It's been awhile since Yusuke Yurameshi became the spirit detective, and although it's not officially written on paper, the team of himself, Kurama, Hiei, and Kuwabara has become the standard for success in all ghost file missions. They may not always get along, and they may not always be practical, but they get the job done and they get it done well.... Usually.

Thus, when his workers began picking up a strange and new power in the human world, team Yurameshi was Prince Koenma's first choice to call upon to assess the situation.

"The power we're picking up on seems to be someone of spiritual power rather than demonic." He'd told them solemnly, "But there's an incredibly dark aura to it that is not normally present in spiritual energy.... Like it's been tainted.

I want you guys to check it out- and lay off the baby jokes would ya Yusuke?!"

"I'll lay off as soon as you get potty trained." The detective had snickered, but he had set off back to the living world with a sense of duty just the same. And now he and his friends are headed towards the source of the strange power, ready for whatever might come at them.....

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Canon Characters

Yusuke Yurameshi: played by xXastraXx

Yoko Kurama: Played by Woofie267

Kurama couldn't help but sigh at Yusuke's antics, hiding a smile behind his hand. It was normal by now for Koenma to tell off Yusuke and Yusuke to tease him incessantly. They were all used to it by now, but Koenma still got riled up. It was rather amusing, actually.

This new case was interesting, though. He glanced over at Yusuke as they walked towards the source of the energy. "Well, Yusuke? What do you think?" he asked, raising an eyebrow just a little. He doubted the detective would have a real opinion yet, but he might as well ask.

Original Characters

Name: Aleron
Age: 16 (I don't even remember how old they all are...)
Race: Human
Appearance: Auburn hair in a long braid to her waist, gold/green eyes, about 5'7", lightly tanned skin. Usually wears jeans and t-shirts with rude sayings on them, as well as combat boots.

Name: Yue
Age At least a hundred, exact age is unknown as she refuses to tell
Race Vampirific demon known as the Vati. Long ago, the race was divided. Half wanted to continue drinking blood to survive as it made them stronger; they went to the human world and preyed on those weaker than them- thus creating the legends of vampires. The other half of the race considered such a lifestyle barbaric, and thus went into isolation in the demon world, so that they wouldn't be tempted by blood and could instead live in harmony with the world. As time passed these Vati became in tune with nature, and learned to manipulate it in a similar manner to animal demons. They're also very in tune with energy; however, in terms of physical strength they're not nearly as strong as their counterparts. Yue is part of the second tribe.
Story: Being sensitive to energy, the Vati sensed the strange energy in the human world years before anyone else did, but because they lived in isolation, they made no move against it as it wasn't their business. However, as the power grew many began to grow ill due to their sensitivity to it, and as it grew worse people began mutating or going insane and attacking others. Yue was strangely never affected by the disease, and as such many began blaming her for it; it wasn't until one day that she was attacked by these people that she fled her home. She was eventually found by a demon who took her in and cared for her, but he was a low level demon, and as such he was eventually killed by someone stronger- as is the way of the demon world. It was at this point, at a loss as to what to do with herself, that Yue decided to travel to the human world and try and quell the source of the strange energy. She doesn't know if it will cure her people, but it will at least prevent any more from falling ill, and then she'd finally be able to go home.
Appearance:

"I say we just waltz in there, kick some ass, and head out to lunch." Yusuke retorted with a cocky snicker, "I'm starving." He truly didn't think that this energy was anything to be worried about; sure, there was a lot of it, but they'd all been through worse situations before. The situation with Tugoro had been a lot more dangerous than this one, and quite frankly Yusuke would rather have been here than preparing to duke it out at another demon tourney. "And if worst comes to worse, we'll just show 'em a baby picture of Kuwabara. That'll send 'em running with their tails between their legs!" He smirked. There was nothing to be worried about.

They continued marching towards the energy source, and as they got closer they saw what looked like a giant pillar of light reaching up towards the sky; yet here and there were sparks of purple electricity, crackling with the tainted power the spiritual energy also held. Yusuke's eyes narrowed, and he looked at the others, "Let's hurry up and get this over with shall we? I don't exactly like the idea of my town being used as a giant glowstick."

{>< Im sorry this took so long!}

Once again, Kurama stifled a smile at Yusuke's choice of words. He had such a way with them. And with pissing people off. He was good at that too. Luckily he had better than average patience, or he wouldn't be nearly so amused as he was. Most of the time.

Seeing the energy, Kurama frowned a little. That was definitely not natural. "I can't see a cause for the energy to be acting like this," he said quietly. "This is interesting..." It was indeed interesting. It was also worrisome. Energy did not act like this on its own; someone or something had to have manipulated it. And that someone or something had to be rather powerful to taint the energy the way it had.

They continued onwards, through city streets that were thankfully not crowded due to the time of day; not that any of the people out would be able to see the tower of light anyways- none of them were spiritually aware, and those who were probably thought it was some sort of weird fireworks show. But there was always the chance that they'd get caught in the crossfire if a battle broke out, so the less people around the better.

Eventually they came to the park in the center of the city, and their trip led them to what was more or less a forest. "Ya'know" Yusuke began sarcastically as they started picking their way through the trees, "I woulda brought my hiking boots if I'd known our mystery man was a tree hugger." The forest wasn't overly dense though, so the trip wasn't as bad as the spirit detective made it out to be; it wasn't long before they came to a clearing. There stood an old looking building with the strange spiritual energy pouring out of it; now that they were so close the power of it was breathtaking.... literally. The air was so thick with energy it was almost difficult to breathe. Despite this Yusuke's only remark was to jerk his thumb at the hous and state, "Well... I'm preeeetty sure THAT wasn't there before." He looked at it again with a raised eyebrow. The situation was getting weirder and weirder. Leave it to the toddler to always give the crazy missions.

{Haha ^^; I'm not too too sure what to have the source of the energy be. At first I thought some new bad guy, and just have it be one person giving off the energy; we'd have to think of some back story as to how the energy became so tainted, but he could be a new foe for the team if we built him up and gave him a motive to be...well... evil. XD

Then I thought about making it so that in the house was a portal. One of the Yu Yu hakusho movies was about the netherworld, which was a world of dark energy that existed beside the demon world- so why not have a world of light energy beside the spirit world? The portal would be one connecting the human world with that world.
We'd still have to think of a reason why this other light world became tainted though, and why they'd wanna get to the human world....

Either way I don't know what's in the house.... So uhh.... Yeah XD}

Kurama paused briefly in the forest to gather a few seeds that he'd been running low on, tucking them safely away in his hair before he went after the rest of the team.

By the time they got to the house, he was a little more concerned. It was not natural to have this much energy in one space, and the only times he'd seen that much energy it had been attached to a portal of some kind, or someone had been gathering energy, usually with ill will in mind.

"Perhaps we should look and see what's in the house," Kurama suggested, glancing at Yusuke with a raised eyebrow. He didn't know what was in the house, but he did know one thing for sure: they would never get anywhere with this case if they didn't enter the house.

((Hm... Well, I like the portal idea, so how about we use that? As for the reason the energy is tainted...

Maybe the portal leads to a realm where there aren't demons or humans, and it's normally kinda cut off from the other realms. But then a demon figured out how to get there, through the human world, and so set up this portal and that's why the energy is tainted? Because a demon's using the energy and it normally wouldn't be?))

{Yeah, that's a good idea! ^^ Maybe we could make it so that this race, while it has spiritual energy over demonic, isn't actually directly good or directly evil. They're just a neutral existence that have always helped either the spirit world or the demon world on different occasion depending on what befitted them. However, they were so powerful that when they did help the demon race or spirit world, it created huge changes in history and imbalances in power. So, for the sake of the universe, both spirit world and demon world agreed to seal this race away.

But a demon, wanting to destroy the spirit world- perhaps to break the barrier blocking the demon world from the human world- has sought out this power and found a way into the dimension the race was sealed away in....

What do you think?}

Yusuke looked at the house, then back at the group and sighed. "I have a feeling that they won't be serving burgers in there." He grumbled.

Hiei snickered in response to the human's statement. "Don't worry spirit detective." He said coldly as they entered the building, "You won't die before you get your lunch. Your death is reserved for me alone."

"I'm not sure how safe I feel with a midget watching my back-" Yusuke was quick to retort, "-But thanks for the support anyways Hiei." He jumped out of the way as a sword swiped in his direction, and had to flinch when he saw a couple strands of his hair falling to the ground where he'd just been. Maybe having a midget watch his back wasn't such a bad thing.... So long as he didn't stab it.
They continued to bicker back and forth for a bit, until they entered through another set of doors- into the room where the energy was converged.

The portal that was there looked more like a black hole than anything; it had the feel of that tainted spiritual energy, but was swirling with inky blackness that gave off a cold empty feeling.
Yusuke gaped at it for a moment in silence, then rounded on Kurama and bluntly asked, "Hey fox boy- what the hell is that?!" his thumb jabbed at the portal.

{should we have our characters already in the portal then? o-o}

((Oooooo, I like that idea! I think that's a great idea. So yeah, we'll go with that, then. ^^

As for our characters, maybe we should have them come in like next post. Do you want them to be working together, to know each other, or what? Any preferences? And whatever you choose is fine with me so you can go ahead and post for yours ))

Kurama frowned as he took a step forward, investigating the portal. "I believe this is a portal," he said softly, frowning a little. "But I have never seen a portal like this. I don't know where this leads to."

Kuwabara frowned. "You don't know?" he asked, sounding alarmed. Kurama knew everything, or just about. If Kurama didn't know something, then what the hell was this thing?

"No," Kurama said, shaking his head a little. "I doubt this leads to the demon world; those portals look and feel different. This is something I have never encountered before." Instead of sounding afraid, he seemed merely curious, like he'd discovered a new species of plant or a new bird. Not as if he were examining something that could potentially lead to them being ripped apart by energy, or take them to another realm where they could face some of the strongest enemies they ever had.

{I think having them know each other is better. It'd make things easier than having everyone meet at once ^^;

And wow, I never knew decorating your posts was considered spam here. It's done so commonly on other sites I figured it'd be okay for roleplays here, but I got in trouble. o-o I hope that's all they do tho.}

Yue fluttered down from the balcony on the second floor; landing lightly next to her human friend and flashing a cute fanged smile. She felt almost odd working with a human when half her race had survived by terrorizing and feeding off of them, but the human did not seem as weak and mindless as she'd heard them to be. When she'd first arrived in the human world Yue had been helpless as to the affairs of humans; she'd thought she'd be able to simply head straight towards the energy source, but the human world was filled with so many things she'd never seen before.... And it was much more crowded. There was so much different sources of energy around it was almost overwhelming- not to mention the huge buildings and technology. If that human girl had been like the other humans and not able to see spiritual beings, then Yue would probably still have been lost in the suburbs.
But Aleron had approached her without hesitation and helped point her in the direction of the giant tower of light- she'd been curious about the situation too apparently, and Yue had to commend the human's braveness for marching up to a demon. Once they'd gotten inside the building they'd made it a point to explore all the rooms for people; Yue had just finished exploring the second floor- confirming the absence of anyone. Which meant they could head into the next main room- where the source of energy undoubtedly was.

Surprisingly, when they opened the door, a group of boys was already there, and although they all appeared human, Yue knew instantly that two were demons like herself. The level of energy in the room made her feel lightheaded because of how sensitive she was to energy, but she was still aware of the world around her. Still, she didn't think that these guys were the creators of the strange portal- for one of them examined it and theorized about what it could be. He said he didn't know where the portal led.
"Well, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." Yue stepped into the room and smiled, twitching her finlike ears innocently; to her it seemed simply logical that they enter the portal- it was really the only way to find out where it led to, after all.

Yusuke rounded when he heard a voice, surprised to see a weird looking demon girl enter the room. "Fish ears, wings and a tail? Yeesh, who ordered an everything bagel?" He'd thought sarcastically. Then it occurred to him that she was a demon and therefore quite possibly evil. "Woah, wait a minute!" He exclaimed, jumping out of her reach, "Where'd you come from?!"

This caused Yue to blink and look at Aleron curiously. "Are all human males this straightforward?" She asked, swishing her tail in a curious manner, "Because that seems like a rather personal question- unless he'd like to hear about the mating of my parents... which seems like a rather odd query considering the situation..."
Upon hearing this Yusuke couldn't help but laugh; of all the reactions to his question that was the last thing he'd expected, and it completely threw him off guard- the only other demon he'd met who acted half as silly was Jin the wind master. His body relaxed- the demon girl definitely wasn't evil- she was too innocent. "Dammit- What're you doing making me laugh? He exclaimed, still snickering a bit, "I wanna be pumped for a serious situation!"
It took a moment, but after regaining himself he crossed his arms and surveyed the two with narrowed eyes, finally sounding a bit serious as he said, "Now I know that human girls don't normally spend their time searching abandoned mansions with fishy demons, and I doubt you got lost on your way to the mall, so who the heck are you guys?"

"An informed question yet difficult to answer." Once again Yue was confused; it seemed like another unusual personal query that was out of place considering the situation. "There are many things that make up who I am, an many things that don't. She finally said, "But my name is Yue human-" She twitched her tail and smiled again, "I will tell you that much."

{sorrrrry for the text wall o-o I just wanted to get a taste of my character in....

she's a funny character ^^; I considered having a witty and sarcastic character because I love them, but they're abundant already in YYH, so I decided to go for something different XD}

((I never knew that either, about decorating posts. I'd never seen someone do it, but I didn't know it wasn't allowed O.o You should be okay though as long as you don't do it again.

And it's cool. I like long posts! Gives me lots to work with!))

Aleron rolled her eyes at Yusuke's words. She hadn't been born in Japan, and both her parents were American, but she spoke flawless Japanese, which came in handy quite often. Although she still liked her t-shirts to be in English. Like the one she wore right now, which said "EAT ME (before i eat you)".

She turned her gaze to Yue, absently tossing her hair out of her face. "In my experience, human males are straightforward because most of them can't understand if you put things subtly or just hint at them. You have to be careful with them so as not to overwhelm their minds." She smirked.

Kurama had been focused on the other girl, Yue. He'd never seen a being like her before, and he found that even more curious than the portal. He didn't know what she was, but he did know that her energy was different than anything he'd seen. A little like the portal, but different, and not tained the same way. So she had not made the portal herself. And the human couldn't have done it either; he sensed no taint about her.

At her words, however, he turned his attention to Aleron. He chose to ignore all the comments about human males; he knew they didn't apply to him anyway. "I am Kurama," he said. "This is Hiei, Kuwabara, and Yusuke." He motioned to each of them respectively.

"Aleron." She glanced at Yue before looking at Yusuke again. "You know, making judgements about people is a bad habit. It tends to come around and bite you in the ass." She grinned briefly before turning her attention to Yue again.

"So, what say you to ditching these losers and heading through that portal? They're probably going to spend another half an hour demanding information they won't get and dithering about whether or not to go through the big scary portal." She said that last bit with a smirk, clearly taunting them. It had been a while since she'd seen anyone else who was sensitive like she was, and she took full advantage of being able to bait them and snark at them.

"Actually, we were about to go through the portal when you two arrived," Kurama said, watching Yue and Aleron. "But please, feel free to go through first if you feel it necessary."

((And that's my character. Snark central! Whoo!))

{Haha, she's funny! I like her.

I'm watchin's space jam as I type this XD love that movie!}

Yusuke was once again thrown completely off guard by the human girl's sarcastic retorts to his comments; he half wondered whether he should ask her out on a date or come up with a retort. That girl's attitude problem was almost as bad as his.... Almost. "Hey, men are so straightforward because a girl is never happy-" He'd decided to go with the retort, "-So what do we got to lose by speaking our minds?" He looked at Aleron, taking her in a bit more. He'd never bothered to go to class enough to be able to read english, so her shirt was a complete mystery to him.... But he had to imagine that it said something funny. Maybe she wouldn't be as annoying as half the girls he avoided at high school. Maybe....

Hiei ignored the preceding conversation, not nearly as impressed as his companions were by the newcomers. "Talk all you want." He stated, passing them a cold glare, "Just as long as you stay out of my way." With that he went and walked right through the portal, and as the whirling energy swallowed him up, a final farewell statement could be heard: "I'm not about to let amateurs beat me to the punch." He obviously wanted all the action to himself.... As usual.

Yue had been just about to walk through the portal herself when the short one did so first. She lookd at Aleron, then Yusuke, swishing her tail amusedly; they seemed to get along well for having just met. "Though I don't know what that human boy means about girls not being happy." she was most certainly female and she was perfectly content at the moment, "Maybe he means it about human girls...." Humans were such strange creatures, Yue didn't get them at all.
Instead she decided to turn her attention towards the redheaded demon; he seemed to be perceiving the situation in a much more in depth manner than anyone else left in the room- something told Yue that he was a very deep thinker from the way his expression was as he looked at everyone. "You're an odd animal demon." She finally stated, looking at him curiously and twitching her tail, "Though i've seen so many extrordinary things since I've come to the human world I doubt I'll ever find anything extra ordinary again."

Then she turned without further adeu and walked through the portal, almost as if that was what she had intended to do from the start.

((lol! Sounds like fun!))

"Again, males can't take a hint." Aleron's lips twitched in a smirk as she looked at the black-haired one. He was certainly amusing. Maybe this wouldn't be half-bad after all.

Her attention switched briefly to the short one as he walked through the portal, then she shrugged him off, content to ignore him. He would be a pain to work with, that much she could tell. She almost pitied the other three. Almost.

"Well, see you on the other side." With a cheery grin, she stepped through after Yue, still amused. Ah, the curveballs life will throw you.

Kurama blinked at the comment Yue aimed at him. Well, well. If she didn't think she'd see anything extraordinary again, she was in for something else. She hadn't seen much of anything yet. But he suspected she would, since they were all going to the same place. And then things would get truly interesting.

"Man," Kuwabara complained, scuffing his foot against the ground. "That was weird."

"I suspect it's about to get worse," Kurama said as he walked towards the portal. "Try not to fall too far behind." With that, he stepped through as well.

{Wah, I'm sorry if I'm slow to post! I had to work and I went out with my cousin today.... And yeah.... but I'm sorry I made you wait!}

When Yusuke walked through the portal he'd expected to feel the air sucked out of him, or be drained of energy, or perhaps somethin worse; however, while the darkness of the energy was a bit sickening, the trip was painless- save for the rough landing when he tumbled out the other side. "Why is it-" He grumbled, climbing to his feet, "-That whenever someone evil makes a big bad portal to another dimesion they never bother to make it a smooth trip?!" Would it have killed half the demons he'd killed to have made a portal a simple walkthrough instead of a tumble?
After dusting himself off, the spirit detective looked around, taking in the surroundings slowly. Everything looked normal enough- there were trees and plants and such.... But the energy of it all was off... The entire place had the awkward feeling of wonderland. Like everything was out of whack. Before he could inspect things further, something else stole his attention: demonic energy... headed their way.
Yusuke smirked, "Demons at three o'clock." He clenched his fist as an eager expression appeared on his face, "What say we give 'em a lesson on who they're messing with- someone's gotta get schooled today, and we all know it ain't me!" He skipped class way too much for that.

"Ugh man Urameshi." Kuwabara looked sick as he called out his spirit sword, "They've got some weird vibes for ghosts- watch out- maybe they ate bad sushi or somethin'!"

Hiei scoffed, raising an eyebrow at Kuwabara as he said, "It must be a horrid thing to walk around in a constant haze of stupidity. He drew his sword, ignoring the 'shorty' comments headed his way.

Then the demons were upon them. Yue flew into the air to dodge an incoming attack headed her way; there were quite a few of them, but they didn't feel powerful.... Still, their energy was incredibly strange- she didn't like it. The strange spiritual energy radiated off of them- and as demons that was not natural for their bodies. Something was very wrong.... But that didn't change the fact that they'd have to fight, and there was no use in worrying about things that would not aid in battle.
"They're called lessons-" She was responding to Yusuke's previous statement as she extended her claws menacingly, "-Because they 'lessen' from day to day." That seemed very obvious to her at least. But there wasn't time to talk about logic- so long as their foes 'lessened' too, that was what mattered. She slashed through one of her enemies, then watched as he easily regenerated. The others seemed to be having a similiar issue; Yue wasn't sure how the demons did what they did, but she gathered that a different tact was needed to gain the upper hand.
So she leaped out of a nearby demon's reach and placed her hand on a nearby tree, the energy in it felt warped as well, and reaching out to it with her own made her feel rather ill, but the effect was what she desired. By manipulating the energy in the tree she was able to make it grow and move as she willed it. Sharp branches pierced the demons, immoblizing some of them, but not all... Hopefully one of the others could perform a finishing blow on these....

{I'm sorry I keep adding in the other characters like Kuwabara and Hiei- it just seems like it'd be more realistic to have them there, if only on the side. ^^; You can feel free to play them, and other characters from the series too, whenever you want- it'll make things more interesting and stuff!}

((It's fine! I have school stuff too so life is hectic DX And I will definitely play other original characters like Hiei and Kuwabara. It does indeed make life more interesting!))

Kurama didn't react much to the demons. He just pulled his rose from his hair, extending it into his rose whip. Not for the first time, he thanked himself for his foresight in bringing his rose; he'd really hate to have to use some of the plants around here. Their energy was warped, alien to him, and therefor harder to control.

A quick glance around showed him that Yue was doing fine on her own, and had killed or incapacitated half of the demons with her attack. He turned to the demons nearest him and started slicing through them, elegantly dodging their rather clumsy attacks and the pieces of demon flying all over the place.

"Woah!" Kuwabara looked up at Yue. "That's awesome! Hey, Kurama, how come you don't do things like that?" He pointed at the tree with his spirit sword, obviously excited.

"I can, but I don't feel the need to most of the time," Kurama replied calmly, as he sliced through three more demons with a flick of his wrist. He paused when an explosion caught his attention, and he looked over, expecting to find Hiei behind it.

Aleron had backed off a little ways away from the main fight, though she did have to punch out a couple demons to get there. Then she focused herself, looking for the patches of demons that weren't fighting someone else, or those who were going towards some of the others. And then she let herself smile a vicious smile as she worked.

A few demons screamed as a ball of spirit energy exploded in their midst, catching onto them like fire and blowing up around them and near them. A few moments of total chaos ensued as they all tried to figure out where this new threat came from, and by that time Aleron had gotten another ball of energy out there, and more of them went flying as it exploded.

[i]{Awww man, I typed out an entire post and then my internet connection went out and I lost it TT^TT. Let's try again!}

Yue couldn't help but laugh at the clumsy human's statement about the animal demon having never done what she'd just done; she generally thought logically on it's most purest level, and was therefore innocently ignorant of many situations, but even she saw the irony of such a statement. "I cannot manipulate plants so well as an animal demon." She stated, her usual smile replaced by a more stoic look as she concentrated on the battle at hand, "I can only manipulate the energy inside, but I can't change the amount of energy an existance naturally has...." She trailed off thoughtfully as she let the tree return to it's normal state, carving up the remaining enemies who hadn't died or had managed to regenerate with her claws. [b]"I do envy the idea though, but I once heard it said that one should 'never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"[b] In simpler words: 'It's foolish to try and be what you're not'.... Perhaps she should have said it the easier way, but Yue just loved messing with humans' heads at this point. They confused her so easily and made no sense- this was her way of studying them.

Kuwabara blinked, clearly the statement had gone right over his head- he didn't get heads or tails of it. "Uhhhh" He clumsily slashed through another enemy, "I don't think-"

But Yue interruped him before he could say anything about her lack of sense, "-Then you shouldn't speak." Was her simple statement. She couldn't help but laugh at the flabberghasted and clearly confused response she got in return- humans didn't seem to understand logic very much.
Despite her playful remarks, Yue was still feeling the effects of the tainted energy. She definately wouldn't be manipulating anything else in this world if she could help it; she still felt sick, and she'd only touched a tree. She was still fighting, but it was a relief when the little demon sped by and jumped in her fray.

"I told you not to get in my way." Hiei stated as he sped past her. His sword swiped through enemies like butter, completely destroying them before they had any time to regenerate. "I don't like haivng to constantly babysit slowpokes." He was clearly ruthless.

Yusuke meanwhile was having a blast pumping his fist through any demon that came his way, but when they continued to regenerate despite his hardest punches, the spirit detective got creative- firing his shotgun attack from his fist and taking out everyone at once. He finished his set of baddies by the time everyone else did, but was still impressed by the girls' strength. They'd managed to hold their own.... Which was more than he'd expected.... But of course no fancy light show of Aleron's could match the biggest baddest punk of high school.

The battle was over as quickly as it had begun, but these had just been the low level grunts- and for low levels they were much stronger than they normally were.... How strong would their leaders be? Whoever was responsible for this had to be stopped, before they couldn't be stopped at all....

((Oh man that sucks!))

Kurama merely chuckled, glancing around to make sure all the demons were dead. "Don't worry about Hiei," he said to Yue. "He's like that with most everyone."

Another quick look showed him Hiei ahead of the others, Yusuke lingering behind as usual, and Aleron headed over their direction. He looked at Yue again; she looked a little ill, or maybe it was just the lighting here. "Are you alright?"

"Hurry up," Hiei said, a hint of impatience in his voice. He clearly didn't like having to wait for anyone. Which made Aleron highly tempted to slow her walk to a bare crawl, but she trotted over to the rest of the group.

"Well, that wasn't bad," she said, straightening her t-shirt absently.

"Easy for you to say," Kuwabara said, looking down at her. "I didn't even see you fighting!" He let go of his spirit sword, letting it vanish into nothing. He clearly didn't think much of her.

"You obviously missed the big glowing balls of light that exploded on people and burned them to crisps," Aleron said primly, passing by one of the aforementioned crisps of demon leftover. "But I think that Hiei's right. We need to move along quickly. I'd rather get rid of whoever's tainting this energy and get home, thanks much." She marched off ahead of the rest of them, her boots clomping through the remains easily but silently.

{My last post before bed ^^; It's 11:35PM here and I have work tomorrow. I live in the Eastern Standard time zone.}

Yue twitched her tail and looked up at Kurama; now that she was walking next to him she realized that he was a good head taller than her- if the one he called Hiei hadn't been around she'd have felt very short indeed. "It seems I'm more sensitive to the tainted energy of this place than I thought." She replied slowly, a tone of thoughtfullness in her voice as she considered this fact. "I likely should have predicted such a thing-" She sighed, "-It really is a poor sort of memory we have- the kind that only works backwards." Why, if her memory could have worked forwards, she could have avoided the whole affair- but she supposed that such limitations were why she should have been more careful. "I'm alright." She brought back her usual smile as she got off her tangent and back on topic- she'd just have to be more careful in the future.

Yusuke followed in Hiei's steps; as hasty as the little guy was, he knew where he was going.... Which wasn't hard, considering the giant tower was the only notable landmark in the vicinity, chances were that's where the culprit to this whole problem was. "Why is it that bad guys always hide in such big and ugly hideouts?!" He wondered sarcastically, "It's like they're painting a target on themselves saying 'I'm here! Come and kick my ass!'" Really, it was quite ridiculous, even on his low standards.
He'd probably have said something about it, but just as he was about to Yusuke picked up on Kuwabara's conversation with Aleron. "Don't worry about this dumbass." he told her with a smirk, "He misses a lot of things- in fact, I bet he's missing his pet kitten back at home, eh Mr. Cuddly?" He flashed a devilish smirk in his friend's direction- oh how fun it was to make fun of his fetish with kittens.

((Alrighty! I'm on west coast time, so I'm three hours behind you XD))

Kurama nodded his understanding. "Yes, we all have our limitations." He found himself rather amused by the way she thought. She seemed to have a very different viewpoint of the world than most people. It was rather refreshing actually.

"Well, it doesn't seem it will be hard to find them." He looked at the tower with some bemusement. As a thief, he always stayed somewhere low, out of sight, and hard to find. Why these demons found it so entertaining to live in large castles or high towers he didn't understand, and he never would. Not even Hiei had been that bad.

Aleron snorted, shaking her head. "I like cats," she said, tossing a smirk at Yusuke. "Besides, I didn't expect too much from either of you. Men are like that, you know. You can't depend on them, because if you they'll fold." With another smirk, she kept walking.

Kuwabara looked after her. "Man, what's her big problem?" he muttered. Sure, he could take insults as well as the next person, but he didn't do mind games. He just beat people to a pulp. "Hey, I think you pissed her off, Urameshi."

{Wow, we live on opposite coasts here XD Fear me! I'm from the future!..... Three hours into the future! -evil laugh-

Here's a little morning post before work! I get out at 3 PM my time, so I won't be busy long today.... which is good....}

Yue looked up at the tower as they moved closer to it. It was pretty menacing to say the least; tall and dark with spikes jerking out here and there- definately a demonic structure. Despite herself being one it seemed to Yue that the majority of demons really had no taste- or sense of self preservation most of the time. "Perhaps they took the statement 'the more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.' literally." She finally stated, tilting her head as she continued to look... Only in this case that statement was literally working- she could feel the energy from whoever was in that tower continuing to rise very quickly.

Yusuke looked at Kuwabara and smirked, "Off course she's pissed off- she's a girl!" He exclaimed in response to his accusation, "Girls are always pissed off! Expecting her not to be pissed off because you're in a good mood is like expecting a bull not to charge at you because you're a vegetarian. It's like trying to tell a girl she's pretty- she never believes you, but if you tell her she's ass ugly she gets pissed!" Case and point: women were crazy, and there wasn't a dang thing any man alive could do to change that because women actually liked being crazy.

"Well...." Yue finally looked away from the tower to shift her attention towards the human, "Perhaps the reason the majority of human women stress looks and act angry is because the majority of human men see and hear better than they use their brains." She spoke thoughtfully, clearly not realizing the insulting weight behind her words- which made it all the more amusing to hear them said.

"Hey!" Yusuke exclaimed, glaring at her in an aghast manner, "Who's side are you on?!"

She pointed towards Kurama in response, "I'm on this animal demon's right side." She looked at Yusuke and twitched her tail, humans were very very confusing- they acted strange and asked stranger questions. What in the world did 'who's side she was on' have to do with the conversation at hand?

Hiei snickered while Yusuke struggled to come up with a valid response, "Watch it spirit detective." He stated with an evil smirk, "If you're already losing to girls I'll have no problem in killing you."

They finally stopped as the tower door came in sight; it was just beyond a strange set of gates- waiting to be opened.... But that was way too easy.... Something was definately going to happen.... At least, it always did in situations lik this.

((Yay for morning posts! Yeah, I won't be back until 2 or 3 my time either. Ah well. Such is life.))

Kurama hid his smile behind his hand at Yue and Yusuke. Very amusing, honestly. It wasn't often he found someone who could insult Yusuke so much without even realizing it.

"Now, now, children," he said, once he had his own humor under control. "We have bigger problems at hand." He wasn't at all concerned about Hiei's threats to kill Yusuke; he knew Hiei well enough to know that he wouldn't actually kill the spirit detective.

"Wonder what's in there," Kuwabara said, stopping in front of the gates and staring up at the tower. "It kinda reminds me of the Four Saint Beasts. Remember, Urameshi?"

Aleron let out an impatient noise. "We'll never find out by just standing around thinking," she said, her eyes narrowing. Sure, she could be very patient when she had to be, but this was kind of time-sensitive. And she didn't want Yue to have to live with the tainted energy for longer than she had to. She'd only known the other for a few days, but Aleron was already fond of her.

She pushed the gates open, her eyes narrowed. At first, nothing happened. She took three steps inside the gate, still looking around, when she spotted them.

Trap doors opened on either side of the one entrance to the tower, and demons started to emerge. Some of them flew above the crowd, some of them stood double her height, and some of them didn't even remotely resemble humans. But all of them were focused on one thing: the six of them.

"Well, here we go again." Aleron had rather hoped to be done with these idiots; but no, apparently not. She started releasing her balls of spirit energy napalm, watching a few of them go up in flames.

Kurama's eyes narrowed and he moved off to the side, where he wouldn't have to worry about hitting any of the others as he exterminated the demons. These ones weren't very high class, and the only reason it would take them very long to get through them all would be sheer numbers. Then why even have them here at all? Just for cannon fodder?

{Haha, It's alright, we just gotta post when we can! ^^}

Yue's claws extended again when more demons began charging them. If they weren't such ugly creatures she'd have compared their coming out of the woodwork to daisies.... But they were more like cockroaches with how stubbornly they continued to fight. She couldn't make use of the energy around her either- it was like poison, and she didn't want to make herself any more sick than she already felt- that meant she'd have to rely on only her claws.... She supposed she could make use of her vampire fangs and the venom they had inside them, but the thought of drinking the blood of one of those creatures was far from appealing. So Yue decided to risk simply slashing through her foes; at the very least she was agile, and her ability to fly made it very easy to dodge incoming blows.

Still, what was the use of keeping them fighting these weaklings when the leaders inside the tower were gaining more power by the minute? Unless they weren't worried about the odd group ever defeating them and were building their power for something else.... Yue slashed through another demon, then glanced at the tower again. The second concept had to be correct, for if defeating their group was the primary concern they could have done so easily while they were fighting these weaklings.... What use did they have for the strange power though....? "The world really would turn a great deal faster if everyone minded their own business." She finally sighed, slashing through another enemy and then gliding over the masses towards the tower doors; they opened with a simple touch of her hand, but a swell of energy emerged out of them as well, propelling her back towards the others and giving their foes time to amass in front of the doorway.

"So, these guys are just a distraction, eh?" Yusuke had finally gotten the picture. He smirked, preparing for recoil as he built up energy for one of his famous spirit gun shots, "That means we gotta get in that tower before the bad guys do whatever they're doing-" he snickered, then said in response to Kuwabara, "-Yeah, this is reminding me a lot of the Four Saint Beasts." He fired off his spirit gun full power- recklessly wasting more energy than needed as he wasn't the type to bother holding back- and created a hole in the enemy line.

As they charged through it, Yue couldn't help but point out, "I daresay they couldn't have been very 'saintly' if they were 'beasts'." Why, that was as contradictory as the way humans acted- and they acted very backwards indeed.

Aleron snickered. "Yeah, typical," she agreed with Yue, kicking a demon back a few feet. She spread her energy in an arc before her, watching it spread through those demons and catching fire. "Even more typical is trying to slow us down with low-level stupid-ass demons." She was getting annoyed with this very quickly.

A quick run and dodge through the line of demons got her close to the front door, where she blew apart the demons between her and the door. There didn't seem to be anymore coming now, and she saw the others had control of things getting rid of the last of the demons. So she charged inside, taking a quick look around before heading for the central staircase.

Kurama was slicing through the demons quickly and easily, and he noticed Aleron get inside. Well, good for her, but probably not the smartest thing to do. She seemed to have a decent amount of spirit energy, and decent physical abilities, but she didn't seem like the strongest person, and probably not the best to fight.

Finishing off his section of demons, he turned just in time to see Hiei flit inside after Aleron. The only three left fighting were Yusuke, Yue, and Kuwabara. Kuwabara wasn't having any difficulties, slicing through them with his spirit sword, so he went to go help Yue finish off her group. It would make things go faster for them all, at least.

Aleron paused at a landing up the first flight of stairs, just listening. Hiei appeared next to her, but she didn't even flinch. She could hear them up above, could hear a low rumble of power through the place. The energy was growing stronger, a little more with each passing second. That was not a good sign.

"HEY!!!" Yusuke exclaimed when he saw Aleron and Hiei take off into the building on their own, "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" He punched through another demon and dashed towards the door, "You guys had better leave some of the action to me!"He shouted up the stairs. Then he turned and punched through another demon, blasting the others back as he powered up his energy for another shotgun blast; he'd love to enjoy the fight, but he wasn't about to let the others get ahead of him and have all the fun. He didn't bother to hold back and disintegrated all his foes in one blow, then took off up the stairs, clearly frustrated.

Yue glanced over in the direction of the tower's doors to catch Aleron taking off into the building, but she didn't have time to really do more than that as she slashed through a couple more demons. "It is an ironic habit of humans to move even more quickly when they have no idea where they're going." She said with a sense of anxiety. It was extremely annoying how built up against her this place was; Yue had always known that she relied heavily on energy and life around her, but such had never worked as a disadvantage until she ended up here. It was a relief when Kurama came and helped her finish off the last of them.

"I do suppose though..." She added, as they too took off after the others, "That only a friend could cause so much worry." Aleron had proven to be a very good friend, and Yue hoped that these new people would be too; the concept was new to her, but she liked the thought of it.

A glance over her shoulder showed Kuwabara headed their way- shouting something incoherent about 'friends not leaving friends behind'; he was a funny human, but at least he was alright. She then looked back at Kurama and managed her usual smile, "Thank you for your assistance." She said as they climbed the stairs, "This place is so very backwards, it's odd that I would struggle in a place so filled with energy.... Though it seems the majority of things I've encountered since leaving demon world for the human world are very backward indeed." She added as an afterthought.

They caught up to the others, who were gathered up outside yet another door- how surprising. "CLEARANCE SALE!!" Yusuke kicked open the door without hesitation just before Hiei could do so himself, "EVERYTHING MUST GO!"

The creatures that awaited them inside did not seem so enthusiastic, nor did they seem surprised to see the group; in fact, they did not move at all. There were five of them, all gathered around a strange crystal that held some even stranger looking beings inside. Probably the inhabitants of this world.... Who incidentally did not look pleased at their predicament.

{Sorry this post took so long- halfway through dinner was served XD}

((nah, it's cool. I'm studying for midterms tomorrow so this is a nice break in between))

"My pleasure," Kurama replied to her thanks. "The human world is very different from any of the other worlds, but you will get used to it, with time. I myself had a hard time adjusting at first."

He didn't quite roll his eyes at Yusuke, but he did look at the five people before them. He didn't recognize any of them, but they did look different from the demons outside. The crystal between them was gathering energy, and he could tell there was much stored inside it already.

"Uh, they don't look very happy to see us," Kuwabara muttered. "What are they doing, anyway?" He was behind Yue and Kurama, looking at the five in the room and the crystal. He didn't have a clue what was going on.

"Nothing good," Aleron said, for once completely devoid of any kind of humor. "If I had to guess, I'd bet that crystal has enough energy to blast through the barrier between worlds. If I had to guess, I'd say that this world had been shut off from the others, and now they're reversing that." She frowned. The one thing she couldn't figure out was why the energy felt tainted.

A rumble made her look up to see that the ceiling didn't cover the entire room; there was another room above, or a half-room, really. She could see something moving up there, and the energy coming off it felt even more twisted and tainted than the energy in the crystal. She winced at the feeling but didn't backed off. So that being was helping to feed energy into the crystal, but what for? Surely not just the release of this world? There had to be something else going on here...