Disclaimer: Don't own anything really but in essence Mikai, Senkai, Carden, and Kubo. Cat owns Sotto; The A owns Asuka; The Last J owns Reijii; Mikey owns Lei; and Nicole owns Yuzu. Damn…I've just realized how many characters I really don't own…oh well, they're still my girls and I love 'em!

Theme: 'Falling for the First Time'-Bare Naked Ladies

For Heather.

"Booooring."

Yawning, Yusuke laid down on the school's rooftop and stared up at the bright blue sky hundreds of miles above him. A few bright white clouds passed by, never once covering the sun, but Yusuke didn't bother to try and turn them into anything out of the ordinary, nah he had better things to worry about then cloud watch. Well…not at the exact moment but there were a few things running through his head that demanded his full attention.

One being the biggest issue his teammate was dealing with: Kuwabara's powers had seemingly…disappeared.

They had just vanished after his last fight during the Dark Tournament, leaving his best friend without any kind of defense; Genkai said that Kuwabara had sealed his powers away after exerting so much during the fight with Elder Toguro. That didn't seem to stop the carrot-top, no just the other day when Yusuke had managed to get himself into a fight outside of school grounds Kuwabara had run in, defenseless. His partner could always use his fists, but without any kind of spirit energy, healing would be difficult. Yusuke was grateful, however, if Kuwabara had been mortally wounded Yusuke never would have forgiven himself; he didn't need to relive Kuwabara's famous death scene from the Dark Tournament.

Sitting up, Yusuke got to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. Class could and would go on without him, there wasn't a point in staying for lessons when there were demons running around the human realm.

School sucks anyway.

"Yusuke," a female voice said.

He jumped a bit at the sudden voice, and looked over his shoulder and saw Botan sitting on top of the boiler room's rooftop which was a bit higher up from where he stood. She looked down at him with a smile on her face, clad in his high school's light blue uniform. "Hey Yusuke, Koenma has a mission for you to go out on." She hopped down off of the rooftop and landed beside the black haired boy.

"Great, what now?" Yusuke rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. "What demon does he want me to knock out or blow up 'cause I'm on a schedule here."

Botan waved her right hand a bit, dismissing Yusuke's attitude. "Relax Yusuke it's just a search and destroy mission. There's a demon by the name of Kubo running around here in this city and Koenma wants you to hunt him down, nothing too big see?"

Yusuke looked away from the blue haired girl and began advancing towards the staircase. "Then why can't he send a rookie out to do it?"

"He requested you."

Sighing, Yusuke glanced skyward once more and watched as a rather large cloud passed over the both of them. It reminded Yusuke of a rabbit. "As always. Anyways, how long do I have to finish this?"

"A month," Botan giggled and approached the teen, "but I doubt it'll take you that long, Yusuke. I haven't been able to detect his energy signal just yet, but I'm sure if you run around town for a while with your energy spiked he'll find you."

Yusuke couldn't help but grin. Finally a fight, away from all of this mess and place he could get out and do what he was good at. "Just all I need!" He lifted his hand and punched his right hand into his left palm. "I'm outta here!"

Still grinning, the dark haired teen entered the stairwell and began to descend the staircase when he felt Botan's hand rest on his shoulder. He turned around to face her, having to look up at her since she stood on the stairs above the ones he was on. She frowned and removed her hand, bringing it up to her chest.

"Wait Yusuke! What about sch—"

"Yusuke!" another female voice rang out through the empty stairwell. Said boy winced at the sound of that oh so familiar voice and whirled to see Keiko standing at the bottom of the staircase with narrowed eyes and her arms crossed over her chest.

"Are you leaving school again, Yusuke?" Keiko asked in a firm tone of voice. "You're mother worked really hard to get you back in, you can't just leave for the rest of the day."

"I'll be back," he lied with a slight smile on his face. "I'm just going out for a few, I'll come right back when I finish running this mission."

She tilted her head up a bit. "I don't believe you, Yusuke. You never come back when you leave."

Yusuke removed his hands from his pockets and ran his fingers through his hair. He was never good at lying to Keiko, she knew him too well. "Aw come on Keiko I have a mission to finish! I'll stay all day tomorrow!"

Silence entered stairwell as Yusuke stared at Keiko, and her at him. Botan remained forgotten in the background as the lifelong friends looked over at one another, but the poor boy couldn't tell what was on Keiko's mind though he wished he could. She was harder to read then any book he had ever come across, harder to understand then any foreign language he had heard muttered while walking the streets. Were all women like this?

"Fine." The brown haired girl turned her head to the right. "I'll see you tomorrow, Yusuke."

And with that, the girl he had known for years walked away, back down the stairs without a passing glance. He rolled his eyes, great, now she was mad at him. Didn't she understand the whole Spirit World duty thing, especially now since she had gone with them to the Dark Tournament?

"Come on Botan, let's get out of here."

The bell for lunch break rang as Yusuke walked down the stairs and to the first floor of the school, Botan following hot on his heels. He marched through the usual lunch crowd, doing his best to stay low so Kuwabara would see him and come with, after all the taller boy had lost his powers and Yusuke had no desire to have someone latch on to him when there was a chance of the other person getting hurt. Thankfully he managed to get through the crowd without anyone pissing him off or Kuwabara finding him, and once he stepped through the school's gates, he felt better. Now that he was out of the hell hole—

"Yusuke!"

He perked at that female voice, and whirled around; damn, women were just calling his name all over the place. Botan mimicked his action and both spotted a young woman speeding towards the both of them. He sighed when he saw who it was, was everyone after him today? She came to a stop when she neared and straightened her school uniform, the colors different from the one Keiko wore.

"Skippin' school again?" the girl said with a smirk. "Where you headin' off to?"

"None of your business, Mikai," Yusuke answered as he, once again, placed his hands in his pockets.

The smile fell from the young girl's face, replaced by a deep frown. "Fine I was just coming by to see Kuwabara, he has my English notes. You still up for later?"

"Yeah, yeah." Yusuke nodded his head. He would think about hanging out with friends later when the demon was dead and up for judgment. "I haven't seen Kuwabara, I don't know where he is."

"Jeez," she flinched at his tone, "chill Yusuke. Fine, I'll see you later then."

The young woman glanced over at Yusuke one last time before strolling away and over to the school where he had come from. His words repeated in his head, and rather than walking away he looked over to where Mikai had gone and held back a laugh; she stood out so much in her school uniform.

"Who was that, Yusuke?" Botan tagged along and watched as Mikai disappeared into the crowd of students.

"Mikai." Yusuke removed his attention from her and back to the sidewalk ahead. "I've known her for a year or so now…she goes to some all girl's school not too far from here."

He had met her before the whole 'jumping in front of a moving car to save a kid's life' and had remained his friend since then without question of his long absence. Ever since his return from the Dark Tournament he and Kuwabara had hung around her, the black haired teen discovered that it was nice having a friend outside of the Spirit World and the connections is brought with it.

But now was not the time for flashbacks.

"Come on Botan let's get outta here before Kuwabara shows up."

"Oh!" The reaper broke out of her thought, whatever it was, and cleared her throat. "Right!"

XxX

Three hours of walking around, pushing his spirit energy up, and nothing had come to pass. No energy single, no messages from Spirit World, no nothing. Seeing no point, Yusuke asked Botan to head back and tell Koenma, and as soon as she left, he made a beeline for the more populated part of the downtown area for well-earned lunch break.

"Urameshi! Hey Urameshi!"

He froze, and growled. Why couldn't people just leave him alone today? First Botan, then Keiko, then Mikai and now…Cursing his luck he whirled and spotted Kuwabara running towards him with his black school bag tucked underneath his right arm. Botan hadn't let him in on what was happening had she?

Kuwabara reached his partner and took a sharp breath inwards. "Hey you haven't seen Mikai around have you?"

Yusuke cocked a brow, random, but at least he wasn't asking about school. "She was looking for you earlier, but I didn't know where you were. Why?"

After looking around, he bent down a bit. "I lost that notebook of English notes she gave me," he whispered. "She wants it back for her upcoming English class and she'll kill me if she finds out that I lost it!"

"What do you want me to do about it?" Yusuke laughed, and watched as Kuwabara threw his hands up in the air.

"Talk to her, I don't know! All I know is that she's gonna kill me, Urameshi! Just…hey," Kuwabara stopped mid-sentence and looked at his once rival, "you weren't in class today, why not?"

"I just wanted a break that's all." Yusuke turned his head away from Kuwabara, casting his attention on a far off building. Ugh, Kuwabara was starting to read him like a book. "You shouldn't worry too much about Mikai needing her notes, she's not in school often enough to take tests anyway."

Kuwabara's shoulders drooped and he sighed. "Well I guess you're right…hopefully she doesn't find me. Where are you off to?"

"I'm gettin' something to eat, wanna come?"

A smile came over Kuwabara's face. "Sure!"

Just as the two teenage boys departed for a local eatery, a large group of screaming and panicked people ran by them, each one as white as a ghost and their eyes wide. No matter how hard he strained to make out what the passing people were saying, Yusuke couldn't translate a word of it. An abrupt gust of warm wind blew over the both of them, nearly knocking Kuwabara over. The sheer amount of demon energy swirling in the air forced a chilling shiver down Yusuke's spine and forced goose bumps to form on his arms; this wasn't any ordinary wind. Was this the work of that Kubo demon?

"Dammit!" Yusuke turned around and took off as fast as he could in the opposite direction of where the panicked people had come from, and after he recovered, Kuwabara took off right behind him.

After a five mile long run, Yusuke came across what remained of a small, locally owned store: nothing but a crater in the ground, the cement itself searing enough so that a black color greeted Yusuke's eyes. It appeared as if the store had just been lifted out of the ground but where had the people gone? Did they disappear as well, or had they been killed?

"Dammit where is he?" Yusuke whispered as his brown eyes scanned the area.

No matter how hard he searched for something out of the ordinary, he found nothing. It was almost as if nothing had happened at all, as if the store hadn't been there in the first place. After a good five minute had passed, a crowd of curious humans peaked out of their hiding places and inched towards the hole. The Spirit Detective couldn't feel anything special, just the energy tags of the human around him, nothing that would reveal the location of a demon. Had he just vanished?

Kuwabara ran over to Yusuke's side, panting. "What happened, Urameshi?"

"I…don't know." Yusuke blinked and shook his head.

But I'm gonna find out.

XxX

Koenma groaned and sat back in his seat, piles of paperwork sitting in front of him. There was no way he could get through every single piece of paperwork within the next hour, not with everything that was going on in the human realm anyway. Rubbing his temples, he closed his eyes.

"You can do this, Koenma, its just paperwork!" he said aloud. "You made it through the Dark Tournament, you can make it through a few stacks of work! Yes!" He removed his hands from his head and shook a fist towards the ceiling. "I can do this! I can—"

"Koenma?"

Breaking out of his positive state, he flopped back down in his seat and cleared his throat as his eyes landed on a rather shocked Kurama. "Oh, Kurama I wasn't expecting you to come so early…"

"I'm never late."

Coughing aloud, Koenma closed his eyes for a long minute to regain himself and then reopened them. "Well…yes Kurama I want you and Hiei to work on a mission with Yusuke. It seems that there is a demon running around the human realm that has caused a great deal of trouble by the name of Kubo. I want you to help Yusuke track this demon down before he creates anymore damage to the human world and the people there. Understood?"

"Yes." Kurama nodded his head. "Do you have an energy signature?"

"Unfortunately, no." Koenma leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist. "I wasn't able to track Kubo's signature as he passed through the Makai barrier, and he's hiding his energy now."

"I understand. May I ask why he's a threat?"

Koenma closed his eyes for a long minute, leave it up to Kurama to ask the tough questions up front. "The Spirit World believes that he has plans and the ability to open a portal to the Makai. In one month's time he will rip open a hole in the fabric between the human world and the Makai using the energy he has collected over the past fifty years, but I'm not clear on how he plans to do so. I need you and the others to find him and reveal his plans before he opens that portal."

Kurama gave a respectful bow, and smiled. "All right, I'll explain to the others. We'll get it on right away, Koenma you don't have anything to worry about."

"Thank you, Kurama." Koenma gave a sigh of relief and leaned back against his large office chair.

The redhead turned on his heel and started heading out of the door and back to the human world when the memory of an earlier conversation came to mind. Reopening his eyes, Koenma cleared his throat.

"Oh, Kurama!"

Said man stopped in his tracks and turned around just a bit, enough so that his eyes could meet with the Prince of Otherworld.

"I've been meaning to ask you something. Do you know a demon by the name of Senkai?"

"No." Kurama shook his head, his face becoming crestfallen. "It sounds vaguely familiar but I can't recall at this exact moment. Why?"

"Well…" Koenma shifted his eyes from right to left, looking for anyone or anything that wasn't supposed to be in the room at the time. He had made a mental note a few days ago to reveal the mention of Senkai to Yusuke and the others, but now seemed like a good time since he was speaking face-to-face, alone with Kurama. "A few days ago a spike of demon energy was detected in your city, I thought it might have something to do with Kubo, but this energy spike stayed around long enough for me to tag it."

"And?" Kurama raised a brow.

"We have it on file as belonging to a demon that died twenty years or so ago by the name of Senkai. Now it might have something to do with Kubo, I'm not entirely sure I just wanted to throw the name out there in case you hear it while searching for Kubo." Koenma relaxed now that he had gotten rid of his mental note, and inhaled through his nose.

"All right, I will be sure to keep that in mind." Kurama's smile returned to his face, a gesture that brought a slight smirk to Koenma's. "Have a good day Koenma."

"You too, Kurama!"