Alright, I'm back again. Sorry I took so long to update. For those of you that don't know, my original 'Prisoners' fic was killed along with it's sequel a week ago, so I wasn't able to update for a while. Hopefully, that's the last time something like this will happen. So, here we finally go again. ON WITH THE FIC!!! :)

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Shuichi awoke with a start to the feeling of cold water on his face. He blinked and sat up, turning to see Sazume sitting next to him with a bright smile on her face.

"What happened?" he asked wearily, trying to recall what had caused him to faint.

"You had a bit of an overload, but Genkai says you'll be okay," Sazume explained.

'Genkai?' Shuichi wondered to himself, but the thought brought everything rushing back and he had to struggle not to faint again under the burden of all that information.

"Are you alright?" Sazume asked worriedly, her friend having gone suddenly pale again.

"Y-yeah. Fine," Shuichi muttered, trying to force a smile. His efforts to forge a smile proving futile, he turned his gaze to the others around him. He was sitting on the grass in front of Genkai's temple. Next to Sazume sat a bowl of water that he assumed she had used to wake him up. It was being used by another girl at the moment, however. She was rubbing her eyes, apparently trying to wash something out of them.

"That's better," she sighed as she lowered her hands and blinked at everyone around her. Shuichi had seen this girl before, right before he fainted. She had been standing next to Shu...er...Kur...um...his brother. Yes, it was much easier to simply refer to the green-eyed red head simply as 'his brother,' for now anyway. Prying his thoughts from his brother, Shuichi took another look at the girl. He had been too preoccupied with the news of his brother to take a good look at her before, and there seemed to be something out of place.

"That's my sister, Kairi," Sazume said, following Shuichi's gaze. He nodded, studying the girl who was now smiling at him. She certainly looked like Sazume's sister. Same smile, same blond hair, same...wait a minute. Her eyes, which at first glance had seemed so much like Sazume's were...no, they couldn't be! Shuichi blinked and looked again, thinking he had imagined it, wishing he had imagined it. But no, he hadn't. Her eyes were those of a cats! They were a deep turquoise with thin slits for pupils. And that wasn't all! Her hair was different too. It had some sort of pattern in it made up of white diamonds that met at a point in the center of her bangs. The center diamond was the longest, reaching the full length of the top of her head. The two outer diamonds were smaller, stopping at...at....CAT EARS!!! Shuichi gasped as he realized she had two, black cat ears perched on top of her head, the left one (Kairi's left) with a golden chain earring along the outer side. That was more then enough, but it still wasn't all that was different about this girl. Another few seconds of staring and Shuichi had discovered that she also had a black tail swishing patiently behind her. Poor Shuichi, this was simply too much for him. His eyes rolled back into his head once more and he fell forward into another faint.

"There he goes again," Sazume sighed as she caught her classmate and laid him back on the grass.

"Are you sure he's alright?" Kairi asked, leaning forward to get a better look at the incapacitated boy.

"Well how did you expect him to react? You have ears and a tail, that's not exactly normal!" Sazume cried in her new friend's defense.

"Oh...well..." Kairi muttered, turning to stare at her pitch black tail.

"You're sure this one has potential, old woman?" Akira asked Genkai, glancing skeptically at Shuichi.

"He put a hole in my wall," Genkai answered calmly, "which I just had repaired," she added.

"I really should have been the one to tell him," Kurama said quietly with a worried glance at his younger step-brother.

"Yes, you should have, but even knowing that he had high spirit energy, you wouldn't have said a word to him and you know it. You've kept your secret for too long to tell him because I said you should," Genkai said. Kurama narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

"Splendid! Stupendous!" a bubbly voice made them all look up. Kairi and Sazume gasped in surprise as they were met with the sight of a bright eyed, smiling girl with blue hair and wearing a pink kimono descending from the sky on an oar.

"You've passed the test with flying colors!" the blue haired girl exclaimed as she landed on the ground before them. She jumped off her oar, which vanished into thin air the moment she was off.

"Um...who are you and what are you talking about?" Kairi asked, blinking in surprise at the eccentric girl before her.

"Oh, where are my manors!" the girl exclaimed. "I'm Botan."

"Um...where you...flying?" Sazume asked, staring with wide eyes at Botan.

"Yep," Botan said with a nod, "It's part of my job."

"And that is...?" Kairi asked.

"I'm the grim reaper," Botan said simply. Kairi and Sazume both nearly fell forward in surprise.

"WHAT?!" they both cried.

"Why does everyone always react like that?" Botan huffed, looking slightly hurt.

"Oh...sorry, it's just, well..." Kairi tried to explain. "It's just that the grim reaper...I expected the grim reaper to act, well, more like Hiei," she said, earning an indignant "Hn," from Hiei.

"What test are you talking about, Botan?" Kurama asked, seeing that the conversation clearly wasn't going to return to that subject anytime soon without help.

"Koenma's test of course!" Botan chirped, receiving a number of blank stares.

"Koenma..." Kairi wondered out loud, trying to remember where she had heard that name before. "Isn't he the ruler of Spirit World?"

"That's what Yusuke said when he explained it all to me," Sazume confirmed.

"Koenma didn't give me any test," Kairi said, blinking in confusion at Botan once more.

"Of course he did silly! The frog you just cooked!" Botan explained.

"Whoa! Back up!" Kairi cried, taking a step back, "You mean to tell me that Koenma sent frog-legs to come try to kill me on purpose?!" Botan nodded.

"You mean that frog demon was the test?" Sazume asked. Botan nodded again.

"Why?" both Kairi and Sazume asked at once.

"To see if you were Spirit Detective material," Botan said matter-of-factly.

"But, isn't that job already taken?" Kairi asked. Sazume had said that Yusuke was Spirit Detective, hadn't she?

"So she was the one Koenma was talking about," Kurama said, more to himself then the group.

"Bingo!" Botan exclaimed with a renewed smile.

"But isn't Yusuke Spirit Detective?" Kairi asked again, annoyed that her question was being ignored and wondering who the 'she' was that Kurama was talking about.

"Yusuke is engaged to be married and no longer wishes to be Spirit Detective. Koenma has been looking for a replacement, and it seems he's found one," Kurama explained.

"Wait...me?" Kairi asked. Kurama and Botan nodded.

"You really think it's a good idea to put the safety of the human race in Sparky's hands?" Akira asked, having heard about Kairi's jump over the street.

"Hey!" Kairi protested.

"She has a point," Sazume said quietly, avoiding Kairi's eyes. "You're not exactly the most...rational person in the world."

"Who's side are you one?!" Kairi cried, glaring at her sister. Kairi sighed and turned back to Botan. "Let me see if I've got this straight. Frog-legs was some kind of test to see if I could be Spirit Detective, right?" Botan nodded.

"And I passed?" Kairi continued. More nodding.

"So...that means what exactly?" Kairi finished.

"It means," Botan said in a very important-sounding voice, "that Lord Koenma, gracious ruler of Spirit World, has decided to appoint you, Kairi Taragotta, the job of detective of Spirit World." Absolute silence followed this statement.

"Um...what exactly does a 'Spirit Detective' do?" Kairi asked, wondering how sane this girl who claimed to be the grim reaper was.

"I'm so glad you asked! Koenma said he wanted to see you to explain your first mission right away!" Botan said with a smile even bigger then her previous ones. Shuichi happened to pick that moment to wake up. With a groan, he opened his eyes to find the bright eyed, blue haired grim reaper peering down at him with her face uncomfortably close to his. Needless to say, he was surprised. With a startled cry he scrambled backwards, blushing furiously.

"Don't I know you?" Botan asked, straightening up.

"N-no," Shuichi stuttered, still blushing.

"He's my brother, Shuichi," Kurama explained, trying to suppress a laugh.

"Ah yes, that's right! I knew I'd seen you before!" Botan said, completely oblivious to Shuichi's discomfort. "You'd better come too."

"C-come? Come where?" Shuichi asked, the redness finally starting to drain from his face.

"To see Koenma!" Botan exclaimed. Shuichi just blinked up at her.

"Did I miss something?" he finally asked, turning to stare at Kurama.

"You might as well come," Kurama said with a sigh, extending a hand to help his brother up. "I'll explain everything on the way."

"Actually, you won't have time," Botan said before turning to Genkai and asking, "Do you have a large mirror anywhere?"

"Yes, what for?" Genkai replied, somewhat surprised by Botan's request.

"Yume has a new system that allows us to travel right to her laboratory in Koenma's palace through any mirror here in the human world," Botan explained.

"Who's Yume?" Kairi asked. She glanced at Kurama, but he didn't seem to know either.

"You'll meet her in a few minutes," Botan said as Genkai began to lead the way to the temple. "If we don't get there soon, Koenma will get cranky," she added in a worried tone. "Hiei, you and Akira are to come too!" Botan called over her shoulder at the two shorter demons who weren't following her. Hiei grunted, but wasn't in the mood to argue with the overly-happy Botan. Akira didn't protest either, but looked annoyed at being ordered around.

"Here we go!" Botan exclaimed as they were lead to a large mirror in one of the temple's rooms that was three feet tall and at least six feet wide. Botan dug into the folds of her kimono and produced what looked like a compact. She flipped it opened to reveal that it was some kind of communication device.

"Ready whenever you are," she said into it.

"Alright, be prepaired for a bit of a head-rush," a voice came threw the tiny speakers. There was an image of whoever was speaking on the compact's tiny screen, but Botan closed it before Kairi or any of the others could see who it was. It was soon driven from their minds, however, as the mirror before them began to give off a faint, bluish light.

"Now be careful and try not to land on me when you get threw," Botan said, reaching out a hand. Her fingers melted into the mirror, her arm soon following, and in less then ten seconds, she was gone. Kairi gaped at the mirror while Sazume and Yukina did the same, Shuichi looked about to faint again, Kurama and Genkai simply stared calmly at it, and Hiei and Akira seemed to take no interest in it at all.

"Well," Kairi said after a moment of nervous staring, "nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?" Swallowing in fear, she stepped up to the mirror and extended a shaky arm, just as Botan had done.

"Careful," Sazume said from behind her, watching her sister fearfully.

"Aren't I always?" Kairi replied with a nervous smile. With one final breath, she plunged her fingers into the mirror. The mirror gave way and swallowed her fingers, feeling like warm putty against her skin. She didn't have to worry about working up the courage to step all the way through, however, because the mirror automatically began to suck her in. She watched fearfully as he arm was swallowed as well, all the way up to the shoulder. With a startled cry, she tried to pull back, but the mirror wouldn't let go. It continued to pull her in and, seeing there was nothing that she could do, Kairi squeezed her eyes shut as her head was submerged in the goo.