Hey guys, I hope you liked Chapter One. If you did, then here's chapter two. Hopefully you people will contact me and tell me what you think like in an e-mail, or a letter, or a review (hint hint wink wink nudge nudge ;3). So, if you guys like it, TELL ME!!!! Thank you, that is all. Bye bye now. (Well don't actually leave without reading chapter two.)
Disclaimer: If you've seen them before then they probably aren't mine. Aria, her Mom, Arashi, and Xryna are mine. So no touchy.
Chapter 2: Xryna
Two days after the demon had attacked him, Kurama woke up in one of the guest rooms in Spirit World. He struggled into a sitting position as he heard the door open.
"Oh Kurama, you're awake. I was beginning to worry about you." Botan said as she closed the door behind her.
"How long have I been asleep?" He asked quietly.
"You've been out of it for two and a half days. Yusuke and Kuwabara have been trying to find out about the demon that attacked you and Koenma and I have been going through the files. Unfortunately we haven't found anything yet." She finished in a disappointed voice. She shook her head after a moment, realizing she was acting very un-Botan like. "Oh here I am going on about something that I'm sure we'll fix soon and you're not even all better yet. How are you feeling by the way?"
Kurama smiled at Botan's attempt at being her usual chipper self. "I'm fine Botan, thank you for asking. Has anything else happened that I should know about?" He asked as he got up and tested his feet to see if they would hold him up.
"No, not really." Botan said. "Although Yusuke did say that your mother was worried about where you were. He told her that you were helping Master Genkai with something when your mother called and asked him." Botan explained.
Kurama nodded. Genkai didn't keep a phone in her house because they so often disrupted her, so his mother had no way of checking Yusuke's story.
"Botan, would you mind if I looked through the files to see if I could find anything about the demon that attacked us." Kurama asked as stood up and slipped on his shoes.
Botan nodded happily. "Yes, of course." She said relieved to know that the smartest person she knew was about to do the research that everyone else had failed at so far. "The file room is this way." She pointed down the hall to the left where a light was glowing farther down the hall.
"Thank you Botan." Kurama said then went to search for information on his unknown attacker.
A few hours later, Kurama was standing in Koenma's office waiting for the small prince to show up. After several minutes of waiting, both Koenma and Botan stepped through the back door that was behind Koenma's large chair.
"So Kurama, I suppose you've already found something in two hours that Botan and I missed over two days of staring at those stupid files." Koenma commented in an annoyed tone as he hopped into his chair.
"I believe so," Kurama placed a small pile of papers in front of his employer.
Koenma picked them up and leafed through them. "Yes, I remember reading this." He said thoughtfully as he looked at the last page. "And yet, I don't remember this one." He looked up at Kurama.
"That is what I remember from when I was Youko. You didn't have any of this written where I could find it." Kurama said not looking Koenma full in the eye. Koenma glared at the paper, more upset that Spirit World didn't have the information that he needed.
"What does it say Lord Koenma?" Botan asked from the other side of his desk as he started at the paper.
"It's basically information about Xryna." Kurama spoke the ancient being's name with a dark inflection.
Koenma dropped his binky on the table. He looked up at the red haired spirit detective in shock. "You don't think he's involved in this?" He asked in a soft voice.
Kurama didn't answer. He didn't have time.
"Now wait a minute," Botan interrupted. "Who is this Xryna and why is it so bad if he's involved in this mess anyway?"
Both men were quiet as Botan looked at each of them. "Well?!" She demanded, hating the fact that she didn't know what they were talking about.
"Xryna was, is, a very powerful and ancient being." Kurama started. "But he is also an evil one. Millions of years ago, demons and those from Reiki joined together and sealed him away. While no one actually knows what Xryna did when he was still in charge, the fact that the two groups joined together against him most likely means that it was worse then any other demon there is now." Kurama told her.
"I would like to know if he just has a demon, or maybe even a human, helping him or if he has been released and is doing this himself." Koenma muttered.
"Most likely he has a helper." Kurama said. "If he was released then he wouldn't need to wait to wipe us out."
"Wipe us out?" Botan squeaked.
Kurama smiled wryly. "Yes, he isn't very happy about the fact that he was sealed away by both races."
"Yes..." Koenma trailed off, thinking to himself. "We should still concentrate on finding the demon that attacked you," He motioned to Kurama. "But now we should also watch out and try to find out what he's planning."
"I will tell Yusuke and others when I go back to the human world." Kurama offered and Koenma agreed.
"I can take you. If we leave now, we can catch them on their way home from school." Botan told him.
Koenma nodded again. "I'll call Botan if anything else comes to my attention."
"Okay. Come on Kurama." Botan threw open the doors with Kurama following her out of the room.
Aria smiled to herself as she and Shiro sat on the beach watching the sun go down. Aria absentmindedly reached out and stroked Shiro's head. After a little over a year of living with them, Shiro had warmed up to Aria and her mother.
"The sky sure is pretty, isn't it Shiro?" She said more to herself then to Shiro. Shiro answered with a kon anyway. While Shiro looked like any other Nine Tails, he said 'kon' instead of his name and he still refused to eat any kind of pokemon food.
Aria sighed happily and lay back in the sand. Shiro waited for a moment then trotted to as close to the ocean as he could without stepping in the water. He looked back at Aria and saw that she had closed her eyes. For a moment, the silver creature did nothing. Then, he began to glow. Quickly, the white fire that was surrounding him shot up into the sky and disappeared into the scarce clouds that were floating above him.
Once he was done and the white light had flown from view, Shiro walked back to Aria and lay down by her head. While this was not the first time that Shiro had done this, although he did hope that it would be the last.
"Hey, wait a minute guys." Yusuke said as he pulled his communication mirror out of his back pocket and flipped it open.
"Yeah, what do you want Koenma?" He asked in a bored voice.
"I've found Youko." He said straight to the point. Kurama quickly joined Yusuke so he could hear Koenma better.
"Where?" He asked.
"He's on a different world. That blast must have sent him to a different world. Fortunately, it is also under my control and the person who I've put in charge of monitoring it informed me a few minutes ago that someone has been releasing a large amount of demonic energy periodically throughout the last year."
"Last year? He's only been gone two days." Yusuke pointed out.
Koenma sighed. "Time works differently there. It would take to long to explain now. Anyway, it'll take too much energy to send all four of you there at once and we'll need most of you here to deal with him." Kurama and Botan had already explained about Xryna and how it was important not to mention his name anywhere except the Spirit World because there was power even in his name and Xryna would notice it, no matter how small.
"So, I will send Kurama and Botan to look for him. However it will have to be one at a time." The Spirit prince told them.
"Very well, we'll be right there." Botan said as she pushed Yusuke out of her way so she could see her boss.
"Sheesh Botan!" Yusuke complained as he got up off the floor. "You didn't have to push me."
Botan ignored him, summoned her oar, and waited for Kurama to get on.
"We'll be back once we've found Youko, don't do anything exciting while we're gone." Botan called cheerily behind her. Kurama saw through her false happiness, but didn't say anything as they flew off to Spirit World.
A few days after she and Shiro had watched the sunset from the sand, Aria was in Botany completing errands for her mom. She was walking down the street with Shiro trotting next to her and Sweetheart sprawled across her shoulders.
"Now let's see," Aria said to her friends as she looked at the list her mom had given to her. "First we should go to the Pokemon store and get Mom's stuff for her pokemon food. Then we can go to book store to get the book she ordered and maybe find some that I like." She winked at her friends. "Then we'll go to the grocery store and then we'll go home." She smiled widely. "Ya know, the music store is right next to the book store, maybe they'll have that CD I've been looking for."
Shiro sighed to himself. Why did I want to go with her? He thought to himself as the walked into the first store.
Fortunately for him, Aria wanted to be in the Pokemon store as much as he did, even though she didn't know it, and they quickly got her mom's supplies for the pokemon food.
The book store took a little longer. It turned out that Aria loved books about as much as Shiro's, or rather Youko's, other half did. Except she was more fond of standing in book stores looking through all the different books instead of just reading them. Youko was about ready to take a nap when Aria finally paid for her three books and left with her two pokemon.
It was late afternoon by then. Youko realized with a shock that they had been in the bookstore for nearly an hour and forty minutes. He sighed and followed Aria down the busy sidewalk.
Suddenly he snapped his head up as he caught a glimpse of red hair on the other side of the road, heading in the opposite direction.
He would recognize that red hair anywhere. After all, he had seen it in the mirror for almost eighteen years now. He started to run across the street and cars screeched to a stop in order not to hit him.
"Shiro! What are you doing? Get back here!!" Aria called as she darted after him.
Unfortunately, she wasn't as lucky as Shiro was and a bicycle messenger hit her causing her to fall.
"Owww..." She said with tears in her eyes as she rubbed her head where it had smacked into the ground.
"Are you all right?" Aria heard a soft voice ask. She looked up to see the most brilliant green eyes she had ever seen.
"Uh, yeah I think so." She told him as he helped her up off the pavement and onto the sidewalk. "Thanks." She said and looked at the person who helped her for the first time. Besides his green eyes, he had long red hair and nice face. He probably isn't that much older then me. She thought.
"Your welcome." He said and smiled at her. A kon made him look down.
"Youko?" He bent down to look more closely at the pokemon. "Youko what are you doing here?" He asked Shiro, who hopped up onto the young man's shoulders and made himself comfortable.
"Oh, is he yours?" Aria finally managed to unfreeze her vocal chords.
The young man looked up at her. "Mine?" He questioned.
Aria was a little confused. "Isn't Shiro, or I guess his real name's Youko isn't it," The stranger nodded. "Isn't he your pokemon?"
The red headed young man looked down at Youko who, without Aria's notice, nodded a fraction of an inch.
The stranger smiled at Aria again, making her feel kind of funny. "Yes, he is. Have you been taking care of him?"
"Yes. I'm Aria by the way." She held out her hand with her introduction.
He took her hand and shook it. "I'm-"
"Kurama! Hey Kurama!" They both looked up as a blue haired woman ran up to them.
The man, Kurama, sighed. "Yes, Botan, what is it?"
The woman stopped and stood next to Kurama. "Oh nothing, I was just wondering where you were."
Aria felt her heart drop a little. This must be his girlfriend. She thought downtrodden.
"Hiya," Said the woman. "I'm Botan. I'm Kurama's-"
"Sister." Kurama spoke up suddenly. "This is my younger sister." He looked at Botan.
"O-oh yes. That's me, Botan Minamino, Kurama's younger sister." She smiled widely.
"I'm Aria, Aria Cullen." Aria shook Botan's hand.
"Oh it's so nice to meet you Aria. I see you've found Youko Kurama, we should go home before Mom gets worried then." Botan started to pull on her brother's arm, grinning all the time.
"Well," Kurama started to say, but Youko 'kon'ed, distracting him just enough to let Botan pull him away.
"Bye." He called over his shoulder and waved to Aria.
"Bye." Aria said weakly. Great, she thought. There goes one of the cutest boys I've ever seen and all I can say is hi and good bye. She sighed, attracting Sweetheart's drowsy attention.
"Mrow?" She asked.
Aria reached up and scratched Sweetheart behind the ears, making her purr.
"What do ya say we go home, huh?" Sweetheart agreed.
By the time they got home, it had started to drizzle rain and the sky had gotten dark.
"Wow, I'm glad it decided to hold off until we got inside." Aria said as she let Sweetheart out of her jacket where she had crawled when the rain started.
"Mom, we're home!" She yelled looking in the kitchen for her mother. "That's strange, she's not there." She commented and kept looking through the house for her mother. Eventually she found a note taped to the fridge that she had overlooked at first.
"Dear Aria," Aria read the note out loud to no one in particular. "Mrs. Davis's Growlith got sick again and I've gone to look at her. Dinner is in the fridge; just stick it in the microwave. I should be back before dark. Love Mom. Okay then." She finished reading and went to look for the aforementioned dinner.
She was just finishing when she heard a knock on the door.
"I'm coming." She yelled across the house as she put her dishes down. She looked through the curtains near the door to see who it was and gasped. She quickly opened the door so that the siblings from before could get out of the rain.
"Kurama, Botan, what a surprise. Please come in." She held the door open long enough to admit her guests but shut it quickly after they were in to keep out the rain.
"Oh it's you again." Botan said excitedly as she wrung out her hair. "Aria, right, you live here?" She looked around curiously.
"Uhh, yeah. Youko, oh it's good to see you again." She held out her arms and Youko quickly jumped up in her arms. Kurama was shocked to see the young lady kiss Youko's head. He was even more shocked to see that Youko didn't bite her for it.
"What is it Kurama? You looked shocked." Aria smiled as she started to pet Youko, who let out a contented rumble.
"Well, it's just that Youko doesn't really let people...cuddle him like that, at least not without biting them afterwards." Kurama confessed.
Aria laughed. "Well, I suppose he got used to me after a year of living here." She smiled sheepishly. Kurama gave Youko a look. Youko gave Kurama a sly smile that only he could see.
"Yes, I'm sure." Kurama said trying to hide his anger at his other half.
It was silent for a moment. "So, um, do you two have any place to stay?" Aria asked slowly, grabbing for something to talk about.
"Well, no." Botan admitted. "But we we're planning on just..., passing through, but then the rain came down."
Aria laughed. "Yes, it did. We were nearly caught in it ourselves." She gestured to Sweetheart.
Botan suddenly got stars in her eyes. "Ahhhh, aren't you the cutest little kitty I've ever seen!" She cooed and started to scratch and stroke Sweetheart.
Kurama sighed at his sister's antics. Suddenly the sky cracked open and thunder rolled across the sky making Aria jump and stifle a scream. She smacked into Kurama, who was a little startled by her scream.
After the noise faded away, Aria was afraid to look at Kurama. How embarrassing. She thought privately to herself as she backed away from Kurama and muttered some excuse about getting them something to drink.
Kurama to the opportunity to talk to Youko about what had happened.
"What have you been doing here, Youko?" He asked silently, keeping an eye on the kitchen door in case Aria came back.
The thousand year old fox spirit smiled. "Keeping an eye on things."
Kurama glared at him. "What things?" He asked darkly.
Youko laughed. "Relax Shuichi. I've been good. Now," His face became more serious. "What has been happening at home?"
Before he could explain Aria came back into the room. "Later." Kurama muttered and then stood back up and accepted the drink from his hostess.
"Thank you." He said as Aria handed him a glass of water.
An awkward silence fell onto the two people and the only noise came from Botan who was still playing with Sweetheart in the other room.
"Heh heh, you like her." Youko spoke directly to Kurama's mind.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Kurama took a sip of water and tried to ignore the fox at his feet.
Youko stretched and yawned. "I'm sure you don't." He smirked up at Kurama and walked to Aria's room, where he had slept throughout the last year.
"By the way," He added as an afterthought. "It looks like she has a crush on you as well." Then he left, snickering to himself.
Kurama wasn't quite sure if he should believe Youko, then he looked at Aria and saw the look he had seen almost a thousand times on the girls at school.
The only thing was that it looked kind of cute on her.
Kurama shook his head. "Hey are you okay?" Aria asked and Kurama nodded. "So anyway, as I was saying, if you and your sister don't have anywhere else except the rain to stay, you could stay here. We have a spare room." She looked up at him and waited for his answer.
"Uh, sure." Kurama replied. "If it's no problem, that is."
"Oh why Aria that is so sweet and we thank you very much for your trouble." Botan suddenly popped up next to Kurama, giving both him and Aria a heart attack.
"You're welcome Botan." Aria said after she jumped a foot in the air.
Sweetheart suddenly sprang onto Aria's shoulders and started hissing at the window.
Aria was surprised by her pet's behavior. "What is it Sweetheart?" She asked as she tried to calm her pet down. Eventually the white Skitty stopped hissing but she kept growling for a long time after whatever had been outside the window left.
After Aria had gone to bed, Botan and Kurama discussed what had happened in the guest room that Botan would be sleeping in.
"What do you think was outside the window?" Botan asked quietly.
"I think it's more who then what." Kurama responded.
"You think that it was the demon that attacked you?" Botan asked in a low whisper.
Kurama thought about it for a moment. "Either him or someone else who is working for him."
"What I would like to know is, if it is the same demon," Botan said as she scratched her head. "How did he know to follow us hear? Or how did he get in contact with someone hear so they would know to watch us?"
Kurama thought for a moment. "I don't know." He admitted. "But we should watch out for whoever it is anyway."
Botan nodded. "Okay, but for now I think we should hit the hay. It's already 10:30." She looked at her watch.
"Good night then Botan." Kurama said and went back to the living room where he would sleep on the couch.
Outside of the Cullen household, a dark shadow stood watching from the tree line. He was disturbed by the fact that the ancient spirit fox's human half and the reiki girl had shown up. His Master would not be pleased by this.
Well, this might not ruin everything. The shadow thought to him self. He would just need to make a few adjustments to the part of the plan that Master Xryna had entrusted him with. Yes, if he could just keep those two brats here along with that stupid girl and Youko Kurama's demon half, then they would be destroyed all at once.
Surely the Master would be pleased if he, his loyal servant Arashi, wiped out the smartest member of the Reiki Tantei with this whole idiotic world, and if the Master was happy, then Arashi would live longer to enjoy his reward.
The living shadow chuckled to him self. He couldn't wait until he had the whole of Makai under his control.
Dun dun dun! The plot thinkens. Meaning that you actually see a plot, Tune in next time for Chapter Three: I have not thought up a title yet. Isn't that a great name? Don't worry I'm just kidding. Well, see you later!
Rose
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