Botan wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders, squinting at the brightening morning. She wished she'd brought gloves with her out to the veranda, but it would make flipping the file pages more difficult. Though her fingers would be warm, which would make it easier, too.

She let her head fall back against the column.

She still had to break the news to Kurama about Shunjun and the non-conflicting clause. Koenma would never have drafted the contract without Shunjun's influence; Kurama was the SDF officer's claim to fame, and he obviously had grand schemes about finishing the fox demon once and for all, solidifying his place in the nightmares of apparitions everywhere.

When the Red Glove Gang had taken the Mirror of G'Darth, Kurama warned her: "If they go after the Katsuryoku Pendant, they aim to complete the Bandit's Three."

The Spirit World ambassadors, he'd told her, were ignorant of the Demon World legends surrounding such items. The Mirror allowed one to see through walls, similar to the Spirit Detective Spyglass; with it, the Pendant allowed the user to measure the level of strength in the auras of surrounding apparitions. Eons ago, the items were separated and sent to Spirit World figureheads to make them feel important. When apart, the items were useless, dropping rank from artifact to simply art. Kurama was worried that Spirit World had never known the powers of the Bandit's Three, and if they had, they certainly thought too little of the demons who craved those powers.

Kurama was the only thief to ever come close to obtaining such an artifact; the Band of Shadows was reported stolen, but it was retrieved when Kurama fled, having been injured by the ambassador's chief of security, Shunjun. Perhaps, once Kurama was out of the way and Shunjun was offered a position with the SDF, Spirit World wanted to revel in their victory. Perhaps they reveled too long.

"I wasn't aware anyone else was up."

"Good morning to you, too," said Botan, turning to the garden, where Kurama stood with a steaming mug.

He leaned a shoulder against her post. "Do you have a headache? Light sensitivity?"

"A little," she confessed. "What's in the cup?"

Kurama chuckled, offering it up to her. "You asked me that last night you know, and it led to your current discomfort."

Botan drank, then looked at the tea strangely. "What sort of blend is this?"

"It is awful, I admit. It's my own concoction, a sort of hangover cure."

"So you drank too much last night too?"

Kurama smiled, taking the mug back. "I can't always control myself."

"At least you're in a better mood."

"I am. What are you working on?"

Botan offered up the folder. "Just wondering what they might be after. You told me that these were a thief's perfect tools. They just seem way too organized. They must have a greater goal."

"You're very astute to have caught that."

Botan smiled up at him and took the mug he pressed into her hands. "What do you think it is?"

"There's no telling." He flipped the page over. "We need them to succeed at their ultimate plan for us to find out."

"But you said they'd probably want the Band of Shadows, right?"

He nodded.

"So why can't we just wait for them to go for that? Wait for them there?"

"I'd have to revert to my demon form to avoid being tracked by the Hunter, and mine is a face not easily forgotten by . . . security guards."

"It's cold out here," Botan sighed, fiddling with some of Kurama's split ends that hung beside her face. Then her eyes lit up. "Kurama, what if you went as you—in your human form—to defend the Band against the thieves?"

He turned to her, his mind buzzing at her idea, his pulse racing at her touch. "That might force me to trap a former ally. I'm not eager to make new enemies of old friends."

Botan scoffed, blowing a hair out of her face. "Who the blazes do you work for? Do you miss that life or something?"

Kurama tucked the wayward strand behind her ear and slid his fingers down to her chin, brushing her lips with his thumb and tilting her face up to meet his. "Are you afraid of losing me?"

Botan opened her mouth to object, but he must have confused it for welcome and took it.

Click!

Yukina stood at the open shoji, smiling with Kuwabara's camera when Kurama and Botan parted. "Keiko's making breakfast for everyone. Oh, almost out of film."

Once the shoji slid shut again, Botan stood, dropping her files. "I think I'm going inside now."

Kurama caught a rogue floating paper. "Botan?"

She balled her hands into fists, trying to not look at him. "There aren't any fangirls to trick here, Kurama." And she was bubbly again, separating herself from him with the shoji and her aloofness.

#

Botan truly could not believe her luck. When she'd told herself that Shunjun was probably on Kurama's case, Koenma called her in to dispatch her to Living World to summon him.

"This requires delicacy that an officer of Spirit World law cannot handle," he'd told her. "We can't have anyone making a scene."

There was no sense in arguing; Koenma could not send a warrior to do a woman's job.

Botan slipped into the school and out to the quad, catching Kurama eating lunch at his usual bench and reading a paperback copy of Kuwabara's book of meditations.

"Afternoon," he said, reading the end of a sentence before looking up.

Botan was not expecting him to be civil; she had ignored him for days, even blasted his character with Jorge the Ogre while they ate ice cream. She knew he was angry with her when she'd deserted him on Genkai's veranda because he had left directly afterward. When Shunjun's report from the Doriyushto Embassy fiasco came in, she'd simply set it on Kurama's bed while he was at school. They hadn't yet discussed the Band of Shadows, Rushiyo's recapture, or their kiss. Now that he greeted her as politely as usual, a page fell out of their past and drifted off to dissolve in words they couldn't say.

"Afternoon? What do you mean by that!" She had to rein in her anger; the surrounding students had paused to watch her scream at her supposed boyfriend. So much for not making a scene. "Oops . . . do you care if we maybe talk in private somewhere?"

Kurama glanced around as if bored. "Here's fine."

"Oh." Botan became aware that she was standing, and Kurama had neither invited her to sit nor made space for her on the bench. She wrung her sweating hands, then put them awkwardly at her sides.

"It appears something is bothering you."

Botan's brow twitched. Well of course! she thought. And you can tell, can't you? "It's just that . . . here." She lifted her bag from her shoulder and produced six photocopies of local newspapers, leaning down to whisper. "There's been a break-in every day this week in your area. Jewelry stores, pawn shops, and one antiques gallery! Do you think it's funny to steal? Especially right now. I can't believe our smartest teammate could do something so stupid!"

Kurama closed his book and regarded her for so long, their student-body audience began to gossip: "Is Minamino single now? What's with his girl's blue hair?"

"You've been avoiding me," Kurama said. "Why?"

Botan sputtered, unintentionally touching her fingers to her lips. "That's not important right now! And you know something, buster? Shunjun was assigned to you, anyway. Case closed."

"You knew that before the party, though you brought the case files with you then." Kurama crossed his arms. "You weren't ready to give your role to the Hunter. You were at first sorry that the contract was drafted, but I think you're relieved, now." Kurama watched the wind pick up her hair as the bell rang for class. The quad emptied until he and Botan were alone but for the uninterested stragglers.

"Of course I don't like the contract!" Botan finally shrieked. "Does this even matter right now? We have an actual problem here. You've made yourself into a suspect!"

"Have I been anything but compliant with Koenma's rules? I've called for you ever since you left the report in my room. It was necessary that we speak."

"There was a note," Botan said through gritted teeth, "that said to just come to Spirit World. Koenma's been asking me where you are! And now you're showing him that you are just as much of a thief as the demons we're tracking!"

Kurama stacked the newspaper stories evenly and held them out to her. "I will not be called to Spirit World until you see that I have nothing to hide. Follow me."

#

They idly greeted the saleswoman as they pretended to browse the jewelry cases. He'd told Botan to look at the clock face; she assumed he meant the grandfather clock and not the digital one above the office door. She ambled toward it as inconspicuously as she could, but the saleswoman was not keen on letting them escape her pitch.

"What can I interest you in today? We have the city's widest selection of engagement rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings. And perhaps for you, sir, our watches are quite popular with the college gentlemen."

Botan turned on the woman. "We're only seventeen!" She tried to look innocent as she said it, and Kurama was determined to make her uncomfortable; he was leaning over a case, looking interested in the merchandise. "Don't you dare, Kur—Suichi."

"What do you have in the way of twenty-four-karat apologies?" he asked with wry smile.

Botan rolled her eyes and continued toward the clock as the saleswoman fumbled with Kurama's question.

"Well, let me direct you to our corner cabinet, where we hold the more affordable pieces."

Botan tried to hold in her laugh, but it came out as a snort just as she caught sight of something shimmering in the clock face. There it was, obvious if you bothered to look at it—the stolen ring, hanging off the nub that centered the clock's hands.

"Alright, Suichi," said Botan, turning away from the ring in the clock. "We can go, now."

"Then you'll accept my apology?"

Botan blinked. "When you apologize, then maybe."

The saleswoman feigned empathy, just in case they did decide to buy something. "Nothing says 'I love you' like a diamond, Suichi!"

Kurama smiled at the woman. "Sorry for wasting your time."

"Thank you, ma'am!" Botan said as they left, and the door swung shut behind them.

When they had walked a little way and Botan pushed the pedestrian signal at the traffic light, she turned a sour face on Kurama. "Why would you make anyone think you were stealing?"

Kurama led her across the street. "You wouldn't return my calls."

Botan turned her face to his, trying to decipher him as they walked.

"Shunjun's report mentioned the recapture of Rushiyo," Kurama continued.

"Yes, right in the gallery of Doriyushto Embassy. He was even wearing the Band of Shadows!"

Kurama paused, and Botan walked a few steps before realizing he was not beside her.

"Tell me," he began, slipping under a scaffold and out of the foot traffic, "what do you know of the Band?"

"Only what I learned from you," she said. "That it's part of the Bandit's Three, that you really wanted it at one time, and well . . . that it goes on the head."

"Let me correct you. I wanted it out of the hands of Spirit World. Such a power must not be kept by those unworthy of it. Even I never used it, after the initial test."

"What are you saying? Spirit World isn't worthy of its own artifact?"

"I am uneasy that the Band be in anyone's hands but my own."

"But why?" Botan checked over her shoulder, having felt the eyes of passersby. "Why is it so special? You know we still don't have the Mirror or Pendant, right?"

"The Band of Shadows was never part of the Mirror of G'Darth or the Katsuryoku Pendant. It functions without them, and only after the legends surrounding it were verified did it rise to infamy as the greatest of the Bandit's Three."

"Well thank goodness we caught Rushiyo when we did!" Botan clapped. "Spirit World has the most powerful item of the three. And it's all thanks to your brilliant brain!"

"You're wrong," Kurama said gravely. "If the report that Rushiyo was wearing the Band of Shadows is accurate, then I'm afraid these thieves have each of the Bandit's Three."

Botan flinched, then put a finger to her chin. "How can that be? We have it in custody! I saw it myself, Kurama."

"What you saw," he whispered, "was a fake."

#

What'd you think? Rather, what do you think Kurama's thinking, planting a smooch on an unsuspecting lady? That's just rude. Botan is very professional, y'know.

Do you have any questions? Is the plot confusing? Do you hate me? I won't care if you hate me, I guess. However, I will address any plotholes or inconsistencies as soon as I'm able. Maybe there aren't any plotholes or inconsistencies, but I feel like I'm forgetting something as I post this. It's maddening.

Anywho, as always, thank you so much for reading, and thank you to those who take the time to review, and a BIG thank you to those who review with every section I upload. You're all too sweet! I am unworthy.