NOTE: Here's a new chapter of "The Heart of Jade"; bear with me for these next few chapters. The each chapter is told from a single character's point of view and their individual experience and end differs according to their personality. Again, bear with me; it will most likely be a bit confusing, but I'll try to clear it up as much as possible afterwards.

Chapter 2

The City of

Achoo!

"Bless you."

"Gah! This is stupid!" The brunette with slicked back hair and an irritated scowl yelled aloud as he swatted away yet another thick branch of greenery. The teen sneezed again and angrily wiped his sleeve over his nose. His chocolate eyes narrowed as he spoke half to himself, and partly to his three companions following his steps.

"Hn, for once, I agree with the detective," a shorter figure, a male, grumbled as he appeared briefly next to the group. Once he'd said his peace, he quickly swept back to the tree branches, his own personal route, in a flash of blurred black.

"Hey! Urameshi!" A tall teen in a blue jump suit with bright orange hair (that resembled the style of Elvis) called out as he, too, battled for passage through the heavy foliage. "Why are we here- wherever we are- again?" Yusuke, the leading teen wearing the bright green jumpsuit, huffed, irked to silence. Noting the boiling anger, the last member of the team spoke up in order to avoid an inevitable dispute, "It would seem that there's been a breach upon the place where we've been called to go. Koenma said that there's a rogue demon that could become a threat to the grounds we're headed to- mostly likely Spirit World protected land, which is rare, meaning that this place is of high importance." "Meaning," Yusuke barked towards the teen who posed the question, "that we go in, find this demon, and kick it's ass." The other teen who answered, an older boy with long crimson hair and Chinese-style fighting clothes, only sighed and continued to hack at the overgrowth of plants with a weapon, a whip of some kind.

"So," the head detective, Yusuke, asked after a short lapse in time, "What exactly is this place?" His mood lifted slightly as the growth's density began to thin. Running out of viable trees, the black-clad teen in the foliage leapt down to the ground with a ruffle of his cape. His ruby eyes narrowed unhappily as he answered monotonously, "It's a graveyard- a cursed land that even demons try to avoid. Why any demon would come here of their own free will, I'll never know." "Gr-gra-graveyard!" Orange froze in his steps as he grew suddenly frantic. His face surrendered to blue and the hair on his neck and arms stood straight on end. A shiver rocketed down his spine and his foot stopped mid-step. "E-eh, Hiei, err, what exactly happened here?" The small fire demon's lips twitched upward as he, too, came to a standstill. His bloody eyes turned and trained on the shaking human. The small twitch of a grin grew larger, "No one knows for sure. Some stories say that the sea swallowed the entire ground whole; some say that there was a rogue demon and a massive massacre. No survivors, naturally." The orange haired teen cringed and turned, "Er, I- I, uh, you guys don't need me! Um, I think I forgot to let Eikichi outside- see ya!" "Oh, no you don't, Kuwabara!" Yusuke quickly reached out and grabbed the fleeing teen by his collar to pull him back to the group. "You freakin' coward! Besides, we're in the middle of the freakin' demon world! How were you planning on getting the hell out of here?"

"Hiei," the red head sighed as he stepped in to break the quarrel, "was not quite telling the truth, but he wasn't exactly telling the truth either." "What'd yah mean, Kurama?" Yusuke asked, curiousity and an immunity to ghost stories becoming all the more apparent. "So," Kuwabara muttered as he stepped away from Yusuke, "did what shorty say really happen?" Kurama frowned, his calculating emerald orbs searing with knowledge and a hidden tragedy. "I'm afraid so," he retorted, slipping his hands in his pockets as he began the trek to their destination once again. The rest of the party followed.

"Where we're going- I believe that it's the Aquadon Ruins. It makes since; that would be the place that the Spirit World spends most of its time protecting and surveying." "Ruins?" Yusuke muttered as he kicked at a rock absentmindedly, happy to be free of an entanglement with the greenery, but not quite content with still having to travel the trail. "Why would that be important?" "Baka," Hiei muttered as he looked away from the group in hopes of finding an alternate route away from them, "Do you know nothing of history?" "Hey-" "Hiei," Kurama interrupted, "That's enough. There's no chance of knowing about that… tragedy. I know because I was Youko at the time; you know because you'd probably heard the tales here in demon world." "What story?" Kuwabara raised the question the only two humans in the group were thinking.

"See for yourselves, fools," Hiei grunted as he stepped into a mesh of dead trees, all clustered as if to act as a gate to a world no one should ever have to face ever again. Curious, the trio followed suit and entered the foreboding barrier.

"What's that sound?" Kuwabara whispered, clinging close to the group in fear of drifting away into the darkening forest. Yusuke, who walked beside him, replied with a frown, "I think it's the ocean…" Kuwabara's footsteps halted again. "What is it now, Kuwabara. You afraid of the ocean, or something?" Yusuke muttered, his scowl deeping at the nervousness he saw in his friend's eyes. "What is it?"

Kuwabara's lips fell to a distorted scowl. His eyebrows twitched, much like the rest of him, and his mouth quivered. Again, a slight blue tint crept across his features. "T-the sc-screams…" He grew quieter to strain his ears. "Urameshi! Someone- a girl- is in trouble! We gotta help!" Immediately, the honorable man stood tall and raised his fist to the sky in determination. "Wait for me! Kuwabara will save you!" He shouted with a lop-sided grin before bursting from his freeze out the other side of the thick tree barrier. "Eh, I didn't hear anything," Yusuke muttered as he shoved a pinky into his ear in hopes of making the action produce the sounds he's missed. "Nor did I," Kurama added, already following the troublesome human of the group.

A high pitched burst the sound barrier as soon as the team crossed from the demon realm to a world all its own, a place long forgotten and abandoned by time and logic. "The-" Yusuke's words were lost in the breeze from the crashing black waves onto the sand and stones of what used to be. Before them was a vast, broken city of crumbled lives and stone. For miles along the shore, rock and old remnants of the past littered the sand and met with the receding tides. "Th-this place…" Kuwabara, who stood only a foot or so away, stuttered as he looked every which way in paranoia, "I'm getting a bad vive; like something really bad happened here- like something bad is still going on here…"

Kurama's eyes narrowed almost sadly; "I believe that you're, unfortunately, correct, Kuwabara. This place, these ruins, used to be a thriving city for demons and humans alike. And, as you've surmised… something did happen. Nearly a century ago, this very city disappeared, and with it…" Yusuke caught the small glint of something spark in the fox's emerald eyes and noticed the slight clench of his fists as he spoke, "When the city resurfaced a few days later, after an unfortunate turn of the weather- a cyclone, a tsunami, no one can say for sure- but there was one mystery, one baffling detail that no one could seem to find the answer to…"

"All of the people were gone," Hiei finished, glaring daggers at one building after the next. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as shadows danced after his own sight and hopped from wall to wall. "Then, just like that, the city disappeared again. The ruins only resurface once every decade when the tide recedes," Kurama added, whatever was in his eyes, having gone away.

Kuwabara shrieked.

"What is it now, you fool?" Hiei barked, his temper already shot. The teen, however, was too deterred to speak, he could only point frantically at the source of his fright. Three other pairs of eyes followed along his line of vision. "What the hell is that?" Yusuke frowned, squinting to see into the distance. He blinked as if the image were a work of his imagination.

The image was faint, but in the distance a luminescent light began to glow under the ocean at the shore every time the waves met the sand. The tide began to advance upon the sand and the small light, too, began to creep further to the shore. After a few cycles of waves, the tide began to recede, but the light did not. Instead, the anomaly rose from the watery confinement.

"A firefly?" Yusuke guessed as to the identity aloud. The orb of light hovered over the ocean, as if in wait, before slowly fluttering to touch down on the sandy beach. As soon as it did, the light began to morph into something… almost human. "W-what is that?!" Yusuke shouted, falling down in surprise. Kurama and Hiei tensed, but did not make a move. The red head's eyes narrowed at the spectral being, as the light fanned out in rays to create arms and legs, and wisps drew from a newly formed head to create the illusion of floods of hair. "I'm not sure," Kurama answered truthfully, "but if it's come from this place, then it can't be a good thing."

"Th-there's more," Kuwabara stuttered as he drew back behind the group; his face fell into all seriousness and sorrow induced pity filled his eyes, "I can hear 'em. They're all scared of something." Like Kuwabara said, more stellar colored lights began to appear; indeed, thousands came to litter the ocean line, and as each one crashed onto the shore, a figure appeared in their stead. Kuwabara's eyes widened and he took a few more steps backward, "Hey- uh, guys! T-they're saying that we need to leave because this place is cursed!"

The red headed demon's eyes narrowed; he reached back into his long tresses and produced a rose in his grasp. With a flick of his wrist, the flower morphed into a long, thorn-covered whip. The other demon instantly pulled out a sword from his cloak and held it at the ready. The detective raised his hand and cocked it like a gun as his eyes darted from one glow-ball to another. Kuwabara, however, only flinched; then, as if hearing something important, his muscles tensed as he strained to hear it.

The first glowing light, the first orb that came from the sea, seemed to solidify as it began to move forward. "H-hey!" The lead detective yelled, his pointer finger aimed directly at the form, "Don't move!" The light stopped upon the command; two eyes began to take shape.

"She's saying that we have to leave," Kuwabara voiced for the spirit who had long lost her own. His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to make out the words only he could hear. "She's saying that…something about the ocean swallowing the curse…" Kuwabara frowned, "I can't understand it anymore. I think she's speaking some different language." Yusuke's hand fell as he frowned, perplexed. "Why are they just standing there?" He asked, staring down the row of kindred spirits. Kuwabara jumped back in surprise. "What happened?" Yusuke added, turning towards his friend intently. Kuwabara's lips parted, open and close, for a few minutes as he tried to find the words; his eyes focused on the leader of the ghosts. "S-she's singing…" He whispered, his eyes widening as a forlorn silent melody filled his ears.

"Dude, are you…crying?" Yusuke spat out, shocked at his friend's behavior. "Shut up, Uremeshi!" He shouted in between sobs, "You would be, too, if you could hear her!" His eyes fell back upon the leader, who had not moved since being asked not to. "It's so… sad," his voice fell flat as he was drawn into the silent music.

"We need to leave," the wisest, Kurama, spoke, breaking the tension in the group. "What about the demon?" Yusuke asked nonchantly as he glanced at the red head. "Forget about him," the red head spoke emotionlessly. Yusuke noted the man's clenching fist; when he saw the drops of blood leak from broken flesh, flesh he'd torn by the pressure of his nails against thin skin, he knew something was wrong. Yusuke followed the red head's deadly glare to the water. He blinked.

"It's receding," the fire demon added as he sheathed his sword, "That means that this entire place is about to be taken back to the sea. The fox is right. We should leave; the sea will take care of the rest." The fire demon turned to leave. "I guess," the detective muttered, scratching his head at the turn of events. He, too, turned and began to retreat back to the forest. "W-wait," Kuwabara called, seeing his comrades leave, as he turned to follow, "Wait for m-" Kuwabara's outstretched hand fell to his side as his head lolled and his features fell to shadow. Kurama, the last to attempt to leave the accursed place, stopped at the human's side. "Kuwabar-" His friend's head snapped up instantly, but his eyes, his eyes were dazed over and the irises were much larger than they were not seconds before.

From his lips spilled not his, but the voice of another.

"When the ocean cries," the dark, old gravel voice of a woman fell from his mouth. The red head's eyes widened. Kuwabara, or the something that had possessed him, turned to face the red head; faster than the red head could process, his wrist was ensnared by the palm of the intruder disguised as his friend. "The memories will live on," she continued, "and will live forever unto this cursed ground…" Tears slipped from the blank eyes, "she tried to save them, but another could not let them go…" The faint sound of singing reached the red head's ears; out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friends turning back to see what was happening. At the same time, he saw the glowing figures begin to move forward past the frozen figure, the leader. The tightening grip of his captor brought him back to his current situation. Faintly, he could make out different features upon his friend's face until all he could see was the spirited face of an old woman, a gypsy woman with a forlorn, weathered face. "Save her, save us all," she whispered as her image began to fade, "The answers lie… within the heart-" Before she could finish her fortune, the face and eyes faded away as a sudden lurch of the sea recalled it like an opposing side of a magnet; in an instant she was gone.

"Kurama, Kuwabara- hurry it up!" The detective yelled.

Kuwabara blinked. Noticing he was latched onto his demon friend's arm, he quickly reacted by tossing the wrist aside. "The heck?" Kuwabara shouted, grabbing fistfuls of hair, "When'd I get over here?" "Let's go," Yusuke reminded the two. In response, the two nodded and turned towards the forest.

"It's too late, you bakas," the red eyed demon muttered, irritant, as he stood before the pathway. "We're stuck because you're all a bunch of fools." The team stared hopelessly at the line of trees and the disappearance of the only entrance and exit to the forest.

"Hey," the lead detective muttered aloud, his fingers twitching at a sudden revelation the rest of the team had failed to notice, "Were those buildings there before?" At the notion, all three members of his team turned around to face the ocean- all found a surprise upon the white beaches.

"So," Kurama whispered to himself, his eyes narrowing considerably in calculated consideration, "It would appear that the rumors are more than a twisted tale of the truth." "Eh?" Kuwabara squeaked, as he peered in every direction, "Where'd this city come from? And where the heck are all of the souls?" All four stared over the twisting images of reconstructing buildings and roads. Before them, crumbles of ruins twisted upward from the sand to form twisting spirals and elongated skyscrapers- all buildings that had once stunned both the human and demon world upon its construction so many years ago. The remnants of an ancient civilization gave birth to docks and floating shops and homes that seemed to hover or float right across the water straight into the bay. The broken gravel and scattered stones beneath their feet all began to shake as a new road replaced the beaten path through the city. Dead, barren trees that surrounded the edges of the city were revived with a single gust of wind that seemed to bestow upon them a dress of autumn color. The silence was the last. The deafening silence that had cloaked the ruins into a dome of forgotten time broke like a levee in a hurricane; a loud boom sent a wide-spread blast of sound across the sea and land, and succeeded in knocking the Spirit World's detectives off their feet. Like a chain reaction, birds leapt from the sea with a saddened cry as they flapped within an inch of their lives to escape the waters that had enslaved them for so many years. And then, the waves followed suit.

"Get down!" Kuwabara yelped as he leapt to the ground and covered his head. Seeing the oncoming wave, the rest of the team stared on in shock. "Hurry!" Kuwabara yelled as he tugged the detective down by his sleeve. The detective reluctantly complied when he saw the two demons fall as well.

The wave of blue wisps passed over the prepared four and smashed into the trees; at their touch, the trees began to bloom all the more, as if they were reverting back a few decades. The wisps bounced off of the foliage and twisted back into the city. But in their return, the wisps fell to touchdown on the silver road. All around them shouts of chaos and terror echoed throughout the city as feet fell into a run along the roads. "Whoa!" Yusuke shouted when young woman materialized right over his hand. He moved the appendage quickly and leapt onto his feet. "What the hell is going on!" He continued, staring in awe at the wall of water growing in the bay and the panic it stirred in all of the people, all of which had appeared at the drop of a dime.

"Get them to higher ground!" A female voice sounded right next to the detective's ear. In surprise, he jumped with a yelp and turned, his finger cocked at the figure as if he were pointing a gun. What he found was the semi-translucent figure of a woman with light blonde hair and the most stunning, passion-filled eyes he'd ever seen. She wore a white, sleeveless button-down dress shirt collared by a loosened black tie and a long black skirt that fell down to the soles of her black-laced, knee-high boots. A long slit down either side of the material from mid-thigh down revealed a pair of black shorts underneath. Her light blonde locks fell to her back in waves and her figure sported a number of injuries from her face to her legs. And, he mentally berated himself for Keiko's sake, she was beautiful.

Upon her command, two people- a girl who could almost pass as identical to the first, and a man who belonged to some class of demon (a dog, perhaps) nodded in response before taking off towards the trees, ushering one panicked soul after the next there on their way. The girl, the "leader" unanimously, turned to a tall man who stood calm amidst the chaos and violent screams around them. Her eyes instantly softened. "You can't save them all," he frowned, his arms and lips seemingly painted forever in one position. The girl smirked wryly, "But I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try, now would I?" The corner of his lips lifted slightly; he nodded in affirmation of a silent decree, "I'll cover the west." "And I," she chuckled, "the east." The last they saw of the girl was the turn of her solute as she raced towards the stacking wall over the bay. But she stopped, and hesitated before turning back to shout something to her companion, "Two shakes!"

A chilling wind blew out from the stacking sea to caress the back of his neck; the temperature of his skin plummeted with the breeze's wintry kiss upon his skin. The small black hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end as a fading voice spoke so sorrowfully, yet so strongly. Each word tickled the inside of his ear as the ghost retold the tale, a tale only he could hear. "When the ocean cries," the voice, most definitely a female, began; he felt a soft tug at his attention towards the waves piling so high that even the blazing sun in the sky was swallowed. He strained his ears, for reasons he later would not be able to explain, and he listened, a first for the punk delinquent. Past the screams, past the roar of anger from the ocean, he could have sworn that he could hear something; something so sorrowful, like a primal cry from the depths of Mother Earth herself…

A series of soft, melancholic notes were hummed in his ear; the sound, without his realizing it, matched the sound coming from the ocean. Without a doubt, as the hum turned to words, he'd discovered the reason for Kuwabara's tears. It was this song, the ballad of the ocean that his friend had heard, and it was her, the leader of the spirits with blonde flowing hair, an attitude to match his own, and the most passionate soul he'd ever seen any human possess, that now hummed in his ear.

"The memories will live on," she spoke against the hum of the ocean receding further and further in distance from the shoreline as it grew taller than the skyscrapers of the city. His eyes scanned the frightened occupants of the doomed city as they scrambled within an inch of their lives, all striving for a common goal- to live, to survive this one single night in hopes of seeing the light of day once more. Small, fragile hands slid onto either of his shoulders as if someone behind him were holding onto them like a lifeline. "And will live forever unto this cursed ground…" His eyes never left the faces. This city was a perfect blend of fear; no one was different here, at this time, at this place. Child, man, woman, demon, human- all were equals before death. Not one, in the end, was held higher than another; the strong would not survive over the weak, just as a full grown man would not survive over a new born infant. All of them would die, as equals, and there was no force that could change that.

The fragile hands gripping his shoulders tightened to the point where he believed that he might lose all feeling in both of his arms from a lack of blood flow. Her hands began to form from nothing into the shape created with the same soulful blue he'd witnessed hovering over the ocean and sand. Her voice crumbled as she struggled so hard not to fade away, to finish her story so that she might change that night by sparing even one life from the terror of what was to come; "She tried to save them…" Peach tinted fingers released his left shoulder and rose like a compass that only pointed in one direction. At the end of her direct, he found the struggling blonde he'd admired not minutes age. Her eyes were bursting with the flames of determination; he wished to chuckle at how serious she'd been when she'd spoken to the man earlier, but he couldn't find his voice, nor could he make the move to search for it.

The waves finally gave way to gravity and began to crash into the sea, into the city. Buildings built upon the water crumbled like paper under the pressure of millions of gallons of water. Torrents splashed and rode the sides of buildings to create whirlpools that would engulf even more buildings, even more people. "She tried to save them," she repeated, dropping her hands to stand right beside him; her sad jade eyes stared out, shining with more than the world could save. The girl in the streets turned after pushing a stunned straggler to run for higher ground to come face to face with a once great city falling into ruin right before her eyes. Her hands fell to her sides as she stared in awe as the treacherous inferno of water drew closer. The tall man she'd loved ran to her side and yanked her arm, attempting to pull her away from the path of destruction. A soft, sad smile fell upon both versions of the same person as their lips moved in sync to recite the same line, but with both meaning two entirely different things, a feat that he wouldn't realize until much later, when it, too, would be too late, "but another could not let them go…"

Heavy rain beat down upon his skin as the buildings only yards disappeared, taken by the sea. The last thing he could see of the two were the joining of two more to make four, and then a bright flash of cyan light. The waves engulfed the dome the light created and continued in its lust for more destruction. Her lips parted for her last words as her image began to blur into something darker, into something not human. "The answers lie within the heart…" Her words became harder to hear as water began to crash into his legs, as it slowly rose in volume up the length of his body. Her image fluttered away as it melted, captured, into the water. Her voice still lingered, however, where her body could not; "…within the heart of Jade." Like all those he'd seen slowly eaten by the anger of nature, he, too, fell victim to the fate of those ensnared in its web of destruction.