No Matter how much I wish I did, I'm sorry to say, I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.
Ch.7
I'm floating, that's what it is; I'm floating in a sea of darkness. Wow, that's really cliché. Yami's head swam as she came back to consciousness. "Where are we?"
"We're in a wagon and that's all I know," Travis's voice answered her. And it was true. All the walls, the floor, the roof were all made of wood, and she could feel it rocking as it moved.
"Is there any way out?" she asked as she sat up. It was a stupid question but she had to ask.
"Oh yeah, we found one hours ago, but we figured it wouldn't be very sporting of us to run away," Mike answered sarcastically. He was sitting to the right of Travis, propped up against the wall.
"That's not funny," Yami shot back glaring at him; she was not in the mood.
"Mike just stared back at her. "Yeah, well neither is this." And at that he slammed his fist into the wall he was leaning on, but when he hit it that spot glowed gold for a minuet then faded back to wood. "It's magically reinforced, no way out.
"Ugh," came a voice, a few feet to Yami's right. Jamie was just waking up. She sat up, holding her head and looked around. Automatically realizing where they were she didn't bother asking. Instead she turned to the others. "Maybe we should wake up the others." She was right, they didn't know what was going to happen and it would be best to be ready. Jamie reached over to Jordan who was lying next to her and proceeded to try and wake up the girl. ""Jordan, Jordan wake up," she said gently shaking her.
"Mn, ten more minuets," came a grumbled reply. Jamie grabbed her shoulders and roughly shook her. "Jordan, wake up!" She woke up with a start.
"I'm up, I'm up!" She looked around "Where are we?"
"We'll explain once we get everyone up," Travis said as he started to shake Aryn. Fifteen minutes latter everyone was awake and Travis was explaining everything that he knew.
"How long are we going to be stuck here?" Stephanie asked the group.
"Until we reach wherever their taking us." Someone answered
"Fu," Erika called her nick name for her sister. "This wagon is giving me a headache." She was very sensitive to sound and movement and it was not the easiest ride.
"I know, but there's nothing I can do about it," Stephanie replied.
"Am I wrong or was that the Yu Yu Hakusho characters that tried to save us?" Sam asked.
"That was them," Yami answered her. Now that the initial shock had worn off she wasn't so irritable.
"It's not fair!" Jordan suddenly yelled, startled everyone turned to her.
"Why, what's not fair?" Elizabeth asked. Tears were streaming down the other girls face as she stuttered out an answer.
"I-It's not fair that Jamie gets Kurama, b-but I don't get Sano." It was a known fact that both Jordan and Jamie were obsessed with their own Anime character.
"I have Kurama?" Jamie blurted out. "I don't have him, I merely saw him." Figuring that this was not the time to bring up the fact that he had tried to save her personally, she continued. "Besides, you can't own someone so why are you getting so upset?"
"Why should you get your guy when I don't get anyone?" she shouted at Jamie, the tears now completely gone. "Why do you get the guy you want when I don't get anyone, what makes you so special!" Jamie closed her eyes and took a few breathes before answering.
"Once again, I can't 'get' him because you can't own someone. But to give you an answer I only saw him, I didn't even talk to him, I don't even know if he noticed me." However she did not mention that brief moment when their eyes had met, before she got pulled into the portal. This was not an argument that she wanted to be having. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and dream about that one happy moment, but her 'friend's' insistence was stopping her from doing so. "And what do you mean you don't have anyone, I 'm not even going to mention those three satellite guys you have."
"Yeah, but-" Jordan started, but Jamie cut her off.
"Jordan, this is a pointless argument. Why are you worrying about this now? You should be more concerned about weather we're going to live or not. This is obviously getting us nowhere so, I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep." And with that she curled up under her jacket until she was nothing but a small black ball lying on the ground. This put an abrupt end on the argument, where then everyone else decided to follow Jamie's lead and get some rest. They didn't know what they were heading towards, but odds are it wasn't pleasant. If only they knew how right they were.
"So, what you're basically trying to tell me is that you failed," Koenma blandly stated. All five of the Reiki Tantei hung their heads, giving Koenma the answer.
"Yes sir," Botan answered. All of them were seated in the hotel. In ten minuets they managed to tell Koenma exactly what happened, but no matter how you worded it, they lost. And now they needed to fix it.
"Let me guess, you need me to get you to demon world."
"Yes sir, that's correct." This time it was Kurama who answered.
"Of all the things…this is not an easy task." Koenma sighed, shaking his head.
"We kinda expected that," Yusuke mumbled. There was a long silence.
"Well come with me," Koenma ordered as he stood.
"What?" The whole group looked at him.
"I said it was hard. I didn't say it was impossible," Koenma called over his shoulder as he walked out the door. There was a moment of silence as everyone looked at each other before scrambling after the retreating ruler.
Two hours latter, they were walking down a hall of the Spirit World palace. It was a long creepy hall, just like all the others, with numerous doors on each side leading to unimaginable rooms. After another couple minuets of walking, the group finally stopped at the end of the hallway in front of two huge, elegantly carved, double doors.
Yusuke whistled, "Whoa, you Spirit World guys sure go all out don't you."
"Wait till you see inside it," Kurama whispered a little louder than he meant. He instantly realized his mistake when Koenma whipped around to face him.
"When have you seen inside it," he stared intently at Kurama but all the damn fox did was stare back at him, for he figured that it would not be a good idea to tell Koenma that Youko had, indeed, been in this room the last time he broke in. Koenma turned back around to face the doors, deciding to shrug off Kurama's statement. He pulled an extravagant gold key out of his pocket and inserted it into the lock. Hearing the reassuring click, he pushed the doors open. The room inside was beyond words. So many colors and designs, the eye didn't know where to look first. Despite that, the most interesting thing was the design on the floor. It was a large pentagram with many unreadable symbols running along the edge and one larger symbol in the center.
"What is it?" Kuwabara gasped.
"This is how we make a safe portal to Demon World." Koenma answered him. "Unfortunately it will take a lot of energy and you will be drained once you cross over. I suggest you rest once you're across, and recover your energy before you go rushing into battle. Oh and this may cause you to feel a little pain." Of course that wasn't going to daunt any of them. "So Yusuke, Kuwabara, Hiei, Kurama, Botan. Each of you stands on a point." All of them did so with out complaining, even Hiei, and Koenma continued on to instructing them exactly how to position themselves for the ritual. "Now is everyone ready?" There was a group 'yes' and then all went silent.
Koenma walked to the center of the pentagram, placed a gold disk on the ground, and sprinkled it with some weird green powder. "Now I want all of you to concentrate on the disk and just sort of dump your energy into, ok?" Everyone nodded and Koenma retreated to a corner of the room. "Ok, go."
All five of them poured their energy into the disk and it began to glow. Above the disk a dark mass started to form. The only way to describe it was a dark mass, for it had no real form or color, and was getting bigger by the second. Of course none of the people standing on the symbol could notice this.
Koenma had said there would be some pain, but no real words could prepare them for what they felt. It's like my soul's being pulled from me and into a cheese grater, Yusuke thought. How much longer will this go on? He tried to pull his energy back but couldn't. He realized that he was no longer putting his power into it, but some force was pulling it out of him. Is this thing going to keep draining me until I'm drained and there's nothing left of me? If someone simply disappears do they die and go to Spirit World or do they just wander around, lost, forever. As scared as Yusuke should have felt right then, he didn't feel anything. It was like he was detached, like this wasn't really happening to him. I think Koenma lied to me, I'm going to die here, but even as he thought these words the pain began to subside. As soon as he felt the thing detach from him he crumpled to the ground. Looking around he noticed that everyone else had done the same, and Botan was just plain unconscious.
"Quickly, quickly, into the portal. It won't stay open for long," Koenma's voice broke through. Yusuke managed to pull himself to his feet, reached over and picked up the unconscious Botan and headed for the hovering darkness, that he could only assume was the portal. After looking back to make sure that the others were following him he stepped in.
It was like shooting through one of those tube slides at the park he used to play at as a kid. Only this one didn't seem to end and was a weird swirling mix of purple, red, and black. Yusuke was just getting used to the feeling, when he was spit out and found himself thrown face first into the ground, with Botan landing on top of him. He pushed the girl off and rolled over just in time to see the others land around him. Hiei and Kurama managed to land on all fours, but Kuwabara had his head stuck in the ground, like an ostrich, and couldn't seem to get out.
"The next time I see Koenma, remind me to teach him the meaning of a little pain," the fire demon muttered. Kurama chuckled and got up to help Kuwabara out.
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