A/N: Okay~!
So after a super long hiatus, I am BACK! The reason for the hiatus was this... revisions! I put a lot of work into the second arc, but not as much into this one and it felt rushed. So, I went back and fixed some stuff, and in the process some stuff changed and basically I just rewrote the whole thing.
This new revision is about twice as long as the original Arc One- apparently I love the sound of my own voice.
It's mostly all written, but I'm also taking down Arc II (leaving the story up, but taking down the chapters), because I love my beautiful reviews and can't stand to trash them. But, my revisions for Arc II are significantly less, so I'm not too worried about finishing it.
Anyway, now the revised Arc I is going up, but not all at once. I'll be posting six chapters today- because I love everyone and feel bad about my hiatus. But after that I'll be doing regular updates, probably every Tuesday (though this may change). At least until I catch up to myself.
So, even if you've already read the first arc, I recommend reading it again- twice the word count means twice the content, and I think it'll help clear up a lot of the confusion some people were having once they got to the second arc. Also, it's just better.
And with that...
Arc One
Kaishi
Prologue
"There's this kid, see? Named Yusuke Urameshi."
"And?"
"And we're going to hit him with your car."
That was how the woman had explained the situation to the man: quickly and concisely. Yet somehow he still didn't seem to be getting the idea.
Currently, the two sat in the man's aforementioned car, him behind the wheel and her plucking nervously at a fraying thread on the passenger's seat, scanning the downtown area through a rather conspicuous pair of binoculars. The car was pulled to the side of the road and had been idling for nearly ten minutes, and though the woman seemed to be scanning the road fervently, she apparently had yet to find her target.
"Are you in trouble with the mob?"
This was the third guess the man had ventured towards the woman's mysterious and sudden desire to commit a murder.
"I'm not in trouble with the mob."
"A triad, then."
"This has nothing to do with organized crime," spat back the woman, before suddenly crying out excitedly and slamming her hand on the dashboard. "There he is! Right over there!"
The man's gaze strayed towards where the woman was looking to find two young boys—one no older than seven and the other a middle school student. Currently, they seemed to be engaged in some sort of oddly playful exchange, with the young punk dancing about the street with a soccer ball in his pants and two chopsticks up his nose.
"That's the kid?" the man scoffed incredulously. "That's why we're going to all this trouble?"
"Yep."
"Unbelievable."
"I know, I know..."
"If I had known we were going to be killing a kid like that I never would have come myself, you know."
"Just shut up and get ready."
The man did as instructed, shifting the car into drive and keeping his eyes on the two kids down the street. Then, the man watched as the young child strode away from his encounter with the middle school boy, carrying his soccer ball and continuing to kick it around recklessly. Only moments later, the child kicked his ball straight into the street and, as naïve children do, began waddling towards it.
If they meant to hit and kill this small child, this was the best opportunity to do so. As such, the man began to rev the engine, and pulled out back into the street. The car approached a speed of 60 km/hr. within only a few seconds, and soon enough the man was barreling down the road towards the small child, who had remained blissfully unaware of the encroaching danger.
"Hey, why are we moving?" the woman questioned suddenly, her sharp gaze drifting up from the binoculars to give the man a confused stare.
He glanced back at her, annoyed. "We're driving."
"I get that we're driving—"
"—Then why did you ask?"
"Would you slow down a bit?!"
"It's less effective that way," the man sighed. It would only take about five more seconds to reach their waddling target in the road.
The woman took a brief second to ponder the words, and then seemed to come to some horrible realization. "Wait, no! You misunderstood—"
"—Misunderstood what?"
"This isn't—"
"—Having second thoughts?" the man laughed haughtily. Three seconds. "I keep telling you to outsource this kind of thing. You don't have the stomach for—"
The woman reached out then, grabbing the steering wheel with one hand and causing the car to swerve violently.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" the man shouted back, trying desperately to regain control. Two seconds.
"You're doing this all wrong!" the woman screeched, tugging again, causing the car to side swipe a parked car on the side of the road.
One second.
Frustrated, the man grabbed the woman's hand with one of his own, wrenching it from the wheel as he tried to realign their trajectory with the still clueless child only a few feet in front of them. The woman retaliated, weakly, before launching forward and biting him hard on the hand. He let out a pathetic shriek, startled and in pain, before turning to the woman accusingly.
"What the fuck is your problem!? I'm just—"
"—That's not the right kid!" the woman finally belted.
"… What?"
Impact.
Before the man could truly comprehend the woman's words, the car had struck the figure in the road. A loud thud rumbled through the body of the car, and he slammed on the breaks, skidding and screeching wildly across the road. The figure—larger than expected—slid up onto the hood, crashing into the windshield in a bloody mess and cracking the glass. As the man tried to see what he had hit the airbag shot out at break-neck speed, exploding into his face and blinding him with white.
His ears were ringing—he never blacked out, but time seemed to have slowed, or perhaps it sped up. Either way, he had no idea how long it had taken him to shove back down the unruly airbag. When he did, he found the woman struggling to do the same, pressed against the passenger's seat and groaning in pain, a small trickle of blood inching its way down from her nose.
"You idiot!" she screeched, her voice muffled by the bag against her face. "You've wasted our best opportunity to kill Yusuke on the wrong fucking kid!"
The man shoved his own bag down further, his eyes darting quickly back to the front of his car. The windshield was bloody and broken, but there was no sign of the body that had caused the damage. His hood was bend upwards, obscuring the road, but outside a crowd was gathering.
"If you would just shut up and listen once and a while then maybe we wouldn't keep getting in these situations!" Her bag was starting to deflate, and the woman pressed a bare palm to her nose to quell the bleeding. "I tried to tell you!"
The man sat up, trying to peer over the twisted metal.
"It was the older kid—the other one! Do you really think I would need an entire fucking car to kill a toddler?! Did you even try to think this through!?"
He saw the child, sitting up and glancing at the crowd surrounding them, not yet aware enough of his situation to begin sobbing. He seemed unharmed.
"My chance is ruined now. Ruined! This was time-fucking-sensitive, you ass!" the woman continued to screech by his side. He wasn't even looking at her now, his eyes fixed on a bloody pile of flesh in the road. She groaned angrily. "Are you even listening to me!?"
"No," he replied simply, before raising a hand to point out the window. "Look."
"What?"
"Look," the man beckoned again, and the woman's gaze followed the man's directions towards the front of the car. It would seem that, despite the man aiming for the wrong child, the proper target had been the one struck instead. The middle school boy from before, their Yusuke Urameshi, had jumped out in front of the car, pushing the child to safety and slamming into the hood of the man's car himself.
Dumbfounded, the woman fell back against her seat. "You're kidding…"
"We got him?"
"… We got him."
"Good," the man replied, his panic fading and quickly being replaced with the type of professional, business-like survival instinct one only achieves in these sorts of situation. "What do we do next?"
"Huh?" the woman faltered, snapping out of her brief moment of disbelief.
"The cops will be here soon," the man restated, looking around at the slowly gathering crowd of onlookers. "What's the next step?"
"Next step?"
"What's the plan?" the man reiterated, avoiding the gaze of the curious spectators.
"Oh…" the woman replied, looking almost embarrassed. "Well, truth be told… I, uh… didn't really think that far ahead."
"Pardon!?"
"I didn't think that far ahead!"
"I heard you the first time!"
"Then why ask me to repeat it!?"
The man bit down hard, stifling his frustration with a deep groan. "Well with all these witnesses it's not like we can just transport out of here!"
"Aha, correction—you were driving so you can't just disappear."
"True," the man admitted with a sigh before realizing what the woman actually meant. "Wait a minute, you can't just—"
However, when he turned to look back at the woman, all he found was an empty passenger seat and the woman nowhere to be found. Apparently, though killing this child was her project, and though he had only shown up today in order to try and assist her, she had no intention of helping deal with the aftermath. He man sighed, shaking his head as the sound of sirens approached.
"Typical."
He had to do something. He had to act natural. So, accepting his fate, the man swallowed his pride and jumped out of his car to continue the act. He fell to his knees in front of the growing crowd, clenching his hands into fists and crying out to the sky.
"It was an accident! I didn't mean to! I swear, I didn't mean to!"
King Enma
The king sat in his chair, his knees aching. He always had knee aches, and headaches, and backaches... such things came with the job, he learned. Ruling the afterlife was certainly a high stress job.
Pain shot through one of his temples and he put two fingers to it, trying to rub it out, though it remained persistent. Perhaps I should call it a day, he thought to himself, contemplating going to soak in the hot springs as a simple remedy to relieve the tension. However, as he was about to get up to leave the doors to his throne room creaked open.
A young girl, appearing no older than her late teens, stormed in on heavy feet. She wore the typical clothes of a modern human girl: high-waisted jeans and a simple green sweater. Her hair was black and cut to about her chin, sticking out in all directions, and from beneath her bangs her large brown eyes, framed by deep, dark circles beneath them, looked determined. Her tired appearance wasn't all that strange—she usually looked disheveled and fatigued. This time, however, she looked worse than ever—one eye was swollen, her lip split, and a large bruise flowered across her forehead. Something was caked in her hair as well—dark and crusted.
Last time he had seen her she hadn't had such injuries, but considering his distaste for the girl he didn't bother to ask what had happened or express any sympathies. Instead he merely greeted her with a tired sigh.
"What is it, Hotaru?"
The girl, Hotaru, approached his throne, fearless, as she normally was, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction. "Are you trying to fuck with me?"
"Pardon?" Enma replied, rubbing his temples a bit harder as his headache continued to grow, most likely due to her presence. Though her voice was by no means naturally grating, he had come to associate it with the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
She placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him. "Don't play dumb. I know you killed him on purpose."
He sighed. "I honestly have no idea what you're speaking of."
"I'm talking about Yusuke, you ass!" she yelled, stomping her foot like a petulant child.
"Who is Yusuke?"
"Ah... aha... HA HA HA," she yelled, bits of spit flying from her open, angry mouth. "So it's just a coincidence that the boy I'm about to recommend for spirit detective got hit by a car just now?"
There was quite a bit to question in that one sentence alone. Enma thought it best to start at the beginning.
"Which boy?"
"I just told you! Yusuke Urameshi!"
"I am… unfamiliar."
"I know you are," she spat back. "I haven't even gotten a chance to present his case formally—you didn't even give me that much!"
"I can promise you, I don't even know who this boy is."
"Oh yea right!"
"Are you calling me a liar?"
She glared up at him, tapping her foot, clearly unwilling to believe a claim of ignorance, though his accusation seemed to have silenced her. However, as the King's expression clearly showed he was telling the truth—and he was telling the truth—she eventually resigned. And, within only a few moments, her expression completely changed, eyelashes fluttering and her lips pouting in a shy smile.
"Oh, you're so right! Haha, how silly of me, to doubt my grand king—my grandest of kings!"
She appeared to be waiting for a response, but he refused to oblige. As if he'd fall for such an obvious attempt to try and garner sympathy.
"But you know..." she began again. "It looks like someone is trying to sabotage my plans, and I don't know who, but it would be really great if you could maybe do me just the tiniest little favor?"
His head would not stop pounding. "Does it have to do with this human child you spoke of?"
"... Maybe..."
He was too tired for this. "You want him brought back to life, is that it?"
"... Maybe..."
"Why exactly?"
"I already said! So he can be the new spirit detective!"
He should have known that her sudden appearance in his throne room was for such a ridiculous request. Hotaru had a bit of a reputation around the three worlds as someone who lacked any form of common sense, and particularly around Reikai she carried the name of 'Never-knows-best'. With anyone else, the king might have torn into them about the absurdity of such an idea, but with Hotaru he had come to accept that she would always be bothering him with these sorts of things. As such, he merely sighed in response.
"That position hasn't been filled in 10 years and I have no intention to fill it now," he stated calmly.
She smiled up at him- that wide, shining smile she was so known for- and clasped her hands together. "Please? I promise he'll be a good one! You can trust me on this!"
"What did I just say?" he replied through gritted teeth. "I have no intention of bringing on another spirit detective, especially after what you did to the last one."
Her face fell a bit, but she did her best to retain her smile. "Oh come on, you can't blame me for that…"
"I most certainly can."
"Okay fine, but this guy isn't like that! He's normal! He'll be really good, I promise!"
"You're recommendations aren't worth much, Hotaru."
"I'll do anything you ask in return!"
She remained in the same spot, looking up at him with her wide smile and bright eyes, awaiting his response. He tried to mull it over rationally, considering the pros and cons, but his headache would not allow it and he buckled quicker than he would have liked. "Fine."
She beamed at him. "Oh thank y-"
"-On one condition."
"Anything!"
"Ogre!" he shouted. A red ogre, the largest and scariest of the ogres in Reikai, ran in and took a knee before the king. "Bring Hotaru file number A156E17.7."
Hotaru cocked an eyebrow at him. "Some case you want me to work on?"
"Yes. Some of my sources report a portal is being constructed to Makai by some powerful people."
"What sort of 'powerful people'?"
"A member of the Black Book Club—Nobuyuki Sakyo. I believe you're familiar with the name?" the king asked, though he already knew the answer.
The young girl cringed, shuffling her feet. "I mean… I do know him, but—"
"—You will go to him and ensure that this portal business is put to an end," he commanded. "And in exchange, I will revive your Yusuke."
"Um, I don't mean any disrespect but…" the girl began slowly. "But if you want him stopped, wouldn't the SDF be more suited to the task? I mean, I may know the guy, but I'm not exactly threatening like they are. How am I supposed to convince him?"
"I will leave that up to you," Enma replied firmly. "Though I'm sure my men could handle the assassination of a single human man, I am not eager to take such actions. The Black Book Club may only be a human organization, but they are a powerful one. I would rather deal with this situation without resorting to violence."
Though the girl lacked any real spirit power, fighting capability, or any other notable skill, she did possess one very important quality: she was always quite good at matters of diplomacy. And though this particular skill stood in stark contrast to her reputation—senseless people typically aren't very good at convincing others—King Enma knew firsthand how well the girl could handle herself when it came to negotiation.
"I think you'll find yourself perfectly suited to the task," King Enma replied, standing from his throne so as to signify that their discussion was at an end. "Those are my conditions. Fulfill them if you want, or don't, I don't care. But if you don't, understand, I will not hesitate to kill the boy myself as punishment."
Hotaru – 獜 – a young girl, standing a little shorter than Yusuke, with black hair, brown eyes, and a thin build. Whether she is human, demon, or other is currently unknown to most, as is her age and her history, but she serves as an emissary of Reikai. She is known as being somewhat senseless, reactionary, and otherwise a pain to deal with, yet is quite adept at matters of negotiation, though she possesses no other notable skills and is incredibly weak. Possesses numerous connections to all manner of beings in all three worlds.