Here's chapter 2! These first few seem pretty short, but they'll lengthen later.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or its characters.
"Ah, Naoko!" She said, noticing that the two were just coming out of their room. Naoko smiled at Kiara and waved her over.
"Would you like to join us today, Miss Kiara?" Naoko asked. Kiara nodded and fell into step with her as Roku walked next to Kaze. "Today we decided to…" Naoko began describing what they intended to do that day as Roku eyed Kaze.
"How long have you been… Um… Sakura's?" Roku asked in a whisper, tugging at his collar. Kaze noticed then that he was now being led by a long cord from the collar to Naoko's hand. Naoko was just handing a similar one to Kiara and Kaze stopped walking, seriously considering bolting.
"It helps keep others away from him," Naoko was explaining as Kiara studied the cord. Kaze sighed and relented, allowing Kiara to attach it to her collar. "This way no one will try to take him away. I had the unfortunate experience of losing H-Roku my first day and the Madame gave me this to keep track of him."
Kaze dropped her head as she and Roku were led by the two women. "Not very long," Kaze finally answered Roku, turning to see him. "She certainly never put me on a leash. And you?"
"The same for me," Roku replied, grimacing. "We've been here for about a week though, so I had expected to get used to the leash."
"No such luck, huh?" Kaze asked sympathetically as Roku tried to adjust his collar again.
Kaze and Roku talked whenever they could over the next week, Kaze careful not to reveal too much about who she was while noticing Roku seemed to be doing the same. However, they weren't allowed to talk unless their "masters" were also with them, otherwise other demons would try to claim them, usually leading to yelling matches and sometimes all out fights between Naoko or Kiara and the offending demon.
Kiara and Kaze whispered information to each other at night after noticing that some demons would try to eavesdrop on them at their door. "I haven't learned anything about the missing slaves," Kiara whispered, tugging a brush through her hair. "Naoko doesn't seem to want to talk about them when I try to bring them up…"
"You also haven't ever really been very good at subtle hints," Kaze pointed out. "They're usually too subtle for men to pick up on."
"You really believe Naoko's a man?" Kiara asked, choosing to ignore Kaze's comment about her subtlety. "What proof do you have?"
"He doesn't pick up one your subtle hints," Kaze stated, watching as her shaggy brown hair grew past her shoulders. In seconds it was nearly sweeping the floor. "My hair is getting long," she mused, deciding not to put it in a ponytail.
Kiara sighed. "Is that all?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No," Kaze continued, sweeping her hair out of the way and sitting on the bed. "His eyes aren't very feminine, his voice is too deep, he has less chest than I do-"
"What?" Kiara laughed. "Her chest is huge! Didn't you see it? She was just complaining about not being able to see her feet!"
"Except her 'breasts' don't move like they should," Kaze sighed, laying back. "While he's moving one way, one will follow while the other will go the other way."
"Um… Why are you looking at her chest?" Kiara asked. "I didn't know you swung that way-ow!" Kaze threw a pillow sharply at Kiara, glaring at her.
"I don't," Kaze snapped. "I like guys waaaay too much. I just noticed something was off, so I watched her."
"Okay, okay, so Naoko's a man. Got it," Kiara mumbled. "That was a really hard pillow."
"So you're subtlety didn't work, did you ask him outright about the disappearances?" Kaze asked.
"Y'know, you aren't very good at subtle hints yourself," Kiara snapped, tired of Kaze pointing that flaw out.
"I don't use them," Kaze said, blinking in surprise. "Didn't you notice? I like straightforward comments, you don't have to think about what's hidden underneath."
Kiara sighed, shaking her head in defeat. "Um, no I didn't ask him outright," she answered instead. "I don't want him thinking I know too much. And besides, have YOU found out anything?"
"Yup," Kaze answered, nodding. At the look of surprise on Kiara's face, Kaze shrugged. "Roku seems to like straightforward comments himself. So I asked him if he knew anything about the disappearances and he seemed more than happy to answer me. He said that the disappearances have been happening, not only in this district, but all around the country. In addition, the slaves that disappeared were all those who had some kind of run in with the owners of the house or one of the higher ups. He never mentioned anything about them all being male so when I asked him if he thought that was strange he looked surprised and said he hadn't heard that."
"Wow… Since Roku knows so much, Naoko must know something, right?" Kiara asked, tapping her chin. "I'll ask him outright in the morning."
"Oh, one more thing," Kaze muttered as Kiara waved her hand and Kaze's hair and height shortened again. "Um, Roku and I ran into the Madame and kind of… pissed her off."
"What! Why?" Kiara yelled. "What did you do!?"
"We threw her favorite chair out the sixth story window?" Kaze asked, snickering at the memory. "She was kicking one of the younger slaves! We couldn't just leave the poor girl to her! So we threw the chair out to distract her."
"Great, one more thing to worry about," Kiara groaned, shutting the light off and flopping into her bed.
The next morning, Kaze followed Kiara down to breakfast, glaring angrily at the leash tied around her collar and tugging at her, again, short hair. Roku noticed them first and looked expectantly at Naoko, tugging on the leash on his collar. "Oh, go on then," Naoko laughed, letting the leash go. Roku ran up to Kaze and Kiara, smiling at Kaze as she turned and raised an eyebrow at Kiara.
"Don't get lost," Kiara ordered, letting go of the leash. Kaze hid a scowl and followed Roku to an empty table.
"It seems my Roku has become interested in your Maru," Naoko sighed, joining Kiara at a table.
"Oh?" Kiara asked, surprised. "I didn't realize Roku was bi."
"He didn't either," Naoko laughed. "He was just telling me yesterday how he looks forward to seeing him when you two join us."
"Aw, that's cute," Kiara replied, hiding a snicker. "Anyway, Naoko, I wanted to ask you something. Have you heard anything about the disappearing slaves around here?"
Naoko stared at Kiara in surprise for a moment before smirking. "I guess Roku wasn't wrong about that either," she said, turning to watch Kaze and Roku at the other table for a moment. "Are you two investigating these disappearances?"
"Uh…" Kiara began, hesitant to give too much information away.
"Because we are," Naoko continued, turning her attention back to Kiara. "And any information we have might be better shared than kept to ourselves."
Kiara sighed in relief. "Yes, we are investigating them," she finally answered. "Our employer wants to know where they are going. All we know so far is that all the disappearing slaves are men."
"Oh? I hadn't known that," Naoko replied. "We had heard that they'd been disappearing all over the country, but the majority were from this district. And that all of the slaves had had a run in with a higher-up."
"Yes, um, Maru told me that was what Roku had said," Kiara nodded.
"Hold on, I have to know," Naoko interrupted, holding her hand up to keep Kiara from continuing. "Is Maru really a man?" Kiara snickered silently. "Because he seems way too feminine to be one and I'd like to ease Roku's worries. I don't know why he's worried about it, but he seems to want children or something."
Kiara began laughing, covering her mouth with one hand. "And we tried so hard to hide her gender," she finally choked out. Naoko sighed in relief.
"Oh good," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not just crazy. But I must know, how did you try to hide her gender? I mean her hair is short, but…"
"Oh, it's actually really long," Kiara said, shaking her head. "Almost touching the ground, long. Maybe I should mention that we're witches? I magicked her hair short. I also shortened her height, which she was not happy about."
"Her height?" Naoko asked, blinking in confusion.
"Yup, she's about six inches taller than I am."
Naoko turned to eye Kaze, trying to imagine her taller, but found herself facing an empty table. "Where did they go?" She asked, standing up quickly and turning in a circle to check the entire room.
Kiara stood up also. "I don't know…" She muttered. "This could be a problem…"
