I put this chapter down, picked it up, and put it down again many times over the last year. I knew what I wanted to have happen. I just couldn't bring myself around to doing it. Then I got various ideas for jokes to go into the chapter, and I put them all into the chapter at various points in time. The most difficult part was linking them all together. And I have to say, Miranda, that if you want to disown me as a friend after reading this chapter, I will not blame you.

One last note – keep in mind that it's been two years since you last saw these characters at the end of the anime. They haven't exactly stayed the same in those two years.

:: Outside Osaka ::
:: Earth ::
:: September 5th 2006 ::
:: 3:00 PM ::

Kuwabara and Hiei appeared in a pine-tree forest in a quick flash of blue light. The skies were partly overcast and the ground was covered in pine needles. They looked around for a few seconds and oriented themselves.

"Isn't this about where Keiko whipped all our asses in a paintball-fight?" Kuwabara asked.

Hiei scowled at the memory. "It is."

"Good times, good times." Kuwabara mused, "Then we had a mission in America to take care of four demons living together in suburbia, and we had to act like foreign exchange students so we could infiltrate the school they were going to and then arrest them. I miss those missions. I also miss seeing new exchange students show up every other day at junior high school. They were always demons, had demonic histories, or something like that, and we just had to report it to Koenma and we'd have some kind of light-hearted adventure and either you or Kurama would have some short fling with them. Remember Mary-Sue?"

Another quick flash of light followed. Neither Spirit Detective noticed it.

"Don't remind me about Mary-Sue!" Hiei growled, "I was possessed by a thirteen-year-old from another dimension when she came along!"

"Keyasha?" Kuwabara asked.

"A fourteen-year-old from another dimension possessed me."

"Your demented mercenary?"

"I think I was possessed by a twelve-year-old from another dimension who possessed me that time."

"Kakura?"

"No, she was after Kurama, who was possessed by a thirteen-year-old from another dimension."

"Oh yeah. Hikari?"

"Another thirteen-year-old possessed me."

"Koonami?"

"Been too long, I don't remember. It was another girl from another dimension controlling my mind; that much I know."

"Windy Ren?"

"Windy Ren had nothing to do with me. She just kicked ass for a while before moving on to some art site on the internet."

"Shaan'dras?"

"That was actually a fifteen-year-old boy from New York who was writing fan fictions in another dimension who threw Shaan'dras in because he was friends with Shaan'dras' creator, Miranda, who also controlled my mind into dating her the first time. Now stop bringing up all the times someone from another dimension freaked around with my head."

Kuwabara sighed and put his hands behind his head. "I miss those days."

"Hn." Hiei cracked his knuckles and punched his fist into his palm. "Now let's get something straight, 'boss.' You may have a clean record and you may outrank me, but I can still whip your ass seven ways to Sunday, twelve if we go to Monday, so stay out of my way and keep your mouth shut before I rip your tongue out and feed it to you. And if you continue to annoy me, I'll rip out your gall bladder and feed it to you. If that doesn't work, then I'll feed you your squeedlyspooch. Failing at that, you will next be made to devour your prostate, which I, of course, will rip out of you. Wearing gloves, naturally."

"No you won't." Hinageshi said. Hiei and Kuwabara jumped startled.

"How long have you been there?" Kuwabara asked in a shaken voice.

"When in seven hells did you…?" Hiei began, considered that Kuwabara had already beaten him to the punch, and said, "What Cthulhu said."

"Long enough." Hinageshi answered. "And I liked Hikari. She was cute."

Hiei growled at this and threatened both of them. "If you two do not stop talking about various girlfriends I had when I may or may not have had my own free will, I will make sure your bodies will never be found."

Hinageshi scratched under her chin and threatened back, "And then when our souls are in the Spirit World, I will have George taser you while we get new bodies."

"You are not serious." Hiei blanched.

"She is, actually." Kuwabara answered. This elicited an angry 'hn' from the fire apparition. Hinageshi pulled out a small mirror from her pocket and tapped it with her finger. Lights flashed inside and after a minute of fussing she pointed west. "The tracker has her east of us about half a mile. Let's get going, and let's try to keep it quiet."

They walked for a short time before Hinageshi stopped in her tracks and stared at the tracker. "She's coming this way. Very, very fast."

"How fast?" Hiei asked.

Kuwabara tackled Hiei and Hinageshi to the ground. A searing disk of fire, white-hot, flew over their heads and cut through the trunks of two trees before dissipating. Kuwabara, the most spiritually-aware of them all, replied, "That fast"

They rose to their feet again and looked in the direction the attack came from. Standing behind a tree was a small woman, under five feet, wearing green clothes with red hair and fox attributes. She matched the picture of Noreen they saw in Koenma's briefing. "I am Noreen Firestarter. Tell me where I am and leave and you will be spared; challenge me and you will be destroyed."

"Cocky. I like her already." Hiei smirked.

"Because she looks and sounds almost exactly like Shaan'dras?" Hinageshi smiled sadistically.

Hiei glared at the ferry girl and said, "That has nothing to do with this."

Kuwabara addressed Noreen; "I got the impression that we were supposed to go easy on you, and you're a girl, so chivalry lends itself to that, but you can't go throwing white-hot things of fire at people! That's not only rude; that's dangerous! How else would we still be alive if not for the awesome might of. . ." Kuwabara tied his headband around his forehead in a heartbeat and struck a dramatic pose. "KUWABARA THE IMPALER!"

"Kuwabara the Impaler?" Hinageshi asked Hiei.

Hiei replied, "It's a long story involving Urameshi Yusuke, Youtube, and three flash grenades."

"Ah," she assented.

"I don't care what epithet you give yourself, you boisterous human. It was only by a hair's width that you dodged my attack, and that was with so long of a warning that you had time." Noreen growled, "Tell me where I am, how I can return to where I was, and since you seem to know, how you knew I would be here, or I'll take off your head with my next Amaterasu Disc."

Hinageshi stepped forward, "Hello, I'm Hinageshi. You're on Earth, and wherever you remember yourself being, you can't return there. As much as we can tell, you've been dead for a long time, and you've come back as a kind of ghost since you couldn't find rest in the afterlife. We work for the afterlife – we call it the Spirit World – and we were sent here to bring you back where you belong; the afterlife. If you come with us, then everything will make sense to you."

Noreen stood still for a while as she ingested everything she took in. Hiei's hand slid to the hilt of his sword and Kuwabara started to concentrate spirit energy into his right hand. Noreen looked up at the ferry girl. "I don't believe you. Banjo has tried something like this before, trapping me in a dream and trying to convince me it was real. I'm not going to fall for it again. Last time all I had to do was kill one of the people in the dream to break the illusion, and I'm betting that's all I have to do here. Prepare to die!"

Noreen sprang forward with her sword unsheathed. Hiei rushed in front of the ferry girl and blocked the stroke with his own sword. Kuwabara, a second behind him, swung at her with his Spirit Sword. Noreen leapt back from the melee in time to dodge the sword and Hinageshi backed away from the fighting. Seeing her separated from her comrades, Noreen swung her sword at her direction and from it fired another white-hot disc. Hiei intercepted the blow with his right arm, which gushed with the dragon's black flames to deflect it.

Kuwabara pointed his Spirit Sword at Noreen and demanded of her; "Leave the defenseless out of this and fight us with the swords!"

Noreen looked at them both for a moment. She then looked behind her and ripped off her bandana to expose her own Jagan eye. It flashed, she smiled, and looked back at the others. "My Jagan Eye tells me that there's a whole city chock-full of people just over that way. Suddenly I don't need you three here anymore since there are a couple million people over that way. Try to stop me if you can!" Her bandana was back on in a flash and she sped off in the direction of the city.

Hiei cursed under his breath and sped off after her. She was marginally faster than him, so he threw fireballs at her to slow her down enough for him to catch up. From there they engaged in a running swordfight. Hinageshi quickly materialized her oar and took flight after both of them. Kuwabara, however, not much faster than a normal human, had to sprint after them and could only engage in the fight whenever Hiei had slowed Noreen down enough for him to catch up.

:: Osaka ::
:: Earth ::
:: September 5th 2006 ::
:: 3:45 PM ::

Mr. Watsuki was walking to the subway station after a day's work in the office. He was dressed in a three-piece suit and carried a briefcase at his side. The briefcase did not stay in his grip for long; a strong wind passed him by and blew it out of his hand. A girl with red hair ran on by him at breakneck speeds, and a flaming black dragon roared after her. A short man with black hair ran by him as fast as the girl. Another girl, flying overhead on an oar, screamed "DON'T MAKE A SCENE OUT OF THIS!" and passed him by. The dragon vanished into thin air. A man with bright orange hair and what he thought to be a flaming sword ran after them yelling, "WAIT FOR ME!"

"Huh," Mr. Watsuki said. He calmly walked after his briefcase, dusted it off, and proceeded to the subway station. He didn't care about the dragon, the two girls, or the two men. After all, this was Japan, and what he just saw paled in comparison to Godzilla's last rampage back in 2004.

Kuwabara started to lag behind, and when the fight went up a fire-escape ladder and over the rooftops, he fell hopelessly behind. The fight was visible from the street, and scanning around, Kuwabara saw a taxi pulled up to the curb not too far from him. He dashed for it and jumped inside the open back door. Kuwabara pointed to the retreating figures above him and commanded, "Follow those people on the roofs!"

The taxi driver blew the smoke from his cigarette out the window. "Sure!" He said. "You got money?"

Kuwabara cursed loudly and exited the cab, running in the direction the others had sped off to. The driver called out after him, "Have a nice day!"

Kuwabara eventually lost track of the two demons and ferry girl on the rooftops. By now they had pulled ahead so far that he could no longer sense their energy signatures. Hinageshi was almost on top of the two fighters, but in her attempt to focus on the fight itself she also left Kuwabara behind. This left Kuwabara to run in the direction he last saw everyone going. He ran for at least five miles and was having a tough time going, but he was determined not to stop until he found them. He was watching Pokemon episodes in his head to keep himself occupied as he ran.

"Pikachu! I choose you!" He mumbled under his breath. "Oh no, Pikachu! Hah-hah! Now at last we've stolen your Pikachu! Meowth! The boss is gonna love hearin' this, and maybe he'll promote me and fire that Persian! Not so fast, Team Rocket! What's this? This light! This must be the power of love! Episode cancelled in America! Oh no, they got back Pikachu! Come on, Pikachu, let's get out of here! Chu, Pika Pikachu! What's this? Your Piplup has evolved into Prinplup! Prinplup learned the attack Metal Claw! But, I have flippers."

The populace in any other country would have found the sprinting maniac's ranting scary, but this was Japan, and twenty girls with cat-ear hats were walking down the same street and Hello Kitty was plastered on three of the billboards. Godzilla lurked in the deep and ninjas were fighting time-traveling teenagers on top of a replica of the Eiffel Tower. This was Japan; nobody cared. Kuwabara ran this way, mumbling Pokemon nonsense as he went the entire time until a store caught his eye. It was a sports and games store. Realizing that a Spirit Sword was not suited for urban combat and it would make him stand out like a sore thumb, even more so than he already did, he ran inside, and five seconds later, ran out with a baseball bat. The store's manager chased him outside.

He yelled, "You've gotta pay for that!" as he threw baseballs after him. He missed every time, and one of the baseballs hit a teenage mutant ninja turtle on the head as it started to climb out of the sewers. Defeated, it fell back down into the dark abyss of the sewage system.

"I'll pay you back later!" Kuwabara lied.

:: About the same time ::
:: Two miles away ::
:: Probably North ::

Dashing along the rooftops, Hiei and the shinentai exchanged sword blows and insults in stride. Hiei swung at Noreen' torso and said: "My name is Jaganshi Hiei! You stole my catchphrase! Prepare to die!"

Noreen slowed down enough to let the blade pass in front of her. Along with a stab at the ribs, she attacked back with an insult of her own. "If that's a catchphrase, then you must have been alive during the time of the cavemen if you have to catchphrase a grunt!"

"And if you stole the grunt of a caveman, you must have a special fondness for cavemen!" Hiei parried the blow and replied with a stab of his own. Hinageshi, meanwhile, hovered over them on her oar. The two combatants had slowed down enough in concentrating on fighting to allow her to keep up with ease. All she could do at this point was keep an eye on them and be at the ready in case Hiei requested help. She then heard a voice over her headset. "Marco!"

"What the?" she asked aloud. She looked around her and didn't see anyone again.

"Marco!" She heard it again. This time she recognized the voice as Kuwabara's. She clicked a button on her headset and replied in kind, "Polo!"

"Hinageshi! I'm finally in range again!" Kuwabara said, "Where are you? I can feel the Demon Energy up ahead, but I can't see you on top of all the buildings."

Hinageshi kept an ear and eye open on the fight down below. Hiei locked swords with Noreen and bore a sadistic glare into her eyes. He began to say, "You know, you seem to be some kind of clone of one of my old girlfriends, and I just have to ask . . ." At that point. Hinageshi put her attention back to Kuwabara. "Well, Hiei and Noreen are having a running fight, but they're slowing down because they're putting more emphasis on verbally assaulting each other than moving. I'll direct you to where we are when they stop running."

Noreen gasped and flinched. Hiei grasped her blade in his left hand, yanked her off-balance, and then kicked her in the chest. She was sent reeling back and Hiei threw the sword over the edge of the building. "So, the rumors WERE true!" He laughed and rushed at her again. Weaponless, Noreen leapt aside and pulled a small white flower from her hair.

"Lily Lash!" She yelled and snapped her wrist. The flower in hand morphed into a long whip of knotted vines and gave out a loud crack as it smacked the roof. "How would you know, and what rumors, pray-tell, were true?" She demanded.

Hiei put both his hands on the sword again and his third eye opened. "That's between me, God, and a fifteen-year-old from New York. And that is a derivative copy of a Rose Whip if I ever saw one."

Noreen lashed at him with the flower and Hiei dodged it. She let loose with a thousand strokes of the whip and Hiei jumped and ran between or hacked away at each one. A moment after that, they both stopped moving. Hiei stood two feet in front of her. Noreen smirked. Her sword was sticking out of his stomach and through his back.

"When the Hell did you get the sword back?" Hiei asked.

Noreen replied: "You looked down from my eyes for a moment. I snagged the sword from the alley with my lash when you did that."

"Nice." Hiei replied. A blink of the eye later, his sword was in her stomach, sticking out through the back. "I couldn't help but notice you did the same thing just then."

Both of them fell to the ground at the same time. They didn't stay down for long because they both were pretty used to getting impaled over the years, but there was still that momentary sharp pain that prohibited them from doing anything.

"Ow…" Hiei moaned.

"Argh…" Noreen said in kind.

"I'm going to do you in for that," Hiei threatened as he rolled over onto his side.

"Son of a bitch…" Noreen turned over onto her shoulder.

"You little bastard…" Hiei rolled over onto his knees.

"When this is over, I'm making your skull into a coffee mug." Noreen threatened, slowly rising to her feet. "Then I'm going to show it off to all my friends, if I ever get any, and then I'm going to tell them, 'This is Hiei, the man who thought he beat Noreen.' Then I'll take little sips out the mug, and just to piss you off for all eternity, I'm going to paint it pink and put glitter all over it. How do you like the sound of that, idiot?"

"Hn…" Hiei also slowly rose to his feet.

"That is my word!" Noreen glared at him, territorial.

"I thought it was a caveman's word!" Hiei gripped his sword tightly.

The two had at each other once again. They fought slower now but were still too fast for normal people to keep up with. Their breathing was labored and they both found it more and more difficult to function. Thankfully for Hiei, they were fighting in front of the elevator door. The elevator let out a loud beep and opened. Kuwabara stood in the doorway, talking into his headset. "-so the bear says, 'I don't think you came here to hunt.' Hah! Oh, wait, I'm here now. Yeah they're still fighting. Thanks for the directions, Hinageshi." Kuwabara clicked off the microphone and patted the baseball bat in his hands.

CLUNK!

Noreen fell to the ground with a large lump on her head. As Hiei looked on, stupefied, Kuwabara tucked the bat through a belt-loop in his jeans and let it dangle to his side. Hiei just stared at Kuwabara, the unconscious fire-fox, and the baseball bat for a long time. He finally pointed at Kuwabara, huffing and puffing, and demanded, "Wake her up. We're not finished yet."

"I say thee nay, my short-stacked friend with the obscenely pointy hair." Kuwabara pointed to the sky. He spoke with a dramatic voice and his teeth, my god, the teeth! The teeth shone with a brilliant white light. "I claim this land for the Spain! And by I, I mean an arrest warrant, and by this land, I mean this woman, and by the Spain, I mean a high-security prison somewhere in the Spirit World."

"In other words," Hinageshi swooped down from above, "We got we came here for, and now we're out of here." She then tapped a button on her head-set and waited for several seconds before speaking. "Lord Koenma, sir, we have Noreen in custody. George? What are you doing answering Koenma's phone? Put Koenma on. He's in the bathroom? How long is he going to be gone? Really? Well that's just silly. Yes, we need an evac. See the little red button? Push the little red button. Okay, we'll see you shortly." She tapped the same button on the head-set and looked at the two detectives, both of whom had been glaring at each other the entire time she was talking. "The portal will open in a minute or three, and for the love of God, just settle it already!"

"Gladly!" Hiei yelled. The two men threw their hands out at the same time and chanted. "Bubble-gum bubble-gum in a dish! How many pieces do you wish?" They fought in this way for two and a half minutes until the portal opened up. As it stood, they were officially tied, with one match in dispute between them. Seeing the portal open, Kuwabara picked up the unconscious fox-girl and hung her over his shoulders. They then passed through the portal and it closed behind them.

:: The Spirit World ::
:: September 5th, 2006 ::
:: 5:30 PM ::

After dropping Noreen off in a holding area, Hiei, Kuwabara, and Hinageshi sat down in a large beige room. This room was the place where all portals to all the worlds came and went to the Spirit World, and while they waited for Kurama, Botan and Yusuke to bring back Gelugladius through this room, they sat in chairs and filled out mission summaries on clipboards. It was tedious, but as the hours dragged on, they got through most of the questions and talked to pass time.

"-so, the bear says, 'I don't think you came here to hunt!" Kuwabara followed through on a joke. Hinageshi laughed, but Hiei's face remained blank.

"Do you have to say that joke every forty-five minutes?" Hiei asked.

"You know? I do." Kuwabara replied.

"That cracks me up every time." Hinageshi wiped a tear away from her eyes. "So, what did you and Noreen argue about?"

Hiei held up his clipboard for just long enough to see that he was writing what could have been a novella in its own right. "It's in the report."

"Portal opening in thirty seconds," a voice spoke out from over the loudspeakers, "Four targets incoming from Dojo Genkai."

"Oh, that's them," Hinageshi stated. They all finished whatever sentence they were writing and waited for a portal to open. Before long, a blue form swirled in the middle of the room and eventually formed into a powerful vortex. Yusuke was the first to step through it and out into the room.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara smiled. "How're you?"

Kurama stepped through the portal next. He was carrying a body in Yusuke's clothes, but its head was missing. Next came Botan, holding the decapitated head at arm's length by the hair. Nobody said a word or moved a muscle when they recognized the face as Yusuke's.

Yusuke looked at his body and then his head. He wasn't completely solid and the light passed through him. He scratched his spirit-head and said, "Dead again, actually."

To be continued.

Author's notes: What can I say? The chapter was supposed to be about three people fighting, but I couldn't just write a ten-page fight scene. Well, I could, and I did much worse in the past (I did a hundred-fifty-page fight scene once. My older readers can tell you about it.), and it was boring. In trying to speed the chapter up, I found that it was insanely fun writing the two of them bantering. It's kind of a throwback to my old stories, when Cahadras as one of the major characters in everything I did, and they did nothing but argue whenever they were within a mile of each other. I apologize if the characters don't sound like they do in the show, but again, in the story, the end of the show was two years ago, they haven't stayed the same since then, and the jokes kind of came first.

EDIT: December 27, 2007 – Why did Miranda demand Cahadras be pulled out? Of all reasons, she didn't like the name "Lily Lash" for an attack. She said that everyone thought they were pink, and she didn't want to have Cahadras use a pink flower. I told her they were white, and of all things, FUNERAL flowers, but she told me that I could either use Cahadras or the lilies, not both. When you talk to an author like that, you do more than make a request – you make a demand, and you do it rudely. Even if it is your character, that is not how you treat the author. "Could you please change the attack name?" That I would have accepted, and I would have changed the name. "Change the Lily Lash or you can't use Cahadras." I could not. She got yanked. For those who care, her dialogue has been mostly left unchanged – you can find that personality in a thousand stories on this site, so she doesn't have a right to ask me to demand I change the dialogue as well. The only change was the name and her appearance; Cahadras had blue hair with silver tips on her ears and tail, red eyes, a Jagan, a long black coat, and a gold necklace with blue gems resembling a flame in it. I decided to make her more of the standard fox demon and give her red hair and green eyes.

Best/Dan