A/N: Sooo...usually I'm really good with chapter titles...but a title for this one escaped me. If anyone has any suggestions, you are more than welcome to speak up.

O/C27: They have met Him, seen him face to face. The Essence rips Misaki's new arm from its socket and envelops the two of them in light.

"C'mon, where's your sense of adventure?"

Iridescent white hair and perfect teeth both gleamed in the sunlight. His smile was always infectious, but this time the one at whom the smile aimed for didn't want to catch it, as was obvious by the deep scowl she shot in his direction.

"Aw, trust me, Sis. When have I ever steered you wrong?"

"I don't wanna." The younger one's face was scrunched up in a frown, lips pursed with consternation.

"It'll be fun!" If possible, the grin got broader as he held his hand out to his younger sibling.

She didn't take it, nose crinkling in deep thought.

"We could get hurt."

"We're not gonna get hurt. Big Brother will see to that." He scooped her up in his arms and swung her around until her frown began to fade and squeals of glee poured from her lips as she threw her arms into the air. He stopped after a moment.

"More! More!" She bounced up and down and shifted her weight violently back and forth as if to start the movement once more, clapping with excitement.

"You must heed my warning."

"You act like such a toddler some times. You'll let me twirl you around…" He rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her.

She mirrored his expression quickly.

"That means you do trust me."

"Well, duh." It was her turn to roll her eyes.

A mischievous glint gleamed in his expression and he raised an eyebrow at her, "I would bet," he emphasized the word, "that you wouldn't even last three minutes."

"Oh yeah?" Her hands flew defiantly to her hips, her eyes narrowing as she jutted her chin out at him.

"Yeah!" He grinned again.

"Well, I bet that you are a stinky mean-face!" She blew raspberries.

He threw his head back in a bellyful of laughter, and then moved his face towards hers while still chuckling, rubbing noses with her affectionately.

She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck.

...

"You used to be able to talk to my mind. Has something changed?"

"Well, yeah, something's changed. I don't remember how." She sighed and tried again.

Her face was creased up in concentration, but she didn't actually even know what to do. Was there some muscle she had to flex? She tried to flex her brain...

When it didn't work, she contented herself with looking over at the man sitting across from her. His skin was etched, clear-cut.

His bronze eyes were gazing off into the distance and despite the trouble she had getting him up into the tree in the first place—he couldn't understand how she derived so much joy in climbing them—he seemed content enough now.

"Just don't look down." He squeezed his eyes shut as the urge shot up through his stomach. They were only on the first branches of the tree that could hold them, but being away from the ground made his head reel. He felt someone's eyes on him.

His hair was catching the light through the roof of leaves and reflecting it in its iridescent manner, fascinating her as it usually did.

"The more I try to do this, the more I'm not going to be able to do it." She thought with resignation as another bout of 'flexing' did her no good.

He carefully began to shift his weight in preparation for the climbing down, feeling as if he'd been height-adventurous enough for one day. Hands…here…and feet…there. How did one climb out of a tree once getting up into one?

She became distracted by what she had been told was a 'dragonfly.' It flitted about her head and she gathered her body underneath herself, ready to swat at it and its pretty colors.

"You who should not exist weigh heavily on the shoulders of balance."

He was in trouble.

It wasn't so much that she read his thoughts at this moment, but more that she very distinctively felt the emotions his mind released. He planted his weight wrong on the branch and before his body knew it, his brain registered the miscalculation. The fluid in his ears sent a signal faster than light to the cells in his brain and told him he was off-balance.

First one foot slipped, then a hand missed grasping at the bark correctly, sending shavings of the outer covering of the tree trunk trickling to the ground. Not half a second had passed and his other foot failed to respond as he wanted. Everything seemed to move in slow-motion as his arms desperately tried to grab for a hold.

She heard his mind cry out before his mouth had a chance to execute it. It rang clearly in her head and she whipped about to face him.

In one fluid motion, she landed on the branch he had occupied moments before, bracing one hand on that branch and grasping frantically for his reaching hand. They met in the middle, each other's fingers clamped firmly about the opposite's forearm.

Now that the action had stopped and he swung a bit in the air, both parties realized how heavily they were breathing.

After the blood stopped rushing in her ears, she started to chuckle, slowly lowering him towards the ground. His face wore an expression of confusion until he felt his feet hit solid ground after a second or two of being lowered. She still easily had a hold of him. Her chuckle became amused giggles. His chin dropped to his chest and his shoulders began to shake until he almost couldn't stand it any longer. Then he threw his head back in a great big guffaw as she let go of his arm to clutch at her abdomen which started to ache from the laughter.

…

"He…he's dead."

The reality of the situation smacked her in the face and all of her denial, all of her hope, collapsed in one fatal blow.

"N-no."

She did not want to look at the sympathetic eyes, did not want those eyes to share her pain. Her pain was hers alone and no other had the right to bear it.

"There is chaos and there is order and too much of one or the other disrupts all of existence and causes it to falter like an unsure heartbeat."

"No.

She took a step back, her mind caving in on itself as a part of her sucked away abruptly. Instantly that hollow space filled with thoughts of revenge, thoughts of anger, and then no thoughts. She did not take notice of the arms that reached out for her.

"No!"

The killer would die. And by her hand. Something must suffer the agony that tore at her heart, the beginning of a deep ache that she knew would never leave her.

"NO!"

She ran, already able to taste the blood of her rage. Her mind broke down, all sense of self escaping out of a gaping chasm in her soul. There was no longer her, there was only hate.

…

Never before had she possessed any sort of power. But now, driven by her hatred, her anger, all of her strength boiled at the surface, easily at her beck and call.

"WHERE IS SHE?" The energy that burst from her body in her outcry permanently blinded the closest of the surrounding defenders.

Grabbing the nearest of those that couldn't see by the scruff of the neck, she lifted him in the air where he struggled blindly, and threw him down with such force that her feet lifted off the ground, a small crater forming underneath him, his backbone breaking in half. He instantly died. And she wasn't finished with him. Straddling his chest, she pummeled his face beyond recognition, her punches flying so fast that her fists were merely a blur.

Three of the other ones who had been close by lunged for her. They didn't need their eyes to fight for their training had transcended sight. One tackled her to the ground and the other two gave chase as the pair bounced and scraped across the dirt, struggling to come out on top. In the brief moment where their comrade had the upper hand, the other two grabbed for her arms.

Screaming in rage, she yanked her arms towards herself to loosen their grip just enough for her to retaliate with her fists in their faces as they fell towards her. She tossed the third off of her body and as he shot for her again she timed a ribcage shattering kick that sent him flying away from her.

"FACE ME YOU COWARD!"

Fire wreathed around her in a tight circle, five of her enemies channeling their power into the wall that threatened to engulf her completely.

Raising an arm and spreading her fingers apart, she pointed her palms towards one of the channelers and blasted him into oblivion. The other four's expressions faltered but the wall didn't waver.

One hand dropped as the other rose and moved to the next in line. She clenched her fingers into a fist and her energy clenched his body until he was crushed, the gore oozing out of his body in every direction. She rushed straight through the flames at the last three.

"Though the world keeps favoring that which it feels will serve it best."

Bringing her fist back to her ear, every ounce of her strength went behind the punch, breaking the nearest one's face. She swiftly shifted her weight, her leg coming up and across her body, ankle crushing the next one's shoulder into the side of his body before he crumpled to the ground.

She head-locked the last one in the crook of her arm, putting her free hand on the opposite side of his face and snapping his neck.

Dashing forward, she slammed her fists, first one then the other, in a prologue to a flurry of punches, into the nearest enemy, the momentum carrying both of them meters backwards into a tree. He crashed into the trunk, an indentation of his body forming into it. Her punches practically melded him with the bark, her eyes burning holes into his soul and he couldn't look away.

…

"For your assassination of the Shinobi of Fire, and your murdering and subsequent spilling of innocent blood, we judges find you guilty on all counts."

The Lady of Fire glowered in a menacingly happy kind of way with a hate-induced satisfaction at the ruling of the hastily assembled court. She had not been allowed to join in the decision process as the subject matter, the court felt, was too close to her heart and would cloud her judgment. However, she knew they would not, could not, ignore the plain and simple facts of what thousands had witnessed and fewer than a hundred had survived to testify. The sneer on her face briefly flowed to a frown. The guilty one would have a reputation that spread throughout the Makai like wildfire. Such power did not go unnoticed, and especially not by the youkai whose entire existences center around who was the strongest. Disgusting.

The female against whom the court ruled stood with her head down, her hands clasped together behind her back. Sans the Lady of Fire, the other Elements looked upon her with a great sorrow. The death that had triggered the bloodlust of the woman before them resonated deeply within their beings as a terrible loss and while some of them pitied her, others sympathized and did not know if they could have held back from such an outburst had a similar event happened to them.

"Death lingers, fed, satiated with lives that were not the one it was sent to rectify. It looms over you like a murderous shadow, and so the world continues to intercede for you. As is the very nature of the Elements, you cannot die as long as your element continues to thrive, but you most of all should not live."

The Lady of Water gazed upon her with the most troubled face of the gathered, her lips trembling with held-back tears, her cheeks and eyes red with tears that had already fallen. Through her inexpressible grief, she considered the dark-haired slayer and was only just able to keep the water in the corners of her eyes from spilling over onto her face.

What had once been short hair in a crystalline, silver color was now a deep black that flowed over the woman's shoulders, only remnants of silver streaking her head here and there as if in her mourning of that which she had lost, only his memory, his handiwork, remained. Out of all those who had died, only one life would be mourned by she whose hair now veiled her face in shadows, for only one of the deaths had mattered.

"You, Arienai, you will be branded for your transgressions. May all who speak your name call you Ansatsusha and remind you for eternity of those lives that you willingly took this day. You are hereby banished to The Island. Do not show your face again among us until the day of your atonement."

...

Free. Done. She did not wish to return to them that banished her. Besides, she had received visions, clues, indications via the Oracle that her brother had not died. These things would not allow her the courtesy of sitting back and doing nothing. But she didn't have enough of anything to know where to start. She needed more information.

She sought out any and all who could provide such, traveling the expanse of the three worlds, selling herself out as a mercenary, buying information in any way that she could. She had no more strength than the average youkai, and could not figure out how to tap into the rage she once felt, but her reputation in the Makai had grown because of her murderous spree. In her name alone, there was power. And, eventually, through time there came the strength. There weren't many who lived multiple millennia that did not become strong. But, it was a rather long process for she had not been trained for battle of any kind.

"Soon, they will all go into slumber, awaiting the end of their era where they will be awakened each one last time to return to what they were: the Heart of the Elements."

The ones seeking to rule over the Makai tried many times to recruit her into their ranks, but she did not chose sides and refused them, making more enemies in this way than she could count. She did not care for what she considered their petty and unimportant disputes; she only wanted that which had been lost. She was both revered and feared and in grave danger at all times: a threat to be removed from the playing board. She always escaped with her life, sometimes only just, sometimes through the intervention of others, her only thought to survive to find her brother. It drove her, fed her, and became the only thought on her mind at all times.

…

Misaki relived her life from as far back as she could remember it to mere moments before the Essence had grabbed her. The words whispered into her mind by an outside voice stirred her soul, but each one faded as quickly as it had come. Misaki tried to hold onto what the voice said but the harder she tried, the faster their meaning escaped her. Each time the words left her, as the memories poured passed her inner eye, her power returned, slowly, as it did through time, filling her, flowing within her, and cleansing her of her mortality. Everything that Koenma had stripped away from her those many years ago, everything he had taken in hand and shattered, returned to her through her mind as the Essence walked her down the paths she chose to tread.

"Only then will balance be restored."

"Balance?" She asked, "Restored?"

Suddenly, another surge of energy lashed into her.

Too much. It was too much.

Misaki had never felt such power before. It utterly consumed her.

Her entire being began to buzz, every single one of her molecules starting to dance in the over-energizing wave. As they danced, they pulled apart from one another and Misaki began to feel herself becoming like a mist in the air.

"No…no! This is wrong!"

Greedily, her body continued to absorb energy, as if it hungered the freedom of such a mortal restraint.

The every fiber of her being started to sing as farther and farther apart her molecules vibrated.

This was how it should be. Complete. Full of awesome power.

It took more will than Misaki thought she could ever be capable of to prevent herself from ripping apart into the space of the air around her.

For reasons she did not fully understand, she wanted to be free. Wanted release from the confines that her earthly body imposed upon her.

"Yes! Be gone from this world!"

"Your work is not done."

"You are hereby banished to the Island…"

"Trust me."

"Sleep. You must sleep."

The voices the reverberated inside her head might have been her own, but she could no longer tell the difference.

Suddenly, an image or a memory flashed before her eyes. Misaki's brother appeared before her, smiling face and kind eyes. Perhaps it happened at that very moment in time. Did he stand tall before her? Reaching out to her through the light and beckoning her onwards? Misaki felt him grasp her hand and jerk her forward. Everything snapped back into place.

Misaki felt the light receding from the space around her, being drawn into her body, and her feet touched solid ground again.

The energy that nearly overtook her dissipated with her brother's appearance.

As the light began to fade, Kuwabara, Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei carefully lowered their arms, which had been raised to shield their eyes, to see Misaki standing before them, arms held outwards from her sides, palms facing forwards.

Pure energy crackled in dangerous arcs over her still light-wrapped body. When she opened her eyes, the light shone from them and though she looked at them, she did not see them.

Instead, she saw the trees of the Makai as she ran past them while being chased by another group of youkai assassins sent to remove her from the their political game, the people of the Ningenkai as she walked among them in search of answers, the offices of the Reikai as she snuck in for information only the depths of their holdings contained, and the countless places she traveled to in her search for her brother, if he still lived, and his assassin, if he was dead.

"Mi...Misaki?" Yusuke took a hesitant step forward.

His voice came from very far away to her in her wanderings, from a different time completely.

Her gaze moved to him and she blinked. The light steadily lost its glow around her body, starting to disappear from the feet up. She raced through her mind to the present, memories pouring in at her from all sides but she ignored them all, plowing through to the cave she had left all those years ago.

Misaki blinked again, the light having completely receded except for her eyes. For just a moment it gave her an other-worldly appearance, and then she smiled, the green of her eyes returning as the light faded in entirety.

Kurama's eyes widened briefly at her smile, for it seemed so free that he hardly recognized it. Something obviously occurred between her and the essence, but the latter was no longer in sight and Kurama remembered nothing, and he suspected none of the others did either, from shortly after she began talking to Him until just a bit ago where he shielded his eyes from the bright light. How much time had passed?

"None, from your perspective, vessel." Misaki's eyes gleamed impetuously.

Kurama opened his mouth, and then grinned back at her infectious smile in spite of himself. He was truly pleased that she seemed so content.

"However, I have just lived over a millennia in my mind." She continued, resting her hands on her hips.

"Wow, grandma. You don't look a day over five hundred." Yusuke teased.

Misaki stuck her tongue out at him, "Smarty-pants."

"At your service." He bowed.

"So, uh, where did that one guy go?" Kuwabara scratched his head. "I felt this overwhelming sixth sense about him. Dangerous stuff. Did we scare him away?"

"Yes, Kuwabara. He was so frightened when he saw you that he turned tail and ran." Misaki pointed vaguely off into the distance.

Kuwabara straightened himself up, "Well, I am rather imposing, aren't I?"

"Yeah, if ugly and imposing mean the same thing."

"Shut up, Urameshi! I look better than you on my worst day than you do on your best day!"

"Well, I look better than you on my best day than me on my worse day!"

Misaki rubbed her temples and didn't even try to follow the pair as they went further and further into the rut they dug for themselves.

"Kazuma, is something the matter?"

Everyone's head turned towards the Koorime they had almost forgotten about as she yawned and stood up.

"No, nothing at all, dearest! I am merely defending my honor!"

"What's left of it, anyway." Yusuke pointed out.

Misaki was glad to see that, as she had intended, Yukina slept through the entire experience with the Essence. While the males may have been able to compartmentalize what they saw, though Misaki did not doubt they would likely wrestle with it later, at night, when they were alone and trying to sleep, she had wished to spare that which had managed to remain so pure in a world that was so…not. The Koorime had been sleepy anyway, so it was only a small matter to coax her mind into a rest as they had descended deeper into the dimension.

"Are you all ready to go back?"

Yusuke warily glanced in the direction he thought they had been. "Do what?"

"We'll head back to the house in the Ningenkai if no one has any objections."

"And just how do you propose we do that?" Hiei spoke up for the first time, his words sounding harsh and venomous.

Sensing something desperately wrong in him, Misaki mentally reached towards his mind.

Instantly, he recoiled from her touch and fought back, refusing her entry. The Jagan was a staunch opponent that glared into her head and Misaki quickly backed off, not desiring a confrontation.

The emotions at the surface of his thoughts, which Misaki had been able to catch before he closed up, were confusing. Mostly anger, some satisfaction, and…something else she for which did not have a name.

"Please don't say we have to climb back up all of those stairs." Yusuke groaned, pulling Misaki back to the present.

"We don't have to climb back up all of those stairs." She said to reassure him.

"I hear a conjunction coming with that sentence…" Kurama noted wryly.

"No ands or buts." Misaki said primly, "I believe another teleport is in order."

Smiling again, happy to hear heart beats and smell the people around her, Misaki gestured off to the side to a teleport that appeared in the Essence's absence.

-lotsm