Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, nor any of the characters. Except for Renka. But I'll gladly trade my OC for Hiei-chan!

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

By

Relick

"Yuusuke! What are you doing up here again!"

Yuusuke turned his head towards Keiko, who was now repeating the same lecture that she'd been reciting since the start of middle school.

"Takanaka-sensei is real upset. If you don't go to class, you'll fail out of the eighth grade. Then, you'll never get into a good high school, or get a good job. You can't depend on me for your entire life…"

At this point, Yuusuke usually began ignoring Keiko. But this time was different. He began ignoring her around the "Takanaka-sensei" part of her daily rant rather than the "you can't depend on me" part. It wasn't so much that he wasn't interested in what she had to say, and he really wasn't, but something had caught his eye.

Far out in the distance, he could see Botan flying on her oar towards them. And she wasn't alone. He could sense a strong youki coming closer as well.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll remember that," Yuusuke interrupted. "I'll be right back. Tell Takanaka I said hi." With that, he jumped from the roof of the school and headed toward Botan and the demon that was with her.

"Yuusuke wait!" Keiko started, but then changed her mind. "Who am I kidding? Like he's going to listen to me…"

Botan met up with Yuusuke at the school gate. Next to her stood a girl who looked to be about his age. She had a very powerful aura of youki and Yuusuke could feel it.

"Hi!" Botan said, a big smile on her face. "How are you doing?"

"Just cut to the chase, Botan. What is it that Koenma wants me to do?"

"Well, aren't we crabby? Fine then. All Koenma wants is for you to meet this young lady right here." She motioned toward the girl next to her. "This is Renka. Renka, this is Yuusuke."

"A pleasure," Renka said politely.

"Umm, yeah, hi." Yuusuke said absent-mindedly. A string of questions flowed through his head. Who was this girl? Why does Koenma want him to meet her? And what are her measurements?

Renka interrupted Yuusuke's perverted daydreaming. "You can stop staring now. Besides I don't think Koenma-sama would appreciate a relationship between his two detectives."

"Wha? Detective?"

Botan began to explain. "Yes, Renka-chan is another one of Koenma-sama's spirit detectives."

"I'm the protector of demon world," the demon detective said with a smile.

"So, what, do you destroy powerful humans who sneak into demon world or something?" Yuusuke asked.

"More or less. Usually, my job requires returning humans who accidentally slipped between the worlds home. But there's plenty of action!" she exclaimed, tossing her short, sapphire colored hair out of her face. "It's kinda fun."

"Well, it seems you two are good to go!" Botan said, seating herself back on her oar. "Renka will give you the details of your next mission. See ya later!" And she flew off.

"So what's this big mission that you have to tell me about?" Yuusuke asked as he swallowed a spoonful of ice cream. They had decided it would be easier to chat while sitting down, and Renka had wanted to try human food for a while. Yuusuke thought that the ice cream parlor would be the perfect place to talk.

"Well, iz a 'eally mportant azzignmen," Renka swallowed the ice cream in her mouth. "Mmmm, that is good! Sorry, I said it's a really important assignment. Y'see over the past few weeks several shinigami have been abducted by an unknown entity."

"Several?" Yuusuke interrupted. "You mean Botan's not the only one?"

"Of course not! In fact, there are ten shinigami within the human and demon worlds. Five for each realm. Get it?"

"I think so."

"Good. Anyway, recently the shinigami have been disappearing one by one, starting with the ones in demon world. Because of that, spirit world believes that a demon must be the cause."

"If it's happening in demon world, then wouldn't that be your department?"

"That's just the thing. This demon has entered human world."

Yuusuke leapt to his feet. "Human world? Then that means…"

"Yes, and two human world shinigami have already been ensnared. Your mission is to protect Botan from the kidnapper, at the very least."

"Shouldn't we warn her? Let her know that she's a target for this crazed demon?"

"We can't. Spirit world can't have one of their last shinigami worrying so much that she can't perform her day-to-day duties. You just have to protect her." Renka stood up and started toward the door. "Good luck! I'll see you later."

"Wait!" Yuusuke called after her. "Where are you going?"

"I…have to leave. I have an important mission of my own to worry about."

Yuusuke watched her leave. He soon became lost in thought, leaning back in his chair, thinking about all he and Renka had talked about. Suddenly, he snapped back into reality. I gotta find Botan before something happens to her!

ARRGH! I ended the chapter with Yuusuke thinking about Botan again! I feel so redundant and repetitive…

ANYWAY!

Presents to reviewers from my magic bag of tricks!

For dark elve princess: A sphere of inspirational magic so you can start writing fanfics too!

For Sky Dragon: A cool little contraption that instantly fixes any spelling or grammatical mistakes. Comes in every color imaginable!

For Ferriswheel: A Japanese-English dictionary!

Minna-san- everybody

Shinigami- gods of death

Youki- demon energy

Reiki- spirit energy

tatchi- a suffix added to a name to mean "and company" or "and the others"

sensei- teacher

This chapter was significantly longer than chapter one, but I'm very sorry that it's so wordy. I just kinda wanted to get the main case explanation out of the way, so nobody (myself included) is fumbling around in the dark, wondering why the heck Yuusuke-tatchi is even at this tournament. So I decided to start near the end of the story, so I'd have some time to figure out how to really start it, and freaked out when I had to get started on the actual beginning of the story sooner than I had hoped.

Well, that's all for now! See ya next time!