Hiei nodded. "I heard about it in legends long ago. There was a plain that once existed called Yoru no Kuni ... the Lands of Night." He took a deep breath, though he was never one for story telling and quickly tried to change the subject. It was all he could muster to keep from falling asleep when the group started up on their stories of past battles and the whole lot.

"Go on ... " Koenma beckoned.

Hiei glanced to Yukina quickly ... maybe this wasn't the brightest idea. He was sure she would have heard the legends too, long ago from the ancestors in their tribe ... finding out now that HE was her lost brother would most likely devastated her.

"Hiei!" Kuwabara yelled, bonking the little guy on the noggin.

He snarled up to the tall man, receiving a comforting hand on the shoulder from Kurama. Hiei desperately put his anger to the back of his mind and began.

"Back at the creation of the world, the Yoru no Kuni was the entire underground of the universe ... housing the Underworld and all the evil. It was split apart by fighting demon generals ... from that came Makai, Meikai and a number of other separate underworlds. But when the demon generals began to invade Ningenkai, their homelands were also invaded and thought to have been destroyed ... leaving only Makai and Meikai intact."

He raised a cautious eye to Yukina who appeared to be clueless at this point in time, listening on intently. "The boundary between the other two worlds that were supposedly destroyed was Yomatsu Hara-Sakai ... the Bounds of Night. That was where the demons, spirits and other creatures gathered when their worlds were destroyed. It was a place that my ancestors couldn't describe ... but from what I could guess, it's nothing like anyplace I've ever seen."

Kurama ran a finger across his forehead, glancing down to the human girl beside him, holding the glowing gem tightly. "That's where this comes from?"

Hiei neither answered or moved ... instead, he stared blankly in concentration down the street and into the darkness, his mind searching through the strange city.

"What is it?" Yusuke asked, looking off into the night with him.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Strange, flashing lights and odd ningen noises."

A siren burst suddenly into existence, filling the street with a pulsating red and blue light. Hiei drew his sword, aimed toward the odd lights and sounds and snarled, ready to pounce.

Karyn huffed. "Cops ... they're never around when you need them, and always too late when you do need them," she said, shoving the gem over to Koenma.

"Cops?" Koenma asked, taking it up carefully. "What are those?"

Karyn eyed him. "You from Mars or something? Police men!"

"I think we should make a quick get away," Yusuke said. "Hiei, take us to Makai ... Yukina, Kieko ... you stay here with ... uh, what was your name?"

"Karyn."

"Right!"

The policeman stepped heavily out of the car, his figure graced with one too many donuts. He pulled out his flashlight and shone it down the street. It glanced off light poles and followed across the street until three girls popped into the light. He wrinkled his nose and began forward. "You girls heard any screaming around here?"

The group collectively shook their heads.

He clicked the flashlight off and walked up to them mumbling about his interrupted coffee break. He looked around the group ... Karyn, Yukina, Keiko. His gaze fell back to Yukina, and she flinched, drawing back.

"What's with the hair, girl?" he pointed to her streaming blue locks.

Karyn laid a hand on her shoulder. "Too much chlorine in the pool water."

The cop eyed her. "You girls mind telling me what's been going on down here?"

Keiko shrugged. "Maybe if we knew. Too bad you're too late," she emphasized, drawing a look from the cop. "There was some sicko with a sword here about ten minutes ago, but he ran off. Could be halfway to Tokyo by now!"

Botan shrugged. "Search me! I didn't even know other realms existed .. let alone gateways to them." She floated about a foot off the ground, seated comfortably on her oar. "Who told you this?"

Yusuke shot a finger back to Hiei who glared a hole through the back of his head. "Anything odd surfaced lately in Reikai?"

"Absolutely nothing ... no spirits, no nothing! It's completely quiet around there.

Koenma held up the red jewel given to him by the human. "Maybe we can use this somehow."

"How exactly would we do that?" Kuwabara asked, fidgeting with a stray curl of his red hair.

Kurama took the jewel and held it in his hand, moving around in circles. The energy it put off came at him in waves, growing strongest when he pointed it towards a line of dying trees. He lowered it and looked off. "Hmm ... works just like a compass."

"A what?" Hiei answered as the group started off. He looked up to Kurama who only smiled, looking off to the dying trees.

The gem lead them on for about two miles through the gnarled forest. Although Hiei was quite at home, Kuwabara would jump at every little thing that moved. He peppered the entire trip with panicked shouts as odd animals scurried by and tree limbs bent down to whap him in the nose.

He rubbed his sore nose intently, contorting his face into odd glares and glances until a hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "AH!!!"

Kurama threw him a crooked look as his friend jumped about ten feet. "This things stopped putting out energy," he tossed it to Yusuke.

"Maybe we're right on top of the gateway." He looked up to the dark, murky blue that could pass for 'sky' and searched.

"Maybe you broke it," Hiei said.

"Maybe it saw YOU and died of shock!" Kuwabara put in quickly.

"Why you ... "

"THE GROUND!!!" Botan yelled, pointing down to the forest floor.

It turned suddenly to quicksand, sucking them all down up to their shoulders before they could react ... then the floor opened up in a spinning vortex of light, engulfing them totally in an instant. Botan reeled back, shielding her eyes from the light. "Oh no," she whispered, watching on expecting them to come leaping back out.

But they never came. She looked down into the vortex, clutching the oar handle firmly. "Well ... no sense being left out ... " and she flew down into the vortex.

Karyn quietly pushed the door to her parent's apartment opened and stepped inside. The Elvis clock on the wall read 9:25, the hips shaking back and forth as the seconds hand circumnavigated Elvis' chest. "I'm home," she called softly.

There was a groan from the couch, and her mother raised a hand, waved and went back to sleep. "Mom? Is it okay if some friends stay the night?"

There was an affirmative groan.

Karyn turned out the door and motioned Keiko and Yukina to come in. The two entered neatly in the house, kicking their shoes off at the door before being motioned up the orange, shag- carpeted stairs.

It was a totem pole ...

No ... a wooden statue ...

No. The more Yusuke looked at the thing staring down at him, the more and more odd it became. He picked himself carefully of the floor of a dim forest. He was alone, as far as he could tell ... standing in front of a tall wooden ... thing in an unknown and silent land.

"DON'T STARE!!" it yelled back to him.

Yusuke stumbled back, tripping over fallen branches to land back on his butt.

"IT'S VERY RUDE TO STARE!!" the tree yelled back to him.

"Yeah, what ever," he snorted, getting to his feet, feeling oddly embarrassed to have been caught off-guard so. The tree shifted in place and lumbered forward a few paces.

"What are you? You don't look like any creature I'VE ever seen!"

"Same to ya, pal. Where am I?"

"OH!! How noble of you! First you come crashing onto me from the sky ... stare at me like I'M the freak of nature here... and now you want directions! Hmph! Typical! I should have walked all over you when I had the chance!"

"Look, friend. I'm sorry. I was just sucked into some odd portal and ended up here. It wasn't my choice."

The tree glared down to him. "You from Over-World? You are, aren't you! You and your com-pu-tors and auto-mo-biles. Ningen?"

"Sort of. Who are you?"

The tree shook proudly. "Zurui. And you?"

"Yusuke Urameshi. Could you tell me where I am?"

"Sure thing!" The tree's 'face' contorted into what could pass as a smile as it suddenly changed moods. "You're in one of Yomatsu's forests."

"THIS is Yomatsu Hara-Sakai?"

The tree rustled.

"What happened to the others?"

"Others? Hmm ... could be anywhere. Yomatsu portals are very random, Ningen." The tree rustled and settled down

"Great," he huffed silently to himself.