4

Why is my head pounding? And why is it so damn cold… Hiei cracked open his eyes, blinking a few times to rid himself of a haze over his vision. At first he thought he hadn't opened them at all, considering the darkness of his location, but as he grew accustomed to the lack of light, he saw the shadows of outlines that were his companions. He tried to get up from his sitting position against the wall, but restraints around his wrists held him fast. What the hell-?

"It's no use. We've tried," one of the four said directly in front of him. It was Salem, who, as a shadow elemental, could see just as well as if it were high noon in the chamber.

Hiei slumped back into a more comfortable sitting arrangement, though the restraints holding his arms over his head didn't help much. "Funnily enough, this situation is highly familiar."

"Oh?" He could hear it in Salem's voice that he was arching a brow. "How so? Surely you've never been held captive here, let alone at all."

"It's lacking in the eroticism department, but it's still similar."

He heard Yusuke laughing. "So you did celebrate your anniversary before you left."

"A little."

"What do we do now?" Kuwabara asked somewhere to Hiei's left.

"From our current situation, all we really can do is wait," Kurama answered from across the room.

"Anyone even know where we are?" Yusuke asked.

Hiei arched a brow, though no one but Salem would have been able to see it. "We're in a dark, dank dungeon, held against our will. Need any more details Detective?"

"Well I guess that's the gist of it. Is there any way we can communicate to the outside world?"

"I'll try." He tried opening up a line with Enki, only to meet some kind of resistance. "That's… not good." Out of curiosity, he tried Sha, but the same result came. "Nothing."

Salem sighed. "Then there's nothing more we can do but wait and see what happens next."

Sha paused in cleaning the dishes in the sink, gazing out their fifth-story window, the sounds of the two children playing with Okibi and Shadow distant in her ears. Where are you? You promised you'd call… She was pulled out of her thoughts at a tug on her tail. Her eyes following the small disturbance, she saw her daughter standing there. "What is it, Sweetie?"

"When's Daddy coming home, Mommy? I miss him." Tears filled Tsunada's red eyes as she twisted her own tail around in her tiny grasp.

Heart clenching a bit, Sha put down the current dish she was cleaning and kneeled down to Tsunada's level. "I'm not sure, but Daddy should be home soon. He's never been gone longer than a week."

"But it's already been three days. How much longer will he be?"

Sha bit her lip. "I wish I could tell you honey… I miss him too."

As she shooed her daughter to go play once more, the phone by the sink rang.

"Hello?"

"Sha! Are you alright?"

She furrowed her brow. "Enki? Is that you?"

"Yes, but answer me, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, but why call here?"

"Is your husband home?"

Her demon heart skipped a beat. "He's on a mission you sent him on. He's been gone three days now." Silence met her ears. "Enki? He… is on a mission right?"

Enki's voice went distant but she heard him cursing up a storm.

"ENKI! Answer me damn it!" She looked in the living room to see the kids and Okibi looking at her. "Okibi, watch them please." She took the cordless into her room, closing the door behind her.

"I've been trying to contact him for a full day with no response. I expected he was just ignoring my summons, so that's why I called here."

She felt like an ice cube had slipped into her belly. "You mean you didn't send him on a mission?"

"Someone broke into my office and my mind somehow, creating a contact link with him. I only know that much. What was said, I don't know."

Sha held herself up on the door. "What does this mean?"

"It means we have an immediate threat. I do not have the permission to mobilize your team, so allow me to contact Lord Enma. I need you four to locate them and find out what's happened."

"Y-yeah…"

"Sha, are you alright?"

"I will be."

"Look, we do have a lead though. One of our transport vans was stolen, and there's a hidden tracer on it. We can find out where that is, and maybe from there, figure out where the others are. Please, will you take this assignment once I clear it with Lord Enma?"

"Yes, of course. I'll just need to phone my father and have him come watch the kids."

"Do what you must in preparation, I'll contact Lord Enma right away."

"Alright." She hung up the phone and started biting her thumbnail, feeling a batch of tears starting. Not gonna cry, not gonna… Even with her trained restraint, a few tears fell past her eyes.

"Sha? Is everything alright?" she heard her dragon ask from the other side of the door.

"Yeah, e-everything's ok."

"I hear it in your voice. It's not ok. Now let me in."

Standing, she opened her door to allow the dragon in the room, feeling the scales brush against her thighs as she moved. "He's gone and gotten himself taken!"

"Start from the beginning. Who did, and what's going on. Explain everything…"

Two hours later Sha was shoving a dagger into her boot. "Bed time for them is still 9, though Kiete may stay up until 10. He's been behaving himself lately."

Her father was walking around, carrying Tsunada on his shoulders, grinning as she yanked on his horns. "Getting to be a big boy now, isn't he? Though if he's been behaving, he's not acting like his father, hm?"

Sha paused before reaching for a sword to tie to her belt.

"Not the best of topics right now Grandpa," Tsunada said, giving a particularly hard tug to the boney appendages.

"Yes I suppose not." He leaned down so the young girl could slide off down his back. "He'll be fine, Di'anot. You'll see."

"If only I could be sure… I can't even reach out to him. It's like something's interfering." She pulled her hair up into a tight ponytail. "All I get is fuzz, and not the good kind." She pulled her hair to get the tie nice and secure before moving from her room, closing it behind her. "There's still a few of his weapons in here, so the kids are not allowed past this threshold. I know their father's been teaching them how to handle the swords, but I'm still not too keen on that idea."

"No problems. It's not like it's the first time I've stayed here with them."

She nibbled her lip. "I hope nothing gets backed up in Ryukai from your absence."

"Nothing I can't handle." He placed a kiss to his daughter's cheek. "Now stop worrying and go get him out of whatever trouble he's in."

She nodded and gave her kids a last few goodbyes before leaving through the front door to Spirit World for her orders.