Disclaimer- I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho, Yu-Gi-Oh, or X-men. Nor do I own the full idea for this story. I was inspired by Vaeru's- For Adoption: YYH x X-men Crossover. I have also obtained permission from Kurome Shiretsu, a brilliant writer on this site, to use a few ideas from her story YYH/X-men story, 'Mission X'. Kurome Shiretsu also happens to be Vaeru's former account, so… yeah! Give her some love for me. She's at least half of the reason why this story exists.

natural selection (noun)-

The process by which forms of life having traits that better enable them to adapt to specific environmental pressures, as predators, changes in climate, or competition for food or mates, will tend to survive and reproduce in greater numbers than others of their kind, thus ensuring the perpetuation of those favorable traits in succeeding generations.

May 24th, 2010

Domino, Japan

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He awoke abruptly, chest heaving and heart beating with a worrying speed. He breathed. And then, slowly, he forced himself to sit up. It was only a dream, after all? Wasn't it?

That was what Mother had told him all of those years ago, back when he was still a child and things were still simple. Now, all that he was doing was lying to himself.

He rose from bed with great care, attempting to avoid the rush of dizziness that he knew was on its way. He waited for it to pass. He was used to it by now.

Casting a glance at the clock beside his bed, he wasn't surprised to see the time- four AM. He'd only gotten three hours of sleep tonight, but there was no use trying to sleep more now; all that awaited him were nightmares and he had to be at school in three hours.

And so he grabbed his uniform by his closet, laid in onto his bed, and stepped into the bathroom. Unwillingly, his eyes were drawn towards the mirror near the sink, towards his reflection. He had shadows under his eyes- but those weren't the only shadows that lurked nearby.

He was used to that, too.

.

He picked at his bento with little interest, his thoughts elsewhere and filled with anxiety. He didn't understand why he felt this impending sense of doom, but it worried him- especially given the recent circumstances. It kept creeping up on him when he least expected it to.

Suddenly, he felt as though he was being stared at. He looked up from his lunch, searching for the source.

Oh. It was Yuugi. He watched from afar with a faint concern on his features and smiled when Ryou waved him over, making his way towards him and sitting down in the shade of a nearby tree.

"Hello, Yuugi-kun. How are you today?" Ryou smiled disarmingly, hoping that Yuugi hadn't been worrying over him.

"I am good, and you?" He grinned his own grin in return.

"I am fine. Thank you."

"Anyway, I came over to ask you if you wanted to join us all next week? We're going to Tokyo." Yuugi invited, looking rather anxious himself, "I tried calling yesterday, but you didn't answer. We started planning it last Friday during the study session."

"Once again, I apologize for being unable to attend. I had work."

"No big deal! So, do you wanna come?" Yuugi looked excited now, bouncing with a childish glee.

Ryou thought it over. He hadn't spent much time with Yuugi-tachi in awhile save for weekly study sessions that he led, so perhaps it would be nice. Yuugi certainly wanted him to come.

"Sure." He relented, a real smile coming to his face this time.

"Oh, good! We leave on Friday- you know, in celebration of summer break! It'll be great! I'll call you with the details later today, okay?" with this, the bell rang- signifying the end of break.

"That's fine, I'll talk to you then."

And with that, Yuugi ran off to find his friends.

Yes, it would be nice to go to Tokyo for the weekend- he had vacation hours at work, and he needed the break. Maybe he'd finally be able to shake that feeling of foreboding and escape the premonitions. It was worth a try.

Besides, he hadn't visited Mother's and Amane's graves in awhile. It was about time.

.

June 2nd, 2010

Bayville, New York

.

She almost regretted calling her teammates in so late at night- it was going on one am and the room was filled with the rubbing of eyes and growls of frustration.

Even Marie- soft, even-tempered Marie, seemed irritable. A little girl no older than three rested her head on her shoulder, clinging to her tightly with wide, blue eyes and an iron-clad grip.

"The alert woke Jez up," Marie murmured, irritation evident in her light, southern drawl and eyes simply daring someone to comment on the child's presence. It couldn't been easy to get a three-year-old to sleep, let alone one like Jezebel. She was never one to sit still.

"I apologize, Marie, but something important has come up." turning the projector behind her on, Ororo placed a set of pictures from the files that she had been studying onto the glass.

More people arrived and soon all of the seats around the round table was full, leaving many expected gazes to rest upon her. And so she began, "As I know that you are all aware of, there has been a recent spike in the activation of the mutant X-gene among adolescents and children- as well as, occasionally, adults."

Kitty spoke up, her hair touseled and pulled up into a messy bun- bedroom hair, "Has there been any news, then? Do you know what caused it yet?"

"No." Ororo resisted the urge to sigh, "However, as you all know- the source of the mutation appears to be coming from somewhere near Japan. That is where the most reports of the gene are coming from."

Everyone in the room- Kitty and Bobby and Marie and Logan and even little Jezebel- listened with rapt attention.

She sighed, "Unfortunately, there have been other reports of activity from there as well from different sources." a pause, "The Brotherhood has returned and is recruiting. They have targets."

The atmosphere grew tense immediately as the reason for Ororo's impromptu meeting became clear. An unspoken question rose to the tips of everyone's tongues.

"We leave tomorrow afternoon."

Author's Note:

Wow, it's been awhile. I apologize. Our old laptop crashed last summer, causing me to lose a lot of files. The original versions of this story were among those, and they were going to take too much money to recover. I was hoping that we'd eventually be able to recover them, but we never did. I was waiting until then to work on this story.

However, since they haven't been recovered and it's been so long- I decided that I had to just... write it anyway. So, here I am!

I also republished the first chapter, which was fourteen pages, as three different chapters. So yes.

Please review! I'm back for now. :) (With a new penname- previously The Amber Raven.)