I went through several idea for a chapter name and finally arrived to the conclusion that this chapter is about spirit detectives having a really miserable and crappy job, so it is now titled "Everything is not Fun." Yippee.
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CHAPTER ONE
Everything is not Fun
"Have fun..."
The group thought back to the last two words Koenma had said as they left his office three days ago.
They now stood facing a steep, almost perfectly vertical cliff face at least half a mile high.
"Fun? Fun my butt," Yusuke muttered.
"Well... What do we do now?" Kuwabara asked. They stared at the cliff again for a minute, hoping to find a way out of the obvious. There was none.
"Now... We climb," Kurama said. He walked to the cliff and searched for handholds. Finding some, he got a good grip and started up. Hiei followed. Yusuke and Kuwabara were hoping that, for once, Kurama was wrong.
It wasn't until Kurama was already at least 50 feet up the cliff face that Yusuke and Kuwabara gave up and started climbing.
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It started getting dark when they were only about halfway up the cliff. Kurama led the way up, having spotted a small cave not far from where they were.
"Kurama, how much farther is it?!" Kuwabara whined. Kurama rolled his eyes. The baka had been asking the same question with an exact interval of 15 minutes, 23 seconds every time, ever since he got about 150 feet up the cliff.
Hiei hadn't said a word the entire time; not exactly unusual.
Yusuke had whined a good bit for the first half hour, until Hiei accidentally-on-purpose "knocked" (threw) a rock onto Yusuke's head. With perfect aim, too, because it bounced off Yusuke and hit Kuwabara square between the eyes.
"A lot farther, but there's a cave about 50 feet up. Hopefully it's big enough for all of us to rest in overnight," Kurama answered.
"A cave?! Man, never trust a cave halfway up a cliff. Freaks and bats live in them. I bet it's really a tunnel leading to a mad scientist's lab or something, and while we're sleeping, he'll come out and kidnap us for experimentation!" Yusuke said.
"Yusuke, that is the biggest word I have ever heard you say," Hiei said. Obviously it was startling to hear Yusuke say a 6-syllable word, since it managed to get a comment out of Hiei.
"What, experimeh... experi... I can't say it again," Yusuke said.
"I pity you, Yusuke," Hiei muttered. He lapsed into silence again.
"Anyway, Yusuke, I severely doubt there's any mad scientists up there... I seriously do," Kurama said.
"Well I don't..."
"Well then you can go ahead and keep climbing all night since you're afraid of some bats and humanoid experimentation!" Kurama snapped. He would have thrown a handful of rocks at Yusuke, but Hiei was between them.
Yusuke was startled by Kurama's outburst and quickly shut up. Kuwabara, however, continued mumbling and muttering to himself. Kurama heard a curse slip out of Hiei's lips and a dull thud. A split-second later he heard Kuwabara shout.
"HIEI, I SWEAR, IF YOU THROW ANYTHING ELSE AT ME, I'M COMING UP THERE TO KILL YOU!!!"
"Right, baka. Somehow I think you'd have a bit of a problem fighting me while we're hanging onto a vertical cliff face," Hiei muttered.
"I HEARD THAT!"
"No shit, Sherlock! You were supposed to! That's why I said it to YOU!"
"Oh..."
They were quiet again until Kurama finally reached the cave. He pulled himself in and realized that there was a drop of about five feet from the edge of the opening to the cave floor. Hoping that there wasn't anything on the floor that he couldn't see, Kurama climbed over the edge of the opening and lowered himself to the floor. He leaned out.
"There's a slight drop from the opening to the floor," he said loudly. Only Hiei seemed to hear him. He stood on the thin ledge over the floor, looking down.
"Slight drop?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"So I lied. Come on," Kurama said, smiling. Hiei dropped to the floor. He walked into the cave a bit and formed a fireball for light.
It seemed like a fairly normal cave. One wall glistened from moisture, and somewhere from the back of the cave there was the sound of running water. Hiei walked along the walls to get a judgment of the size of the cave. Just then, Yusuke climbed over the ledge and fell five feet to the floor.
"Kurama! You said a slight drop! That's not slight! That's like... Hiei's height!"
Hiei glanced at the detective. He was lying on the floor staring at the opening.
"You'd better move, Yus---" Hiei started, but before he could finish his sentence, Kuwabara climbed over the ledge and fell in on top of Yusuke.
"AH! THE FLOOR IS SOFT! IT'S SOFT!!! NOBODY MOVE, IT'S PROBABLY TRYING TO EAT US!!! STRUGGLING WILL MAKE IT FASTER!!!" Kuwabara screamed. Hiei snorted. Kurama smiled, amused, while Yusuke glared at Kuwabara.
"Kuwabara, first, I am not the floor. Second, I don't think, even if I was the floor, that I would want to eat you. Third, no matter what the floor was like, as long as it was a natural floor, I doubt it would eat anybody. Fourth, I cannot breathe, because you are fat, ugly, and you smell like B.O. So, in other words, GET THE HECK OFFA ME!!!" Yusuke snapped, shoving Kuwabara off him. The baka screamed.
"THE FLOOR TALKS!!! URAMESHI! YOU'RE STANDING ON A TALKING FLOOR! LOOK OUT, IT'S GONNA EAT YOU!!!" Kuwabara yelled, hiding behind Kurama.
"Baka," Hiei muttered, continuing on his exploration of the small cave.
"Kuwabara, that was Y--- Whoa, get the heck away from me!!! You really smell awful!!!" Kurama said, covering his nose and mouth with his hand and walking away. Kuwabara looked dejected.
"Even Kurama's dissing me?!" Kuwabara fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands. "OH, CRUEL WORLD!!! WHAT HAVE YOU COME TO?! NOW THE NICEST GUY I KNOW IS BEING MEAN!!!"
The others sweatdropped.
"OH YEAH? WELL I BET YOU SMELL FUNNY TOO, KURAMA!" Kuwabara shouted, jumping up and pointing at the boy.
"Right. Kurama smells funny? All Kurama ever smells like is flowers," Hiei said. As an afterthought, just to make Kurama mad, he added, "How girly."
*Whack!*
Hiei experienced the pain of having a rock thrown into his head like a baseball.
"HIEI, SHUT UP! I'M NOT GIRLY!" Kurama yelled. Hiei rubbed his head where the rock had hit.
"That hurt... Baka kitsune..." Hiei muttered.
"YUSUKE SMELLS FUNNY TOO!!!" Kuwabara announced after sniffing him. Yusuke jumped away.
"WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU SMELLING ME FOR?!"
"AND I BET HIEI SMELLS FUNNY TOO!!!" Kuwabara yelled, pointing at Hiei.
"What are you talking about? Hiei always smells funny," Yusuke said. Hiei spun around and flung the fireball, their only lantern, at Yusuke. He dodged and the fire and it hit the damp wall behind him, sizzling to nothingness.
Except for a few rays of light from the moon, the group was in complete darkness. Then, lucky them, a cloud floated over the moon.
"Guys?" Kuwabara said. "Um... I can't see. Hiei? Could you light up another one of those fireball things? Hiei?"
There was absolutely no noise from anywhere in the cave. Kurama and Hiei had been in the back. The tiny bit of light in the cave didn't reach that far. However, Kuwabara could see that Yusuke was standing there with his hands on his hips, squinting into the darkness with a nervous look on his face.
"I TOLD you this was a mad scientist's hideout! Now the freak has Hiei and Kurama!" Yusuke muttered.
"Don't say that, man! That's not good!"
"No shit, Sherlock," Yusuke muttered. The cloud drifted away, allowing more light into the cave, but Kurama and Hiei were nowhere to be seen.
"Maybe they're hiding."
"Hiei? Hide? Come on, you've got to be-- AHHH!!!" Kuwabara cut off his thought with a scream, pointing into the darkness. Two red eyes glowed in the darkness. "EVIL!!! EVIL!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
It seemed, for the moment, Kuwabara had forgotten the color of Hiei's eyes.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Yusuke added. They both commenced with their insane screaming and running in circles and waving of arms. Hiei laughed and lit up another fireball.
"FIRE!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Yusuke and Kuwabara were running so carelessly that they promptly ran into each other, falling over and finally noticing that they had been right in thinking some insane, violent pyromaniac was in the cave with them. They sat there shivering.
Hiei smiled. "Nervous?"
"AAAHHHHH!!! IT TALKS!!! KILL IT!!! KILL IT!!! IT'S EVIL! PURE EVIL!!!" Kuwabara screamed, scrambling to get away from Hiei. He was still in super-mega-ultra-stupid mode, which is worse than normal. Surprisingly, yes, it can get worse than normal.
"Other than referring to him as an 'it,' and saying to kill him, you are mainly on the right track," Kurama said quietly.
"YES! YOU GUYS DIDN'T GET KIDNAPPED BY THE INSANE MAD SCIENTIST THAT LIVES IN THE HIDDEN LABORATORY!!!" Yusuke screamed, jumping up and hugging the two. Hiei looked disgusting and quickly freed himself from the embrace. Yusuke fell flat on his face, nearly dragging Kurama down with him.
"But... What were those glowy red eyes?" Kuwabara asked stupidly. Kurama sighed.
"Kuwabara, have you ever looked at Hiei?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Have you ever seen his eyes?"
"Yeah. They're all evil-like."
"They're red," Hiei said. "And they glow sometimes."
"So?"
"So the glowy red eyes were me, you baka!!!" Hiei snapped. His eyes glowed red just then, to help prove his point. Kuwabara screamed.
"AH! HIEI'S EYES GLOW RED! HE WAS THE FREAKY MONSTER IN THE SHADOWS! HE'S EVIL! HE'S GOING TO EAT US! OR SUCK OUR BLOOD OR KILL US IN OTHER ICKY WAYS!!!" Kuwabara screamed, hiding behind Yusuke.
Hiei sweatdropped. Kurama looked quite embarrassed. He had a look on his face plainly saying, 'I can't believe I never let Hiei kill this baka... Now we're stuck with him and I have to put up with him. Maybe I'll kill him.'
"Get a life," Hiei muttered. Lightening flashed outside.
"What are we going to do for a fire? I mean, Hiei's got fire, but what are we gonna burn?" Yusuke asked.
"YOU'RE HEAD! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!" Kuwabara said. They ignored him. Hiei kneeled on the ground with his back to everybody and a second later there was a huge fire at the back of the cave.
"There. That shouldn't go out unless I put it out, or unless some baka puts water on it," he announced. He saw Kuwabara's startled expression. "Don't worry. It's not going to jump out and burn your face off, though it would be nice if did..."
After the insulting, violent threats shot back and forth between Hiei and Kuwabara for a few minutes, they finally stopped and everybody was quiet. Yusuke spoke up after a second.
"Kurama, could you give me a recap on the mission? I wasn't paying attention when pacifier-breath briefed us..."
"Baka," Hiei muttered.
"Yusuke, it would be a lot less troublesome if you would pay attention. It would save you a lot of confusion, and my throat wouldn't hurt from talking..."
"Oh... Well... Uh... I didn't. It's a good thing for the original spirit detective to know why he's doing what he's doing. Like climbing the cliff. I assume we need to climb it because it's the only way to get where we're supposed to be going," Yusuke said. Kurama smiled.
"No. We're climbing this cliff because I felt like making all you get blisters and calluses from climbing, so that way you couldn't fight right and you would die when we eventually meet up with our enemy," he said. Yusuke's jaw dropped.
"You're kidding, aren't you?" He looked at his hands. "OH MY GOD!!! I do have blisters and calluses!!! You're really trying to kill me!!! You've lost your mind!!! OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD!!!"
Yusuke started panicking. Kurama had to punch him before he finally calmed down.
"No, Yusuke, you were right. I'm joking. We need to get up the cliff to get to where we're going."
"... And where is that?"
"Somewhere in the forest that's on top of the cliff," Kurama said, shrugging. "That's what we're sent for. A young demon princess of sorts has been kidnapped, and her kidnapper is hiding her somewhere in the forest."
"Oh. So it's just a boring, normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapping case?" Yusuke asked. Kurama slapped him.
"No, baka! She's supposed to be a princess. Only... I think something messed up or something and she's not. But she's the rightful heir."
"Oh. So we're rescuing a defective princess? Sounds kinda fairy-tale, fantasyish if you ask me."
"Who asked you, Urameshi? It's not nice to treat a lady so rudely! She's probably very beautiful," Kuwabara snapped. Yusuke rolled his eyes.
"Maybe you'll like her better than Yukina, and poor Hiei will stop having to be so nervous all the time," Yusuke said. Hiei nearly screamed.
"What? Why should Hiei be nervous?" Kuwabara asked stupidly. He narrowed his eyes. "You know, it's strange how every time anybody mentions Yukina, shorty looks all freaked out. And everybody looks at him funny. And starts laughing."
Hiei closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. "Curse you, Yusuke."
"Well?" Kuwabara prompted.
"No reason, really, Kuwabara," Kurama lied. "Hiei's just a perfect gentleman and doesn't like seeing such a small innocent girl like her get influenced by a big klutz of a baka like yourself."
"Yeah right! I'm not a klutz! And besides, I think you're just saying that to cover up for Hiei! I bet he secretly loves her or something! Well let me tell you, Hiei, Yukina wouldn't like some shrimpy little baka like you!"
"Like you know what she'd like! And I don't love her like that!"
"Like that?? If you don't love her like that, then how do you love her?"
"I DON'T!"
"The why do you always look so freaked out when people talk about her?!"
Hiei was silent.
"What, no reason? You'd better give me a reason Hiei!"
"Shut up, baka! I'll kill you, I swear I will," Hiei snapped. Kuwabara shut up.
"Well, family moments are just so much fun!" Yusuke said.
"FAMILY MOMENTS?!" Hiei and Kuwabara screamed at the same time.
"What exactly were you implying there, Yusuke?" Hiei asked.
"That... uh... we're just all a big family! And we... uh... act like it... too..."
"Baka," Hiei muttered, walking to the edge of the ring of firelight and sitting with his back against the wall.
"Well, now that I'm done torturing Hiei, I think I'll torture... Kurama!" Yusuke said, smiling. Kurama looked startled.
"Me? You can't torture me. I don't have an explosive temper. It's not as much fun to watch somebody as quiet and friendly as me have a mental breakdown," he said nervously.
"Hm. I remember there was this one story I read on the Internet... Let me think, I'll remember it in a minute... OH! It was a yaoi fan fic---" Yusuke got no farther.
"YOU READ THAT DIRTY PERVERTED STUFF, YUSUKE? GOD, YOU'RE SICK! YOU'RE AS BAD AS SHADOW!!!" Kurama yelled. Then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder how Shadow's doing without Hiei in the house with her."
"I bet she's having a blast," Hiei said dryly.
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"So that's where that went!!! I knew that little twit was stealing stuff!" Shadow said triumphantly, starting to pull handfuls of candy out of Hiei's desk drawer. She smiled.
"I never knew Hiei had a sweet tooth..."
She decided to get revenge. Not only would she take back everything he'd stolen from her, but she would steal something of his. She went to his closet.
Opening it, she found a lot of identical outfits. Most of them consisted of a blue tank top, black pants, and a black cloak. He had a few spare pairs of boots. There were several pairs of regular old jeans and some t-shirts, and a pair of tennis shoes Hiei wore when he wasn't planning on doing any major physical activity. From their condition, it was obvious he never planned on whatever happened when he wore them. They were scuffed and muddy, and the laces were frazzled.
"Now that I see this, I just realized... Hiei has even more clothes than me!" Shadow thought out loud. "That's not right... Isn't it supposed to be the girls are obsessed over clothes and the guys are... obsessed over football or something? Well, I suppose that having 20 identical outfits doesn't count... He gets them shredded to bits anyway, so it figures that he's got so much... Oh well. It's payback time! You steal my candy, I steal your clothes."
She grabbed as many outfits as she could hold, then raced down to her room. She threw them on her bed and went back for more. When Hiei's closet was empty, Shadow went to her closet. She pulled a dress out of a box in the back, went up and hung it in Hiei's closet.
"There! Won't Hiei be happy when he comes back from his mission to find all his clothes missing? If I'm lucky, I'll escape with only minor fatal injuries."
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Eventually, the spirit detective group went to sleep. It was raining outside. Typical. Of course something had to come along to make this all harder. If it stopped by morning, then the rocks would be wet when they resumed their climb. If it wasn't done by morning, they'd be stuck climbing in the rain. Not exactly the smartest thing to do.
Hiei stayed awake for a while. Something Kurama had said about the "princess" had seemed a bit familiar. He couldn't quite place it, and he eventually gave up and fell asleep.
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When the group woke up in the morning, it was still raining.
"Well, this'll be fun," Hiei muttered. He extinguished the fire.
"Kurama, are you sure we should go in the rain like this?" Yusuke asked hopefully.
"Yes, we should," he answered dryly, already pulling himself out of the opening and into the rain. Hiei followed, jumping over Kurama to a thin ledge, which he landed on and instantly started up the cliff, because he didn't trust the thin ledge to hold him for more than a second.
Miserably, Yusuke and Kuwabara followed.
It didn't stop raining all day. It took the major part of that day to get up the cliff, since the rain was weighing them down, not to mention that it was making the rocks less stable.
Finally reaching solid, flat ground, Kurama sat down under a tree in the forest, where it was, for the most part, dry.
"Hiei, make a fire so we can dry off," Yusuke ordered, dragging himself into the forest.
"Just because I can manipulate fire, it's Hiei do this, Hiei do that, I forgot to bring matches, because I'm a stupid fool! Oh well, what does it matter? Hiei can just want fire to appear, and POW! It appears!" Hiei complained. A huge fire was burning in seconds anyway.
Kurama shivered. "This place is giving me the creeps... Me of all people. And I'm the nature freak."
"Yeah, it's giving off some pretty freaky vibes, you know?" Kuwabara muttered, looking around. "But we're not going back, because that girl needs our help, and since I am a decent gentleman, we will go help her!"
"Pfft. You? Decent?! Spare me," Hiei muttered, walking deeper into the forest. "Let's get this over with."
Hiei was quite good at hiding his emotions. He felt the 'freaky vibes' too, and he still thought something about the 'princess' seemed familiar, but he hid all this. Because he's a little twit who doesn't know that penning up emotions is a bad thing (Do I sound like a psychiatrist? Hit me if I do).
"Hiei, where are you going? We're still a team, and as long as we're wet and cold, we're staying here," Yusuke complained. Hiei glared back at him, but the fire suddenly got about 300 times hotter to accommodate his complaints.
"Dry yet?" Hiei asked, smiling as Yusuke backed away from the fire.
"No. But I'm gettin' there," Yusuke answered happily, holding his hands out to warm them.
After ten minutes of impatient waiting, Hiei was able to extinguish the fire. The group was finally dry enough to continue. Hiei led them through the forest.
After a short while of leading, Hiei stopped dead and vanished. Everybody was confused for a second until a huge explosion slammed into where Hiei had just been.
"Holy GOD!" Yusuke cried, jumping back. Hiei landed behind the group.
"Ambush attack. One demon. He's not that strong, but he's got some reinforcements on the way," he informed them. They looked at him funny.
"You're a really freaky person sometimes, Hiei," Yusuke said, awed. Hiei smirked and shot off again. He led the demon attacker to a field and killed him just as the reinforcements arrived. One of them had a young girl beside him with a knife to her throat. She had blue hair, and was really puny, not even as tall as Hiei, and was wearing a pure white kimono. Well, it could have been white, but it had mud and dirt stains all over it. Her blue eyes lit up at the sight of Hiei.
"Hiei-san?" she said quietly. She smiled ecstatically. "OTOUSAN!!!"
Hiei's eyes nearly flew out of their sockets. There was one person who ever called him that.
"Mai?" he said cautiously.
"HIEI-SAN REMEMBERS ME!!!" she screamed. "HE STILL CARES, TOO, BECAUSE HE CAME TO RESCUE ME! I TOLD YOU SOMEBODY WOULD COME!!!"
Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara caught up to Hiei just then and drew their weapons against the enemy demons.
"Uh... Who're they?" Mai asked.
"Never mind. They're my friends slash co-workers slash teammates," Hiei answered. "I'm supposing you're the so-called defective princess we were sent to rescue?"
"DEFECTIVE?! Otousan, you haven't changed a bit since I last saw you," Mai answered.
"Otousan?!" Hiei's friends said in unison, looking at him in disbelief.
"It's a nickname! It's not literal!" Hiei said.
"Right..." Kuwabara muttered. Hiei rolled his eyes.
"HEY, WE DIDN'T COME HERE TO CHITTER CHATTER, BAKA REIKAI DETECTIVES!!!" one demon screamed. "OUR BOSS TOLD US TO FIGHT YOU, NOT TALK TO YOU!!!"
Another one of the demons jabbed the one who had just spoken and said something under his breath, pointing at Kurama.
"Oh, yeah. Forgot about that..."
"What?! You were talking about me!" Kurama said nervously. "Don't talk about me without me knowing what you're talking about! What were you talking about?!"
"You."
"Obviously. What did you say?!"
"Nothing..."
"Right..."
"COULD WE JUST ATTACK ALREADY?!" another of the enemies yelled.
"YES WE COULD!!!" the leader replied. They darted in and attacked.
Their enemies weren't exactly high-class. They were weak enough that it wasn't hard to kill them, but they were strong enough that one of them managed to land a punch on Yusuke that sent him backwards into a tree 30 yards away.
"HIEI!" Kurama yelled, pointing behind his friend. Mai was about to be carried off by an evil demon lunatic.
"MAI!" Hiei yelled, for some reason feeling very protective of her. He attacked, cutting off the demon's arm. Its severed arm fell, along with Mai, and the demon ran into the forest. Kurama went after it.
"Are you okay?" Hiei asked. Mai leaped up and wrapped her arms around Hiei's neck.
"Hiei-san! I'm so glad you saved me! I would have died if you hadn't!"
"Yeeeah..." Hiei muttered. "Could you... let go of my neck?"
"Oh. Sorry," Mai muttered sheepishly, letting go and stepping back.
"Hiei! Where's Kurama?" Yusuke asked, running out of the forest into the clearing. He and Kuwabara had chased a couple demons into the forest, so they had missed the whole scene with Mai almost being carried off. Kuwabara noticed the severed arm on the ground.
"THAT'S SICK!!! Hiei, are you cutting people's limbs off?!"
"It was taking Mai. Kurama went after it. He should be back any second now. A one-armed demon is no match for Kurama," the fire demon answered.
"Ah."
They waited a full half an hour, but there was no sign of Kurama. They went searching, but they saw no trace of their friend. They did, however, find the dead body of a one-armed demon.
"Well... seems he killed this one, then something else must have gotten to him. But... I don't see any signs of anything," Hiei muttered, searching around the nearby bushes and trees. "No signs of him going anywhere else after that... He's gone."
"Gone? You mean... dead?" Mai asked.
"Unless Kurama's body just vaporizes when he dies, I'd say he's still alive somewhere. Who the heck knows where, though," Hiei muttered, still inspecting the plants for some sign of a fight, or a trail.
"Find anything?" Yusuke asked.
"Nope."
"Kurama's gone?"
"Yup."
"We gonna go look for him?"
"Nope."
"WHAT?"
"Not now, at least... We have to get Mai back to Reikai. Hopefully Kurama didn't get vaporized or carried off somewhere, because if he did, then we're screwed... Genius fox," Hiei muttered.
"Reikai? I'm going to Reikai? You're leaving me in Reikai, otousan?!" Mai whined.
"Yes. That's the best place for a defective princess water apparition such as yourself," Hiei replied dryly.
"But otousan...!"
"Would you stop calling me otousan!? I'm not your father!"
"Sorry, Hiei-san..." Mai answered. Hiei rolled his eyes.
"Let's go," he muttered.
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This is just some idea that popped into my head. I mean, it might seem kinda pointless right now... And it is... Kinda... But... Whatever. R & R people, tell me what you think. For a random idea, is it any good?