Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ, YYH, or the characters. Just OCs…this is repetitive -_-

Kaiya woke up the next morning, sunlight hitting her face. Blinking a few times, she sat up and rubbed the remainder of sleep from her eyes. She let out one last yawn before looking around her, remembering the task at hand. After a good night's rest, she was surprised that she felt so…light.

"Maybe I really did need to get some rest," she muttered to herself. "That damned emotional side of the brain." She thought about the day before and shook her head. Now that she had had a sufficient amount of sleep, her rational mind was back in control. "What the hell was I thinking?"

A knock on her door stopped her from thinking about her misplaced thoughts. She didn't respond, but Alexia entered anyway. Kaiya glared slightly at her before sarcastically saying, "Come in."

"Gladly," Alexia said calmly, though shocked by Kaiya's attitude. "Look, I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. Are you okay? I mean, you were upset about something with Vegeta. Everything okay with him?"

"It's fine, Lexi," Kaiya replied under her breath. "I just overreacted again, like all the other times I don't get enough sleep and stupid drama happens."

"Not sleeping?" Alexia asked, stunned. "Are you serious, Kaiya? Again?"

"I said again, did I not?" the girl replied with a sigh. She pushed her bangs from her face. "I've been having nightmares lately," she admitted, though she wasn't going to mention hers and Vegeta's telepathic connection. "It's been building up, so I was highly emotional, and I kind of got into an argument with Vegeta. He doesn't know I'm on a mission. I just told him I was hanging out with you and the girls."

"O…kay?" Alexia responded, not sure of what that had to do with anything. "Anyways, is that why you were zoned out last night?"

Kaiya paused and felt like all time stopped around her. "I did what now?" she asked hesitantly.

Alexia stared at her strangely. "You…you zoned out," Alexia told her. "When Kiense and I were in the room, talking about you. You snapped out of it and then sort of passed out. What happened? Did it have to do with your past memories?"

"N-n-no," Kaiya answered. "I, that no longer happens with my memories. I have full access to them. I shouldn't be zoning out."

"Are you sure?" Alexia pressed. "I mean, it was traumatic, so maybe you don't remember everything."

"No, I do," Kaiya nearly exclaimed. "I remember everything that happened before I went to class, and then waking up in Vegeta's room and everything with Frieza. Everything."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Alexia exclaimed. "You don't remember anything in between that time?"

"I was unconscious!" Kaiya shouted. "What am I supposed to remember?"

"Were you?"

Those two words made Kaiya feel slightly dizzy. Part of her was trying to think back to that period of time, and it did not feel good. Whatever it was, something was wrong with that small lapse in time. She needed to shrug it off now. "It's not important," she attempt to assure her cousin. Unfortunately, Alexia did not buy it.

"It happens every time we have a mission," she said in alarm as Kaiya was about to leave the room.

The young Saiyan/demon hybrid froze, her hand barely touching the doorknob. Hearing the word mission seemed to irritate her all of a sudden. She shook her head once more before turning to her cousin. "Really, Lexi, it's nothing," she lied before going in search of a Saiyan-sized breakfast.

Vegeta took back to intense training like a fish to water. He hadn't stopped his intense training, but he allowed more distractions. Not today, though, as he shot his ki blasts at the training bots Bulma had fixed. No, today the Saiyan prince was in a particularly bad mood. Being disturbed by his sister's thoughts was bothersome, and Vegeta found himself caring more than he should about the mysteries that seemed to surround the girl. But right now, he couldn't worry about it. He had goals to meets: become Super Saiyan, defeat Kakarot, kill Jiro, and possibly stay on the planet, but he hadn't worked that out yet. He'd see once the first three goals were met.

As he dodged his own blasts at heightened gravity, he smirked. He was getting faster, and the gravity was already set to more than 350G's. Take that, Kakarot, he taunted mentally. He wished the younger Saiyan was around to hear him gloating, but it was enough to know that he was starting to close in on his rival. He would become a Super Saiyan, or he would die trying.

He grimaced as thoughts of his sister entered his mind again. He scolded himself when he narrowly dodged another blast. Sending purple energy waves at the bots surrounding him, he knocked them to the ground and then ended the simulation. Just in time too as his stomach growled alerting him to hunger. He had already been in there since the night before. A small break was welcomed.

Entering the kitchen, he found Bulma flipping through yet another science magazine. She always seemed to glance at those when they came in the mail. The prince rolled his eyes and made his way to the refrigerator. Neither of the two present in the kitchen said anything as Vegeta started eating leftovers from the fridge.

"Break anymore bots?" Bulma questioned before flipping a page.

"Hmph," Vegeta grunted, taking a bite out of a cold chicken leg.

"I'll take that as a 'not yet,'" Bulma joked bitterly. "I'm heading out today, so if you break any of your toys, you'll have to wait."

Vegeta just walked back outside, not even giving her any kind of response. He wasn't going to fall for her guilt tactics. She was mad at him, he knew, for upsetting his own sister. Everyone was overreacting, and part of Vegeta felt that even Kaiya knew that herself. After this ridiculous mission assigned to her was over, he was getting her back into training whether she liked it or not, and he would continue with the same methods regardless. She had to learn one way or another. She was raised Earthling, but she was still partly a Saiyan. She would learn the Saiyan way. She could do whatever she wanted with it after.

And he was thinking about it again, which angered him greatly. Well, no matter, another ten hours of unbroken training and it would be out of his system, he hoped.

"So, she's doing better I take it?" Yusuke carefully asked his fire demon friend.

"Yes, detective," Hiei replied in frustration. "She'll be fine, no thanks to her brother."

"Oh come on, Hiei," Kuronue retorted. "You know you weren't always so mellow around her. I seem to remember hearing stories of you trying to fight her on many occasions."

Hiei scowled at the bat demon. He had obviously said something wrong. Kurama flashed his friend a warning look. The fox knew more about the fights than Kuronue did and attacking Hiei about them was not a wise move.

"It was for communication purposes only," Hiei replied with a shrug. "They were mutual fights."

"Like the first fight between you two where she was covered in cuts and bruises?" Yusuke teased lightly. "Come on, Hiei, admit it. Maybe, on some level, Vegeta was trying to communicate with her too. I mean, she has been sort of closed off lately, right?"

Hiei shook his head. Of course the idiot would see it that way, because Kaiya was keeping matters where they should be, between her and Vegeta, and when Vegeta wasn't around, she vented only to him about her visions and her fears. She wasn't planning on going to anyone else in their group. They wouldn't understand, anyway. Besides, Hiei wasn't pissed off about the disagreement, but by whatever was said to cause Kaiya to have that misplaced fear of rejection after she had seemingly gotten over it.

"Whatever," came the fire demon's reply. He wished he could disagree with Yusuke, but he couldn't. He was more concerned about Kaiya's mental health and what she needed to hear than actually thinking on what exactly happened. He was a demon ruled by his own anger issues, and quickly settled on rage than any other emotion at times. His past victims would be able to vouch for that…if they were alive that is.

"We should start training," Kurama suggested. "We have a lot riding on the tournament this year."

"Don't remind me," Hiei muttered. He didn't need to be reminded of all the craziness Spirit World launched them into, especially when his girlfriend was thousands of miles away trying her hand at yet another seemingly impossible case.

Kaiya was ready to leave the rented house they were in as soon as she was done eating breakfast. She did not know why she felt irritable, nor did she understand why she was feeling the sensation of her blood pumping. It was almost like she wanted to hit something, really hard, and keep hitting it until the feeling went away. Well, she knew she was prone to mood swings when she was upset about something, so for now she planned to ignore it. Instead, they needed to plan out how they were going about this mission.

Koenma gave limited information on their target, but they already knew they were dealing with another demon hunter. They had no idea what kind of powers he, or whatever followers he amassed, had. It was like when they were sent after Alternate Kiense all over again, except they had known he was a fire demon.

"So where should we start?" Kiense questioned. "I mean, I'm new to this, really. What should we do?"

"When our friends had to go after your counterpart," Kaiya started calmly, "we did recon first. Looking around the different towns for answers. We should be able to do that again. It's only one town, and there are plenty of us."

"That's a good start," Shizuru said, "but what should we do about groupings?" She looked over to Yukina and Botan. "Not everyone here is a fighter."

Botan caught on to what she was trying to say. "Oh Shizuru, don't worry about us," Botan chimed. "I've been on plenty of missions with the boys. It's not that difficult."

"Until we get to the actual fighting," Alexia pointed out. "But like Kaiya said, we do recon first. It's the safest. Besides, she can sense energy now. If she senses any elevated energy levels or whatever they're called, then that will narrow our search down even more."

"I agree with all of this," Marissa said, "but I don't like the idea of Suze joining us."

"Aw, why?" the teenaged girl asked. After getting a stern look from her friends, she sighed. "I could always look after the place, if Toshi stays with me."

"Way to throw me under the bus," the boy grumbled. "Anyways, I have a suggestion first. You girls aren't seriously planning on wearing those clothes, are you? You're going to stand out."

Kaiya and Alexia were taken aback. Both of them were wearing some type of uniform that looked like they had gotten out of a class at a dojo. Yukina and Botan had their kimonos. Shizuru had her street clothes. Then they looked over to Marissa and Mayonaka who were wearing more summertime style sundresses.

"What do you propose?" Alexia bit back.

Toshi smirked and looked to Kiense. "I say we take the girls shopping for more appropriate clothes for 'recon.'"

Kaiya's eyes narrowed at her sister's friend. "Why am I already dreading this?"

"This has got to be the funniest thing I've ever seen," Kuwabara chuckled.

"Say another word, and I kill you," Kaiya uncharacteristically grumbled.

This caused their large group to break out in laughs. Kaiya rolled as her eyes at her friends before looking at herself in the mirror. Now she knew how Vegeta felt when Bulma left him the pink shirt. She was being forced to model a pink dress that Mayonaka had picked out.

"Come on, sis," Mayonaka whined. "You look good in that dress."

"I am not leaving walking out of this store looking like this," Kaiya retorted. "It's bad enough I hate dresses, but it has to be pink?"

"No," Alexia said between giggles. She handed Kaiya a pure white dress. "Try this one, Kaiya. I think you'll like it better."

The irritated girl snatched the dress from her cousin while muttering stuff under her breath. Everyone had to bite their lip to refrain from laughing and setting the girl off more. The pink dress was thrown over the door before Kaiya came out in the white dress.

"Okay," Toshi teased, "we're a go. The pink dress was better, though."

"Let's just get out there," Kaiya growled. She really wanted to get this mission over with. She really hoped it wouldn't take too long to get information.

Hiei, Yusuke, Kurama, and Kuronue were having a battle royale in the back of Genkai's temple. They were fairly close to the forest's edge as they hit each other with their energy attacks, and weapons in Hiei's and Kurama's case. Yusuke and Kuronue focused on each other as Hiei and Kurama started their own battle. Kurama used his rose whip to attack Hiei, but the fire demon deflected it with his katana before shooting out flames from his left hands. Kurama narrowly dodged his counterattack, but he did manage to catch Hiei off-guard and trap him with the vines that crawled up the trunks of trees.

"Gah!" Hiei called out in shock. He shot a glare at Kurama. "Seriously?"

Kurama simply smiled at him. "It appears I am the winner here, Hiei."

Hiei refused to accept being beaten by a cheap trick. "No," he growled before smirking. It was time to reveal some of the things he learned from training with Vegeta the last few weeks.

Yusuke and Kuronue stopped fighting when the felt the ground beneath them shaking. Leaves began to fall from the trees, surrounding the fighters, but were incinerated as they touched the red aura appearing around Hiei. Kurama readied his whip again, deciding to stay on the defensive as the red light around Hiei started ripping the vines. The other two fighters watched in stunned silence as Hiei broke free, overcoming Kurama's demon energy with an energy they couldn't quite place. It was different from both demon and spirit energy, and even the Sacred Energy a former enemy had assaulted them with.

"W-what's going on?" Yusuke asked Kuronue. The half-demon hoped that a demon who had been around for centuries would know a little more about this, though after seeing the look on Kurama's face when he had been around even longer, he doubted any of them knew.

After Hiei broke free, he couldn't help but smirk at the confused expression the fox demon wore. It was always a challenge to stump him with his thousand years of experience. The fire demon took advantage of the confusion and flash-stepped behind his friend, using his red ki to gently knock the demon over. Kurama tilted his head slightly, and saw the blade of Hiei's katana.

"And I believe you spoke too soon, fox," he said arrogantly before removing his sword from Kurama's neck.

Kurama chuckled slightly. "I believe you are right, Hiei," he agreed. "But what was that. I've never seen energy like it. I couldn't even feel it."

Hiei waited for Kurama to get off of the ground before answering. "It's ki," Hiei told him. "Life energy. All living things have access to it, though not everyone can use it."

"So that's the energy Kaiya meant that we couldn't sense from that Frieza guy," Yusuke pondered as he walked over. "But how do you know how to use it."

"Training with Vegeta," Hiei explained. "Ki has more power than spirit and demon energy. They have more limits than life energy."

"That's sick!" Yusuke exclaimed in excitement. "Wait, so Vegeta taught you how to use it, right?" Hiei responded with a nod.

"Then I think we should try to learn to use it as well," Kuronue stated. "Anything to give us an edge in the tournament."

"Agreed," said Kurama as he dusted himself off.

"Um, excuse me…"

The four fighters froze and turned to see a teenaged girl carrying a younger girl and holding the hand of a little boy. It was easy to see that they were all related as they shared dark violet hair and amber eyes.

"Who the hell are you?" Hiei asked dangerously. He sensed out the eldest's energy and found that it felt familiar to him. The young boy looked like he wanted to attack, but the older woman squeezed his hand in warning. The little girl in her arms hid her face in the older woman's neck.

"Can you please not scare my siblings?" Mizuki said. She swallowed when Hiei's glare darkened and the other three did not look any more welcoming. It made her wonder why she was doing this. The demon hunter had been planning on waiting before coming here, but in light of recent conversations she overheard, she had no choice. She knew, if she didn't get her and her siblings out of her house, that they'd be dead sooner rather than later. Jiro was coming after her, and she knew she needed to keep them safe.

"My name is Mizuki," she told them. "These are my younger siblings, Kala and Tristen. I…I was a demon hunter, but I can't do it anymore. I…we need your help."

"And why should we help you?" Yusuke questioned.

"Because I have information that could save your lives," Mizuki offered. She took a deep breath and got ready to make her next move. "Jiro is planning on attacking during the Demon World Tournament. The Forlorn Hope is a backup."

When she saw four pairs of wide eyes looking at each other in question, and then the red-haired demon nod, she felt a wave of relief. Kurama walked over to her and said, "We will let you stay, but don't think for an instant that that means we trust you. As for your siblings, no matter what, we'll make sure they're safe."

"Thank you," Mizuki whispered. Because other than me, they have no one else.

"We better let Genkai know about the new arrivals," Kuronue suggested. "In the meantime, we better warn the others."

"Right," Yusuke spoke up. "I don't trust him with that mirror, especially after he hurt-" After receiving a glare from Hiei daring him to continue, he laughed nervously and said, "I mean after what he's done in the past."

"It's no secret," Mizuki said with a frown, "what he did to his…his daughter. I didn't know before joining. I never knew what kind of freaky club I was joining until I heard him and Jake bragging about all the stuff they pulled on your group, as well as sensing a few other things."

"If you didn't join to follow their methods, why did you?" Kurama interrogated.

"Not all demons are bad," she said setting Kala down, "but there are some that are, like the ones that attacked us when we were younger. I joined to protect my family, not to destroy another group of protectors who fight the evil demons."

"Even if we were to believe your story," Hiei started, "you are still the enemy. You were one of the ones that brought him back with the Dragon Balls."

"W-WHAT?" Yusuke exclaimed. "Hiei, how do you know that?"

Hiei didn't have to answer because Mizuki was willing to confess. "Yes, but in my defense, it was all Jake's idea. He knew about the Dragon Ball legend. He didn't even know anyone else was familiar with it. I didn't know either until he told me. Then Jiro announced that he always knew and purposefully left it behind so that one of the demon hunters would find it."

"If he knew, why didn't he go after them before?" Kurama wondered out loud. "It would have been easy for him, I would assume."

Mizuki shrugged. "He said someone else was after them all the time and he didn't want to get involved."

"Hn, coward," Hiei scoffed, though he sounded amused. "I know why he wouldn't go after them."

"Planning on sharing?" Yusuke asked in irritation.

"No," Hiei replied, knowing it had to do with Bulma's and Goku's past adventures. "I'll be in my tree."

"Wah?" Yusuke managed to speak out before Hiei raced past them and the rustling of trees was heard. "Damn it, just when we need him to talk. Where's Kaiya when you need her?"

Kuronue and Kurama chuckled, ignoring the confused stares of the small family in front of them.

"Mimi," Tristen spoke up, "things just got really weird."

"You have no idea, little bro, no idea."