Southern Fried Chapter 6

So this is slightly a filler chapter. Got to set the scene! We'll get to the ass-kicking in the next one I promise. ;)

Yusuke and Keiko were out in the city a few days later. While you wouldn't catch Yusuke calling it a date, it was obvious the two were enjoying their time out together. Yusuke even went as far as to sling his arm around Keiko's shoulders. The girl is question was eating it up, her eyes sparkling as she leaned into him and pointed out various objects of interests. It had been a long while since they had just been out and had a relaxing time.

"You never told me what you and the others raced out of Genkai's for the other day." Keiko stated."

"What? I thought you were there."

Keiko stopped and glared at him. "Yusuke, you jerk, you didn't notice I left? I got an emergency call from my parents for me to help at the restaurant. What happened when I was gone?"

"Well, it turned out it was Mickey-Jo."

"Really? What was she doing out there?"

"That crazy cowgirl was trying to go through Genkai's forest and got roughed up by a demon. A weak demon I beat when I first went through Genkai's training." He shuddered suddenly. "Did you know she shrivels up demons after she kills them and cuts off their fingers and keeps them in a jar?"

Keiko looked horrified.

"Anyway," Yusuke continued. "We brought her into the temple because she had fainted like a girl... N-Not that there's anything wrong with being a girl!" Yusuke waved his hands nervously at Keiko's glare.

"ANYway," Keiko said, miffed. "Was she ok?"

"Yea she was ok, but when she woke up she went attacked Yukina."

"WHAT?!" Keiko shrieked at the top of her lungs. Yusuke winced. "Oh my goodness poor Yukina! Is she ok? Did Mickey-Jo hurt her? I want to find that cowgirl now!" Steam was practically pouring out of her ears. "Why would that girl do such a thing? To Yukina of all people! She wouldn't hurt another living creature." She whirled on Yusuke. "Why aren't you answering me Yusuke?!"

"Geez, Keiko, calm down! You haven't taken a breath in like, five minutes." Yusuke took a deep breath, exhausted just listening to her.

As Keiko stayed silent, Yusuke went on. "She was saying something about how she didn't know if we had left her out in the forest, and was thinking Genkai's was some demon house and she was going to get eaten. She had walked in on Yukina cooking. But then Hiei came in, nearly killed her, she left and we haven't seen her since."

Keiko huffed. "Well that's ridiculous. You wouldn't have left her in that horrible forest."

"Some of us were tempted actually..."

"YUSUKE!"

"Kidding, I'm kidding! Damn!"

"Hhmm.. I wonder where she went."

Yusuke stretched his arms and crossed them behind his head. "Don't know, don't care. She was beginning to cause problems. She apologized for attacking Yukina, but she's got this demon-hating complex and I don't think it would be a good idea for her to be around Hiei at all."

Keiko sighed. "Well... I mean... I guess I can kind of understand what Mickey-Jo was going through."

"What?! Keiko are you serious?"

"I mean, if I passed out in the middle of a demon territory, and the first thing you see is a demon then... I dunno.. I can see how she may have felt threatened." Her face darkened. "I'm still going to yell at her next time I see her. Going after Yukina? With what?"

"A knife."

"A knife?! Oh poor Yukina." Keiko frowned. "And I was starting to like Mickey-Jo. I guess it's true, all Americans are crazy."

Yusuke gave a yawn. "Ah don't sweat it, Keiko. No one got hurt and that crazy girl isn't coming near Yukina again. So it's all good!"

"Yusuke you can be so flippant about such serious things." Keiko murmered.

They came to a bridge and stopped halfway to stare into the water. Keiko leaned into Yusuke as he put his arm around her again. You never could tell who you would meet being the Spirit Detective's girlfriend. Keiko was friends with demons, half-demons, Spirit Animals, and even Grim Reapers! She had met people who were all good, people who didn't care either way, and ones that were all bad. She was saddened, Mickey-Jo seemed like such a nice girl. And she was so different! Her parents had been really impressed with the way her dog had been trained when they visited the restaurant that day. Her politeness was also a large factor in her parent's opinion of the cowgirl. She sighed.

Her boyfriend squeezed her shoulders lightly. "You worry too much, Keiko. Everything turned out fine. Mickey-Jo will find whoever she's looking for, and be gone, and everything will be back to normal. Well, normal enough for us anyway.." He chuckled.

She smiled up at him. "I guess you're right Yusuke."

"YUSUKE!" Koenma's voice blared from Yusuke's TV in his room.

"Aaah!" the Spirit Detective jumped a mile in the air when he saw Koenma on the screen. "Koenma! What are you doing in my TV?! I don't remember putting a video in."

"It's my new toy!" Koenma looked like a cat in the cream. "I can transmit a signal that will take over any TV on Earth. It's -wireless-. And much less time consuming than making a video and sending it all the way to you."

Yusuke glared. "What do you want, sucker breath?"

"Oh yes.." Koemna looked at the papers on his desk. "Oh yea! Yusuke, it's terrible! Reports have come back about the most horrible thing!"

"Spit it out, Koenma!"

The Spirit World Prince composed himself. "My reports have come back stating there is a calamity about to befall earth. A demon has been traveling the world collecting souls to fuel a machine we thought had been destroyed."

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Oh you'd think by now the bad guys would come up with something more creative that that. It's either breaking the barrier, a demon insect invasion, or trying to blow the damn world up. These guys are getting stupider and stupider!"

"This is serious, Yusuke!" Koenma cried. "This machine feeds off human souls. It's bad enough someone is going around killing humans, which is an major felony, they are using the souls of people they've killed to power what's basically a nuclear bomb!"

"Ok, so where's this guy at?"

"We don't know."

Yusuke slammed his head on the floor. "So why did you bother telling me?!" He yelled. "Do we even know what he looks like?"

"No, we don't."

"Way to have quality information there, Koenma." Yusuke shook his head.

"We do know he is in Japan somewhere."

"Oh, that's great information. We know this psycho is in the country. That narrows it down!"

Koenma glared now. "You could be having to search the entire world you know!"

Another eyeroll. "Anything special I should be looking for?"

"Oh the normal when demons are stealing souls. Strange illness, people collapsing without any reason, an increase in murders and such."

Yusuke thought for a moment and put his hand on his chin. "Hmm, you know... there has been a lot of people collapsing out of the blue recently."

Koenma got excited. "Where? Here in this city?"

"No. In the next one over."

The toddler threw up his hands. "Well what are you waiting for?! Go round up the others and get to it!"

The TV went blank. Yusuke sighed and laid back down on the floor. "I'll get to it after my nap."

"NO YUSUKE NOW!" Koenma blinked back on the TV, scaring Yusuke half to death, and blinked back off.

"Ok, ok I'm going!" The Spirit Detective pulled himself up and trudged out the door. Finding the other guys shouldn't be too hard. Kuwabara would be at home, Kurama would be at home, and Kurama would know where Hiei is. Well, hopefully he would know where Hiei is.

As it turned out, Kurama and Hiei were together at the fox's house. Yusuke let himself in and walked up the stairs to Kurama's bedroom. He heard the voices of the two demons inside.

"Hiei," Kurama was saying. "Everything turned out fine. No one was hurt."

"That doesn't matter, Kurama. It shouldn't have happened in the first place."

"It was the only good option-"

"A good option? Bringing a demon hunter into a place where demon's live? Especially an innocent one? That was a good option!?"

"Hiei, please, calm yourself. We have company." Kurama raised his voice. "Come in Yusuke, and stop listening at the door."

Yusuke did so, grinning. "And here I thought I was being quiet as a mouse!"

"What do you want, Detective?" Hiei asked.

"Koenma has another mission for us. Apparently another crazy demon is trying to blow up Earth. He's stealing souls to power some machine or something." Yusuke shrugged.

Kurama's eyes widened. "I thought that machine was destroyed hundreds of years ago."

"Yea, apparently not according to Mr. Diapers. And there's been a lot of people collapsing in the next town over for no known reason."

"Could be someone stealing souls..." Kurama mused.

"That's what the general idea is. What is this machine anyway?"

"I haven't seen it before. But I've heard about it many times during my life as Youko. It uses the souls of humans to power itself. It takes the pain and suffering of the human, and turns it into a physical force. The more painful the human's life has been, the more tortured the soul, the more powerful the result." Kurama put his fingertips together. "It was supposed to have been destroyed by its maker, who had a change of heart after falling in love with a human woman. Evidently, it wasn't." He looked to Yusuke. "Depending on how long this demon has been collecting souls, it has the power to destroy the Earth in its entirety."

Yusuke grimaced. "Well, then lets get Kuwabara and take care of this dumbass." He waved his hands at the other two and walked out the door.

After cleaning up camp for the second time, Mickey-Jo had continued her search where she had left off. A day's worth of traveling keeping to the less beaten path and out of the city had been kind of rough. She was especially frustrated that her map magic was saying her enemy was IN the city. Her divination trick wasn't giving her a pinpoint location like it had on earlier hunts either. She was stuck looking for a place to keep Dazzle out of trouble and harm while she had to go street walking.

A grumble from her stomach reminded Mickey-Jo she hadn't eaten in a while. She had given the last of her food to Ol'Boy. Since Dazzle was a grazer, he could keep his belly full while they walked through the forest, grabbing leaves and grasses as they walked. He had an inborn knowledge of which plants were good and which plants were poisonous, so she felt comfortable letting him nibble where he willed.

Getting as close as Dazzle could safely be to the city, she told him firmly to stay put and she would be back as soon as she could. His tack was piled underneath a tree and covered with a blanket. Mickey-Jo took her violin and a small shoulder bag that had her maps and the little amount of money she had left. She sighed when she counted the amount. Another detour. More time wasted. Time she should be spending hunting!

She rolled up the sleeves of her plaid button down. She was sad that her favorite shirt got destroyed, but thankfully had plenty of spares. Her mood turned more sour.

"Stupid damn demons. Stupid hunt. Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

It should not have taken her this long to hunt down this demon. Mickey-Jo had to admit, he was squirrely. He was always one step forward. It seemed he knew exactly where she was going to be, and always moved on before she could catch him. Her foe always left behind just enough evidence to make sure she was on the right track. He was toying with her. She had been tracking him for two years, had almost caught him twenty times. She had been through the plains of central America, the Rocky Mountains, up through the frozen wastelands of Northern Canada, down the East Coast, through dozens of other countries. She had literally traveled around the world. This was where the stand would be made. Japan was the last country in the line. Unless he decided to whirl around the world again.

"Ugh! I cain't stand this anymore!" Mickey-Jo shouted to the forest. Ol'Boy whined and dropped his head.

"Come on Ol'Boy. Let's find that summabitch and end this once and for all!"

Another lound rumble from her stomach brought a sheepish look to her face. She blushed and giggled. "Well, after findin' some grub, o'course." She brought out her cash and counted it again. "Damn. I do need to get some more cash 'fore we do that."

Girl and hound entered the city and found a nice, populated street corner. As she was getting Sissy out and settling the violin on her shoulder, she spied today's paper. The headline made her eyes narrow and her jaw set.

'Unknown Illness in the City. Citizens Collapsing. Details on page 10.'

That settled it. He was here. She hated that she had to feed herself and her dog before continuing her hunt, but reality beat out fantasy anytime. Mickey-Jo brought the bow up to her fiddle and started to play.

Like I said, it's kind of a filler chapter.

If you want to see action, PLEASE REVIEW! I know more than one person is reading this story. :p You don't have to go into a in depth analysis of my writing style, just say if you like it or not!

Love all you guys! Thanks for reading! 3