Official Spirit World Report:
After competing in the Makia Tournament on the January 15st for the 3rd time Yusuke Urameshi vanished. The exact time of his disappearance was 19:00:40. The time was determined after questioning Shuichi Minamino AKA Yoko Kurama and Kuzuma Kuwabara who said they began transit back to the human world with Yusuke at that time exactly. He was not found on the other side of the portal. All his diplomatic connections in the demon, human, and spirit world have been questioned with no leads forthcoming. His wife Keiko Urameshi and son Yukasa Urameshi were under surveillance for a time in hopes that the missing person would be able, though demonstrated fighting and detective skill, to return to his home on his own volition. After three weeks of investigation the case was at a standstill. No ransom demands were made.
-Spirit detective Michio Lau Case #16-Y
February 28th, 2002
Yukasa struggled to keep up with his notes. The words of his teacher seemed to be more like roses than the pine trees of North America he was describing. Beautiful lengthy sentences, but you felt a prick every once and a while because "pine cones are technically a fruit" might be on the exam. Yukasa was usually an A student, but it didn't matter how good of a student you were, it didn't prepare you for Advanced Plant Biology with Dr. Minamino. Everyone knew that he thought of plants beyond just a field of study called 'Plant Biology'. You could tell by the depths of his knowledge on any and all plants and by the way his deep green eyes would light up while describing a particularly deadly species. Yukasa couldn't pay attention to the room, or at least he tried not to, but bright light and the pictures of pine trees on the smart-board kept pulling him from the moment. His mind would drift into the pictures and he would imagine being in the pine trees climbing to the sky or getting lost his lungs filled with the fresh smell of pine tree, whatever the hell that smelled like.
The old fashioned brass school bell's clang didn't seem to matter to Dr. Minamino who finished his thought and said "Alright class, next time we will be talking about the plants of South America particularly one of my favorites the Mimosa pudica. See you tomorrow," as if he'd been planning to end there all along.
Yukasa let out an exasperated sigh and ran his fingers through his messy brown hair. He wasn't attempting to straighten it in anyway, it was just a nervous habit. Someone smacked his hand off his head and it sent a sharp pain up his arm.
"You know if you keep doing that your hair is going to fall out," said Bayton. Yukasa leaned back in his chair and got an upside down version of his childhood friend. The new angle made her blueish hair and deep green eyes look completely unnatural, even though they'd been the same as long as he'd known her for thirteen years.
"Sorry," he said politely while sitting up. "This class just kinda kills me."
"I wouldn't say you're doing that bad," Dr. Minamino said while putting his things into his brown leather briefcase.
"I got a 59 on the last pop quiz though doctor."
Dr. Minamino stopped packing and looked over toward Yukasa. "The maximum points for that exam was a 70."
"Hey eleven points can make a whole lot of difference. Especially on the Police academy exam."
gave a soft smile. "I suppose that's true, but I doubt that will cover plant biology when you take it." He walked over to the door and said "Remember Yukasa that myself, , and his wife are coming by the shop tonight for dinner. So make sure to come out of your room and say hello," and then he left the room.
"Hey I leave my room!" Yukasa said more in jest than in actual protest.
"Since when?" Bayton asked with a humph.
"All the time! I have to go down stairs to eat," Yukasa said with a smile. Bayton groaned and walked away, her blue uniform sashaying as she walked. Yukasa grabbed his backpack, and made sure to place all the notebooks in the proper pockets, then ran after Bayton.
The halls of Sarayashiki Junior High were older than the classrooms which had recently been renovated with city funds. The paint was chipping, and some walls had holes in them from fist fights a long time ago, or at least that's how Yukasa preferred to think about it rather than the whole place just being a piece of shit. As he ran after Bayton, Yukasa watched the hallway part for her like the red sea. While most people in the school thought he and Bayton were dating, even though they'd sooner die, that didn't stop all the guys from staring at her every time she walked down the hall. Even a few girls looked and those were received more favorably by Bayton. The main reason for the parting though was that no one wanted to get Bayton angry. She was in the Martial Arts club (one of three girls) and the Kendo club (the only girl and only member to have been suspended from a tournament more thanonce for being overly violent).
"You know," Yukasa said "You could always wait for me."
"You know," Bayton said "You could stop being a teacher's pet and leave on time." Bayton looked over to him and gave a slight mocking smile.
"He's a friend of my mom's. I've known the guy since I was born Bayton, I don't think you can call it being teacher's pet when he has dinner at your house every Thursday," Bayton nudged him with her elbow.
"Whatever nerd," she said with a smile.
Yukasa made a grumbling sound deep in his throat. "Having straight A's doesn't make me a nerd."
Bayton laughed. "No, but talking about it like that sure does."
Yukasa groaned again this time a little louder.
"Are you still coming to dinner tonight?" he asked.
"You kidding? It's free food from the best ramen shop in town! I wouldn't fucking miss that, even if I have to deal with you."
She laughed and it caused Yukasa to smile slightly. Not because he found the joke funny - it was really lame and he'd heard it since they were children - but because Bayton laughed so heartily. She laughed with her whole body, one arm over her mouth and the other over her stomach her entire body shaking from the laughs going through it. If he hadn't known any better, he might have thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever said or maybe even that it was actually funny. Once she was done laughing they said their good byes and headed their separate ways. He went to Academic Team practice and she went to Kendo.
Yukasa walked home from school the same way he always did after Academic Team through the 6th block and complaining about some bullshit that happened at scholar bowl. Today this shitty person was Ted Jackson, a very American boy. He was tall, had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a very American arrogance. Ted had given Yukasa the shitty buzzer. Yukasa's loss had nothing to do with his knowledge of plant biology and everything to do with Ted Jackson being an exceptionally large shit who knew that the buzzer had connection issues and almost always delayed presses or never sent them at all. He had lost 15 to 5 and was already thinking about mammalian biology which was the next subject.
He was bitching to Miyo Akiyama, who walked with him until the 7th block. She walked in silence nodding occasionally and then brushing her extremely dark and long hair out of her face. At the seventh block she said "goodbye see you tomorrow" which were her only words in the conversation and left.
Yukasa walked along the side street still brooding over his loss when he was hit on the back of his head with a stick like object. He felt the whack which hurt like hell before his mind registered that sound, and the force of the blow sent him down to the sidewalk.
He scrambled to get up and looked behind him. Bayton was standing over him, shinai in hand. Her hair was up in a bun held together with chopsticks.
"Yukasa Urameshi! I challenge you to a duel!" she screamed deepening her voice.
Yukasa stood up rubbing the back of his head. He felt the lump rising under the skin and he could tell the lump was going to be very large.
"Bayton stop!" he said slowly back peddling away from her.
"Do you have no honor child!" she screamed with a sickening smile reaching across her face. She ran at him and Yukasa turned to run. He didn't get very far he was hit in the side with the bokken. Another hard strike, but this one knocked the wind out of him. Yukasa stopped running and hoped Bayton would run into him, they were on an incline and she had just extended herself to strike him. He got what he wanted, but he misjudged his own bulk, he was about four inches taller than Bayton was but she was also abnormally strong so they both went down to the side walk. Yukasa put his hands out to brace himself and scraped his palms on the side walk. He heard Bayton's shani clatter against and dove in the direction of the sound. He got to it before she did and managed to stand up using a chain link fence behind him to help him up. Bayton sprang up, her feet spread wide in front or behind and her hands in front of her face like claws. Yukasa recognized her tiger stance, it was her favorite one she spoke about it all the time.
"Bring it on Yukasa!"
"I'm not going to fight you Bayton."
"Come on a good cop gets the subject down!"
Yukasa flipped the sword in the air. He caught the 'blade' end of the shinai with his cut up hands and he felt a sting winching slightly.
"A great cop knows when he doesn't have to fight."
Bayton dropped her hands. He knew her look of disappointment so well he could probably have drawn it with his eyes closed. Her smile fell into a frown and eyes dropped into a glare. She gave him this look every time he lost to her, which was actually every time when they were little. When they'd gotten older and he'd learned that he could refuse to fight the disappointment had gotten severe.
She walked toward him and practically ripped the sword out of his hands. The wood scraping against his bloody hand burned and he let out a small yelp.
"Shut the hell up," Bayton said between gritted teeth. As she walked down the side walk Yukasa looked down at this bloody hands trying to make sure there were no splinters. There didn't seem to be any and he could see the skin on the abrasion was already starting to heal.
That night just before dinner Yukasa went up to his room. It was a laughably small room that was painted a faded powder blue but unless you closed the door you couldn't see the walls. The door usually stayed open because he was the only room on the third floor and he was able to hide whatever he needed to when his mother came up the stairs. The room had been his father's 'study' before Yukasa had needed a room bigger than the nursery. He always felt strange about calling it a study since his father was about as likely to go to the moon as study anything. The bookcase when he had moved in was filled with mostly bad action movies from the 90s, early 2000s, and his mother's books. He'd added to that collection over the past 10 years and now his cop books and movies took up more space than his father's (some of those were also terrible, but Yukasa would never have admitted it).
He went over to the opposite side of the room to his towering dresser and moved his desk chair under his desk so he could open the dresser drawers. He pulled out a pair of dark jeans and an NYPD Tee shirt. It was one of Yukasa's favorite tees. He'd gotten it on a trip his mother and he had taken to New York when he was eight. While his mother had been impressed with the sheer size of the city and its skyscrapers Yukasa had been impressed by the size of the police department. As he unbuttoned his blue uniform shirt he remembered the tour of the Police building his mother had arranged. The cops were everywhere and as diverse as the city itself and you could tell the departments apart by the black signs with gold lettering that were hung above each. Yukasa remembered looking very intently for the missing person's department as that was where he wanted to work when he got old enough.
The Tour guide with a 1000 dollar smile asks him in English, "Do you want to work there so you can find your father?"
"No, my dad was killed by monsters," he answers in broken English at 9 years old his father only three years dead, and yet the boy feels like he's been gone for much longer.
"By what?" the man asks with terror stricken voice.
"Monsters like the Yakusa."
The man noticeably calms. "Oh you mean Mobsters Yukasa. You had me worried there for a moment."
As he pulled the tee shirt down over his head he felt the cool fabric rub against his back and he shivered. He didn't understand why the tour guide had been so scared when he said monsters instead of mobsters. Did the man honestly think some kind of monsters had killed his father? His father had been killed by an organized crime syndicate because he decided to report on them when they tried to run a protection scheme on his Ramen shop. It was a little out of the ordinary, but no monsters involved unless you could count the criminals who did it. His father had been a brave man for doing what he did, or that's what people told him he'd only known his father for six years of his life and now even those memories were fading.
Yukasa looked over at the picture of his father and his friends that dominated the side wall. It was only 18x25 but was framed in a flowing golden frame that shined almost unnaturally in the light of the setting sun. In the center of the photograph was his father pointing toward the camera with a finger gun hand. Yukasa walked over to the picture and did a similar gesture. This one was from when he and his father played Detectives and Demons, his father's bizarre twist on cops and robbers.
"Make a finger gun, but lower your thumb kid it'll mess with your aim."
"What are you doing?" Bayton said from the doorway. Yukasa looked over to his friend. He hadn't expected what he saw. Her mouth was partially open and her eyes were wide as if what she'd just seen shocked her to her very core. He lowered his hand
"Oh it's just something my father and I used to do to say goodbye."
"What do you mean?" she asked her voice high and squeaky.
"Oh he used to make me do it so say good bye every day before I went to school, and I was thinking it was time to take this picture down it's been here since before I moved in here and…"
He stopped talking. His friends look of disappointment had returned.
"I mean I barely even knew the guy Bayton."
"No. I get it. It's just…" she paused and looked at the floor. "I'm your best friend so you know if you're experiencing any changes... in your body or whatever you can tell me about them you know."
Yukasa nearly jumped back from surprise at the sudden subject change.
"Ummmm I'm 16 Bayton. I've already been through puberty."
"EW! Not that! I just mean. You'd tell me if something was going on, right?" Yukasa raised his eyebrows.
"Of course, but what are you getting at?"
Bayton opened her mouth to speak but then shut it and then looked like she was about to cry.
"Bayton are you ok?"
He watched her swallow hard and she nodded.
"Yeah," she said her voice maintaining the composure her face didn't have. "Your mom just wanted me to tell you that dinner is gonna be ready in 5… or I guess it's ready now, change your pants and come on down." The she turned down the stairs and descended. As Yuksasa changed his pants he couldn't help but think that she wasn't asking him if he was experiencing things, but that she was desperately hoping he was. Exactly what change she was looking for he really couldn't tell, and he wondered why it was so important.