This is the sequel to another story of mine named (guess what) The YSA. Hopefully you can enjoy this even if you haven't read the first story, and if you have… well, welcome back. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these adorable characters. They are the property of Rumiko Takahashi and I have only borrowed them temporarily.
Neither do I own The Matrix, although I will frequently and shamelessly quote the movies throughout the fic. Blame Ginta and Hakkaku.
Welcome back to the YSA
From a cassette bearing the words Resignation Interview, later relabelled Private and hid in the secret special drawer of one CIA official:
"Sir, I'd like to hand in my resignation."
"...Higurashi, what have I told you about using 'sir'?"
" 'Don't', sir."
"And it's not because I despise authority thinking, you know that."
"Yes, sir."
"And although of course I don't like seeing my subordinates behaving like a bunch of bleating sheep, that's not the actual reason for my dislike of the word 'sir', either."
"No, sir."
"The reason is because I'm a woman, Higurashi."
"If you say so, sir."
…
"Higurashi, if you don't stop your smirking this minute I'll put your SAME SHIT DIFFERENT DAY singlet through the shredder. And call me sir one more time and I swear I'll punch your lights out. I warn you, I've gone a match against Hana Daimen."
"No, really? Did you win?"
"Well… no. But I lasted the entire first round!"
"That's better than my boyfriend, at least."
"I know. She told me about him – with many gestures. If you ever have one of those adorable little lover's tiffs with the boy, remember that his nose is his soft spot. But anyway, to get back to the subject... you want to resign. After two weeks as the head of Uncleared Crime."
"Yes, well... the work is mostly the same as in the YSA. They always get handed the so called unsolvable crimes – they're the ones people go to when they've tried almost everything else. And if it's the choice of doing the work here or there... it isn't a hard one to make. Hey, I've got a great idea for my replacement though – Hojo would be perfect for the job."
"...and if he's stuck here he can't very well come pine for you, that's what you're saying? I thought so. Well, off the record – I'll see to it. And you're very welcome to quit us (this meant in a nice way, you understand). Just send me a resignation request filled with all the legal shit and I'll take care of the works. Now go bust some baddies. When you see Naraku, give him a kick in the butt for me. Oh yeah, and the little shit who cracked the secret database code (you said he worked in the YSA, right?) – kill him, too. And not to forget, if you run into Jinenji some more, tweak his ears for me. Haven't seen him since he was a wee babe, bless him."
"I'll keep it all in mind."
"And if you ever need us for anything, we're a phone call away."
"Thank you. I'll surely be back to visit."
"Go on with you now, before I start blubbering."
"Alright. Bye, Kaede. Sir."
"I take back everything I said. Never come back, you bitch."
……………………………
"Three months and not so much as a bloody trace of the man," sighed Koga irritably, throwing a print-out of what had turned out to be yet another false lead onto the desk. He pushed his chair back and opened a drawer, rummaging around inside. "I mean, what with Goshinki starting to work on the case and Kagome opening up the entire CIA information base for us, you'd think we should be able to catch the bastard blindfolded!"
"There is a reason Naraku was allowed to reign unchallenged for ten years in this city, you know," replied Royakan calmly, from his position in the armchair. He was inspecting one of the arms closely, but looked up to continue, "He's simply one of the cleverest buggers to ever grace the criminal world. Hey, have you ever noticed this dragon someone carved into the chair? Pretty nice. Only I wonder why it's called Sesshy."
"Because Sesshoumaru is the most conceited guy alive," sneered Koga. "Bet you five bucks he did it, and named it after himself." He managed at last to find what he was looking for and drew it out with a sigh. Royakan sat up straighter.
"Is that aspirin? Toss some over here."
The office was blissfully still for a few minutes, as each demon busied himself with his painkiller. However, the frail peace was quickly broken as the agency's youngest member made his customary entrance.
"TAAAAALLY HO!"
Shippou bounded in through the door to find Koga and Royakan cowering on the floor with their arms over their heads. "The hell?" he said, frowning in puzzlement. "What are you doing down there? Oh wait, don't tell me..." His face split in a grin. "Party for the twenty-fifth yesterday, am I right or am I right?"
"Twenty-fifth through to twenty-seventh," answered Royakan, his face wearing an expression that could best be described as Never let me drink again. "Missus had triplets this time, you know. Hey, why weren't you at the party? Toto-sai missed you, kept saying something stupid about how the only sane voice in the company was gone."
"Oh," said Shippou. "Er."
"Ah, it's OK, you don't have to feel guilty." Royakan waved a hand airily. "You've been to a couple of them already, I know, and if you put work higher on your priority list for once, I don't blame you. Couple of my youngsters feel the same, getting tired of the endless partying every time a new kid comes along... my eldest, Kit, she left after just half an hour or something yesterday. Was meeting a friend, she said."
"Is that so?" said Shippou, very innocently. Koga, despite often being thick as a brick and not very good at all at taking hints, realized this was one time it would be a good idea to change the subject. Royakan was a good father, but he was a very protective father and if he heard the slightest hint of his daughter starting dating he would quite possibly kill something. With all probability, the something would be her date. And Koga didn't want to lose his young colleague (since he himself had only through extensive training learnt how to use search functions on the Internet and still needed Shippou's help for anything more complicated than checking his e-mail).
"So what brings you here, Ship?" he asked quickly, before Royakan had time to start putting two and two together. Shippou turned to him like a drowning man seeing a Coast Guard rescue boat.
"I was actually looking for Ginta and Hakkaku, but since they don't seem to be here I'll do a bit of work on the computer while I'm in. I would like to speak with them though. They coming in today?"
"Nah, probably not." Koga smirked. "They're spending the day at the court."
"Tennis court?"
"High court. As in judges and shit, you know."
"Really?" Shippou frowned, looking puzzled. "This about that guy who owned that company… the environmental hazard? I thought Sesshoumaru and Jaken were handling that case."
"Nah, it's not about that." Koga's smirk grew wider. "It probably helps if I give you a hint: The Wachowski Brothers."
"Oh yeah, they were actually sued for that Matrix goes Tropical they did!" Shippou smacked a hand to his forehead. "That's really sucky. It was such a good movie, too."
"Yeah, apparently one of the charges was "coming up with a damn good idea and not telling us and then making a movie that was better than anything we've done and to tell the truth, we're just jealous, so can't you find some more cool charges and throw the bastards in jail? (sobbing ensues)" Well, at least they're honest." Koga shrugged. "Why did you want Ginta and Hakkaku, anyway?"
"Wanted to know if they know anything about this girl who's helping with inquiries for a case Jinenji's having trouble with; she's called Ayame something... wolf demon, so I thought..."
"Ayame?" Royakan looked up from some papers he'd been perusing. "Koga, wasn't that the girl who..."
"They know her," Koga bit off. He was suddenly very tense. "Though you probably won't get much out of them. And Royakan – yes. Enough said."
"What's this?" asked Shippou curiously. "You know the chick? Who is – " He stopped suddenly, as Koga turned a scowling face to him, hinting that the earlier sighted Coast Guard boat could just as well turn around and leave again. " – ah. Never mind. I'll just get back to... whatever it was I was doing before, then?"
"Good plan," said Koga, with menace. Shippou all but fled out to their second room, where he had been busy for the last couple of weeks doing some "computer stuff", as it was known to the more technologically challenged YSA members. Jaken in particular was deeply suspicious of what he called The Devil's Box, and claimed it was possessed by evil spirits. (To which Shippou had once jokingly replied that demons once used to be classified as evil spirits as well, and been magnificently misunderstood when Jaken horrified shouted "There's a demon trapped in there?")
"So..." said Royakan with a smirk, as soon as the door had closed behind the young fox demon. "Why didn't you offer to help Shippou, then? I imagine you'd have more than enough information on her..."
"That's enough, Roy."
"I mean, you can probably tell him where she likes to eat and stuff..."
"That's enough, Roy."
"...and what she does on her free time..."
"Roy, what part of "I'll knock your teeth out if you say another word" is it that you have trouble understanding?"
"Alright, alright, I can take a hint."
"I have yet to see that statement verified."
……………………………
Shippou was setting up their second stationary computer, while letting the first one run a couple of different searches. They had been putting a lot of energy into finding and incriminating Naraku for the last few months, and everyone was getting rather frustrated about the whole affair. After patient research (and quite a bit of illegal hacking) they had been able to pin at least a couple of charges on the man – they could get him for fraud, involvement in drug dealings, illegal possession and distribution of weapons, blackmail and kidnapping. They had a group of CIA technicians working on the poison imp location (Kagome and her contacts again), trying to puzzle together DNA from all the demons who had lost their life there and thus be able to match it with the DNA from Naraku's current body. They had the evidence, they had the figures and they had the witnesses. The only thing they were missing now was the suspect.
Naraku had upped and left a mere three weeks after the trial of Kikyo. The YSA had hardly started nosing around for information when alarms had sounded for the half-demon and he had disappeared without a trace. Shippou still beat himself up about it, convinced that it was his fault for leaving some kind of give-away during a foray into the cyber world. (The rest of the agency patted him on the shoulder sympathetically and said of course he hadn't, while wondering how on earth you could leave traces of yourself in a computer.)
The Spider Club was still up and running, only a bit more low-key. Kanna took care of it now, having in fact run a large part of the club even before Naraku fled. Kagura, meanwhile, had seen Naraku's disappearance as her chance to get off the carousel and had done so without a second glance. She was now sharing a flat with her brother, Goshinki. She was also being kept under a pretty close watch by the YSA, being as she was one of their principal witnesses against Naraku.
Kagome and Inu-yasha had left two weeks earlier, for a world-wide hunt of Naraku. They had mapped out a route taking them past most of his expected whereabouts, and had whined to the CIA for money until Kaede had grown so fed up with them that she'd helped out only to get them out of the country. Happy and relatively rich, they had set off after swearing a solemn oath they would not return until they had Naraku bound hand and foot. Say what you want about those guys, thought Shippou, but they sure take their job seriously.
Say what you want meant, for example, in Kagome's case "She's a hopeless coffee-holic with far too much excess energy", and in Inu-yasha's case "If you cross his path before ten a.m. and Kagome's not there to act as a buffer, RUN."
Oh well. Time to get this computer up and running now.
Shippou cracked his knuckles and his neck, looked around him to see that he had everything he needed, nodded in satisfaction and got down to some serious work.
……………………………
"Hey, Koga?"
"Yeah?"
"You know how Shippou spends a lot of time with Jinenji and them other police plods?"
"Yeah...?"
"And you know he picks up a lot of phrases from them?"
"Yeah."
"And you know what the cops really mean when they say "help with inquiries" ?"
There was a pause, during which Koga thought. Then he was on his feet and on the way out to the computer room, bellowing Shippou's name in a fashion that could still be described as an officer of the Coast Guard, only now it was one in pursuit of illegal smugglers.
Royakan sat back with a satisfied sigh and grinned to himself. You couldn't call it a morning unless you'd stirred some buggers up. And the YSA offered a right smorgasbord of easily manipulated, emotional guys. Oh, how he loved his job.
……………………………
Shippou was happily connecting wires when a jingle sounded from the other computer. He quickly finished what he was doing and then checked to see what it was. Thirty seconds later he was sprinting out of the room. He collided with Koga in the door, held a very brief and agitated explanation, convinced him that whatever shouting he wanted done would be better left for a while... and then the two of them were on the way out, Shippou dialling a number on his phone on the way.
……………………………
On the other side of town, Goshinki was flipping burgers. He and Kagura ran a very busy lunch restaurant together, which meant non-stop activity between roughly ten thirty and three o'clock. Thus he found nothing irregular when the door to the kitchen burst open as if an entire police squad was about to do a raid on the place.
"What's the order, Kaggie?" he asked, not lifting his eyes from the frying pan.
"Oh bugger," said a voice, with feeling. It did not sound like Kagura. It did not, in fact, belong to Kagura. Its owner bore not even a passing resemblance to Kagura, except maybe the hair. "Another false alarm? It's three a week now!"
Goshinki turned around, and grinned at Koga. "Another death threat?" he asked, with a tone to suggest that this was something very amusing (as opposed to something terrifying, which is usually the standard view on the matter). Shippou, who had just arrived as well, nodded affirmation and rolled his eyes. Goshinki laughed. "Guys," he said, "you know Kagura could beat every underground rat in arm wrestling any time of the day, and I'm no pixie either. We can take care of ourselves, how many times do I have to tell you? Plus," he added when the two YSA agents still looked dubious, "Jinenji looks in on us every other day to check that we still have all our limbs. We can deal with anything that comes along. Except possibly the tax department."
"Jinenji?" asked Shippou, looking surprised. "Why's he come?"
Goshinki shrugged. "Beats me. Guess he's just a paranoid nutter like the rest of you. Is that a criteria to work in the YSA or something? 'Cos in that case I'm quitting." He grinned at them, and turned back to his burgers. "Cool dude though, Jinenji. We took a beer together the other night, and I have to say he's a great guy, for a plod. He and Kaggie seem to have hit it off too..."
"Goshinki, do I pay you to gossip?" asked Kagura from the doorway. She was carrying a stack of dirty plates, and looked stressed out and irritated.
"Don't think you do, Kaggie," said Goshinki calmly. "On the other hand, you don't actually pay me for anything."
"Smart-ass," muttered Kagura, but not entirely ill-meaning. "And stop calling me Kaggie, I hate it."
"Because it reminds of an incident in kindergarten when you were five years old and... wait a minute... hey, are you blocking me?"
"You know, I really hate your damn mind-reading..."
Shippou, ever the gentleman, hastened forward to unburden her from the dishes. "That's a cute dress, Kagura," he said, to distract her from her brother's mocking snigger. She looked surprised for a second, then smiled happily and twirled around.
"You think so? It's the uniform, just arrived today. I'm glad you like it, I spent ages designing it and... aaah!" she suddenly yelled, the smile disappearing to make way for a slightly panicked expression. "I don't have time for this! Goshinki, party of five just arrived – two lunch specials, one pasta of the day and two number thirteen. Get to it, they look official. Might be reviewers." And she was gone again, the door to the kitchen swinging slightly in her wake. Goshinki rolled his eyes.
"She always gets like this around lunch," he explained. "Although when Jinenji comes over she somehow always finds the time to sit down for a coffee." He winked conspiratorially, turned back to his burgers and then went on, "You know what they say: never try to run a restaurant with your better half or a close friend – you'll end up hating each other. If it wasn't for the fact that we've worked closely together for many years now and are pretty used to it, we would probably have killed each other already. She can be a right little bitch when she's in a bad temper..."
"I heard that!" yelled Kagura. She came up to the small window that led out into the restaurant to collect two plates of pasta, and stuck her head in to glare at the three of them. "Stop being a jerk and a nosy bugger, Goshinki. And you two – " Koga and Shippou jumped guiltily – "stop chortling like that. It's because you feel the need to steal my brother three days a week we are so stressed on the days he actually is here. We have to prepare twice as much on the days we can use him, and it's all your fault." She pouted at them, resting her arms on the small sill. Shippou stepped forwards and grinned his "I'm just an adorable youngster. Can you hate this face?"-grin.
"You know we need Goshinki to help catch that boil on the face of demonity," he said, indicating Naraku. "And we need you, too, to be able to testify and help get him into that striped shirt that's had his name on it for the last decade or so. It's because Naraku's still at large we're so jittery about you two. He doesn't really seem the type to forgive and forget. Anyway, once we've got him behind bars – and if Kagome gets her way, chained up and gagged and tortured ever so often with boy band music on full volume – you'll be able to have your brother back and we'll probably stop bugging you as well. Although," he added with the characteristic fox sense of mischief, "that might of course mean that Jinenji won't have any excuse to come round anymore."
Kagura stuck out her tongue, but grinned. "It's lucky for you that you are so cute," she said. "Otherwise I would be sorely tempted to smack some manners into that pretty little head of yours. Oh well... aaah! The customers!" She grabbed the pasta plates, turned on her heel and rushed off as if her skirt was on fire, leaving the guys chuckling behind her (although not too loudly this time).
……………………………
"So," said Koga as they left the restaurant with one take-away burger each, "yet another wasted trip. Although we did get lunch, that was nice of him. Hey, we really have to work out some kind of system to separate the false alarms from the ones that actually have a grain of truth in them..."
"You are so clever," said Shippou, positively dripping with sarcasm. "What a good idea. Why haven't I thought of it before? Oh wait – I have! Come on Koga, we get a dozen messages from snouts, old contacts and general lowlife every day. You think I haven't learnt to sort through them by now?"
"So what about this one, then?" asked Koga, a tad aggressively since he felt stupid. (You'd think he'd be used to it, but no.) "You seemed to think it was so serious before, but it was obviously a dead end."
"I'm surprised too," said Shippou, frowning. "The one who wrote is the same one who tipped us off about the jewel theft. He's a sure card, one of Yura's contacts, and he always has serious tips. I wonder if we've missed something..."
"Come on, we checked through the entire restaurant! No one could have hidden anywhere – not from this conk." Koga tapped his nose with pride.
"Guess you're right," said Shippou dubiously. Then he shrugged, shaking the doubt off. "It's a nice little place they've got there. They got some help through Inu-yasha to set it up, didn't they?"
"Yeah, he had some contacts in the restaurant business. The guy has contacts everywhere, for chrissake... anyway, they've done well for themselves, I have to say. Hope they get good reviews."
"If those guys were reviewers," grinned Shippou. "Those five looked more like the Mafia to me. I mean; dark suits, slicked-back hair and sunglasses? What kind of people wear sunglasses inside? And in winter to boot?"
"Only two kinds of people – blind guys and assassins!" laughed Koga.
Shippou didn't laugh. "What did you just say?" he asked slowly.
"I said, blind guys and – " Koga paused in mid-sentence, replaying it in his own mind and suddenly noticing the same thing as his colleague.
" – assassins?" finished Shippou.
They stared at each other, struck momentarily speechless by their own carelessness.
"Oh fuck," said Koga, as the door to the restaurant exploded into splinters.
……………………………
Hello! The YSA is back; bigger, better and badder than last time. Yay! There will be thrilling rooftop chases (possibly), puzzling enigmas (naturally) and romance (hard to avoid). There will be more characters, and more screening time for many of the old. There will be… alright, I'll stop acting like a salesperson (because I'm aware I'm not all that good at it).
I will not be able to be as frequent with updates as I would like, because a) I'm working quite a lot right now and when I finish work I'm usually so beat I can hardly make myself dinner, let alone start messing around with the computer and b) I live with three other girls, with whom I must fight tooth and nail to get at the mentioned computer. (Yes, that second reason was a huge exaggeration.) I will try, however. Promise.
Hope you liked this first chapter of YSA: the Sequel and hope to see you for the next one!
