I am so sorry for the long wait. I'm hoping to update this sooner next time.

On another note, the character of Botan will be called Hanaka in this chapter. This is the name that she knows herself as, and this is the name Yusuke and Kuwabara know her as. She doesn't really think she's Botan yet, so she will be referred to as Hanaka. It's the same character. Just so you know. :)

Otherwise... enjoy!

Princess of the Spirit World

Chapter Three

The train to Reikai bumbled down the tracks merrily with three illegal passengers aboard –four, if including Puu. Of course, Hanaka was completely oblivious to the illegality of their boarding, and slept for the beginning of the trip.

Yusuke and Kuwabara (and Puu) sat in the compartment with her while she slept, talking quietly to each other.

"Do you really think she is going to be able to do this?"

"You said it yourself," Kuwabara answered, "She looks like the princess, if the princess were older."

"Yes… yes, I suppose so." Yusuke looked over at the sleeping girl, watching her carefully. She did resemble the princess, and even the royal family, quite a lot. Even the way she walked seemed to have a sort of royal air, although she had been at an orphanage for years. She had the same eyes as the elder queen –the one who survived, and still lived in Reikai. The one who would have the final say in if this girl was the princess, and if they would get the reward money.

"Oi, Yusuke," the raven haired boy looked back to his friend, "You've been staring at her for two minutes."

"I have not been staring," Yusuke scoffed. "I was just thinking about the plan and how well it's going to turn out, and how me and you are gonna be rich after this. It will be great!" he said firmly, sinking back into his seat with a smile on his face. Kuwabara grinned back.

Puu, resting on the empty seat next to Kuwabara, looked out the window of the train. Without the other two conscious occupants noticing, a small green imp peeked in at him. "Puu!" the small blue animal sounded, "Puu!"

"Shut up, Puu," Yusuke hushed. With a nasty face in his direction, the imp flew away from their compartment. Puu flew into his mistress's arms, waking her up by the movement.

"Oh," she rubbed her eyes, "What's going on?"

"Nothing at all," Kuwabara told her while getting up. "I'm going to go find the snack car. I'll be right back."

Hanaka held Puu up with a smile, "What's wrong, Puu? Did something frighten you outside?"

"Puu,"

"There's nothing outside," Yusuke interjected, eyes closed and feet reclining on the seats across from him, "He's just a needy blue blob is all."

"I didn't ask you." Hanaka snapped, sticking her tongue out before returning back to Puu with a smile. "Don't worry about him, Puu, he's just mean and grumpy." Yusuke 'hrumphed' at her, blinking one eye open.

"I don't see you trying to be nice to me."

Hanaka stared at him with violet eyes. "Fine, then." She leaned in very close to him, staring straight into his eyes. He leaned back as she got closer, shocked and very thrown off. She stopped when she was five inches from his face. For a moment she only stared at him.

"You have nice eyes." She spoke quickly before leaning back into an upright position, turning away from him to look straight ahead at Puu. He stared at her.

"That's your attempt at being nice?"

"The least you could do is give me a compliment in return."

He snorted, "Okay. 'You have nice eyes'." He mocked, imitating her voice with a high pitched squeak. Her head whirled to face him, eyes burning in irritation.

"At least I actually tried to be nice. You're just being a jerk."

Yusuke floundered for a response, and in that moment Puu flew up towards the ceiling before settling himself on Yusuke's head. There was silence in the compartment before Hanaka burst out laughing.

"Hey!" she didn't stop laughing, "It's… it's not that funny! Get this thing off of me!" Yusuke tried pulling Puu off of him, but the blue creature refused to move. Hanaka did not stop laughing even after Yusuke stopped trying to get Puu off of his head. The black haired man silently steamed and Hanaka barely even covered her laughter.

Kuwabara re-entered the compartment, looking slightly worried. "Yusuke, I, uh, need to talk to you quickly." Yusuke rose, and they huddled in the corner of the small booth, voices too soft for Hanaka to hear. Finally, Yusuke whirled around to look at her, an almost nervous smile on his face.

"Princess," he started, "it seems that we have to move to another compartment. If you would be so kind," he gestured towards the door and she stood, trying not to laugh because Puu was still on his head. The two men followed her with their luggage and they slowly moved towards the front of the train.

When they reached the luggage compartment, they stopped. Hanaka turned to the boys, a suspicious look on her face, "Why are we in here?"

"We thought you needed some more space from the commoners that were around you so much," Kuwabara supplied.

"Oh, so it's nothing illegal that I have to worry about?" she asked, not believing them for a second.

"Of course not, Princess," Yusuke said, almost bowing, "Of course not."

Hanaka decided not to comment on that and just let it be. She didn't really care what happened as long as she got to Reikai. She knew her family was there. They had to be.

The train gave a sharp lurch and all three people fell backwards. As soon as he could, Yusuke looked out the car door, only to see that they had been disconnected from the rest of the passenger train. His eyes widened and he looked around. He could feel the train get faster. Had they been outside of the train, they would have seen the green imps making sure that they were trapped in the fast-moving train. They wanted the girl to die, like she was supposed to over a decade ago.

"This train isn't going to stop for a while," he breathed, knowing that it was going too fast to come to a halt anytime soon.

"Well, won't it eventually stop due to friction?" Kuwabara asked.

"That's only if we have enough track," Yusuke started.

"Speaking of having enough track… we don't."

Both men looked to Hanaka who was at the front of the compartment, looking out of the window on the door. They rushed to where she stood only to see that a bridge up ahead had fallen apart. They only had another mile or so of track before they would plummet to their deaths.

Yusuke stepped in front of the other two, ripping the door open and looking down to the link between their car and the engine car. Even standing, he could see that the links had melded together, making them impossible to separate. He looked around desperately, needing something to slow down this train.

"We need to slow down." Yusuke said loudly, beginning to search for anything to help. "We need to slow down." It became something like his mantra.

"Yusuke, we just have to jump," Kuwabara started.

"We are going too fast to do that and not be injured terribly. We need to slow down."

"I found a chain!" Hanaka shouted, "I found a chain –maybe we can attach it to the train and then make it catch on the tracks. It should slow us down enough that we could jump."

"Not if we're still attached to the engine…" Yusuke said. He sighed, looking at Kuwabara with a helpless expression on his face. "I'm going to do something now, and it's going to leave me exhausted afterward. Do you understand?"

Kuwabara looked at his friend seriously. He knew what Yusuke was going to do. He would use his spirit energy to separate them from the engine. He had seen him do it once before, and afterward Yusuke had slept for a day. He called it a spirit gun. Kuwabara could only pray that it would work. He nodded at his friend.

"Hanaka, go with Kuwabara behind those crates. You'll be safter there."

The blue haired girl looked at him suspiciously before following his orders. The two knelt behind crates close to the end of the compartment while Yusuke traveled to the front of it. He put his hands together and concentrated hard on the point just in front of his fingers.

Hanaka and Kuwabara heard a loud explosion before the compartment lurched again. They began slowing down almost immediately, but not enough. They both stood quickly to see Yusuke breathing heavily, turned to look back at them.

"Where's that chain you found?"

Hanaka ran to get the chain from across the compartment and Yusuke stumbled over to the other end of it.

"Yusuke, maybe I should attach it…"

"I am smaller than you. Less chance of debris hitting me. I can last." He muttered, climbing out of the car and under it. He looped the chain around anything he could find twice before climbing back up. "Hold on!" He threw the other end of the chain onto the tracks.

With a violent pitch forward, the chain caught and rocked the car off the tracks completely. Still moving fast towards the cliff, the three gathered on the edge of the car, looking down into the heavy snow surrounding them.

"It's now or never," Hanaka breathed before taking both of their hands and pulling them with her as she jumped. For a moment, all she saw was black. When she opened her eyes, everything was white. She pulled herself through the snow and then saw the sky. She looked down the tracks, only to see the compartment they had been on plummet off of the edge of the cliff. She shuddered before looking for the two men.

Kuwabara popped up out of the snow somewhere to her left. Immediately, she turned to the right to look for Yusuke. He was not appearing. She looked around again frantically before Puu came up from the snow. She knelt next to the animal and dug through the snow before finally finding him. His eyes were closed and he didn't seem injured. She held him close to her and realized that he was sleeping. She felt relief run through her. Puu settled on her shoulder, and she silently thanked the creature for resting on the man's head. Without him, she would have never found Yusuke.

"I'll carry him. Come on, we have a long way to go tonight."

She looked up to see Kuwabara offering her his hand. She nodded and took his hand before watching him pick up his friend. Together, they walked away from the tracks and followed the ridge of the cliff, hoping to reach a town soon.

Elsewhere, a dark man grit his teeth as he watched them walk away, in his crystal ball, from what should have been their deaths.