I kinda got just a little carried away with this chapter. Sorry if you don't like long chapters… :) He he. And the characters that belong to me still remain at Kiyoshi, Akiko, Kasumi, and Takeshi. Also, I am very excited about this story. Not only am I nearly obsessed with it, but it is receiving a great response from all of you who have reviewed! YAY!

Takeshi made the first move, making to step into the dangerous area. But at the same moment, both Kiyoshi and Akiko shouted, "Stop!" Well, Kiyoshi shouted, Akiko said it in a voice that told everyone that she didn't care in the slightest whether or not he stopped. He did, although he looked at them questioningly. "You can't just step into this." Kiyoshi explained. "Your sixth sense might help, but not enough. You might get a few yards before it failed, but you would be attacked, and soon."

"Then how do you propose we get in?" Kasumi challenged.

"I want to try a few things first," Kiyoshi answered vaguely. He knew the aura reinforcing the plants was much stronger than his own. Therefore, he wouldn't be capable of killing them. He tried manipulating them out of the way without much success. But then he noticed something. He said, in wonderment, "It's a perfect circle. The plants this demon used are contained in a perfect circle." And something much more important, something that astonished Kiyoshi. "It's either negligence, an attempt to lull us into a false sense of security, arrogance, or… a challenge." He muttered to himself. "But if it's been secure so long, it can't be negligence or arrogance. This was done on purpose."

He looked up to find the rest of the team raising their eyebrows at him. In explanation for his mutterings, he said, "There are gaps."

"Gaps?" Kasumi questioned.

"Yes, gaps. As in there are small gaps in specific places throughout the protection of whatever is on the inside. So small and precise, in fact, that I believe it was done on purpose, meaning they want to lull us into thinking we're safe, or…" Kiyoshi trailed off.

"Or…?" Kasumi prompted him.

He met her gaze. "Or it's a challenge." He paused. "I think it's a challenge."

"A challenge?" Akiko said skeptically.

He nodded. "The openings are to minute to be the first option. And it's too much of a… a pattern to be mistakes to due to negligence or arrogance."

"A challenge?" Kasumi repeated Akiko.

"I think whoever created this wanted to see if anyone would get through. If anyone could get through."

"I don't feel any gaps." Takeshi said bluntly. Akiko and Kasumi nodded.

"They're so small that only a person who listens to their sense and has a fairly strong connection to plants can even feel them. But to find them is only the first step of passing the challenged. Because navigating through them to the center will be much more difficult."

After this announcement, a silence filled the air for a few moments. Finally, Kasumi said, "So. Do you think you can lead us through?"

Kiyoshi glanced back at the grove, feeling once again the miniscule breaks in the wall of the green fortress surrounding who-knew-what. When he turned back to the group, there was a defiance and a determination in his eyes unlike any the group had seen there before. When he answered, it sounded powerful, determined, sure. "Yes."

Koenma was desperately worried about his new team. However, he couldn't interfere with this mission. He couldn't interfere with any mission. He knew from experience that just letting the team do what it would was, in the long run, both the safest and the easiest option. And also what generally happened in the end anyway.

But he was still worried in spite of all that.

So he sat at his desk, passing the communicator back and forth from one hand to the other. He was debating on whether or not to contact Kasumi.

In the end, he opened the device and pressed one-eight-three, the number of Kasumi's device. She didn't respond. Which meant on of three things. Either she didn't hear it, couldn't access it wherever it was, or the team was in trouble.

Before panicking, he tried the other three's devices. Then he panicked because none of them answered. He began thinking of what he could do. But nothing seemed logical.

For the past few minutes, an obnoxiously loud beeping had permeated the silence around the group. The noise was frustrating, mainly to Kasumi and Takeshi. "Why can't we just answer the damn device?" Kasumi demanded.

"We can't afford the distraction Koenma would create."

"And the noise isn't a distraction?"

"Just hit the button on the back edge; that'll shut it completely off." Kiyoshi said in an exasperated voice. The other three did as he suggested and the beeping died, leaving an oppressive silence in its place. Kasumi sighed, thankful the noise was gone. And once again the group concentrated on making their way through the trap filled area. One concentrated on finding the exact places it was necessary to step to avoid injury and possible death. The other three focused solely on imitating Kiyoshi's step.

"Could we stop for a few minutes?" Takeshi called from the back of the group.

"Do you want to get dismembered? Do you want to get eaten?" Kiyoshi called back. "'Cause that's what'll happen if we stop. Genkai showed me many of the plants surrounding us. That's what they do. Most you could escape from. But not these. These have help. Is that what you want Takeshi? To be ripped to pieces and eaten? Or eaten whole or alive? Is that what you want? If it is, be my guest and stop. But I'm not." Kiyoshi's tone was hard, sarcastic. They'd never heard him speak like that, but it made them realize a few things.

First of all, in the few weeks since they had met, Kiyoshi had come to truly care about each of them; he was too shy to ever use that tone with someone he didn't like.

Second, he was intelligent. They knew that, but hadn't realized that he was an intelligent person who didn't have much tolerance for stupid questions or stupid people.

Third, he was a person who didn't like to be interrupted, at least while he was really concentrating on something important.

Fourth, Kiyoshi was much more powerful and observant than any of them had thought. The way they knew about his observation skills was obvious. But the way he said it conveyed a power none of them had previously detected in Kiyoshi.

And finally, Kiyoshi knew he had that power. But he didn't want anyone else to know he had it.

But just how powerful he actually was, was one thing that was still up for debate.

As they followed him, it gradually became harder and harder for them to keep following Kiyoshi's exact footsteps. Part of this was that the vegetation was growing thicker the farther they traveled and that the holes the demon had left were growing smaller and fewer. The other reason was that Kiyoshi had sped up, sensing that they were close to their goal.

"Could you slow down?" Kasumi gasped, out of breath.

"Sorry." Kiyoshi promptly set his pace to one the others could keep up with.

And although they were getting closer, the forest around them showed no signs of ending. It still seemed just as impenetrable and dense to Akiko, Takeshi, and Kasumi as it had the first moment they set eyes on it.

But for Kiyoshi, it was completely different. This challenge had awoken in him a determination to improve more than anything Genkai had thrown at him had done. And it was becoming easier and easier to see the rare, simple places it was safe to stand. Suddenly, he couldn't understand why no one had gotten through here before. He could understand why most people would have trouble, but not why there wasn't anyone who hadn't had trouble. Because, suddenly, every single gap was downright obvious.

"They've definitely gone in, Master Koenma." He had sent Botan back to check and see if they had even entered. "And I talked to the other ferry-girls; none of them has escorted any of the four to Reikai."

He nodded. "Well, it's not that they just won't answer. It's that every single one of them has turned their communicator clear off."

Botan's eyes widened, clearly saying that she, like Koenma, had assumed the worst.

All four of them were exhausted, yet, for reasons Kiyoshi had already explained, they could not afford to stop.

But, abruptly, the vegetation ended. It wasn't a clearing but a ring two feet wide surrounding a circle of trees, made impassable by the thickness and density of their trunks and branches. But Kiyoshi could feel that their goal was on just the other side of the trees.

"See this ring?" he asked the others. "It's safe. But whatever you do, do not touch any of the plants on either side."

They sat and rested a moment, after which Kiyoshi began walking the ring. Its circumference was very large. But the thing he noticed most was that each of the trees was exactly the same width and exactly the same distance from its two neighbors. And every twenty-third tree had a knot on it at precisely the same spot.

After a while, he came full circle and found the rest of the group waiting for him. "I need to think." That was the only thing he could tell them.

He sat down and began talking to himself, the way he did whenever he really needed to think hard. "Four knots, ninety-two trees. But what order to touch them in? What order?"

Suddenly he remembered; next to each of the knotted trees there had been one or more vines. "Could it really be that simple?" he asked himself. Deciding it was worth a shot, he got up and went over to the group. "Come one. I think I've figured it out. But if I'm right, I'll need your guys' help. And be careful. I want each of us to stand in front of a tree. When your communicator goes off—make sure you turn it back on—press the knot in front of you immediately. Don't bother actually checking it." They nodded.

As he was leading them around the tree, just as they approached the first tree, the edge of Takeshi's sneaker brushed against the lone vine crossing the path. It instantaneously wrapped itself around his ankle and began pulling him backward, toward the dangerous forest surrounding them. He lost his balance. Reaching out to steady himself, Takeshi's hand landed on the knot. And although the ivy refused to release him it stopped in its attempts to drag him away. Thinking all was over, Takeshi removed his hand. Immediately, the plant started pulling again and he put his hand back.

Kiyoshi determined that, as long as his hand remained on the knot, Takeshi was safe. He then led Akiko and Kasumi to the second tree, where he instructed Kasumi to place her hand on the knot. She was careful avoid the two vines on the ground. He repeated this process with Akiko at the third tree, and he did it himself at the fourth. And… nothing happened.

He removed his hand from the tree. "What did I miscalculate?" he asked the air in front of him. "I know it's the knots that will get us inside. Once Takeshi touched the first, he was safe, even though he had touched the vine." Even though he had touched the vine.

Kiyoshi immediately hit the number of Akiko's device into his own. He then instructed her to stop touching the knot. He told the same thing to Kasumi.

Then he took a breath and said, "Kasumi, now step on both the vines at your feet and touch the knot as quickly as you can." She did so.

Again he went through the process with Akiko and then himself. And as soon as he hit the final tree with the palm of his hand, all four of them were drawn upside-down through the air by the vines at their feet. Soon they were placed gently on the ground on the other side of the trees, where the vines then released their ankles and receded into the branches.

But when they looked up, Kasumi was forced to hit the button on the left of her communication device, in order to contact her boss. Because, although it wasn't exactly an emergency, it was a pretty damn big piece of news, if you asked Kasumi. Because the sight that met their eyes when they looked up was one that not only they but also Botan and even Koenma could not have anticipated.

Meanwhile…

The three men were sitting together around a fire the shortest had lit. He was asleep, but the other two just stared into the flames.

Unexpectedly, the taller one, the one with the lightest hair, said, "Interesting. Someone has just invaded our last hideout. They actually got all the way in."

The dark-haired one replied, "Glad we left now, aren't you?"

"Of course, but it would be nice to meet the person who led the group in; he's the only person in nearly two and a half centuries to have made it all the way through."

The other rolled his eyes. "But now you're sure to lose everything in there."

"That's fine," the first replied, totally at ease. "If I had taken it because I want money, don't you think I would have done something with it by now? The only reason I ever stole anything in the first place was for the thrill, then when it turned out I was good at it, for the fame. It was never for the stuff. But I wasn't about to just give it back. They needed to work for it, just as I had had to work for it. But no one ever came close to recovering it. If I had really cared about it, I wouldn't have made a path to it; there wouldn't have been any gaps."

The darker-haired one snorted. "So this is all just a game to you?"

"The escaping from Koenma? No. The stealing and hiding? Yes. A game no one has ever come close to beating me at. But I might finally have found a contender." He looked pleased, excited almost, about the idea of having some competition.

"Whatever you say," the other chuckled.

"And to make it that much more interesting, I think Koenma has finally hired a new team." His eyes flashed dangerously. "I almost feel sorry for them."

"What makes you say that?"

"My connections to my plants tell me that of the four who gained access, only one is a demon. And the one who led them in is human. Which means that they are probably on a job assigned to them by Koenma."

"Crap. That means soon they'll come looking for us. And if they got through your defenses…" he trailed off, contemplating how long they could reasonably expect to stay on the run from Koenma, now that he had talented and smart people. Most likely people he would eventually send after his missing last team.

"Don't worry. They may have got there but I still don't think they have a chance of beating me at my own game. That den was, by far, the easiest to get into. And it still took them half a day." He then looked at the other man evenly. "And they haven't even begun trying to get out."

The other, only slightly reassured had opened his mouth to answer when the third man said, not bothering to open his eyes, "Would you two shut up? I would have thought that it was obvious I was trying to sleep." The other two snorted, not at all surprised by his comment or the fact that he hadn't actually been asleep. They rolled over and then they, too, passed into the oblivion of sleep.