Just two idea's I'm playing around with...anybody else working on YYH?
If so, I'd love to be a pre-reader! ^_^

Oh, and if you do read this, (I have a feeling I've picked another
obscure anime/manga to become fasinated with) I'd love to hear what you
think, good or bad...

Windlily

(dragoncritter@theCelestialTemple.com)


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Yuu Yuu Hakusho

A Missing Item...


	Kurama twitched in his sleep and drew his knees up, bringing his feet
away from the sensation. The tickle followed and he opened his eyes. It
took him only a fraction of a second to place the figure that stood at
the end of his bed.

	"Ajou?" It couldn't be! Ajou was many, many years dead.

	"Kurama," his best and fourth partner smiled back at him and tickled
the sole of his left foot with his long fingernails again.

	"What are you doing here?" Kurama asked with a frown as he sat up and
crossed his legs, taking his feet well out of range of the apparition.

	Ajou grinned at him and settled on the foot of the bed. "I like that
red hair, Kurama. Where ever did you steal it from?"

	"I didn't steal it," Kurama's hand went without conscious direction to
push the silken stuff back behind his ears. "What are you doing here?"

	"I'm not here. How could I be? I got killed, remember?"

	Kurama did. Ajou had gotten killed in a job gone sour. Jakara's
fortress had lived up to it's reputation and Ajou hadn't made it out,
caught and killed in one of the many traps. Kurama had barely escaped
himself.

	Ajou shook his head. "That's not how it happened, and you know it,
Kurama." 

	"What?" Kurama blinked at his friend, startled.

	"You changed the memory so no one would be able to find it again. Not
even yourself," Ajou's frost colored eyes began to glow.
	
	Jumbled bits of memory came on Kurama hard and fast...running
free...exchanging exuberant laughter with Ajou as the hunters snarled
and cursed behind them...then once they had lost their pursuers,
stopping to exam their prizes. Jakara's stronghold was rumored to be
impossible to get in to and his treasure vault filled with wealth
unimaginable. It was just the kind of challenge that was irresistible
for two Youko thieves. Half of the rumor was true. Once they had cracked
the wards on the vault they had just stood and stared at the heaps of
goodies. With no time to pick and choose, they had just grabbed things
at random and stuffed them into their bags. Now they sat and upended
their bags. Kurama was sorting the magiked from the mundane trinkets in
his pile as Ajou undid the knots that held the black silk wrapped around
one of his picks.

	"Huum...pretty!" Kurama looked up to see the golden sword hilt in his
friends hands.

	It was in the shape of a dragon, the body forming the grip, the
slightly parted jaws where the blade would go. It was pretty. Then it
began to emit a soft red-gold glow. Ajou cocked his eyebrows at it as a
blade of energy began to emerge from the open mouth. The glow
intensified and Kurama felt the prickle of growing power from it raise
his fur. The blade warped and changed, the energy starting to writhe
snake-like.

	"Ajou, put it..." the 'down!!' never got out.

	Ajou's mouth opened in a soundless scream. The blaze of light engulfed
him, then the blade exploded outwards...

	Kurama was badly burned and battered with one arm hanging limp over the
lip of  the crater. It was gone, finally. It had taken the energy dragon
that had come from the hilt only six seconds to consume all of Ajou's
rei as it had snaked about, out of control. It had seemed like forever.
He could see the hilt glittering at the bottom, the piece of silk that
it had been wrapped in in a puddle next to it, the only thing other than
himself that had survived. Ajou! Ajou was gone! The horrid thing had
absorbed everything...everything...

	He glared at it as he pulled himself shakily onto his hands and knees.
If it fell into the hands of someone who could control it, especially
one of his many enemies... He half slid, half tumbled down the fused
sides of the crater and wrapped the hilt back into it's black silk with
trembling and blistered fingers. He had to hide it...hide it so no one
would ever find it...

	Kurama jerked upright in his bed, panting as his heart raced in his
chest. The smell of burned fur and meat hung in the back of his nose as
his gaze raked the room, but nothing was in it that shouldn't be there.
Nightmare. It was just a nightmare... It hadn't happened that way! It
hadn't!


to be continued....


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Yuu Yuu Hakusho


Fucking Youko! 
*ahem...this is only a working title...*

	The night sky was full of snaking neon colors, the Makai's version of
the Aurora Borealis. Hiei's breath steamed and plumed on the air and he
really wished it wouldn't. It marked his last position as he flitted
from shadow to shadow, searching. What was Kurama doing here? It was
incredibly cold, not that cold affected him much at all. An amused gleam
touched his eyes. He hoped that Kurama was freezing his tail off. It
would serve him right. Then the gleam faded as the aura of the place
reasserted itself. It was creepy as hell and set his nerves on edge,
which didn't affect him much either. It was the state they were normally
in. It was the lack of life up here bothered him. There was no normal
rustle of small night creatures stirring the ice laced undergrowth, no
movement of air. It was as if the whole area was holding it's breath.

	"Fucking Youko! Why am I even here?" He hissed softly to himself.
*You're here because you're worried about him, dumb ass!*

	He hated that fact. Hated that Kurama had made him care. He had
cultivated the ability to be uncaring very hard. Before he had met the
missing Youko, everyone he had encountered had been 'things'. Things to
be used and discarded when he was finished with them. Then he'd met
Kurama and that Youko had slithered under his guard with all his kitsune
craftiness. Now there were beings in his universe other than himself.
Not many. Five, to be exact. But they were there and he found himself
concerned about them. Some in different ways than others. He wouldn't be
at all disturbed if Kuwabara were to suffer a fatal accident and remove
himself from that number. Preferably a very painful accident.

	He leapt to an out-thrust ledge and made a slow turn, looking for any
sign. Where the hell was Kurama? He had disappeared without a word to
anyone, not even his mother and that was very unlike Kurama. In fact, no
one knew he was missing until his mother started calling his friends,
worried. He had overheard Yuusuke's conversation with the human who had
given his Youko companion his second chance at life and decided he would
go and check in the Makai while the others blundered around trying to
figure out what to do. He had tracked him to the foot of this mountain,
then the trail had disappeared. His hand strayed to the bandana that
covered his third eye, then fell again. The danger of detection from
it's use was too great. He wasn't sure what was here that could detect
it, but he just had a 'feeling'. And trust of those kinds of 'feelings'
had kept him alive for a very long time. A glint of light caught the
corner of his eye. He leapt back into the shadows and raced for the
other side of the mountain.

	Hiei hid, just another shadow thrown by the boulders that ringed the
base of the thundering waterfall that split the narrow defile that
cracked the mountain. At first he thought the figures in the niches of
the soaring cliff face across from him were statues. Until his eyes
found the flame colored tresses of the Youko he searched for.

	*FUCK!!!* 

	Kurama was encased in a crystalline structure like the rest. Hiei
couldn't see his figure well, but he imagined it was as twisted and
racked as the creatures in the bottom niches he could see. Kurama's
niche was about fifty meters up the glass smooth wall and Hiei had hit
on no solid plan on how to get him down.

	A purring laugh echoed up the walls. *Double FUCK!!!*

	He tensed and cocked his head, trying to locate the source of the laugh
amid the echoes.

	There was a splash from the water behind the rocks. He stepped out of
the way of the spray and focused on the creature who had appeared to
peer at him over the top of one of the lowers rocks. The fires in the
skies were reflected in the pupil-less silver eyes that regarded him
back.

	"And who do we have here?" She asked as she slithered up onto the rock.

	It was definitely a she. The water-slicked pelt of fine white fur  that
covered her body only accentuated her naked form.

	"None of your business," Hiei growled at her.

	"How rude!" She smiled at him then shook herself, sending water flying
everywhere.

	He found himself staring at that sensuous movement. He did notice that
the water droplets she shed froze as they flew and landed to sparkle
like tiny diamonds. She half slid, half flowed down the rock. Hiei
stepped back a bit to keep a neutral distance between them.

	"I've come for Kurama."

	"Who?" She batted her lashes at him.

	Hiei pointed. "Get him down and let him out and I won't have to hurt
you."

	She didn't follow the direction of his finger. Instead she kept her
seemingly sightless eyes locked on his own and laughed again. It pissed
him off and his hand went to his sword hilt.

	"No."

	She flipped up backwards to balance on her hands on top of the boulder
as he drew and had the gall to wink at him as she pushed off. He leapt
to the top of the boulder but all that was before him was the rippling
surface of the pool under the waterfall.

	"Hn." He eyed it suspiciously and kept some of his attention on it as
he turned to study the cliff face once more

	 A flicker of reflection from the Makai Lights gave him enough warning.
He moved and the slender frozen arrow of water embedded itself into one
of the few stunted trees in the gorge. He didn't have time to see where
the others hit as he danced with the shadows to avoid the ceaseless
barrage.

	*Crap! Where the hell is she?*  He was against the cliff face now and
jumped high to avoid the next half seen missile.

	He needed some height to see if he couldn't spot her. The alcoves were
just big enough to hold the captives and their crystals. He toppled one
of the crystals out and lit on the now vacant ledge and deflected
another volley of arrows with his sword. The barrage stopped for a
moment and his gaze raked over the water. He couldn't see past the
ruffled surface of the pool. He did see the crystal he had just chucked
caught in the current and floating out the narrow gap that let the water
of the pool out into the river that flowed beyond as he yanked the
bandana off and willed his third eye open. One side of his mouth quirked
up a fraction in what passed for his smile. One problem solved.

	The sight of the third eye clearly saw the female figure slipping with
otter litheness through the deep water of the pool. Then he found out
why the barrage had stopped. The third eye saw them coming clearly
before he heard the soft tinkle of their flight. He flipped out, barely
avoiding the swarm of tiny frozen needles that filled the space he had
just been and shattered against the back of the alcove. He hit the
ground, bounced for the opposite wall, then launched himself for
Kurama's niche. He toppled the crystal that held the trapped Youko and
twisted as he heard the tinkle in the air. The bitch had anticipated his
move.

to be continued...