Disclaimer: I don't own anything except this fic and the mind that helped me right this useless drivel. Flames are encouraged. If you choose to flame, please give me a reason for the flame.


Yusuke threw himself down on his couch. He raised his large brown eyes to Botan. "So when's Diaper Brain's going to tell us what our mission is? He usually gives us a vague idea of what's to be expected, right?"

Botan narrowed her lavender orbs at him. "Don't disrespect Lord Koenma. How many times must I remind you, Yusuke?"

"Probably a million more times." He winked and rapped lightly on his skull with his knuckles. "Hear that? The echoing sound? That means there's nothing inside this head of mine. I'm not the brightest light, remember?"

The deity stifled a giggle. "Yes, I remember. How could I forget?" She sat beside Yusuke, watching with a grimace as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He took one out and began to smoke it. She wrinkled her nose and inched away. "Can't you do that at another time?"

"Nope." He crossed his arms behind his head and began to smoke it slowly and deliberately blowing the exhaled smoke in Botan's direction.

Botan rose, about to make a comment about it. Her communicator began to beep. She flipped it open. "Yes Koenma?"

The toddler prince clutched a pile of papers and shook them at her via the communicator. "There seems to be a little catch with the mission." He chewed nervously on the pacifier. "I don't know exactly what I can do… Bring Yusuke over and we'll discuss this." The screen to the compact communicator went black.

Botan closed it. "Come on, Yusuke. We have to go talk to Lord Koenma in private."


"So there's a catch, huh? What is it?" Yusuke asked, sitting down in one of the chairs before Koenma's desks. He narrowed his eyes. "If this is one of your stupid tricks to get me motivated or scared, I'm not buying it."

Botan rolled her eyes in frustration at the teen. "Yusuke! Shut up and let him talk!"

Koenma shuffled through a stack of papers and yanked a sheet out that looked like it had been trampled in the dirt and chewed on a few times. "This is a report we found on one of our Reikai spies."

"Found?" Yusuke asked.

"Found…as in we were identifying dead bodies. Inside one of the pockets, we found this. We're guessing this person managed to get into the thieves' inner circle before getting found out." He sighed heavily. "This is really hard to read. It took us about a weak to decipher the smeared writing."

"Great. So what does it say?"

"It talks about a man named Karasu. He's the leader of an operation to find priceless artifacts and sell them to the black market. The black market then puts it into the human market for twice the price. The problem is that these priceless artifacts were made by demons…some of which are extremely dangerous when used by a naïve human."

"Artifacts like….what, a necklace?"

Koenma nodded. "Yes. It can be a simple necklace but the necklace may do something as simple as…say…attracting a mate to the most extreme…to maybe destroying the world."

"So you're saying both are bad?"

"Yes, but the latter is worse. The first messes with the mind too much. I've had past reports of people committing suicide because they weren't chosen to be the wearer's mate. Suicide is a messy business. We have to study each case to see if the suicide was for a noble cause, allowing them to enter heaven or if they go to hell for it. The latter is much worse. Destroying the world leaves a void," Koenma explained.

He hopped up and clapped his hands. Immediately two ogres came in dragging a chalkboard into the room.

Yusuke sighed in boredom and allowed himself to sink into the chair, showing his obvious lethargy for the explanation.

Koenma frowned at him. He grabbed a stress relieving squishy in the shape of a cow off of his desk. He chucked it at Yusuke's head. "Pay attention!"

Yusuke glared at the toddler. "Get on with it then!"

"So like I said. Destroying the world leaves a void." He drew three large circles on the board. He labeled one Ningenkai, another Reikai, and the other one Makai. "See these? There are three worlds as you can tell. You can only destroy one of these at a time. So whichever world that gets destroyed leaves an open hole on the earth….an open portal. Lets say Ningenkai was destroyed."

He scribbled through the circle labeled Ningenkai. "Everyone and possibly everything on the Surface World is dead, right? So a portal is opened." He drew a star a few centimeters away from the scribbled out Ningenkai. "Supposedly this is a portal. The portal is seen in both Makai and Reikai. Creatures from either world can come into this place and claim it as their own." He drew lines from the star to the Makai and Reikai circles. He drew stick figures under the Reikai and Makai circles.

"See these? These are monsters…people, animals—whatever—from each world. They'll come to this destroyed Ningenkai and a war will be made over it. Kamisama, me, Dad, Botan and everyone else that works at Reikai head quarters won't be able to bring the humans back. They need bodies and we only have the souls. That's going to be a big issue."

Yusuke nodded. "You guys must have a lot of time on your hands."

"No. This is what the elders said would happen if the world is destroyed. They can be right. If they aren't, then maybe all three worlds go KABOOM all at once. End of that." He shrugged. "So we need to get this man…" He squinted at the paper. "Karasu. We have to find Karasu and stop all his excavating for magical jewels and other trinkets." He turned to Botan. "Did you get all that Botan?"

Through all this, Botan had zoned out, which meant she had heard absolutely nothing. She was studying her peony shaped necklace, admiring the way the center seemed to fade into no color at all then suddenly darken to a beautiful shade of purple. She smiled to herself, dreaming of what sort of man she would hope to attract. She wanted him to be handsome…so handsome that the preppy girls at her school would be jealous of her. That would show them.

Her mind drifted off to her dreams. If she did meet the fox-like person of her dreams, what kind of person would he be? Would he be the nice angelic man as she had dreamed or would he be as sadistic as the demons they had to hunt down in work? She frowned at herself. Such thoughts like this were bad. It was wrong to love a demon. They were cold-hearted creatures, incapable of loving, right?

But if this was true, then why was it that a demon appeared in her dreams rather than a human?

"Botan….Botan? Contacting Botan! We request that you return to Earth sometime in the next ten seconds….if not, a meteor is going to crash into your spacecraft," Yusuke said. He cupped his hands around his mouth, making it sound like he spoke through a megaphone. He began to count down. "Ten….nine…"

Koenma looked at Yusuke then back at Botan. This was going to be interesting.

"Three…two…one… AHHHHHH! A meteor!" Yusuke smacked Botan lightly on her head. "There. Now wake up!"

Botan was snapped out of her reverie. She glared at him. "What was that for?"

"You were day dreaming. Only I can do that." He quickly repeated what Koenma had to say.

"Karasu? That's it? What's the catch then," Botan asked the toddler prince.

"Supposedly this was all in their plans. They want us to come. They weren't stealing things only for profit." He looked sympathetically at the Spirit Detective and ferry girl. "They want to fight you—and possibly kill you, Yusuke."

"Sounds like fun," Yusuke remarked sarcastically.

"So I don't know what to do," Koenma admitted. "It's not that I favor you, Yusuke," he said quickly, "But retraining another Spirit Detective is going to be a royal pain in the ass."

An ogre rushed in. "Sir! Sir! We got someone calling in!"

"What? From where?" Koenma said. He hopped onto his desk.

"Makai. It's from Karasu….I think."

"Turn it on!"

The ogre pushed a button on the giant t.v. screen. Immediately a picture popped into view.

A man with blonde hair smiled down at the woman before him. "Look, Chad isn't good enough for you. I am. He won't treat you the way you deserve."

The woman looked at him. "Oh…and you can?"

"Baby, I'll do anything for you. Anything!"

The woman smiled at him. "Good. That's what I wanna hear." She moved towards him, opening her arms, beckoning him into her embrace--

Koenma jumped up and changed the channel. "Sorry. I was watching something on this channel earlier on," he said with a tell-tale blush rising on his cheeks.

Yusuke smirked and flashed Botan a "Yeah right" look.

Now a man sat lounging on a love seat. His legs were propped up on a coffee table. His ankles were crossed on it. His face was covered by the brim of a hat. On his lap lay an open book.

"Hello?" Koenma asked.

The man uttered a snore.

Everyone in the room fell over anime style.

"Hey, moron! Wake up!" Yusuke snapped.

The man jumped awake. He pushed his hat back and smiled at the screen. "Sorry…I fell asleep waiting for someone to answer." He rubbed at his eyes and shook his raven hair away from his face.

"Are you Karasu?" Koenma asked. He had read in his report that Karasu had the same dark hair.

"Me? Karasu?" The man glanced at either side of him. Bat wings flexed before settling back into position. "Do these look like crow wings? I think not." He crossed his arms across his chest and smiled a charming smile. "No. I'm not Karasu, but I have a message to you from him….if you want to hear it."

"Tell us or I'll wring your neck," Yusuke said.

Botan stared at the man in awe. He was obviously a demon…but he wasn't what the stereotype suggested. He was gorgeous in a teasing way. Raven hair…blue eyes so dark that it looked almost black sometimes or almost a purple. Those bat wings were a little distracting, but

"I'd love to see you try, human." The man pulled a red pendant out and began toying with it. "But I'll tell you anyway." He smiled again. "Karasu has a little suggestion when you, the Spirit Detective, goes to fight against one of our thieves."

"Why can't Karasu tell us in person and who's the thief?" Yusuke asked.

"Karasu doesn't want you to know who he is. Besides, I'm much better looking. He might scare you," he said roguishly. "As for the thief, I don't know who he or she is." He narrowed his cobalt eyes at Yusuke. "Now no more stalling. Karasu asks that you bring along the ferry girl. If our thief wins, both of you belong to us. If you win, we'll turn ourselves in willingly."

Botan started. "Me? Why me?"

The demon shrugged. "There's no telling with Karasu. So are you up to it, Koenma?"

"Of course we're in! But when Yusuke beats you guys, I want each and everyone of you to destroy every artifact you ever sold and then turn yourselves in!" Koenma said.

The demon spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Yes, yes, of course. So we all agree?"

Koenma looked at Yusuke who nodded confidently then to Botan who agreed slowly. "Yes. Agreed."

"See you in a few weeks, then."

"Wait—a few weeks? Why?" Yusuke asked.

"You may want a while to train your Spirit Detective. He isn't strong enough." With that, the handsome demon ended the transmission.


According to you reviewers, most of you say that 3rd person POV is better. I'll continue this story on in 3rd person then! Thanks for taking time out to review.

=== Here's something you readers can help me with. I want to use a few more names for the 'concubines' as Volpone calls them. But unfortunately, I have no imagination. If any of you have any ideas for a girl that I can use as a 'concubine', please give me details: eyes, hair, specie, and if you want, you can choose who's 'concubine' she will originally belong to. You can have her belong to the demon in the screen, Youko, Karasu, or Botan. Your choice, but I need characters.

So who knows who the new demon was? It was a dead give away, people—especially to those of you who watched EVERYTHING that has to do with YYH. That includes movies too, k?

Spoonerific: I'm glad you like the way I like Karasu. I try my best. As I've said before I CANNOT be your literary goddess. I'm not good enough! But thanks all the same.

DarkShadowWriter: A bit rushed you say? Could you elaborate so I can see what you mean? Thanks for your review!

Pretty nutter: Then 3rd person POV it is! It's easier too. Thanks!

Volpone:Color? No. I meant ACTOR, not color. But that's ok. I like blue personally. I'm pretty normal…maybe too normal! Yes, there might be a little KarasuxBotan in it. But if you have anything in particular you want concerning KarasuxBotan, then I'll use it if possible! Now can YOU guess who our new character in this chapter was? Of course you can! But my problem might be keeping him in character since I know very little about him. You know, how he talks, and all that. I hope I don't screw it up!

Miyako14: ::blush:: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy. Don't worry. YoukoxBotan-ness will come soon. Just be patient!

Ame no kodomo:Whichever POV you say? Third person is easier and it helps portray more people, but I may use 1st person POV sometimes. I enjoyed writing from Karasu's POV. He creeps me out but I love him just the same.

Conspiring against me: Thanks! I know either POV may seem good, but 3rd is easier for me. And most people suggested 3rd so there it is! Thanks for your review.

Keirin-sama: I updated! Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Thanks for the reviews!