I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho.

The Prince Formerly Known as RAW and Ani Mei thank you for reviewing.

The cliff hanger annoyed even me to tell the truth since I really didn't want to end it there, but it was ten at night and I was tired and I had school the next day (like now, only its nearly one am. Geez, I'm only going to get five hours of sleep now. Oh well...) so I was forced to stop. But it fit none the less, that's why I posted it as it was. Other wise I would have done it the next day or something. Oh well, it adds to suspense. Lol. This chapter has its proper ending though!

I like keeping you guys on the edge of your seats. It's fun! Lol. Seriously the whole out look on these last few chapters is a lot different that I had originally intended it to be, so as I'm in the same basic position as you all. To be honest I like this outlook a lot better than the last because even though the other view was interesting, this one is much more so. If anyone hasn't thought that thus far they certainly will from this chapter!

So here we go!


Chapter 24

Van-Gareth felt himself hurtling down towards the menacing trees of the sacred forest and there was little he could do to stop it. The air had been knocked out of his lungs from the contact of the fog like dragon, leaving him gasping for air, and the searing pain in his chest area left his mind hazy, making him unable to think of conjuring a proper form.

The beast that had hit him was turning about so that it would be soaring back towards the falling shadow demon. It was as white as fog and its body flowed much like the substance as well. Its eight wings were outstretched in a menacing fashion, head facing Van-Gareth directly with teeth flashing silver despite the beasts bodily make up and front talons clenching and unclenching as if it wanted to grab something.

The sight of the beast was lost to Van-Gareth as he smashed through the trees roughly, snapping branches and spraying leaves in every direction as he went. Angered and pained noises were emitted from the trees all around; regardless of if they were the ones being crashed through or not. The shadow demon merely clenched his jaw and took every blow.

Quickly enough the ground came to meet him and stopped his decent after a fairly deep indentation was made, but was not deep enough to make him completely below ground level. With an angered growl he opened his blood red eyes to glare up at nothing in particular.

The trees about him creaked and rustled angrily. The one nearest where Van-Gareth lay sent a low hanging branch strait down at him, but missed as he rolled to the side. He sprang to his feet before another tree repeated the same action, missing as well when the demon moved to the side.

A silver dragon six feet in length, but not standing too high off the ground, leapt out from behind a tree only to hit thin air; Van-Gareth had called on his natural talent of dissipating into the shadows. Unfortunately for the shadow demon he had underestimated the sacred forest and was quickly thrown from shadows out into the open.

Surprised and slightly shaken Van-Gareth scarcely missed being attacked by a dragon, fourteen feet in length, as in jump off of the tree branch above him. He knew well enough that the dragon creatures were guardians of the forest, just as the trees were the guardians of the shrine, but that did not hinder his anger in any fashion. If anything it increased it.

With a quick decision Van-Gareth took the form of a creature that looked like a jaguar except that its eyes were red, had two tails with snake like heads at the ends and two sharp black horns that were pointed forward like a bulls but were in no way positioned out to the sides of its head.

He sprang forward with great speed, passing trees long before they could make an assault at him and jumping over tree roots as they became wiser to his speed. He dodged the dragon guardians, though barely, by jumping onto trees or into the air, sliding on the ground, or altering his direction.

A sharp pain was felt through one of his tails not too long later as a dragon, three and a half feet in length, locked its teeth around it, even though the original target had been for the front paw. The dragon was forced to let go as the other snake headed tail took out one of its eyes.

Van-Gareth whipped around ready to slam one of his dangerously sharp clawed paws at it when a twelve foot in length dragon tackled him. The two beasts tussled with one another, each try to claw or bite the other, but neither quite succeeding. Several others other dragon guardians appeared all around them as they waited for an opening to jump in.

Getting angry by the fact that a mere dragon was holding him at bay he changed one of his front paws into a sharp lance and thrust it through the dragon's chest. Dragon scales are one of the toughest material known to any race, yet Van-Gareth had found ways around this being that he was a beast of shadow. His tactics for breeching the thick armor was complex for any shadow demon not of a very high level as they had to break apart their arm into its fundamental makeup, shadow, and let it move quickly through the scales, then quickly take the form of the weapon they were using to pierce the soft flesh beneath, and then dissipate once more to come through the scales on the opposite side.

The dying dragon was thrown to the side as Van-Gareth changed back into his regular form and got to his feet. The dragons surrounding him launched forward, only missing their target by a fraction of a second as he jumped high into the air and took the form of a smaller black dragon to fly through the trees, dodging branches as they came at him.

Upon reaching the free skies he once more took the form of a large black dragon and made off in search of the shrine. He hadn't much time to look however as the eight winged dragon came at him from above.

Van-Gareth closed his wings and rolled, mid air, to the side. Scales went flying into the air as the two dragons brushed by one another. The shadow demon-turned-dragon opened his mighty wings once more and steadied himself quickly as the fog based dragon turned its great body around with a powerful roar.

Knowing that his opponent would once again strike him from bellow if he did not do something Van-Gareth flew upward at a fast pace. The dragon on pursuit was undeterred by this change and readjusted his own speed and altitude with the mastery gained from centuries of practice and dominance of the area, which was once explained in legend to have been granted by Eralasea in exchange for an alliance.

With yet another roar the fog based dragon let loose a blast of white flame. While the flame missed Van-Gareth's main body it did scorch the lower parts of his tail, causing him to release and angered and slightly pained roar.

With great haste the black dragon changed his direction once more to evade another breath of fire and was now heading downward until he reached the trees and began flying parallel to the ground.

The foggy dragon was still right on his charred tail.

vvvvvv

Yusuke picked himself up off the place on the ground he had been thrown to when the wind had made an unforeseen and hasty move up river moments ago, carrying the fog off with it. "What was that all about?" he asked as he brushed the dirt from his clothing and straitened out his mussed hair.

"Good question," responded a shaken Rinku as he too got to his feet.

"The wind was been all crazy like," Jin said with a slight, uncharacteristic, frown. "It be givin' no warnin' an' I 'an pick up the slightest of traces it's suppose' to give."

Kurama removed a twig fom his hair as he spoke, "I think it was summoned with great haste, which would explain the lack of a warning." He threw the twig aside, "The question now is, what summoned it."

Touya stopped straitening his hair and cloths to look down at the necklace in his hands. The pendent glistened as if new in the bits of sun light that came through the trees now that the fog had vanished and the chain was still in amazing shape despite the fact that it had been blown fiercely in the wind.

"Maybe this did it," he said more to himself than anyone else, though they all heard him.

"What would make you think that mate?" Chu asked.

Touya looked up, slightly startled due to the fact that he had been lost in his own thoughts and had forgotten his friends were around him, but recovered before anyone could take notice. "As soon as I linked the chain together the wind blew, carrying the fog away with it."

Kuwabara looked about himself with a surprised expression etched on his face as he finally took notice of what Touya had said, "The fog is gone."

"Did you not notice that your line of sight was better," Hiei commented with a slight display of an attitude, but the one he was speaking to took no notice to his words for once.

Kurama frowned at Hiei, but said nothing to him. Instead he turned his attention back to Touya, "You're right, now that I think about it, but the wind was nothing like what it just was when we first found it and it was attached then."

The ice master shrugged, "I don't know why it did it, perhaps it was like a re-connection to something."

"Or perhaps it was just a coincidence," Suzuka said in a slightly agitated tone as he tried, for the hundredth time, to fix his wind blown hair.

"It was no coincidence," Hiei told him, "Zeek was demanding the charm and chain be reconnected and linked." He glared over to the wrymling, "I have a feeling he knew exactly what would happen."

Zeek let out a squeak as if to agree with the fire demon before nuzzling the ice masters neck. Suddenly he stopped and looked upward towards the scarcely seen sky with a small squeak like noise.

Everyone looked up to see a black dragon fly quickly passed the trees, causing them to sway in the changed air current. Not far behind him was a whitish dragon, who roared loudly when he was directly above the group before it spat out white flame at the dragon ahead of him.

"Van-Gareth," Touya breathed in surprise, "He's already here."

"And is having a rather warm welcome too," Yusuke laughed at his own idiotic joke.

"'onder 'ow long he'll be 'aught up," Jin mused.

Kurama moved towards the river. "Not very long I would venture to say, straying on the safe side of course, which leaves us little time left to find the shrine."

Shishiwakamaru eyed Kurama wearily, "I hope you're not planning on jumping back in there. It's a miracle we survived the first time."

"Perhaps," Kurama replied. "None the less I wasn't going to even suggest the idea, I'm merely trying to find some kind of baring to lead us in the right-" he trailed off and his eyes widened.

"Direction," Suzuka supplied the word Kurama had left out. "What's got you so startled?"

Kurama was caught up in his state of shock to say anything, so instead he pointed down river, eyes never leaving whatever it was that he was looking at. The group moved to the river curiously and all entered the same state as their surprised friend when they saw what he was pointing at.

The river they had been thrown into not long ago traveled down to the very doorsteps of a medium sized palace, where upon it circled around it and flowed through an underwater cavern. The color of the building was grayish, but somehow the entire group could imagine that once it had been a sparkling white and, while the full detail of the building could not be seen from their position, they knew it held an ancient beauty about it.

They had finally reached their destination, or rather the place their destination was within.

Any hope they had of reaching it before Van-Gareth however now stood on the very edge of a cliff, for the very demon they feared came crashing though the trees. He was still holding to his dragon form as he plunged into the river surrounding the palace, causing a large wave to wash over the palace walls and door like a tidal wave.

There was no time left to spare and the group took off at a frantic pace as they hoped beyond hope to reach the palace before Van-Gareth could regained his bearings.


Yey to dragon fights!

So they gang has found the palace that hold the shrine! Woot! But so has Van-Gareth! Will the gang reach the shine before the ancient shadow demon? How are they, being so much weaker, going to defeat Van-Gareth? Or is there something else in stored?

Find out in the next update!

Please review.

Thanks!