Disclaimer: I do not own DNAngel or YuYu Hakusho

Living in the Dark

Thoughts "blah"

Artwork's 'name'

Chapter 12

"Children can be easily fooled, huh? Not if the 'child' in question also happens to be sharing a body with the thief and can eavesdrop on his every thought.", Daisuke thought listening in to his cousin's meeting with Koenma.

Even Dark was pissed that Raizen would think Daisuke that naive, but then again it could work to their advantage. "So Raizen and the gang will be showing up tonight to stop me from stealing 'Dante's Flame'. It won't be enough, I'm going to have that painting in just a couple of minutes flat.", Dark said to his Tamer.

Daisuke knew that his curse was just trying to change the subject, so he let the subject drop and continued to walk around the city looking at all of the sites. Many times he had to make a run for it because of either crazed women or the now girl-less men running around the city. Niwa went to a small computer shop and easily hacked into the museums security system. He skimmed over it and found a direct link to Hiwitari's laptop. "Huh? I can't believe that he would be that careless. It must be a trap, right?"

"With Krad back...you can bet money that it is. The two of them are trying to bait us in with this fake security setup. The real security is going to be much more intense after they lost the 'Twilight Eye' to us.", said Dark. The thief thought for a second before asking his Tamer, "Hey Daisuke, do you mind if I take over for a bit? There's something I'd like to take of before tonight."

"Uh...sure Dark...As long as you don't cause any trouble.", replied the former redhead. When Dark didn't answer he knew that there was going to be hell to pay later on and he already had a good idea who would be paying it. He knew that he shouldn't worry too much since he wouldn't be the one, but Niwa couldn't help but feel a little sorry for Dark's soon-to-be victim.

Back at Atsuko's apartment Kosuke was looking through a collection of books he'd kept on magics. "No that won't do any good. Nope. Useless. Not a chance.", he said after finding several concealment spells. So far every spell the brunette had found was completely useless since his son had been transformed by Dark's magic. "No not Dark's magic, but rather the Black Wings' magic."

-Knock Knock-

"Who is it?", the man asked.

"It's me Uncle Kosuke. Can I come in?", replied the voice from the other side of the door.

Kosuke immediately recognized the voice as Yusuke's and rapidly started hiding the incriminating books. Unfortunately a combination of the middle-aged man's lack of speed and Yusuke's lack of manners lead to the slick-haired teen entering the room and spotting the books. "What are all of those books for?", Yusuke asked getting a glance at the title of one of them. Yusuke's Uncle started getting nervous knowing that his nephew had at least caught a glimpse of some of his reading materials and he forced himself to look at the teen. The detective glanced at the books and then to his Uncle staring at him for several minutes.

The young Urameshi eventually locked eyes with his Uncle and gave him a knowing grin. "So you're trying to help us find Dark...Well I'll take all the help I can get. Let me know if you find anything useful.", the detective said surprising Kosuke.

"That nephew of mine is far more dense than I ever thought that he was. Oh well, it will help keep Daisuke's secret safe for now.", Kosuke thought before he addressed Yusuke, "Well so far I haven't found anything even remotely helpful. All of these spells were designed to be used on someone who's either a full human or demon, not a one safe to use on someone like Dark. If we were to try it then we could end up killing both Dark and his current host."

Yusuke whistled, "Wow. Sounds like the lack of progress is really ticking you off." When Kosuke glanced back at the teen the boy said, "Demon hearing lets me hear even a slight change in your tone of voice and I've also got kinda of a sixth sense now. It lets me pickup on your general emotion at the time, but nothing specific."

Kosuke sighed and asked, "Where are the others at? Shouldn't you be getting ready for Dark's next theft?" The absence of the others did have him a little concerned, especially with Daisuke currently running loose in the city stuck in Dark's form. He was sure that it would get real ugly if the detective caught his son off guard.

Yusuke thought for a second before answering. "Well Kurama's at his place doing his own research on the Museum and the artwork the thief is supposed to steal tonight. Hiei went to talk with his twin sister Yukina after he told Kuwabara to go home and let him handle it. And Dad's getting in touch with his own contacts here in this world to see if he can pin down Dark's current host." The detective walked over to the bed and picked up one of the books skimming through it and said, "With all of the demons in Tokyo surely one of them must be able to tell us something useful about Dark's host. Even a family name would be useful."

Kosuke pretended to be happy about this and said, "I take it that your boss didn't believe anything Daisuke had told you about the Kaitou."

The detective gripped the book tighter and growled out, "That stupid toddler doesn't believe that Dark could be a good guy here and still wants us to capture him for interrogation. I trust Daisuke's judgment on this...there's just something in his eyes that tells me that he knows what he's talking about. Of course my old man decided to play the politician during our meeting and agreed to bring Dark in so that Koenma could talk to him, but I still don't like it."

Kosuke felt better knowing that Yusuke believed Dai. He chuckled and said, "Well I wouldn't worry about it too much. Dark is not going to be easy to capture as we've seen our the last three hundred years. He's a very intelligent thief despite his cocky behavior. I don't think that you and your friends are going to be able to catch him." Yusuke scowled causing Kosuke to laugh even harder.

"It's not funny.", the teen barked. He remembered meeting the Phantom Thief earlier today and said, "There was something weird about Dark though. I can't figure out for the life of me why he was walking around in the park in the day light. Wouldn't that be too risky for a thief of caliber? Not to mention that fact that he seemed to be getting chased by beautiful women and very angry men...that's just weird...well...Kurama goes through the same thing except without the weapon carrying men."

Kosuke's eyes shot wide open and he asked, "Weapons? Dark didn't get hit did he?"

The detective fell over when his Uncle suddenly started grilling him for information, but quickly recomposed himself as best he could. "Well I didn't see any wounds except for the few hairs that Kuwabara managed to chop off. Ya see when we caught him alone after we thought that he'd been trying to seduce Hiei's sister...turns out that we were wrong there or so he claimed. Anyway Kuwabara got jealous and attacked him, but all that he managed to do was cut some of the thief's hair off." Yusuke took that moment to looked back at Kosuke and saw a mortified look on his Uncle's face.

"He cut some of Dark's hair off. Oh shit! How badly did Mousy hurt your friend?", asked Kosuke looking really concerned at that point.

Yusuke said, "Nothing that he hasn't been put through before by myself...wait...why are you concerned about Dark getting his hair cut off? It's not like it's a major body part or anything like that."

Kosuke shook his head muttering 'this is not good' before he answered the question. "Dark's a bit vain. Last time somebody just ruffled his hair they ended up with a broken nose." The memory of Dark punching a police officer that was trying to apprehend the Kaitou was still fresh on Kosuke's mind. It was one of the few heists that he'd watched in person rather than over the television, so it was quite memorable for the man.

"Jeez, and here I thought Youko was bad. Well they seem to be a lot alike, so maybe Youko will be able to help us catch this thief.", said Yusuke while he got a image of some idiot like Kuwabara ruffling Dark's hair trying to catch him.

"Who's Youko?", asked Yusuke's Uncle since he hadn't heard that name mentioned before.

Remembering his oversight Yusuke said, "Kurama is Youko. He's more alias than you can shake a stick at, but basically he's a kitsune that botched a heist in demon world and hid himself in an unborn human in this to heal himself. He came to love his human mother and chose to stay here with her, but on the inside he's still a powerful fox demon...that about sums it all up."

Now Kosuke was worried because not only were there so many people after his son, but now he knew that there was an extremely intelligent demonic thief also going after Dark. He had to warn his son, but knew that it would be impossible until after the heist. "Daisuke please be careful. I don't want to lose you my little boy."

At Kuwabara's place the orange haired detective was still fuming over Dark's apparent advances on his girl. Little did the oaf know, but there was an intruder in the room nearby watching the soda the boy was drinking.

"Stupid thief. I'll show him, 'The Great Kazuma Kuwabara' will beat that little purple haired freak senseless for trying to steal my woman.", he shouted.

"Yeah right, like that'll ever happen.", the intruder thought. He continued to watch Kuwabara who had his back turned to the door and as predicted the soda had the desired effect. Kazuma jumped up and walked to the bathroom leaving his soda unguarded. "Heh...this is going to make me feel so much better. Careless idiot must pay." He dropped two pills into the drink and watched them dissolve before he moved back to his hiding place.

Kuwabara walked back in a few moments later now muttering about different ways that he was going to kill the thief. The most popular he'd come up with so far was slicing Dark's head off and using it for a soccer ball. Taking a sip of cola he decided to vent his frustration out on video games since it was best to conserve his strength for tonight. "I'm gonna kill him. I don't care what Koenma says, that thief must die.", he thought starting to feel a little woozy.

The intruder watched Kuwabara get through most of 'Soul Caliber II' before he finally passed out. "Perfect. I was wondering how long he would last. Hm...thirty minutes is a bit too long for my tastes, but oh well. Heh, I'm sure he'll be feeling that lovely little drug later tonight.", he said picking a small black device and a black permanent marker, "Time to go to work."

Ten minutes later the uninvited guest left Kuwabara's place straight through the front door and through the marker into a nearby trashcan.

When Hiei approached Yukina and asked what she'd talked about with Dark the ice demon slammed the door to her room in his face after shouting, "IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"

Hiei tried again and again to get through to his sister, but she wasn't in the mood to talk to them after they had tried to kill Dark. Deciding to wait until she cooled off the fire demon left Genkai's temple and went to Kurama's place to see if he'd come up with anything.

The Kitsune shook his head before suggesting that they meet up with Raizen at Yusuke's to see if he'd learned anything. "I can't believe that this one thief is that allusive.", thought Kurama.

"He's either very careful or he has somebody on the inside helping him.", said Youko catching his human half's attention.

"What do you mean by that last suggestion Youko?", he asked even though the redhead already had a good idea.

Youko knew that Suichi was sensing his feelings so he came out and voiced his suspicions, "I think that somebody inside of either our group or at Koenma's is leaking information to our thief. The way he so easily made a fool out of us last time combined with his detailed knowledge of us tells me that whoever our leak is...they are very close...maybe even a certain redhead we know of."

"You mean Daisuke? Well it would fit. The boy has intimate knowledge of Dark and I can't imagine a skilled thief like that just letting the boy gather that much information on himself unless they were friends.", replied Suichi. He knew that Yusuke wasn't going to like this, so he decided to make an effort to spend time with this young boy and see if anything was off.

"It's possible that it could also be Kosuke, but I seriously doubt that Dark would connect with someone like him.", said Youko after having agreed to watch the Niwa boy closely.

Suichi could feel something more coming from his demon half...a suspicion that the kitsune was refusing to voice. After making such beliefs known that Daisuke could be a traitor why couldn't the fox just say the rest. That was one of the most annoying things about Youko was that he didn't always tell him everything. "Why don't you just say what else you're thinking? I'd rather not run into anymore surprises."

The kitsune knew that eventually he and his human self would merge together, but it never failed to irritate him that his other half couldn't keep up. With a low growl Youko voiced his other belief, "Don't hold me to this but...I think that Daisuke may...um..well."

"Well what Youko? Tell me what you're thinking.", urged Suichi when the demon stop talking.

He knew that his human half wouldn't like this, but he did ask for it. "I think that it is possible that Daisuke maybe Dark's current host...Suichi? Suichi, are you still there?"

"And what lead you to that conclusion?", asked the redhead after he overcame his initial shock.

"It's just a feeling, but I think that it is possible. At present I have no real proof...well nothing that isn't circumstantial at best.", said the fox. He felt some measure of relief when he felt Suichi's thoughts going along the same route as his own.

As they arrived at Yusuke's Suichi said, "We'll watch him extra closely and pull up every connection we have to get information on the Niwa family." With that he knocked on the door and was greeted by Atsuko.

"Hello Kurama, Hiei. Come in, Yusuke's been expecting you and my husband's at the dinning room table talking with our son.", she said motioning for the two demons to enter her home.

Kurama and Hiei made their way to Yusuke and Raizen quickly. Once there Hiei asked, "Well what did you get on Dark?"

Raizen growled and answered, "Just the same information that we got from the young Niwa. Did you two find anything?"

Kurama shook his head no while Hiei answered, "Nothing useful. Mostly girls, both human and demon, drooling over our prey. Disgusting really."

Yusuke bit back a smirk knowing that the fire demon was still a little sore about Dark getting close to his sister. "I wonder where Kuwabara is. It's getting late and I know that he should be here by now so that we can setup some kinda plan.", thought the detective. He went over to the wall and picked up the phone before dialing Kuwabara's number. After five rings Kuwabara's sister picked up the phone, "Hello Yusuke. If you're looking for my baby brother I'm afraid he's out cold right now. I can't seem to wake him no matter what I try...I think that he's been drugged."

"We'll be right over.", he said before looking at his assembled team, "Kuwabara's in trouble. Shizuru thinks that he was drugged."

Twenty minutes later the YuYu gang arrived at Kuwabara's home. They made their way upstairs to Shizuru and her little brother. When they saw him Yusuke couldn't contain himself and broke out laughing while Hiei and Raizen managed to stop themselves at a smirk.

Kurama quickly went to work seeing what come be done for their friend partly to hide his own smirk. There before him was the Kazuma Kuwabara that they all knew missing just one thing...his hair. The boy's head had been shaved clean and when he moved the teen's head around he read the small text on the top:

My hair has been avenged.

The favor has been returned.

Just below the message was a detailed black feather that had apparently been drawn with a permanent marker. "Dark's doing no doubt.", he thought before giving the teen a concoction that was sure to wake the boy up.

When Kuwabara woke Raizen chuckled a little when Kurama held up a mirror so that Kazuma could see the damage. He quickly flew into a fit talking about all the vicious things that he would do to Dark when they caught. The oddest part was when he walked up to a smirking Hiei and said, "Hiei I know that you know all sorts of painful methods of torture. Would you teach me a few of the most brutal one's that you know?"

Of course Hiei agreed simply because he hated Dark more than he disliked Kuwabara. "Well I'llteach you what Iknow as long as I get to watch.", said the fire demon before he started sharing those secrets with the human.