Winds of Thyme

By Sakura Takanouchi

~*~ Winds of Thyme Chapter Twenty-one: It started out as a great Mission… ~*~

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!!! SEND ME STUFF!!! *Subliminal messaging* *subliminal messaging* Now on with the fic!

~*~ Bright and Early the Next Morning ~*~

Sakura woke up way too early the next morning and from then on, everything went wrong. Her breakfast got burned, Her fighting outfit wasn't washed, and Her shuriken and daggers were all bloody and needed to be washed. She ended up getting to Kurama's house at exactly the right time. She was wearing her freshly washed but slightly wrinkled fighting outfit, her shuriken and daggers were rinsed but not dried, so they were all slippery and hard to hold, and she had eaten a waffle on the way over to Kurama's house. She had also applied another temporary jagan over her old one to replenish the power. She was feeling great.

Shiori greeted her and invited her in to wait for Kurama to finish eating. They both sat down on the couch.

"You know, I really do appreciate your friendship with my Shuiichi," Shiori said. "He was never really that close around girls before you."

"He's a really special person," Sakura said. Shiori agreed.

Kurama came out of the dining room several minutes later. He was dressed in his school uniform. They said goodbye to Shiori and left to go to Reikai.

~*~ At Reikai ~*~

"Koenma, we're here!" Sakura waved as she and Kurama entered Koenma's office. Yusuke and Kuwabara were watching TV, and Hiei was resting on the windowsill. (is there one in Koenma's office?) Koenma was standing beside his desk, trying to train a monkey to do his job.

"Oh hi, Sakura, Kurama," Koenma said as he tried to get the monkey to stamp a stack of papers.

"So, can we go now?" Yusuke asked.

"I don't see why not," Koenma answered. Kuwabara turned off the TV and Hiei jumped up from his position on the windowsill.

"You know, you really could trick someone into thinking that you were dead if you sat there long enough," Sakura remarked to Hiei as they all went to the location of their mission, yet another Makai Forest.

Kuwabara started to laugh, except a death stare from Hiei quieted him.

Just then, Yusuke's cell phone rang. He opened it. "Moshi Moshi," he said.

"Urameshi Yusuke, just what do you think you're doing, you promised you'd--- are you even listening?" An angry female voice spoke into the phone. Yusuke turned the phone off, and then sheepishly put it back into his jacket pocket.

"Who's that?" Sakura asked.

"Oh, that's just Keiko, my girlfriend," Yusuke answered. "She can get pretty angry sometimes. Hey, you know what?"

"What?" Sakura asked.

"Maybe after we skin a few demons, Me and Keiko could double-date with you and Kurama," Yusuke said.

"That'd be fun, wouldn't it, Kurama?" Sakura said. "Thanks for the invite," she told Yusuke.

"Hey, maybe if I get Yukina to come, we could make it a triple!" Kuwabara said, grinning stupidly.

"Um…who's Yukina?" Sakura asked.

"She's my girlfriend!" Kuwabara said. Sakura noticed that Hiei seemed a little angry at the mention of Yukina.

"Hey… who would be nice enough to go out with that loser?" Sakura whispered to Yusuke.

"Yukina," Yusuke answered. They started laughing.

"Hey Hiei," Sakura said after she had stopped laughing, "Why don't I fix you up with someone and we have one big group date?" Yusuke and Kuwabara started sniggering, and Kurama laughed lightly. Hiei's eyebrows furrowed a sign to Sakura that he was not pleased.

"How about Kirameki? Will she work?" Sakura asked Hiei, knowing that she had hit a slightly less hard spot on Hiei's emotional network.

"Yukina would be so happy," Yusuke teased.

"Fine, you baka ningen," Hiei snapped.

"Hey, what does Yukina being happy have to do with Hiei?" Sakura asked Kuwabara.

"Beats me," he answered.

~*~ At the Makai Forest Where Their Mission is Taking Place ~*~

"Evil demon dude, here we come!" Sakura said as they entered the Forest. She took a deep breath. "Home sweet home." She strode further into the forest like they had a personal invitation to be there. The tantei just followed, speechless.

There were several demon guards guarding the fortress where supposedly Haino Hiroko, the evil demon overlord, was residing. Sakura easily took them out with her daggers. Hiei and Kuwabara were chopping up several with their swords, and Kurama was slashing with his whip. Yusuke had just punched another one down.

Pretty soon all of the guards had been defeated. Some were dead, but several were still alive, writhing in pain. Sakura lifted up one by the collar. "Is your master in there?" She asked. The demon choked and fell to the ground. There was a small shuriken dagger stuck in its back. Sakura had not thrown it. She pulled it out of the demons back and used her new jagan's power to sense the youki of the person who threw it. She flung it into the treetops. It cut down a section of a tree, revealing a cloaked figure. It laughed, and its laugh was of a feminine voice. And Sakura couldn't miss the blue cloak she was wearing.

"Who are you?" Sakura asked, throwing a shuriken at her. She didn't move, and allowed it to cut through the hood of her cape, revealing a face with shoulder-length black hair and piercing blue eyes.

"I am the evil witch Kakomi Tsuki, and you are all about to die," she said, and then threw back her head and laughed.

"What do you want with us?" Yusuke asked.

"I want to take you as hostages so I can take over Reikai, then Makai, and then Ningenkai!" Kakomi replied.

"So, how are you going to go about doing this, may I ask?" Sakura asked.

"You may not, but I'll tell you anyway," Kakomi waved her hands, and the wind suddenly whipped up, surrounding all five of them.

"You're a master of wind," Kurama said.

"How observant you are," Kakomi replied.

"I've fought one of you before. You aren't that tough," Yusuke said, although he was struggling to stay on the ground from the strength of the wind.

"I will fight only one of you, and it will be the one that I think will fare the best against me," Kakomi said. "I like a challenge."

Hiei put his hand over his katana, as if he knew he would be chosen.

Yusuke took a step back and assumed a fighting pose.

Kurama let his whip touch the ground, but he still kept a firm grip on it.

Kuwabara had a feeling that it wasn't him, and he didn't even want to fight anyway, so he just folded his arms. It was against his honor code.

Sakura's attitude towards Kakomi didn't change a bit. "And just who have you chosen, Kakomi Tsuki the evil witch?" Sakura accented 'evil' and 'witch' more then all the other words.

"Why, it is you, Takanouchi Sakura," Kakomi grinned. "Ready yourself, for we fight now."

Hiei hn'd in disappointment, Yusuke took another step back, Kuwabara sighed in relief, and Kurama took a step forward. He knew that Sakura was in for a rough fight.

Kakomi saw this and waved her hand. Instantly, a cyclone of wind surrounded the tantei. "If any of you steps into that cyclone, then you will be swept into it, and you will probably die. So don't get any ideas, especially you, Kurama," Kakomi said.

Kurama scowled at her, and Sakura turned around to face him. "It's alright, Kurama. I'll kick her lousy demon ass and then we'll have that group date tomorrow, ok?" She winked at Kurama, and he smiled at her. Then, Sakura's expression changed. She was finally starting to get serious.

"You were wrong," Sakura said to Kakomi. "Now we fight."

~A/N~

Only two more chapters left! *Saddens* *gladdens* …Wait, there's such a word as gladdens? Oy. Well, I'm trying to finish it before my birthday, which is tomorrow. It probably won't happen, but It'd be nice, ne? Well, I've got to get back to work.

*Gets back to Work*

Sakura Takanouchi