CHAPTER 01: "Haunted House Hang-Up"

Far to the north of Sarayashiki lay a forest, and at the heart of this forest sat the imposing heft of Onigumo Manor.

The forest was, whether by necessity or happenstance, dark and dreary and thoroughly unwelcoming. The manor was all of these things, too, but with the additional misfortune of pronounced dilapidation. It had stood for a hundred years, at least, comprising a dozen sprawling wings that had fallen to disrepair and myriad gardens that had once been lush but now were overgrown and rotted. No one was precisely sure when the manor had been built. Deeds and papers in the nearest town's city hall likely gave an exact date, but to most of that town's residents, the manor appeared as ancient and inscrutable as the forest that shaded its crumbling roof. To them, it seemed, the house would stand as long as the forest's swaying pines stretched tall, as ineffable and inevitable as the flow of time itself.

This manor was, of course, deeply and distressingly haunted as fuck.

"Well. Allegedly haunted, anyway," Koenma had told Yusuke over a videotaped mission assignment. "But you're not going there to look for ghosts. A demonic presence was recently detected in the vicinity of Onigumo Manor, and since hikers have been disappearing in that area as of late, it will come as no surprise that I'm calling you in to investigate, Yusuke."

By "Yusuke" he meant and Yusuke's friends, that is—namely Kuwabara and Kurama, who walked at Yusuke's side as they travelled the dirt road toward the house, and Hiei, who was probably off skulking in a tree somewhere. Hell if Yusuke knew. None of them had particularly wanted to come on this mission. Yusuke spent the majority of the hike to the manor grumbling about stupid toddlers with too much time on their hands, and when Kurama shushed him, Yusuke rolled his eyes. Kurama needed to chill out.

But when Kurama pointed head of them, Yusuke shut up, fast. Kurama needed to chill out, sure, but when he got that serious look on his face, Yusuke knew better than to bitch. He followed the line of Kurama's finger without another grouse, and above the trees that loomed over the road he saw the crest of a broad, dark roof. The manor rose out of the forest like a ghost ship rising from the deep, and at the sight of it, Yusuke gave a little shiver.

"Nearly there, huh?" Kuwabara muttered.

"Almost," Kurama replied, but quietly.

Yusuke jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Let's just get this over with."

Kurama and Kuwabara nodded. Yusuke kicked a rock down the path ahead as they approached the manor. The thing loomed large, broken windows like jagged teeth in a dark maw. Kuwabara grumbled something about the place being damned creepy—but before he could curse out Koenma, too, Kurama held up a staying hand. "We aren't alone," he said in his low, soft voice, and Yusuke followed his bright green gaze to the manor's heavy front doors.

There, posed before the door knockers shaped like roaring fu dogs, five figures stood on the manor's front stoop.

NOTE: This story will be told in 500-ish-word chunks. Also for the duration of this fic, we're pretending Yusuke & co. all speak fluent English because it just makes things easier on me, OK? #CrackFicCreativeLicense

Also, note to LC readers: A chapter was due out this weekend but personal events and a migraine derailed my updating. Take five chapters of this instead as meager compensation for emotional damages (which might only be made worse by this slop, BUT OH WELL IT'S TOO LATE NOW AND HERE WE ARE).