(A/N) Well, lookie what we have here, an update! Yep, I'm feeling really accomplished right now. All my stories have a new chapter or two and a one-shot now graces my profile, all is well in the world XD

Warnings: absolutely none in this chapter :D aren't you all proud of me?

Hope you guys like the update :)

Enjoy and Review!

"Yusuke, there's nothing you can do."

"Dammit, don't tell me that!"

Koenma, Prince of the Spirit World, looked haggard and un-rested as he spoke with one-time Spirit Detective, Yusuke Urameshi.

"They've brought about their own demise," Koenma said, not liking the taste of failure on his tongue, "I'm only telling you this ahead of time because you were my spirit detective once, but you should probably leave for the Makai before the week is up."

He looked down- being in his teenager form- at a narrow-eyed Yusuke, "I'll be sealing the portals then and everyone will be stuck where they are. You can either stay here and deal with the radiation and earthquakes by yourself, or join everyone you know over in the Makai."

"This is bullshit, Koenma, and you know it. But fine, I'll close up shop and be out of here by Wednesday."

The three hundred-something year old demon stalked out the door and left through a portal generously opened by a ferry girl without a backwards glance to his old employer.

Yusuke didn't look a day over eighteen- hadn't, in fact, for a few centuries. The powerful awakened Mazoku blood that flowed through his veins had halted the aging process for him a long while back. It still depressed him when he thought about the humans he'd left behind... but he was good at ignoring that feeling now.

Keiko and Kuwabara had been the hardest to let go. But, hell, his mom and Genkai had still ripped their own holes in his heart when it had been their time.

It helped to have so many friends in the Makai to go to. He grinned to himself, it wouldn't be so bad to hang out in the demon world for a few centuries. He'd been craving a good brawl for a good few months now.

'I hope those guys are ready for me cus' I'm gonna' be kicking the ass of the first one I see!'

That was a few thousand years ago.

Present Time:

Yusuke found himself once again standing before Koenma after being guided to Reikai, though this time he wasn't alone.

Kurama and Hiei had joined him- though Hiei had to be convinced. His dislike towards the spirit realm hadn't lessened at all in the time he'd been away- out of boredom, mostly. Things, though the days were never peaceful in the Makai, were getting rather dull for the trio.

When Koenma had a ferry girl messenger sent with the message, "the portals are being opened," they had practically knocked down his door (Yusuke) and politely (Kurama) demanded (Hiei) that they be the first ones through the portal.

Not many other demons had such a strong connection to the Ningenkai and because Koenma at least knew these three were less likely to cause unimaginable havoc and destruction if set loose on the unsuspecting humans, he agreed.

Though it may have been more because they had grown so ridiculously strong that there wasn't really anyone who could argue with them anymore.

And Hiei had gotten that sadistic look in his eyes again... ok, and it might have had something to do with the fact that Kurama was truly scary even if he was still under a human guise. Yusuke had snickered gleefully (read: evilly) at his friends' methods of... persuasion.

The half-demon agreed to be a sort of informant for the prince while he was in the Ningenkai and had taken a Communication Mirror on his way out. When Koenma had said, "no portals," he'd meant it. Nobody had seen or heard the slightest bit about what had been happening in the Ningenkai since the portals were shut down. They would be the first to scout out the damage and determine if it was safe for travel.

The three sent varying levels of smirks at each other and stepped through to the other side.

And of course, the portal dropped them in the middle of nowhere, miles away from even the slightest hint of civilization.

Thankfully, as had been discovered in the previous chapter, it was a growing, healthy earth that they found themselves on- and no, not the pile of burning rubble that Hiei had been hoping for.

Yusuke, done examining the foliage for radiation- not that he'd be actually able to see it but why ruin his fun- turned his gaze to his companions.

"So... now what?" He crossed his arms, leaning casually back against a decidedly non-radioactive tree, "do we just walk around until we find something?"

Hiei sniffed disdainfully and didn't answer so Kurama took to planning their course of action. Well, he usually planned their courses of action so nothing too out of the ordinary was happening.

"We have no idea what changes could have occurred," the fox started, "we'll have to begin by finding whether or not humanity has survived, and then, how they have evolved."

He continued when it looked like the others were following, "we should not approach them until a wider picture has been formed about their habits, customs, language- we essentially must immerse ourselves into their society without bringing any attention to ourselves, do you understand Yusuke, Hiei?"

"Yeah, yeah. I gotcha' fox-boy, no bar fights or loud conversations about the Makai where the civs' can hear us," Yusuke said understatedly, waving his hand about with nonchalance.

"Let's just see if there are any humans left for us to fool before making up rules," Hiei said, in what Kurama hoped was sarcasm.

"Right, well, lets be off then."

The youkai vanished almost in tandem from the clearing, following Hiei, who was using his Jagan to track down the nearest energy sources.

An hour and many hundreds of miles later, the three found themselves nearing a small village filled with, you guessed it: people.

Hiei may or may not have muttered a curse when they came upon the town but Yusuke and Kurama were willfully oblivious. They found that to be the best way of dealing with the fire-youkai's particular... quirks.

"Well, would you look at that: people!" Yusuke said, grinning widely as if it were a personal accomplishment.

Kurama sighed inwardly at his side, deciding to set up his plan before the delinquent toushin could start any chaos in his excitement.

"Alright you two, separate to different quarters of the town." Kurama began the detailed process of scoping out the situation. His days as a bandit had returned quickly in the Makai, though no one could identify him for sure. He'd like to think of it as more of a hobby of sorts than an actual career nowadays.

"Return once you have gathered the information and remember," he paused to send the message home, "don't get caught. We don't know what abilities the humans may have acquired."

"Heh. Piece of cake," Yusuke took off towards the far end of the town and Hiei left silently to the right wing.

"And of course they left me the most crowded part of town," This time Kurama did sigh out loud. He was always left to mingle with the targets.

When they reconvened it was with several interesting bits of information.

The first thing they'd discovered- much to their disgruntlement- was that, yes, the language was most definitely different. Although Kurama had picked up on a few words that had similar roots to the older languages (i.e. English, Japanese, Latin, etc.) and seemed to be a conglomeration between them all.

Or, in Yusuke terms, "it sounds like gibberish to me." Complete with crossed arms a scowl firmly planted on his face.

Thankfully they had Hiei to implant the knowledge into their heads- after he'd lifted it from the minds of a few of the unsuspecting people on the streets- otherwise mixing with the humans would have proven quite a bit more difficult. His capabilities with the Jagan had been improving over the years.

"Ok, now that we've removed that barrier, shall we try again?"

Time went by and this time when they next met up, they actually had something relevant to the mission.

"Apparently, this world is run by ninjas," Hiei deadpanned, waiting while Yusuke died- metaphorically speaking, he'd been dead way too many times to want to experience it again- of laughter.

"Or what passes for ninjas, I suppose," Kurama smiled at a thought, "perhaps Jin and Touya will want to hear of this?"

"Hey, at least this is better than what it used to be. We might actually see some action while we're here," Yusuke said, still letting small snickers escape every now and then.

Kurama 'hmm'd' in agreement and Hiei looked doubtful about finding any worthy opponents in the Ningenkai.

"Then our next goal should be getting suitable clothing and making a cover story for ourselves. I propose finding one of these 'hidden villages' to live in permanently while we're at it." Kurama said, more to himself, as he plotted out their next move, "although we should stay away from any overly large towns to lessen knowledge of our presence before we're ready."

"Aw, shopping? I thought I'd escaped that after Keiko," Yusuke whined, (though mentioning Keiko still sent a nostalgic pang of hurt through him).

"Fox, I will not be changing my outfit," Hiei grouched.

"Yes, Hiei, you will," Kurama commanded sternly, "our clothes don't stick out as much as I'd thought they might, but the fabrics are a great deal different here than the ones found in the Makai."

And that was the end of that discussion. Though it took them going through several shops, they were able to find clothes similar to the one's they'd been wearing. Kurama's search for Asian-styled fighting outfits was easily satisfied and both Hiei and Yusuke simply grabbed whatever offended their tastes least. Which for Yusuke was a simple yellow muscle-shirt, loose green fighting pants, and those funny shoes he could see everyone wearing. They kinda looked like sandals, come to think of it. He insisted on buying the ones with the covered toes, though, as he didn't fancy getting stabbed in the foot or finding little rocks inside of them whenever he walked somewhere.

Hiei had outright refused to give up his cloak until Kurama promised to hide their clothes in the forest until they needed them again. He'd settled for a black ensemble of cloak, pants, and boots, though had found a simple blue shirt similar to the one he'd worn in the Dark Tournament.

Yusuke couldn't resist commenting.

"Damn, Hiei, I didn't know you were so picky about your fashion," Yusuke smirked afterwards, "are you trying to tell us something?"

Hiei's subsequent glare could have started forest fires, if he didn't do it himself, that is.

Needless-to-say, Kurama was quick to usher them out of the store- though the female clerk looked especially sad to see him go. They'd paid with pick-pocketed money, courtesy of one master thief, (although a former delinquent and bandit-raised demon weren't too shabby themselves at the finer points of the trade).

The following weeks were spent building their cover story and learning more about the world they'd found themselves in.

In the end, they'd decided on the hidden village of Konoha as their new home. It appeared the most well off and stable- both mentally and financially. They didn't want to touch on what they'd seen at Kirigakura and Sunagakura, to name a few, with a ten-foot pole.

Though oddly enough Hiei seemed to like them more, except for Suna. There weren't enough trees, as he'd pointed out in irritation.

Then the fox-youkai, Kyuubi, attacked and their interest was suddenly raised exponentially higher.

They were rudely awoken one night by a flare of pissed off energy- of the demonic persuasion. Yusuke had fallen out of his bed in the cheap inn they'd stopped at, barely catching himself in time. Genkai would be rolling in her grave if she'd found out he'd been unable to catch himself after such an embarrassing fall- unless she'd caused the fall herself, of course.

"What on Earth was that?" Kurama said, shock making him alert. He looked to Hiei, silently asking the other to determine the source of the potent energy.

"It's ancient. Powerful," Hiei murmured as he searched out the being that radiated such hate-filled youkai, "It's this way."

Grabbing their scant few possessions, they darted towards the demonic presence that seemed to engulf the area.

...Fox...

And that's what it was: an old youkai who had shed his human form so as to cause more damage to those in his path.

"How did we miss this guy?" Yusuke said in disbelief.

Hiei fell into an automatic defensive stance at the beast's size.

"I don't know, but I believe I do know what happened to at least some of the demons that were trapped here," Kurama said, eyes wide. This Youko certainly wasn't his equal in strength, but the nine tails it sported proved that it was indeed close. Youkai grew in power with age and Kurama knew he was older than this being; he wasn't being vain, honest!

"So, we're gonna' go help those guys getting smashed, right?" Yusuke said, bringing Kurama out of his moody- er, analytical, thoughts. The fox then noticed the humans Yusuke was talking about and he realized he had to get over himself, (he was so much better than that plain, red-furred fox anyways).

"Yes, of course," He nodded at the other two, "however, I don't believe we should involve ourselves too much. It wouldn't do to have any attention drawn to us yet. Someone may recognize us, as I believe this Youko is threatening the village we mean to stay in. Attack from afar and try to disguise your energy."

Right as they were about to jump in, a peculiar thing happened.

"Is... is that a giant frog?"

Hiei swore and Kurama very much felt like doing the same.

"Um, I think there's a guy up on that frog's head..." Yusuke trailed off and the three mighty youkai simply stood there in silence to watch the scene unfold.

"I take it back, I take it all back," Yusuke grinned once the battle was over and some interesting bit of sealing had taken place- though it sucked about the blonde guy dying, he looked like he'd have been pretty cool to hang with, "this world is gonna' so kick ass."