I'm posting this without really editing it. Which explains the utterly freaky conversation at the end of the chapter. Submit more characters and make me happy. Also, the team info pages (YES, there are 16 teams now) have been updated, so go check them out. YAY!

Disclaimer: In an alternate dimension, I might own Yu Yu Hakusho, but in this one, I don't. If you live in said dimension where I do, please be sure to inform me. Also, I don't own Kakurell or Azumashi (they both belong to Kakurell), Niyali or Arashi (from the EvilTowel duo's Niyali and Arashi), Bobbie, or Kaylee. Kozuye and Ryouta are mine. I wish I owned some Cloudweed sap.

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Chapter Three:

From Weird to Insane

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The sky was painted in brilliant shades of amber and rose, deep violet splashes of clouds scattered across the darkening canvas. Nestled amongst these was the sun, glowing a soft crimson that reflected off the other colors in an almost perfect mix of pastel light. The sea below lapped the beach gently, the soft hiss of the tide meshing with the slowly mounting chorus of crickets and the whistling rustle of the frigid ocean breeze caressing the trees. If one ignored the fact that the sun in the makai was always blood red, and that a deadly tournament would soon begin, it was almost peaceful. Then there was the slightly ominous observation that the sun currently seemed to be... well, pulsating was the only way to put it. Beating... like a heart unknowingly pumping away its lifeblood through a fatal wound...

A loud splash brought Ryuukori Kaylee abruptly out of her morbid thoughts. Sighing, she turned her light green eyes towards the beach, glaring at the intrusion on her daydreams: the ningen captain of the guest team. It figured.

"Damnit, Puu!" Yusuke spluttered, attempting to remove the seaweed from his hair and make obscene gestures at his offending spirit beast at the same time. "What was that for?" Hiei and Kurama leapt lightly to the sandy ground, Kuwabara falling after them shortly.

The blue phoenix fixed a doleful eye on his other half, carefully ensuring he was out of reach before giving an answering hoot. "Puuuuuu!" Turning tail, he stopped only long enough to stick out his tongue at Yusuke before zooming back off over the ocean.

"Why that..." Yusuke cupped his hands around his mouth for better volume. "Y'know what we're having for dinner when I get back? Fried fuzzball! You hear me, you stupid chicken?"

"You're making a scene, Spirit Detective," Hiei cut in before Yusuke could really get going. "You don't want to attract any unnecessary attention."

Kurama glanced disdainfully at the demons around them before replying, "I believe it is too late for that." Sure enough, nearly every competitor was staring at them, some in disbelief, most in disgust.

"This is the great Spirit Detective?" the same woman who had earlier insulted Yusuke snorted in disbelief. "This will be even easier than I thought." Yusuke bit back a snarl, staring at the black-cloaked enemy. Gold embroidery, possibly glyphs, possibly just an elaborate pattern, glistened along the hems, the black cloth hiding all but the woman's eyes from view. An equally tall man stood behind her, casting an amused look at Yusuke before turning and following the lady back into the crowd of watching demons.

"Captains, if you please," Ryouta's by now familiar voice called over the crowd. "A meeting is required before the preliminaries begin." A number of demons broke apart from the group, still murmuring and looking scornfully over their shoulders as they filed into a small cabin.

Kuwabara approached his rival, tapping him on the shoulder. "How come you didn't attack? I know you wanted to, I can feel your rage, y'know."

Yusuke shook his head. "I wanted to, yeah. But... there's somethin' weird about her reiki. And it's not like a hanyou either. It's like... like she doesn't have any." With a shrug, he headed off after the other captains, a path clearing for him despite the whispers passing through the crowd. And Kuwabara was left there to think, never a good thing when it came to this particular ningen...

---

"Your attention?" Ryouta stood on a small podium, looking quite perturbed and more than a bit harassed. The tall woman had insisted her co-captain come in with her, and it had caused quite a bit of a row. Then there was the fact that not all of these demons had the best o manners... besides there being no room to move, and being almost unbearably hot from the huge fireplace and body heat, the stench of alcohol, unwashed bodies, and who- knew-what-else was beginning to waft through the heavy air. "If you would all settle, the rules could be explained."

Kaylee had seated herself near a window in hopes of being able to breathe, but it was in vain: apparently this was so confidential that not even fresh air was allowed into the meeting. She for one just wanted them to get on with it already and had already zoned out, eyes fixed on something unseen out the window. She was not the only one who had no intentions of paying attention: more than one captain had already dozed off.

"The rules are..." Ryouta paused as he was cut off by a particularly loud snore, "that no ki of any kind may be used during the preliminaries. Purely testing your ability to invent, this is. Seven parts there are to the obstacle course: each of an element, each of a different team member." The boy held up what looked like a dog collar made of some lightweight black metal. "These are to be worn during the entire course; if any type of energy is used that is not physical, these will react in such a way that you will... most certainly be disqualified. The losers of the preliminaries will not live to see the tournament itself..."

---

Kuwabara sat on a boulder, perched in the same pose as the statue "The Thinker". So far, it hadn't helped him think of anything... except about how uncomfortable this posture was. Hiei had long since gone off in the opposite direction; he was standing beneath a cliff, staring out at the sea without blinking. Kuwabara had tried that posture for thinking, too, but all he'd ended up with were dried-out eyeballs. Kurama was doing his best not to comment on either of his teammates' antics, leaning against the base of the rock Kuwabara had climbed upon and closing his eyes.

"People around here are so boring," A young girl remarked. "Lookit them, they're all asleep!"

"C'mon Niyali, it's not so bad. The ningen on the rock is the co-captain of Team Urameshi!" Another girl replied consolingly.

"Really? That stupid-looking one?"

"Yup."

"Huh. I didn't recognize him. I've never seen him trying to think."

"Maybe it's his first time. Must be painful for him." A couple of giggles were followed by a scuttling sound. Kurama cracked one of his eyes open to see a small eleven-year-old girl scaling the side of the rock. She was wearing jeans and sneakers, and a blue sweatshirt that was way too big for her was getting in her way as she attempted to reach his immobile teammate. Kurama yawned; Kuwabara must've fallen asleep trying to think too hard.

"What're you doing, Niyali?" the girl on the ground questioned her friend. Niyali turned around to shush her, blue eyes dancing, and Kurama did a double take. The girl had dark blond hair streaked with blue that reached just below her shoulder blades, and it was held back in a ponytail. But the thing (or rather, things) holding the hair back were... plants. But not just any plants; these appeared to be actually rooted in the girl's scalp.

"Watch this," Too late, the girl's voice brought the kitsune to his senses. Kuwabara spluttered in confusion, falling off the rock and onto the sandy ground, covered in a sticky white substance suspiciously like whipped cream. Niyali sat atop the boulder, looking proudly down on her handiwork, which happened to be rolling about so desperately that bits of sand and driftwood had begun transforming him into an unrecognizable mass of congealing muck.

"Kuwabara calm down!" shouted Kurama, cautiously approaching his ally. Further investigation of the whiteness showed it to be Cloudweed sap, a rather versatile substance that was used both as a rather expensive gourmet dessert in the makai... and as a quick-setting building material. Luckily, the girl had diluted it enough to keep it from doing the latter, but it was still setting into an odd gelatin-like state. Kurama sighed. If this kept up, he didn't think any of them would have a shred of dignity left by the end of this...

---

"What?! No ki use?"

"Who do you think you're kidding?"

"Noisy, aren't they?" Yusuke looked behind him upon hearing a voice, but saw nothing. Then he looked down.

"Hullo," the eleven-year-old girl said with a grin, linking her hands behind her head and rocking back on her heels, trying to look Yusuke in the eyes, but unable to because there wasn't enough room. "You must be Urameshi Yusuke. Nice to meetcha. My name's Toshiko Kozuye, I'm captain of Team Tatsuya." Yusuke just stared for a moment.

"You can't be a team leader!" he finally burst out. "You're a shrimp, a brat, a... you barely come up to my waist!"

"And...?" the girl countered. "I happen to know I'm just as tall as Rinku, and he kicked Kuwabara's butt at the Dark Tournament."

Yusuke eyed her with distrust. "You know the kid?"

Kozuye scoffed. "Know him? He's here, you baka. Team Mikomi with Amanuma and Shura, too."

"What is this, a babysitting service?!" demanded Yusuke.

"Could be, but I don't think Nursery School's on the itinerary," Kozuye responded brightly. "So how're you gonna split up the course? You only have four people, right?"

"Yeah... so what?" Yusuke quizzed, still not believing this squirt was a team leader.

"Just because you are the guest team doesn't mean you get to skip the preliminaries. You just won't get penalized if you screw up," supplied the tall woman.

Yusuke whirled on her, furious. "You know, you're seriously starting to piss me off. Who are you anyways?"

The woman continued to stare at him with dispassionate reptile eyes before responding, "I am Drakken Kakurell, the captain of Team Raquar. And this," she motioned to the tall man behind her, "is Memaitos Azumashi."

"Riiiight," Yusuke made a face at the weird names. "So what's up with the cloak? You got some skin problem or something?"

Kakurell didn't even blink as Azumashi began to smirk and another girl came up behind them, a tiger demon. "Oh come on, Spirit Detective. Surely your toddler boss has told you about the great Kakurell." The tiger rolled her eyes when she saw Yusuke's disgruntled expression. "She's an assassin, moron," she continued, tossing her shoulder-length, curly black hair over her shoulder. "One of the most wanted in the entire makai. The bounty on her is enough to have sent more than a few youkai to their deaths," she concluded, absentmindedly twirling one of the green strands of hair that framed her face around her finger. "By the way, I'm Taemons Bobbie, captain of the team that'll beat you. If you want to last long around here, I'd do my research." With that, she melted back into the crowd, Azumashi and Kakurell turning and heading in the opposite direction. Kozuye shrugged and distractedly relieved a nearby demon of his valuables, placing them in another youkai's pocket before strolling off as well, humming something that sounded suspiciously like "The Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves".

---

"I have just about had it," Kuwabara grumbled, spitting another mouthful of frothy white substance onto the ground. "First was that shrimp Rinku, then that Game Master kid took me hostage. NOW there's a little girl out to humiliate me."

"Not just one."

"Three or so, actually. If not more."

"But I'll show the world just what a strong man can do!"

"Hey, Arashi... you see a strong man anywhere around here?"

"Not one who's talking in any case..."

"I'll do the first part of the preliminary! I'll show them!"

"Kuwabara... you've swallowed a lot of that stuff... you are not in your right mind."

"Correction. You have to have a mind to be in the right of it."

"What the hell happened here???"

"Yusuke, thank goodness you're back. You see..."

"I'm going to do the first round of the preliminaries."

"And get himself killed."

"There was... a bit of an incident..."

"You could say that. Or you could say Kuwabara got made a fool of."

"The second one. Definitely the second one."

"And now he thinks..."

"I'm doing it, Urameshi. I'm gonna do the first round. Kuwabara the man will be ridiculed no more!"

"Whoa, pretty big words from you."

"D'you even know what that means?"

"What's with the peanut gallery?"

"It's a long story, really..."

"ONWARD! TO VICTORY! CHARGE!"

"OI! KUWABARA! Come back here, you..."


Characters received since last update: Ryuukori Kaylee, Taemons Bobbie, and Glidestringer Philas. If you are a team captain, please find some way to contact me and inform me what you want your team to be called. If you don't send me one, I'll come up with a name for you. And now for review responses:

TonyDiMerasbedroomslave-
I need to stress this again, even if this was only a one time occurrence. DO NOT SUBMIT A CHARACTER THROUGH A REVIEW!!! The whole reason I went to the trouble of setting up a submission form was so that: a) those not allowed to e-mail people they don't know could still enter without b) my account being frozen. Not only did you submit through a review, you did not even give all the details I requested. I did save what you sent me if you would like a copy, but your review has been removed. If you still would like to enter please submit via the instructions posted both on my bio, and in chapter one of this story.

videogamegod01- YAY PUFFBALLS!!! And thanks for the compliment.

tensi-notia- I dunno if I got your charries... check the section for "characters recieved"

blackcats of the moon- have you seen my website? It took me a YEAR before I felt organized enough to post this. Literally. I've been working on this since last summer.

I need to stress this again, even if this was only a one time occurrence. DO NOT SUBMIT A CHARACTER THROUGH A REVIEW!!! The whole reason I went to the trouble of setting up a submission form was so that: a) those not allowed to e-mail people they don't know could still enter without b) my account being frozen. SUBMISSION INFO IS POSTED ON MY BIO AND IN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THIS FIC.

Next Chapter (in the meantime, read my latest story "Memories of a Lost Past"): Finally, the prelims will begin (I think they were s'possed to begin this time... eh-heh). Kuwabara takes the first challenge, the trial of water. The next tests go to Yusuke and Kurama, completing the trials of light and darkness in turn. As the course continues, old rivals will be rediscovered, and new ones will begin to reveal themselves. Prepare for heated races, terrifying realizations, and little kid madness next in "Shades of Yin and Yang".