(A/N) What's it been, another two years? The crickets aren't even chirping anymore, they died sometime in year one ahahah

So this chapter was pretty hard to start (actually writing the whole thing has been a pain, idk what it is about this chapter in particular that has been impossible) and I procrastinated a ton on it but that's nothing new so what can you do, amirite?

Also, fic recommendations are still a thing I am always interested in! If you've got some cool fics you think are worth reading (particularly yyh but I'm open to any fic you think is good) please send them my way :D

There's probably a few continuity errors and the like as I'm the worst with small details and kinda just make them up as I go, having not memorized the episodes in any way shape or form haha

On that note, please R&R! I love talking about yyh with other fans because it helps me stay psyched about the show (like, I love yyh more than many things but it's hard to stay focused on one thing for too long without getting sidetracked if there's nothing fueling the excitement ya know?). And I'm on Tumblr as OrchidOwl so hit me up there to talk yyh or whatever new fandom I'm/you're currently obsessing over (annnd please rec me any good yyh accounts you may know on there, I'm following far too few of them lol).

On with the chapter! Here's to hoping it won't take another two years for the next!

"At least they didn't lock the doors on us," Botan said, finger on her chin as she cast a curious gaze around the mansion's foyer.

"I wouldn't have felt too bad busting this guy's doors down if they had locked them," Kuwabara responded, shooting a disdainful look back at said doors.

"I suppose there's no point in subtlety when they already know you're here," Kurama remarked. Of course, he'd always been a fan of the silent approach but there was something to be said for grand entrances and blowing in the doors of your enemy's fortress was a surefire way to make a statement.

"Are you saying we missed a perfect chance to cause property damage? 'Cus I'm gonna be honest, I feel like we should be knocking holes in the walls just on principle," Yusuke said.

The banter flowed with a natural ease, even though two of their group had only just met. It somehow seemed as though they'd been together far longer, been through more together to craft them into this team that, for all intents and purposes, trusted each other implicitly. Later, Kurama would look back on this and have a moment of panic because he'd never before trusted others as quickly as he had Yusuke and Kuwabara, and even Botan, for as much as he disliked Spirit World.

The fox would feel a stab of guilt then, as it had taken him years to come to trust his own human mother in such a way.

But for now, the realization yet to hit him, Kurama remained focused on the task at hand.

The group had wandered past the foyer and into the nearest corridor, pausing to take stock of their relative position and survey the area. They'd made it in but the empty halls and padded, carpet-lined floors that dampened sounds made it seem like stepping into a mausoleum.

"It's certainly a gaudy style our crime lord has gone with here," Kurama commented. As a fellow ex-crime lord (bandit king, crime lord, these words become interchangeable after a certain point) he felt it was a bit insulting to spend such accrued stolen wealth on such an ugly base.

"Yeah, I would have gone with less pastels," Yusuke added, though he wasn't paying much attention to the conversation.

Kuwabara was about to input his opinion on Yusuke knowing anything about pastels and Botan was about to add how cute it was that he'd make such a happy homemaker for Keiko when their enemy arrived.

"Hello, boys~"

"Hello," Kuwabara said, manners taking over to provide the automatic response.

Yusuke and Kurama side-eyed him, though Kurama's was an expression of amusement and Yusuke's could be summed up by: seriously?

And Botan let out an indignant sound at being grouped in with "boys", or worse yet, not even acknowledged!

"Oh goody, I was hoping someone would come along and give us the guided tour," Yusuke said, the first to shake out of his thoughts at the pretty blue-haired demon's arrival.

"I am Miyuki, and I'm afraid I won't be escorting you anywhere. Now, fight me, unless you're afraid of losing to a woman!"

"Hah, I ain't afraid of hitting a lady. Bring it," came Yusuke's elegant response.

Kurama took the chance, while Yusuke faces off against their new opponent, to let his thoughts wander again. This would probably be the only chance for him to deliberate before they made it to the real challenge. Kuwabara was quite adamant that he would not be fighting a woman and Kurama could tell their help wasn't needed.

Although he would let someone else tell Kuwabara that he would have been perfectly fine fighting this opponent.

He is beginning to see an odd pattern to these bodyguards employed by Tarukane. It made sense that the first few batches of demons would be weak, likely only used to ward off humans and the occasional mercenary. But why, after witnessing the ease at which they had been wiped out, would he not send for the Toguro's immediately?

And he didn't like the way the hallway camera's followed their movements. They were being tracked everywhere they went in this place.

Kurama narrowed his eyes at the cameras. If he'd been by alone he might have disabled them and tried to cover his steps. Even if his presence were already known, not being able to see where his exact position was would work in his favor. However, Kurama sighed internally, casting a glance at his loud teammates, as much as he could conceal himself, he'd never be able to hide Yusuke and Kuwabara, and Botan was hardly a master of stealth as they'd witnessed in the forest.

He spared a brief thought on how training them in being quiet would go but gave it up just as fast. A thousand years old he may be, but he definitely didn't have the patience for that.

Hiei was teaching Yusuke and Kuwabara how to fight. Not nearly as difficult as teaching them to be stealthy, to be sure, but an odd task nonetheless. Kurama was still trying to wrap his mind around the sudden, to him, change the younger demon had undergone.

The Hiei he'd met all those years ago shared surface traits with the current Hiei. The biting sarcasm and aloofness was par for the course and he seemed to still be impulsive in his actions. But underlying that was a remarkable calmness that had settled over Hiei. The little fire demon had been less frantic in his actions, less quick to attack others to protect himself unless it was a real threat. Less like he was clawing his way through life, just trying to survive.

Kurama would go so far as to say the Hiei of now was confident in himself and his place in the world.

Perhaps some life-changing event had happened in the five or so years since he'd seen Hiei. Something that had made him not only tolerate humans, but actually find a friend in two. Kurama just had to find out what that had been.

His time was up.

Kurama watched Yusuke kick Miyuki through a wall and was almost disappointed that he would have to put his thoughts on hold again. This little mystery he was toying with was proving to be the most entertaining thing he'd had in years.

"-And stay down," the detective ordered, crossing his arms.

Kurama joined Yusuke's side, staring down at the defeated demon.

"Urameshi, I can't believe you did that. You're not supposed to hit girls!" Kuwabara shouted when he also reached them.

"What? You can't believe I won the fight and got us closer to Hiei? Yeah, like I'm gonna be sorry for that," Yusuke shot back, sending an indignant glare at the other.

"You didn't have to be so mean about it," Kuwabara argued, waving a hand at the hole Miyuki's head had made in the wall.

"Well, I certainly wasn't going to fight her," Botan piped in. Really, Kuwabara's chivalrous nature was an excellent trait the grim reaper could admire about the boy but she hardly thought it mattered in a life or death situation like this.

"Sure, and next time I'll just let her hand me my ass and we'll see where that gets us."

"Besides," Yusuke muttered, eyes glancing down to avoid looking at Kuwabara, "our misses is actually a mister. So you know, you can calm down and get off my case."

"Er, what?"

"No way!"

Kurama blinked at Kuwabara and Botan's outburst, "I forgot you can't tell, it seemed obvious, although..."

He looked over at Yusuke, "I should have guessed based on Yusuke's, ah, inventive battle strategy and Kuwabara's objections that that was the case."

They turned back to the fallen demon before collectively deciding to move on.

Of course, after they'd established that Miyuki was down for good and reached another cross section of hallways, they reached a startling conclusion.

"Hey, does anyone know where we're actually going?"

Botan and Kuwabara turned to Yusuke with expectant looks, Yusuke looked at Botan and her compass that he'd been following, and Kurama raised a brow at all of them.

"Crap."

"Urameshi, I thought you knew where we were going!" Kuwabara shouted, pointing an accusing finger at the detective.

"Me? I was following Botan 'cus she had the stupid compass!" Yusuke shouted back, flinging his arm out to gesture widely at Botan.

"This was only a general pointer to get to the mansion, we didn't have time to pull together more precise instruments! I don't know where we're going now!" Botan panicked, jumping from foot to foot.

Kurama smiled, what even was his life anymore.

"Okay, okay, look," Yusuke growled, rubbing his head in exasperation, "We gotta find Hiei. That's the whole reason we're here. Maybe we'll even manage to snag him and run before we meet up with certain somebodies."

Kurama very much doubted that would happen and he knew the others were aware of that too. But it was nice that Yusuke was showing some optimism for once in his life.

"Well how're we supposed to find the shrimp in this place anyway?" Kuwabara asked.

"I don't know, you're the psychic, remember?" Yusuke prompted. Honestly, he couldn't find his way out of a corn maze, let alone this giant ass mansion. Of course given enough time for his frustration to build and he'd probably start punching his way out of things. You know, add a few more holes to the walls around here.

"I don't think you know what psychic even means, Urameshi," Kuwabara grumbled.

"Come on, Kuwabara, you're the best shot we've got," Botan encouraged, anything to stop them from asking her which way to go. She was awful with directions!

"I don't even know how it works!" Kuwabara tried to explain. He'd only ever used it automatically when ghosts popped up around him. He'd never tried to hone it or use it on command like they seemed to be implying he did all the time.

"The most we can do is keep walking," Kurama soothed, "perhaps Kuwabara will feel something as we move. Plus, I doubt it matters which direction we choose. I suspect our enemies will make themselves known to us one way or another."

"There, you see? It's good to know someone's got my back," Kuwabara huffed, starting to walk down a random hall.

He was so glad they had Kurama on their team.

"Ok, Hiei, you've got to stop."

Shizuru winced in sympathy pain as she watched Hiei doggedly continue trying to scratch off the wards. When all she got for her efforts was a stubborn glare, she sighed and gave up trying to talk him out of it.

'Stubborn kid,' she thought halfheartedly, 'no wonder he gets along with Kazuma.'

For her own part, Shizuru had been forced to stop attempting to free herself from her own bonds after the pain became too much. Her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw at this point but she couldn't quite make herself go to the extent that Hiei was.

And, to be quite honest, she was functioning on what amounted to nothing at this point. The last time she'd eaten or slept must have been a day before and if it weren't for the constant hum of psychic distress she was feeling she probably would have passed out from exhaustion hours ago.

That was when they felt an explosion rock the foundation of the room.

Shizuru gasped, turning towards the window to try to see if she would have to worry about whether the tower they were in was about to come crumbling down or not.

She'd almost missed Hiei's expression, not that it made much of a difference to her since she couldn't read it anyway. Either way he'd definitely noticed the explosion, but, while he'd seemed surprised by it, he didn't seem confused by it like Shizuru definitely was.

'Ok, then. Let's try round two of getting answers out of him,' Shizuru thought, narrowing her eyes when Hiei relaxed in his chains.

"What was that?"

Hiei almost looked like he wasn't going to respond and Shizuru was about to start yelling if that was the case when he decided to spare his ears, answering, "if it's what I think it is, then our help has arrived."

Then he seemed to realize what he'd said and let out a curse, glaring at the direction that must have been the source of the explosion as if he could see what lay beyond them and was extremely disappointed by it.

"You don't exactly sound happy about that," Shizuru said, trying to prompt the kid into giving her more information without outright demanding it.

"Why shouldn't we be happy someone's here to bust us out?" She pried, honestly unable to understand why help wouldn't be the best damn thing in the world right now, "unless you've got a masochistic streak- which I'm honestly starting to suspect right now- and want to stay in this place?"

Hiei turned to face her again, blinking as he focused back outside of his thoughts. Then he really looked at her and cast a sharp glance back towards the window, drying blood cracking around his widening eyes as he seemed to draw a connection she couldn't see.

"Okay, and what's that look supposed to be," Shizuru snapped out.

Instead of answering that last demand, Hiei went back to the first questions, though it sounded like he was talking to himself more than responding to her demand for answers.

"This was exactly what I didn't want to happen," he said, dropping his gaze to the floor to try glaring holes into it, "our help is no help at all at this point in time. The Toguros will have no use for them and they're nowhere near strong enough to actually defeat the brothers now."

"Who is our help?" Shizuru demanded, running short on her already frayed patience.

Hiei sighed, letting his head fall back to the stone wall with a "thunk." When he finally answered, it was with a wry voice, "your brother, Yusuke, and one other, Botan, who you wouldn't know, are coming here to rescue us."

The sentence dropped like a bombshell, freezing Shizuru up as she tried to process yet another thing that made no sense.

"My baby brother, the fourteen year old kid, his delinquent friend, and some random third person, are here to fight an entire mansion full of guys with guns and actual demons?"

Hiei winced, realizing his blunt words maybe weren't the best way to break the news to her but couldn't bring himself to put in the energy to explain it more gently.

Besides, things were shot to hell at this point anyways. The Toguros in the original timeline already knew who the detective was when they finally went to rescue Yukina, having had time for their contacts to bring them the news of the Saint Beasts' defeat. Word of a new Spirit Detective was out by then and his reputation enough to have piqued the younger Toguro's attention.

As of this timeline? Yusuke had only just finished his training at Genkai's, not even having had to fight for the Artifacts of Darkness beforehand. And one victory at her tournament was not enough to garner much attention at all.

Had they even dealt with the Saint Beasts yet? Hiei couldn't remember when that case had happened besides knowing the timeline had been fast-forwarded by his rescuing of his sister early and by his subsequent kidnapping. Perhaps the Saint Beasts wouldn't even make their move on the Human World for another few months yet due to some Butterfly Effect. Hiei had no way of knowing how things were proceeding while he was trapped here.

He had no idea whether the Toguro's wouldn't just outright kill the intruders in an attempt to get Yukina's whereabouts from him once he realized they were there for his rescue. That corrupt businessman, Sakyo, certainly had no use for them at the moment.

In other words, Hiei was quickly running out of options. He wasn't even certain if Kurama had received his psychic shout. Would the fox even know what to do with the information?

Of course, now that he thought of it, he couldn't be certain Botan was even there, the only reason Spirit World had gotten involved to begin with had been Tarukane's harvesting of Yukina's tears. Without her in the mix they might not feel the need to send one of their reapers.

The bitter hope that Yusuke and Kuwabara had the smarts to stay away after Hiei had tried to warn them was dwindled to nothing. Yes, that explosion may have been some other intruders, which was... not likely

Hiei should have known better than to think those too would do the intelligent thing and stay away from the Toguros.

Still...

Too many variables and not enough facts. Hiei would have set something on fire if he could. At least that would make him feel better.

The skewed timeline, his capture instead of Yukina's, the potential lack of Spirit World involvement with Tarukane, Shizuru's presence, and finally, whether that explosion had even been the detective and the fool to his rescue or not.

His ability to sense energy patterns over distance had been severely compromised by the wards. He'd have to wait until the intruders came closer before he'd be able to tell.

All of those factors and more clouded the situation and made it impossible to plan worth a damn.

Hiei once again strongly wished Kurama had been the one to grab the damn gauntlet.

Also Shizuru looked like she wanted to claw his eyes out, the woman was seething with rage and horror about Hiei's possible premature guess about the explosion's source.

"Why would my baby brother be coming here, exactly," she hissed through a thin veneer of a pleasant smile.

Hiei thought about rolling his eyes, exasperated by the info dump and already knowing he was going to get shit for revealing Spirit World secrets to a human but he'd never been one to care about that puffed up society's rules much. And at this point what was there to lose?

"Your brother just so happens to be friends with the current Spirit Detective," Hiei started, deciding he'd rather spare his ears than try making up something to keep Shizuru more in the dark.

He gave her the brief outline of the three worlds and Yusuke's roll in it, not saying anything about how he'd had a hand in resurrecting the detective.

If the detective wanted to blab about his miraculous return to the living and the methods that were used then Hiei would just have to skewer him.

Kurama especially must never know, Hiei determined. The teasing that that damn fox would put him through would be endless. Hiei would have to threaten the ferry girl since she'd most certainly been a witness but that wouldn't be a problem, as the first timeline had shown.

"And Kazuma just happened to get involved with all this," Shizuru growled out, unconsciously twisting in her bonds as if imagining wrapping her hands around someone's- probably his- throat.

"Kuwabara nearly got his fool head removed fighting a demon far beyond his level, despite both my and the detective's warnings, at the psychic Genkai's tournament six months ago," Hiei scoffed at the memory, not caring at this point about throwing even more fuel to the fire that was Shizuru's anger.

Shizuru narrowed her eyes and Hiei waited for the next accusatory question she'd throw his way.

"Yeah, that does sound like Kazuma," she huffed out instead, anger deflating and leaving her to slouch heavily back into the chair.

Hiei hid a commiserating grin, feeling wry amusement at the exasperation anyone who spent time with Kuwabara must at some point feel.

Well, Hiei frowned, Yukina never seemed to have that problem with the fool but the less said about that relationship the better, in his mind.

A sigh from Shizuru brought his attention out of that particular avenue and back to the present.

"So seeing as I can't dislocate my thumb or brute force these ropes off, any chance you might have a plan B to get us out of here?" Shizuru grumbled, wincing as she tried to tug at her bonds.

"Such as?" Hiei said, his tone dry as he realized most of his plans involved brute force and impulse.

"Like, these Toguros are mercenaries right?" Shizuru asked, more to herself as she tried to think out loud, "is there anything we can bargain with them? Do they have something besides money they want?"

Hiei snorted at the thought, "it doesn't matter what they want. Their current leash holder cares for nothing other than his own entertainment and we're not even pawns in his game."

"As for the Toguros themselves," Hiei said, contempt making his mouth curl in distaste, "one is a rabid dog and the other-"

Hiei stopped, brow furrowing as he turned that sentence in his head.

Shizuru made as if to prompt him into finishing what he was saying and Hiei shook his head, "I may have our plan B. Let me think about this."

He stared at the floor but his mind was elsewhere, considering the potential insanity he was piecing together.

The future was up in the air at this point and his plan may not even be a plan at all.

Still, Hiei sighed inwardly to stifle the building tension he was feeling. There was nothing he could do until the Toguros showed themselves again.

He would need his energy, at the moment all of which was going into healing the self-inflicted wounds he'd incurred.

"I suggest you find what rest you can," Hiei stated before closing his eyes and dropping his head forward, getting as comfortable as his incredibly uncomfortable position would allow.

"Yeah, like I could sleep in a place like this," Shizuru grumbled, glaring at the demon.

But, psychic nerves practically numbed at this point and her body desperately crying out for sleep, Shizuru made her own pathetic adjustments in the chair and tried for the rest she was sure would be impossible to find.

Hiei noted that Shizuru, despite her complaints, had finally passed into exhausted slumber a few moments later before he let himself slip into the light doze all denizens of the Demon World were able to attain in moments.

His last thought was that he'd be ready when the Toguros came back. Then, he could foolishly bargain with the one piece he had to play with.

In another section of the mansion, a second Demon Triad member fell to Team Urameshi.

(A/N)

And that's ch. 19 folks! I've got a fun little plot twist coming up in the next chapter that should spin this into some new AU territory, although the effects won't be felt for further in the story so we'll see how that goes :]

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year so at the least you guys will get another couple chapters out before my inevitable dropping off the map because I may not be consistent in many things but in my procrastinating, I am...