Genkai let out a small groan as she tossed to her other side and shut her eyes tightly, hoping it would help her go back to sleep. Another cheer was heard down the hall. No use, the kids were too loud. She gave an even angrier groan as she got up and dressed. "What the hell are they doing?" She murmured to herself as she slid open the door to her bedroom that let out into a dark, deserted hallway. She was about to march towards the light at the very end of the hallway when she felt a breeze that instantly caused her to spin on her heel and go for the door to the gardens instead. She cracked it open only to be met with a headache.
"Top of the mornin' to ya!" Jin greeted with a rush of cold air in her face.
"Hello, Jin," The old psychic said in a monotone. "What are you doing here?"
"Well that's no friendly way ta great a guest!" Jin replied sternly in his heavy Irish accent.
"It's two a.m. Jin," Genkai sounded as if she were actually saying "it's never a good time to deal with someone as loud and obnoxious as you."
"Oh right," Jin laughed and scratched the back of his head. "Well, Touya told me to meet him here… oh! And Shishi and Suzuka are coming too!" Jin wiggled his ears eager to meet up with his old buds. "I had just arrived when you opened the door. It seems Chu and Rinku are here too! I'm so excited!" He looked like he was about to break into an Irish tap dancing routine.
"Yes," Genkai answered, obviously still annoyed by being woken up, "It appears they are. I'm going back to bed." Genkai closed the door on Jin and started towards her bedroom when she remembered her original reason for being up. She huffed and made her was down the hall to where the light was seeping through and flung the door open, making it smack against its hinges a little rougher than she would have liked.
Yusuke and Chu hurled themselves around to face the old woman. The bags around her eyes made her look like a ghost to the drunken lot. Everyone present, including the two younger Rinku brothers who were playing ball outside on the porch, stopped what they were doing and stared. Kuwabara was the first to speak, "Oops," was all that came out but by the look on his face, that's not what he meant to say.
"What is this, a family reunion?" She growled in a tired and sarcastic voice.
At that moment another set of doors parallel to the ones Genkai stood at swung open with a rush of cold air. Jin, Touya, Shishi Wakamaru, and Suzuka walked in with big smiles each mumbling a series of their personal greetings and apologies for the intrusion. Yusuke's grin nearly broke his face as he turned back to Genkai, "Now it is!" He cheered and took a swig of some rum he had gotten from Chu.
Genkai rolled her eyes and closed the door behind her and she was in the dark again. "I'm too old for this." The door barely concealed the party noises. "I hope the convenience store is open, I need ear plugs," she grumbled to herself as she walked back to her room to get ready to leave.
"Getting kicked out of your own temple?" An extremely high pitched voice came from behind her as she was putting on her shoes by the front doors.
Genkai didn't stop her process as she calmly replied, "It appears that way."
Koenma gave a light laugh as he sat down next to the old woman.
"I think I missed the memo about becoming nocturnal," Genkai hissed sarcastically as she started for the long descending stairs.
Koenma watched her for a second, "Hey! Wait up!" he ran to catch up with her. "I have some bad news," Koenma put on his serious face. He was in his teenage form but he wasn't wearing his usual attire, instead he was wearing tight, black slacks and an oversized navy blue button down shirt and a red scarf.
"I didn't think you came to join the riot in there," Genkai sounded as if she wanted to say something more along the lines of "No shit, when do you ever show up just to say hi?" She started walking down the stairs faster to see if Koenma could keep up, "What's the story?"
Koenma pushed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, "It's complicated…" he began.
"Hmph, tell me something I don't know."
"It relates to Jin actually."
Genkai perked up at this and decided to give Koenma a better ear as he continued.
"Actually, his father. He's an S Class demon who has been dormant until now. His affinity is light."
Genkai's face grew concerned, "That's far more dangerous than it sounds, I'm assuming."
Koenma nodded, "The other problem is he's coming after Jin's older sister for revenge," He paused in his tracks.
Genkai looked back up at him with a face that read "Well, spit it out already!"
"I might even be too late if—," He paused again, terrified of the possible outcomes.
"If what?" Jin jumped in between Genkai and Koenma.
"EEK!" Koenma threw his hands up to protect himself from the surprise attack. When he realized he wasn't under attack he tried to go back to a normal manner, "How did you hear us from back in the reunion room?"
Jin pointed to his twitching ears, "Speak, I'm not in the mood ta be messin' around," he growled, "My sister's in danger."
"Yes and the only person I know who might be able to stop your father is Yusuke," Koenma finally got to his point for being there. "Only, I had to fire him two years ago so I can't make him help."
"You wouldn't need ta force him ta help," Jin growled again, his energy was flaring up in his anger. It was obvious he was freaking out about his sister's well being, "My sister is on the way here anyways."
"What?!" Koenma's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "The battle between light and dark should not be happening in the human world!"
"My sister has been livin' in Ireland for decades," Jin furrowed an eyebrow, "Aren't you supposed ta know these small details?"
"She has?!" Koenma seemed more shocked than before.
Genkai deadpanned and pushed Jin out of the way before he could reply, "We'll do our best." Then she pushed Koenma out of her way as well and started marching back up the stairs.
"What're you blokes doin' here!" Chu grinned as he put Touya in a headlock and started giving him a noogie.
"You're obviously drunk past your norm," Touya replied quietly. Chu laughed as Mai came up behind him clumsily. Touya perked up at the new face as Chu released him from his grasp, "Who's this?"
"Oh!" Chu turned back to his little sister and pushed her up into the group that was also composed of Yusuke, Shishi Wakamaru, and Suzuka. "This is my lil sis, Mai!" he was in the habit of being too loud for close proximities.
Mai laughed at how drunk her newly found brother was and turned to Touya and put out a hand for a hand shake, "It's nice to meet you," Touya shook her hand firmly and then Mai leaned in towards Touya and covered her mouth so Chu might not hear, "How is he still alive?"
Touya laughed to his own surprise, "I have no idea."
"WHAT?!" Yusuke was now against the wall on the other side of the room staring at Shishi Wakamaru and Suzuka with huge eyes. Again, everyone was silent as they turned to look at Yusuke and his drunken shock.
"What's the matter, Yusuke?" Kuwabara walked over to him with an entertained face.
"I—I just never would have guessed," Yusuke's eyes remained on Shishi Wakamaru and Suzuka.
"What are you talking about?" the tipsy Kuwabara picked Yusuke up by the collar of his shirt and started shaking him.
"We're gay," Shishi Wakamaru replied in his "I'm cool and deadly" voice.
"Together!" Suzuka jumped in throwing rainbow confetti in front of them.
"Well, I think we all knew you were gay!" Chu replied towards Suzuka.
Yusuke straightened himself out and went back to the circle, "Well I'm glad you two make each other happy!" The drunken Yusuke went back to his normal self, "I just didn't peg you as a queen!" he said towards Shishi Wakamaru.
"I have to admit I was shocked at first as well," Touya added to the side.
During this news, Mai managed to slip away unnoticed. She was alone in the dark gardens for a moment then decided to walk down a trail that lead into the woods. These people are crazy, she thought to herself as she wondered further into the woods. She got lost in her thoughts about everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours. She was a little overwhelmed by all of it, but at the same time she thought it was pretty cool. It also made a lot of sense to her. She had always felt out of place and even her parents made her feel like she didn't belong. When they died the year she graduated high school she was sad, as all children are when their parents die, but she felt like she was lacking enough sorrow and convinced herself that she hadn't been mourning enough. After a few months she got over it and pushed on, finding a job to support herself and turned to drugs to fill an empty void in her heart that her family and acquaintances didn't seem to fill too well. The drugs and alcohol did though.
She lit a cigarette subconsciously as she started to notice the path was becoming less and less of a path. "Ok, time to stop reminiscing," she mumbled to herself and turned around to head back. It wasn't long before she realized that the path wasn't just one path but a web of paths and stopped at a fork in the paths. "Shit," she slipped out as she tried to decide which way she came from. She decided to go left and went with it. She took a long drag of her cigarette as she replayed how drugs have surprising helped her in situations where it would have hindered any other person. It wasn't long before she was convinced she was lost and pulled out a small wooden container and flipped it open. A piece of metal popped out. It was painted to look like a cigarette. She took it and dug it into the other side of the container and pulled it back out, the end of the pipe covered in ground up marijuana. She lit it up and took a drag that seemed to last almost a minute. She held in the smoke for two minutes flat and when she let out the breath she had been holding, no smoke came out. Ghosted! She giggled inwardly. Yes, marijuana was probably her favorite drug. It helped her a lot in the rink when she boxed, slowing down time and making her opponents more predictable. It also disconnected her mind from her body. This caused her to have a loss of feeling in terms of contact when hitting someone (or being hit), so she would hit them harder than she thought she could just to feel the contact (or not notice how much damage had actually been done).
There was a light rustling in the darkness and she snapped around to where the sound was coming from. Two huge, yellow eyes stared at her motionlessly for a moment before they started to vibrate with a giggle. "What do you what?" Mai hissed, annoyed her solitude had been disrupted.
"Nothing much, girl," the voice replied as it started to come closer, making a racket amongst the shrubbery. A demon thrice the size of Mai stepped out into the path and laughed. His skin was black in the night and he seemed to have his entire body covered in horns. He reeked of blood and rotting flesh. Mai rubbed her nose hoping it would make the small nauseous feeling go away. He stopped laughing and leaned forward so his extremely offensive breath would further throw Mai off, "I'm hungry, little demon! I think I'll make you my snack!"
"Not likely," Mai replied unaffected by the threat but waving her hand vigorously in front of her face to get rid of the smell.
"We'll see about that!" the demon threw his fist at her but she jumped out of the way and his fist made contact with the ground sending fragments of dirt and grass everywhere.
"I didn't realize demons were into cannibalism," she taunted as she managed to get behind him and jump up onto his back.
The demon flailed to get her off or hit her but he was too big and bulky to reach around to his back, "I assure you," he growled, "I'm not as weak as I look!" He jumped up and turned onto his back, allowing gravity to do his work for him.
Mai almost didn't react in time but managed to jump off and do a tuck and roll before ending up as road kill. "I have to admit, I'm a little worried. This is the first time I'll have knowing fought a demon." She said as she charged him and jumped up into their air, "But you seem a little more retarded than the other demons I've met." She managed to land a punch in the demon's eye before he threw her off of him and into a tree. She struggled for a second to find her footing. But obviously strong enough to make me worry, she mentioned to herself as she realized a good amount of skin was missing from her arm that had made direct contact with the tree when she hit it. Of course, the tree seemed to have taken far more damage than Mai because it threatened to topple over, the trunk nearly cracked in half.
The demon laughed and he was on his feet again, "You talk big. Let's see you back those words up!" The demon growled and opened his mouth to reveal that it was glowing and pulling in air.
Oh, shit! Mai had seen this kind of thing in cartoons and she knew what was coming next.
A/N: And thank you ThePurplePeacock for the review :3