[A⁄N: Greetings! I hope weekly updates sound good because that's what you're getting! Huzzah for having a surplus of chapters prewritten. You guys deserve better than how I treated you last series.]

As we walked to our destination, I found myself in a state of utter disbelief that I had told Hiei that he could just leave. In an act of desperation I just up and decided that it would be okay to let him leave knowing that he'd run far, far away from us and never see us again.

I'd never see him again. That thought actually made me feel a little queasy. A few hours ago I'd been making out with him and after whatever shenanigans we were getting into today he was probably just going to vanish. I was a moron and Koenma was going to kill me.

We reached the House of Four Dimensions. It was a wonky shaped house that twisted and turned and sent chills down my spine. It was creepy and somewhere inside of it, Yusuke was being held hostage.

"We're going in there?" Kuwabara asked.

"That would appear to be the case," Kurama said.

We walked up onto the porch and prepared to go inside, but there was a note on the door.

I pulled it off and read it.

"All who enter there's taboo, a word you say not, you'll lose your soul if you say, the three letter word: HOT," I said. "That sounds ridiculously sketchy, if you ignore the third grade rhyming skills."

"So you mean we can't say hot?" Kuwabara asked.

"Well that's what it says," Botan said.

"And this last bit about your soul is less than settling," I said.

"Agreed. We'll have to be on our guard. And to be careful, we should avoid saying the word 'hot' just in case," Kurama said.

He reached over and opened the door. The room was dark when we walked inside, but it was stuffy and warm.

"Goodness," Botan started, "it's so-."

Kurama clapped his hand over her mouth.

"Remember the word we're not supposed to say," Kurama reminded her.

"Oh, right," Botan said.

Suddenly I felt a very strange energy overtake the room.

"Did you guys feel that?" I asked.

"What was it?" Hiei asked.

"I don't know," Kurama said.

"Ah, at last, a question the great Suichi doesn't know the answer to," a voice said in the darkness.

The lights came on, blinding us momentarily before we could see. The room was filled with plants and at the other end there was a boy in a Karakura High uniform sitting in a chair in front of a door.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Aw, but you don't know? How sad, Kairi," the boy said. "You should teach your cousin some manners."

"I'm sorry. Do you know me?" I asked.

"I'm sure he knows of you, but he thinks too much of your memory if he thinks you'll remember him," Kurama said. "He goes to our school."

"Ah, I should've gotten that from the uniform," I said. "Look, dude, I've only been at school for one day. I barely remember any of my teachers. I'm not going to remember who you are."

"He's a classmate of mine. His name is Yuu Kaito. I've never spoken to him personally, but he's well known at our school. He's second in my class," Kurama said.

"Ah, second only to you I'd bet," I said.

"Nothing gets past you," Kurama said rolling his eyes.

"He's one of the guys who came to fight Urameshi before," Kuwabara said.

"Yes, me and my two companions were responsible for taking your friend, Urameshi," Kaito said.

"And how did you manage something like that?" Kurama asked.

Kaito laughed. "And with that, Suichi, I'd like to welcome you to my territory."

"Territory?" Kuwabara asked.

"I heard you can all do really nifty things with your energy," Kaito said. "Isn't that how you won the Dark Tournament?"

"And what would you know about that?" Hiei asked.

"Only what I was told," Kaito said. "Imagine my surprise when I learned that my greatest adversary can do the most curious thing with plants."

"How about you stop breaking our balls and just tell us what you did with our friend," I said.

"Yusuke Urameshi is here, just like we said he would be, and he's safe, for now," Kaito said. He motioned behind him. "He's through that door."

Then a boy came out of the door. He was tall with a head of tall, lavender hair atop his head. He held a key and dropped it into his jacket pocket.

"I have a key and beyond it there's another door and Yanna has that key," Kaito said. "You'll find your friend through them."

"And how do we know we can trust you?" Kurama asked.

"I can assure you, he's quite safe. If you want him back you just have to pass a little test is all," Kaito said.

"And I'm assuming that this little test of yours has something to do with your 'territory' or whatever?" I asked.

"How very sharp of you, Detective," Kaito said.

"Just tell us what's going on already before I break your face in," Kuwabara said.

Kaito sat up straight in his chair and smiled.

"Well, as it happens, I recently discovered that I have some very interesting abilities," Kaito said. "I can create my own reality. Whatever I imagine in my head, I can bring to life."

". . . So your taboo word. You're saying that everything you wrote on that note outside the door was true? That just because you decided to taboo that word if we say it we forfeit our souls?" I asked.

"Correct," Kaito said. "Whatever I say goes in my territory. I possess the power of taboo. But that is not the only thing I've tabooed here. I've also tabooed violence so I'd keep those little outbursts of yours under control from now on. Yes, in this place we will only do battles of the mind."

"Oh, come on! What are you talking about?" Kuwabara exclaimed.

Kaito shook his head. "It must be so difficult, Suichi, not even being able to carry a slightly intelligent conversation with your friends."

"Enough games. Tell us where Yusuke is," Kurama said.

"Yes, tell us where the detective is now. I'm starting to lose my patience," Hiei said.

"I'd relax if I were you. There's no violence in my territory after all," Kaito said.

"And I think you're bluffing," Hiei said.

"All right then, Hiei. If you are so confident that I am a liar, why don't you come over here and prove it," Kaito suggested.

"Gladly," Hiei said. He unsheathed his sword and went to attack Kaito who sat in his chair unmoving. Hiei brought his sword down, but a barrier appeared around him, snapping Hiei's sword into pieces.

Kaito laughed at a peeved Hiei. "See, you're nothing more than a bully with a sword. If I take that from you, what do you have left?"

"We can't really afford for you to go around being your usual arrogant self if you don't mind," I said. "I've got a really bad feeling about all of this and being an imbecile is not going to help us any."

Hiei scoffed at me. "I'm not just going to stand here and play his mind games."

I shook my head. "No. You see, Hiei, this is where you and I keep running into problems. I tell you I have a bad feeling and the next thing you know you, me, and Kurama are getting attacked by androids and bad science experiments in the forest. Let's stop and think about this for a minute. If he proved that violence was taboo the logical conclusion we can draw from that is that he is probably not playing mind games with us and can actually take our souls."

"No three letter word can rule my fate," Hiei said. I rolled my eyes. "HOT."

It only took a second before a blue aura overtook Hiei's body. He went stiff and fell over and his soul glowing in a small yellow orb floated up from his body and over to Kaito. Botan and I stood Hiei on his feet and he was cold beneath my fingers.

I shook my head.

"I warned him, didn't I? Can't say my taboo or you'll lose your soul. That's just the way of it," Kaito said.

"Well how do we get him back to normal?" I asked.

Kaito shrugged. "Maybe I'll give him his soul back if you play nicely."

I looked over to Kurama who nodded in confirmation.

"All right, Kaito, you win. We'll play your game. No violence. No taboo word," Kurama said.

We all sat down and stared across at Kaito.

"I have a question if you don't mind answering," I said.

"Certainly not," Kaito said.

"Are you bound by the rules of your territory too? Like, can you not say your own taboo word?" I asked.

"How observant of you, Kairi. Yes, in my territory I must follow the same rules allotted to everyone else," he said. "You're much more intelligent than your reputation would lead everyone to believe. Now can I ask you a question?"

"I guess," I said.

"How is it that you came to be at our school? Usually they keep the hooligans in West City," Kaito said.

I rolled my eyes. "I got into a fight with some stupid girl. They got tired of me getting into fights so they kicked me out."

"And I see that despite getting kicked out of one of the worst schools in the area and being moved into a better one you still haven't learned your lesson," Kaito said.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're a dick?" I asked.

"That's quite enough, Kaito," Kurama said. "I don't think now is the proper time to be attacking Kairi's character."

"Aside from being a total jerk, what do you know about this guy?" Kuwabara asked.

"As I said before, he's one of my classmates, the second highest ranking. He's well recognized at school because his IQ ranks in the genius level," Kurama said.

"Oh, Suichi you have quite a way of bragging," Kaito said. "You make me out to be a prince; that must make you the king or have you forgotten how much better you are than me?"

"Statistically, yes my grades are better, but in certain subjects such as language arts you far surpass me and have even published essays on literary theory," Kurama said.

"So he's just some kind of writer genius, huh?" Kuwabara asked. "I bet we're cooler than anything you've ever read in a book."

Kaito shrugged. "Not really."

"Oh it's so obvious what you're trying to do—keeping us trapped in this stupid room so we say your little word," Kuwabara said. "It's gotta be like a hundred degrees in here."

"It's 85 actually, with 80 percent humidity. I like to keep it like this to grow tropical plants. Think of it as a tribute to you, Suichi," Kaito said.

"Careful, Kaito, your man crush is showing," I said.

"If the heat is getting to you," Kaito said leering at me very briefly, "I have some drinks in the fridge. I even have glasses."

"It's probably poisoned or something," Kuwabara said getting up and approaching the small refrigerator.

"Why do you constantly think people are trying to poison you?" I asked him. "People always have more creative ways of trying to kill us."

"Yeah, whatever, Kairi," Kuwabara said.

"Here, Kuwabara, let me get that for you. I need to do something with my hands," Botan said getting to her feet and joining him. She looked through the fridge and then perked up a bit. "Oh, there's OJ. It's better for you than soda."

"I don't care. Just put it in a glass and pour it over ice and we can share with each other," Kuwabara said.

"Your confidence in my health is charming," Botan said.

And that's when it happened. The same thing that had happened to Hiei also befell Kuwabara, to everyone's shock.

"That's no fair! He didn't even say hot!" Botan said.

I face paled myself.

"Botan!" Kurama scolded her.

"I goofed," she said, and then she too lost her soul.

"What the hell just happened? Is your orange juice tabooed too?" I asked.

"He spelled it," Kurama said. "Kuwabara spelled the word. He said 'share with each'. . ."

I thought back to it. Share with each other? Each other? E-a-c-h-o-t. . .

"In my territory even spelling is off limits," Kaito said holding the three souls in his hand.

"It doesn't make you clever or better to trick people when they don't know the full extent of your powers. It just makes you a dishonest person," I said.

"An intelligent person like your cousin here would've deduced every possible scenario a while ago," Kaito said. "I can't believe it was so easy."

I looked over to Kurama. I was starting to feel anxious.

"I know you don't like it when I'm in your head, but I'm totally freaked out right now," I said to him telepathically.

"Don't panic. I've worked out a plan, but to avoid anymore casualties I need you to speak as little as possible so that you don't lose your soul as well," Kurama replied.

I trusted Kurama to get us all out of this dangerous situation. Now I just had to wait.

"Souls are so beautiful. I like the girls the most. Souls are the only you can't make stronger by training. . . You can only make them darker. Tell me you two, should I darken mine right by crushing these? It's strange having this power over people. You two must feel it all the time. Maybe I should. . . just a little scratch." Kaito said.

"Don't do it Kaito. You so much as bruise what's in your hands and I'll show you pain. The hue of your soul will cease to matter because you will not be judged or die. You will simply cease to exist," Kurama said.

"Very nice, Suichi. You'll have to teach me to talk like that after I beat you," Kaito said.

"Speaking of it, is it possible to change your taboo?" Kurama asked. "Naturally none of us is going to speak the word, thus we are in a stalemate."

"Yes of course. I'd like to defeat my greatest opponent with more than a simple word gag and obviously your cousin is intelligent enough to know when to keep her nose out of trouble. What do you suggest Suichi?" Kaito asked.

"It will take 45 minutes to complete the game. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Starting at the letter Z, we will taboo a letter every 104-seconds until there are none left. What say you?" Kurama asked.

"All right, what if you don't beat me in the 45 minutes time limit?" Kaito asked.

"Then you may have our souls," Kurama said. I nodded in agreement. Our souls was a hefty wager, but we'd be in no deeper shit than we were now. Kaito looked at the clock. 12:45 A.M.

"Let's start neatly at one shall we?" Kaito said. Kurama nodded.

Kaito took a sheet of paper and started writing out the rules.

"A quick drink, Kairi?" Kurama said, grabbing my hand and pulling me over to the little fridge.

I opened it and looked around inside and pulled out a bottle of water.

"What are you planning?" I asked.

"You don't need to worry about that," Kurama said. "I just wanted to speak to you privately for a moment." I nodded. "I will need your assistance with something though."

"What is it?" I asked.

"That boy has the key," Kurama said. "We're stuck here because we can't forcibly obtain it from him. But, as I recall, you're able to telepathically persuade people into doing things."

"Only small things," I said. "I shouldn't have any trouble convincing him to give me a key." Kurama shook his head.

"Whatever you do, you must do it without Kaito realizing it," Kurama said. "And lastly, don't talk, don't sneeze, don't even make a noise. The game will only become more challenging as we go down the line. All right?"

"I sure hope you know what you're doing," I said.

"Don't I always?" he asked.

"Yes, but for once I'd like you to know what you're doing without lying half-dead on the floor in a pool of your own blood," I said.

Kurama chuckled. "No risk of that today."

888

All who enter, host and guest, don't utter a letter crossed off from the list.

Speak and letter and you shall pay with your soul.

I watched the clock as the seconds ticked down toward the start of the game. When the clock struck one a.m., the game began.

"Better get out any Z words. Zealous zebra's and crazy zinc zippers," Kaito laughed. We had barely begun the game and already he was proved to be just as deranged as the rest of the people Kurama did battle with.

104 seconds later a red X appeared over the letter Z. It was now taboo.

"Now Y. Why, oh, why do we lose the letter Y? What if we need to cry? As you can see I am quite enjoying this game," Kaito said.

"Careful Kaito. Wouldn't want to make a mistake and slip." Kurama said.

So that ended Kaito's zealous letter comments. Y was crossed from the list. Then X, W, and finally V.

"At last a challenge. So much I used those last letters." Kaito said.

"Losing S, T, and U shall be a greater obstacle." Kurama said.

It was an obstacle indeed. Kurama had made me promise to do my best not to make a noise and as more letters dropped from the list the thought of speaking terrified me into silence.

Kaito got up from his seat.

"Going off?" Kurama asked.

"Need a john," Kaito replied. He walked of and went into the bathroom.

I looked to Kurama who nodded. A signal for me to get the key from the boy by the door as the letter R was crossed from the list.

I didn't really like to influence people's thoughts, but considering they were holding Yusuke hostage I made an exception. I looked over to him and stared him down hard. He noticed I was looking at and stared back.

"You're tired, boy," I told him. "You're very tired. You've been standing up all day. You haven't slept. You haven't eaten. It's nearly two in the morning. What are you doing awake? Rest. Sleep. Your body is tired and need sleep."

The boy's head hung down as he dozed off, but he lifted his head and shook it away.

"Don't fight it. Sleep. You'll be fine. Sleep," I said.

Slowly the boy hung he head and fell asleep, falling over onto the floor as he did. I looked over to Kurama and gave him a wink. I levitated the key out of the boy's pocket and brought it over to my hand.

I handed the key over to Kurama who seemed quite impressed with my work.

I took a glance around the room and saw that the many plants Kaito had sitting around were beginning to grow quite wild and turn the room into the forest. I looked over at Kurama, completely confused. This time he winked at me and got to his feet.

He pointed o himself and then up at the chandelier above our heads.

What? He was going to climb up there? I nodded to show that I understood. Then he pointed to me and then brought his fingers to his lips. I needed to stay here and be quiet. I nodded again. Then he pointed to himself again and motioned downward from the chandelier. He was going to come back down. Then to me again and this time he covered his eyes.

I pointed to myself and then covered my eyes. Kurama nodded.

I didn't know what he was up to but I would oblige. He was going to climb onto the chandelier and I was to remain here and quiet. When he came back down I was to cover my eyes.

This was one of those situations where I just had to trust Kurama to not be crazy.

The forest around us was growing wilder and wilder and Kurama climbed up into the chandelier, completely hidden.

I sat in my seat and waited patiently as letter after letter was removed from the list.

Soon, with 8 letters to go, Kaito showed back up. He looked frantic. He looked at me and then looked around for Kurama.

He didn't sit back down, he just stared at me, as if he were waiting for me to make a mistake and slip up.

Finally, with only A and B left Kurama hung down from the chandelier right behind Kaito's head and dangled there. I rested my head against the back of my chair and closed my eyes to give the impression that I was tired.

"BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I heard Kurama wail. The noise startled me a bit and I was curious to see what he was up to exactly, but I followed his directions.

Then there was silence. Nothing but dead silence. My heart was pounding in my ears. There wasn't much time left.

That's when I heard a snort and then a full blown laugh. Kaito was laughing. I heard Kurama jumped down to the floor with a thud and I opened my eyes.

"NOOO!" Kaito shouted before his soul popped out of his body and he fell over onto the floor. The energy in the room changed and I knew that Kaito's territory was gone.