Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho plot or characters.
Thanks to reviewers: Poltergeist Report 101 – Thanks for the compliment and for hanging in there and reading the last chapter! Crystal Koneko – Glad you liked the last chapter! As for the chance of coupling Hiei and Botan…I'd love to try it but I absolutely stink at writing romance. Skitzo-phrenick and Tuatha Faerie both do a much better job at Hiei/Botan romances than I ever could, so I just leave in hints that Hiei likes her instead.
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDING THE CULPRITS
Kuwabara and Yusuke stood before the closed, locked gate of Koenma's castle. Without having to discuss it, they concentrated their spirit energy, Yusuke by pointing, Kuwabara by summoning his spirit sword, and blasted through the heavy gate.
Inside the courtyard they stopped, appalled. Dead ogres lay scattered all around. All were either red or blue skinned. Some had been blasted by spirit energy, but most had been stabbed. Miasmic cocoons like the ones that had enveloped Hiei and Kurama when they'd been dragged through the gate, lingered here and there over some of the bodies.
"Uh." a blue skinned ogre moaned. The miasma floating over him was faint, and beginning to shred into wisps and float away.
Yusuke was kneeling at his side in a moment. He could see at once that the ogre was dying. "Take it easy." he told the ogre, lifting its head a little off the ground.
The ogre squinted at him. "The spirit detective?"
"Yeah. What happened here?" Yusuke asked, noticing that Kuwabara had come up behind him, to stand with fists clenched in impotent rage.
"I don't know. The last thing I remember is Botan showed up and…"
"Botan?" Kuwabara burst out. "Then Kurama and Hiei did find her."
"No. I didn't see those two. Botan came in to see Koenma just as I was leaving. She was carrying a big bag. I thought she was bringing him a present, and I wanted to wait around to see it, but I had to go give a message to the guards. The next thing I know this smoke stuff starts pouring through the castle." The ogre paused to cough.
Yusuke's eyes darkened as he saw that the ogre was coughing up frothy blood. He held the creature until its coughs subsided and let it continue. "It was so weird. I was just thinking how much I wanted a snack break when that mist hit me and suddenly I was sitting down at a table eating! At least I thought I was. Then I felt this horrible pain, and I looked down and saw this sword being pulled out of me."
The ogre clutched at the wound in his chest, which set him to coughing again. "I really…wanted….that…snack." he wheezed. Then with a last hacking cough, he shuddered and lay still.
Yusuke gently used his fingertips to close the ogre's eyelids, and then laid the body to rest on the ground.
He rose slowly to his feet. The ogre's body lay on the ground before him. The last wisps of the miasmic cloud that once surrounded him had completely dissipated, making the body seem somehow more defenseless and pitiful. "I don't know who these guys are, but I'm going to get them." Yusuke promised the ogre softly.
"Yeah." Kuwabara agreed. "That goes double for me."
Skirting the body, they made their way to the castle's tall front door, kicked it open, and entered a long entry hall.
Pillars the size of thousand year old redwood tree trunks lined the walls, and the ceiling rose up to an angle, the center of which was carved to look like vertebrae. Bodies lay along the hall floor. The blue and red skinned ogre bodies were still, with no miasma hovering over them, but here and there a few green skinned ogres lay encased in miasma extending two or three feet outward on all sides of their bodies.
"Hey, Yusuke!" Kuwabara rushed over to two bodies lying by a pillar near the door. Twin sets of miasmic clouds hovered over them. Look! It's Kurama and the shrimp! Let's get them out of there."
"Kuwabara, wait!" yelled Yusuke, but it was too late. Kuwabara walked into the misty haze surrounding Kurama's body. Growling irritably, Yusuke followed, stepping through the miasma's edge, and stopped dead.
He was standing on a street lined with trees. It was a typical afternoon. Kids rode by on bikes. Smells of cooking came from the open windows of houses. Yusuke did a complete 180-degree turn. "What the…?"
Behind him the scene was fuzzy with haze. If he squinted, he could see, dimly, the faint outlines of Koenma's hall.
"Hey! Over here!" Kuwabara yelled, attracting Yusuke's attention. He walked over to the orange haired boy, who was standing on the sidewalk across the street. Just as he joined him, a small red van with "Tokyo Fire Department" emblazoned on the side pulled up to the curb and stopped.
The door opened, and a fireman got out. He was dressed in orange pants and jacket striped here and there with yellow reflective tape, and he was wearing the firemen's distinctively shaped white helmet. He waved to the other firemen still in the van, then turned and walked slowly up to a house two doors down from where Kuwabara and Yusuke stood.
The door opened before he reached it and two small children, a red headed boy and a little girl with light brown hair, both barely past the toddler stage, ran at him and tackled his legs. He placed his hands on their heads, tousling their hair as they grinned up at him.
A woman with layered light brown hair, the same color as the little girl's hair, came to the door carrying a dishtowel. The fireman raised a hand to remove his helmet, leaned forward and kissed her tenderly before herding the children into the house and closing the door behind them. It was Kurama.
Kuwabara stood with his mouth open for a moment, then sputtered, "I, you, hey, wasn't that? Did he just…?"
"Way to go Kurama." muttered Yusuke admiringly.
"Wait a minute. Kurama's not that tall, and we only saw the back of his head. It might be someone else." said Kuwabara doubtfully.
"With hair that red? Doubt it." Yusuke punched Kuwabara lightly on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's go check it out."
They made their way to the front door. Reaching it, Yusuke raised his fist to knock on it, lowered it sharply, and watched in astonishment as his fist disappeared through the door.
He pulled it back quickly, thrust it through again, and grinned at Kuwabara, who'd jumped back about a foot. "It's not solid."
Kuwabara paled. "What if we're not solid? What if we're ghosts?" he asked in horror.
Yusuke smirked. "Been there, done that. It's not so bad. Come on." he said, and walked through the closed door. Gulping, Kuwabara followed.
They came out into a small living area. Kurama, the older, taller version, lay on the floor on his back, lifting the little girl up and down over his head, to her delight. The little boy sat near his feet, moving a toy car, with all-engrossing concentration, over Kurama's feet.
The woman Kurama had kissed appeared from a doorway leading to the kitchen and walked through Kuwabara, who jumped again and shouted in surprise.
"Dinner will be ready soon." She smiled down at Kurama, who paused in lifting the child to smile back. Then the woman turned and walked back through Kuwabara to the kitchen.
"Are you sure we're not ghosts?" he demanded.
Yusuke squatted down by Kurama, and called out the fox demon's name.
The older Kurama didn't answer or pause at all. There was no indication that he'd heard a thing. Just to be sure, Yusuke waved his hand through Kurama and the little girl, and still got no response.
"They can't hear us or see us." he told Kuwabara flatly. "Let's go." He stood and strode back out through the closed door.
"Hey, wait!" Kuwabara ran after him, catching up with him at the sidewalk. Yusuke continued across the street and made for the misty, smudged looking area.
"There's nothing we can do here. If we want to snap him out of this, we're going to have to go after whoever put him under this spell." he told Kuwabara, ending the sentence as he exited the miasma.
Finding himself back in the hall, Kuwabara faltered a minute then followed Yusuke as he began walking away. He caught sight of Hiei, encased in his own miasmic cloud. "Shouldn't we check up on short stuff too?" Without waiting for an answer, Kuwabara steeled himself and walked into Hiei's cloud.
And out into a snowy alpine meadow. In the middle of the meadow a large green dragon was being turned into sushi sized portions by a very young looking Hiei. The younger version was still wearing black, but the white headband was gone. Behind him, clasping her hands together nervously, was a girl child with ice blue hair and red eyes.
Dragon disposed of; the younger Hiei knelt down by the girl.
"I will always protect you." he told her in a high, child's voice.
The girl smiled and held out her arms to be hugged.
At that point, Kuwabara stumbled backward as Yusuke yanked him out of the miasma by reaching in and grabbing the collar of his school uniform.
"Knock it off, Kuwabara. We don't have time to mess around. Someone's been going through and knifing the ogres stuck in those dream worlds. If we don't get whoever's causing the dreams, they could be stuck in them forever."
Kuwabara shook off Yusuke's hand. "Why aren't we stuck in them?"
Yusuke shrugged and set off again down the hall. "Who knows? Maybe because we're human."
They set off down the hall and came to a pair of very tall doors. Kuwabara paused and frowned.
"What?" asked Yusuke.
"They're there. I can sense them. I think it's a trap."
Yusuke smiled wolfishly, and after a moment, Kuwabara did too. Without further discussion, they charged and hit the doors head on.
Green ogres came at them from every direction once they hit the doorway. Fueled by their rage, Kuwabara and Yusuke fought untiringly, Kuwabara single-mindedly plowing through any opponent who got in his way, and Yusuke strategically taking out any ogres who appeared to be commanding others.
There was one greeenogre, slightly larger than the others, who stood behind a blue one in the center of the room. Because the larger one's head rose above the others' he made a tempting target, but it was the blue one who really caught Yusuke's attention, because it bore a striking resemblance to Jorge, Koenma's head blue ogre.
Yusuke fought his way toward them. The blue one panicked, shrieking orders to the green ogres to defend him as Yusuke came closer. Finally, the blue one turned and ran. The large green one stared after him, dumbfounded, then noticing how close Yusuke was, fled after the blue one.
Three green-skinned ogres charged Yusuke, attempting to block his pursuit, but he jumped forward, feet connecting with the center one's chest, and the other two went down with their leader like bowling pins.
He caught up with the pair as they tried to turn a corner and escape down another hall. The large green one dodged aside, stumbled and fell, causing the Jorge-like one to pause to look back and see what had happened. Yusuke shot a blast of spirit energy that hit him full in the chest.
The ogre howled, clutched at his torso and fell, writhing in pain. As he rolled around on the ground, Yusuke pointed his spirit gun again, then paused as the blue ogre's features shifted. The broad forehead and cheekbones that had made him look so much like Jorge narrowed, and his skin turned from blue to green.
"Shape shifter, huh?" Yusuke prepared to shoot again, but the ogre convulsed and lay still, so he turned to his right, where the larger green ogre had fallen, only to find he'd disappeared.
A small green ogre with pointed ears, only slightly larger than Koenma, was scrambling to its feet. Yusuke did a double take, glancing back at the now green ogre on the floor behind him, and realized what happened.
The little green ogre child was glancing furtively to either side, looking for an escape route. Yusuke straightened to his full height and glared down at it, challengingly. "Who're you, kid?"
The ogre child thrust his chin out. "I'm not a kid! I'm the Wishmaster!"
"Wishmaster huh? So what do you do, wish people to death? Wish you were taller?"
"Argh!" The little ogre stepped forward, tried to kick Yusuke in the shins, and landed on his behind when the boy moved aside, dodging the kick easily.
Yusuke squatted by the ogre, who sat up, rubbed his sore backside, and glared. "I bet you were scared of me before when I was bigger!"
"But you weren't bigger, were you?" Yusuke pointed out reasonably. "You just looked bigger." He nodded over his shoulder to the demon on the floor. "He do that for you?"
The little Wishmaster looked mutinous for a second, then nodded reluctantly. "That's Rolf. He can make himself look like anyone. And if you stand near him, he can make you look different too."
Yusuke's eyes narrowed. "He didn't happen to make himself look like a ferry girl with blue hair earlier today, did he?"
The ogre child's eyes widened in surprise, then glared. "Why should I tell you anything?"
"Because I'm not pounding your face into the floor." Yusuke told him. "Though that could change."
Kuwabara ran up at that moment. "Yusuke! Where'd you go? Hey. Who's the little kid?"
"I AM NOT A LITTLE KID!"
Yusuke stood to face his friend. "This is the Wishmaster. He says that shape shifter over there disguised himself as Botan. That's how they got into the castle."
"Hey, if he disguised himself as Botan, he had to have seen Botan." Kuwabara grabbed the ogre by the shirtfront and hefted him up to eye level. "Where is she, you little punk?"
"I don't know! I swear!" The ogre child cried out, kicking his feet in the air.
"Don't lie to me. That sleazeball must have kidnapped her so he could copy her." Kuwabara shouted.
Yusuke tugged at Kuwabara's sleeve. "Hey. Go easy on him. He's just a kid."
Kuwabara glared, but dropped the little ogre, who landed, once again, on its behind.
"Ow! Rolf only has to see someone once to copy them! He doesn't need to see them after that. Besides, he's not the one in…" The Wishmaster gulped, and stopped.
Eyes narrowed, Yusuke continued for him. "The one in charge, right? So who is that?"
"Uh, I have to go now." Wishmaster began scooting away on his rear, only to stop when he ran into Kuwabara's legs. Looking up, he saw the sandy haired teen glaring down at him, gulped, and stopped trying to get away.
"Where do you think you're going, short stuff?" asked Kuwabara menacingly.
"Spill it." Yusuke commanded.
The ogre child stared into his unflinching eyes, slumped his shoulders and conceded defeat. "He calls himself 'Enhancer'. I don't know his real ogre name. He had Rolf smuggle me in to Koenma's office. I had to be carried in a bag!" The ogre's voice took on an aggrieved tone. "It smelled bad and I could hardly breathe. But I did it. Rolf captured Koenma and then we went to open the side gate so the rest of us could get inside."
"Rest of us who?" asked Yusuke.
"The green ogres, of course." said the ogre child, as if it were obvious. "Green ogres never get a fair shake. It's always the blue or red ones who get the good castle jobs and the best land in Spirit World. We're finally taking back what's ours." he ended, sounding like he was quoting a line he'd heard often.
Kuwabara looked astonished. "An ogre is an ogre. Who cares what color they are?"
The small green ogre bristled, so Yusuke intervened. "Get on with it. You opened the side gate then what?"
"We let Enhancer and the rest of us come in. Most of us had painted ourselves blue so we'd blend in better since there aren't many GREEN ogres working in the castle." The child glared meaningfully at Kuwabara, then continued. "I stayed by Enhancer. He had me put a wish spell on everyone. He's so cool. I've only ever been able to show people their wishes for a minute or two at a time, and only the wish they happen to be wanting at that minute, but when he's around I can trap people in their wishes. Enhancer says when I'm older I'll be able to do even more!"
Kuwabara hunkered down on all fours by the ogre. "Wishes, huh?" He smiled wolfishly. "Then tell me what I'm wishing for right now."
Wishmaster shrank back in alarm. "I can't read humans, and I don't want to!"
"Knock it off, Kuwabara. We need more information." Yusuke stared down at the ogre child. "What happened next?"
"Enhancer walked me through the castle. I put everyone in a wish trance. Finally we got to Koenma's office and I put the big blue one, Jorge, in a trance too, then I did Koenma. He was a hard one. He kept wishing to kill Enhancer, but I didn't think Enhancer would like that so I went for the wish he was making when Rolf and I first walked in instead."
"How did you keep everyone in a trance?"
"Usually I couldn't, but that's what Enhancer does. He makes whatever power you have stronger. That's why Rolf could make me look bigger. I think he likes me more than Rolf though." The ogre smirked, self-satisfied. "Because when I put people into wish trances, Enhancer can draw off their spirit energy and use it however he wants."
"Then why'd he kill so many of them?"
For the first time, the little ogre looked a bit uncertain. "I think he finished draining their energy. Or maybe…" His voice lowered. "Maybe he just didn't like them very much. He really hates anyone who isn't green like us."
"That sick…" Kuwabara began, glowering.
The Wishmaster jumped to his feet. "Hey, it's a dog eat dog world. Kill or be killed. The Green ogres have to be strong if they want to survive."
Yusuke crossed his arms. "So you kill off all the blue and red ogres so only green ones are left and then what?"
The little ogre glanced back at the boy. "Then we take over the castle. We paint some of us blue and red so when Koenma's dad comes back he won't know anything's wrong. Then he'll go away again, and leave the castle to us."
"And what about Koenma?"
"Oh, Rolf was going to impersonate him. We figured we'd have months to study Koenma's moves, and Rolf's really good at copying voices."
Yusuke stared hard at the Wishmaster. "And what then? What was going to happen to Koenma once Rolf figured out how to be him?"
Wishmaster shrugged. "Kill him, I guess."
Yusuke lowered himself deliberately to Wishmaster's eye level and said, "You'd better hope nothing has happened to Koenma." When the ogre child gulped and began to look scared, Yusuke stood up and continued. "If anyone's going to kick that annoying toddler's butt, it's going to be me. Come on!"
Wishmaster blinked. "where to?"
"You put our friends into wish trances? Well, now you're going to get them out." He grinned at Kuwabara and the odd-looking trio, two tall boys and one short ogre, set off back down the corridor.
A short time later they stood before Kurama and Hiei. Wishmaster snapped his fingers, and the miasmic clouds wisped away like mist before a strong wind.
Kurama got to his feet first, looking a little groggy. Hiei stood more slowly, gathering his energy and standing in stages until he stood upright.
Yusuke quickly filled them in on the situation. "So, this Enhancer guy's got to be in Koenma's office. I say we go get him."
"Agreed, but what will we do if he uses Koenma as a hostage?" asked Kurama. "He'll be in a trance state, unable to defend himself."
"So what?" Kuwabara asked. He reached down and pulled the Wishmaster up into the air by his shirtfront, bouncing him negligently with the strength of one arm. "We got a hostage too."
"Let me down!" yelled the little ogre, kicking and punching at Kuwabara furiously, with absolutely no effect.
"Let him go." ordered Yusuke, feeling like a mom separating two fighting siblings. "He's on our side now, right?" Yusuke leaned over to glower at the Wishmaster, who nodded furiously. "When we get to the office, he's going to release Koenma from the wish trance."
The ogre grimaced angrily, but nodded.
"Then let's go." Yusuke turned and led the way. The Wishmaster came next, being dragged along by Kuwabara, with Kurama and Hiei following, walking side by side.
As Kuwabara dragged him away, the ogre child looked back at the two and smirked. "Enjoy your dream, fireman?" he asked Kurama. "Ow!" he finished with a yelp as Kuwabara shifted his grip and decided to drag him along by the ear instead of the upper arm.
"A fireman?" Hiei asked incredulously.
Kurama paused almost imperceptibly, then shrugged. "It was firemen who took my mother to the hospital the first time she collapse from her illness. I suppose I was…impressed by them."
"A fireman?" repeated Hiei, evidently still in shock.
Kurama sighed, and explained. "When mother first collapsed I didn't know what to do to help her, so I called the first emergency number she had written next to the phone. It was the fire department. They came immediately, and they knew exactly what to do. All I could do was stand back and watch. It was the first time I'd ever felt completely helpless in my human body. I suppose you could say they became my heroes. I've taken much in my life as a Youko thief. It was interesting to think of a job that gives back to people instead of taking from them."
"Hn." said Hiei, still unconvinced.
"And what was your wish?"
Before Hiei could answer, Kuwabara called out, "He was a little kid in a meadow playing with another little kid."
Hiei's expression darkened, and he reached for his sword as Kuwabara went on. "And the other little kid looked a little like my Yukina! She's my one true love, so find someone else to play patty cake with, shorty!"
"I will kill him." growled Hiei from between clenched teeth.
Kurama grasped his sword arm and reminded him in a low voice, "Remember, Kuwabara doesn't know that Yukina is your sister. Do you really want to tell him?"
Hiei considered a moment, and then dropped his hand from his sword. "The idiot may live another day.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR