Disclaimer: I don't own YuYuHakusho or InuYasha

Authors Note: I finally finished this chapter! (I'm REALLY sorry for the wait though). Thank you to all of you who reviewed last time! (Also thank you to all of you who are reading this story)

Chapter 2: The Demon

Kagome knew with a certainty that this man was her father, there were no doubts when she saw his eyes and heard the way he spoke- it was all too familiar. Now she, her father and the rest of her family sat at the table with tea mugs set in front of them- all untouched and cold. The heavy silence in room unnerved Kagome greatly and she felt tempted to break the silence by slamming her fist onto the table. Bitting her lip firmly Kagome instead picked up her tea cup and took a sip- the first movement since Mrs. Higurashi insisted they all sit down. After placing down the cup Kagome looked at her father with slight contempt and smoothed down her slightly ruffled hair (from the run before). With that she went silent once more and turned her head over to her mother who seemed to take the hint. "So," Mrs. Higurashi spoke coldly, "why are you here after a four years disappearance? We all thought you were dead."

Mr. Higurashi cleared his throat a bit shakily and smiled at his wife, "Kagome and Souta have both grown, haven't they?" Kagome glared at him, "yeah- its been four stupid years, of course I've grown! Now answer Mama's question!" she growled out in a low, dangerous tone reflecting the spite in her eyes. The deadpan silence that settled in the air of the room was suffocating and after waiting for a moment or two Mrs. Higurashi got up with a sigh and murmured, "you know, I usually wouldn't judge so quickly, but you put my children and Grandfather through a lot trying to keep finances and we all missed you so much, too. So you had better had a good explanation- now." With that she turned to leave when his voice stopped her.

"It wasn't by choice, Kun-Loo. Right now I'm afraid I can't tell you what happened. Maybe later though, I can tell you of what I experienced. What I suffered through that kept me from all of you." His voice was no longer warm and friendly but cold like an ice lash. Mrs. Higurashi growled and turned to him and snapped, "you think that would be an adequate explanation! Well?!" Mr. Higurahi gulped and stuttered, "N- no, of course not..." Mrs. Higurashi then continued her scolding. Kagome and Souta stared, terrified at their mother's actions. Grandfather merely sipped at his tea as though this was an everyday occurrence. Souta turned to Kagome and shivered, "Now I see where you got it from, Kagome..." Kagome blushed, "Souta!" Suddenly the scolding Mrs. Higurashi had been giving her husband came to an end. "I suppose that will do. You better tell me later though or you will find yourself wishing you died a baby." Mrs. Higurashi threatened. Mr.Higurashi grinned from ear to ear like a young lad being offered a chocolate bar. "Of course."

After that Kagome and Souta relaxed. Mrs. Higurashi then smiled at her daughter and asked, "Kagome why were you so late? I hear from your father that he found you exhausted at the top of the shrine steps." Kagome bit her lip and mentally chanted, 'oh crap, oh crap, oh crap! When did she hear THAT?!'

Kurama looked around at the clearing Koenma had said the fight would be, very displeased to find it empty. Shaking his head he bent down (making sure to stay alert of danger) to examine the ground for any signs of blood to see if he was tricked or if perhaps at one point Yusuke and the others had really been here. Finding nothing, no footprints, or anything he stood up and stretched his search of his teammates by extending the borders of his power. He found them almost too quickly. They were with Botan, just out of his normal detecting range. All of them seemed unharmed but anxious and were moving at a fast pace.

Frowning at the unusual occurrence of a trick on Koenma's part Kurama intended to get down to the bottom of this. He headed towards the group once again, this time traveling on the rooftops of the many buildings around him. Catching up to the group was no problem but finding them was a whole other aspect. He had been surprised to find such a large group of people this late at night. Quietly Kurama jumped down from the roof he had been on and blended in as well as he could with the crowd before following Yusuke's energy. Finally they stopped and Kurama reached them. Cutting off his energy he continued his search using his eyes exclusively. It was fairly easy from there on to spot Botan's unusual blue hair and Kuwabara's height.

They were sipping at bottles of old beer (with the exception of Hiei) and looking unusually depressed. Approaching them Kurama grabbed Yusuke's beer and dumped it into a it in a nearby recycle bin. He raised an eyebrow at Yusuke's desperate attempts to retrieve the bottle back. Leaning against the wall and snatched the bottles from Botan and Kuwabara's hands and throwing them in the recycle bin. Hiei blinked, surprised at Kurama's sudden appearance (and the fact that he didn't notice) before returning to the normal stoic expression. His eyes showed his satisfaction of having the sources of the awful smell gone.

"Hey!" Kuwabara slurred out, "K'rama! Why'd ya do tat? (Kurama! Why did you do that?)" Kurama raised his other eyebrow and glanced at Hiei with pity. Hiei shrugged and Kurama turned back to reply to Kuwabara's little question. "I have some questions for you. It would be better if you were somber when you answer them." Quickly pulling out three vials filled with murky looking liquid Kurama smiled at the drunk three, "drink this instead."

They all looked at the liquid suspiciously but all their previous common sense had disappeared with the alcohol. Botan gulped it down first in one big swig and held it out drunkly an said in a slurring voice, "More! M're!" Suddenly she keeled and began began puking into the closest trash can. Yusuke and Kuwabara weren't as lucky- they puked on their shoes. Hiei glanced at them with an extremely disgusted look before turning back to Kurama. "What do you want, Fox?" Kurama smiled, "Well, I got this call from Koenma..."

Half an hour later (at Kuwabara's house) Kurama had explained everything and Yusuke, Botan and Kuwabara were back to normal. Well- they did have some serious headaches but one of Kurama's herbal teas was taking care of most of that problem. Yusuke blinked after a while and spoke up finally, "Well... what do you want to know Kurama?" Kurama looked at Yusuke with completely emotionless eyes and spoke smoothly, "Why were you drunk?" Yusuke raised an eyebrow, "we drank some beer, Kurama. And here I thought you were smart-" Kurama glared a little and Yusuke gulped and answered the question, "we were upset we had missed this concert with this really great musician. Botan thought she had to keep us disciplined so she came with us." Kurama sighed and leaned back into the chair back before glancing over a Hiei who sat on the windowsill. "Sooo..." Kurama drawled, "why was Hiei with you?" Hiei blushed and answered before Yusuke or the others could. "They dragged me there." Yusuke laughed ignoring Hiei's death glare and answered, "we told him Yukina was coming and he believed us!" Yusuke froze when he felt cold steel against his throat and sealed his lips.

Kurama grinned a little and continued his questioning until he came to conclusion of what had happened. Yusuke had gotten lost and soon after getting drunk (they had been drinking while walking) had called Koenma telling him he needed someone smart like Kurama to help out. Yusuke, being drunk and Hiei, the only somber person, not being able to read a human map, had told Koenma some random street name on the map. Koenma had taken Yusuke's odd way of talking as an emergency and had called Kurama. Before the group had gone to find the concert they were given an assignment to kill an 'A' class demon that had somehow mysteriously pasted through the barrier. Apparently they had gotten rid of it with no problems, but Koenma connected the 'emergency' with the assignment he had given Yusuke and the others and so a huge misunderstanding was created.

Something didn't seem right about all of this, though. An 'A' class demon had passed through the barrier- how? They made it seem as if this demon was another low class though, so none of it added up. 'A' class demons weren't that easy to kill- they tended to be fairly stubborn so at least put up a decent fight. Narrowing his eyes Kurama tried to sense any strong demon's presence and couldn't find any- not even the fading presence of a strong demon was present anywhere. Frowning Kurama ran through his thoughts again and recalled when he had gone to the underworld, the description Koenma had told him going through his head again.

"A huge one this time- at least thirteen feet tall and around 500 pounds... abilities are not really well known. It's funny- the file of this demon is practically blank. All it says is 'rarely found' and sometimes believed to be dead. It has no family or acquaintances so there isn't any way to know how the demon got through." That was when it became apparent to Kurama what had happened. Standing up abruptly he asked Yusuke one last question, "Did you see it actually die?" Yusuke shrugged, looking a little surprised, "Come to think of it- no. It just disappeared after I severely injured it." Kurama sighed and turned to him, "Do you have any... samples of him? For example- blood, fur..." Yusuke grimaced, "Oh, yeah. Plenty of blood on my clothes... here I'll go get them. I haven't cleaned them yet."

After receiving the bloody clothing Kurama scrunched up his nose in disgust and soon Hiei was gone from the room- it seemed Hiei didn't partially like the smell. Kurama turned to Botan who nodded in understanding and pulled out some underworld equipment and after putting some of the demon's blood in it some device. Soon a map came up on a the device's screen with a little moving red dot on it- representing where the demon was. Yusuke groaned, "not another map..." Kuwabara hit him over the head and shouted at him, "It's your fault we got lost Yusuke! You had the map!" Yusuke growled back at Kuwabara, "oh, yeah? I'll show you-!" Kurama stopped the fight by stepping between them speaking in a overly serious voice. "The demon is hungry. There is a wonderful supply of human meat in the city, don't you think? The demon sure does. It approaches more and more populated areas and has already killed seventeen humans- six were children." Botan's eye's widened, "the demon lives? But-!" Kurama shook his head and pointed to the device in his hand and the dot that was moving quite quickly on the map. "It approaches the park that Keiko often goes to. Shall we leave now... Hiei? Yusuke? Kuwabara?"

Hiei suddenly appeared back in the room and nodded. They set off like that... the only problem was that the dot liked to disappear then show up in a totally different area in the city. Kurama grumbled to himself in his mind, 'well, now we have at least two abilities of the demon- covering up it's aura and transportation.' Hiei would have laughed at Kurama's thoughts if he wasn't so worried about the others hearing him. This was going to be a long night.

(NEXT MORNING)

Kagome had complained to her mother all night about this but she hadn't let up, not even one bit. Kagome shivered slightly recalling her words. This is something everyone can do and enjoy! Kagome I will not change my plans! And after so many years of your father being gone, too! You used to love doing this with the family! Kagome groaned and tried to stay as far back from her family as possible, pretending not to know them and tried to ignore all the curious stares they were receiving. That, however, was harder than it seemed since they were constantly calling her to hurry up. They were window shopping. Window shopping was great... that is when you weren't standing with a group of people fascinated with painting of horror scenes and fake heads of demons. Her grandfather was overly enthusiastic about the trip, pointing out all gruesome things they ran into and telling some story about its history. Ugh... if only she could escape. She didn't remember her father liking this sort of stuff.

"Kagome!" Souta shouted over at her, "look at this hand of an instinct monkey that lived like three hundred years ago! It was mummified by some weird tribe..." Kagome sighed and walked up to Souta, quite ready to drag him away from this section of shops. Her family didn't even seem to notice that they were coming closer and closer to the worse parts of town. That was when she sensed it though- the demon. She had rarely sensed such a powerful demon in the past- not to mention in her time. Frowning when she felt it coming closer she hurried up to her mother and whispered urgently in her ear, "There's some dangerous demon on the loose- I must go." Her mother looked down at her daughter and finally nodded in understanding. "Of course Kagome. I can't stop you, can I." It was a statement.

Kagome smiled at her and was off like a bullet into the night street. Everyone in her family paused in their window shopping and watched her go in confusion. Mr. Higurashi frowned and turned to his wife, "what happened?" She smiled at him, "she had something important to take care of." He turned to stare at the place he had last seen his daughter before turning back to Mrs. Higurashi, "you must really trust her to just let her go off like that." He paused and looked a little thoughtful before continuing, "Come to think of it; how are Kagome's grades doing?" Everyone except a confused Mr. Higurashi froze and turned a little pale. Mrs. Higurashi shared glances with Grandfather and Souta before answering, "Um, well about that..."

Kagome had forgotten how great it felt to run like this, through the crisp night air in chase of prey. Grinning from ear to ear she briefly ignored the power that radiated from the demon and pretended she was back in the feudal era, on InuYasha's back... Her eyes widened when she realized who she was thinking of and tripped on the hard cement sidewalk. There went that moment.

Standing up slowly she wiped off some dirt that had gotten on her pants and began running again, making her way through the early morning traffic. Looking around at her surroundings she grew a little uneasy, she was now in the 'bad' part of the city. The roads were turning into dark alleyways and the people were beginning to look suspiciously like thugs and drug dealers.

Despite her odd upbringing of being used to more gruesome things than most girls she knew the basic rules of safety when it came to this sort of situation. In the back of her mind -the part that respected these rules- screamed at her to turn back and NOT take any of the alleyways. Of course her first priority was the demon. She could handle most attacks from a human; unless that counted guns. She was very bad with guns. So with that she jumped into one of the alleyways heading towards the demon once again.

Yusuke gasped for breath on one of the building roofs along with Kuwabara. Botan watched with worry on her flying oar and Kurama and Hiei merely paused to give their legs a break- seeing as their stamina was a lot better than the other two. Kuwabara wiped some sweat off his forehead and asked Kurama, "when will that demon stop doing that weird jumpy thing?" Kurama blinked, "Transportation, you mean?" Kuwabara nodded and looked down at the map Kurama still held (the one that shows where the demon is) and asked again, "you got any ideas Kurama? We've been chasing this thing all night!" Kurama looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding, "yes... maybe. I'll need to make sure my plan will work though, so we'll have to keep chasing it for a while more." Yusuke groaned, "Lovely... ah! I had a date with Keiko this morning! She's gonna kill me!" Kurama chuckled and they began their chase once again.

Authors Note: Okay, I'm done with this chapter! I hope you liked it and please remember to review. Once again I'm sorry for the long wait. By the way I wasn't really sure what Mrs. Higurashi's first name was so I used one that I'd seen a couple times (and I'm not sure if I spelled it right either) so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me what you think her name is.