A/N: I have decided to update! And I've started the next chapter, too! Yahoo! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Kurama and the Amulet of Truth
As they ran from the palace and back into the forest of bamboo, Yoshimi stopped for a moment to catch her breath, first making sure they were a safe distance away. "Do you still have the amulet half?" Kurama asked her.
"Yes," Yoshimi replied. "I have it right here." She took the amulet half from where she had been keeping it inside her clothes. The sun shone down through the stalks of bamboo, hitting the jewels of the amulet so that they sparkled. "It really is pretty," she commented.
"We need to be leaving," Hiei said impatiently. "We don't know how long that portal of Koenma's will stay open."
Yoshimi nodded. "Right. Okay, let's go home now," she said, putting the amulet away again.
They continued to run back through the forest, searching for the clearing where the portal had first let them out. "I'm sure it was over this way," Yoshimi said, pointing to her right.
"But I thought it was to the left," Kurama said, pointing in that direction.
"Hn. Don't be foolish," said Hiei. "It was further up ahead."
"We're not…lost…are we?" Yoshimi asked tentatively.
"No," said Kurama. "We're just not quite sure where the portal is."
"I define that as 'lost'," said Hiei.
"Well, what do we do now?" Yoshimi asked, sitting down on the forest floor.
"Do you still have that communicator, Kurama?" asked Hiei.
"Yes, I should have it right here," said Kurama, putting his hand into his pocket. "Ah! But it's not there!"
"Oh great!" Yoshimi exclaimed exasperatedly. "What do we do now?"
"Check the other pocket," Hiei said. Kurama reached into his other pocket and, no surprise to Hiei, pulled out the communicator. He flipped up the top and checked the reception.
"We must be in a black zone," Kurama said. "I can't seem to get a signal."
"Oh, this is just peachy," Yoshimi said. "The great ruler of the spirit world can't even bother to check if the thing has black-zones."
"Oh silly me," Kurama said. "It seems that I just forgot to turn it on."
"What!" Yoshimi exclaimed. "First you lose it in your other pocket, and then you forget to turn the damn thing on before you use it!"
Kurama and Hiei started to laugh. "We were just joking both times," Kurama said. "What are you so uptight about? We can just camp here for the night."
"But won't the dangerous demons…" Yoshimi trailed off, realizing that she was with what were the most dangerous demons around. "But what if the guards from the castle come looking for who stole the amulet?"
"Believe me," Kurama said. "He's got enough treasures hole up with him in there that this won't be missed. We just needed to get out before he realized we were in there. He hates intruders."
"But why was the door heavily guarded," Yoshimi asked, now confused.
"Hn. That was nothing compared to what other traps he has guarding his valuables," Hiei said. "This is nothing but a meaningless bauble to he who guards the treasures of this demon world."
"Yeah. Okay," Yoshimi said. "Whatever. If nobody cares, I'm going to take a rest now."
"It would be a good idea to rest now," Kurama said. "We must take turns on watch tonight, because demon world is very dangerous."
"Go figure," Yoshimi said, lying back against the tree. "I'm going to take a rest now."
Yoshimi slept until she was woke suddenly during the night. "What time is it?" she said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"Past midnight," Hiei said, from a tree to her left.
"Oh," said Yoshimi. She looked around. Kurama was no where to be seen. "Where's Kurama?"
"He's out taking a walk," Hiei said. "He left me here to watch you."
"Hm…" Yoshimi contemplated a bit, wondering if she really wanted to ask this question. "Why were you and Kurama so happy earlier? When you teased me with the communicator, I mean. I've never seen him like that."
"It's being back in the demon world, for me. This is truly the place I belong. But for him…" Hiei glanced at Yoshimi then fell silent with a lying shrug.
"Grmm…" Yoshimi grumbled. She was tired. "I'm goin' back to sleep," she said tiredly. Yoshimi leaned back against the tree again and fell asleep immediately.
"Hn." Hiei said to Yoshimi after he was sure she was asleep. "We're not lost. The communicator's not broken either. He just wants to spend more time with you, because he knows you are going to have to part ways when you go back." He leaned up against the tree. "I don't care: more time in demon world for me."
Yoshimi's sleep was troubled. She had a strange dream: different people were weaving in and out of them. She seemed to be trapped, but when she tried to call out, no one answered. She especially remembered seeing Kurama numerous times, but each time, his rebuke was the harshest. Yoshimi eventually gave up and cried.
She awoke the next morning feeling uneasy. She looked around to see if she could spot Kurama or Hiei, but along with the seemingly endless sea of trees, a thick layer of fog was obscuring her sight. Yoshimi leaned against the tree despondently and decided to wait for them to return.
"Hummmmm….Humm…." she started to hum to herself, as she was bored. "Why did they leave me here?" Yoshimi wondered aloud to herself in a mock-hurt voice. "It's not very safe here…" Duh, she thought to herself. It's demon world. It's crawling with demons. That's why the call it the demon world. Yup.
At this thought, a demon jumped out of a bush in front of her. "Pity the clichéd ness," Yoshimi said, rising from her reclining position and stretching, as if this demon were just a kitty cat. "I bet this is some sort of test. Beat a demon, get a prize," she said again. Yoshimi then got serious. "Okay demon, take this," she shot a big, ugly, ball of spirit energy toward the demon, frying it and several bamboo trees as well. "Well, that's that," said Yoshimi, plopping back down to her previously mentioned reclining position.
Kurama and Hiei came from around a tree. Actually, Hiei came from the actual tree. "Took you a while," Yoshimi said. "You sent the demon as a test of my abilities, I beat it, blah blah blah, now what happens?" She said this all very fast and looked up at them expectantly.
Kurama looked somewhat surprised. Hiei just "Hn-ed." (Wow, is Hn-ed a word?) "How did you know that?"Kurama asked.
"You should know I know," she said, matter-of –factly "Because...because, because, because…" Yoshimi trailed off into silence.
Hiei recovered the quickest. "You are correct in assuming that the demon was sent as a test of your abilities. We were merely in a convenient location for this task. Koenma is thinking about asking you to be a spirit detective."
Dun dun dun dun daaa! Wow, I never thoughtI would take the path of writing a story about a new spirit detective! But I may not be...she might not accept, you know!
Yoshimi (Kurama and Hiei as well)were a tad bit out of character this time...because it was easier to write that way...Sorry!