A/N: Last chapter, the last sentence got a little confusing because she said 'they' and not 'she'. You'll see why.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is not owned by me. I'm just some loser that has too much time on her hands.
"Help! Help me!"
Yurika's head snapped up from the ornate wooden table. She ran her fingers through her shoulder length inky black hair and sighed. It had been a long night. Hell, she hadn't even changed out of her bloodstained clothes.
"Did you hear something?" She asked Reseph, who was sitting in his huge fireplace that looked like the mouth to some ferocious beast.
He shrugged his non-existent shoulder. "Maybe it's the guilt from all those demons you slay on a daily basis. Ow!" He cried as a dagger went straight through his head and into the back of the fireplace. His arm solidified and touched his forehead tenderly.
"That hurts, you know."
"Help! Please!"
"Shh… I know I heard something."
Yurika opened the door to the crumbling castle. It was basically a wide tower. The top floors were inaccessible due to the moss and weeds growing out the top. It was built on a balding hill, and its yards were filled with stones and brown grass. A black spiked fence surrounded the house. A curving line of cracked stepping-stones went down to the gate, or where it would have been if some snake demon hadn't torn it off before meeting its demise.
A speck of bright color was on the horizon. That was unusual. This was a dismal and deserted place in the Maki. There was no one and as far as Yurika knew the nearest living thing was the forest thirteen miles in the distance. Who but the young hermit would dare tread on this unknown ground?
Apparently, a small earth demon. He ran straight at her and hugged her legs. No… No… A child… She thought, clutching her arm. The boy stared up at her with wide, teary eyes, and no matter the pain to her, she couldn't turn him away. She smelt a sharp musty smell. Alchemy, but it was awfully done.
"Please…" he said, before a woman came stomping up.
"Get over here you worm! I haven't finished…"
The boy shrunk into Yurika's legs, little leaves sprouting on the top of his head. Apparently, he was more afraid of this woman than he was of a hermit out in the middle of nowhere, wearing bloodstained clothes and had two swords at her hips.
"Silence." Yurika said icily. The smell clung to the women, and the black in her eyes showed that she was deranged. The child wouldn't last with her.
Two men came up over the horizon. One young, the other old, both smelling of the alchemy and the elder actually holding some powerful object or the other in his hand. Yurika didn't like them, and her arm was starting to ache, as she got more and more angry.
"Young one, go inside and stay away from the windows." She commanded. The treeling looked up at her unsure for a moment but did as he was told.
Yurika waited until she heard a door slam before looking the woman in the eyes again. They stared at each other for a second before the woman marched forward, towards the house. The moment she put her foot on one of the faded stepping-stones, Yurika lazily took out a sword and cut off her head. She died without a sound.
The men's eyes grew wide. "Yo… you just killed her… just like…she was nothing." The young one said, trembling.
"She was, and if you don't want to end up like her, you'll leave this place and never return." Yurika said, baring her small fangs.
The men were gone a moment later. Yurika sighed. She looked up at the castle. The sun was setting in the west, so it was casting a shadow in the east, to the left of the front door. She picked up the corpse and walked back up the hill. She peeked in the windows to see the boy in conversation with Reseph. Throwing the body into the shadow, which devoured it, she went inside.
The little boy was giggling. He was rather cute in that baby blue… no! She quickly moved to a chest that was against the fireplace. She threw some clothes at him.
"Put these on." The boy started to undress. "Not in here!" Yurika said.
Though her tone was annoyed, she thought him to be adorable… which was bad. She led him to a seemingly out of place to door and into a room. She left and ignored Reseph when he tried to start conversation with her. The child came out with his clothes folded neatly.
"What should I do with these, ma'am?" He asked.
"Name's Yurika. And aren't you a little old to be wearing baby blue…" she looked at the clothes again, "sailor suits?"
The little boy looked down at the pile of clothes in his hand. "Yes, but my mama wants to keep me young cause I'm her last baby." He scrunched up his nose. "I don't like it when she does that."
Yurika seemed to take no heed of his words. She motioned to Reseph. "Feed the fire, kid."
The child threw the clothes at Reseph, who burned them and chuckled like a small child getting a treat. When the child threw the little hat, Reseph caught it with his solid arm and twirled it around once. He mumbled something about not eating something that smelled like it did, and he threw it to the back of the fireplace, where it wouldn't get burned.
The boy looked around, and Yurika followed his eyes. For the first time in thirty years, she felt self-conscious. She had never dusted, washed, or done any type of cleaning in the castle. Spider wriggled their legs from the ceiling as if saying hello and rotting food could be seen in the sink. She absolutely despised cleaning, so she just didn't do it.
"What's your name, kid?" she asked, tearing her eyes away from one particularly bad offender of dust bunny.
The boy turned his eyes from the scroll-covered table to look at her. "Me? I'm Kato." He smiled sweetly.
"So what do you think?" Yurika asked in a low tone to Reseph.
His body bulged as he shrugged. "I really can't say. There are multiple spells that do that to demons, but the ones I know of aren't them. You should have listened to me when I told you forty years ago to see if the kid was okay. Now you'll have to go back to the source."
"Back to those two men!" Yurika hissed. "How the hell am I supposed to find them? In case you don't remember, I can't access my wolf side for the next month!"
"Well, you could ask the fox demon…"
"No."
"You just need to ask for his help."
"No."
"Even not for Kato?"
Yurika glanced over to the bed. "Why can't I ask Hiei?"
"He's a fire demon and even if he could smell them out, he wouldn't be able to find the two original men." Reseph looked at Yurika expectantly.
She cursed under her breath. "I hate you so much right now."
"But you love…"
"I love no one. I just happen to hate Kato a lot less than the rest of the world. And as of this point, I will do this for him." Yurika said stubbornly. She touched the mark, though surprisingly felt nothing. She put her back against the brick, half of the length of her legs falling off the ledge and fell asleep.
A/N: Yay! Time for some Tension. Review!