battle that she didn't hear the footsteps come towards her.
"Hey," called Rei. Yukina jumped at the sudden voice. She turned around and saw Rei standing there rubbing her wrist, now free of the spirit cuffs.
"The spirit cuffs. How…"
Rei tilted her head and stared at her. "Hm?" She looked at her wrist and grinned. "I've been put in them enough times to know how to get out of them." She started laughing at Yukina's confused look. As soon as she had started laughing she stopped and went serious. "Hey, are there any weapons around here?"
"They just keep coming!" yelled Kuwabara as he punched and slashed the lizards.
"And they won't stop until you tell us where the Urn is," came a booming voice from beyond the hoard. The fighting stopped as the gang turned and saw a smaller group of 5 humanoid demons coming out of the forest. Two were a deep red color with slanted pure black eyes, pointy ears and long limbs. The other three could pass as bulky humans if not for the fangs that peeked from under their lips. One of the red demons was holding a golden framed mirror in his clawed hands. What was strange about the mirror tough was that instead of reflecting the outside world, it held an image of the lizards they were fighting. The other red demon, who had called out to the gang, stood proudly in the front. He seemed to be the leader – and a cocky one at that.
"And you are?" asked Yusuke snarkily.
"I don't care who they are. Get off my property!" yelled Genkai grumpily.
"Not until you tell us what we want to know."
"And what makes you think we know?" asked Kuwabara.
"You work for the Spirit World do you not?"
"Not by choice," Hiei sneered.
"Nevertheless, the Urn was in Spirit World possession so you must know where it is." Suddenly, two arrows surrounded by purple energy whizzed by them, straight towards the demon holding the mirror. One arrow hit the middle of the mirror, breaking it, the other right between the demon's eyes, killing him instantly. As the demon began to fall backwards it disintegrated into nothing, the lizards disappeared along with him. Everyone's eyes widened in shock.
"Ne ne, how many of those mirror thingies do you have?" Everyone turned to look at the temple's entrance to see Rei holding a bow already loaded with another arrow and next to her was Yukina holding the quiver. The bow and arrows themselves looked very old but it went unnoticed as everyone was focus of the glowing purple energy surrounding it. A growl turned everyone's attention back to the intruders. One of the more humanoid demons bared his fangs as his eyes locked onto Rei.
"How did you get to this world?" He asked with a low gruff voice.
"I took a cab," she replied, not lowering the bow. The demon's eyes narrowed as he nodded to the other two bulky demons. They turned and started heading back to the forest from which they'd come.
"Wait! Where are you going?" shouted the red demon. The three stopped and turned back toward him.
"You said we would fight spirit detectives after they were tired down from fighting your lizards. You never said anything about Guardians especially that Guardian. We've heard stories. We aren't about deal with that." Rei scowled. She did not like being referred to as 'that'.
"You leave now and the masters will kill you!" The departing demons took one look at Rei's unwavering eyes and turned back towards the forest.
"Death would be preferred over her," he said with his head down. "We're leaving."
"Hey! You can't just leave in the middle of a battle!" yelled Yusuke, readying his spirit gun.
"Yeah, what makes you think I'm going to let you leave?" asked Rei.
"We'll tell them the Urn's not here and that Spirit World's workers aren't very informed. That should give you enough time to form some sort of plan." Rei closed her eyes in thought and slowly nodded. When she opened them back up she shot her arrow straight at the last red demon. His fate was much like his teammate.
"You don't need him to do that," she said lowering the bow.
"Who says we're going to let you go? She doesn't make the rules around here!" growled Yusuke. The remaining demons looked at him, then back to Rei.
"Bye," she said forcefully. The demons took that as a cue to start walking again. The leader stopped one last time and turned to Rei.
"One last thing; our world. Has it truly been destroyed?" Rei averted her eyes, clenched her fists and didn't answer. "I see." And with that the three demons disappeared into the forest. Once they were gone, the boys turned to glare at her. Genkai merely studied her quizzically.
"The million dollar question was if you were friend or foe," stated Yusuke. "I'm leaning towards foe right now."
"Yeah, someone on our side wouldn't let the enemy go," said Kuwabara. "We could have gotten information from them."
Rei turned and grinned at the two boys. "Nah, they wouldn't have known anything. They were only lower ranked soldiers and unwilling volunteers." Hiei moved closer, his sword held ready to attack.
"And how do you know that?" growled the fire demon. "We can't trust your words."
"Que?" Rei questioned him with wide eyes. "Yo no hablo con personas de baja estatura (I don't talk to short people)." The heat from Hiei's body was suffocating. He was getting very fed up with this woman. He moved even closer to her with a look that could kill, but Genkai stepped in front of him, cutting him off gracefully, and approached her. Even though she was a great deal shorter than Rei, it was evident she had immense skill and power.
"You know, that is a 200 year old bow you're manhandling," she said in a menacing tone. Rei's jaw dropped and a panicked look crossed her face. She shoved the bow into Yukina's arms and began bowing several times.
"I'm so sorry!" she cried.
"Yet you wielded it like it was your own." A small smirk crossed her face. "Impressive." Rei straightened back up to her full height of a whopping 5'5".
"Thank you. But back to business." She turned back to the boys with a serious look on her face. "So you work for Spirit World right?"
"More or less," said Yusuke. Rei looked straight into his eyes with cold eyes.
"I need to see Koenma. ASAP." Yusuke lifted his chin in defiance. He and Rei continued to size each other up, neither planning on backing down.
