A/N: It should be known that I am in no way happy about this chapter. It is written fairly poorly and is full of far too much dialogue. But I decided to put it up anyway, seeing as how I outreached my one-week promise by, what, two or three weeks? Sorry, guys.

Also, no juicy goodness in this one. This is just putting the situation in perspective for you all. Again, I'm sorry if it's at all unclear. I wasn't really sure how to put it into words. I think I'll go into more detail in the next chapter, where there will probably be more stuff you all care about. There are also lots of scene changes, and some OC bad guys. I do love me some bad guys.

Again, sorry about the lateness. :(

Chapter I: Stuck on the Bank

"Koenma?"

"Yes?"

"This is not my idea of a vacation."

"Hehe, well, you know how it goes…"

"Not really. Do enlighten me."

"'Us,'" Kurama corrected.

"Right." Yusuke leaned over the desk real impending-like. "'Us.'"

Koenma pulled at his collar not-at-all nervously. "Well, I sort of kind of need you to run an errand for me…"

"'Sort of kind of'?" Yusuke echoed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Welllll…."

Kurama sighed. "It's no use. We'll just have to finish it as quick as possible."

Yusuke didn't have the same sentiments. "That's not good enough! I promised both Keiko and my mom that I'd be there for the holidays!"

"Wow, Urameshi, I never knew you were so chivalrous."

"Wow, Kuwabara, I never knew you had a vocabulary that big."

Koenma sat at his extravagant (but also messy) desk, wondering why, oh why, did this have to happen during the vacation. Botan looked on with sympathy as the young ruler tried to calm his detectives, and Kurama didn't move a muscle to stop them. Hiei, as you can imagine, was completely detached and managed to block out all (most) of the noise.

"Never mind, the both of you!" Koenma angrily slammed a baby fist on the desk. "This'll take about an hour, so just get it over with." When no one replied (except for the unmistakable eye-roll from Yusuke) the grand-master overlord king (as he liked to call himself) re-opened the file at hand and got to explaining.

"Today there's a demon ravaging small villages."

"Is that all too surprising?"

A sharp glare in the detective's direction.

"Anyway," Koenma continued. "He's a small demon, can't be a class higher than B. But I need you to get him imprisoned and soon, because the more villages or whatever he wrecks, the more strength he achieves. I would send someone else on this errand except for one thing: he is nearing a relic, long ago buried under tons of dirt and rocks. Literally, tons. I know 'cause I was there."

Yusuke mouthed at Kuwabara something along the lines of 'braggart'.

"Huh? Speak, Urameshi!"

Unfortunately, Kuwabara could not read lips.

"…Never mind."

Koenma wisely chose to ignore them before it evolved into yet another quarrel. "Just get him out of the way so we don't have to worry about him anymore."

"You got it, champ."

"And don't call me 'champ'!"

If there is ever a situation from which Hiei draws personal wisdom from, he makes sure to mark it down, for they don't come too often. There are also times when he feels his IQ drop because of some outside events. He marks those down, too.

"Where are we?" Kuwabara asked, peering into the forest.

"The Makai, stupid."

"But-"

Kurama was the first to interrupt the poor fellow, knowing that if he let anyone else do it, it would become tedious. "It does make it worse that Koenma did not tell us when or to where we were going."

And he hadn't. After he finished his speech, he had merely pressed a button on his desk, and the image of the poor team flickered out of his office and into some unknown territory.

"So what now?" Yusuke kicked a rock, still examining his surroundings.

"If the demon is attacking villages in search of this artifact, we should be able to find him in a village," said Kurama, ever the intellectual.

"… So which way's a village?"

Hiei couldn't believe he was dealing with these idiots. He voiced his opinion. "I can't believe I'm dealing with you idiots."

He then started off in a direction. In fact, he was walking on a dirt path road, next to which was a sign which read: 'Town: thirty miles'.

"Nobody asked you, Shorty." But Kuwabara relented and followed him and the others anyway.

"They're finally gone."

"That they are, sir."

Botan and Koenma stood in the office, now alone, one thanking the gods they were gone and the other wondering what just happened.

"Well, it shouldn't take them so long, and their families should thank me that it's not too big a threat."

"I don't think they'll be too happy."

"Details," Koenma said, waving it off. "I'm hungry."

Botan raised an eyebrow archily. "Shouldn't you be watching their progress instead of thinking about lunch?"

"Maybe later."

Botan exhaled loudly, as if making a point.

Koenma sat thoughtfully in his chair for a few choice seconds, staring over the mounds of paperwork, then to Botan, and then to the monitor (now turned off) and back at the paperwork again.

"Well," he said. "I suppose I can eat and watch them at the same time."

"Good boy," Botan commented as she flipped open the mission file to look at it for herself.

After many moments of pushing around important documents (some of them falling into places where they will never be found again) he finally found the remote, leaned back and pressed the button expectantly. And then he pressed it again. And again. And again…

"What is going on here!"

The screen showed nothing but fuzz and static.

"Oh dear." Botan slapped the file open in front of the irked child. "Did you know that?"

"Know what?"

"That," She said secretively for the sake of the plot, and tapped the red box at the bottom reading 'WARNING'.

"Oh dear," Koenma echoed.

"S'that them?" A suspicious looking silhouette asked another in a high pitched (yet still male) voice. He adjusted his seat, trying to get a better look at the mist in front of him depicting the four Spirit Detectives on the dirt path. "Should we start goin' ta get 'em?"

A much more elfin creature next to him stirred, her voice echoing in whatever kind of cavern they were in. "Togou, you're a nasty, nasty guy," she informed him coyly whilst pulling on the hem of her Pocahontas-styled dress.

The two of them could have passed for siblings, and they probably were. Their similarities lied in their hair color (a dark, dark brown) and their knack for not taking much seriously. However, certain things still set them apart as will be evident later on.

"No…" This time, an old man spoke, voice cracking as he wheezed out the words. "This is not all of them."

The younger man, identified as Togou, looked skeptical. "There's about four. They're all pretty damn strong, too."

The old man, half-shrouded with plot-device shadows, slowly waved away the mist with the vision, making the image disappear. "I believe I told you that this is not all of them."

Togou mumbled a "Yes, sir" as the girl giggled at his expense.

"Peichan, I believe you should pay attention to this, as it is your job to block the dimensions."

Peichan promptly shut up, but a smile still lingered on her face. Togou elbowed her in the ribs.

"There is but one more to arrive, and that is when I will allow you to fulfill your respective duties."

"A she!"

A thump was heard as Peichan whacked Togou over the head.

"She is not a fighter," The eldest continued. "But she will play a role. The conditions must be correct, and we must allow for them to happen."

Eerie music started to play.

Walking was/is tiresome. It dragged on even as their feet got weary and their legs less enthusiastic. It just never let up. At first, the complaints were abundant. It was all 'Koenma is a butt face' or 'Koenma is retarded' or 'Koenma can suck my--'

…Well, let's not go there.

But eventually the insults ceased, and they drew closer to their destination.

"Goddamnit. This has to be the lamest mission we've ever been sent on."

"We shouldn't even be calling it a mission."

"Well, you're gonna once I tell you this."

Nearly everyone's head snapped around at the new voice.

"Botan," Yusuke said carefully. "Why are you here?" He knew that whatever the reason that Koenma had for sending her over was, it was probably a bad one.

She deftly hopped off her oar, landing on her feet in a cloud of dust. "Well, you see, you've fallen into a trap." She paused long enough to dispose of her traveling tool and then continued. "The demon you were supposed to catch is just a ruse. There are some really nasty guys behind the disguise, and they were trying to lure you here to probably get you out of the way."

"How bad are they?"

"Um," Botan counted off her fingers. "We're pretty sure that there's three. Two male, one female. I can't give you a description, though. Anyway, the point is, one of them can manipulate who can pass through the different dimensions. Like, Spirit World, Demon World -Human. Right now, they're cutting off traffic to the Demon World. The television didn't work and neither did your compact phone thing, and I was only barely able to get here 'cause they were starting to block the inter-dimensional travel, but hadn't finished it. The portal probably won't even work again."

"Well, this is certainly an interesting development." Kurama, standing next to an unimpressed Hiei, observed. "Does that mean even you can't go back now?"

"Ye…" Botan's word died in her mouth and her face visibly fell. "Omigod."

The others were all looking on with some curiosity at the ferry girl who realized just as she came to inform them that she couldn't return.

"What's the problem? We'll be able to take care of ya, piece o' cake." Yusuke slapped her back, trying to be comforting. "Kuwabara did the same for Yukina, you know."

Hiei hid his flinch only a little bit.

"Yeah!" Kuwabara enthusiastically threw a fist in the air. "We'll protect you like nobody can! I'm sure Yukina wouldn't mind if I lended my affections to someone else."

The demon continued to look none-too-pleased.

Botan couldn't believe her luck. Stuck here, with these animals? Really! Not that she didn't believe them when they said they'd protect her (they'd done it countless times), it was just… Well…

She continued to poke feverishly at the buttons on some geeky device from Spirit World, but to no avail. For a few moments, she was the center of attention, though she couldn't imagine why. All she was really doing was freaking out because she was stranded in the middle of absolutely nowhere with these… these fighting people!

"I guess," She surrendered. "I'll just have to follow you and give you my best."

"Awesome. Now let's go," said Yusuke, ever impatient.

Kurama took a more sympathetic light. "I'm sure you'll do a great job."

Hiei raised a disbelieving brow in their direction, but didn't say anything. It wasn't any of his business if they let the woman be killed, doubtless that she would.