Case

Investigation

When Kurama arrives at the ramen booth Yusuke decides they should separate and look around the neighbourhood just in case anybody has seen the unknown youkai who abducted Yukina hanging around. The spirit fox doesn't think the search is likely to come to much if their kidnapper is a professional, but recognises they might get lucky.

Witness

Surprisingly Kurama finds evidence of the mystery youkai less than an hour into his search: the demon kidnapper was seen with a girl wearing the Sarayashiki Senior High uniform that very morning, walking from the northern train station towards the school. The elderly gossip who regales the redhead with the tale has a lot to say on the subject of young love and charming young men who treated their girlfriends like empresses; the kitsune thief suspects the girl is either an accomplice or a previous victim.

Data

Quietly breaking into Sarayashiki Senior High's records room, Kurama soon learns that one of the new female students has recently married and lives a good way outside of Kaidan. Her home is in the right direction for her to travel to school via the northern train station the kidnapping youkai had been seen leaving, which is promising. The former bandit makes a note of the young woman's name –Saidou Kagome formerly of the Higurashi family– and her address before he makes himself scarce; should the demon return to retrieve his possible mate then Kurama does not want to be caught snooping.

Conclusions

Kurama now suspects that Saidou Kagome is more likely to be an accomplice then a victim: her repeated absences over the previous year are suggestive to someone who knows that Yusuke's own many absences were, in his fifteenth year, more a result of Reikai business than anything more mundane. That her grades remained slightly above average after taking a slight dip in the first two months and the various ridiculous excuses her family had made for her leads the demon fox to believe she was not being coerced or threatened by her 'husband'. He will have to investigate and find out if the kidnapper has a legal human identity despite being S-class; for the marriage to be legal he must do.

Of course, he might have misjudged the situation: there isn't much to work with. But what evidence there is suggests that a premature confrontation with the couple would likely leave him at a greater disadvantage than following them to their home and attempting a private meeting. So instead Kurama turns towards where he can sense Yusuke's distinctive mixed reiki and youki signature and lopes off to share his findings.


Second chapter of the day! Kurama is quiet, sneaky and very intelligent indeed.