Chibisensei: Sorry for the long wait. I got busy and kind of stopped writing. Anyway, here's the next chapter and there's plenty of confusion to go around! Thanks for everyone who reviewed and please keep them coming!

Note: If you get confused, that's what I was looking for.

Chapter 4: Another Awkward Meeting Pt 2

Kaiya's crossed her arms as she sat lazily against a tree. She still could not believe how stupid normal humans in this world were. She had kindly requested to be discharged, but the neurologist would not sign off. So, she politely asked to visit the hospital gift shop which was conveniently on the first floor. Despite the large gauze bandage wrapped around her forehead and hospital bracelet around her wrist all she had to do for security to let her waltz out the main entrance without a second thought was to say she was cosplaying. That was it. She shook her head. With daylight gone, coming up with a short term plan was all she could do for the time being. She had to find somewhere safe to crash for the night. Since she was currently broke, the nearby park was the best option. It was deserted and the brush of trees and shrubbery made a decent enough cover. She'd sleep there under the stars with the soft chirping of crickets to lull her asleep. Kaiya frowned slightly at the sudden sound of whispers.

"Big sister doesn't look like much fun, Shiro" whined what sounded like a little girl.

"Did you not listen to Master, Nori?" replied a male voice. He also sounded like a child.

"But that's boring!" huffed the female voice.

There was pause before the male voice answered slyly, "But Master did not say how to do it." A few giggles resonated in Kaiya's ears before the sound of leaves crunching under small feet drowned them out. Kaiya paused and turned towards the footsteps. They abruptly stopped. With a small frown, Kaiya turned back only to find two children standing in front of her. They were short and had small gray ears sticking out of their coal black hair with matching tails sticking out from behind. Their eyes were an interesting shade of violet. She abruptly stood up. Demons?

The boy, Shiro, pulled a book seemingly out of nowhere. "For you," he stated simply, holding it out. He didn't appear any older than 8. His companion, who looked about 5, giggled secretively. Judging by their matching ears and tail, the pair was probably related.

Shocked speechless at what she was seeing, Kaiya numbly accepted it. Well, at least they're cute little children. Keeping a wary eye on her visitors, she paged through the book slowly. They were sketches of the events that occurred before she ended up here. Is this a draft for an epilogue to my manga? They showed her twin brother, Riku, carrying her luggage into the airport while attempting to make small talk. For twins, Kaiya and Riku didn't look nearly as much alike as the stereotype would make one think, but there was enough resemblance to label them as such. He couldn't come to Japan with her because he had an interview with his dream college, not that she cared. Her brother grew distant with her a long time ago. They were once close, but after Riku joined the high school football team, they became strangers in the same house. When it came to her being bullied by members of his social circle, "brother dearest" (note the extreme sarcasm) didn't do a damn thing. When it came to the guys in her social circle, he became a total dick and pretty much chased all of her potential boyfriends away. At times, she disliked her brother as much as she did that jock Mark. Since their graduation, Riku began trying to mend the familiar bond he broke with her. Sometimes he even seemed desperate about it. The truth was she didn't think that bond was worth mending. Blood was supposed to be thicker than water and, well, he clearly thought the opposite in high school. He wasn't there when she needed him, so as far as she was concerned, Riku was her brother by blood only. Akio took over that role. Riku and Akio hated each other's guts and, being the slightly vindictive person she was, Kaiya got a sadistic satisfaction from her brother's obvious jealousy over being replaced.

Kaiya glanced up at the children whose tails were now wagging. She raised an eyebrow and turned the page slowly. She looked down & wrinkled her brow in confusion. It was a panel of her yelling at Riku for making her miss her flight. This couldn't be right. That didn't happen…right? Her brow creased further. Now that she really thought about it, the situation did seem familiar; but, then, how did she get here to Japan? She remembered both the flight and the airport. She turned another was apologizing and trying to get her to calm down. Another page. There was a time skip and it had her and Riku sitting side by side in the airport, much to her displeasure. He said he would wait with her until the next flight. She refused and told him to leave her alone. Riku sighed, a thought bubble over his head expressed his wish to allow her to hear him out. Kaiya felt slightly guilty at that. She turned the page. It had more panels of Riku pondering what seemed like random crap to her. She flipped almost to the end. This was getting boring. She stared at the page she turned to. What the hell? It was her character, appearing slowly on the page in current time. Thought bubbles appeared over the kids' heads and Kaiya began to back away. Nori stood on her tiptoes and whispered something into Shiro's ear. A smirk crossed the boy's face as he leaned down to whisper back. They locked eyes for a brief second and nodded before turning to Kaiya with matching demonic grins. The sketch book dropped from her hand as their mouths began to move in a haunting chant that resonated in her ears. It made her feel sick.

Shiro and Nori took a step toward her and she ran. Even running through the brush, at top speed the eerie chant followed her. This reminded her of something, but she couldn't remember what. When her lungs cried for oxygen Kaiya was forced to stop; but, before she could catch her breath, the kids were one either side of her, whispering the lyrics into her ears. She felt extremely dizzy and stumbled back slowly before turning tail and trying to run in the opposite direction. Shiro appeared in front of her effortlessly and tapped her with his right index finger, the smirk on his face reading victory. Kaiya's eyes went blank for a second as she fell to her knees. It felt like she was hit with a wrecking ball instead of a just small tap. She coughed up speckles of blood. W-what's happening? It was getting hard to breathe. I-I'm going to die?

"W-what did you do to me?" Kaiya rasped. Nori walked over to her and slapped her on the back.

"Tag! You're it!"

Kuwabara stared at the seeds in Yusuke's hand. "You don't think that guy expected me to use these to grow drugs, do you?"

Yusuke slid them back into their baggy and walked to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. "Somehow, I doubt that."

"I'm back!" announced Botan, walking in. She was holding a box full of manga with a bag of what appeared to be snacks balanced carefully on top.

"You brought snacks?" questioned Yusuke with an amused look. "And here, I was under the impression that this was some kind of important meeting."

Botan put down the box and crossed her arms. "Knowing your notoriously short attention span, I thought it would be nice to bring some encouragement. You have to read every manga."

Yusuke cringed slightly. He hated reading. And the only thing he hated worse than reading, was reading girly things. Well, at least it wasn't only going to be his masculinity on the chopping block tonight. He still couldn't believe he got suckered into this.

Kuwabara stared at the box of manga & accompanying snacks in confusion. "We're reading shoujo manga? Sorry, but that's a little too girly for me."

Yusuke's eye twitched. "You think I WANT to? I HATE this kind of shit!"

"Well, I guess you boys just have to just suck it up," stated Botan. "It's not labeled as a shoujo so I'm sure the plot was made to appeal to both girls & guys."

Kuwabara dug into the box & picked up a volume at random. "So why do we have to read these things anyway?"

"It's the information I went to retrieve," said Botan.

Kuwabara stared at the cover. "Uh… well that's…different."

Botan sighed. "Let's just wait for Kur-"

Botan was cut off by Yusuke standing up abruptly. "Do you feel that?" he asked Kuwabara.

Kuwabara's face turned serious. "Yeah." Without another word, the pair bolted out the door.

"W-wait!" called Botan after them, but they were already long gone.

Kurama sensed it about five blocks away from Yusuke's apartment. There was a steadily rising energy. He had never felt this kind of energy before, but there was no time to ponder it. There was no telling what kind of damage that kind of unpredictability could cause. He took off towards the energy's direction, knowing his friends would not be far behind. He had run about four blocks in the opposite direction before he arrived at the park. It was quiet, but energy crackled in the air. Now that he was close, Kurama could feel there was something very unstable about it. He had to be cautious.

In the distance there were a faint glowing and the outline of a figure against a park bench. The figure was not moving, but it was clearly the source of the energy. Pulling out a rose from his hair, he walked slowly over to it. It was a young human woman. Her eyes were lifeless and a small pool of blood puddled on the ground around her, a small sketchbook was glowing dully a few feet away. Kurama took a step forward and sharp crack of energy surged past him. Whatever it was, it did not want him to go any further. The girl had no life energy emitting from her so the book was the only explanation for the disturbance. Staying in place, he summoned his rose whip and cleanly sliced the book in half. Energy crackled around the remains before they disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

Kurama winced as he tried to get his eyes readjusted to the darkness. He turned his attention to the dead woman who was now…no longer dead? She was no longer covered in blood and there was sensible life energy now. He moved over to her to assess her condition. Now this was curious. She smelled human, but the canine-like tail she had sprouting from her back clearly wasn't. He picked the unconscious Kaiya up carefully. Obtaining human aid was clearly out of the question.

"Oi, Kurama!" called Yusuke, running towards him. "What the hell happened?" Kuwabara was only a little behind.

"Yeah, we were following this weird energy and it just went 'poof'," said Kuwabara.

"I am not sure yet," said Kurama. "However, I believe this girl might have some answers."

Kuwabara blinked. "Um, who's that?"

Yusuke looked at Kaiya in disbelief. Nothing ever came this easily to them! "That would be the person we were going to eventually look for." Kuwabara and Kurama looked at Yusuke.

"Huh?" asked Kuwabara, confused.

"Explain," stated Kurama.

Yusuke sighed. "I didn't want to say anything yet because I didn't think anyone would believe me, but since I have proof now, I'll skip the bullshit and get right to the point: that girl is not real."

"Can you elaborate?" questioned Kurama, glancing down at Kaiya. Considering he was currently carrying her, she seemed pretty real. She had life aura and a scent he equated to that of an orange blossom.

"Ok, there's this manga named Harmony High Cliché."

"The one Botan brought us to read?" asked Kuwabara.

"Yeah, well, this chick is the main character. Some guy brought her to life."

"But I thought you said she wasn't real," stated Kuwabara.

Yusuke grit his teeth. "She is now."

"But-"

"Look, there's someone out there that's making not real people real and screwing around by making them demons. The first not real person went bat-shit crazy and Spirit World had to take care of him. That's why I wanted everyone at my place. I had a feeling no one would want to take another case so I, you know, lied."

Kurama raised an eyebrow. "Although it is true I would not be enthusiastic, you are far more against work for Koemna that I. What have you omitted?"

"Right now, let's just say she knows a lot about us and our job right now is to read up on her before she wakes up," answered Yusuke. "After that, I'll show why I agreed to this case. I have a hunch that whoever gave Kuwabara those seed things has something to do with this too."

"What did you do to her?" cried a young black-haired man. "I didn't agree to this!"

The hooded figure being addressed turned from the glowing crystal ball to the young man. "You wanted your dear sister back so I brought her back…under certain conditions," a male voice answered coolly. "Besides, Shiro and Nori were of your design, were they not?"

"They were doodles meant help, NOT harm!" growled the young man.

"You seem to forget that, despite the degree of free will I gave them as original characters, they were still bound to my will. No matter now; the fox demon destroyed their book. As for young Kaiya, it seemed fit to me that as your twin she would come to share the blood I gave you; for her to share the same sacrifice as you. It makes for the beginning of an interesting story, don't you think?"

The young man balled his fists. "You bastard…"

The man grinned. "My dear Riku, I achieved my first true success thanks to your…contribution. Do stick around for a while longer."

Yusuke, Kuwabara, & Kurama didn't see much else choice then to take Kaiya back to Yusuke's house with them. Although the barrier between the human and demon worlds had been down for some time now, they all agreed that humans probably still weren't ready to have people with real tails walking down the street. When they got back, Botan was more shocked at seeing Kaiya than Yusuke was. Her mouth dropped and she pointed to the box of manga dumbfounded.

"Yeah we know," said Kuwabara dismissively.

"Where should I lay her?" asked Kurama. The young woman known as Kaiya was getting a bit heavy to carry around.

"You can dump her on the floor or something," stated Yusuke, nonchalantly. "It doesn't really matter to me."

"Well that's awfully considerate of you," huffed Botan sarcastically.

"I think I will put her on the couch," said Kurama, walking over and carefully laying the girl down. She didn't look like she was going to wake anytime soon.

"Whatever. Come on let's get this over with," stated Yusuke, opening the first manga volume.

It was early afternoon the next day when Kaiya opened her eyes. Everything was blurry and her head hurt. She put a hand over her face.

"Ouch, what a nightmare," she groaned.

"Ah, Sleeping Beauty finally opens her eyes" said an amused voice. Kaiya turned towards it and waited for everything to come into focus. You got to be kidding me…

"I take it you know already know my name kid, so I'm going to skip the introduction," stated Shizuru. "And before you ask, you're at my place, in my room. Kazuma dragged you here after Yusuke said you couldn't crash at his place because his girlfriend would probably cut his balls off."

Kaiya opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She didn't know what to say!

"It's okay," said Shizuru with an amused smile. "Surprise seems to be the new fad these days." She turned craned her head towards the hallway. "Oi, girl's awake!" Kaiya sat up at the sound of footsteps. Shiziru moved out of the way for familiar people to crowd into the room.

"Um…hello?" said Kaiya, with an awkward wave. Fuck my life.

Chibisensei: In the next chapter: more awkwardness as Yusuke, Kuwabara, & Kurama attempt to interrogate Kaiya and another disturbance that might bring a certain fire demon into the fray.