Author's Note: Don't go jumping to any conclusions with regards to the shounen-ai aspect. I can assure you, that while you can compare my track record with "hints" in the chapter; do not overlook everything. There are hints at just about every combination of the boys. Muahaha.

To answer some concerns in reviews…well…

It was brought up that it was obvious Yusuke had was still alive, because he is telling the story in past tense. Allow me to open up a few options to consider; Is he alive or dead during narration? Is he talking to someone? Is it possible that he is the only member left alive? Did he pull the old "I'm recyclable" trick and come back to life?

Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho © Yoshihiro Togashi.

The Seibu Project

By Zelia Theb; © Zelia Theb.

I remember thinking that maybe green and black was not the greatest color of choice, and that perhaps bringing along a flashlight would have been a smart thing to do. We weren't entirely sure of exactly where we were going, or how long we had been in that long corridor. All we knew was that it was dark, and the walls were cold.

"Stop," I whispered to everyone, a plan having formulated in my head, "I know that I told Kuwabara earlier not to use his Spirit Sword as a light source, but I don't think we really have a choice."

"Yusuke's right," Kurama agreed. "I've noticed that there are pipes running along the wall. I've been using my hand to follow them. Perhaps we could locate some sort of power source soon."

"What about the guys in here?" my classmate asked. True, he had a point, but I'd rather have a bunch of guys know that we were here and be able to fight them at full power than not. I mean, at Genkai's weird little competition, it was really hard to fight in the dark. I wasn't exactly in the right mindset to rely on my other senses, and I don't think that he was either. But still, he brought up a good point.

"There is a presence," Hiei stated stoically. "Several, actually. But there is no need for us to worry, because none of them are human, at least not living." For some reason, one that I still don't understand, we suddenly shifted as close as we could to Kurama. Maybe it was that we wanted him to lead us, for him to use the pipes he had been following as a guide. Or maybe it was because Hiei had never mentioned where that presence was, and that he stepped back just as we did.

"So…" I trailed off, "lead the way, man." I felt his long hair move as he nodded. Kuwabara produced his spirit sword, leaving it small and nothing more than a nub. It eased our minds when we saw nothing, at least as far as other entities went.

The amber glow of the sword lit up a dull seven-foot radius around us. Pipes and wires ran along the ceiling as well as the wall we following, and the dull gray concrete encased us; the hall had decreased in girth somewhere along the way. Occasionally we'd see water spots and rust formations trailing down the left wall, a sign that we were still underground. After what seemed like fifteen minutes of sight-seeing in hallway Hell, we came upon a door.

Kurama gripped the metal handle tightly, studying the door and waiting for some sort of cue to enter. There was even more English text plastered across the door, faded over time, with the paint peeling off.

"It says, 'Generator'," Kurama read to us. "Perhaps this is why the wires turned into the walls here."

"That's kinda weird…no security locks?" Kuwabara pondered vocally.

"Well, in the event of a power-outage, electrical security locks would not function, which would disallow access to manually recover power," Kurama explained. It made sense, but then again, it didn't. Why would an unlocked door, to the power of the place no less, be the first stop in the corridor? Of course, sometimes you see external power sheds, or maybe that's all this hallway was. Power. Maybe we had been moving in the wrong direction.

"Hn. A lock is not necessary when there are two gun barracks guarding this base," Hiei spoke. It really made more sense, the more he went on. "And don't you think that maybe the reason the doors we entered were camouflaged and not so visible is because we entered through the exit?" His eyes rolled, obviously annoyed that he had to speak as much as he did, but that was Hiei. He always had a way of giving us a kick in the butt when we needed it.

"Either way, if we want to see, we need to get that door open," I ended. Kurama immediately followed my words by revealing the contents of the room to us, which consisted of a large and dusty machine, surrounded by posted threats of electrocution and other international signs of warning. We were immediately drawn to a metal box on the far wall, a fuse cabinet jutting out from the concrete. Once again, we left the deciphering up to Kurama, and after a moment of reading and sudden switch flicking, the generator came to life. Despite the fact that we expected it to start up, we still jumped almost to the ceiling. We were just that scared.

"It appears that there is a sector assigned to each switch. Unfortunately…" Hearing Kurama say unfortunately at a time like this wasn't exactly what the rest of us were hoping for, but we should have really listened to him entirely before jumping to our own personal conclusions. "I can't decipher the meaning of some words, even though I can read them."

"So what you're saying is that you could either power all facilities connected to that switchboard…" I began, allowing Hiei to finish the statement.

"Alerting any enemies in other buildings." He let out a 'tch', and added, "We are under no obligation to use stealth. We've just been choosing to for fear of what may find us. I say, light the whole damn place on fire and let them come to us." Now that was something that had been waiting to hear. There was really no logical point as to why we were being sneaky, other than to scare the crap out of ourselves. We already had deduced that no humans were around, at least not inside the building, so why be all secretive? Would it really be so bad if we got caught by humans? Not really, because Koenma would be able to get us out of that mess. The four of us were thinking on the same wavelength, because Kuwabara had begun taking pictures as Kurama turned the entire switchboard in the cabinet on. Hiei took the initiative to see if Koenma could, in fact, contact us, and asked a seemingly stale screen if he was receiving any of the 'oaf's' pictures.

"Yes," Koenma's voice answered, lifting another weight off of our shoulders. "A power generator? Good work, even though it seems that you'll be drawing attention."

"He's right!" Kurama gasped, and not sarcastically either. It was the kind of gesture he made when he had solved his opponents next four or so moves. A chess game materialized for all of us; sure we could blow the whole damn place up, but if we stayed there…

"If you four intend on waiting in that room for some sort of ambush," the toddler relayed Kurama's thoughts for us, "you're wasting valuable time, and any living prisoners or documents may be eliminated. On the other hand, now that they know the power is on…"

"They will come here first to look for us, and possibly shut the power off on us once we are deeper inside." Again, Hiei came through with the blunt smack in the face. "That gives them the upper hand either way."

"So what you're saying," I told Koenma through Hiei's communicator. "Is that we better act fast and get as much done as possible before they get here."

"Right."

Stealth may have been the better option, and we had just blown our chances of maintaining any sort of cover. If in fact there were any humans elsewhere on the base, and they detected our presence…well, we were now being hunted. Being hunted isn't any sort of trip, either. It's not like a battle or a street fight, where you get to know and face your opponent. No, the hunter does not want to be seen; they want to kill their prey instantly, that is their only objective. Has anyone ever gone deer hunting and said, "Hey, Misses Doe, how about we tango hoof to fist before I blow your brains out?" ? No. Dread returned to us faster than lightning could strike.

"So maybe I should keep takin' pictures, huh? That way we can know our way around if we get lost or forget or somethin'" Kuwabara had suggested. Koenma commended him for that before urging us to continue our mission and ending the conversation.

"Outside or deeper?" I asked my team. Outside we could have the United States military awaiting us with rifles and handcuffs, and have a chance of escape, but deeper we might be able to meet up with them and stage some sort of ambush, even with the risk of being trapped.

It must have been one of those rhetorical questions. Hiei snickered and exited, turning towards the latter of my announced options in the hallway. We followed unreluctantly; if we wanted to survive we had to cooperate and stick together. So of course, after several moments of time and corner turns, we came upon an open lobby like area. I guess you could say it was a central meeting center, and at least three other hallways aside from the one we were in converged with it.

The most peculiar part about this was the burned furniture against the wall, and what looked like a damaged control console. It looked like someone had come through and thrown everything against the walls, and then torched the place with a flamethrower. Ash and dust covered the floor from the wreck. One would think that maybe that would be enough to freak us out, but it wasn't.

"Human blood, can't you smell it?" Kurama stated. The four us meandered into the center of the mess, back to back in a circle. The freaking out had commenced.

"Yes, it's old, and some much older than others," the shortest demon concurred. At first I had thought that maybe it was just some more of the ever so popular rust stains found in the place, but the dried up splatter on the ceiling almost matched Hiei's eyes. The crimson was no where near as dull as the rest of blemishes, but wasn't fresh either.

"I feel like I'm a crime scene photographer…" Kuwabara uttered. After his final picture of the room, he dropped the device, and went flying spine first into a charcoal chair.

"Kuwabara!" I yelled, distraught. The guy grabbed at his neck, trying to pull away at an unseen force strangling him from behind. When I moved to help him, the hairs on the back of my neck stood. It felt like spiders crawling down my back, pulling my nerves out with their hooked feet, straight through the pores on on my skin. In actuality, it was another poltergeist taking me into the same stranglehold.

Lights made no difference right now. I couldn't see anything, I only knew what I felt. A thick arm surrounded by dense fabric was crushing against the bone in my neck. I felt like I would expunge my voice box through my mouth at any moment. I was captured; my back was clearly against a muscular human chest, and I could even sense it rising and falling with each breath I heard in my ear.

I watched the floor as much as I could; straining my eyes from their tilted position. I saw footsteps cross the floor, as did Hiei and Kurama. There were at least three spirits in the room, and two of them were occupied.

Hiei dodged the third one, probably able to tell its attack by its footwork, and called out, "Show yourself!"

I had heard rumors that simply acknowledging a ghost's existence allowed one to command them to leave or appear. In this case it happened to be true, because that bulky arm was now blocking my vision. We were faced with transparent spirits of men, dressed in shredded uniforms and berets, with artillery at their waists and slung across their backs. The third stopped momentarily, outstretching an arm and then attempted to catch both Hiei and Kurama, who were too fast and dodged the grabs easily.

It was then that they began to talk to us. Haunting whispers reverberated in our heads, bouncing off the walls and melding together into a dissonant chorus. It was deafening; the threatened groans and barely understandable broken English was taunting us, but not one of us could decipher it. Hiei and Kurama were too busy dodging the third specter to save myself or Kuwabara. Incinerated powder and dirt saturated our lungs, having been kicked up from our struggles. I thought that I was going to die.

I could no longer hear the screams of my friend. The breaths of my demon allies, and the sound of scurrying feet was gone. The warnings wailed on in my head, and I became so disoriented and distracted that I was unaware of the fact that I myself was screaming in pain. Who would have thought that an ethereal combat knife could have pierced through my skin and deep into my right side? I certainly didn't; after all, when I was dead, I could float through just about anything.

The dagger…it dug deeper, and deeper, twisting and taunting my friends to rescue me and become vulnerable themselves. What I didn't know was that I eventually lost consciousness. I thought that I was awake. I thought that maybe I died for good this time, and that was the reason that the voices of the men no longer pervaded me. It wasn't until I woke up a bloody mess in Kurama's arms that I discovered I was still alive.

My side ached. It didn't help that I was being carried by someone who was running rather fast. I was surprised to hear that Hiei didn't carry on ahead, but instead was running behind Kuwabara.

I managed to mumble, "Where are we?" My eyes burned; the stale air felt like acid blowing into my face. We were moving deeper, but confirming that was something I needed to know, a comfort that was necessary for me start overcoming the throbbing of my wound.

No one answered.

"Turn right," Hiei ordered from behind us. My sensory perception became more intense with my pain, and I knew that the unblinking eye of Jagan was open, leading us away from whatever danger was pursuing us.

"Stop." The command was a relief. My ears listened to my friends huddle closely, and suddenly small hands were escorting me into their lap. It was Hiei. I thought to myself, was I really that injured? I felt like I was being prepared for surgery. He held me down at my shoulders, pressing the back of my head into the crevice of his legs. I heard him utter to Kuwabara to break the surrounding lights, thus concealing us. Soon after, he had lit up his Spirit Sword like a flashlight to guide Kurama, who was going to attempt to wrap my wound.

I cringed; his hands were warm, but whatever sort of plant he was using stung like a bitch. Frankly, I was a bit thankful for my injury. I felt my old emotions coming back, and the urge to kick some serious ass was rising.

Kurama moved fast. After wincing my eyes for a fourth time from the procedure, I looked up to Hiei, surprised to see concern in his eyes, and asked, "What happened back there?"

He blinked so slowly, hiding his thoughts from me, before answering with, "You were stabbed by one of them. After that, Kurama kept the three of them distracted while the lump and I used our powers to dispatch them. It seems that ordinary weapons do not work; only energy produced attacks took care of them. Even so…I don't believe that they were liberated, only temporarily subdued." What kind of crap is that? We can't stab them but they can stab us? Such is the irony of being Yusuke Urameshi.

"So, ugh," I paused for obvious reasons. "Why were we running? I heard that ghosts tend to stay pretty stationary and don't like to travel too far from where ever their spirit is attached." The fox was good; before I had even finished my statement he had successfully dressed my wound. The anesthetics of his flora were already starting to kick in, and he informed me that there would be no side effects.

"You're right, Detective," Hiei said as he released my shoulders. "That's not why we were running. A living aura produced a high pitched screech from one of the other hallways, and the three of us heard the footsteps…"

"And started runnin'," Kuwabara interrupted, much to the disgust of our demon friend. I stood to my feet with the help of Kurama, and listened as Kuwabara made his apologies.

"I'm sorry, Urameshi. Ya wouldn't have been caught if I had been able to warn ya about the one behind you…as soon as I was hit I could see them, I just…I guess I didn't react quick enough."

"That's fine, man," I assured him. "I can stand, right? Don't worry, I ain't plannin' on kicking the bucket again so soon."

"You damn well better not Urameshi! Not until I get to kick your ass fair and square!"

It felt normal to hear that. This mission was just a roller coaster ride, though. We couldn't try to fool ourselves with our normal squabbling. We couldn't lighten the mood. The only thing we had to do was figure out how to not kick into survival mode. Because the strong live, and the weak die. It's basic Darwinism; if we want to survive, we will have to kill. I for one, knew that I was not ready to admit I was a monster. The fate of the world wasn't on our hands, hell, even our loved ones lives weren't at stake.

A revelation dawned on me; we were soldiers. Pawns in a chess game. Doing the dirty work, and risking our lives for nothing, no dignity, no honor, nothing. I never wanted to punch Koenma harder in my life or death.

To Be Continued…

With Yusuke wounded and sedated, and the boys lost deep in the underground hallways of the base, what's going to happen next? Just wait, because I can assure you that it will be far from predictable.