I awoke late the next day. It was past noon, as usual. I showered, got dressed in my favorite pink, flowered sundress, slid on my pink and white tennis shoes, and made my way downstairs. "Hello!" I greeted loudly at everyone as they sat around doing their own usual thing. "Portal please, Koenma!" I yelled. I jumped through as it appeared and landed in front of Koenma's desk.

"Yes, Usagi, how can I help you?" He asked, his hands moved at warp speed to stamp a page in a pile on his desk and set it aside. It was not unusual for me to see piles of paperwork on his desk. I sometimes even felt bad for him.

"I was just wondering if you had anymore leads as to where my friends might be."

He paused and looked at me. The look of sympathy and pity in his eyes pierced me hard as he replied with a no. "I am still keeping an eye out. Do not worry." He went back to work. I walked over and picked up some papers from the pile he had stamped and took it out to an ogre, who instinctively put it up where it was supposed to go. I did the same thing with the rest of the stacks, until all that remained was the small stack he began with the rest of the papers.

"Well, we are down to searching for eight now. One visited me this morning."

"I did not know someone was at the house."

"No, it was not at the house physically. It is a power she has to appear in what we call 'The Luna Sphere Ball.' She claims to be fine, but she is stuck guarding the door of time. She also said we need to hurry and find the scouts as soon as possible, because Tokyo, in the future, is about to be destroyed."

He stopped, alarmed, and stared at me, "What would that mean then?"

"Tokyo in the now will disappear."

"That's not good at all. We need to make sure it remains safe."

"She is staying there to keep an eye on the enemy and find out what she can. She will come here in a few days, and we will come relay what information she finds out to you. In the meantime though, as I said earlier, we need to pick up the pace and find more locations of my friends."

"Yes we do. I wish I knew how much time we had."

"May I please have permission to enter the file room and do some research?"

"Of course, Usagi. You are, after all, my most trustworthy employee. Just make sure you keep it organized."

"Thank you Koenma."

I left him to finish his stamping and walked around his desk, through the portal he always had set up in the corner when no one was around but the people he trusted most and/or himself. I stepped through and into a metal room, covered in cameras and filing cabinets. I moved forward and turned the wall computer on, letting it warm up while I moved through the files in the filing cabinet. I could always count on Koenma to have all the information I needed, though this time, I really did not even know what I was looking for. I pursed my lips, reading through file after file, keeping my eye out and mind open for anything important and out of the ordinary.

I searched through everything carefully. My thoughts shifted slightly as I looked, and I thought about what I was doing now. I could not believe how much I really had changed. I used to be the world's biggest crybaby, scaredy-cat, and the clumsiest person. I admit I was still very clumsy, but I wasn't so much a crybaby or scaredy-cat anymore. Sure, I still cried, and sure, I still got scared, but it was nowhere near how it used to be. There was no doubt Mars would have been proud of me. I couldn't understand, though, why I was having visions of them. It made me wonder if the meeting with Pluto was a vision. I halted my search and stared off into space.

"What if it was a vision, too? I cannot even tell the difference anymore…" I put everything away, giving up on my search, and made my way back to the house. I put on a smile and plopped on the couch beside Kurama. "What's up? No mission today I guess?"

"Not yet. We need to go back to school, though, you know." Kurama said.

I groaned and remembered why I was so lazy and such a crybaby now. I hated school, and school hated me. Now, we were supposed to be in the 11th grade. The semester had just begun, so I was not too far behind yet. He had a point though. If I wanted to keep up, I needed to continue. "We can start going back next week."

Yusuke's communicator suddenly beeped. "Hello?" He answered.

Koenma called. "New mission. Botan is being held hostage by a demon. They look like this." We all crowded around to see the image of Koenma change to a picture of a male. A hot male, at that, with long, shiny, black hair and piercing yellow eyes stared angrily into the screen, almost as if he were there next to Koenma. The baby's face came back on screen, "His name is Akira. He is great at manipulation. Usagi, you especially be very careful not to look into his eyes. He is one of the worst demons of the demon world at the moment, so you guys will need to pack a few things for a few days of overnight camping. It is quite a walk from where I have the portal set up. Team, be careful." The screen went blank. We all looked at each other and cheered.

"Finally, a mission worth getting out of the house for!" I yelled as I ran upstairs to my room to pack some clothes, weapons, and a few hygiene necessities. I stuffed them all into my black carrying bag and ran downstairs. I tripped on the way down again and growled as the others walked down and laughed at me. "Keep laughing, see what happens." I threatened; they shut up. "That's what I thought."

The blue swirl of teleportation appeared in the center of our mansion. We all stepped through and looked around in pure shock. The scenery was breathtaking. We were in a tropical rainforest, or so I assumed. Thousands of rosy periwinkles and curares surrounded us, blocking a good 80 percent of the sun's light. In the distance, I could hear the rush of a waterfall splashing into a creek, and from the sounds of it, they were both small. The smell of rain filled my nostrils, making me smile and relax. "I love this place already. I wish we lived here!"

The four guys stared at me, and I shrugged with a huge grin on my face. "Let's get a move on." Yusuke said.

"I hope Botan is okay." I said. We walked forward, stepping over twigs and roots. Occasionally, I would find myself on my knees or face first in the dirt, but usually I would laugh it off and keep moving. My jeans and tank were getting covered in mud. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I changed when I went up to my room to pack. Why would I come on a mission in my favorite sundress? I matched my pace with Hiei, who lagged behind everyone, and walked beside him in silence for a while. I noticed he kept glancing over at me, as if I were going to bite him any moment.

I could not take it anymore. "What is it with you and staring at me? Do I have a zit on my face, and you love looking at it or something?" I heard Kurama chuckle; okay, so, obviously he was paying attention. Yusuke and Kuwabara walked ahead of us by at least a foot, bickering about some game they had played earlier that day.

"Hn." Hiei replied.

I looked at him, "do you ever speak?"

He faced forward the whole time, not bothering to even answer me. I turned my attention to Kurama and waited on an answer from him. "It takes a lot to get Hiei to talk… or answer, really."

"Oh okay, then maybe you could tell me why he is constantly sneaking glances at me." I asked.

"That depends. Are you thinking, often, about different things?" At first, I thought Kurama was just being the curious pretty boy he is and wanting to know more about me. I refrained from answering. I think, eventually, he caught on because he added, "I am not asking, Usagi, to pry into your life. I got the hint on our trip to the mall. I am simply asking because if you think often, especially about personal things, Hiei is most likely to be in your mind."

It took me a moment to catch on. In my mind? What? "He reads minds? He's a telepathetic?"

Kurama chuckled once again, "He reads minds, yes, and the word is telepathic. Not telepathetic."

I blushed and looked down, "Oh…" then I looked back up and glanced at Hiei, "I don't know though. Telepathetic suited him better." Kurama and I laughed as Hiei scowled at me. "Stay out of my head, shorty. I do not plan on telling the rest of these idiots my personal life, and I sure as hell do not plan on telling you." I attempted to punch his arm, only to be half playful and half serious, but within a single blink, he was gone. I looked around frantically and found him walking behind me, hand on the hilt of his sword.

I rolled my eyes. "Go ahead. I could beat your ass any day." I gripped a kodachi hooked at my waist. We both stopped and unsheathed our swords. I was not sure if he were being serious or playing, but I knew it would be fun either way. This was not like having a stupid fight with Mars. This seemed better in some way yet worse. The other three boys stopped and moved out of the way, watching, as Hiei and I stood face to face, posed and prepared to attack each other. I held both kodachis. Besides, why would it be fair for him to get a full-length katana while I get a short stub of a sword? He smirked, and I grinned. We watched each other, waiting to see what would happen. Who was going to strike first? I did not notice, but eventually we began to circle each other.

Kurama sighed, "Should we not save our energy for the real monster at hand? You two can spar, fight, whatever you want to call it, when we get home." He had a point, and I agreed completely. However, I wasn't about to sheath my weapons and trust him to sheath his as well.

'Baka Usagi, I will sheath mine if you sheath yours.' I looked around confused. Who was that? I looked back at Hiei.

'Hiei?' I thought. He nodded, ever so slightly. 'Fine. On the count of three. One, two, three.' As soon as I thought three, we both put our weapons away. We turned toward the others, and I said, "Shall we?" before I continued on the path. The sun set slowly, so we decided to go ahead and find a good camping spot. Eventually, we came to a clearing, and I can't even tell you how glad I was to see the waterfall and creek were in the same area. We put up three camps. Hurray for being a girl! I got to camp in my own tent thanks to that little detail. As I unpacked, a few cleaning things, I found my broach. How beautiful it was. I learned it was my final form as myself. It was a gold heart with a lighter golden heart in the center. It lit up when I activated it with my words. A moon sat on top, and around the darker gold heart, were different colored studs, one representing each of my friends and myself. It was a symbol of our power combined into one. Attached to the sides were white wings holding gold studs. I did not know how much of this power would be helpful, but I brought it just in case. I had everything planned out on how to use it, too. Now that I knew about Hiei's telepathy, though, I knew I could not think about it, so while I wrote it down on a small note, I thought about other things. I thought about my relationship with the team, how grateful I was to Koenma, little yet stupid things like that.

I washed up and put on my dirty jeans and tank. I figured I would need my clean clothes, so I wore my already dirty ones to sleep on the ground. I fell asleep, dreaming about my meeting with Pluto earlier that day. I still could not figure out if it was real or fake, but I knew one thing. If it was fake, that would mean Koenma would find out about my visions, and I would be embarrassed for telling him everything and causing a stir over what would be nothing.