Suzuki wandered around the corridor, which was a strange sight to observe as well as being impressive in its pointlessness since it was a corridor, to reiterate a point already established. It was a narrow, straight, ordinary corridor that connected one room to another and had no other purposes other than for practical purposes.

No other purposes other than for practical purposes.

What a maladroit phrase. If it had come from anyone else, he would mock it to the ends of- damn, he obviously needed a break from writing; even his internal monologue was beginning to downgrade to the levels of a middle schooler daydreaming of a manga enhanced fantasy world with a distinctly pornographic bent. No, of course he was not referring to his own wet dreams from his student days. His dreams were far too sophisticated and full of witty punch lines for them to be the kind to have blood rushing down south.

Or something.

How had he gone from disoriented Suzuki's to pubescent dreams? His brain needed caffeine to make any more sense out of the jumble that was caused by staring at the monitor for far too long.

To return to his observations of one biker boots stomping bleached blond hair styling acquaintance of Minamino's, Yuu concluded that the man had a knack of being entertaining without actually having to make the effort of doing something. Really, there wasn't enough space for wanderings, or looking philosophical, or whatever the hell the youkai or Makaian or insert preferred epithet (genius?) was currently engaged in. Nevertheless, he strolled to and fro from one side to the other in an impossibly amusing way of his until eventually, it came to him that it was better to just ask for directions.

"Got anywhere we could sip tea, look civilized, and pretend like we weren't kicked out on our butts by a midget?"

He should really ask him to at least take off his shoes. There were slippers at the entrance that were bypassed earlier in his hurry to get to the bathroom. Fluffy pink bunny slippers that would just be the icing on an already hilarious cake. Then again, he didn't know this guy too well, and the brief talk from earlier revealed he was surprisingly easy to offend.

Meh, not like this place was spotless to begin with.

"Not sure about the civilized part, but we could go to the kitchen and poke at stale biscuits?"

"Good enough," he said, and they both trooped off to the kitchen.

. . .

Youda always asked whether he had fun with the day's training.

Training with his father was never fun. Fun wouldn't be so serious. He found it satisfying however, and of late he could tell he was getting closer to becoming a capable opponent. He'd actually been able to make his father raise a sweat and not just anyone could do that. If he went on to improve with his current pacing, theoretically he'd be on equal footing in say, ten to fifteen years. Everyone told him that it would be quite the achievement and he agreed; his father took a little longer than two centuries to get to where he is now.

Wiping himself with an already damp cloth, he began his ascend up the stairs to the regular rooms where the servants stood waiting. He nearly bumped into his father when he turned the corner, and slipped down a step when he attempted to readjust his balance.

"How was it?" his father asked.

Though he'd anticipated the question and tried to prepare, the fact remained that a decent report needed information. Were he more careful, he could have stood here with pride. "I met Kurama on the third day. He spiked my drink. I don't know what happened after that." It made him feel so inadequate, admitting this.

"Did you make contact with him before then?" Seeing his son resume his climb up the stairs, he stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. "No, we need to talk about this here."

Shura turned back, biting his lower lip. Utterly useless, pathetic. Apologizing wouldn't change that making one mistake had triggered a domino effect of slip ups, all because he could not keep his concentration. Of course they needed to talk about it here; the training area was one of the few fully sound proofed places in his father's castle.

"At the time of my consciousness, Suzuki was nowhere in sight." That was one thing he was sure of, at least.

"But it would only be a matter of time before he starts to make his presence known." He paused, waiting for his son to resume his report.

Still sweaty and rapidly cooling, Shura sniffed once, twice. He rubbed his nose and thought desperately for something to say.

The hand on his shoulder tapped lightly in question.

The feeling of failure, the pressure, it was getting to him so easily. Shaking his head, he tried to focus. There must be something, anything, just a tiny little thing. Rapid scenes of the past few days replayed in his mind. The deserted forests, the paddocks, streets illuminated in spots of white, jumping between slanted roofs, the narrow alleyways, the smell of garbage, laughing Yuusuke cooking his noodles and Kurama with his wide guileless eyes. The drink, why did he take it?

"Shura?"

He opened his eyes. He had not even realised that he had closed them, which alarmed him more than anything else he had done so far. What if this had been a fight? What if this was in front of an enemy?

Finally, after considering the lack of reply with a tilt of his head, his father went on, "you'll need to return there, and report back when you find the locations of his items. Don't attempt to steal it before telling me all you have found out. In fact, I don't want you to do anything other than confirm where it is."

"Am I still going to pretend you don't approve of me going there?"

"If Kurama and Yuusuke think you are rebelling against me, it would be another factor for them to ease into trusting you. Of course, I doubt Kurama will take things at face value, so you will need to think of a secondary reason for you wanting to be near him. I'll leave the details up to you, but whatever reason you decide on, don't reveal it until he's backed you into a corner or it won't convince him of its authenticity."

It took a moment for Shura to organise his thoughts, and a little longer to articulate them into words. By the time he spoke, he felt calmer, in control. "Father, what I don't understand is why we simply can't buy the fruit from Suzuki. He won't refuse. He has no reason to refuse. We are being overly cautious. "

"We can't risk anyone knowing that I may become vulnerable."

"But he wouldn't tell, and he wouldn't take advantage. It would affect his business reputation if he broke confidentiality with a customer, and he wouldn't dare pull something when he knows how strong you are."

"Information relating to any weakness in my position would have offers that would tempt him, despite the risks. As for reputation, you weren't born when he followed Kurama out to join the first Makai tournament. They -all six of his followers- have never since looked back, let alone cared how it may have looked."

He drew his son closer, bending down to his eye level to emphasise the importance of what he was about to say. "More than anything, you need to make sure that you are removed from suspicion. Nothing can be traced back. I will have you take a servant to use for communication, but it goes without saying that contact should be kept to the bare minimum."

Shura nodded, but made no further movement. A niggling something at the back of his mind bothered him enough to reach for his father's sleeve. Yes, between the two demons on his return. He could share this. It was a trivial thing, but it may become important in the long run and if not, he would make it important, somehow. It could redeem his faulty actions. It might even become impressive key knowledge if he played things well. "There was one more thing. Yuusuke seemed to think Kurama was acting strange, and that Hiei would know the reason."

"And what did Hiei say?"

"He left straight after."

"What would you conclude, based on that?"

"There is no reason to think he would know of our plans, so there must be something else that has Kurama distracted."

His father smiled.

There was an oddness to his expression that left as soon as it came. As much as he respected and loved his father, in that instant with the way the shadow cast across his face, he felt an indescribable need to move as far away from him as possible.

"I'm proud of you," his father said, and he was back to being the level headed king he knew.

. . .

This was rather awkward.

Suzuki wouldn't shut up. Not that the subject matter was boring, but it was just that he was way too tired to understand the words coming endlessly out of that really big mouth.

He talked of one thing then another without really connecting the content in any discernible way he could follow. First about ancient Makaian motorways, which led into the merits and demerits of sludge worm energy powered communication devices, which meandered into Upper Level massage parlour practices, which became even more confusing when he decided to simplify using absurd metaphors of cognitive umbrellas and oil lamps. What? Was he being propositioned?

Or perhaps the oil lamps were used in relation to the next subject, the spiral staircase theory.

"Here's the thing. The most widely known concept for us is that our plane is constructed in a spiral," he announced, drawing yet another inch closer to his nose while twirling his fingers in rapid enthusiasm. "To go down a level, you either need to dig a hole or travel in a large circular slope though both aren't really practical since Makai is so large and unexplored that not much is known for the route to go down, and you probably wouldn't notice if you were going the right way anyway since you wouldn't feel like you were travelling downwards in the same way you wouldn't notice the earth is round just from travelling from Osaka to Tokyo. Oh, and you'd probably meet some nasty guy that'll kill you on sight for shits and giggles before getting anywhere in the first place. And digging isn't practical since yeah, it's kinda dangerous with the things living below the surface, and let's not even consider how long it would take to dig through anyway. Also-"

It should be physically impossible to talk that fast. How did this guy have time to breathe?

"-but this stuff is still considered controversial to the isolated tribes like the koorime, and it was revolutionary when it was first brought up since it's supported mainly by another theory that goes along the lines of basically saying that our genes were originally human world based, and that youki made us evolve into what we are now. See, most of the gates that connects this world to mine exist in the highest parts of our 'spiral'. Coincidentally or not, the higher the spiral, the closer everything becomes biologically to your world. The lower you go, the harder it becomes to distinguish whether something is a living organism, cognisant, corporeal, pure energy, or anything in between. The energy itself is different to youki down there, which started the ongoing debates on how broadly we should define youki in the first place but then it got political and you can imagine the rest- blah, blah, my race should be considered superior since our youki originated at ectsetera, ectsetera."

"Etcetera," Yuu found himself correcting.

"Yeah, that. There's also all these archaeological studies that prove there were heaps of human settlements ages ago but that's boring, so you don't need to hear it. This biscuit is really good by the way."

It seemed a good time to interrupt, so Yuu stopped the continual flow with a raised hand. "I need to write this down." He left the kitchen, only to find himself being followed by a still rambling youkai three steps behind.

"Yeah, you could put all this in your book! I mean it's good as is, but some of it is biased with Reikai propaganda, especially in the anti soul eating parts. Kurama should have said something if he was helping out. Hey, shouldn't you knock?"

Yes, he should have knocked.

He was greeted with the sight of a murderous looking Hiei standing on the table and a Minamino that was either crying or laughing, he wasn't sure which. "Hawaii," Minamino managed to gasp out before collapsing in a hiccupping hysterical fit of shaking that was definitely out of his usual calm character.

A pause.

"Excuse us for interrupting," spoke Yuu. He stepped back, adjusted his glasses and shut the door as quietly as he could.

A/N

So sorry for the delay.

First of all, I don't know if you've noticed but taking the advice from that first commenter, I changed the rating from an M to a T. I'm not willing to move this from the crossover section since this is definitely a crossover regardless of there being no overt Conan action so far, but I used the suggestion on the ratings since I can easily move it up to an M if needed later.

Second, my confidence needs some work and on a related note, this chapter also needs more work. I have two more yet to be posted chapters but until I find a beta, I'm afraid I may not update. No, this isn't one of those 'review or I won't update!' sulky threats, I'm honestly not happy with the quality. I'm incredibly excited about the plot I've planned but I don't think I'd be able to do it justice with only my shoddy writing skills. Don't worry! I'm asking over on livejournal so it probably won't take long.

Third- thanks for the favourites and alerts! Encouragements are always met with squees of glee and happy wriggles.

How bipolar was this chapter? Awkward mood shift is awkward.