Chapter 1: Snow White
"Mirror, mirror..."
"I got a bad feeling about this," the tall spiritually sensitive carrot-top muttered for the seventh time since the four of them had entered at the abandoned warehouse.
The leader of the mismatched group rolled his shoulders cockily. "Why? This is a simple go-in-and-kick-demon-ass mission. Nothing to it!" he shouted, his voice echoing eerily in the building.
"Shut up," the shortest of them growled, his hand gripping his katana tightly.
Vibrant green, demonic eyes easily pierced the darkness, but could not discern anything. He ran a hand through his vivid red hair, "I have to agree. Something feels off."
There was a moment of silence as each tried to pinpoint the position of the demon they had been sent to capture. The creature's youki permeated the air making it impossible to track him through it. The four stood back to back as they waited.
"Are your Spidey senses tingly?" Yusuke joked trying to ease the tension in the air. He wouldn't normally consider himself spiritually aware, in possession of a Jagan Eye, or having 1000 plus years underneath his belt, but Yusuke knew something bad was going to happen.
Kurama was the first one affected.
He stiffened and his hand flew from his hair to mouth and noise. He dropped to his knees and started coughing violently.
"Fox?" Hiei called without turning to face his friend.
Kuwabara and Yusuke turned to face their fallen comrade, fear for their friend overriding any survival instincts. "Kurama, what's wrong?" Yusuke asked.
"Poison," Kurama said breathlessly. He gasped in air raggedly. "It's in the air. Everywhere. You're breathing it in as we speak," he panted.
Yusuke regained his feet. "Poison. Great. Koenma didn't mention that."
Kurama smiled weakly, "He didn't mention much."
"Yusuke! Pay attention! This warehouse is a local hangout for teenagers, but lately many have been disappearing. We sensed a powerful youki in the area and I want you to check it out. Okay. Yusuke, are you listening?!"
Taking his eyes off of Kurama momentarily, Yusuke peered around the room. "How come me, Kuwabara, and Hiei don't feel it?"
Kurama started coughing again so Hiei answered for him. "His nose is more sensitive than ours. Stay on your guard."
Kuwabara frowned, "Shouldn't we help him. You know, get him out of here or something?"
Hiei grew edgier. "No time. It's here," he answered shortly. The last part was punctuated with a glowing from beneath the fire demon's headband. He started coughing, though not nearly as much as the redhead.
"Whe—"
"Move!" Hiei snarled just as long, scaly tail lashed out from the shadows. Yusuke barely avoided being hit by the crimson appendage. He rolled out of the way as it returned. He couldn't see it! Where was it coming from?
The whole warehouse was illuminated when a giant fireball was projected from in front of Yusuke. As he dropped to the ground to evade it, he processed what he had seen in his brief glimpse. They were fighting a red turtle with a long tail. Strange purple gas was being produced from the spikes on the shell.
The fire landed on some crates behind Yusuke. He wearily climbed to his feet and lifted his hand to prepare for the spirit gun, knowing that the demon was directly in front of him despite the lack of lighting, Yusuke gathered energy into the tip of his finger.
Well, he tried.
The spirit energy sparked weakly and disappeared, leaving only a thin trail smoke in its stead. What—oh, no. The poison. It was affecting his spirit energy. He rolled out of the way as another fireball was hurled his way.
In the brief lighting Yusuke saw where his friends were. Kuwabara was backed into a corner, his spirit sword nothing more than a dagger, battling against the tail. Kurama's face was sallow and he looked ready to collapse. Hiei stood between him and the demon. He was leaning heavily on his sword, breathing raggedly.
Yusuke charged the turtle recklessly. Aiming a punch for the large demon's underbelly he struck. The teenager jumped back, holding his throbbing hand. "Damn! What's the hell is he made of?" he cursed in pain. "I mea—"
The tail slammed into him effectively cutting off any other words he had. He crashed through the opposite wall and collapsed on the hard concrete surrounding the building. He suddenly felt a rush through him as his spirit energy returned in a surge.
Fresh air. It was getting rid of the poison. Grinning, Yusuke recollected energy into the tip of his finger. Time for this bastard to die. He fired.
The tail whipped back around and intercepted the shot. The spirit energy bounced harmlessly off the metallic scales and careened towards Kuwabara who sluggishly avoided being hit. The tall boy ran over to Yusuke.
"Watch where you're firing that thing Urameshi!" he shouted. He gasped and stepped back when his spirit dagger grew triple its size with the return of his energy. "What the hell?!"
Still grinning Yusuke said, "It's the air. I think it's getting our spirit energy back. I'm gonna fire a hole in the wall next to Kurama and Hiei." He took aim again, "Spirit Gun!"
The energy crashed through the wall and blew a large hole in it. Hiei threw an irritated look towards the smirking brunette and dragged Kurama towards the hole. The poisoned fox helped as best he could, which wasn't much.
Kuwabara ran up to the shelled demon and struck it. Sparks flew from the hit. His spirit sword had the same effect as Yusuke's spirit gun. He returned to Yusuke's side.
"Shit. Nothing we do seems to have any effect on this thing," Yusuke said. He started backing up when the turtle demon focused on the two of them and started towards them. "Oh, shit. Where are those two when you need them," he muttered about his demonic companions.
"Detective! Oaf! Get down!" the Jaganshi's voice said reverberating through their minds. Once again, they dropped to the ground. Yusuke saw a sadistic grin alight on the fire demon's face as threw a fireball at their enemy.
"Does the shrimp really think fire going to hurt that guy?" Kuwabara grumbled from the ground just as the fireball collided with the demon. There was an explosion so loud Yusuke was momentarily deaf.
The world went white…
Yusuke pushed the remains of the warehouse off of him. Kuwabara stood up next to him. He was covered in some purple goo. So was Yusuke. "What the hell was that?! And what the hell is this?!" Yusuke exclaimed indicating the goop he was plastered in.
He heard a soft chuckle behind him and he turned around along with Kuwabara. Kurama and Hiei stood behind them. The reincarnated fox demon was leaning heavily on the fire demon. They too were covered in the purple stuff. "This," he held up a handful of the ooze, "would be the insides of the demon."
Yusuke made a disgusted face and Kuwabara turned slightly green. "We're covered in demon guts!" He turned and looked at Hiei, "What the hell did you do to it?"
Hiei snorted and Kurama answered for him, "That specific type of turtle demon is very rare in Makai because of its tendency to explode when its shell or more specifically the noxious gas it produces comes in contact with fire."
"Oh," Yusuke said, "Okay, that doesn't make any sense."
Kurama laughed and simplified his explanation, "Fire makes those turtle demons blow up."
"Oh," Kuwabara and Yusuke said in understanding.
Yusuke shook his head in bewilderment, "Why didn't you say that the first time." Kurama opened his mouth but closed it before he said anything. The clueless brunette whipped out his pink communicator, "I'll just tell Botan we kicked that demon's ass." As he waited for the grim reaper to answer he looked at the still pale fox, "Hey, Kurama, you gonna be okay?"
He nodded, "Yes. Once the demon dies the poison becomes ineffective. I just need to pass the poison through my system. I'll be perfectly fine in a few days."
Botan's cheery yet urgent voice cut off any further communication, "Yusuke! Come in Yusuke. Koenma just told me that the demon you're fighting is a rare type of turtle demon that produces poisonous gas."
Yusuke growled and put the little pink communicator up to his face, "Yeah! You're a little late with that info, you know."
She laughed nervously, "Oh…"
0o0o0o0o0
The childlike ruler of the Spirit World was stamping the last of some very important papers when one of his veteran ferry girls came skipping into the room with a stack of more papers. He felt a vein appear on his head as he saw the papers.
"Lord Koenma, Yusuke took out that turtle demon," Botan said merrily as she placed the large pile papers on his dwindling stack. She leaned on the precarious stack ignoring the glares her boss was sending her. "You know, I think Spirit World needs to work on ability to acquire information. One of these days Yusuke is going to face someone and need the information and—"
"You think I don't know that!" Koenma shrieked. "I've already talked to my father about. I'm working on it!"
Botan sniffed in indignation, "Well, there's no need to yell. I was just making conversation." She moved away from the papers he was forced to spend all his time stamping. It toppled over from the sudden loss of weight. She smiled uneasily, "Whoopsie."
Koenma's jaw dropped in disbelief, "Oh, no. They've mixed with the ones I've already stamped." An ogre came in with more papers. "No!" he screeched. "No, more papers. I don't want to stamp anymore!" He jumped on top of his desk in anger.
The red oni started backing away from his boss. Botan thought he had the right idea started to make a strategic retreat as well. The ogre was suddenly pushed to the ground when the door opened abruptly.
A blonde ferry girl ran in fear etched all across her face. Her blue eyes were wide and her hair was coming out of her ponytail. Through the open door the three occupants of the room could clearly hear the screams.
Koenma turned from spoiled brat to ruler in an instant. He floated over to the frightened ferry girl. "Emily, what's happening out there?"
"L-lord Koenma, there was a thief. H-he stole the Sylvan Staff."
"What?! What of—" he cut himself off at the abrupt stop of all of the screams. The four occupants of the room blanched when they heard the familiar heavy footsteps. Koenma quickly lowered himself to the floor and into a deep bow as did the rest of them.
"Koenma," a deep voice intoned from above.
The toddler risked a quick look above, but just as quickly lowered his head again. "Yes, Father?"
King Enma started off softly, but his voice quickly rose to a roar with every word, "Please explain why another one of my vaults has been broken into, another item has been stolen from Reikai, spirits are returning to the Living World, and why demons are running around my hallways killing the oni and then going down into Ningenkai!"
Koenma flinched. That was news to him. He threw a look to Emily, but she was staring at the floor intently. Looking to his other side he saw Botan. She was looking at him with encouragement in her eyes and despair on her face. He wouldn't be surprised if his own face mirrored hers.
"Well?!"
He flinched again, "I'm just learning of this, but if you give me—"
"You're just learning of this!" the actual Spirit World ruler bellowed, "What were you planning to do?!" His voice grew dangerously soft, "You know what must be done."
Koenma jumped to his feet in protest knowing the harsh way his father would go about taking care of the problem. "No! Please don't Father. I'll get the ferry girls and my Spirit Detectives on it. Just give me some time."
"How much time would you need," the lord asked sarcastically.
Koenma looked back at Emily mentally asking her how bad the problem really was. She hunched her shoulders and stared more intently at the floor. He thought quickly. Some demons and spirits got loose and there was a thief. Not too bad. The ferry girls could get the spirits and the Yusuke could round up the demons. Leave a couple of extra weeks for the item retrieval and..."Six months." He hoped he had guessed correctly.
His father let out a booming laugh that rattled the foundations of Reikai and sent a shiver down Koenma's spine. "I'll give you one month to collect all the lost spirits, fix the Gates of Hell, and recapture all the demons that have escaped. And if you should fail I will have to destroy Tokyo and any other places this infestation has spread to. Understand?"
The Gates were broken? Koenma nodded numbly. There was going to be more than a few demons and spirits to recapture. And he only had one month. Never before had Koenma ever felt his 700 years more than then.
Word Count: 2220
Disclaimer: I, autumnaura, do not and never will own the rights or the characters of Yu Yu Hakusho, which belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi.
Note: Return of the Bat will be deleted as soon as I update Running...Dogs. This is just fair warning. This is kind of my rewrite of Return of the Bat. I wouldn't say it completely revolves around Kuronue, but he plays a pretty important role in this fic. Check it out if you want to see a kind of sneak preview of later chapters of this fic.
There will be hints of Yusuke/Keiko and Kuwabara/Yukina and that's it.
If you have any suggestions on who should/shouldn't come back from the dead please tell me. I would say this takes place a little after the Dark Tournament.
Oh, and please tell me what you thought of the battle scene at the beginning. I don't have much experience with them, yet most if not all my stories require at least one big battle. -.-' So tell me how I did.