"Ow!" I yelled. "OW! Damn it, Aunt Atsuko! Allow me to keep what little life I have left, will ya?" I had barely made it home alive and now my darling aunt was trying to kill me with love and affection.

"Kaira!" she sobbed. "I don't want to lose you! Not after losing your mother and almost losing Yusuke..." I let out a painful groan as she squeezed me tight.

"Then do me a favor and let me go!" Aunt Atsuko instantly released me and watched me sigh in relief. I hurt like hell and I thought I had a good reason to- in the past forty-eight hours I had gotten the shit kicked out of me, lost a good deal of my blood, technically died, and was nearly hugged to death by my aunt. All and all, I'd have to say it was a rather memorable experience.

It had been a week since I survived Batosei and Yusuke and Kurama were worried- my wounds were not fatal, but close enough and they weren't healing properly. If fact, they looked like I had just received them. And I was very weak. Well, that's what they tell me anyway. I thought I was just fine. It was probably because Aunt Atsuko hadn't let me out of the house... or my room... or my bed. Yeah, you heard right: I was trapped in my room and only allowed to do one thing- play with Yusuke's Spirit Beast, Ku. It was mostly out of curiosity- I couldn't figure out how my rough and tough cousin got a cute little blue penguin with black hair and bunny ears for a Spirit Beast.

"So, what's with this Spirit Beast thing, Botan?" I asked. "You said something about them once, didn't you?" Botan smiled and nodded.

"Yes," she replied. "Koenma didn't want you to be eaten by yours." I giggled. Botan had come over to visit me in my current state of misery, for which I was very glad. I was bored as hell. She seemed to be glad about my interest in Spirit Beasts, although I wasn't quiet sure why. That's when she pulled out a large golden egg- and when I say large, I mean it. It was about the size of a football and when she set it in my lap, I discovered that it was almost twice as heavy.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"Koenma feels that you are ready for your own Spirit Beast," Botan told me. "I personally think he's crazy, but I can't argue with him."

"Why would you think I'm not ready?" Botan shook her head, a worried expression on her face.

"Spirit Beasts feed off of a person's energy- if you have a positive energy, you receive a Spirit Beast like Ku..." She started to giggle- my guess was that when Ku arrived, Yusuke was less than thrilled. "But negative energies create evil Spirit Beasts that will devour their creator in one gulp." I tilted my head to the side.

"I've given you reason to believe that I have negative energies?" As Botan started to answer, the egg shell began to crack.

"This is it!" she cried. "The moment of truth!" A bright flash filled the room, one so bright that it signaled Yusuke, Kurama and Kayko, who were out in the kitchen, and Kuwabara and Hiei, who were in the living room. They all rushed to my room where I had my broken arm resting in my lap and was staring at a strange animal in front of me.

The head was colored orange and looked like that of a teddy bear, slightly modified: the ears, which were separated by a tuft of black hair, were rounded near the bottom, but had red flame like designs near the top. The eyes were crescent shaped, colored a bright yellow with a small black pupil and had the red flame design over the tops. It's body was orange as well, with a gold chain around the neck that was accented by a dark gray collar of fur, and the gray was outlined by red. What really got me was that the animal had two fox-like tails- gray at the top, a small jagged streak of red, than orange the rest of the way down. I stared at it, it stared at me. This went on for a couple of minutes until the animal spoke in a female type voice.

"Mimi." I continued to just stare at it, not quite sure what to make of it. "Mimi!" she said again, this time in an aggravated voice, with an aggravated face to match.

"What does it want me to do?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the... well, the whatever it was. A fox with a teddy bear head, funny lookin' ears and colored like fire- what would you call it?

But before anyone could reply, the Spirit Beast let me know what it wanted- she made her way over to my right hand, which was resting on the bed, and nuzzled her head underneath it. Her fur was the softest thing I ever felt and I couldn't help but scratch her behind the ears, prompting the animal to let out a low but happy growl. Not a purr, mind you- this was definitely a growl. I smiled.

"You wanted to be petted, eh Mimi?" I asked, taking note of how her head followed my hand when I tried to pull it away. "I can live with that."

"Mimi," she replied, happily, leaning into my touch. I smiled- I had a new friend.

***Hey everyone, Yusuke here- wait a second, how come Kay gets a cool looking Spirit Beast, and I'm stuck with the flying penguin?! No offence, Ku. Anyway, Kay's still not healing properly- in fact, she's gotten worse- so Kurama and I have decided to go find Hiei's half sister, Yukina and see if her healing powers can help. Only problem is that Kuwabara insists on going with us, Kayko is out of town with my mom and Botan has some sort of problem in Spirit World... meaning I have to leave Kay with Hiei or leave her alone! Will Hiei and the sickly Kay manage to kill each other before we get back with help? Find out next time on Yu-Yu Hakusho!***