Kurama stood at the top of a tree near the edge of a forest. As he scanned the sky for owls he mentally cursed himself for not grabbing more stuff before leaving Smeltings. Before leaving for his ill-fated walk by force of habit alone he had grabbed his bag. Not that it did him much good, the only things it contained were his CD player, the CD Kuwabara gave him, and his wallet. He used to have 16 Pounds (1) in there but had spent most of them on clothes when he realized that he was running around Europe in his pajamas.
Kurama's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of flapping wings. He whirled around to catch sight of the bird. However before he even spotted the eagle he began to berate himself.
"I can't believe I just did that," he said letting his head fall into his right hand, "Everyone knows that owls don't make noise when they fly due to the design of the leading edges of the feathers on their wing, except Yusuke, and Hiei, and Kuwabara."
Kurama smiled, opened his bag, and grabbed his CD player from it. He placed the headphones on his ears and turned up the volume enough so that he could not hear anything but the music. He then used the clip on the CD player to secure it to the waist of his pants.
Just as he was preparing to search the sky a deep voice inside his head asked "Shuichi, what in the seven Hells are you doing?"
"It's quite simple Yoko, owls do not make noise when they fly so there is no way we can become aware of one by its sound. Thus by listening to a CD player we no longer spend energy listening for it so that we spend a lot more energy looking for it."
Kurama watched the sky for hours and saw plenty of birds but absolutely no owls. Maybe it's a federal holiday he wondered absently. Despite his apparent lack of success Kurama continued to watch the sky until the CD player had enough and its batteries died.
Pulling his headphones from his head so that they hung around his neck, he said dejectedly, "It's late afternoon and I've got nothing." At which point his stomach decided to growl, prompting him to add, "Except hunger."
"You know," Yoko spoke up, "I'm a master thief, I can always steal dinner."
Kurama sighed and began to climb down the tree. "No we can't," he countered, "we're on probation remember; one more infraction and we go directly to Reikai jail."
"No way, you know Koenma would bail us out."
Kurama reached the bottom of the tree; he jumped down and mentally informed Yoko "Koenma-Sama is in enough trouble with his dad, are you willing to take the risk that he might not be able to get us out."
"True, but hey I'm hungry. Perhaps we can find something in…yum, a mouse."
Kurama Froze and pulled back, bringing up his hand to his mouth he responded "Sorry, I don't think that I'm that hungry."
While they were talking a barn owl swooped down and caught the mouse. Despite Yoko's internal cursing Kurama smiled. Judging by the piece of paper tied to the owl's leg, Kurama assumed it was one of the messengers for theses wizards. Besides even if it wasn't, Yoko could no longer attempt to get him to try fresh mouse.
After letting Yoko finish his rant about thieving owls, Kurama pointed out the message to Yoko.
"Well, looks like someone is eating on the job."
"It's probably a long fight everyone needs to eat."
"But we can eat later. First, follow that owl."
Shiori and Shuzo sat together in their Hogsmeade home. Shiori's head was buried in Shuzo's chest, her breathing was slow and regular, she was asleep. Shuzo put his arm around her shoulders and gently kissed the top of her head.
"Shh, shh, It will be al right," he whispered.
"Roast owl, fried owl, owl soup, breaded owl…"
"Shut up, please I'm trying to…" Kurama did not finish, he stopped running and looked around appearing lost.
"Hey Shuichi follow the birdy, come on lets go."
Kurama shook his head, as if to clear it, and turning around said "I know I forgot something."
"What now, come on we need to go!"
"Not yet Yoko, I need to write Shiori."
"Yo, Moron, we are following the owl to find her."
Kurama started walking away from the direction the owl flew. "We need to go back that way," he pointed out to Yoko.
"Wait, I know this, it's the same thing that happened last time with the wizards we're getting close."
However Kurama did not stop, he merely replied, "no I need to be some where else."
"You moron, it's one of their tricks."
Finally stopping Kurama responded, "If it's one of their tricks why haven't you blocked it yet"
"It's stronger and older than the last one; I would need a lot more time than we have that is if you want to keep up with the bird."
"And you call yourself a master thief."
"Like I said if we want to keep up with that owl then we don't have time for me to break the spell."
"Then what do you say we do?"
"Simple, hand over control to me; these wizards don't seem to pay any attention to demons."
"We've never done this before, but it's worth a shot."
Kurama sat down on the forest floor, he took several seconds to slow his breathing and concentrate on a meditative state of mind. He then began to pull his power out of his body and back into his spirit. After several breaths he began to pull his life energy back into his spirit. First his arms went limp, and then he collapsed as his life energy left his body for his spirit. Barely breathing he waited.
"Let go more Shuichi, I still cannot get past the barrier."
"Any weaker and we're dead."
"Trust me."
Kurama's breathing stopped; he lay motionless. After what seemed like ages to Kurama he was surrounded by a white mist.
Standing up, Yoko Kurama spoke out loud for the first time in what felt like ages, "Wow it's good to be free."
He started stretching, and then looked confused, "Hm, what's that?" He asked aloud.
"Yoko, it's me, Shuichi. Don't forget the owl."
"Oh Yeah," Yoko caught sight of the owl quickly and easily closed the distance between himself and the owl. "Man" he told Shuichi, "you never told me how annoying it is when a second voice talks in your head."
"I guess I'm used…stop!"
Yoko slowed up, but did not stop, "What?"
"We have got to find a different way, this way isn't safe."
"Crap you're still under that spell's control."
"No I'm not, there's a trap coming up, you need to stop find another path."
Yoko continued to walk confidently forward, "your human mind is too weak, these people have not planed for a demon."
Yoko took one more step, and felt a massive energy above him. His head snapped up in time to see the yellow energy of a kekkai net. A split second later the net forced him onto the floor of the forest. Falling, his lower right leg was slammed against a rock. On the ground, trapped by the net both above him and the net that had come up underneath him , he hissed in pain, his leg felt like it was on fire and his keen ears had picked up the sound of the bone fracturing. Instinctively he tried to curl up around his injured leg, but he was pinned with his right hand near his head and left hand by his side.
Acting fast Yoko attempted to raise plant guards around himself, however the plants barely grew. Yoko continued to try and pour energy into the plants.
"It's no good," Shuichi told him, "that rock transferred a ward onto our leg."
"We've got to change back now; the barrier should not affect a human."
"With the ward on us, there is no way we would have enough energy to survive the transformation."
(1) 30 dollars or 3,189.60 Yen
Happiness, for the next 3 chapters writers block should not be a problem…(However that is assuming that I have time to sit down and flesh out the outlines) and the pace will begin to pick up in the story because Kurama is finally in the Wizarding World.