Chapter Six: Delta-Vee (ΔV)

The Story Thus Far: After a brief glimpse into a world destroyed by a war involving all of the three worlds, Uneven Odds took a trip back to the origin point of the disaster, which turned out to be an archaeology dig in the American Southwest that turned up demonic remains and artifacts. Thanks to a fast-forward of several years to the point a little while after the Dark Tournament ended so spectacularly, the dig's findings have been distributed across cyberspace and the newspapers, coming by chance to the attention of Yusuke, who rounded up his gang and marched off to inform Koenma. Koenma, thanks to his ignoring of all meager reports from that area, was taken off guard and had no choice but to send his Reikai Tantei off to America to do some damage control, or failing that, at least some damage. They spent several fruitless days roaming about the conference center until Kuwabara snuck into the lecture hall where the secret of demons would be revealed to the mainstream world. Almost chased down by one of the scientists, whom he believes to be a demon, he escaped into a back passageway just before something not too far off exploded. That's seventy-six pages of MS Word compressed into one paragraph, so I hope you're happy.

Disclaimer: I own neither Yu Yu Hakusho nor anyone associated with it, except various original characters that I have invented. I also do not own any allusions to the Sherlock Holmes stories, the Doctor Who or Star Trek TV franchises, or the really clever book Relic (Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child). Any people in general who do not belong in the YYH universe and have snuck in here anyway are not my fault.

ON WITH THE SHOW!

11:35 AM: T-minus 90

Tyrone Raimund, demon hunter emeritus, resisted the temptation to kick his heels against the wall, instead lacing his fingers together and cracking his knuckles to relieve some of the frustration building up in him steadily. This was putting a serious crimp in his agenda. Being locked up in a holding cell with unfriendly people on guard tends to do that to agendas.

He still couldn't believe the absolute nerve of that woman. He had no doubt that she was the motivating force behind the flagrant exposé occurring not three floors above him. What he couldn't understand was why.

Raimund closed his eyes, ignoring the discomfort incurred by the cot he was sitting on. Chained and bolted to the ground, it was the only piece of furniture in the cell, so he had no choice. Between that and the floor, he'd take the cot any day. Attempting to suppress his frustration, he reviewed what he knew, trying to find the mistake he'd made.

It had seemed simple. He'd received a brochure full of information, compliments of one of the scientific journals he subscribed to, at his London home, and skimmed it interestedly. Paging past the proposed presentations on collision-course asteroids, the Sphinx of Egypt, a panel on disposal of nuclear waste, and lasers, his eyes had fallen on a topic that made him have to read it twice.

Labeled rather vaguely 'Beyond the Missing Link: New Worlds of Evolution', there had nevertheless been a brief summary beneath that heading. Archaeologist Kobayashi-maru Sato presents his findings revolving around a collection of previously unknown specimens discovered in the Arizona desert. At first glance, innocuous; at a second glance for most people, mildly interesting.

But Tyrone Raimund had spent most of his life fighting the creatures that seemingly only he could see, and he was well aware of at least one version of demonic history. For example, he knew that demons had once been spread worldwide, existing alongside humans. He had theorized that the two races came from a common origin, living as they did in closely parallel worlds, but where humanity had mostly settled on one form, demons had branched out, becoming endlessly creative with their forms and abilities. However, he had no proof of that. It could easily be wrong.

He knew that at one point, the demon race had come to the human world and settled in quite comfortably. This had taken various forms and caused equally varied effects. Some came just to live, others to conquer, still others just to kill.

With time, the demons become more than powerful enough to eventually wipe out the humans. At that point, he learned, the spirits, who were another story altogether, had taken a hand. Somehow they had lured the majority of all demons back into the world they had originally come from. They had raised a barrier to keep the most powerful and dangerous demons in their world, but were not able to completely separate the worlds. Small, relatively harmless demons had managed to slip through over the centuries.

On top of that, the spirit world had not been able to entice all the demons into the trap. Some had stayed, and found themselves cut off from the majority of their race and their greatest source of power. The demons who remained declined in power and number; their descendents even more so. However, there were still a considerable number of so-called 'native' demons worldwide.

Tyrone Raimund had taken one look at that phrase, 'previously unknown specimens', and started to get worried. Even more so when he looked further and saw a panel presentation by the man overwhelmingly favored as the leading candidate for the Nobel Prize for physics. Dominic Massey was also scheduled to present, and he would be lecturing on his theory of bound parallel worlds.

Raimund didn't believe in the overwhelming stupidity of the human race, especially not at the Rikidyce International Biological Sciences Media and Broadcast Annual Convention. It was infamous for announcing actually relevant and useful topics, and was attended by top scientists from all over the world, as well as the curious public, who were allowed free-range attendance to the displays and lectures pitched to their intellectual level. It was also a major press event, with scientific journals looking for contributors and newspapers looking for story. An enormous number of TV channels would inevitably be represented. Any scientist presenting at Rikidyce (whether physicist, astronomer, biologist, chemist, or the various permutations thereof, for the conference title had not been changed with the attendance) was guaranteed a wide range of attention.

Someone would be bound to add two and two, get five, and find the missing piece of the puzzle. And what better place to do it than a media convention? It would be all over the world within days.

Now, Tyrone Raimund liked the world as it was. He'd spent a huge amount of time and energy wiping out those apparitions that presented a threat to him, those around him, and eventually the entire city. He'd made a name for himself among demons, and on several occasions journeyed into the Demon World itself to finish a hunt. There he saw how dangerous demons could be, for the demon plane was the home of those creatures not tamed and tethered by human influences—they were demons in all their savagery. Still he had proved that a human could be more than a match for a demon.

After several decades, he had ended up being given a name, half title of respect and half curse. Kreau, he heard himself referred to as behind his back and to his face. Despite learning a large part of the language spoken in the demon world, he didn't know the word kreau off-hand. He'd wracked his memory and come up with several things he hoped weren't linguistically connected but eventually turned up a translation as simply stranger, but overlaid with strong fear. Most words in the demon language changed with their emotional context—the vocabulary was huge.

After receiving the injury that almost crippled him and still plagued him with a weakness in his leg, he had thrown off the demon world and returned to his home, where nothing remained to jump at him and try to eat him or worse. His reputation protected him, and he had been mostly left alone lately. He kind of liked it. It was certainly less tense.

Yes, Tyrone Raimund liked his world. He believed that he was through with demons and that demons were through with him. A philosophy of mutual ignorance that would allow him to live out his retirement years without having to squabble with demons while wielding a cane. But when he got that brochure in the mail, it seemed that he would have to get into one last fight to keep that peace.

So he'd come to America and San Francisco, only to be caught in the act of getting rid of the evidence. That woman—the demon masquerading as a human—had surprised him by her response. He had expected her to try to stop him with violence. Instead she fell back on human authority. That was unusual.

He had made a mistake. And so here he was in this cell. Outside, in Conference Room Ten, he knew that demon woman was getting ready to announce to the world the truth about demons and other worlds. And would that ever attract attention!

If the worlds would just leave each other alone, he thought angrily, life would be so much easier. Humans wouldn't have to worry about the monsters down in the sewers, or those that provoke anger in perfectly normal people while standing behind them invisibly. No more disasters because some demon wanted to show off. The demons could stay in their world and kill each other endlessly. And the spirits could go back to their roles as the uninvolved Counters of Everything, as one cynical but harmless demon had named them while Raimund was hunting the demon world. That had promised to be an eye-opener and had delivered. To his incredulous surprise, plenty of demons had been scared of him even without his reputation. He'd almost ended up thinking that he was the boogeyman, not them!

The last thing he wanted was the worlds actively and openly involved with each other. That would mean chaos.

Of course, stuck in a cell, there was all of nothing he could do about it. He really needed to get out of here.

Raimund sighed again, attracting no attention from the two rent-a-cops posted outside. One blew out smoke from his cigarette, but otherwise nothing happened.

"'scuse me, gents."

Both cops looked up, surprised. A gangly man in an ugly brown sweater edged round the door, gesturing casually for their attention. They stared at him, wondering what his purpose here was. Through the door, Raimund couldn't hear his voice, but a glance was all it took for the elderly man to read his lips.

The man looked at them, through the see-through plastic door at Raimund, then back at the cops. Shoulders sagging, he rolled his eyes and pulled a camera out of the black fanny pack wrapped around his waist.

Finally, one of the men moved. "Sir, please explain your purpose here."

The newcomer paid him no mind. "Now, smile, please." Before either could react, he pointed the lens at them, shut his eyes tightly, and pressed the flash.

With absolutely no warning of the change of venue, Raimund awoke sprawled on the floor in a rather uncomfortable position with someone slapping at his face.

"Stop it!" Raimund shouted, or tried to. It came out more as "srrrrrrrrmt', and the irked swat at the intrusive hand fizzled out as a convulsion barely worthy of a landed fish.

"That's more like it," an irritating voice cheered him on. "Keep at it." The voice followed his own advice, and aimed another slap at his face.

"All right, I'm awake!" Raimund complained groggily, succeeding in pushing the hand away from him. "Who the hell are you? And what was that?"

Sitting up and vilely cursing his bad leg and the demon that'd ripped its claws through him from chest to toe in the same breath, Raimund managed to focus on the same badly-dressed man that had held the camera.

He was just taking a seat on the cot, and as Raimund watched, he scowled at the piece of thinly stuffed plastic that passed for a mattress and stood up scornfully. Looking down at the retired demon hunter, both of his eyebrows shot up. "And you're Tyrone Raimund, is that correct?"

Raimund matched him scowl for scowl. "That's not what I asked, young man. I believe I asked your name first."

The man shrugged and picked at his ugly sweater. "That'd be a yes, I presume. Pleased to meet you, Tyrone Raimund." He did not offer to shake hands. "You can call me Jeremy, and for now, I'm the man who's busting you outta jail." Now that Raimund could hear his voice, he had a distinctively southern US accent—casual and drawling and looking for trouble.

"Why?" Raimund asked, a question he had always found useful. "And after you answer that, what did you do?"

'Jeremy' answered the second question first, and quite unsuccessfully. "It's a flash camera. A descendent of the flash bomb, only it gets through customs and it knocks people out, 'stead of killing them. It's better that way. Less paperwork."

He was about to tell a lie something along the lines of 'I see' but stopped as one word went through his head. "Paperwork."

"Yeah, 's a pain in the butt, we can't be bothered half the time…"

Raimund cut him off before 'Jeremy' could really go into a rant. "You're not human. You're a spirit of some kind."

The spirit chewed that one over. "Yeah, that'll work. I don't have a better word."

"Right…so why are you here?"

'Jeremy' shrugged. "Orders from up top. Apparently there's some kinda anthill getting kicked up over here."

He paused and shot Raimund a sideways look that attempted to be sneaky and did not fool the man at all. "Don't suppose you'd know anything about that?" he added casually.

"You don't fool me," Raimund told him flatly. "Don't tell me you're damage control."

"Well…" Jeremy looked uncomfortable.

"You're it. You're all. Oh my God…what the hell is your department thinking?"

Jeremy shot him a dirty glare. "Ever heard the phrase CYA, grampa?"

Raimund really wished for something to hit the spirit with. "One out-of-touch spirit who carries around a 'flash camera'. Who came up with that anyway? Don't answer that, I don't care!" The stress of the last few hours was catching up with him, and Raimund let it all out with enthusiasm. "A squad of Cub Scouts with water guns could do better! What were you planning on doing, smothering whoever's to blame with that sweater?"

"Um, actually…'scuse me? I was kind of thinking of getting help…"

"So you have some semblance of intelligence, good," Raimund steamed. "What kind of help? Do you have a team on location now?"

"Beats me. Everything's all mixed up with this anthill, running around. We can't get anything from HQ; I suppose they're a little busy over there. The boss doesn't exactly run checkups on us, so we've kind of let everything go…"

Raimund considered taking a nightstick from one of the still-unconscious guards, but decided against it. "Wonderful. Just brilliant. You've got no one."

Jeremy waved his hands defensively. "There's gotta be someone around here who can help! The boss can be lazy sometimes, but I can't see him just letting us handle it…er, letting it play out. And there've got to be others around too."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Raimund glared at Jeremy tyrannically. "So just how are you going to persuade these people, whomever they may be, to help you?"

Twisting his fingers in the strap of his fanny pack, Jeremy looked around for inspiration.

Inspiration delivered itself in the form of the sound of a large, somewhat muffled detonation not far off, clearly somewhere within the building.

Quite against his will, Raimund's eyes widened, and he let out a low whistle. "Oh."

Jeremy grinned, and thrust out the hand still holding the stun charge-cum-camera. "Here, have this."

Raimund took it off him, too distracted to refuse and still staring in shock in the general direction of the blast. He was also too sidetracked to realize that he'd been handed, at the same time, a Spirit World version of a police badge that had denoted Jeremy's status as troubleshooter.

"Welcome to damage control, Tyrone Raimund. It's all yours. Good luck!"

"What?" Raimund howled in shock, spinning around just in time to see Jeremy scoot out the door as quickly as he could.


Finding Yusuke, for people equipped with only the normal five senses, would have been nearly impossible and dependant on sheer luck in the chaos that was an inevitable result of an explosion. For a telepath and a psychic, it was much easier.

They finally caught up with him in one of the long galleries that overlooked the beautiful college campus, a mixture of greenery, reddish buildings, and black roads crisscrossing the landscape. In the distance, the sea was faintly visible, a dull, angry grey under an overcast sky. A faint wind was blowing, making the taller trees shake slightly, when the mismatched duo reached the top of the staircase. A broken window, courtesy of the shock wave that had originated several stories below, was allowing some of that wind to enter the gallery, bringing with it the mélange of smells that made up the air of San Francisco mixed with that of Pacific Ocean.

The scenery was not helped by the frantically whooping fire alarms, or by the static of the simultaneously panicking and failing PA system. Not to mention, of course, that the explosion had, by the feel, taken out a sizeable amount of infrastructure—the floor was beginning to feel a little unstable.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara shouted the instant his foot touched the bottom step. He found a spot of carpet that felt relatively anchored and stopped short. "What the hell is going on?"

"We are royally screwed," Yusuke said distractedly. "About time you got here."

"The idiot," Hiei proclaimed, "is slow."

Kuwabara flipped him off. "That's not good enough, Urameshi!" he persisted. "The shrimp says there are demons in the basement. How can there be a horde of demons in the basement?"

"I don't know!" Yusuke shouted back, running his fingers through his hair and absentmindedly wiping gel off his hands onto his green hoodie. "But can't you feel it? They must be what were causing your headaches."

"Yeah, maybe. I thought we were over a fault in the barrier or something. Guess not. All right, then, gang, let's go demon hunting!"

Kuwabara paused. "Hey, wait a second, where's Red?"

"Who knows? He shows up at odd times, worse than shorty here—wait a second." A grin spread over Yusuke's face, and he rolled his eyes. "He did this all the time at the Dark Tournament, remember? We'd be looking for him, just like this, and it'd turn out he was behind us all the time. I bet he thinks it's funny."

"Yeah, great theory, Urameshi…except, where the hell is he then?"

"Ah…" Yusuke deflated somewhat. "Good question."

There was a faintly embarrassed pause, during which the sounds of chaos took over.

"Honestly, Yusuke, you have no patience," Kurama sighed. "And yes, it's hilarious." He was just coming up the far staircase. There was dust in his mane of hair. "Why are you still here?"

Kuwabara pointed to Yusuke before the fox had finished his sentence. "His fault. He thought we should wait for you. So now that we're here…c'mon, leader, lead."

"Yeah, yeah…Kurama, any chance you've been exploring down there, know anything useful? Where've you been, anyway?"

"In point of fact, staying out of your way. You're the Spirit Detective; it wouldn't hurt you to do some detecting for once."

"Hey, I detect, fox-boy!"

"As you say, Yusuke… This is a science conference. I was curious. If we had time and if you cared, I'd tell you about some of it, it's really quite fascinating. Since we don't—" the fox caught Yusuke's Look and changed tactics, "—I should have realized sooner that the entire building smelled of demon, and recently, too. I thought it was an old scent, but as I went down to the lower floors, I discovered that it smelled more and more strongly."

"Where have they been hiding all this time? How come no one noticed?" Kuwabara wondered aloud.

Kurama laced his hands together as if preparing for a lecture. "I am not quite sure, but a few theories make sense. The most likely is based on the fact that California is known for its earthquakes. It only stands to reason that this building has been knocked down in the tremors before. If the collapse was long enough ago, and the collapsed building fallen into a ravine, it could conceptually have been built over. This center is actually built on the ruins of the original one, which is still partly intact, if mostly inaccessible."

As he spoke, Kurama attempted to illustrate with hand motions in the air. Yusuke squinted at him.

"Yeah, I think I get it," he said slowly. "You mean there's a whole 'nother building down there? Why's no one spotted it before?"

"Conceivably no one cares. If it was long enough ago and any documentation was lost, no one would be able to find out, either. The entryway I found was quite small. The builders did an excellent job of sealing over the ruins."

"So the demons live down there, huh?" Yusuke grumbled. "Figures. It's always something evil in the basement, have you noticed?"

"Speak for yourself, idiot. Personally I remember trying to catch evil demonic crow things seventeen stories up."

"You know, I'd really tried to forget about that; thanks a bunch, Kuwabara."

"I mean, they can't be very powerful, living down under a college campus," Kuwabara pointed out.

"I hope not. That would sure make my life easier, they were just a bunch of C-class or lower."

"If they are C demons, then there must be a lot of them to emit that strong of an aura. And C-class are stupid, Detective. You'll have to fight the lot of them."

"You don't sound too unhappy about that, Hiei," Yusuke grinned.

"I wonder what they eat, stuck down there." Kuwabara was still wondering about the underground thing.

"Beetles?" Kurama replied, without breaking a smile. "Each other?"

"If you didn't sound so serious, Red, I'd think that was a joke."

"Freshmen?"

"Now I know you're tryin' t' be funny."

"If you can find one smart enough to talk, you can ask it," Yusuke cut him off. "Hey, wait a second."

"What?" Kurama and Kuwabara asked more or less in unison. Hiei managed to look curious without changing his expression.

"Maybe this is just in movies, but wouldn't you think there'd be a lot more, y'know, shaking around what with an explosion in the basement and all? Seems to me we've settled down a little bit."

Kurama looked down at the floor, conceivably trying to find an answer. He was absently trying to get the majority of the dust out of his hair at the same time. It seemed to be permanently entangled. "This is a big building; it should be stable for a while seeing as there was only one blast."

"Well, maybe we should get moving before there's another one and all the stairs fall out, huh?" Kuwabara tried to chivvy the other three in the general direction of the downstairs staircase.

"No, I don't think so," Kurama continued, not moving an inch. "As I said, the only passageway that I found between this conference center and the demons' territory was quite small."

"Did you go through it?"

"Very small, Yusuke. If I could get through, it would have to be on four feet, and I have neither power nor permission to do that sort of thing here."

"So the demons wanted escape," Hiei interjected, taking up the redhead's train of thought. "Once they'd created one exit, there would be no need to cause more destruction, possibly damage to their escape tunnel, by—"

He was cut off by the sound of another detonation below them, followed closely by a wave of impact that caused the group to variously stagger, sprawl, or look disdainfully at everyone else, depending.

"On second thought, of course," Hiei concluded thoughtfully as the others regained their footing, "they are probably stupid."

Yusuke griped, "Yeah, Hiei, great. Let's work on having those second thoughts first, 'kay? Well, looks like it's time for us to do what we do best. Let's go kick some demon ass, guys."


Hurtling down the stairs, stepping agilely around various versions of debris, Yusuke suppressed an urge to laugh hysterically. He was sick and tired of sneaking around and pretending to be just a normal tourist. After spending most of the last couple years entrenched in supernatural affairs of all kinds, bumming around acting normal got a little bit boring. Granted, it was safer, if you ruled out The Wrath of Forces of Nature like his girlfriend Keiko or Kuwabara's big sister Shizuru, but he couldn't help feeling that this was more what his life was supposed to be like. Charging down a staircase ready to unleash whatever power was needed on some slimy demon horde?

He was all for it.

About halfway down to ground level, where he could feel a serious amount of abovementioned horde, he surrendered to the impulse and started laughing, still running. He managed not to look around at his teammates, who were following close on his heels, but suspected they were probably wondering what the heck he was thinking, and if he'd finally snapped.

In point of fact, they weren't. Kuwabara's thoughts were running along much the same lines as Yusuke's, something like 'This is more like it!' Needless to say, Hiei was looking forward to the opportunity to act instead of skulk. The adrenaline rush had even spread to Kurama, who was beginning to sprout fangs and replace human fingernails with claws, and who, like Hiei, had passed that 'snapped' point years ago.

Yusuke paused for a few seconds on the landing right above ground level to take in the battlefield.

Accurately speaking, it was chaos. The large central entryway, which he thought he'd heard called an atrium somewhere, looked as if someone had drilled a very deep hole with a very large jackhammer through it. Ceiling tile, carpet, various bits of furniture, and, from the sound of it, several people, had vanished into the hole that had appeared in the middle of the rather nice indoor garden that the atrium had once sported.

There was a faint, but increasing, scent of blood filling the air, although heavily overlaid by the reeks of explosives, dirt, stone, and body odor emanating from frightened humans. Kurama had mentioned in passing a few times that fear had a specific smell, and now Yusuke was catching a rerun of what he meant. He'd smelled it before, from a large, frightened crowd.

It smelled like the final round of the Dark Tournament had, and that pissed him off extremely just by association.

As he watched, more demons, of the lower, stupid class dubbed officially 'C-Class', unofficially classified as 'weak and ugly', dragged themselves from the pit. Their lives underground had clearly taken quite a toll. They were filthy, they smelled of sewer and mold and rot, and some of them reminded Yusuke briefly of one of his elementary school biology classes, in the course of which they'd looked at pictures of fish from deep under the sea where no light ever shone. All of them were pale underneath the filth and some were nearly translucent, with huge, mainly useless eyes, and an abundance of large ears.

Needless to say, the majority of the humans were screaming. Most of them were running about in all directions as the creatures from the pit (Yusuke had to admit, they'd picked a pretty familiar way to make their entrance) pursued them clumsily as they adjusted to the open air and the light. That light seemed to be the humans' greatest weapon. The cleverer ones had moved to stand in the shafts of light flooding in through the windows. The cleverest had taken the doors and were still accelerating.

There was almost no action being taken, with a few exceptions. One man had grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and had successfully repelled the demons that had come the way of him and the blonde beside him. To her credit, she was using the portable debris to repel the ones that he missed. As Yusuke's gaze crossed her and her companion, she hit one between the eyes with a rock, a satisfying cracking sound, and a shout of triumph. They appeared to be holding their own quite nicely, as if they were used to this sort of thing.

Several other humans were attempting to fight off the demons using only their hands, or whatever they happened to have in them. Yusuke could see cameras, purses, and walking sticks being called into play as self-defense weapons. One woman had her keys in hand and was using pepper spray with relish that was clearly surprising her, although not as much as it was surprising the demons unlucky enough to come within range of her Keys of Doom.

Most people, however, were simply trying to run away, with limited success. On one hand, the demons were still maladjusted to their new environment. On the other hand, demons—most demons—were essentially mobile weapons with varying levels of brains. The carnage was growing. Not only were the demons wreaking havoc, but, in the chaos, the humans were trampling and fighting each other in the rush to get away. Some were pouring out into the streets; others were running deeper into the building.

From the inner rooms, there came the sound of gunshots.

"The security services," Kurama said quickly. "We'd better stay out of their way; once we start using our powers they won't know us from this scum."

"Yeah they will," Yusuke said cynically. "We're stronger and smarter, so they'll think we're the ringleaders and come after us specifically."

"Stay out of the way of the men with guns," Kuwabara summed it up. "Got it. No problem."

"Right, guys, let's split up," Yusuke commanded, trying to figure all this out as he went. He didn't often have to command the entire team in battle, not strategically, that is. He'd been team captain in the Dark Tournament, but he was beginning to see that said role, which had had rules and customs attendant to it, had almost nothing to do with commanding a free-for-all like this.

"Think we can manage not to trip over each other if I just turn you guys loose?" he asked rhetorically.

"Waiting on your word—and running out of patience," Kurama replied cheerfully, claws tapping the wood of the stair rail with the air of one analyzing it for its potential as a weapon. This assessment was not too far off, as it happened.

"Try not to bring the building down, OK?" Yusuke added quickly. "That was a great idea in the Tournament, really bad idea here."

From behind him, the Spirit Detective heard a faint, impatient snort, followed shortly by the feeling of someone vanishing abruptly. The air moved differently. Not a second later, there was a sudden attack of dead among a handful of the demons that were swarming up the walls.

"Eh, what the hell am I doing," Yusuke shrugged. "Go kick ass, guys." And he took his own advice, careening into the chaos with a fully charged fist.

As these demons were about as stupid and low class as he ever encountered, minus the insects, imps, and nasty carnivorous bird-things that were one step up from pest control, determining who to hit was much easier than it would have been. Some demons (take Kurama, for example) looked perfectly human and were given away only by their aura or behavior.

But these were just cannon fodder. They existed to fight, kill, and die, with an occasional diversion into eating things. They were nothing but animals with the potential, should they survive, to grow a little smarter and a little more powerful. Travel that cycle long enough and you ended up with a demon one step up the ladder, the B-Class, which ranged from 'smart enough to be consciously stupid' to 'not quite godlike powers'.

If there was a force controlling them, Yusuke couldn't sense it. The auras in the atrium were either human, C-Class demon, or his gang, with several anomalies he really didn't have the time to deal with or even think about.

Yusuke paused for a moment, having cleared a reasonably empty space around him, and assessed the situation. There were still demons pouring out of a hole in the ground: bad. There were notably less than before: good. His team members were nowhere in sight: dubious, probably good. It wasn't like he needed their help right here and now.

Now, if we could just get all the humans out of here, he thought, we could have free range to just wipe out everything left inside. How could I go about doing that?

He jumped as a noise not connected directly to humans screaming, demons howling and/or screeching, or the buzz of his own Spirit Energy intruded on his ears. After a split-second of puzzlement, he realized that it was the wail of sirens.

Police? he thought incredulously. Whose bright idea was that?

After a few seconds of thought, interrupted briefly to illustrate to an unusually stupid demon why staying away from him was a good idea right at this point, he amended his thoughts to Good! More people with guns! And I bet they know how to get all these people out of here!

What actually happened was this:

There was a detachment of police cars screeching up the road, but they were serving only as escort to the squad of what would prove to be military vehicles. The first four that Yusuke saw through the broken doors contained soldiers in camouflage uniforms and with very business-like guns. The fifth, and possibly the sixth, was definitely a tank.

A man jumped out of one of the leading police cars. What Yusuke failed to notice before it was too late was that he jumped out of the passenger seat, rather indicating that he wasn't police.

This man accepted a megaphone from a subordinate who had leapt to the man's side at top speed. He didn't even watch as his troops deployed themselves, with much shouting, around the conference center, scattering out among the grounds. This would seem to indicate either arrogance or confidence, and that is a fine, fine line.

The man, who, by his uniform, was a high-ranking military officer, placed the megaphone to his lips and announced at full volume:

"Attention. Attention. This is Colonel Keith Senesky of the United States Military. This building is now under quarantine. Do not attempt to leave the building. Repeat, do not attempt to leave the building. Violators will be shot. This is your only warning. Violators will be shot."

Oh, shit! Yusuke thought. We're locked in!

And the demons kept coming from the abyss in the ground.

(To be continued.)


Next Chapter: The battle concludes, and the dust settles. Several characters meet each other, and promptly begin to argue. There is an announcement. It is wrong on a number of points, and completely accurate on many others.