Chapter 3

Author's note: For those who don't know:

Ningenkai – human world

Youkai – demons

Makai – demon world

Reikai – spirit world (though not mentioned yet)

Yuusuke woke up the next morning, to find himself lying on the floor, the blanket he'd used twisted sharply around a good portion of his body. Giving a complaint that was halfway between a yawn and a groan he rolled around a bit, trying to get loose. When he finally managed, he wiggled out of the blanket the rest of the way and just settled to sitting on top of it on the floor, giving another big yawn.

"You humans sleep too much."

"Good morning to you too, cheery," Yuusuke remarked sarcastically. "How long have you been standing there waiting for me to wake up?" Yuusuke looked up and regarded the shorter, black haired boy with a dry look. "Too long, right?"

Hiei simply nodded from where he was leaning against the wall next to the tv.

"Fine, fine, ruin my morning with your bad attitude. What do you want?" Yuusuke stood up and ran a hand through his hair, yawning again as he made his way toward the kitchen. He didn't have to check to see if Kurama was asleep. That was the nice thing about a studio apartment, you knew where people were. Because if he couldn't see Kurama, he knew he was still in bed, the only part of the room that was slightly blocked off. So he wandered quietly to the kitchen and started numbly searching for some form of breakfast food that would taste good with little work.

"He showed up last night."

Yuusuke blinked sleepily and looked over his shoulder. "Who? I'm human, Hiei, remember? Not psychic. Names would be nice."

"The fox."

Yuusuke stopped in mid-movement and turned back to look at him. "The fox? When?"

"Last night, while he was sleeping."

"Wait wait wait. Hiei, you're telling me that last night while Kurama was sleeping he changed forms? How could he do that? He doesn't even remember that part of himself."

"He did it. Not fully, but he started to. He woke up a moment later, so he didn't see it."

Yuusuke gave a sigh of relief. "Thank god I don't have to deal with that heart attack yet. I still don't know how I'm going to explain that part to him. Losing your memory is one thing, that's enough to explain about normal life. But how the hell am I supposed to explain to him that he's actually a demon fox who decided to grow up inside of a human body to escape some crazed demon hunter? I am not looking forward to that."

"You will have to explain it to him. Before he changes."

"And you'll have to explain the fact that your forehead bulges out and that you have a moving tattoo on your arm," Yuusuke countered, earning him a glare. "You used the eye-thingie last night, right? What did you find out?"

Hiei shrugged a bit and pulled himself up on what passed for their kitchen table, unconsciously swinging his feet a bit. "He's still in there, but you know that from him almost changing."

Yuusuke nodded. "So what's up then? Is it some demon world thing that decided to say 'hey, you aren't allowed to remember'?"

"No. He's perfectly normal. The fox seems to be sleeping, but that doesn't make sense since he almost changed last night."

"Unless if that's the reason why he couldn't completely change."

Hiei nodded. "There is that. But that doesn't explain the memory loss. Why would he lose his memory as a human if it were just the fox falling asleep?"

Yuusuke frowned in thought for a moment, trying to process those thoughts. He knew what Kurama was, well, mostly. And he knew what Hiei was, mostly. But beyond that, like what to do with demons, that was completely past him. Even if he had listened in school, they didn't ever explain things like that. Hell, most humans still insisted demons didn't exist or they were all attached to some religion or another. He only had two sources for information, and one was currently out of it.

Getting information from Hiei was like pulling teeth.

Yuusuke threw his arms up in the air and dropped back into a chair. "I give up, you are all too complicated. Why can't it be something simple like having too many limbs and breathing fire like 'real' demons are supposed to have. But noooooo, you have to have memory problems and different forms. I quit."

"Our other option is to ask her," Hiei responded dryly, apparently not bothered by Yuusuke's frequent outbursts.

That got a reaction. Yuusuke nearly fell out of the chair in his rush to stand up and ended up slamming his side into the table. He winced and held his waist. "No. No No no and double no. I will not deal with her again!"

"Not even for your Kurama?" Now Hiei's voice held a tone of teasing.

"You get some sort of pleasure out of getting me to talk to her, don't you? I am not speaking to that psychotic peppy lunatic again! Never."

Hiei jumped down from the table and headed for the door. "Then I'll have to ask her to make a house call."

"The hell you will!"

"If you want to get Kurama fixed, then this is the way we do it. Kurama is not human. Your human doctors are not going to be able to fix this."

Yuusuke sighed and sat back down. "Do we have to jump to that conclusion already?"

Hiei simply nodded and continued to head for the door.

"Fine, fine. I'll go give her a visit today, after he wakes up."

Kurama woke up an hour or so later and after a peaceful and very civil seeming breakfast together, Yuusuke set about trying to figure out how he was going to explain the odd little visit they had to make to his best friend. Especially that since, after the accident, his friend seemed to think the world around him was a perfectly normal place with nothing supernatural in it at all.

Yuusuke had learned otherwise the first time he'd met Kurama. It was just a little more then ironic to realize that it was his job to reintroduce Kurama to this side of the world that most people never saw. Humans weren't the only intelligent creatures on earth, they were just the most dominant. Many other creatures existed, most choosing to keep a low profile because humanity had shown time and time again that it didn't accept those who were different. And there were some, who were very, very different.

One example being the girl who lived down the street. Her name was Botan.

Yuusuke had had the unfortunately opportunity to meet Botan while wandering around with Kurama one day to school, and meeting up with Hiei. At first glance Botan seemed to be one of those girls who was simply a little more bubbly and bouncy then most teenage girls. She didn't quite make it into the cheerleading group, because she was just a bit too bouncy for even them. And she certainly didn't fit into any other real group either, just standing out and being too noticeable for anyone's comfort level.

With normal height and blue hair that somehow managed to look natural on her, she certainly did stand out. Her light blue hair set off the pink tint in her eyes that didn't look unhealthy, but didn't look normal either. Contacts and hair dye only explained it to people who had actually convinced themselves they really didn't want to know the truth. But for a boy that dated a fox demon and hung out with a pissy fire demon, he knew they weren't contacts or hair dye.

And true to Botan's nature, she attached herself quite happily to the first human who accepted her for what she was, and didn't run away screaming.

Yuusuke hated her from that day on.

It wasn't that Botan was a bad person, it was simply that she was too good. She was one of those people that was always happy, always smiling, always had an explanation and just always everything. It drove him insane, and he could certainly live without the constant tight hugs that nearly tackled him to the ground every time he was forced into visiting her.

Yuusuke tried his best to explain this all to Kurama in the most unshocking way possible.

"She's a bit weird."

Kurama raised an eyebrow at him at that as their bus arrived at their stop. Because of the accident they'd both opted to ride the bus in spite of the fact that it was still in perfect condition. It was just more comfortable.

"How weird?"

"Well, she knows things. Weird things. Things people shouldn't usually know, and she's well… it's just really hard to explain unless you meet her."

That earned a smile from Kurama and he stood up, stepping off the bus with Yuusuke. "Who'd you meet her through?"

"Actually, you were the one who introduced me to her," he said, placing his hands in his pockets as they headed toward the tall apartment building.

"Me?"

"Yeah. Don't worry, I'll pull her off and explain the situation, but she might be able to help a bit. Just umm… she'll probably try and jump forward and hug you as soon as she sees you. She usually does that."

"Warning taken."

The two of them climbed the stairs without saying much more, then finally arrived at Botan's door, which was cutely decorated with a 2-dimenional figurine of a witch flying on what looked more like an oar then a broom stick. Yuusuke rolled his eyes at the new decoration and knocked on the door, placing his finger over the peep-hole.

Movement inside and a moment later the door opened to reveal Botan standing there in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, a baseball bat pulled up and ready to hit. Yuusuke automatically ducked, watching her with wary eyes and a big grin. Covering her peep hole and making her paranoid was the only way he'd discovered to get around being hugged right away. Of course, that usually meant dodging a baseball bat.

"Yuusuke! How many times have I told you to not cover up my seeing hole!"

"Every time." Yuusuke said with a grin, standing back up as if it were nothing. "Missed you too Botan."

"Hmph." She turned and set the bat down by the door, then turned back to him and smiled as soon as she saw Kurama. And, like clockwork, the next second she was jumping forward and hugging him, nearly squealing in excitement. To his credit Kurama gave her a small hug back, but Yuusuke could tell how uncomfortable he was from the look on his face.

Botan seemed to have noticed too, because a second later she pulled back and gave him a strange look. "Kurama? Something happened to you…"

Yuusuke jumped in and grabbed her arm. "Hey Botan, do me a favor, come here for a second. This'll just take a moment." Then he pulled her into her own apartment.

"Make yourself at home," she called out back to Kurama as she allowed herself to be pulled into the kitchen, the half door swinging back and forth on it's springs until it closed.

As soon as they were out of earshot, she pulled her arm away from Yuusuke and gave him a scolding look. "What was that? Or rather who was that? That's not Kurama, he's human!"

Yuusuke opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. "Wait, backup, what? He's human?"

Botan nodded, crossing her arms. "There isn't a single speck of youkai power in him. He's more human then you are Yuusuke, what the heck happened to him?"

Yuusuke swore and dropped down into one of the two chairs next to the kitchen table. Botan perched on a stool by the stove, waiting for an answer.

"There was a bike accident. We were riding like normal and then suddenly he wasn't on the back of my bike, he was lying on the road. But he didn't fall off. It was like he disappeared for a moment. And when he woke up, he doesn't remember anything. And he thinks he's human."

"Well, he is. Completely."

"Is that even possible? How do you turn a demon into a human?"

Botan moved across the room and pulled herself up on the table next to Yuusuke, abandoning the stool. "There's a couple of ways that it might be possible, but to be honest I've never seen or heard of it done successfully. One would be to completely drain him of all his youkai power. Which is really really hard, believe me. The only other way, would be to find a way of locking it all away, so well that not even he could touch it. But I don't have the faintest idea of how that would be done either."

"Is it fixable? Tell me it's fixable Botan."

She shrugged. "Not by me and not really by any of the youkai here in the Ningenkai. You're talking about a huge thing Yuusuke. You should know that all the demons here in this world are relatively weak, that's why we could slip through the barrier that separates the worlds. Anyone or thing that has the type of power to fix him would be back in the Makai."

Yuusuke groaned. There couldn't be a worse answer then that. Because it meant that in order to fix Kurama, they had to start considering a trip back to the Makai, the demon world. Yuusuke had never been there himself, but he'd heard enough to know that it certainly wasn't a place he wanted to visit. And it certainly wasn't a place he wanted to spend an extended amount of time in to find whatever healing guru could fix Kurama's problem.

"We can't take him back there."

Botan shook her head and sighed. "You're right, we can't. Maybe as a youkai, definitely not as a human. He probably wouldn't survive the trip through the gateway, and neither would you."

"So then what's our choice?"

"Simple. We find who did it. Because we know they have to be here, in the ningenkai, with us."

"Shit."

Botan nodded. "Indeed." She turned and glanced at the wall, in the same direction as where Kurama was probably sitting in the living room. For a moment she seemed to consider something, and actually look thoughtful, then that moment disappeared and Botan jumped off the table smiling brightly. "Well, I should go entertain my guest. Yuusuke, don't touch the food in my kitchen."

"Wouldn't want to, it's probably poisoned," he responded in a sullen voice, sliding out of the chair himself to stand. He was rewarded with a sour face from her and then she walked into the living room to speak with Kurama, Yuusuke followed slowly, his hands shoved in his pockets.

Why was his life so damn complicated right now? He'd thought Kurama losing his memory was bad enough. But he hadn't even considered the possibility that whoever or whatever did this was here in the human world. How powerful did a demon have to be to seal powers and memories. The answer?

Too damn powerful for Yuusuke to ever want to deal with.

His life just kept getting worse and worse, and he really wasn't looking forward to how this would all turn out. More likely then not he'd get his ass kicked.

"Why can't I just go back to dealing with annoying idiots like Kuwabara trying to kick my ass every day. But nooooooooooo, I had to go and get a demon boyfriend. Bloody hell."