CHAPTER SIX
Forest Demons
Shuuichi wandered around in the forest in total darkness, completely lost. He had no idea how long he'd been gone, or even which direction to walk to get back to Shadow's house. He'd twisted his path around so much that he wasn't even sure which direction he was facing. Hopelessly lost, he sat down at the edge of a small clearing with his back against a tree, deciding to sleep there for the night.
He was just drifting off when he heard strange whispery sounds. They were coming from all around him. Scared, he stood up and looked around.
"Oooh, scared, human prey?" a voice said.
Shuuichi shuddered and pressed back against the tree.
"Shut up, baka!" said a second voice, female this time. "You don't eat humans! And stop making that dumb noise!" The whispers stopped.
Hoping this voice wasn't just pulling tricks, Shuuichi started to relax. He looked around, squinting into the darkness to see if he could find whoever was talking. A bright light flared up out of nowhere and two people, a man and a woman, stepped out of the darkness.
"Hello, stranger," the woman said. She looked like she was about twenty years old, wearing a green skirt and a green tank top, with green eyes and brown hair. The man was wearing black pants, a green shirt, and he had green eyes and black hair.
"Who are you?" Shuuichi asked.
"Who are ~you~, human? What is a human doing in this forest? This is not any place for a human," the man growled.
"Be quiet, Koji," the woman ordered.
"But Aya, he's human!" Koji whined. "This isn't any place for humans!"
Aya glared. Koji backed off. The woman turned to Shuuichi and started speaking to him in a quiet voice, speaking slowly like you would to a little child, giving the words time to sink in.
"Hello, human. My name is Aya, and this is Koji. Who are you?"
Shuuichi was scared. It's not very often that you spend the night in a forest and end up confronted by some people dressed in green who keep complaining about you being human.
"Shuuichi," he managed to say. His voice was shaky.
"Well, Shuuichi, why are you here?"
"What are you people?" Shuuichi asked nervously.
"What are we? Demons, of course, baka ningen!" Koji snapped.
"And why are you... here?" Shuuichi asked, pointing at the ground to indicate that yes, he did mean right here.
"We live here, and have lived here for almost a year," Aya answered. Shuuichi's jaw dropped.
"What?! But this isn't your property. How could you live here?"
"What do you mean, ~it's not our property~? Who cares? Nobody has even discovered us until now, and if it wasn't for Aya's damn sympathy, we would have stayed hidden! But nooo, she sees a little human lost in the forest and has to come help him!" Koji complained.
"KOJI!" Aya yelled. "If you have so much of a problem with it, why did you come with me? You could have stayed hidden, baka!"
"I have to protect you," Koji said.
"Honestly, Koji, does this young boy look like he could do any harm?" Aya asked. "He hasn't even got any weapons! Shuuichi, would you hurt me?"
"I don't know you. Why would I hurt you?" Shuuichi asked.
"There! See?!" Aya snapped. Koji stared at the ground.
"Sorry. But there are people who aren't like him. Shuuichi, I'm sorry for being rude earlier, but you can never be too cautious. There are people who prefer the 'Shoot first, ask questions later' method," Koji said. No sooner had those words come out of his mouth then two forms dove out of the darkness and slammed into the two forest demons. All four went tumbling across the ground, eventually stopping.
Hiei and Yusuke had Aya and Koji pinned to the ground. Hiei had his hand on Aya's throat and his fist back, ready to knock her face off. Yusuke was having enough trouble keeping Koji pinned that he couldn't strangle or punch anyone.
"AYA!" Koji yelled.
"WHO ARE YOU?" Hiei snapped.
"We mean no harm! Please!" Aya begged.
"Who. Are. You?" Hiei asked slowly through clenched teeth.
"Aya and Koji. We meant no harm. Please, do not harm us," the woman pleaded.
Suddenly, Shadow came running into the clearing and shot up a tree like a scared cat. She peered around the trunk at the startled Hiei, who had loosened his grip on Aya's throat and dropped his fist, more concerned with why Shadow was running like that. Perhaps there was some real danger in the forest, rather than a couple life-loving green freaks.
His thoughts were interrupted by Koji, who had proven too smart for Yusuke and had pulled off a trick that got the boy rolling on the ground in pain. The man ran at Hiei and tackled him off of Aya. The two went rolling across the ground again, this time Koji ended up pinning Hiei.
Rather than being scared, Hiei just rolled his eyes.
"Honestly, must we go through this? You are a couple of green-obsessed life- lovers, and I am a fire demon. It's obvious who will win this if we fight," Hiei said dryly.
"I don't care if it's obvious! I'll fight to the death to protect Aya!" Koji made an attempt to punch Hiei in the face, but all he had to do was move his head and the 'life-lover' put his fist into the ground.
Shadow leapt out of the tree from 10 feet in the air and ran out of the clearing again just as Youko walked in. He looked around for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then looked in the direction Shadow had just gone. He let out a pleased 'Ha,' and walked out of the clearing in the same direction as Shadow. Shuuichi, Yusuke, and Aya watched this with looks of absolute cluelessness on their faces. Hiei barely noticed. He was still arguing with Koji.
"I'M NOT KILLING ANYONE, OKAY?!" Hiei yelled. "LET ME UP!"
"I DON'T TRUST YOU! WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME?" Koji screamed.
"I DON'T KNOW YOUR NAME EITHER, BAKA!" Hiei yelled. "WHAT HAVE NAMES GOT TO DO WITH TRUST?"
"I DON'T KNOW, BUT I'D LIKE TO KNOW YOUR NAME! JUST BECAUSE IT'S THE POLITE THING TO DO WHEN YOU MEET SOMEBODY!"
"HONESTLY, LIFE-LOVER, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I'M LYING HERE ON MY BACK WITH SOME LUNATIC PINNING ME TO THE GROUND AND YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT BEING POLITE? POLITENESS IS THE ABSOLUTE LAST THING I WOULD THINK OF RIGHT NOW!!!"
"MY NAME IS KOJI, NOW YOU'D BETTER TELL ME YOUR NAME OR I'LL KILL YOU!" Koji yelled, forming some strange spirit attack in his hand.
"Hiei Jaganshi," Hiei said, hoping this guy had heard of him. He had.
"Hiei Jaganshi?! I've heard of you. You're a thief," Koji said, sounding scared. His energy attack disappeared. "Wait... How can I be sure that you're not some kid playing a trick?"
"My God, man! I am not about to prove it! I'd take half the forest!" Hiei snapped.
"Take?"
"Kokoryuu-haa."
"YOU CAN USE THE KOKORYUU-HAA? THAT ATTACK IS IMPOSSIBLE!"
Some nobody guy dressed in clothes you'd normally see in Hawaii or Florida, carrying a surf board under his arm, stepped into the clearing.
"He can, dude. It's like, radical. I mean, like, he shoots this big, like... black thing out of his arm... It's like... a dragon... and it destroys like... a lot of stuff. I mean, it does, like, a lot of damage, dude. And... he kills people with it, and they... like... Die. Y'know? It's pretty radical. Like, far out. Dig it?" With that said, the random surfer dude walked through the clearing and was gone.
"What in the name of...?" Hiei muttered. He heard a scream. It was Shadow. He started to struggle to get away from Koji. The man tightened his grip on Hiei's arms.
He heard another scream, accompanied by, "LIKE, FAR OUT! IT'S A PERSON! IN THE, LIKE, FOREST HERE! THAT'S LIKE, BEYOND NOT NORMAL, DUDE!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! THAT'S LIKE... UNBELIEVABLE!!! Dig it?"
Then there was a strangled sound and a thud. Obviously, the surfer dude bit the dust.
Another scream.
Shadow came flying into the clearing, waving her arms like a lunatic. She went into the forest on the other side. A second later, Youko came into the clearing, looked around, and ran into the forest the same place Shadow had.
"Could you let me up now?" Hiei asked. "I have a suspicion that my friend is being harassed by my other friend, who, by the way, just killed that random surfer dude."
"Like I care who killed who! I'm going to kill you, Hiei Jaganshi! I'll be famous and make a lot of money!"
"Yeah, right, that's a great lookout on things. 'Let's kill the helpless little anti-gravity haired short guy so we can be rich and famous in Makai! Then Reikai will hate us and we will be murdered, because the little short guy is a spirit detective! Imagine that! Oh, lookie here, now I'm in Reikai prison! How wonderful!!! This was my life's goal when I was a kid! I got real bored and decided that maybe if I was bodyguard for some little girl then she would possibly become a criminal and I could be arrested as an accomplice to her crimes! Then, I'd be in Reikai prison!'" Hiei mocked. He received a punch in the face.
"HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT I BECAME AYA'S BODYGUARD BECAUSE I WANTED TO GO TO PRISON? YOU LITTLE CRAP!" Koji yelled. Yusuke decided that he had had enough of this and he stood up to drag Koji away. Aya stopped him.
"Don't hurt Koji! He really doesn't mean any harm. I swear," she whined.
"Riiiight. That's why he just punched the poor helpless little anti-gravity haired short guy in the face! 'Oh look at me, I come in peace! Oops, I didn't mean to punch you! I slipped! I have a small insect living in my brain, and whenever it hits a certain nerve, my arm just kind of flies right out there and punches the nearest anti-grav. haired short guy!!!'" Yusuke snapped.
"LET ME UP!" Hiei was yelling behind them. Shuuichi was still confused. He wasn't sure what to do, if anything. Shadow was still running though the forest screaming with Youko close behind her. Speaking of which...
Shadow came flying through into the clearing, still screaming like a lunatic. She tripped right over Koji, knocking him off Hiei, and giving Youko time to catch up to her. He picked her up by the back of her shirt.
"Shadow, why are you running like that? It's not like I'm going to ~do~ anything to you, baka girl!" he snapped. Looking up, he noticed that everybody in the clearing was staring at him. He dropped Shadow and put his hands behind his back, whistling innocently.
"Okay, let's just act like none of that happened, okay?" Hiei said, standing up. "Who are you people, why are you here, and what were you planning on doing to Shuuichi?"
"We are demons. We've lived in this forest for almost a year. We weren't planning on doing anything to Shuuichi," Aya explained. "We just found him asleep here and wanted to know what a human was doing in this forest."
"Well first off, it's ~my~ forest. You shouldn't have been here in the first place, and none of this would have happened," Shadow snapped.
"You can't ~own~ a forest! Forests are alive! You can't own something that is alive!" Koji snapped.
"Correction! You can't own something that has a mind of its own. If you haven't noticed, trees... Do not have minds. They do not talk, they do not think, unless they are some tree demon or have a demon spirit possessing them, and they cannot just decide to get up and leave whenever they want," Youko said.
"What about the animals? There are rabbits, and foxes, and birds, and insects, and there's a lake not far from here full of fish! Do you own them, too?!"
"They aren't the forest, baka. I said I own the ~forest~, not the animals in it," Shadow said. "So ha-ha on you."
"There's a lake in this forest?" Hiei asked.
"Yes. What is it to you?" Koji asked.
"Nothing."
"Drop it, would you Koji?!" Aya snapped. "Look, we don't know who any of you are or why you're here, we just know that we have lived here for months and seen no other demons, or any humans. Now suddenly some people show up and claim to own the forest. If this truly is your property, we are sorry."
"What? Aya! What are you talking about? Why do you have to be so damn sentimental?!" Koji snapped. Aya ignored him and continued.
"We'd like your permission to stay in this forest," Aya said.
"What? Right, like I'm gonna let a couple tree-hugging life-lover green- freak forest demons live here? I don't know anything about you! You could be criminals! You could be murderous, thieving lunatics! Seriously, any person with half a brain would have enough sense not to let a couple strangers live in the forest on their property! Holy God, you must be nuts!" Shadow said. Youko looked down at her, surprised.
"God, Shadow, you don't have to freak out about it," he muttered.
"Shut up, fox!"
"Shuuichi, are you okay? We've been here for at least twenty minutes and it's like nobody even noticed you yet!" Yusuke said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm hoping that you guys came to find me and know your way back to Shadow's house, because if you just came out here and got lost in the same place as I did, we're screwed," Shuuichi said.
"Well, we came to find you... And we found you... But... I haven't got the slightest clue how to get back to my house," Shadow said, looking around. "Does anybody?"
"No. We're screwed," Hiei muttered.
"FOX! USE YOUR SENSES TO GET US HOME!" Shadow ordered, pointing at Youko.
"What the heck, girl! I'm not some search and rescue dog! God..."
Shadow's semi-happy look vanished from her face. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Youko. Through clenched teeth, she growled, "I said... get us home... I expect you... to USE YOUR STUPID FOX SENSES TO GET US HOME!!!"
"What'll I get out of it?"
"MUST YOU ALWAYS GET SOMETHING FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO? HONESTLY, FOX, CAN'T YOU JUST DO SOMETHING BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO?"
"Of course not. I need some... hm... inspiration. I'm sure you understand, Shadow," Youko said.
"I understand, but that doesn't mean I LIKE IT!!!"
"Well I guess you like being stranded in the forest, too?" Youko said.
"Pfft. It's probably better than whatever your idea of inspiration is," Shadow said, crossing her arms.
Everybody in the clearing was watching this little scene. Yusuke wished Shadow would just give Youko his 'inspiration,' because being lost in a dark forest on a cold night with a couple of forest demons isn't something he enjoyed. Hiei had climbed a tree and was resting with his back against the trunk, only half listening to the argument. Koji and Aya were dumbfounded, and wished that Shuuichi would stop staring at them because they wanted to slip into the forest unnoticed, but that's hard to do when a pair of emerald-green eyes are glued onto you watching your every move.
"Fine. I can spend a night in this forest. Hiei can. Obviously those life- lovers can too. If you, Yusuke, and Shuuichi are too weak to sleep in a forest clearing, then you go ahead and wander around. Get even more lost. Fall in the lake. But I'm staying right here until you promise I'll get something out of showing you all the way out of the forest," Youko said, sitting down with his back against a tree. He closed his eyes and curled into a tight ball with his tail wrapped around him, and stayed there. Shadow's jaw dropped. She stared at him in disbelief for a while before turning and looking up at Hiei. He shrugged and made himself comfortable on the branch he was sitting on.
"Like I said. We're screwed," Shuuichi muttered. He, too, curled up on the ground, trying his best to make himself comfortable. Shadow watched as Koji and Aya also lay down to sleep. Surprisingly, they didn't try to escape into the forest. They were probably saving that until everyone was asleep. Yusuke was the only one who hadn't given up yet.
"Oh, for God's sake..." Shadow muttered. Climbing the same tree as Hiei, she tried her best to make herself comfortable on one of the branches, but, not being as accustomed to sleeping in trees, she promptly fell out. Grumbling and cursing under her breath, she lay down with her back against the tree on the opposite side, so she was in the forest rather than the clearing. Yusuke wasn't about to give up. He was determined to not sleep in a tree, or on the ground in a cold, dark forest. He walked over to Youko and kneeled beside him.
"Hey Youko!" he whispered. The kitsune opened one eye.
"What?"
"I'll get you half an hour alone with Shadow if you get me out of this forest!"
"Oh, lovely. So you enjoy pain?"
"What?"
"Or perhaps you're subconsciously suicidal?"
"What?!"
"If you do anything like that, Shadow will kill you."
"No she won't. Hiei won't let her."
"Whatever happened to people saving their own lives?"
"What?"
"'Hiei won't let her'! How about, 'She couldn't hurt me because she's a pansy little girl, so just get me out of the forest so you can have your half hour!'"
"Uh... Okay, I can deal with that one, too," Yusuke said, confused.
"Good for you. But I can get my own time with her. Go away and let me sleep."
"But..."
"Away!"
"Youko, seriously, I've seen how you go about getting your time. You end up getting a crowbar slammed into your head!"
"Honestly, Yusuke, you don't know when to give up... Leave me ALONE!!!"
"STOP YELLING!" Shadow screamed suddenly. "YUSUKE, IF YOU TRY ANYTHING LIKE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TRY, YOU WILL BE TRYING TO PUT YOURSELF BACK TOGETHER, THAT'S WHAT!"
"See?" Youko said, smiling. He transformed into a fox and curled up with his tails over his nose.
"A spirit fox?!" Aya said, startled. "I've heard of them... But I never saw one before!"
"SHUT UP, I'M TRYING TO SLEEP! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING, SO WOULD YOU JUST GO TO SLEEP AND BE SURPRISED ABOUT SPIRIT FOXES TOMORROW?!" Shadow screamed. "THANK YOU!"
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They all FINALLY managed to get to sleep (Hiei being the first, since he just zoned out of the screaming and arguing and yelling below him). The next morning they woke up to discover that Aya and Koji hadn't vanished off into the forest while they slept. Yusuke shook them awake.
"Hey forest freaks! Why didn't you vanish off into the forest like I know you were planning?"
"What? Damn! Aya, you were supposed to wake up in time to get us away before they woke!" Koji complained. "Now we're doomed to be kicked out of this forest!"
"YOUKO KURAMA, WAKE YOUR LAZY BUTT UP!!!" Shadow screamed, inches from the fox's ear. Youko, still in his fox form, leaped up and let out some yappy hissy noise. Then, seeing it was Shadow rather than some murderer, he stepped back and transformed into a humanoid.
"Good morning, Shadow. Sleep well?" he asked.
"Shut up, fox. Lead us out of here NOW. Your inspiration is that if you don't, you'll get your entire body ripped into shreds," Shadow snapped.
"She didn't sleep well," Hiei said from his place in the tree.
"Yes, so I noticed, Hiei. Okay, okay, so I'll stop the little nothing conversations! Follow me," Youko said.
"THANK YOU!" Shadow said. She grabbed Aya and Koji and pushed them out of the clearing after Youko. "Come on, tree-huggers..."
Eventually, they got back to Shadow's house. When they walked in the front door, Shadow discovered that Koenma had made himself quite comfortable.
The house was a mess.
"KOENMA, YOU LITTLE WITCH!" Shadow screamed. Koenma came sliding into the room on a wheeled swivel chair. Instantly, his eyes got the size of dinner plates and about 400 sweatdrops appears on his head.
"Oh, uh... Hi Shadow!" he said nervously. "I thought you were gone and lost and dead for sure!"
"Right. With these two around?" She pointed at Youko and Hiei.
"What about me?" Yusuke asked.
"Yeah, well you don't care enough about me to protect me."
"And we do?" Hiei asked.
"YOU BETTER!"
"We do! We do, don't worry, we'd protect you, yeah, so, uh... Not like you really ~need~ protected... I think you're pretty well off on your own," Hiei said with little upside-down U-eyes and an innocent smile.
"Glad you think so. Koenma, anyway, we brought back a couple demons that we found in MY forest, and I want to know something about them," Shadow said. She dragged Koji and Aya out in front of her. "Meet Aya and Koji. They're tree-hugging, life-lover, green-obsessed demons that were living in my forest for months without me knowing about it and without my permission."
"Aya and Koji? Never heard of them."
"Well, do you think you could possibly FIND SOMETHING OUT?!"
"What breed of demons are you?" Koenma asked.
"We're forest demons. We live in forests," Aya said.
"Duh," Koji whispered.
"We meant no harm by living there, but it's extremely large and nobody ever came around to get rid of us, so we though it was unclaimed land," Aya said.
"And did you have permission to travel from Makai to Earth?"
"Permission? From who?"
"AH! THEY'RE ILLEGAL ALIEN DEMONS!" Shadow screamed, jumping around. "ARREST THEM! ARREST THEM!!!"
"Why, Shadow? I didn't arrest ~you~ when you first came here illegally," Koenma pointed out. Shadow glared.
"I had a very good reason. Makai was a very cruel place and nobody there seems to like half-breeds. And besides, you posted a guard on me instead!"
"Guard? Like I really had time to guard you..." Hiei muttered. He then went into some long, drawn out complaining under his breath about how stupid the government system is and why should everybody who looks like they're old enough to go to school be forced to go to school and why didn't he just destroy the stupid school, not like it really would have been that hard, and how stupid living with Kurama had been {1}, and all sorts of other stuff that nobody except Youko heard because he was saying it quietly enough that all they heard was incoherent mumbles.
"Yes, well that's beyond the point. Aya and Koji, right?" Koenma said. The two demons nodded. "Well, I'm afraid I'll have to take you to Reikai with me until I can find out more about you."
"What?!" Koji cried.
Koenma rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, complain as much as you want; it won't do any good. Ah, yes, Shadow, I see you found Shuuichi. Good. Congratulations."
"She did no such thing. I'm the one who found him. She was too busy running from Youko to notice anything until she tripped over Koji, who was being quite rude and trying to kill me," Hiei said, finally snapping out of his under-the-breath complaining.
"Trying to kill you?" Koenma asked, startled.
"Yeah. He punched me. Boo-hoo. Not like it really hurt... Tree-hugging weakling..."
"You want something that hurts, Hiei Jaganshi?!" Koji snapped. "You want pain?! PAIN? YOU LIKE PAIN, HIEI JAGANSHI? HUH? DO YOU, HIEI JAGANSHI?"
"WOULD YOU STOP CALLING ME HIEI JAGANSHI?! IT REALLY GETS QUITE OLD AFTER, oh, like... THE FIRST TIME!!!" Hiei screamed.
"BACK TO REIKAI!" Koenma yelled. "BEFORE SOMEBODY BITES THE DUST!"
"Oh, speaking of biting dust, Youko killed a human," Shadow said.
"WHAT?!" Koenma yelled.
"Yes, of course, announce it to the one person who can get me in trouble for it, Shadow. Good going. Now I'm in trouble," Youko growled.
"Well, that ~was~ the point, baka fox," Shadow replied, smiling.
"Youko Kurama, you know it's against laws for any demon to kill a human! Wait. When and where did he kill a human?"
"Youko Kurama? The legendary bandit Youko Kurama? ~And~ the bandit Hiei Jaganshi? This is too weird," Koji muttered.
"Yes, the legendary bandit, the murder, the thief, the spirit fox who is supposed to be dead but as you can quite plainly see, isn't," Youko said.
"Though some of us wish he were," muttered Shadow.
"I heard that, girl."
"That's nice. Not like I said it all that quiet."
"WOULD YOU TWO SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME?" Koenma screamed.
"HE KILLED SOME RANDOM SURFER DUDE IN THE FOREST LAST NIGHT!" Shadow answered. "OKAY?"
"OKAY, YOUKO, YOU'LL NEED TO COME WITH ME, THEN! I KNOW YOU CAN'T BE PUNISHED PROPERLY IF WE'RE EVER GOING TO GET YOU BACK--" Koenma was cut off by a rather angry Shadow.
"KOENMA, STOP SCREAMING! TALK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, OKAY?!"
"OKAY! As I was saying, Youko, you need to come back to Reikai with me so I can decide what to do with you. Obviously I can't properly punish you, because if I were to do that, then I would have to keep you in prison for about 1,000 years because of all the things you've stolen over your life. But I'll just let those slip, because we are going to need to forget about all that if you're going to get recombined with Shuuichi here, right?" Koenma said.
"Recombined? That is something that's not on my list of things to do, Koenma," Youko informed him.
"Well, you haven't got a choice in this."
"Gee, thanks."
"You're welcome."
"Sarcasm, baka."
"That's nice."
"Right. Wait..." A thought struck Youko and he voiced it out loud. "If I'm going to prison, then Shadow will have a little vacation from me."
"WOOHOO!" Shadow squealed.
"But I'll be away from her... And the next time I see her, I'll probably be stuck back in the stupid human's body, right?"
"Woohoo?" Shadow said nervously.
"Koenma, could I have about fifteen minutes?" Youko asked.
"What? What for?"
"None of your business!"
"Say no. Say no! SAY NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Shadow begged. "HE WANTS TO HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH MEEEEEEEEE!!! SAY NO!!!"
"No."
"No what?" Shadow asked hopefully.
"No, Youko can not have fifteen minutes."
Youko narrowed his eyes and clenched his teeth. "Damn you, Koenma. Damn you to Makai and back."
"THANK YOU!" Shadow screeched. She almost hugged Koenma, but decided against it since she would probably squeeze him to death.
"Let's go, you three," Koenma said.
"Honestly, must I? I won't kill anyone else. Seriously," Youko said, hoping Koenma was feeling lenient.
"So?! You already killed one person, and that's enough."
"Damn."
"Now stop begging and get your stupid fox-tailed butt out the door."
"You can't honestly send me to prison."
"I can and I am, now STOP STALLING!!!"
Youko rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Shadow. This is just great. Just great! Perfect! I'll love you forever for getting me SENT TO PRISON!"
Obviously, he was being sarcastic. Shadow just smiled. An evil, evil smile. But a smile all the same.
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{1} A reference to my story, "YYH: The Meeting." Basically, Hiei and Shadow got sent to school with Kurama, and had to live with him for the entire school year. If you haven't already read it, go read that story if you don't understand or if it sounds interesting. Please.
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I am aware that I have gone like... way off the topic of the story. A bunch of randomness has happened, right? Well, I'm hoping that this chapter didn't seem pointless, cuz it won't be later in the story. Seriously. This chapter might seem like a complete act of random randomness where everything that happened was random, but it wasn't. Only the surfer dude was completely random. The rest has a point, okay? So don't get mad.
Get Glad!
No, I am not putting subliminal messages in my story. I am not promoting the use of Glad bags or whatever the heck Glad makes. Microwave containers or something. Just... Never mind. Just don't completely ditch out on me because my story is completely going off-topic... R&R to tell me what you think, please. The reason this story may seem to be floating off in la-la land is because school is evil, and I just write stuff that comes into my head, and hope that it will eventually make sense. Yes, I know that is a very haphazard way of writing, but it usually does work... Usually... Heh. ^_^;
Forest Demons
Shuuichi wandered around in the forest in total darkness, completely lost. He had no idea how long he'd been gone, or even which direction to walk to get back to Shadow's house. He'd twisted his path around so much that he wasn't even sure which direction he was facing. Hopelessly lost, he sat down at the edge of a small clearing with his back against a tree, deciding to sleep there for the night.
He was just drifting off when he heard strange whispery sounds. They were coming from all around him. Scared, he stood up and looked around.
"Oooh, scared, human prey?" a voice said.
Shuuichi shuddered and pressed back against the tree.
"Shut up, baka!" said a second voice, female this time. "You don't eat humans! And stop making that dumb noise!" The whispers stopped.
Hoping this voice wasn't just pulling tricks, Shuuichi started to relax. He looked around, squinting into the darkness to see if he could find whoever was talking. A bright light flared up out of nowhere and two people, a man and a woman, stepped out of the darkness.
"Hello, stranger," the woman said. She looked like she was about twenty years old, wearing a green skirt and a green tank top, with green eyes and brown hair. The man was wearing black pants, a green shirt, and he had green eyes and black hair.
"Who are you?" Shuuichi asked.
"Who are ~you~, human? What is a human doing in this forest? This is not any place for a human," the man growled.
"Be quiet, Koji," the woman ordered.
"But Aya, he's human!" Koji whined. "This isn't any place for humans!"
Aya glared. Koji backed off. The woman turned to Shuuichi and started speaking to him in a quiet voice, speaking slowly like you would to a little child, giving the words time to sink in.
"Hello, human. My name is Aya, and this is Koji. Who are you?"
Shuuichi was scared. It's not very often that you spend the night in a forest and end up confronted by some people dressed in green who keep complaining about you being human.
"Shuuichi," he managed to say. His voice was shaky.
"Well, Shuuichi, why are you here?"
"What are you people?" Shuuichi asked nervously.
"What are we? Demons, of course, baka ningen!" Koji snapped.
"And why are you... here?" Shuuichi asked, pointing at the ground to indicate that yes, he did mean right here.
"We live here, and have lived here for almost a year," Aya answered. Shuuichi's jaw dropped.
"What?! But this isn't your property. How could you live here?"
"What do you mean, ~it's not our property~? Who cares? Nobody has even discovered us until now, and if it wasn't for Aya's damn sympathy, we would have stayed hidden! But nooo, she sees a little human lost in the forest and has to come help him!" Koji complained.
"KOJI!" Aya yelled. "If you have so much of a problem with it, why did you come with me? You could have stayed hidden, baka!"
"I have to protect you," Koji said.
"Honestly, Koji, does this young boy look like he could do any harm?" Aya asked. "He hasn't even got any weapons! Shuuichi, would you hurt me?"
"I don't know you. Why would I hurt you?" Shuuichi asked.
"There! See?!" Aya snapped. Koji stared at the ground.
"Sorry. But there are people who aren't like him. Shuuichi, I'm sorry for being rude earlier, but you can never be too cautious. There are people who prefer the 'Shoot first, ask questions later' method," Koji said. No sooner had those words come out of his mouth then two forms dove out of the darkness and slammed into the two forest demons. All four went tumbling across the ground, eventually stopping.
Hiei and Yusuke had Aya and Koji pinned to the ground. Hiei had his hand on Aya's throat and his fist back, ready to knock her face off. Yusuke was having enough trouble keeping Koji pinned that he couldn't strangle or punch anyone.
"AYA!" Koji yelled.
"WHO ARE YOU?" Hiei snapped.
"We mean no harm! Please!" Aya begged.
"Who. Are. You?" Hiei asked slowly through clenched teeth.
"Aya and Koji. We meant no harm. Please, do not harm us," the woman pleaded.
Suddenly, Shadow came running into the clearing and shot up a tree like a scared cat. She peered around the trunk at the startled Hiei, who had loosened his grip on Aya's throat and dropped his fist, more concerned with why Shadow was running like that. Perhaps there was some real danger in the forest, rather than a couple life-loving green freaks.
His thoughts were interrupted by Koji, who had proven too smart for Yusuke and had pulled off a trick that got the boy rolling on the ground in pain. The man ran at Hiei and tackled him off of Aya. The two went rolling across the ground again, this time Koji ended up pinning Hiei.
Rather than being scared, Hiei just rolled his eyes.
"Honestly, must we go through this? You are a couple of green-obsessed life- lovers, and I am a fire demon. It's obvious who will win this if we fight," Hiei said dryly.
"I don't care if it's obvious! I'll fight to the death to protect Aya!" Koji made an attempt to punch Hiei in the face, but all he had to do was move his head and the 'life-lover' put his fist into the ground.
Shadow leapt out of the tree from 10 feet in the air and ran out of the clearing again just as Youko walked in. He looked around for a second with a puzzled look on his face, then looked in the direction Shadow had just gone. He let out a pleased 'Ha,' and walked out of the clearing in the same direction as Shadow. Shuuichi, Yusuke, and Aya watched this with looks of absolute cluelessness on their faces. Hiei barely noticed. He was still arguing with Koji.
"I'M NOT KILLING ANYONE, OKAY?!" Hiei yelled. "LET ME UP!"
"I DON'T TRUST YOU! WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME?" Koji screamed.
"I DON'T KNOW YOUR NAME EITHER, BAKA!" Hiei yelled. "WHAT HAVE NAMES GOT TO DO WITH TRUST?"
"I DON'T KNOW, BUT I'D LIKE TO KNOW YOUR NAME! JUST BECAUSE IT'S THE POLITE THING TO DO WHEN YOU MEET SOMEBODY!"
"HONESTLY, LIFE-LOVER, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I'M LYING HERE ON MY BACK WITH SOME LUNATIC PINNING ME TO THE GROUND AND YOU THINK I CARE ABOUT BEING POLITE? POLITENESS IS THE ABSOLUTE LAST THING I WOULD THINK OF RIGHT NOW!!!"
"MY NAME IS KOJI, NOW YOU'D BETTER TELL ME YOUR NAME OR I'LL KILL YOU!" Koji yelled, forming some strange spirit attack in his hand.
"Hiei Jaganshi," Hiei said, hoping this guy had heard of him. He had.
"Hiei Jaganshi?! I've heard of you. You're a thief," Koji said, sounding scared. His energy attack disappeared. "Wait... How can I be sure that you're not some kid playing a trick?"
"My God, man! I am not about to prove it! I'd take half the forest!" Hiei snapped.
"Take?"
"Kokoryuu-haa."
"YOU CAN USE THE KOKORYUU-HAA? THAT ATTACK IS IMPOSSIBLE!"
Some nobody guy dressed in clothes you'd normally see in Hawaii or Florida, carrying a surf board under his arm, stepped into the clearing.
"He can, dude. It's like, radical. I mean, like, he shoots this big, like... black thing out of his arm... It's like... a dragon... and it destroys like... a lot of stuff. I mean, it does, like, a lot of damage, dude. And... he kills people with it, and they... like... Die. Y'know? It's pretty radical. Like, far out. Dig it?" With that said, the random surfer dude walked through the clearing and was gone.
"What in the name of...?" Hiei muttered. He heard a scream. It was Shadow. He started to struggle to get away from Koji. The man tightened his grip on Hiei's arms.
He heard another scream, accompanied by, "LIKE, FAR OUT! IT'S A PERSON! IN THE, LIKE, FOREST HERE! THAT'S LIKE, BEYOND NOT NORMAL, DUDE!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! THAT'S LIKE... UNBELIEVABLE!!! Dig it?"
Then there was a strangled sound and a thud. Obviously, the surfer dude bit the dust.
Another scream.
Shadow came flying into the clearing, waving her arms like a lunatic. She went into the forest on the other side. A second later, Youko came into the clearing, looked around, and ran into the forest the same place Shadow had.
"Could you let me up now?" Hiei asked. "I have a suspicion that my friend is being harassed by my other friend, who, by the way, just killed that random surfer dude."
"Like I care who killed who! I'm going to kill you, Hiei Jaganshi! I'll be famous and make a lot of money!"
"Yeah, right, that's a great lookout on things. 'Let's kill the helpless little anti-gravity haired short guy so we can be rich and famous in Makai! Then Reikai will hate us and we will be murdered, because the little short guy is a spirit detective! Imagine that! Oh, lookie here, now I'm in Reikai prison! How wonderful!!! This was my life's goal when I was a kid! I got real bored and decided that maybe if I was bodyguard for some little girl then she would possibly become a criminal and I could be arrested as an accomplice to her crimes! Then, I'd be in Reikai prison!'" Hiei mocked. He received a punch in the face.
"HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT I BECAME AYA'S BODYGUARD BECAUSE I WANTED TO GO TO PRISON? YOU LITTLE CRAP!" Koji yelled. Yusuke decided that he had had enough of this and he stood up to drag Koji away. Aya stopped him.
"Don't hurt Koji! He really doesn't mean any harm. I swear," she whined.
"Riiiight. That's why he just punched the poor helpless little anti-gravity haired short guy in the face! 'Oh look at me, I come in peace! Oops, I didn't mean to punch you! I slipped! I have a small insect living in my brain, and whenever it hits a certain nerve, my arm just kind of flies right out there and punches the nearest anti-grav. haired short guy!!!'" Yusuke snapped.
"LET ME UP!" Hiei was yelling behind them. Shuuichi was still confused. He wasn't sure what to do, if anything. Shadow was still running though the forest screaming with Youko close behind her. Speaking of which...
Shadow came flying through into the clearing, still screaming like a lunatic. She tripped right over Koji, knocking him off Hiei, and giving Youko time to catch up to her. He picked her up by the back of her shirt.
"Shadow, why are you running like that? It's not like I'm going to ~do~ anything to you, baka girl!" he snapped. Looking up, he noticed that everybody in the clearing was staring at him. He dropped Shadow and put his hands behind his back, whistling innocently.
"Okay, let's just act like none of that happened, okay?" Hiei said, standing up. "Who are you people, why are you here, and what were you planning on doing to Shuuichi?"
"We are demons. We've lived in this forest for almost a year. We weren't planning on doing anything to Shuuichi," Aya explained. "We just found him asleep here and wanted to know what a human was doing in this forest."
"Well first off, it's ~my~ forest. You shouldn't have been here in the first place, and none of this would have happened," Shadow snapped.
"You can't ~own~ a forest! Forests are alive! You can't own something that is alive!" Koji snapped.
"Correction! You can't own something that has a mind of its own. If you haven't noticed, trees... Do not have minds. They do not talk, they do not think, unless they are some tree demon or have a demon spirit possessing them, and they cannot just decide to get up and leave whenever they want," Youko said.
"What about the animals? There are rabbits, and foxes, and birds, and insects, and there's a lake not far from here full of fish! Do you own them, too?!"
"They aren't the forest, baka. I said I own the ~forest~, not the animals in it," Shadow said. "So ha-ha on you."
"There's a lake in this forest?" Hiei asked.
"Yes. What is it to you?" Koji asked.
"Nothing."
"Drop it, would you Koji?!" Aya snapped. "Look, we don't know who any of you are or why you're here, we just know that we have lived here for months and seen no other demons, or any humans. Now suddenly some people show up and claim to own the forest. If this truly is your property, we are sorry."
"What? Aya! What are you talking about? Why do you have to be so damn sentimental?!" Koji snapped. Aya ignored him and continued.
"We'd like your permission to stay in this forest," Aya said.
"What? Right, like I'm gonna let a couple tree-hugging life-lover green- freak forest demons live here? I don't know anything about you! You could be criminals! You could be murderous, thieving lunatics! Seriously, any person with half a brain would have enough sense not to let a couple strangers live in the forest on their property! Holy God, you must be nuts!" Shadow said. Youko looked down at her, surprised.
"God, Shadow, you don't have to freak out about it," he muttered.
"Shut up, fox!"
"Shuuichi, are you okay? We've been here for at least twenty minutes and it's like nobody even noticed you yet!" Yusuke said. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm hoping that you guys came to find me and know your way back to Shadow's house, because if you just came out here and got lost in the same place as I did, we're screwed," Shuuichi said.
"Well, we came to find you... And we found you... But... I haven't got the slightest clue how to get back to my house," Shadow said, looking around. "Does anybody?"
"No. We're screwed," Hiei muttered.
"FOX! USE YOUR SENSES TO GET US HOME!" Shadow ordered, pointing at Youko.
"What the heck, girl! I'm not some search and rescue dog! God..."
Shadow's semi-happy look vanished from her face. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Youko. Through clenched teeth, she growled, "I said... get us home... I expect you... to USE YOUR STUPID FOX SENSES TO GET US HOME!!!"
"What'll I get out of it?"
"MUST YOU ALWAYS GET SOMETHING FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO? HONESTLY, FOX, CAN'T YOU JUST DO SOMETHING BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO?"
"Of course not. I need some... hm... inspiration. I'm sure you understand, Shadow," Youko said.
"I understand, but that doesn't mean I LIKE IT!!!"
"Well I guess you like being stranded in the forest, too?" Youko said.
"Pfft. It's probably better than whatever your idea of inspiration is," Shadow said, crossing her arms.
Everybody in the clearing was watching this little scene. Yusuke wished Shadow would just give Youko his 'inspiration,' because being lost in a dark forest on a cold night with a couple of forest demons isn't something he enjoyed. Hiei had climbed a tree and was resting with his back against the trunk, only half listening to the argument. Koji and Aya were dumbfounded, and wished that Shuuichi would stop staring at them because they wanted to slip into the forest unnoticed, but that's hard to do when a pair of emerald-green eyes are glued onto you watching your every move.
"Fine. I can spend a night in this forest. Hiei can. Obviously those life- lovers can too. If you, Yusuke, and Shuuichi are too weak to sleep in a forest clearing, then you go ahead and wander around. Get even more lost. Fall in the lake. But I'm staying right here until you promise I'll get something out of showing you all the way out of the forest," Youko said, sitting down with his back against a tree. He closed his eyes and curled into a tight ball with his tail wrapped around him, and stayed there. Shadow's jaw dropped. She stared at him in disbelief for a while before turning and looking up at Hiei. He shrugged and made himself comfortable on the branch he was sitting on.
"Like I said. We're screwed," Shuuichi muttered. He, too, curled up on the ground, trying his best to make himself comfortable. Shadow watched as Koji and Aya also lay down to sleep. Surprisingly, they didn't try to escape into the forest. They were probably saving that until everyone was asleep. Yusuke was the only one who hadn't given up yet.
"Oh, for God's sake..." Shadow muttered. Climbing the same tree as Hiei, she tried her best to make herself comfortable on one of the branches, but, not being as accustomed to sleeping in trees, she promptly fell out. Grumbling and cursing under her breath, she lay down with her back against the tree on the opposite side, so she was in the forest rather than the clearing. Yusuke wasn't about to give up. He was determined to not sleep in a tree, or on the ground in a cold, dark forest. He walked over to Youko and kneeled beside him.
"Hey Youko!" he whispered. The kitsune opened one eye.
"What?"
"I'll get you half an hour alone with Shadow if you get me out of this forest!"
"Oh, lovely. So you enjoy pain?"
"What?"
"Or perhaps you're subconsciously suicidal?"
"What?!"
"If you do anything like that, Shadow will kill you."
"No she won't. Hiei won't let her."
"Whatever happened to people saving their own lives?"
"What?"
"'Hiei won't let her'! How about, 'She couldn't hurt me because she's a pansy little girl, so just get me out of the forest so you can have your half hour!'"
"Uh... Okay, I can deal with that one, too," Yusuke said, confused.
"Good for you. But I can get my own time with her. Go away and let me sleep."
"But..."
"Away!"
"Youko, seriously, I've seen how you go about getting your time. You end up getting a crowbar slammed into your head!"
"Honestly, Yusuke, you don't know when to give up... Leave me ALONE!!!"
"STOP YELLING!" Shadow screamed suddenly. "YUSUKE, IF YOU TRY ANYTHING LIKE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TRY, YOU WILL BE TRYING TO PUT YOURSELF BACK TOGETHER, THAT'S WHAT!"
"See?" Youko said, smiling. He transformed into a fox and curled up with his tails over his nose.
"A spirit fox?!" Aya said, startled. "I've heard of them... But I never saw one before!"
"SHUT UP, I'M TRYING TO SLEEP! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SLEEPING, SO WOULD YOU JUST GO TO SLEEP AND BE SURPRISED ABOUT SPIRIT FOXES TOMORROW?!" Shadow screamed. "THANK YOU!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They all FINALLY managed to get to sleep (Hiei being the first, since he just zoned out of the screaming and arguing and yelling below him). The next morning they woke up to discover that Aya and Koji hadn't vanished off into the forest while they slept. Yusuke shook them awake.
"Hey forest freaks! Why didn't you vanish off into the forest like I know you were planning?"
"What? Damn! Aya, you were supposed to wake up in time to get us away before they woke!" Koji complained. "Now we're doomed to be kicked out of this forest!"
"YOUKO KURAMA, WAKE YOUR LAZY BUTT UP!!!" Shadow screamed, inches from the fox's ear. Youko, still in his fox form, leaped up and let out some yappy hissy noise. Then, seeing it was Shadow rather than some murderer, he stepped back and transformed into a humanoid.
"Good morning, Shadow. Sleep well?" he asked.
"Shut up, fox. Lead us out of here NOW. Your inspiration is that if you don't, you'll get your entire body ripped into shreds," Shadow snapped.
"She didn't sleep well," Hiei said from his place in the tree.
"Yes, so I noticed, Hiei. Okay, okay, so I'll stop the little nothing conversations! Follow me," Youko said.
"THANK YOU!" Shadow said. She grabbed Aya and Koji and pushed them out of the clearing after Youko. "Come on, tree-huggers..."
Eventually, they got back to Shadow's house. When they walked in the front door, Shadow discovered that Koenma had made himself quite comfortable.
The house was a mess.
"KOENMA, YOU LITTLE WITCH!" Shadow screamed. Koenma came sliding into the room on a wheeled swivel chair. Instantly, his eyes got the size of dinner plates and about 400 sweatdrops appears on his head.
"Oh, uh... Hi Shadow!" he said nervously. "I thought you were gone and lost and dead for sure!"
"Right. With these two around?" She pointed at Youko and Hiei.
"What about me?" Yusuke asked.
"Yeah, well you don't care enough about me to protect me."
"And we do?" Hiei asked.
"YOU BETTER!"
"We do! We do, don't worry, we'd protect you, yeah, so, uh... Not like you really ~need~ protected... I think you're pretty well off on your own," Hiei said with little upside-down U-eyes and an innocent smile.
"Glad you think so. Koenma, anyway, we brought back a couple demons that we found in MY forest, and I want to know something about them," Shadow said. She dragged Koji and Aya out in front of her. "Meet Aya and Koji. They're tree-hugging, life-lover, green-obsessed demons that were living in my forest for months without me knowing about it and without my permission."
"Aya and Koji? Never heard of them."
"Well, do you think you could possibly FIND SOMETHING OUT?!"
"What breed of demons are you?" Koenma asked.
"We're forest demons. We live in forests," Aya said.
"Duh," Koji whispered.
"We meant no harm by living there, but it's extremely large and nobody ever came around to get rid of us, so we though it was unclaimed land," Aya said.
"And did you have permission to travel from Makai to Earth?"
"Permission? From who?"
"AH! THEY'RE ILLEGAL ALIEN DEMONS!" Shadow screamed, jumping around. "ARREST THEM! ARREST THEM!!!"
"Why, Shadow? I didn't arrest ~you~ when you first came here illegally," Koenma pointed out. Shadow glared.
"I had a very good reason. Makai was a very cruel place and nobody there seems to like half-breeds. And besides, you posted a guard on me instead!"
"Guard? Like I really had time to guard you..." Hiei muttered. He then went into some long, drawn out complaining under his breath about how stupid the government system is and why should everybody who looks like they're old enough to go to school be forced to go to school and why didn't he just destroy the stupid school, not like it really would have been that hard, and how stupid living with Kurama had been {1}, and all sorts of other stuff that nobody except Youko heard because he was saying it quietly enough that all they heard was incoherent mumbles.
"Yes, well that's beyond the point. Aya and Koji, right?" Koenma said. The two demons nodded. "Well, I'm afraid I'll have to take you to Reikai with me until I can find out more about you."
"What?!" Koji cried.
Koenma rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, complain as much as you want; it won't do any good. Ah, yes, Shadow, I see you found Shuuichi. Good. Congratulations."
"She did no such thing. I'm the one who found him. She was too busy running from Youko to notice anything until she tripped over Koji, who was being quite rude and trying to kill me," Hiei said, finally snapping out of his under-the-breath complaining.
"Trying to kill you?" Koenma asked, startled.
"Yeah. He punched me. Boo-hoo. Not like it really hurt... Tree-hugging weakling..."
"You want something that hurts, Hiei Jaganshi?!" Koji snapped. "You want pain?! PAIN? YOU LIKE PAIN, HIEI JAGANSHI? HUH? DO YOU, HIEI JAGANSHI?"
"WOULD YOU STOP CALLING ME HIEI JAGANSHI?! IT REALLY GETS QUITE OLD AFTER, oh, like... THE FIRST TIME!!!" Hiei screamed.
"BACK TO REIKAI!" Koenma yelled. "BEFORE SOMEBODY BITES THE DUST!"
"Oh, speaking of biting dust, Youko killed a human," Shadow said.
"WHAT?!" Koenma yelled.
"Yes, of course, announce it to the one person who can get me in trouble for it, Shadow. Good going. Now I'm in trouble," Youko growled.
"Well, that ~was~ the point, baka fox," Shadow replied, smiling.
"Youko Kurama, you know it's against laws for any demon to kill a human! Wait. When and where did he kill a human?"
"Youko Kurama? The legendary bandit Youko Kurama? ~And~ the bandit Hiei Jaganshi? This is too weird," Koji muttered.
"Yes, the legendary bandit, the murder, the thief, the spirit fox who is supposed to be dead but as you can quite plainly see, isn't," Youko said.
"Though some of us wish he were," muttered Shadow.
"I heard that, girl."
"That's nice. Not like I said it all that quiet."
"WOULD YOU TWO SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME?" Koenma screamed.
"HE KILLED SOME RANDOM SURFER DUDE IN THE FOREST LAST NIGHT!" Shadow answered. "OKAY?"
"OKAY, YOUKO, YOU'LL NEED TO COME WITH ME, THEN! I KNOW YOU CAN'T BE PUNISHED PROPERLY IF WE'RE EVER GOING TO GET YOU BACK--" Koenma was cut off by a rather angry Shadow.
"KOENMA, STOP SCREAMING! TALK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, OKAY?!"
"OKAY! As I was saying, Youko, you need to come back to Reikai with me so I can decide what to do with you. Obviously I can't properly punish you, because if I were to do that, then I would have to keep you in prison for about 1,000 years because of all the things you've stolen over your life. But I'll just let those slip, because we are going to need to forget about all that if you're going to get recombined with Shuuichi here, right?" Koenma said.
"Recombined? That is something that's not on my list of things to do, Koenma," Youko informed him.
"Well, you haven't got a choice in this."
"Gee, thanks."
"You're welcome."
"Sarcasm, baka."
"That's nice."
"Right. Wait..." A thought struck Youko and he voiced it out loud. "If I'm going to prison, then Shadow will have a little vacation from me."
"WOOHOO!" Shadow squealed.
"But I'll be away from her... And the next time I see her, I'll probably be stuck back in the stupid human's body, right?"
"Woohoo?" Shadow said nervously.
"Koenma, could I have about fifteen minutes?" Youko asked.
"What? What for?"
"None of your business!"
"Say no. Say no! SAY NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Shadow begged. "HE WANTS TO HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH MEEEEEEEEE!!! SAY NO!!!"
"No."
"No what?" Shadow asked hopefully.
"No, Youko can not have fifteen minutes."
Youko narrowed his eyes and clenched his teeth. "Damn you, Koenma. Damn you to Makai and back."
"THANK YOU!" Shadow screeched. She almost hugged Koenma, but decided against it since she would probably squeeze him to death.
"Let's go, you three," Koenma said.
"Honestly, must I? I won't kill anyone else. Seriously," Youko said, hoping Koenma was feeling lenient.
"So?! You already killed one person, and that's enough."
"Damn."
"Now stop begging and get your stupid fox-tailed butt out the door."
"You can't honestly send me to prison."
"I can and I am, now STOP STALLING!!!"
Youko rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Shadow. This is just great. Just great! Perfect! I'll love you forever for getting me SENT TO PRISON!"
Obviously, he was being sarcastic. Shadow just smiled. An evil, evil smile. But a smile all the same.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
{1} A reference to my story, "YYH: The Meeting." Basically, Hiei and Shadow got sent to school with Kurama, and had to live with him for the entire school year. If you haven't already read it, go read that story if you don't understand or if it sounds interesting. Please.
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I am aware that I have gone like... way off the topic of the story. A bunch of randomness has happened, right? Well, I'm hoping that this chapter didn't seem pointless, cuz it won't be later in the story. Seriously. This chapter might seem like a complete act of random randomness where everything that happened was random, but it wasn't. Only the surfer dude was completely random. The rest has a point, okay? So don't get mad.
Get Glad!
No, I am not putting subliminal messages in my story. I am not promoting the use of Glad bags or whatever the heck Glad makes. Microwave containers or something. Just... Never mind. Just don't completely ditch out on me because my story is completely going off-topic... R&R to tell me what you think, please. The reason this story may seem to be floating off in la-la land is because school is evil, and I just write stuff that comes into my head, and hope that it will eventually make sense. Yes, I know that is a very haphazard way of writing, but it usually does work... Usually... Heh. ^_^;