I made so many notes while writing this. So many.

07: in which yusuke plots

"It says here that he likes to take television remotes apart," Jorge read desperately from El Zorromancer's file. "Diverse hobbies, this one."

"Television remotes?" Botan asked, sounding bewildered. "When does he find time to do this between all the raising of the dead and fixing up their bodies and opening the hells and putting souls back and I don't know what else?" This was all on one breath.

Koenma eyed her severely. "Botan. Breathe." When this task was completed, he screamed, "Where have you been?"

"Don't be too hard on her, Koenma-sama," Yukina told him. "We just dug her up a little while ago."

"Dug her up?" Koenma asked, deflating.

Yukina and Kuwabara both nodded, though Botan looked uncertain. "I...well, I remember getting thrown down that hole, and something fell on me, and after that all I can recall is waking up again."

"They threw you into an outdoor cellar, then kept tossing trash cans down on you until you were buried," Kuwabara explained. "I'm guessing it was yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Botan asked, alarmed. "But I didn't go anywhere yesterday."

Koenma coughed. "Botan, it's been nearly a day and a half since you left my office."

"Oh," said Botan. "Well, that certainly changes things. So what's this talk about the hells breaking open?"

"It's not talk," Koenma began. He explained the trials and tribulations of the past day and a half relatively briefly, concluding with, "Now that we've found you, we can concentrate on finding our necromancer."

"Actually, we can't really focus on that alone," Yukina said, scuffing one foot on the floor shyly. "You see, it's starting to look like a demon who used to be dead in the conventional sense is up, walking around, and attacking us. What's to say more won't follow?"

"And not only that," Kuwabara burst in. "It's Karasu who's back, and somehow I don't think he lost the obsessive personality while being buried in rubble for however long it was."

Koenma's eye twitched. "Wonderful. Just what I needed. If anyone else of that calibre shows up, notify me immediately. So where are the others?"

"We were split up," Yukina explained. "Karasu detonated a charge of some sort in the middle of our group."

"You look remarkably well for having had a bomb go off in your faces," Koenma pointed out.

"Oh, well, we ran away from it first. That helped," Kuwabara told him.

"A good idea, that," Koenma said approvingly. Botan and Jorge both looked greatly put-upon. "Well, it is," he objected.

"So what should we do now?" Kuwabara asked plaintively.

Koenma shrugged. "I don't know. Do you have any way to find the others?"

Both Kuwabara and Yukina shook their heads. "Urameshi has a cell phone, but it's not on," Kuwabara explained. "We were just talking about it when we were split up."

"Which may be why such a thing happened," Yukina said. "Isolate and kill."

Koenma looked distressed. "Well, we have to do something about all this."

"I wonder if we could get to the inside," Kuwabara said. "I mean, the undead people seem quite amiable when they're not being possessed by El Zorromancer."

"That's the problem, right there," Koenma pointed out. "No matter how nice your spy would be, they would be subject to possession at any time."

"Well, we could pretend to be dead," Kuwabara said. "He couldn't possess us, could we?"

Yukina's expression was one of unendingly patient tolerance. "It would be very easy to figure out that we were alive."

"We could go and ask very nicely how we would go about dying without massive pain or disfiguration," Kuwabara mused.

"He seemed polite enough in his letter," Yukina supported him. "He just might talk to us, especially if he wants you to die for his purposes."

"It wouldn't work for very long, you know," Koenma told them. "I do not wish you to die in order to get more information."

"We don't wish to die for information, either," Yukina said. "I'm very averse to dying."

"A worthy mentality," Botan said. "You know, you probably could go get that rather battered-looking stoner from the university and take him with you as a sort of...key. You know, proving that your intentions are good and you don't go around killing zombies."

Yukina made a small moue. "But if we do so and we are forced to defend ourselves, we do run the risk of...destroying him. And if we succeed, we should consider that he probably will not survive. None of them will. It may not be in our best interests to prolong our interaction with him, or any of them. It may force us to hesitate at the critical moment." The way she said this indicated that 'us' was her gentle way of indicating Kuwabara alone.

"But he'd be with us," Kuwabara said. "It's not like we're going to just stab him. I mean, the other stuff is unavoidable, but we'd have to do it."

Yukina still looked doubtful. "Could you? You've tried to avoid killing those who attack you before. It nearly cost you your life. I...I do not take such risks."

Koenma suddenly understood the coldness of ice maiden blood in a whole new way. It was one thing to see it in Hiei. It was another to see it in Yukina, who had the general demeanour of a person who wouldn't mow a lawn for fear that the grass might suffer, and thus was lucky to live in a field of glaciers. "It probably won't matter. It seems that all we can do to these undead are to immobilize them. They shut down if they can't move, it seems. Did the exorcism work?" he asked Botan.

"Do you even remember that stuff?" Kuwabara asked. "I mean, what with the head injury and all."

"I fixed that," Yukina said modestly. "You should remember just fine."

"Of course you fixed it," Botan agreed. "Men. Anyway, exorcism worked just fine on your stoner zombie. It would have worked on them all if they hadn't attacked me. You know, speaking of them attacking me, I need a change of clothes if someone's got one." She was currently wearing Kuwabara's outer shirt over her thoroughly ravaged clothes in order to preserve some modesty before her co-workers. This had become a necessity after Botan had slapped the fourth guard in a row for ogling.

Koenma and Jorge both looked her over. There was a moment where it seemed that Koenma was contemplating a change of shape. "I see," said Koenma.

Botan flushed. "It seems you certainly do," she replied tartly, one hand opening into prime slapping position.

Koenma hastily changed the topic. "So you have exorcism as a weapon. Yukina, you can perform that at will?"

"To a point," Yukina said slowly. "It's never been more than academic knowledge to me, nor has it been a strength of mine."

Tapping her fingers together, Botan suggested, "If it's exorcism and that kind of soul manipulation you really want, we should get Genkai. She must be busy with all the stuff that's going on, but we might be able to get her to go with you."

"She was taking in all the undead that came to her and trying to get down their plans for death in writing," Yukina said doubtfully. "Then she was going to exorcise them."

"Hm," said Koenma. "Ask her to go with you anyway. If she says no, get her to have you brush up on your exorcism techniques."

Yukina laughed. "There is no technique. I make the signs and sometimes it works. We'd be better off just going as quickly as possible. Besides, if we go there and take her away with us, we'll have Keiko and Shizuru with us too, and that would make the boys very angry."

"Oh dear," said Koenma morosely. "Nng," he added, thumping his head onto his desk. "This is very taxing."

"I think that's what this one is counting on," Jorge said in a stage whisper.

"Shut up, Jorge!" Koenma bellowed. "All right, that's settled. Don't worry about the exorcism. Now, about Karasu. Or, more specifically, about Kurama."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Kuwabara muttered.

"I don't want Kurama fighting him, provoking him, or otherwise getting Karasu to do anything but follow him around, if that's what is happening," Koenma said.

"But – " said everyone else in the room at once. There was a moment of general confusion as they all then politely subsided in order that someone else would talk.

"I don't want Karasu blowing up half of the city to get at Kurama. I don't want Kurama uprooting the other half to get back at Karasu. I most emphatically do not want Kurama tearing around in his youko form. So if they can both just keep running circles around each other until this all blows over, that would be ideal. Ignore Karasu and focus on the necromancer," Koenma said, folding his hands in front of his face. The pose looked incredibly silly, being as he was in his toddler body.

Kuwabara looked incensed. "So you want Kurama to just let this guy follow him around."

"Which means that I need someone to convey this to Kurama," Koenma agreed. "Because I don't want Kurama getting angry. Bad things tend to happen after that. However, I am not giving any of you license to get angry at Karasu yourself. Bad things tend to happen when any of you get angry, for a first point. You will make Kurama even angrier as a second point, and in case you missed it the first few times, I don't want that."

"It's kind of late for that," Kuwabara commented. "I don't know about you, but I'm pissed."

"I'm not happy either," Koenma said desperately. "But I don't want you to get into a massive fight with an un-killable Karasu. Not you, not Kurama, not Yusuke, not Hiei. Not even you, Yukina. This is because your zombies are staying in the city, I presume to be closer to their necromancer. If you can get him out of the city then by all means be angry. But none of you are to do anything which may harm humans. Yusuke and yourself will be liable for your world's criminal prosecution. Yukina would probably get off lightly enough, but Kurama and Hiei...well..." Koenma made a slicing motion across his throat. "Not so easy."

"You're the ruler of the spirit world! Excuse it yourself," Kuwabara said angrily.

"I can't do that," Koenma told him. "I won't do that. One year of good behaviour doesn't excuse a criminally-minded demon taking a human life without any provocation. Even if it's those two, of whom I am rather fond. You will not tell them I said that. I am the ruler and the decision ends with me, but there are so many who question my decisions about them already that it would cause a riot, and I'm not so firmly established in this office that I can do whatever I feel like. Kuwabara, Yukina, you need to do this for me. Each of you has a personal interest in making sure that you do this."

Yukina looked at the floor. "I would do this thing for you if it were possible. Koenma-sama, we did mention that we can't find any of them. Looking for them would waste precious time. Arguing with you will also waste this time which we need."

"I'll look!" Botan volunteered, putting up a hand. "I'm more mobile and I've got an aerial view to boot."

"You just spent a day and a half unconscious and buried in a cellar," Koenma said on a sigh. "And here you are, bouncing and ready to go. I envy you."

"I am not bouncing," Botan said with an impatient bounce.

"Your irony is noted," Koenma remarked dryly.

"Oh!" burst out Botan in displeasure. "You can be so horrible!"

Yukina diplomatically said, "We'll talk to everyone we can on our way, but I think it's imperative that we go straight back to the city and start searching out the necromancer. Even if we don't bring Weed, he can probably tell us where to go. And if he can't, of course you can," Yukina told Kuwabara kindly.

Kuwabara swelled with pride. "Of course."

Botan bustled towards the door. "I'll be changed in a jiffy and I'll take you back."

"I'm not riding on that thing again," Kuwabara said, eyeing the oar with great trepidation. "That one bump was nearly an international tragedy."

"Oh no," said Botan reassuringly. "I'll drop you off. But you really would have been more comfortable sidesaddle."

"Sidesaddle," said Kuwabara magnanimously, "is girly."

Koenma caught their eyes before they left with his own. Sometime during the oar discussion he had changed forms. "Stop them," he said. "I know Karasu will probably take lives. I'll be able to tell, once all this is over and done, who killed any humans initially, because of course they're walking. I don't want anyone else taking lives, either. And don't think the ferry girls, the guards, and of course I won't know. The way this place gossips, I'll learn around the same time that the hellfire demons do. Last. So it's not a hush-up option."

"I will go as best I can, I will persuade as best I can, and," Botan said sententiously, "I will collect as best I can."

When she, Yukina, and Kuwabara had gone, Jorge looked at the teenage-sized ruler of the underworld and commented, "That is a hell of a ferry girl."

Koenma groaned. "Don't mention hell. Just don't."

Jorge judged it wise to not continue.

Happily oblivious of Koenma's orders, Yusuke and Hiei were still trying to track down just where either Karasu or Kurama had gone. "You won't agree with me, but I really wish I had Kuwabara here," Yusuke complained.

Hiei looked obligingly baffled before darting in and out of a side street. "Nothing."

Yusuke continued as though there had been no interruption. "There would be none of this guesswork. He's got the psychic thing going on." Yusuke brooded over this lack for a minute, then remembered something. "You have the psychic thing going on."

"Not exactly," Hiei objected. "I can't just see people at will. I get flashes sometimes, and I get general ideas if I concentrate."

"We could use a general idea," Yusuke pointed out. "Have you tried concentrating?"

Hiei looked at him with the expression that asked if he'd had his morning coffee yet. "Yes."

"And?"

"And it's in an area that looks like this," Hiei said. "Unfortunately for us, there seems to be a lot of choices."

"What, exactly, is 'it'?" Yusuke sought clarification.

"The one who detonated the bomb," Hiei said. "I looked when it went off."

"Look for Kurama," Yusuke ordered. "I'm worried. I can kind of feel that there's something wrong in the back of my head. It's like..." Fishing in a pocket, he produced and started unsuccessfully trying to flick his lighter on. "It feels like someone is doing this with his youki in the back of my head. It hasn't caught yet," he added as the lighter did so, "but I have a feeling that it won't make my headache any better if it does."

Hiei hooked a finger around the bandanna on his forehead. "If I were you, I'd have other worries. Kurama can take care of himself."

"So can Kuwabara and Yukina," Yusuke said tiredly, deciding that a cigarette would go well with the lighter and might also do something about the smell of the air. "But they don't have the happy bomber man chasing them around the back alleys of South Bugfuck, or wherever the hell we are by now. And I'd really like to have some words with the happy bomber man. And by 'words with' I mean 'a death grip on the neck of'. And you're not me, which is good because that would be incredibly disturbing and I refuse to think about it. It gives me funny squicky feelings."

"I see," said Hiei in the tone that actually meant 'This is a human thing, isn't it?', and swept off the bandanna.

"Do you practice that?" Yusuke asked, noting how elegant the manoeuvre was.

Hiei either ignored him or was off in a world of his – actually, his third eye's – own. Knowing Hiei, it was difficult to tell. "A building," he finally announced at length. "He's not happy."

"A building," said Yusuke dangerously, looking around at the multitudes of buildings. "Anything noticeable about this building?"

Hiei sighed. "Why do you think it took me so long to find Yukina? I get into people's heads. I see only what they know. I notice what Kurama does, and he's not noticing where he is all that well. If he's not paying attention to his surroundings, I can't do it for him."

"You know, about that third eye of yours," Yusuke said meditatively. "You can control people with it."

Hiei blinked. With his third eye exposed, it was a bizarre sight. "I haven't needed to do such a thing in...a long time. But yes, I did once have minions and slaves."

"Can you override El Zorromancer?"

Hiei seemed to give this some serious thought. "That's a very intriguing question. I've gotten better since I tried such a thing last time. I used to like hitting up drunks. They were easy to control. This could be a hell of a fight."

"Says he, looking really enthusiastic about it," Yusuke assessed correctly. "All right. Give it a try if he contacts us and starts to get annoying. It could scare him off."

Hiei looked pleased by this. "Anything else you wanted?"

Yusuke felt that Hiei had to be in a good mood now. "Unless you can get anything more out of Kurama as to where he is, no."

"We were talking about telepathy," Hiei mentioned. "I haven't done that in ages either, but again, it seems to be worth a try."

"Tell him to find a pay phone and call me," Yusuke said, beeping his phone on belatedly. "He'd better have calling cards or change in all that mysterious money."

"The calling cards are doubtful," Hiei said. "And it's not mysterious. Kurama is incredibly rich. I don't know how much he's worth, but it's some undreamed-of number. He's done a lot of commissions, sold a lot of things, gambled some, cheated more, and is fairly fascinated by small shiny things like coins."

"Wow," said Yusuke. "I guess I should no longer feel bad about hitting him up for money on occasion and then not paying him back."

"No, but he might remind you of it the next time he finds you with money anyway," Hiei said. "Tell him to get over it. I do."

"Hm," said Yusuke disbelievingly. "Anyway, telepathy?"

"Give me a minute." Hiei's eyes slid off to the left, as though he was searching for something in his mind. Yusuke figured that he found it when his eyes went unfocused.

Kurama was currently rifling through the room he was in for any kind of clue as to just where he was. It looked like the unused back office to some business, with a thick layer of dust over everything and the door firmly if not securely locked. Kurama had left the door as it was for the time being and was searching the desk with brisk professionalism. So far he had found some incredibly pornographic magazines, an old hand-held Pac-Man game, a mirror with various decals on it, a good handful of spare change, two outdated condoms, one empty prescription bottle for flunitrazepam (here Kurama's eyebrows rose), some very questionable stains, a bottle of red nail polish, and some luridly orange knickers. "This," he said finally to the empty room, "reminds me very much of several establishments that I would rather forget I ever saw, visited, or worked for. I was young, but in retrospect I didn't need the money anywhere near that badly. Oh, God, I do talk to myself," he added, clapping one hand over his eyes. "I'm going mad, I am."

Coincidentally, it was about then that his world flipped over and went pain-shaped. A dull ache started at the base of his skull and ripped through his temples to his eyes. Kurama got the impression that someone was speaking to him, but it was lost in the sheer pain. Oh, he thought hazily into the bright white mist that had deposited itself with the gentleness of crushed glass over his brain. Telepathy. Ow. I know this power trail. I know that voice.

The person spoke again, more insistently. Kurama felt something in his eyes pop and let go of the desk he didn't even know he had been clutching. The floor banged him in the hands and knees a few seconds later. "Shut up," he finally got out. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Dammit, Hiei, you're hurting me! Stop it! Just shut up!

When Kurama's eyes finally focused, it was on the mirror that he had left propped against the desk leg where he'd found it. The pain had melted away, leaving only a tickle around the hypothalamus. "My eyes," he said to the mirror. "They're bleeding." Red streaks of blood were making their way from the inner corners down to his jaw. It looked freakishly like he was crying blood. "What...what was that about?" he asked, though he had a fairly good idea.

The tickle intensified, then vanished sharply.

"Hiei!" Yusuke said sharply, grabbing the fire demon's arm. When Hiei didn't immediately shake him off, Yusuke knew something was wrong. "Jesus Christ, Hiei, what did you do?"

Hiei blinked, very carefully, then looked at Yusuke. "His eyes were bleeding," he said quietly. "He thought it looked like he was crying blood. It did look like he was crying blood. I am...more powerful than I thought."

"Karasu did that?" Yusuke demanded. "But you did tell him to call me, right?"

Hiei finally noticed that Yusuke had hold of his arm and yanked himself free. "No. I don't think he heard me."

Yusuke sighed impatiently. "Do you want to show me what happened? Can you do that? Because you are explaining very badly."

"No, I don't want to show you," said Hiei. "I overestimated the power I could allot into telepathy. It was apparently too painful for him to handle. I stopped trying to talk to him and the last thing I got was a reflection of him where his eyes were bleeding. I decided that maybe I shouldn't continue."

"We know one thing," Yusuke said after a pause. "El Zorromancer is going to have a hell of a time if he goes up against you for control of a zombie. About the eyes-bleeding thing," he added. "It's not bad. Capillaries can burst in the eyes if someone is under a lot of stress. It's not fatal or even that harmful, but it looks creepy as hell. He's probably fine."

"Where did you learn that?" Hiei asked.

Yusuke grinned. "Never argue with my late-night American TV. It helps me with my English. So you didn't really get a feel for where he was, though."

Hiei shook his head. "Somewhere really skanky that – " he said anyway, cutting himself off in surprise.

"So Kurama is noticing more," Yusuke interpreted. "I take from your silence that you don't want to share the rest of that."

"I didn't want to know it," Hiei said. "And I'd really rather not think about it. I've already got a headache."

"Really?" Yusuke asked. "What, you're that powerful?"

"No," Hiei said, his mouth curling wryly. "Kurama reacted that hard. I think I may have hurt him fairly badly. Usually he has a decent pain tolerance."

Yusuke reflected on his slender redheaded friend. Said friend had been stabbed, sliced, soul-sucked, flayed, stalked, mindfucked, and probably a few other things that he'd missed. Throughout most of this, he had managed to fulfil the maxim of 'takes a licking and keeps on ticking'. "If you're comparing him to the Energizer Bunny, I'd say 'decent' describes it pretty well."

Hiei looked utterly blank.

"It's the ads in between the American TV," Yusuke informed him. "Just as useful."

"Mm," said Hiei in the non-committal tone that indicated that he was totally lost.

"Is that your phone beeping?" Yusuke asked, glancing at his own in puzzlement. "Or is there one attached to some immobile body around here?"

Hiei scowled at the readout. Yusuke hoped for Mukuro's sake that Hiei's glares did not transmit through technology. "Demon zombies. Human zombies. Big party on the border and I'm expected to go back and set them all on fire."

"Argh," said Yusuke. "Thanks for ditching me."

Hiei raised an eyebrow. "Would you like to go, then?"

Yusuke gave it some serious thought before a very odd smile spread across his face. "Yes."

Hiei stared. "What?"

"You heard me," said Yusuke, still with that odd smile. "You find Kurama. You have a better shot at it anyway, since I have absolutely no intuition. I have negative intuition."

"You are going to go tell Mukuro that you're going to help her in my place," Hiei said flatly.

Yusuke nodded. "Yes, I think so."

Hiei looked like he might just feel sorry for Mukuro if he knew how to do such a thing. "Tell her it wasn't my idea."

"Of course not," promised Yusuke. "Even if I did, somehow I don't think she'd believe me. You're on the sadistic side, but this is just going to be weird as fuck."

"You volunteered," Hiei said.

Yusuke looked noble. "It is in a greater cause. Before you ask, I will tell you this: if you don't know, I shan't tell you, and in addition you're completely oblivious."

For that, Hiei considered not giving him directions when asked. However, he'd had a bad enough day of being lost that he felt anything that might increase his own very depleted karma rations should be attempted. Besides, the quicker he directed Yusuke, the quicker Yusuke would leave. And while Yusuke was usually in the range of decent to excellent company when it came to surviving in hostile territory, Hiei wanted to give himself to think furiously without allowing Yusuke gloating material or money.

That bet Yusuke had been raving about had sounded highly suspicious, after all.

DER WIENERSCHLINGER. tommy lee recommends for chilluns.

No, really. I do the bulk of these at night, and I tend to finish them while watching Conan O'Brien. I need a life, yo.

My spellcheck insists on making it manoeuvre. IT CHANGES IT FOR ME. My apologies, anyone raised outside of England...or raised in England who think I'm a shamelessly copying American tart.

I spent a lot of time in front of my graphic novel/DVD bookshelf, paging through Shounen Jump back issues and looking at all of the chapters with Hiei and any even PASSING mentions of the Jagan. I weep for the lack. But it was a fun adventure. (the flying subtext-that-is-text! It overwhelms!)

Flunitrazepam is the really long and cool-looking name for Rohypnol.

OMG NICK ON LATE LATE SHOW. I love late night tv. does happy CSI dance Okay. I'm a CSI-taping, late-night-tv-show watching geek. I AM SHAMELESS, SO SHUT UP AND ENJOY.