Chapter 1 – Raspberry Sundae
"You can have whatever you want my love!"
Kuwabara opened out his arms – inadvertently slapping a jar of novelty cocktail umbrellas off of the glass counter – and grinned expectantly at Yukina. Yukina pressed the side of one fist to her chin and looked thoughtful as she alternately surveyed the brightly-lit display of colourful ice creams in front of her and scanned over the giant menu cards mounted on boards at the back of the shop.
"Come on lady, I've got a queue here," the harried man behind the counter grumbled.
"Hey, we're your best customers!" Kuwabara protested. "We come here every Wednesday afternoon and we always leave a generous tip!"
The man sighed and turned his attention back to Yukina, who had edged closer to the glass counter, peering in at the large metallic tubs of frozen delights.
"Every week it's the same thing with you lady," he said to her.
She slowly lifted her eyes to look directly at him.
"You come in here, you spend way too long looking at everything and then you ask for the same thing every time," he said as their eyes met. "But today it's the start of tourist season and I'm kinda busy, so let's fast forward to the part where you take a single scoop of lemon sorbet and your over-enthusiastic boyfriend over there orders the family-size double-chocolate fudge chunk supreme."
"I'm looking for Raspberry Sundae," Yukina meekly replied.
The man gave a long, irritated sigh.
"I know you are lady," he said. "You ask me for it every damn week."
"Then why don't you just make it for her?" Kuwabara demanded.
"And I have this conversation with you every week too," the man replied. "We don't make raspberry sundae. If it ain't on the menu, you can't have it."
"How hard can it be to make it?" Kuwabara argued. "You make a strawberry sundae and you've got a giant bottle of raspberry sauce back there, just swap the strawberries on the strawberry sundae for raspberries!"
"Look, I can get you a strawberry sundae or a couple of scoops of raspberry ripple, but that's as close as it gets."
Kuwabara stepped closer to the counter.
"I'm trying to impress my girlfriend here," he whispered.
"And I'm trying to run a business here," the man whispered back.
"It's alright, I understand," Yukina said. "I don't want to be a bother. I'll just have a single scoop of lemon sorbet please."
"Thank you," the man said before turning back to Kuwabara. "And the family-size double-chocolate fudge chunk supreme for you, I assume?"
"No!" Kuwabara snorted. "Gimme the family-size double-chocolate fudge chunk supreme with chopped nuts."
"How original."
Kuwabara glowered angrily at the man behind the counter before moving to the door and opening it for Yukina, who gave him a small smile and nod of her head as she walked out ahead of him. He followed her out to their usual table under the shade of the shop awning, pulling out a chair for her and then sitting down opposite her.
"I don't know what that guy's problem is," he said as he noticed the slightly disappointed look on Yukina's face. "Hey maybe we should just make our own raspberry sundaes. We could probably get a recipe off the Internet."
Yukina gave a tight smile, her eyes locked onto the surface of the table.
"You can't really make Raspberry Sundae," she said.
Kuwabara considered correcting her but ultimately decided against it since she looked so strangely sad. He decided that instead, he would find a recipe for raspberry sundae, buy all the ingredients, make it and then surprise her with it the following week; since he had started attending university in another city, he was only able to travel back home to visit Yukina and his family twice a week – on a Wednesday afternoon when he had a half day of classes and at the weekends – and so he liked to always do something special for Yukina on their days together. He knew that she was quite happy living with his father and Shizuru, but sometimes he thought that she was lonely or bored there without him.
"Well, well, fancy seeing the two of you here on a Wednesday afternoon."
Kuwabara looked up. It was not that he was not happy to see Kurama, but it did bother him that the fox demon often ended up interrupting his Wednesday afternoon visit to the ice cream parlour with Yukina.
"Hey Kurama," he said, trying not to sound as irritated as he felt.
"Do you mind if I join you?" Kurama asked.
Kuwabara wanted to say that he did mind, but before he could, Kurama had pulled out a chair and sat down.
"How's work?" Kuwabara asked him.
He was partly asking the question because he could not really understand why Kurama was not at his work on a weekday afternoon; he was even dressed in a formal shirt and tie and had on those hideous square, black-framed glasses he usually wore when he was at work.
"Good," Kurama replied. "A little slow, but generally good. How's school?"
"Good," Kuwabara replied.
There was a short, awkward silence, during which Kuwabara looked about for something to say or a reason to get rid of Kurama so that he could once more be alone with Yukina; but before he could find an answer for either, Yukina spoke.
"Have you been shopping?" she asked.
Kurama and Kuwabara both looked down at the dark green plastic bag on the ground by Kurama's feet.
"Not exactly," Kurama replied, looking up at Yukina. "I occasionally visit plant shops – because sometimes I find rogue demon plants here in the living world – and today I saw something I thought I should buy – for my mother – because it's her birthday."
Kuwabara narrowed his eyes slightly, finding the pacing of Kurama's answer oddly staggered and his tone vaguely tense as though something he had said was a lie.
"So you bought your old lady a plant?" he asked.
"Yes," Kurama replied. "I bought a plant."
Kuwabara narrowed his eyes further.
"What kinda plant?" he asked.
"It's a flower."
"What kinda flower?"
Kurama turned to look directly at Kuwabara.
"Do you really care?" he asked.
"Yeah," Kuwabara lied. "It's Shizuru's birthday soon and I need gift ideas. Lemme see it."
"It's Shizuru's birthday soon?" Yukina asked.
Neither Kurama nor Kuwabara noticed her confusion, both watching each other carefully as Kurama lifted the bag up onto the table and carefully opened it out, revealing a small mass of flowers in a relatively plain plastic pot.
"It's not a demon flower?" Kuwabara asked, eying the plant over suspiciously.
"No, it's just a normal flower," Kurama replied.
"What kinda flower is it?" Kuwabara pressed. "Because, you know, I need to know so that I can get the same one for Shizuru."
"It's a peony," Kurama said.
"It's Raspberry Sundae."
Kurama and Kuwabara both turned to Yukina, who glanced between them both with wide eyes.
"No my love, they don't serve raspberry sundae here," Kuwabara told her.
Kurama turned to give Kuwabara an admonishing look but his eyes flicked upwards and Kuwabara turned to see what had caught his attention, yelping out involuntarily as he found Hiei suddenly standing uncomfortably close to the back of his chair.
"Raspberry Sundae is the name of the flower, idiot," Hiei said as their eyes met.
"…What?" Kuwabara grunted.
"That's correct," Kurama said. "This particular peony is called Raspberry Sundae."
"Is it real?" Hiei asked.
"It looks real," Kuwabara replied.
"It's a simple living world plant," Kurama said.
"Hn," Hiei grunted, before moving over to the remaining spare seat opposite Kurama and sitting down.
Kuwabara glanced back and forth between Kurama and Hiei, frustration mounting as he tried desperately to think of a way to get them both to leave. Hiei was staring at the flower with a slightly angered look on his face – which was not out of the ordinary for Hiei – and Kurama was staring at the flower with a slightly saddened look on his face – which was also not unusual for Kurama. Across the table from Kuwabara, Yukina was also staring at the flower, her head tilted slightly to one side, her eyes wide and unblinking as though she was captivated by it. It started to occur to Kuwabara that it was odd that three demons could be so fascinated by a little flower and he shortly found himself looking at it, partly expecting something to appear before him when he did.
And, a few seconds later, something did.
Yukina screamed in alarm, her chair tipping backwards as she made to distance herself from the table. Hiei shot out of his chair and caught the back of her chair before she fell and Kuwabara and Kurama were both on their feet, all four watching the figure that appeared to have dropped out of the sky to land in a crouch on their table
"What the hell is that thing?" Kuwabara asked, turning to Kurama expectantly.
"What does it look like you fool?" Hiei spat. "It's obviously a cat demon!"
Hiei straightened Yukina's chair before dragging it back – with Yukina still sitting in it – and moving around to stand between her and the table. He drew out his sword, but Kuwabara could not help but notice that there was something slightly amiss about him; his face was glistening with sweat despite him not having made any great physical exertion, his pupils were dilated and unmoving and one of the fingers on his free hand was twitching. Kuwabara turned to Kurama and felt no more reassured when he saw Kurama staring at the plant he had bought his mother, looking even more flustered than Hiei. Kuwabara quickly glanced around the street, feeling even more confused when he saw people casually walking past and continuing about their day as if there wasn't a woman with giant cat ears, fanged teeth and a long, bristled tail crouched on the table curiously poking at a potted plant.
"Hey wait a minute…" he muttered. "Where did you come from?"
The cat demon turned her head, fixing her distinctly feline green eyes onto Kuwabara. She looked harmless and he could not sense any great power radiating off of her; in fact, he thought darkly, he could not sense any energy from her whatsoever. He had not sensed her approach because she had no aura to be sensed. She scratched idly at the slightly grubby bandana tied over her forehead before turning her attention back to Kurama's plant and grabbing the pot in her other hand. She managed to lift the pot a short distance from the table surface before she was halted abruptly by Kurama, who suddenly had his hand gripped very firmly around her wrist.
"It's not what you think it is," he said to her in a low voice. "Put it back down and go back to wherever you came from."
"It looks like Raspberry Sundae to me," the cat replied, her voice as hushed as Kurama's.
"Let go of it!" Yukina suddenly cried out, standing abruptly behind Hiei.
Kuwabara turned to her in shock at her outburst and he was actually relieved when Hiei put out his free arm to stop her from trying to pass him; which, amazingly, she had been about to do. The cat dropped the potted plant and leapt around on the spot to face Hiei, leaning to one side to peer over his shoulder at Yukina.
"Go away!" Yukina shouted.
"Stay back," Hiei growled over his shoulder at her.
"How curious," the cat demon commented, sounding far less interested than her words implied she might be.
"I don't know how you managed to trick you way past my patrol, but when I find out, I will kill those responsible for letting you through," Hiei warned her.
"Of course you will," the cat demon replied, smiling amusedly.
"But first, I'm going to kill you," he snarled.
"No!" Kurama and Yukina both said in unison.
"Huh?" Kuwabara grunted.
"Just get out of here," Kurama said to the cat's back. "And never, ever return!"
The cat leapt around and grabbed the potted flower again and again Kurama grabbed her wrist to stop her from taking it. She started to reach her other hand towards his and he hurriedly slapped it back with his free hand. Kuwabara watched in dumbstruck disbelief as Kurama and the cat demon exchanged an increasingly clumsy series of slaps and snatches at the flower before the cat finally leapt over Kurama's head and sprinted across the street, leaping over car roofs in the process and finally disappearing down an alley.
Kurama, his hair ruffled and his glasses askew on his face, was standing perfectly still, one hand hanging loosely at his side, the other tightly clutching his potted plant, which was suddenly missing all the flowerheads.
"Okay, what the hell was that all about?" Kuwabara asked him.
Kurama did not so much as blink in response. Kuwabara groaned out a sigh.
"Hiei, are you gonna tell me what the hell is going on?"
Kuwabara turned around to find that Hiei had vanished and Yukina was left standing where she had been before, one hand clutched at her chest, the other slightly outstretched as though she was reaching for something nobody else but she could see.
"Typical Hiei running off," Kuwabara grumbled. "C'mon Kurama, what was all that about?"
Kuwabara turned back in time to see Kurama's plastic green shopping bag hit the ground after it had been launched into the air by some unseen force: and Kurama was nowhere to be seen.
"Yukina?"
Kuwabara turned back to Yukina, relieved to find her still standing in the same position she had been before he had turned away.
"Here you go," the man from the ice cream parlour announced as he placed a small plastic bowl in front of Yukina and a tall plastic bowl piled high with ice cream in front of Kuwabara.
"Yukina?" Kuwabara said again.
She blinked and her eyes seemed to regain focus. She blinked again and then slowly lowered her arms to her side, turning her head slightly to look directly at Kuwabara. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"It's Raspberry Sundae," she said, as though her answer was obvious and explained everything that had just occurred.
"No lady, it's lemon sorbet," the man from the ice cream parlour corrected her. "And that is the family-size double-chocolate fudge chunk supreme. With chopped nuts."
Yukina moved her eyes to look at him, glaring at him in a way that made even Kuwabara feel uneasy, before righting her chair and sitting down at the table by her small bowl. Kuwabara picked up his own chair and sat down opposite her, waiting until the man had warily retreated back inside the shop before addressing Yukina again.
"So raspberry sundae is a pretty deal for you demons, huh?"
Yukina let out a long sigh before jabbing her plastic spoon at the hard lump of lemon sorbet in front of her.
"I prefer chocolate fudge myself," Kuwabara muttered. "But maybe that's just a human thing."
After an awkwardly silent afternoon at the ice cream parlour with Yukina, Kuwabara walked her back to his family home with the intention of leaving her there and boarding a train back to his accommodation by the university. He had hoped that, after the madness of the undetectable cat demon, his day could not get any weirder.
When he arrived at the front door it whipped open the second Yukina stepped up onto the porch and Keiko pounced out from behind it.
"Where have you two been?" she demanded, glancing back and forth between Kuwabara and Yukina accusingly.
"We were downtown," Kuwabara flatly replied. "Why are you in my dad's house?"
Keiko moved to the edge of the porch, leaning over the railing and looking up and down the street before backing up into the house, beckoning for Kuwabara and Yukina to follow her. Kuwabara indicated for Yukina to go first and he followed after her, shortly finding himself standing in the living room with Keiko, Kurama and Botan.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked, looking about himself suspiciously. "Where's my dad? And where's my sister?"
"We have to talk, Kuwabara, Yukina," Botan said. "Have a seat."
"What do you mean "have a seat"?" Kuwabara echoed. "This is my dad's house! Yukina lives here! You're acting like this is your place!"
"Please, Kuwabara, sit down," Kurama insisted before doing so himself.
Keiko sat down beside Kurama on a sofa and Kuwabara and Yukina sat down on another sofa facing them across a low table, leaving Botan on her feet.
"Lord Koenma sent me," she explained. "We've received reports that a demon may have escaped into the living world – he was hoping we could check it out and that Kurama could go to demon world and check with Hiei to find out if he was aware of any breaches in his border patrol."
"Of course," Kurama replied with a nod. "Did Koenma give any indication as to what sort of demon he thought it might be?"
"It was a cat demon," Kuwabara interrupted Botan before she could answer. "We all saw it this afternoon, remember?"
Botan and Keiko looked interested but Kuwabara could not help but notice the dark look Kurama was giving him; and when he turned to look at Yukina at his side he found her glaring at him with even more intensity than Kurama.
"A cat demon?" Botan asked. "Do you mean like this?"
Botan pulled one of her kitty-cat faces and Keiko laughed and rolled her eyes.
"Yeah sure Botan!" she said. "I bet it looked just like that!"
"No she didn't," Kuwabara argued. "She looked like a proper demon – like that crazy newscaster lady from the dark tournament."
"You mean Koto?" Kurama asked.
"Right, Koto," Kuwabara agreed. "She looked kinda like Koto."
"Koto is a fox demon," Kurama pointed out. "Are you sure it wasn't a fox demon that you saw?"
Kuwabara started to frown, but Kurama kept his expression neutral as though unaffected by the lie he seemed to be trying to generate.
"A fox demon like Koto?" Botan said. "Hm, I wonder if Yusuke would know anything about a demon like that."
"Let me find out for you," Kurama offered, standing up. "I'll go to demon world tonight, I'll talk to Hiei and to Yusuke and I'll let you know what I find out."
"Good work, Kurama!" Botan said enthusiastically.
Kuwabara stared at her incredulously, but the moment was brief as Kurama stepped between them as he made to leave and Kuwabara caught the almost threatening way the fox demon was glaring at him as he passed by.
"Okay, while Kurama investigates the matter on the demon world side, I'll return to spirit world and see what I can dig up," Botan continued as Kurama left the room. "And while I do that, Yukina can stay here so that we can report back to her, and the two of you can search around the living world and see what you can find out."
Kuwabara slowly stood up, watching Keiko as he did so: she was watching Botan intently and nodding her head as though agreeing with what she had just heard.
"So…" he said slowly. "You want me and Keiko to search the living world for the escaped demon?"
"Of course," Botan replied, apparently still not seeing the obvious flaw in her logic.
"Right…" Kuwabara said. "But what do we do if we find the demon?"
"Well you capture it, contain it and then report back here, of course!" Botan answered.
She was starting to look at Kuwabara as though she thought he was the one being ridiculous.
"And how is Keiko supposed to capture and contain a demon?"
Being diplomatic was obviously not working and so Kuwabara had decided to just be direct.
"Okay, I know I'm not a super-powered psychic like you or a part-Mazoku like Yusuke, but I'm still a pretty decent spirit detective."
Kuwabara turned to Keiko, waiting through a long, uncomfortable silence for her to add that her last statement had been a joke.
"And now that the border patrol keep demons in demon world and help stray humans back into living world, there really isn't much for me to do anyway," she continued instead. "Being spirit detective isn't hard work – I mean, come on, my predecessor was Yusuke Urameshi and when has he ever worked hard at anything, right?"
"…I don't get it…" Kuwabara muttered.
"Keiko is the new spirit detective, what part of that don't you understand?" Botan asked.
"But… Keiko's not a fighter," Kuwabara said, feeling increasingly bewildered when his words appeared to make Botan angry.
"Weren't you listening?" she said, her voice gaining an impatient tone. "Now that the border patrol keeps the more dangerous demons at bay within demon world, the only work to be done here in living world is minor and mostly concerned with lost souls or missing sprites from spirit world."
"…Keiko went catatonic at the dark tournament…"
"Keiko's been training, she has increased her spiritual awareness and she functions quite well for what we need her for."
"…I don't get it…"
"It was something I wanted to do," Keiko said. "After the last tournament it got me thinking that I was pretty helpless and pathetic and that I knew absolutely nothing about the threats people in the living world faced from demons. I started reading books Botan gave me and eventually Koenma agreed to let me train. Once a week I go to Kuroko Sato for classes."
Keiko looked like she meant what she was saying. Kuwabara turned to Botan and saw her looking determined and unwavering in her conviction. He then turned to Yukina, who was still sitting on the sofa, looking slightly bored.
"Yukina?" he said, waiting until she looked up at him before continuing. "Is this… Is this raspberry sundae?"
Yukina stood up and gently touched a hand to his arm.
"No Kazuma, this is not Raspberry Sundae," she said softly. "This is your house and we are your friends."
Kuwabara slowly looked around all three females – demon, human and spirit – before slowly nodding his head and then ultimately allowing Botan to bustle him out of the house and onto the street, where she left him with instructions to search the south side of town.
"You disappeared very quickly."
"Hn."
It had been a long time since Hiei had walked any distance – since he usually ran everywhere – but it somehow seemed more fitting to walk with Kurama across the last leg of their journey towards Yusuke's tower. It was prolonging the moment, but Hiei had not yet decided if awkward, stilted conversation with Kurama was any worse than the inevitable ribbing he was going to receive from Yusuke when the Mazoku found out that a demon had somehow made it past the border patrol and entered the living world.
"Do you have fleas?"
It was the only attempt at conversation Hiei had made during the entire journey; but since slowing their pace, he could not help but notice that Kurama had been scratching absent-mindedly at his right ear.
"I hope not," Kurama said, managing a small smile. "I suppose – just in the moment – after such a strange day – I forgot that I would revert to my full demon form when we arrived here."
Hiei ran his eyes over Kurama, finding him looking more human than he ever had in the body of Shuichi Minamino as he fidgeted awkwardly behind an almost menacing scowl that did not befit the rest of his inexplicably slightly dishevelled appearance.
"Hey, if it isn't Mister Relaxed and Mister Happy!"
Hiei turned, his face dropped into a scowl, to face Yusuke, who had apparently detected their approach and come out to meet them a short way from the tower entrance.
"Unfortunately Yusuke, this is not a social call," Kurama solemnly greeted him.
"Oh I know that," Yusuke answered with a casual wave of his hand. "Hokushin already filled me in on the little border patrol failing…"
He turned to Hiei with a look that seemed light-hearted, but Hiei had known him long enough to know that he was secretly slightly annoyed.
"I wasn't on duty at the time that it happened," Hiei blurted out guiltily.
"How do you know that?" Kurama challenged him. "None of us sensed her approach, she could have been in the living world for several days before she confronted us."
"I didn't see you running after her when she took off with your stupid flowers," Hiei shot back.
"Are you sure this isn't a social call?" Yusuke asked Kurama through a lop-sided smirk. "Because it's starting to get kinda amusing…"
"Yusuke, please," Kurama replied.
"I was prepared to kill her," Hiei offered.
"So why didn't you?" Yusuke asked him. "Isn't that the protocol now? Any stray demons get given the choice of returning peacefully or you finish them off; because otherwise, I have to deal with Hokushin getting assaulted by SDF officers delivering messages from spirit world."
"I'm sorry that had to happen, but this is an exceptional case," Kurama cut in. "This was no ordinary stray demon. She was a cat demon. A female cat demon."
Yusuke shrugged.
"So… We have special rules for stray cats now?" he asked.
"Again, this is not something to be laughed at," Kurama patiently replied. "Ordinarily I would suggest we capture her and return her here and ensure any breaches where she could potentially return to living world are sealed and carefully guarded from henceforth; however, she was no ordinary cat demon. And she was a female cat demon."
"Right," Yusuke said with a nod. "So what, we need to get a sack of catnip and get her wasted before we take her back here?"
"Idiot!" Hiei snapped impatiently. "You don't even know what we're talking about, do you?"
Yusuke looked far too nonchalant for Hiei's already stretched patience to tolerate for any longer.
"Cat demons! The tribe of cat demons!" he roared, ignoring the flock of ravens that took to the air as his voice echoed off the high walls of Yusuke's tower.
"Yeah?" Yusuke responded, still looking significantly less concerned than he ought to.
"You really need to educate yourself about this world," Hiei warned him.
"Hiei, please," Kurama said, holding up a hand to indicate that he should calm down. "Yusuke, this is a complex matter. There is a long war ongoing within the cat demon tribe and nobody within demon world – or within any of the other worlds – gets involved in it."
"There's a war going on?" Yusuke asked.
Hiei yelled out a few choice curse words, scaring off the remaining few ravens from the vicinity of the tower.
"Yes, Yusuke, there is a war going on within the cat demon tribe," Kurama answered. "On one side of the war there is the leader of the cat demon tribe – an A Class cat demon – and he is assisted by a large group of B Class cat demons and a small handful of C, D and even E Class cat demons."
"Doesn't sound so bad," Yusuke said with a shrug.
"On the other side, is a small band of C, D and E class cat demons."
Yusuke tilted his head to one side as though confused by Kurama's last statement.
"They call themselves "Raspberry Sundae"," Hiei added.
"Raspberry Sundae?" Yusuke echoed. "Like the ice cream dish?"
"No, not like the ice cream dish," Kurama corrected him. "Like the flower."
"No, not like the flower!" Hiei snapped irritably. "Like the code name their martyred rebel leader used."
Yusuke slowly shook his head.
"I don't really follow," he admitted. "And I don't really care."
"It's very complex Yusuke," Kurama said solemnly.
"So tell me the least complex version," Yusuke suggested, his tone bordering on sarcasm.
"Long ago, all the cat demons lived as one tribe united."
Hiei was amazed that Kurama had the patience to even attempt to tell the story to Yusuke, who was clearly every bit as disinterested as he had claimed to be.
"The leader of the tribe did some radical things that ultimately led to the structure of the clan changing," Kurama continued. "Soon they reached the point where the only powerful demons in the tribe were the male cat demons. Currently, all the B Class cat demons are male. The females are primarily E Class demons – with a few D Class and the occasional C Class. Obsessed with power absolute, the leader of the cat demons decreed that he needed to take a lover to bear him children, but that only a powerful cat demon would suffice. By chance, one such cat demon was born into the tribe: she was born a B Class demon and rose to A Class status as she matured. But, rather than growing up to fulfil the leader's plans, she grew up resenting his rules and led a rebellion against him. The war between the powerful male cat demons and the weaker female cat demons began. It was never a balanced battle, but when about a third of the female cat demons chose to remain loyal to their leader, the remaining small pocket of low-powered rebels were slaughtered or driven out of their homes. The one strong female cat demon continued to fight for a long, long time. However one day the loyalist cat demons caught up to her and they slaughtered her. Her accomplices all fled, but, rather than surrender as the loyalists had expected they would with their leader gone, they continued to fight. They diminish in number every year: some are killed in battle, some are taken prisoner back to the cat demon's homelands and either tortured or "reprogrammed" to be malleable subjects to their leader and some even die of old age. The problem is that the way the war erupted – pitting gender against gender – there are very few female cat demons remaining in demon world and those that are still alive are considered valuable property. The leader of the cat demon tribe offers great rewards for the return of a rebel and he is not the only one who would attack anyone who killed a female cat demon. As a former prominent bandit of this realm let me tell that every bandit here hopes for the day he will encounter a female cat demon so that he can collect the bounty on her head."
"And as a former prominent bandit of this realm let me tell you that we didn't hesitate to seek out and slaughter anyone or anything we thought was responsible for killing off what precious few bounties there were to collect," Hiei added.
"Which is exactly why I told you not to kill that girl today," Kurama reminded him.
"Aw come on!" Yusuke said. "Surely some B Class pussies couldn't be a real threat to Hiei if he had killed that E Class pussy back in the living world, right?"
"It's not the wrath of the cat demons you have to fear," Kurama warned.
Yusuke nodded and, for the first time since Kurama and Hiei's arrival, he looked serious.
"So we need to find this girl and get her back here alive, right?" he asked.
"Right, exactly," Kurama agreed.
"And then we can collect the bounty on her head."
Kurama and Yusuke both turned to Hiei and he was surprised to see just how disgusted they both looked.
"She made me look a fool, slipping through my patrol like that," he pointed out. "It's a matter of honour. If I can't kill her, somebody else at least should!"
"Which brings us nicely to the next problem," Kurama began.
"There's more?" Yusuke asked. "Great…"
"We didn't detect her approach," Kurama continued. "Not even Kuwabara could feel her arrival. It was as though she had no demon aura whatsoever. Finding her is going to be a momentous task and no doubt word will quickly spread around demon world that she is in the living world, which will draw unwanted attention towards the living world and spirit world know she is there and they have already asked for her extraction."
"So?" Yusuke asked.
"So if an officer of spirit world kills that girl, the loyalist cat demons, the rebel cat demons and every bandit in demon world will rain down an almighty fury on spirit world: a literal war of the worlds will erupt."
"I still don't get why the "loyalists" care what happens to the rebels. Surely if she dies it's just one less problem for them, right?"
"No. They want her alive. They want the pleasure of either killing her of subjugating her into the role of abject slavery she suffered before the rebellion began."
"Harsh."
"But that's the situation."
Yusuke grinned.
"So you came to the master for help and guidance?" he asked, touching a hand to his chest smugly.
"The cat we're looking for has an implanted jagan eye."
Kurama turned to Hiei so quickly his hair whipped around and narrowly missed slapping the fire demon across the face.
"What?"
"She had an implanted jagan eye. Which is unusual, because Shigure is dead, so either she had that operation performed on her long ago or there is a new surgeon in demon world."
Kurama's mouth twitched in an animalistic expression of anger, a momentary flash of his teeth making him once more look like his demon self.
"How long have you known that?" he asked, the irritation clear in his voice.
"I'm taking a leap of faith," Hiei sarcastically replied. "She was clearly using a psychic technique to hide herself from detection, cats are not naturally gifted with such abilities and she was wearing a bandana around her head."
"That's good detective work," Yusuke commented.
"Such a compliment coming from a former spirit detective," Hiei muttered.
"Exactly!" Yusuke agreed.
"I believe he was being facetious," Kurama told Yusuke.
"That means I was mocking you," Hiei added when he saw that vaguely strained look appear on Yusuke's face that implied he did not know the definition of the word "facetious".
"I knew that!" Yusuke lied. "And anyway, long story short: the three of us need to go the living world and hunt down Pussy Galore, right?"
Kurama sighed.
"Does this task really have to involve you making tenuous puns the entire time?" he asked.
"Why don't you just give us all your best ones now, get it out of your system and then we can get back to work," Hiei suggested. "I want this fixed and I want it fixed quickly. The longer we take to find this bitch the more humiliating it is for me."
Yusuke opened his mouth to answer but stopped when Kurama held up a hand.
"Please, Yusuke, let's just deal with this," he said.
Yusuke shrugged.
"It was a good one," he said quietly.
"Save it for your good friend Kuwabara," Hiei snorted.
"Kuwabara's helping us out?" Yusuke asked cheerfully. "That's cool. I was supposed to visit the living world for some reunion dinner him and Keiko were trying to set up, but this is even better: two birds, one stone."
Hiei groaned and rolled his eyes; but, deep down, he was relieved that Yusuke's focus was making cat jokes and talking about his human friends rather than interrogating Hiei about the failure of his border patrol.