p"What was that for!?" Yuiko demanded as she got up. She blinked and blushed when she saw it was Hiei. "Oh, it's you. You didn't have to trip me, you know."
p"I wanted to do this quick." Hiei explained snappishly. Behind them, Kuwabara and his friends Kamada, Akuro, and Shisimaru were walking and talking up a storm. Kuwabara laughed at a joke of Kamada's but stopped when he saw Yuiko and Hiei talking.
p"What's that shrimp doing here?" Kuwabara asked to no one in particular. His three guy friends stopped all laughing and looked at what Kuwabara was glaring at, which was Hiei to be more specific.
p"You know that Goth?" Shisimaru questioned. Kuwabara narrowed his eyes.
p"Sort of." he answered.
p"You wanted to do what quick?" Yuiko inquired to Hiei. Hiei took out a video tape from his coat and handed it to her. Yuiko took it and blinked at it. "What is it?"
p"Your next mission." Hiei snapped shortly and began to walk away. "And Detective," Yuiko glanced up at him. Hiei glared at her. "if you mess it up, I will kill you." Yuiko raised an eyebrow at him.
p"You care if I mess up a mission? Does it involve you or something?" Yuiko asked innocently. She didn't know she had hit a sore spot. In seconds, the tape fell from Yuiko's hands, crashed to the sidewalk, Yuiko was pushed onto the ground, Hiei on top of her with his kantana unsheathed and at her neck.
p"That doesn't concern you." Hiei whispered in a deadly forbidden way.
p"Hey!" Kuwabara yelled. Hiei turned his head and noticed Kuwabara and his friends standing there. "Leave her alone, shrimp!"
p"Kuwabara, you just called a deadly guy with a sword a shrimp. Not a good idea." Akuro stated. Hiei decided to ignore the blundering idiot, as he liked to think of Kuwabara as.
p"I hold your life in my hands, Detective. So I suggest you butt out of my business." Hiei said quietly.
p"So it does involve you?" Yuiko commented in a dry voice against better judgment. Hiei glared at her, failing to notice the dreamy look in her eye, and got off of her.
p"Believe what you want. I'm out of here." Hiei then left in a flash. Yuiko stood back up, grabbed the tape that fell on the sidewalk, hid it in her green waist jacket, and walked off.
pAt school, Yuiko wasn't having a good day. Mr. Iwamoto gave her detention for not wearing the school uniform, she failed the pop History test, Keiko's other friends poked fun at her behind Keiko's back during Science, and Kuwabara's other friends had told the whole school about what had happened between her and Hiei so everyone was bugging her about who Hiei was and why she was corresponding with a murderous boy. Yuiko wasn't really sure Hiei was a boy since he could have been years older than her and still look fifteen because demons can do that, and she didn't want to talk about it so she threatened everyone that if they didn't leave her alone she'd cause them so much pain they'd need to go to the hospital just to get the stinging to stop. She accidentally threatened the principal the same thing when he tapped her on the shoulder. She quickly apologized and was asked to stay a few minutes after her detention with Mr. Iwamoto. The only good part about the day besides going home was Gym. It was her best subject, even before she had faced the Saint Beasts, done her training with Genkai, and become a Spirit Detective.
pWhen Yuiko was finally allowed to leave the school, she called her mom to tell her that she was going to Kuwabara's for the afternoon. Mrs. Urameshi agreed to that and Yuiko was then bound to Kuwabara's. She decided to run there so she'd get there faster. To hurry up and finish with the boring things, we'll skip the ringing of the doorbell and being invited in by Shizuru and get right to the putting of the video into the VCR.
p"So Yuiko, what's the mission for?" Kuwabara asked right when she popped it in. Botan was sitting with them and had told them that the tape would look like fuzz to anyone without high spirit awareness. Yuiko glared at Kuwabara.
p"YOU'LL SEE IN A MINUTE!" Yuiko shouted at him. Kuwabara panicked and hid behind Botan. Botan sighed.
p"She have a bad day?" Botan asked Kuwabara. Kuwabara just nodded.
p"Shush. It's starting." Yuiko snapped. Koenma came onto the screen in his not-so-adorable-but-more-embarrassing baby form with the big hat and the little multi-colored robe. The strange part about it was that Koenma was holding his arm up into the air like the woman at the beginning of some of the movies does. "Uh . . . I'm not gonna ask." The picture on the screen then went to a red ogre with a gold circle around his head and neck like the lion at the beginning of a lot of movies does. The ogre did a pitiful roar. Yuiko and Kuwabara raised an eyebrow each.
p"Your boss has a lot of time on his hands." Kuwabara commented. The picture died down and the words KOENMA PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS came up in gold letters. Yuiko put her face in her hands.
p"This is embarrassing." the black-haired girl groaned. Finally, it truly did start. When the real Koenma came up, Kuwabara burst out laughing.
p"Your boss is an infant!?" Yuiko and Botan both hit Kuwabara over the head.
p"SHUT UP!"
p"Hello, Yuiko." the Koenma on the screen said. "I bet your wondering what your next assignment is. You have to rescue this girl named Yukina." The screen changed to show a window on a tower and inside the tower was a beautiful girl with sea green hair in a flowery kimono. Kuwabara's jaw dropped.
p"Whoa! Pinch me. I might be dreaming." Kuwabara rambled mindlessly. Yuiko glared at him. What ever happened to him thinking that she was pretty. Wait, what was she thinking?! That was crazy talk! Like she cared what Kuwabara thought of her or any other girl for that matter!
p"Yukina is an ice apparition. Ice apparitions have the ability to turn their tears into pearls, but it's not by will. Every time they cry the tears become priceless pearls. Yukina has been kidnapped by a greedy man named Takukane, part of the Black Black Club. Black Black Club is part of the black market, except they sell demons instead of priceless things. Takukane is only interested in Yukina's pearls because she's not human." Koenma explained.
p"What!?" Kuwabara shouted. He stood up and ran off. Yuiko stopped the tape.
p"Kuwabara! Where do you think you're going!?" Yuiko demanded.
p"To save Yukina!"
p"Get back here, Romeo!" Yuiko yelled after him. Shizuru, Kuwabara's sister, walked into the room with a tray of cups filled with hot chocolate, staring off in the direction her little brother was going in.
p"Who's Yukina? And why are you guys taking orders from a baby?" Shizuru asked. Yuiko and Botan panicked. "I overheard you guys talking about that only people with high spirit awareness could hear and watch the tape, so don't worry. I even have a higher spirit awareness than my baby brother, so the tape's not goofing up." Botan and Yuiko sighed in relief.
p"That's good news." Botan commented. "But shouldn't we go get him?"
p"Nah. He'll be coming back asking where he's supposed to go and if he can get some money for the train. Meanwhile, let's watch the rest of the tape." Shizuru replied. Yuiko rewinded the tape back a little and they listened to the tape all over again so that Shizuru knew what was going on. Then they got to the really interesting part.
p"The place you need to go to save her is hidden in the mountains. Almost no one knows where it is. Now, Yuiko, Yukina is a special type of ice apparition. There are two different kinds. The normal kind, and the Koormie." Koenma continued. "The Koormie are a race who are like the Amazon women from human myths. They are against all contacts with men and think of themselves as high above them, not to mention more powerful. The Koormie have the ability to give birth to children without having to mate, and that is by will. But if a Koormie decides to mate with a male, she has a pair of twins: a boy who looks much like his father, and a girl who looks exactly like her mother. The only thing linking them physically is their eye color, which is never the same as the mother's eyes. If the word gets out that a Koormie has mated with a male, the Koormie is then hunted down and murdered. The girl twin is kept with the tribe and the boy is cast out into the freezing sea to die. They kill the father if he is to be found. The girl twin is kept completely in the dark unless she finds out the secret that she has a twin brother from the Koormie who had killed her mother thinks it's time to tell her. Yukina is the child of one of those Koormie who had mated with a male, a fire demon to be more specific." Yuiko raised an eyebrow. This mattered how? It wasn't until Koenma said his next thing before she and Botan understood. "Yukina's brother is Hiei."
p"Hiei?" Yuiko gasped.
p"Oh my god!" Botan cried. Shizuru stopped the tape.
p"I'm guessing this is something shocking." Shizuru commented dryly. Botan held a trembling hand to her heart and nodded.
p"Hiei's an infamous thief and murderer. Yuiko threw him into jail, then he was released so he could do community service to make up for all he had done. Hiei had helped Yuiko save the Human World from the evil Saint Beasts. You know, when all those strange bugs were infesting the city." Botan explained.
p"I see. No wonder this is such a big shock. From this tape, it sounds like Yukina's a innocent girl who's being treated badly by evil bastards. Oops, sorry, Yui. I forgot your mother was never married." Shizuru said. She blinked when she realized that Yuiko wasn't showing any sign in noticing her and Botan's conversation. "Yui?"
p"Hiei." Yuiko whispered to herself. She was thinking back to the first time she had met Hiei. He was a fierce fighter, the toughest she had ever faced before trying to become Genkai's student. He had a murderous, dangerous aura around him, too. He was so powerful. And back when he and Kurama had showed up to fight the Saint Beasts, he had been so distrustful of everything. And when he had given her the tape for the mission, she knew it had to involve him somehow. She just didn't expect that. Now it made complete sense. Hiei didn't have anyone to look after him, even as a small infant. He needed to be aggressive in order to live, and it was no wonder that he was so distrustful since he had been thrown into an ice-cold ocean. It's a miracle he was alive!
pBotan touched Yuiko's shoulder and brought her out of her reverie. Yuiko blinked and turned to the girl with ice-blue hair. "Are you okay, Yuiko? You looked like you were in a trance." Botan inquired. Yuiko looked away from her.
p"I'm fine. Play the rest of the tape, Shizuru." Yuiko said. Shizuru didn't do anything.
p"I think you have an idea on what Koenma wants you to do, Yui. He wants to go save Yukina before Hiei goes on a killing spree. We'll wait for Kazuma, since he should be here in exactly one minute." Shizuru replied, standing up. "I'll get you three some money, then you can all go on your way." Shizuru then left the room. Botan stood up.
p"I'll go wait for him on the porch." Botan announced and left the room too. Yuiko just sat there, thinking about what she just learned. When Shizuru came back with the money, she sat back down next to Yuiko.
p"Want to talk about it?" Shizuru asked. Yuiko tensed.
p"I just can't believe it. That anyone would treat a baby like that. Poor Hiei." Yuiko mumbled just loud enough for Shizuru to hear. Tears were swelling up in her eyes. She closed them and wiped them. "He'd probably kill me if he knew I said that." Shizuru picked up one of the forgotten cups of hot chocolate and handed it to Yuiko.
p"Here." Shizuru said, pushing it in Yuiko's face. The black-haired girl took it and sipped from it quietly. Shizuru, though a tough girl like Yuiko, was more calm than the younger one and knew how to read any female with a problem. Especially if it was a boy/love problem. "I know it's hard to believe. But some people are like that. Did you listen to how Yukina gives pearls? Those creeps are probably tormenting her, and she did nothing to them. Same thing with Hiei's mother's kind. He had done nothing to harm them, but they had killed his mother and tossed him into what they hoped would be his underwater grave." Yuiko choked on the tears she was holding in. Shizuru put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a one-armed hug. "He lived, and that's what matters. The past can't be changed. But you can save his sister and make sure she lives to see at least a few more years. I bet that'd make him happy, even if he's too big a jerk to say thank you." Yuiko giggled at that and took another sip of hot chocolate. The sounds of Kuwabara finally returning could be heard in the hallway. "We can talk more about Hiei later. Right now you've got an ice apparition to rescue." Yuiko nodded and the two girls stood up. "Here's the money for the train. And put a leash on that ridiculous baby brother of mine. Just so you don't lose him." Yuiko burst out laughing, took the money, handed the cup back to Shizuru, wiped her eyes, and left, her, Botan, and Kuwabara saying a quick goodbye. Shizuru watched them go toward the train station, Yuiko stopping Botan from telling Kuwabara about Hiei's relation to Yukina by stepping on Botan's foot. Shizuru was smiling, her long brown hair blowing in the wind. "I knew she'd go for the rough boys. Rougher than Kazuma, anyway."