Warnings: None

Speak

Chapter 06:

"Debriefings"

Two days after our family's reunion dinner, I still hadn't heard from Momo. I found myself checking my inbox more than usual as I awaited her reply, unable to get her digital silence—a silence quite unlike her genetic one—out of my head.

Eventually, perturbed by our lack of communication, I penned her a note on the way to my morning classes:

Dear Momo, it read. I haven't heard from you since Sunday night, and I'm worried—are you, perhaps, angry with me?

The email felt stilted and formal, but try though I might, I did not know how to make it sound natural. I had never been one for correspondence with my human peers. After pressing send, I grabbed my jacket, keys, and book bag and headed out the door.

She seemed fine when she left Mother's house, I thought as I walked down the stairs to the lobby of my apartment building. All smiles, at least. I'd have known if she was truly angry. I would've smelled it. The chemicals that produced specific human emotions were easy to discern with my demonic nose. Fear, happiness, anger, all of them possessed a distinct scent. When Momo had left Mother's house, she smelled…

She smelled—

I frowned. How had she smelled, come to think of it? As I exited my building with a nod to the woman behind the desk (a woman, I noted, who stank of boredom) I felt uneasy. I could not remember the taste of Momo's emotions at all. Had I been checking for them? I usually tasted the emotions around me as a matter of course…

My phone buzzed inside my book bag a second before it rang; I had pulled it out and flipped it open by the time it finished ringing once. Very few people would call me so early in the morning. Was Mother in trouble? Had something happened?

The caller ID said 'Private'.

Knowing full well what that meant (and not liking it at all), I pressed 'accept' and held the phone to my ear.

"Kurama?" came the sound of Botan's familiar voice. "Kurama, is that you?"

"Yes, Botan."

"Oh goodie, I was worried you'd lost your phone!" she chirped.

"Luckily I keep excellent track of my possessions. To what do I owe your call this morning?"

I glanced at my watch and lengthened my stride; I was running late—by my standards, at least. I preferred to show up for class a half-hour early. At this rate I would only be there for fifteen extra minutes.

"Oh, it's nothing much, really, it's not!" she said. I didn't need to smell her to know she was about to ask for a favor. "It's just that, well, remember that demon you've been looking for?"

"How could I forget?" Since we'd failed to capture it on the night I'd met Momo, it had been a constant worry festering in the back of my mind.

"Well, Lord Koenma is of the opinion that you won't be able to find it unless you know a little more about the nature of the demon itself!" she said. "He's going to give all of you a thorough debriefing. Isn't that wonderful news?"

My mood soured even further. "Peachy," I muttered. We might have managed to catch the thing by now had he not kept all information but the demon's energy class from us!

Belatedly I realized that I had used Momo's name as a sarcastic form of cursing. I winced. It was a Freudian slip, to be sure, one that suggested things I did not favor. Was Momo truly weighing that heavily on my—?

"What was that?" Botan asked.

"I was only commenting on the weather, Botan," I covered. I'll think about Momo later. "It's a lovely day."

"Why yes it is!" she said. She swallowed the excuse readily. "Now, I was wondering if we could all meet at your apartment to discuss matters."

There was the favor I expected. "Of course. When?"

"Tonight!"

"My schedule is clear." Luckily for her. "What time?"

"Seven!"

Such a prompt response, I thought. "I'll be home by then." By that time I had reached the doors of the train station. "I have to go, Botan—will you tell the others when to meet?"

"I already told Yusuke and Kuwabara!" she gushed, and then her tone turned sheepish. "Oh, um, I mean…"

I merely laughed, because that was so utterly and charmingly Botan, and hung up.

My thoughts wandered during my morning biology lecture, running between the impending meeting and thoughts of Momo's uncharacteristic lack of contact. I kicked myself more than once when her face—dark eyes and full lips and all—appeared unbidden in my head. It wasn't like me to become distracted like that. By the time the day's classes ended and I went back to my apartment at half past six in the evening, I was more than ready to check my email to satisfy my urge to hear from her.

After all, I told myself as I took off my coat, went to my computer, and logged into my email, it would not be beneficial to the productivity of the meeting if I entered into it distracted.

Or, thought another part of me, is that just an excuse for indulging? Perhaps it would be best if I didn't talk to her at all. Maybe it's best if she doesn't reply to—

It was too late for second thoughts, however, because just then the page finished loading.

Momo had not replied.

Before I could register a sense of disappointment, the doorbell rang. I froze, startled, before letting my aura expand past the walls of my apartment and into the hallway beyond. Yusuke's bright blue energy pulsed steadily just outside my door; his aura did not react to mine when our energies brushed. Oblivious as always. I chuckled before answering the door. Yusuke had his hands shoved in his pockets. From his elbow hung a large plastic sack, which he glanced at before grinning.

"Brought us some ramen," he said.

I stepped back so he could come inside. "You're early."

"Had to be. I only brought enough for us."

Yusuke sat on the couch, placing the ramen on the glass coffee table so he could unpack it. I joined him, resting on the easy chair before Yusuke pushed my portion toward me. We cracked chopsticks and tucked in without ceremony. The silence was an easy one. We had fallen into the habit of eating dinner together about once a week, usually at the ramen cart he owned. In fact, we had been eating at that cart the first night the demon appeared. Yusuke closed up shop early that night to help us hunt for it in the city, though we had not had any luck tracing the creature. We had only met Momo, and her friends. What an odd coincidence, meeting her. Almost as if fate itself had—

"What's eating you, man?"

I offered Yusuke a small smile of apology. "Just some family matters," I hedged. Though oblivious to most spiritual matters (he was a fighter, not a spiritualist like Kuwabara), he could always sense when I was distracted. "It's nothing, really."

Yusuke snorted. "With you, 'nothing' is always code for 'something', so spill it. What's up?"

I hesitated.

"Oh come on," he said. "It can't be as bad as some of your Yoko stories."

My smile came stiffly. "Of course not."

At his urging, I reluctantly revealed to him the basics: that I had been emailing the mute girl we had rescued for the past two weeks, and that we had learned we were cousins through marriage only a few days earlier.

"We had been planning on an outing sometime soon," I said. "Alas, she hasn't—"

"What, you mean like a date?" Yusuke cut in. When I nodded, he stood and smacked me across the back with a grin. "Dude, great job!"

"It's not a date, Yusuke," I admonished, but he just shrugged.

"Hey, I call it like I see it. Exchanging emails, getting to know each other, going out in your spare time—sounds like a date-thing to me."

"And the fact that we're cousins doesn't bother you?"

Yusuke leaned back and put his arms behind his head. "It's just through marriage, right?"

"Correct."

"Then it's fine—you're not, y'know, icky." He breathed a relaxed sigh. "Kurama with a girlfriend. Wow."

My lips twitched. "Momo is not my girlfriend."

"But she will be."

"Not necessarily. If we were to date and if we were to break it off, family gatherings would be tense."

"So? Talk it out and it'll be fine."

"It's not that simple. Her association with me could cause her trouble."

"What, you mean Yomi would wanna use her against you or something?" Yusuke asked. Glittering brown eyes narrowed. "I thought he was done trying to recruit you, after the latest tournament. We're all our own men, now." Then he shrugged. "You and me are, at least. Hiei's another story. But us, we're free."

I didn't look at Yusuke when I said: "Yomi will never be done with me, I'm afraid. He is…tenacious."

Yusuke snorted. "Obsessed, much?"

"Something like that." After a moment I met Yusuke's eyes full on, diving past the petty and into the serious. "What's worse is that Momo knows of my dual identities," I told him. "My two names, anyway."

Yusuke blinked, tensing. "You mean, she knows you're Kurama and Shuichi?"

"Correct." I stirred the dregs of my noodles with my chopsticks. "She does not know the significance of or the reasons behind my adoption of two names, but the fact that she knows of them both is of concern."

"Why don't you just wipe her mind the way you did that Maya chick and start things fresh?"

My lips thinned as I stared into my noodles. I had told Yusuke of Maya during the Demon World tournament, when he had attempted to set me up on a date and I had had no interest in humoring him. Sometimes I regretted telling him about Maya. He tended to bring her up at the most inopportune times. And yet, I was glad I could tell someone of Maya's role in my life, Yusuke especially.

Yusuke and I shared many things. Of all our friends, I supposed I was closest with him. After the incident with the Forlorn Hope and the grief associated with it, how could we not have become close? Few people understood sacrifice (especially sacrifice concerning mothers) the way we did. Like gravitates to like, making our friendship a natural thing. I was grateful to him, really. He was the closest thing to a human friend I had ever had…

Well, not entirely human, I thought. Yusuke is a Mazoku, after all. His humanity lingers but will diminish with time, whereas Momo—

Momo…she will be human forever.

I jumped when something flitted past my face.

"Earth to Kurama?" Yusuke said, waving a hand in front of my eyes.

"I'm sorry. I was thinking about…" I grimaced. "Momo hasn't replied to my latest email. I fear she's angry with me. If she is, I'm not sure what I'm expected to do to remedy the situation, if anything at all. It might be best to simply let her keep her distance." I stirred my ramen with my chopsticks, watching the noodles undulate through the golden broth. "I fear concerning her with my demonic ties."

Yusuke didn't look as concerned as I felt. He merely shrugged. "So keep her in the dark. You want to live as a human, right?"

I nodded. I had made my decision after the tournament of kings in Demon World. I would live out my days as a human, and only resume my demonic life once my human life had run its course. Yusuke knew this as well as I did, and had promised to help me transition away from my demonic instincts. He knew better than anyone what it meant to live trapped between two worlds.

"Think of this as a crash course in human—in human shenanigans," he said. He looked quite proud of his vocabulary. "Yeah, shenanigans. Humans deal with stuff like this all the time, emailing and worrying about girls and whatnot. So stop worrying about putting her in demonic danger and start worrying about how…you know, human shit. Leave out demons and focus on being human, for once. Only deal with the demons if you have to. Cross that bridge when you come to it, if ever." He chucked me on the elbow. "You've never had much of a chance to just be a human kid, right?"

It was true. I'd never been much of a human, let alone a kid. I never had friends my human age. I had never emailed a young woman and wondered how she felt about me when she did not reply. This was new territory despite the many years I'd lived. I had maintained a distance between myself and my human peers all my life.

Was I ready to let that distance close? And with a woman tied to me as Momo was, no less?

What was she thinking right now?

Would I ever hear from her again?

I was not accustomed to this type of social discomfiture, and I had no idea how to proceed.

"I'm hardly a kid, even forgetting my demonic experience," I said to cover my inner unease. "I'm a college student."

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "You're still pretty inexperienced at being a human, I'd say." Then he looked me up and down with a critical eye. "For instance those slacks you seem to like so much. They're kinda…old-fogey. If you're going to date in the human world, maybe get a pair of jeans or two?"

I suppressed a glare. Yusuke grinned.

"Hey, you've never dated a teenage girl before!" he teased. "Keiko took one look at my wardrobe when I got back from Demon World and nearly blew a—"

"Yoo-hoo!"

We both jumped at the sound of Botan's merry voice. Yusuke looked at the ramen bowls on the table and adopted the expression of a frightened rabbit. A small part of me enjoyed this, and felt vindicated for his fashion comment. I saw nothing wrong with the slacks I favored. My mother said they looked sharp.

Though perhaps taking fashion advice from one's mother wasn't typical human behavior, come to think of it…

Yusuke grabbed my bowl and stacked it atop his. "Aw man, I gotta hide these or Botan'll be pissed I didn't bring enough for her!"

As Botan pounded on the door, calling my name so loudly I feared she'd wake the neighbors, Yusuke swiped everything off the coffee table and darted into the kitchen, where he hid the evidence of our pre-meeting meal from Botan's eagle gaze. I opened the door once he returned (looking relieved, though still a touch apprehensive). Botan skipped in the door when I opened it, marveling at my apartment in a way that suggested she hadn't seen it before, which she had a hair shy of a dozen times. Forever dramatic. That was our Botan.

"She never gets tired of seeing our houses," Kuwabara grumbled when he followed her inside. He was dressed in jeans and a jacket, looking irritated but glad to see me. "How've ya been, man?"

"Fine, as ever," I said, which was somewhat true. Speaking with Yusuke had calmed me. He usually had that affect.

"So austere!" Botan chirped as she spun in circles in the living room. "A couch, a chair, a table, and a desk! You need to put some art on the walls, Kurama, the blank eggshell paint is just—"

"Will Hiei be joining us tonight, Botan?" I asked, mostly to stop her from drawing up a redecorating plan from which I could not extricate my home.

"Oh, I don't think so," she said. She carried a briefcase marked with the seal of Spirit World. When she opened it atop the coffee table, I saw a small TV screen inside the lid. "He was on loan from Mukuro when he helped with the mission earlier. Since we've hit a standstill, Koenma had no excuse to request his continued presence in Human World."

"Not that the shrimp even wanted to help in the first place," Kuwabara muttered.

"He will come if we need him, Kuwabara," I said. "Hiei is our friend."

"Cheh!" Kuwabara rolled his eyes. "Sure he is. What kind of friend insults your face when you see him for the first time in two months?"

I suppressed a frown. It was true: we had not seen Hiei since the case concerning the Book, Ryu, and Seishou had come to a close two months previous. At first I had thought Hiei's prolonged absence strange, but then—

"Didn't even ask to see Dani," Kuwabara continued. "I mean, I get that she's still asleep and you can only basically stare at her when you visit, and that's boring, but still. You'd think he'd be around more, right?"

Kuwabara watched my reaction when he spoke, as though expecting me to comment or reveal something via my expression, but I refrained from doing either. I had my suspicions regarding Hiei's absence. They were unconfirmed, but there was more to the situation than met the eye, I was certain. I would wait to comment until I could provide Kuwabara commentary based not on emotion, but on hard fact.

Provided Hiei ever chose to reveal his secrets to me, of course. He had been avoiding my missives as of late. It was high time I paid him a direct visit…

Botan slapped the side of the briefcase a few times, muttering about bad reception. Yusuke walked up behind her, peering at the screen over her shoulder.

"Whoa, Koenma's gonna talk to us face to face?" Yusuke said.

"Yes, Koenma is going to be speaking to all of us directly." Botan toyed with the controls below the screen for a second. "Almost…got it!"

The screen illuminated, revealing Koenma's seal bouncing around like a PC screensaver. Botan held out her hands in a 'ta-dah!' gesture.

"Gather round, everyone!" she burbled, grinning so hard her eyes squeezed shut. "Lord Koenma will be here shortly!"

Kuwabara and Yusuke tussled for the couch, each vying for a better position in front of the screen. With a sigh I grabbed the briefcase and carried it to my computer desk, positioning it so we could all see from any point in the room. Yusuke and Kuwabara looked appropriately foolish, sulking, before Botan jumped over the back of the couch and settled in between them with a giggle. I took the chair, resting my elbows on my knees so I could lace my fingers together and press my lips against them.

Soon enough the suitcase's screen dimmed to black. Then a riot of colors swirled into view and formed the childish face of Koenma, ruler of the Spirit World. He was much too close to the camera, face warped and twisted until he leaned back against his chair and flipped us all a peace sign.

"Yo!" he said around his customary pacifier. His voice sounded scratchy as it came through the case's tinny speakers. "Good to see you, Kuwabara, Kurama, Yusuke. I trust my assistant didn't give you any trouble?"

"No more than the usual, baby breath," Yusuke said. Botan pouted; Koenma's eyebrow twitched. "Now why don't we get to the point? I'm skipping work to be here!"

"I am well aware I am asking a favor of you all, Yusuke," Koenma said. He shuffled through a sheaf of papers on his desk without looking at us. "No need to rub it in."

"Yeah, yeah, just tell us what you should have told us when you first assigned this case!"

"I second that," Kuwabara said. "But Yusuke, calm down, OK? I'm sure Koenma kept stuff from us for a good reason." He looked at the screen for confirmation. "Right?"

I gave Kuwabara a sidelong look. His blocky face was poised and earnest, tense beneath a skein of calm composure. He had grown into himself during college, hard work and studies mellowing his dramatic mannerisms. His earlier joking with Yusuke proved that he was still the same old Kuwabara, but now…

You've become more reliable, my friend, I thought with a smile, remembering training him before the Dark Tournament. Back then you complained and moaned at the slightest provocation, but now…

Koenma, on the screen, seemed calmed by Kuwabara's understanding tone of voice. "Since none of you are technically under Spirit World employ, regulations did not permit me to reveal much by way of information," he said. "Over the past two weeks I've been working round the clock to gain more leeway, and thankfully I managed to get you all low-level clearance."

"Wait, you're ruler of the Spirit World now that your dad isn't in charge!" Yusuke said in protest. "Why couldn't you just—?"

"Koenma-san is a much more honest ruler than his father!" Botan chimed in, rounding on Yusuke with a determined frown. "King Yama consistently broke the rules, but Koenma is doing everything by the book, just like a good ruler should!"

"Sheesh!" Yusuke muttered, slouching down into himself. "Sorry I asked…"

"I don't suppose this case hinges upon a critique of your ruling style, does it?" I said lightly, attempting to bring us back on task.

"No, Kurama, it does not. Moving on!" the child-ruler said. He laced his fingers together and rested them on his desk, craning his head imperiously. "Now, as you all know, there is a demon living in Human World."

Yusuke pointed at me. I blinked innocently, smiling when Botan jabbed an elbow into Yusuke's side.

"No, not Kurama," Koenma snapped. "As I told you before, there is a demon living in Human World, one that can successfully masquerade as a human. Energy concealment, physical changes…it can look like anyone, though we have reason to believe it sticks to a small set of identities."

"And I suppose you'll tell us the names of these identities?" I asked.

Koenma looked away. "Unfortunately, we don't exactly, um, know what these identities are," he said, rubbing the back of his neck in consternation. "We've never been able to catch sight of it while it's in a human form."

"I see. In that case, what does it look like in its demonic form?"

Koenma grumbled something, and then the screen split down the middle. On one side sat Koenma, but on the other…

"Kinda grainy," Yusuke said, squinting at the film of a tall, slender, bipedal creature as it walked down a hallway. The demon kept to shadows, darting through patches of light like a scurrying rat. The black-and-white footage did little to reveal the demon's coloring, but it seemed to be coated in scales that shone with subtle iridescence. From its forehead curled two horns not unlike a ram's. Large oval eyes reflected fear, fear I didn't understand given the massive talons curling from its four-toed feet and five-fingered hands. Surely it could defend itself with both those and the reptilian tail sweeping the floor in the creature's wake. Though the footage only lasted five or so seconds, it played in an endless loop. The demon glided along the floor despite the shackles binding its double jointed, raptor-like legs together at the ankle.

"This is the demon," Koenma said. "His name is Hide. Twenty years ago we managed to apprehend him, but he escaped our custody and fled into Human World."

"Why was he in jail in the first place?" Kuwabara asked.

The resulting pause stretched long. The footage of Hide sneaking down the hallway played in an endless cycle. Koenma suckled intently on his pacifier. Despite the pixilation of his face on the small briefcase screen, I saw a bead of sweat trickle down his temple. Eventually he spoke, eyes boring into us to drive home the gravity of his words.

"The demon Hide," he said, "killed a human child. Her name was Kusagawa Arata. She was seven years old."

Silence. Then everyone spoke at once.

"We gotta find it," Yusuke growled. "I'm not letting a child-killer loose in my city, no way, no how!"

"Shouldn't we be guarding, you know, the relatives of the kid?" Kuwabara babbled. "Her family could be in danger! They could be—"

"How awful!" Botan said through suddenly-misty eyes. "I knew the demon had done something bad, but I never—"

"Hey, hey!" Koenma said, hands slamming onto his desk. "Can you all just pipe down and listen to me for once?"

"What's there to listen to?" Yusuke said, shooting to his feet. He marched over to the screen and shoved his face close to it. "It killed a little kid!"

"It was an accident!" Koenma protested. "It—"

"Well, if it was an accident, why the hell is it so important we catch this thing?" Kuwabara joined in. He moved to push his face close to the screen as well.

"Just sit down and listen and I might tell you!"

After a few more shouts, Kuwabara and Yusuke managed to regain composure and return to their seats on the couch. Botan took their hands into her lap, clutching at them in a manner meant to comfort. Both took this indignity with grace and grumbling. I, meanwhile, watched and waited as Koenma composed himself. The act of killing a child was unforgivable. Why would Koenma not track down the demon before now? Why wait so long when Hide committed such a crime?

"Now, then," said Koenma. The image of the creeping demon faded away. "As I was trying to tell you, the demon fled from a jail in Spirit World, entered Human World, and accidentally killed a child. Then he vanished. He reappeared twenty years later—AKA, now—and we want to find him and bring him in."

His words were clipped, rehearsed…deceiving.

Oh Koenma, I thought sourly. You should know better than to lie to a fox.

I said: "You still haven't told us why he was originally in jail."

Koenma's face darkened. "I'm afraid," he said, "that I can't tell you that."

Yusuke growled, "Then how are we supposed to—"

"Yusuke."

The young man froze at the sound of Koenma's voice—a voice that had suddenly gone quite deadly indeed. The toddler king pinned us all with a glare, but the glare didn't so much demand understanding as it did beg for it.

"I can't tell you why at the moment," he said, "but for the past twenty years, finding Hide has not been a top priority for Spirit World—in fact, we've viewed him as mostly harmless despite his record. So far as we can tell, he stopped hurting people after that first slip-up."

"Slip-up!" Botan repeated. "Killing a child is a slip-up?!"

"Good point. That's a messed up thing to say, Koenma. And why is so important we catch him now, after all this time?" Kuwabara said. "Why this year, why today?"

"That's on a need-to-know basis," Koenma said primly.

On cue, the bottom half of the briefcase clicked and hissed. A panel opened up, and from it rose a small platform. On it sat three wristwatches with silver bands and black faces. Simple, but elegant. A far cry from the technicolor tracking watch I'd seen Botan use during the Sensui case.

"I've outfitted these trackers with samples of the Hide's DNA," he said. "They will alert you should the demon emit any substantial spiritual energy. Their range is impressive, though not infinite. There's an attached meter that will tell you the distance to your target up to ten kilometers away. And yes, they do tell the time."

"This is rare. You haven't given us new gadgets in ages," Yusuke remarked.

Koenma shrugged. "Desperate times, desperate measures."

"Hide isn't your only goal, is he?"

Heads swiveled in my direction when I spoke. Koenma looked first startled, then vexed. That look confirmed all my suspicions.

"You say you're desperate, but you've told us little," I said. "Logically, if this is truly a task of great importance, you should tell us everything you know. And yet you keep secrets."

Somehow, Koenma managed to stare right at me through the communication screen. In his eyes I saw anger—and fear. Fear I did not understand, but fear I did not care to assuage. Let Koenma be afraid. His future self had kept secrets from us during the fight with Seishou, and that had ended in disaster, with dozens of humans killed during the attack on the festival in Sakana. If Koenma had not learned his lesson then, I did not intend to coddle him now.

"Logically," I murmured, "Koenma was not concerned with finding Hide until recently, despite the fact that Hide was allowed to roam free for twenty years. That means something somewhere else has changed, making Hide's importance grow." I smiled at Botan, Kuwabara, and Yusuke, who were all listening with rapt attention. "Finding this Hide character is not Koenma's only goal. Finding Hide must be the key to finding something bigger. Something Koenma is reluctant to tell us about."

I did not allow any warmth to touch my eyes when I stared Koenma down.

"Isn't that right, Koenma?" I asked. "You want us to find this demon in order to further your own hidden agenda."

The prince's face screwed up in annoyance. "You were always too sharp for your own good, Kurama," he said through clenched teeth. "But yes—you're right. Finding Hide is the first step to solving an even bigger mystery, one I can't divulge right now, but trust me when I say that finding Hide is—"

"…of utmost importance?" Yusuke guessed, words chiming in unison with Koenma's. The ex-spirit detective rolled his eyes when Koenma's face reddened. Then he turned a lazy smile in my direction.

"You know, Kurama," he said, brown eyes glittering with anger, amusement, and déjà vu, "I feel like I've heard this story a dozen times before."

So had I.

I merely hoped this retelling had a happier ending than tales previous, all Koenma's surreptitious machinations aside.

NOTES 2016:

Removed a SUPER LONG AND DUMB email exchange between Kurama and Momo, made the dialogue flow a bit better, added a bit about Dani that clarified the timeline between this story and Future Talk.

SO EAGER to write new stuff instead of editing old stuff. I feel bound to the old content, and not in a good way. "I'm like a peacock; you gotta let me fly!"

Thanks to those who reviewed the previous edited chapter: Akara Suzuki, Sanguinary Tide, jcampbellohten, j.d.y., Procrastionation Possum, casjowar, ovenfreshh, Guest, AkaMizu-chan, Aria2302, SomethingMoreQ, Xxser3ndipityxX, Emzybubble, Takara Taji, BarbyCahn4ever, Lariee, Ochiphius, ShadowFireFox13!

NOTES 2010:

Next chapter: Momo gets a response to her email, plans are made, ruined, and remade, and a piece of Koenma's puzzle falls into place.

I had major struggle-issues with this chapter, mostly because it deals with Kurama's emotions on a deep level and those are slippery things indeed. At first he just read Momo's email and accepted it, which I realized was NOT what he'd do because he'd analyze it and I needed to show him doing so. He's hard to characterize!

I've always thought Yusuke and Kurama would be really close after what they went through together in the Artifacts arc. I'm hoping to play that up in this story.

Who is this demon (name pronounced Hee-day, but the word 'hide' is kind of a pun considering his abilities) and what bigger role will he play in events as of yet unseen? What's going on that Koenma isn't telling the others? Will they catch the demon, or will they not even be able to find it?

Also, yeah, we see the final incarnation of the email Momo tried to type in the last chapter. Emails will probably pop up a lot in upcoming chapters since, you know, Momo's not the best conversationalist…

And YOU! Yes, you there! The one reading this! YOU'RE AWESOME! AND DON'T YOU DARE FORGET IT, EITHER! Panda-chan31, Kuro Neko to Kura Bara, LadyxAbsinthe, Amber DreamStone, Kajihenge Yoko, strawberry9506, Misuzu-PM, Koryu Elric, angel-hime96, DevilAngelWOlf27, Tally Youngblood, Kaiya's Watergarden, unknown player, itsallaboutbob, sicklemoon13, AmoreVampiresv-v, Mihakuu, chocolateluvr13, Reclun, Bi Gay Straight Who Cares, Foxgirl Ray, Angel of Randomosity, -individuality-has-a-name-me-, DaAmazingMeepers, heve-chan, Slimjim314yo!