A/N: I hoped you liked the last two parts, this part doesn't have any flashblacks *does a stupid little dance* and I managed to keep everyone in character. Yay me!

Disclaimer: As much as I would like to say that I own Botan, Yukina, Yusuke, Kuwabara, Koenma, Hiei, Kurama and anyone else I failed to mention, I can't. But I can claim Aniya, Sukeisa, Sani and Katomi as much as I want, so HA!

Dragons in Time

Part 3: Katomi's Secrets

Hiei woke up in the infirmary. Looking he saw Kurama sitting next to him. "Ha. I beat the stupid girl didn't I? She's still asleep."

"Actually Hiei, she's been awake since midnight." Kurama answered, trying to hide a smile. He knew how much Hiei's pride meant to him.

"What?" 'Dammit. I must have lost more energy than I thought.' "How long have I been out?" He stared at Kurama. "Please tell me it was less than six hours." Seeing Kurama wince slightly, he closed his eyes. "It was more than six hours, wasn't it?" 'Shit, I must really be getting weak.'

"It was close on twelve hours. You were out around nine or ten. It's ten in the morning. Don't worry about breakfast, Koenma says you can send for food once you are awake."

"Hn. I don't recall saying that I needed that fool's help to get my own food." Moving himself out of bed, he walked over to a peg on the wall that held his coat. Swinging it on, he checked to make sure that his katana was in place before walking out.

Aniya came out of an adjoining room, drying her hair. "Gee, he's grumpy. I don't think he's a morning person." Kurama chuckled, "It's not that. Hiei is grumpy because you came along." Aniya looked surprised, "What did I do?" Kurama began ticking the reasons on his fingers, "First Koenma suggests that we use you in the mission instead of Botan and Hiei doesn't like strangers." He looked thoughtful, "Not that he likes Botan either, but he'd rather choose her over a stranger. Second, you challenge him to a match. Third, you beat him. Fourth, you practically rubbed it in his face that you were a girl that he knew and you came back for revenge. Lastly, you took less time to recover than him."

Aniya looked shocked, "Well, of course I took less time than him. I didn't actually lose spirit energy, I just used some energy to change it to magic power so I could subdue his spell. His spell didn't work, so he would have lost all that energy, beside the fact that we were fighting for a while before than as well. So I would expect him to take longer to recover." She paused as Sani flew in from the window. "Hello, Sani. What's this?" Aniya looked at the little dragon. "Yes. Oh, okay. Yes, we'll come. Tell Koenma we'll be there." She whipped her arm up as the little dragon prepared to soar out of the room again.

"May I ask what that was about?"

Aniya turned around. "Oh, nothing much. Koenma wanted to know if Hiei was awake and I said yes. Then Sani said that he wanted all of us to come to his meeting chamber, I told her to tell him that we'll be there soon." She grabbed her sword and headed out the door. Turning she looked back at Kurama, "Well, are you coming or not?" He nodded and they left.

As they were walking, Kurama asked, "Where did you find Sani?" Aniya looked confused. "I have never seen such a creature. I have seen some similar, but none the same. Did you save her from somewhere?" Aniya shook her head. "No, Sani and I go a long way back. When I was starting to fight in the Arena, I didn't want my voice to betray the fact that I was a girl. It was hard enough pretending to be a boy, but sooner or later, people would wonder about my voice. I thought that if I could have someone speak for me, that a bunch of my problems would be solved." They passed doorways and ogres who were scurrying from those doorways. "Before I left on my mission to steal the stone for Katomi, I had fallen in love with a little jade dragon that was on her dresser. That morning, I stole it and then she called me in for the mission.

"When I needed to find someone who would speak for me, I wished that the little jade dragon could be my voice. I don't exactly know what happened. The next thing I know, there's a little dragon on my arm, chirping. On the table there was a pile of jade dust. The little dragon and I could apparently speak mind to mind without any psychic people getting involved. I named her Sani. Sani seems to be able to make herself understood when she needs to be. So I can talk to her and she can relay what I want her to say. It worked well. No one ever questioned the little Black Dragon who carried around a little green dragon, because dragons were rare. I guess I earned some respect because people thought I had had the nerve enough to actually buy a dragon on the black market. But, hey, she sure is useful and she sticks by me no matter what."

She smiled, remembering the times that Sani had been her only friend. 'Companion is more like it. I told her everything that bothered me, but it still helps to have someone who can actually understand what's going on.' Aniya was so caught up in her calming thoughts that she never realized that Kurama had stopped outside a door. "Here we are. Ladies first." She smiled at his gentility. 'It's nice to have someone to talk civilly to me once.' Aniya walked in, followed by Kurama.

There were eight chairs set in a semi circle, with a screen on the opposite wall. Most of the people were already there. Koenma and Gengkai sat in the two most center chairs, obviously the most important people. On Gengkai's right was Yusuke. Acting as a barrier between Yusuke and Kuwabara, Botan wasn't looking too happy. Hiei sat alone as far way as possible. Kurama gestured to a chair next to Koenma and Aniya bowed to Gengkai and Koenma before taking her seat. Kurama sat in the chair between Aniya and Hiei. 'That should keep anything from happening.'

Koenma began, "As you have already learned the history of the stone, you understand why we need to recover it and restore it to Aniya as fast as possible. There's no telling what Katomi would do with the stone." As he paused to set the screen into action, Aniya smiled, 'He doesn't know, does he?' She focused on the screen as the room went dark.

On the screen was a scenic view of a castle in the north, on the shore. Silent photographic waves crashed against the rocks that surrounded the base of the castle in the picture. 'Wow. Imagine, I called that fortress my home for five years. I think I'd rather live in a cardboard box than in that home now. Come to think of it, I hated living there.'  Koenma began to speak again.

"This is where Katomi is currently residing. It is hidden magically and will require a lot of effort to find it. Once you are there, however, the real challenge will begin. Katomi is an enchantress, so she uses magic to defend herself and her home."

Yusuke shifted in his seat, "So we find the place, beat the lady, get the jewel and get out. Sounds like a piece of cake."

Koenma shook his head, "I wish it was actually that easy Yusuke. You see, since she is a powerful enchantress, she hasn't been defeated before, or she wouldn't be here. So no one who has gone into her house has come out again and survived. If they have, she tracked them down and they disappeared from all knowledge. We don't know what you'll face once your inside. Getting inside will be hard enough." He looked at the group. "Since there is nothing more that we can tell you, I suggest you get moving, because the sooner we get that stone back the better. Botan, get Kuwabara and Yusuke to the living world, but then come back. We'll let the guys handle this one." The lights came back on.

Kuwabara jumped up, "So you're not giving us a floor plan or anything?! How are we supposed to fight someone or something that we know nothing about?!"

"The circumstances are similar to when we fought the four saint beasts. We knew hardly anything about them and we managed to succeed. Out of our group, we should be able to find the fortress and penetrate it." Kurama answered calmly. The people began to scatter. The four boys and Aniya walked together out in the corridor. Well, the boys walked and Aniya trailed silently behind them.

"Oh yeah? Well I nearly died on that mission! I'm not going on this one!"

"It's a pity you didn't die on that one, or the last one we had."

"What's that supposed to mean shorty?!"

"Guys! Is this really the time to be fighting?" Yusuke was sick of their picking on each other all the time. "Just try to get along for about two seconds?" He rubbed his head. "How are we supposed to find this castle thing anyway?" They were walking to a room. Botan floated over on her oar. "Come on Yusuke, Kuwabara, we have to get back to the living world." The oar began to rise, but then Botan turned at looked at Aniya. "Aniya, do you need a ride?" Aniya shook her head in reply. The oar blasted its way from the palace with a burst of light.

"How do you plan on getting to the living world?" Kurama wanted to know.

Aniya smiled, "Same way I got here." She concentrated on her demonic blood. There was a light that grew around her. Slowly it got brighter and brighter until Hiei and Kurama had to shield their eyes with their hands. When the light faded, Aniya stood there looking exactly the same as she did before.

Hiei snorted, "I guess it didn't work. Don't expect help from me or Kurama to get back to the living world."

"I didn't say I needed your help, and guess again." With that she raised and arm so Sani could find a secure purchase. Then Aniya began to run toward the open window. When she reached the wall, she did a somersault and landed on the sill. Turning, she looked at the two demons. "See you in living world." With that she jumped out of the window.

Kurama and Hiei ran to the window and looked at each other in disbelief. "You don't think she'll try falling to living world?" "I do not know Hiei. All I know is that no one could survive a fall like that." They both looked down at the clouds that hid the bottom.

"Guys! What are you looking down there for? Is there something happening?" Two pairs of eyes flashed up and saw Aniya floating in mid-air, with wings. "The amazing thing about my wings is that they don't exist until I tell them to. All I have to do is prepare my body for them and then they come in at any time. It makes it easy to pull off stunts." She looked thoughtful, "Maybe I should have joined the circus." With that she flew off in a burst of light to the living world.

Kurama and Hiei disappeared in their own lights, quickly following Aniya's path. 

*****

Botan dropped the boys in the middle of the woods in the north. 'There, that should set them close enough for them to find it.' "Here you go boys! Have fun fighting Katomi!"

"Wait, you're not coming with us?"

"Yusuke, weren't you listening to Koenma? I'm not going on this mission. You have Aniya, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"Bye!" Both boys looked as she flew off on her oar. "You know Urameshi, I'm not sure about having the Black Dragon on the team. I mean, you saw how easily she defeated us. What if she decides to turn on us?"

"And the chances of that are?" Kuwabara turned around to see Aniya standing there with her hands on her hips. "Katomi stole the stone from me, I left her when I stole the stone. What makes you think that I'd want to be related to her in any way?" Kuwabara froze and looked at his feet. "Well? Come on I want to hear your reasoning."

"…"

"That's what I thought." Aniya was about to ask Yusuke if he recovered from her attacks, but something held her back. 'Damn. This making friends business is hard. What am I supposed to do? Walk up and hug him or something? I'm guessing he isn't too thrilled with having me here either.'

Yusuke watched as internal struggles were reflected on Aniya's face. "Hiei and Kurama are coming, right?"

Aniya jumped, surprised that he would talk to someone who had beat him with his own technique, and was a girl. "I think they were right behind me. I kind of lost them, so I can't really tell."

Yusuke looked surprised now. "You lost Hiei and Kurama? Man, you must be really fast in order to lose Hiei." Aniya stared, "I'm not that fast."

Kuwabara looked at the girl in disbelief. "You're too damn modest. If I was as fast as you, I'd be shouting it to the world like that other shorty." Then a light bulb clicked in his head. "Oh, I get it. You don't want to be seen, so you pretend your powers are nothing, so people would ignore you, right?" Yusuke and Aniya looked at Kuwabara like he had gone insane. "Kuwabara, are you feeling okay?" "Never felt better Urameshi. Anyway, you don't have to worry about being modest. You're so short that most people are bound to miss you anyway."

Aniya's eye twitched. 'Does he have to rub it in?!' She smiled sweetly. "At least I have a diminished height, not a diminished intellect." Yusuke grinned. 'She's just like Hiei, but there's something different about her though. Can't place my finger on it…"

"What did you just say to me?!"

"Do you need a dictionary? Or perhaps a translator?"

"You're insulting me, aren't you?"

"Very good, Captain Obvious!"

"Captain who?"

"Never mind." She heard someone chuckling in the shadows. "I tell you Hiei, if you were a female teenager, that's what you'd be like." Kurama and Hiei stepped out of the shadows. "Don't compare me with that…thing Kurama. We are not equals."

Aniya smiled, 'Time for me to score one on the midget and give him a dose of his own medicine.' She thought briefly about what she knew of the Yu Yu Hakusho group. 'Ah ha, here's a good one to throw at him.' "You're right, Hiei. Koenma may regard us as equals, but this will be more like babysitting." She smiled sweetly again, then turned to Yusuke, "Have you figured out how to find Katomi's castle yet?"

Hiei was startled. 'How did she know that I said that? Could she have been there?' "You. How do you know that I said that?" Aniya gave him a look that clearly said, 'Isn't it obvious?' "I am a reincarnation of one of the saint beasts." The entire group looked at her sharply, grabbing whatever weapons they had at ready. "I was joking, my god. You people are so serious." She looked at Yusuke, "You still haven't figured out how to find her castle yet?"

Yusuke glared at her, "Let me guess: you know where it is, right?"

She nodded. "Yup, but I can't tell you."

"What?! Why not?"

She looked at him condescendingly. "Well, Katomi is no idiot. Somehow, when she set up to be taken by the authorities, she managed to erase the location of the castle from my mind. I'm still trying to figure out how she did it, but she did."

Yusuke looked up at the sky. "Great. What a great help you are."

Aniya pushed him. "Hey, I'm not done. I never said I couldn't get you guys there. I just said I couldn't tell you guys where it is."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

She shook her head. "No. You're three-eyed friend over there could find it easily." She paused as she saw the surprised look on all their faces. "He has a jagan eye, right? He can use that to find it."

"Problem." Hiei walked over to her. "This Katomi has hidden the location of the castle from all forms of scriers. How am I supposed to find a place that is hidden?"

She laughed. "That's the easy bit. Katomi may be no idiot, but she's no Einstein either. She'd be the type of person who would lock the house and provide the best security, but then forget to shut the windows. Katomi protects her house using magic spells. Magic is an advanced form of spirit energy. You can control spirit energy attacks and spells with the right techniques and training. It takes a while to learn how to use. As it happens, when she put the spell on the castle, she used what we call the blocking spell.

"For people with no spirit energy awareness, they just avoid the area because something tells them to stay away. Like in Hogwarts." Seeing their blank faces, she guessed they hadn't read Harry Potter. "Never mind. People with low spirit awareness don't see anything, like the castle is invisible because they aren't powerful enough to detect the magic. Beings with strong spirit energies, such as Yusuke and Kurama will get headaches if they come too close to the fortress. People with sensing abilities, like shorty and ugly over there, will see nothing."

"So what you're saying is that if me and Kurama walk around, and we get headaches, we're close by." Aniya shook her head. "You could do that, but it would take a long time, no? So what we do is we set shorty over there to work and scrying with his jagan eye. When I said he wouldn't see anything, I mean he wouldn't see anything. There would be a void. No air, birds, grass, stone. Nothing. It will look like a patch of white space. That's what I meant when I said she was no Einstein. She puts the most powerful spell to hide her castle, but in the process overdoes it so that anyone powerful enough will head to where they can't see anything."

Kurama nodded, "I see. So instead of seeing nothing, they see an absence of something. Somewhat like negative space."

Aniya nodded. "It's really easy once you find it. There is no barrier because she thinks that her spell will keep everyone away, so she doesn't think she needs to actually prevent anyone from entering, Besides, not many people come knocking on her door."

Kuwabara looked at her, "So why can't I find it?" "You're too weak." "Hey!"

"Guys! Come on, don't start!" Yusuke asked, "Why can't you find it?"

"If I tried to find it I would probably get knocked out. Remember how I said she erased the location from my mind? Well, the side effect of that spell is that if someone goes looking for that place, and there's a hiding spell on it, they are immediately in risk of going into a coma. The erasing spell is designed to prevent them from ever remembering where the place was, and will do anything to prevent them from finding it again."

Yusuke looked at Hiei. "Hiei, are you ready?" The little demon unwrapped his jagan eye and focused. "Found it."

He started to walk toward a path in the woods, but then he noticed that Kurama and Yusuke weren't following. "Come on, what are you waiting for? Scared?" They shook their heads. "We were wondering how much the headaches would affect us in battle." Aniya smiled brightly. "Oh, don't worry about that. My aura should push back anything that would affect you."

"But you're aura's weak! I can hardly feel it." Kuwabara insisted. "That's because I hide it. You can't sense it unless you've had training." "Yeah right." "Remember the Toguro brothers? You couldn't feel their energy until it was almost too late." "…"

The group started following Hiei again. Yusuke walked next to Aniya. "How do you know this Katomi anyway?"

"Oh, she took me in when I was little and wandering around on the streets."

"You? You were wandering in the streets? How did that happen? Mom kick you out or something?"

Aniya stared at  her moving feet. "I never had any parents. They found me in an orphanage, more or less. I hated it there. The kids made fun of my hair and my eyes. Then one day, I got sick. It was a magical sickness and when I sneezed, my wings were involuntarily exposed. The people at the orphanage brought me to the hospital. They left me there. The doctors tried to remove my wings, but I managed to get out before anything happened. Then I started walking around the streets.

"I wandered until I was six. For those five years that I spent on the streets, I learned most of the martial arts stuff that I do now. There were gangs that tried to find me, and it was easy because my growing spirit aura was getting easier to notice. I stole a book from the library that told me how to conceal my energy. So when this nice lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to come home with her, she couldn't tell that I was stronger than she was. At that point, I was extremely distrustful of everyone. I thought the next person who found me was going to expose me, but I decided to take advantage of the situation.

"Katomi had a wonderful library. Every night or during the day when she wasn't looking, I would read her books. She taught me, so to speak, about magic. There was only one problem. She didn't know that I was as strong as I was. Every day, she would teach me things and I would pretend to struggle with them. She never got to teach me anything beyond the basic spells." Aniya counted them off on her fingers. "Invisibility, mind erasing, concealment, telekinesis. She couldn't teach me anything about healing, controlling, telepathy, or music. She was too weak."

Yusuke looked at her funnily, "Did you just say music? Music is magic? And what did you mean, she was too weak? She's obviously strong enough to use the stone, and so she has to be pretty damn strong."

"Music and magic have more in common than you think. I can explain it to you later. Oh, and didn't Koenma tell you? Katomi can't use the stone. She doesn't have the power or the training."

Kuwabara, Yusuke and Kurama all stopped in shock. Kuwabara stood gaping. "What do you mean, she can't use the stone? If she can't use the stone, then why would she want it?"

Aniya continued walking, "In some of her books, the ones for the lower levels of magic, it says that the stone will give power to whoever wants it. But that's far from the truth. The stone tells the user how to harness power they already have. If someone who is took weak tries to use the stone, all their energy will be absorbed into the stone. The stone then uses that energy to teach the strong user how to harness their power. Chances are that she'll be just strong enough to keep from dieing, but she won't have the strength to actually use its full powers." She stopped. "Aren't you guys coming, or are the other midget and I the only ones on this mission?"

They started walking again. "Hiei have you found the place yet?"

"Hn. A long time ago. It's getting there that's going to take a while."

Yusuke walked with Aniya again. "What's inside?"

Aniya looked at the sky. "Nothing much. A couple S-class demons, torture chambers, slaves willing to die for her and of course Katomi herself." Seeing him gape, she laughed. "I'm only joking! You guys, as I said, are way too serious. You need to get out more. I can only remember finding some things. Katomi has a twisted mind. What she'll do is challenge us with obstacles. Of course, to keep herself amused, she changes the obstacles constantly. Or rather, she has a bunch, but she only uses some at a time, so it seems like the challenges keep changing. I don't remember all of them, but I bet that I'll be able to identify them when we get there."

They walked in the forest some more. "I know this is kind of stupid to ask, your name's Yusuke, right?"

"Yup."

"Okay." 'I think that would be friend number two. Kurama and Yusuke. I wonder if Kurama was right about keeping themselves alive. I would hate for them to die to a weakling like Katomi. I also hope that I remember the secrets about the challenges. If I don't, then there could be a problem.' She stopped walking and nearly bumped into Hiei who had stopped walking as well. "We're here." She concentrated on the unconcealment spell and spread it to all the members of the group. Seeing their eyes widen as they stared at the castle, she finished the spell with a little extra punch so that the spell would remain. "Okay, are we ready?"

Kuwabara looked nervous. "You said she was weak right? Why is her aura so strong?"

"Come on ugly, figure it out. It takes a less energy and power to pretend to make an aura bigger than it is to hide a big aura. Look at the aura closely. It doesn't feel like an aura, does it? It seems like its almost too thin, right?" He nodded. "That's because it's only a spell. It's not real spirit energy. Still scared?"

"I wasn't scared."

Hiei shot back, "Of course you were. You're always scared."

"You can smell your fear." Aniya added for good measure.

"Come here shorty!"

"Which one?"

"Both! I'm going to squish him into a black blob and I'll squish you into….into…."

"Another black blob? Fat chance."

Kuwabara charged at the two short demons who both blurred out of the way, causing him to run into a try.

Kurama and Yusuke walked past. "Kuwabara, if you want to get connected to nature, then you should sign up for the nature club at school."

"Shut up Urameshi."

A/n: Please review…. J it would make me happy. I just got these really cool gloves that are all colorful….pretty colors….and I have just decided to make riding cloaks fashion statements. I wear my black one around all the time, other people should to. Happy New Year and nijert!