Chapter 3 – Yokorina
"So how's life as spirit detective?" Yusuke asked as he and Keiko walked along the street together.
"Not nearly as hard as you always made it sound," she replied with a smile.
"Is that your signature attack now?" he asked. "Nasty comebacks? Who taught you that one: Kuwabara's sister?"
Keiko laughed and shook her head.
"Seriously though, are you sure you wanna get involved in all this?" Yusuke asked. "Even if there isn't so much fighting any more, you're still taking orders from Koenma and that's gotta sting."
"Koenma is another part of the job that isn't nearly as difficult as you made it out to be," Keiko replied.
"That's just because you haven't seen him at his worst. But I think you're about to."
"What do you mean?"
"A low level demon just showed up in the living world and when I was on my way back here, I got a message telling me Koenma wants me, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei on the case. Before he's asking all four of us to pitch in, something fishy's going on."
"Like what?"
"I got no idea: but that's part of the "fun" of working with Koenma and spirit world. They only ever tell you the absolute minimum amount of information you need to start working on something and only if it starts to blow up in their faces do they bother telling you the rest of the story."
"You just have a negative opinion of them because of how they all treated you when you turned out to be a demon."
"Oh yeah?"
Keiko stopped walking and turned to face Yusuke – who stopped at her side – ready to tell him exactly how wrong he was; but she hesitated when she realised that he was pointing at something behind her. She looked back over her shoulder in time to see a very dirty and pathetic looking Botan crash-land her damaged oar onto a car roof. The ferry girl yelped out a few "oopsies" and "oh dears" as she slid down the windscreen and over the wing mirror, landing on one hip on the street.
"Hey Botan," Yusuke called over to her. "Is Koenma ready to tell us the whole story yet?"
"Oh Yusuke!" she called back. "I'm so glad you're here! Koenma wants your help to find the missing cat demon! He said you must find her and bring her back to demon world alive and that if you don't do it in the next 24 hours, he is going to despatch the SDF to do it."
Yusuke turned to Keiko, smiling knowingly. She stared back up at him, her face pale and her dark eyes wide.
"All that and we still don't know the whole story yet," he said to her quietly. "Just wait until this starts going badly, the SDF get involved, Koenma throws a fit and he's forced to tell you more."
Keiko turned back to look at Botan, who appeared to have gotten the end of her ponytail entangled on one of the wiper blades on the car she had crashed into. She was trying to stand up and almost bending over backwards as she did so, yelping and sobbing each time her hair tugged her painfully backwards.
"And that is the typical level of competence in spirit world," Yusuke said to Keiko as she watched Botan's pitiful performance. "Koenma is a little smarter than that but less physically able. Feeling scared yet?"
Keiko groaned miserably.
"It's a type of frozen dessert."
Koenma narrowed his eyes in what he thought was a menacing glare, but Yukina kept her eyes on the sink ahead of herself.
"That's not what I meant and you know it," he said sternly.
"We have black tea, green tea or white tea," she replied, her eyes still on the sink. "Which do you prefer?"
"Yukina, you have to tell me what you know."
Yukina finally turned to look directly at Koenma.
"It's also a flower," she said.
Koenma sighed.
"Black tea?" she offered.
"Okay," he replied.
He paced around the kitchen as Yukina meticulously set about her task of making a pot of tea; he strongly suspected she was deliberately drawing out the process, but he did not question her on the matter. When she finally passed him a mug of tea he accepted it and held out a hand towards the dining room.
"Come and sit with me, I want to tell you a story," he offered.
She nodded and led the way into the dining room. He waited until she had sat down before choosing the chair opposite her and sitting down there, leaning his elbows onto the table to bring himself closer to her.
"There is a tribe of cat demons in demon world," he began, watching her carefully for any response as he spoke. "And though they were once united, they became divided. One group was strong, the other was weak. The weak group had a leader who was known by the code name "Raspberry Sundae". She lived very dangerously and one day she was brutally slaughtered. Those who took her life have since been searching for any of her allies and killing them off one by one. Anyone who ever had any association with "Raspberry Sundae" is in danger. Do you understand me?"
"No," Yukina replied, before giving a small, innocent smile. "Though I don't really understand very much about demon world politics. I grew up in the ice village and we had no contact with the rest of demon world."
Koenma took a large swig of his tea, almost glad of the distraction burning his mouth gave him.
"I'm trying to impress two things upon you right now," he said, deciding to be more direct with her in the hope of making her realise the gravity of the situation. "First of all, the leader of the rebel cat demons is gone. And secondly, anybody who ever dealt with the leader of the rebel cat demons in any way should stay well clear of the cat demons: the rebels as well as the loyalists. In fact, anybody who has ever dealt with the leader of the rebel cat demons should find a safe place to go to if that anybody thinks they might come into contact with a cat demon. Do you understand me now Yukina?"
"That sounds scary," Yukina said sadly. "I hope Kazuma returns home soon, safe and sound."
"Right…" Koenma grumbled into his mug of tea. "Because Kuwabara is the one we should be worried about here…"
Kuwabara was sure Yusuke had been playing some sort of juvenile joke on him when he had assigned him the south-west corner of Sarayashiki to search, since the majority of the south-west corner of the city was taken up by a junk yard. After clearing the fence and dodging past several rats that looked fearsome enough to be residents of demon world, he climbed the highest mound of waste and began looking around the yard. As he stood on the spot, looking about himself, he started to realise how bad the smell around him was, how ridiculous his task was, how annoying it was that Yusuke was not taking the mission seriously and how nothing had really made any sense since that cat demon had appeared.
The cat demon had appeared undetected by anyone, she had made Kurama look weak and pathetic and since she had appeared, Keiko had suddenly become the new spirit detective, Shizuru had become her assistant and Hiei had been in an even worse mood than usual. And the cat demon had only appeared because Kurama, Hiei and even Yukina had been talking about "raspberry sundae" and obsessing over the frankly quite ugly little flower Kurama had put on the table. He again wondered what it was about that flower that had captivated all the demons so: even the cat demon had been fascinated by it.
And then Kuwabara had a great idea.
"Hey cat lady!" he yelled out, his voice echoing faintly in the far distance. "I've got all the raspberry sundae you could ever want! Come get it!"
He smiled and shrugged when nothing happened: he had not really expected anything to happen, but he had at least amused himself by trying.
"Tell me more."
Kuwabara spun around in time to see the cat demon from earlier that day landing on top of the mound of trash. He glanced up at the sky, half-expecting to see a flying carpet or some other logical explanation for why she kept falling out of the sky.
"Or don't, I have other ways of finding out what I need to know."
Kuwabara lowered his eyes to the cat demon again in time to see her remove her bandana, a jagan eye opening on her forehead. He winced at the sight of it – he had always hated Hiei's third eye – but it did little more than stare at him.
"Can you cover that back up now?" he asked after a short pause. "It's freaking me out."
To his surprise, she obligingly put her bandana back on.
"It appears the jagan eye is powerless against you," she said.
She looked about as concerned as she would have had she just lost a game of Jenga. Kuwabara started to feel that Yusuke was not the only one failing to take things seriously.
"No matter, it works perfectly well against your friends."
Kuwabara snapped back to attention.
"What did you just say?" he asked.
The cat demon smiled in an almost sympathetic way.
"I maybe didn't get anything from you, but I got something from one of your friends that tells me you could be very valuable to me as collateral," she said.
"Collateral?" Kuwabara repeated. "What do you mean?"
"She means we just figured out how much someone else is willing to pay for the safety of your fragile human life."
Kuwabara spun around to find another female cat demon suddenly standing behind him.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he yelped, stumbling back from her.
He did not want to fight either demon – because they were both female and also because Kurama had been very specific in his instructions that the cat demons should not be harmed – but he was starting to wish that he could at least draw his weapon, if only in the hope that it might encourage the demons to not get so close to him.
"He doesn't look so valuable to me."
Kuwabara turned to his right, tensing as a third cat demon dropped out of the sky.
"Don't be fooled by appearances."
Kuwabara turned around to see a fourth cat demon. Something small and hard flicked against his cheek and fell to the ground at his feet. He barely had time to recognise it as the seed of a demon plant and leap away from it before a giant, slimy, fanged flower burst out of the ground.
"Hey…" he said slowly.
He heard another small clicking sound and jumped again as another angry flower grew out of the pile of waste around him. He then found himself leaping about continuously as several more plants grew up: and a quick glance around told him that there were suddenly many more than just four cat demons throwing seeds at him. Out of desperation he summoned his sword and hacked off the head of one of the flowers, but as soon as the flowerhead fell it began crawling towards him, independent of its stalky body. He continued dodging the plants and the seeds as deftly as he could, but it quickly became apparent that they were forming an ever-decreasing circle around him, trapping him in place. Out of desperation he cut off another flowerhead and then leapt over the remains of the plant. As he landed, one foot stepped into an old soup pan and he lost his footing, falling into the trash.
The smell and the threat of attack had him quickly back on his feet, but as he was distracted by the angry, slimy flowers hissing at him, he took too long to notice that he had cut his hand when he fell and too long to notice that a demon seed had taken hold in the wound and started to sprout. He had just enough time to cry out in horror at the sight of the leaves unfurling from underneath his own skin before he passed out.
Hiei stopped abruptly. His gut reaction to noticing that Kuwabara's aura had vanished was to think it was typical that the human idiot would be the first to do something stupid. His next reaction was that he ought to check exactly what had happened. With a sigh of annoyance he sheathed his sword and removed his bandana, using his third eye to seek out Kuwabara. What he saw left him feeling quite ambivalent: he was as unsurprised as he was shocked. He then quickly sought out the others, finding that Kurama was closest and so he ran to meet him.
"Hiei!" Kurama gasped as Hiei dropped from a rooftop onto the street ahead of him. "Is everything alright?"
"No, it's really not," Hiei sneered. "We've had our first casualty. No prizes for guessing which idiot was stupid enough to get caught."
"…Are you talking about my brother?"
Hiei turned to the woman at Kurama's side.
"Who are you?" he asked her.
"This is Shizuru Kuwabara," Kurama answered. "You remember Shizuru Kuwabara don't you Hiei?"
"How unfortunate that you share a name with an idiot we also know called Kuwabara," Hiei told Shizuru.
"Kuwabara is Shizuru's brother, Hiei," Kurama hissed.
"Right," Hiei said with a nod of his head.
"Is he okay?" Shizuru asked. "Did something happen to him? I didn't feel anything…"
"He's been kidnapped by the cat demons."
"What?" Kurama and Shizuru said in unison.
"It seems there's more than one cat demon here in the living world," Hiei added. "I couldn't see them all clearly, but I would estimate there are eight or nine of them. And now they have Kuwabara."
"Why would they take Kazuma?" Shizuru asked Kurama.
"I don't know," Kurama replied, shaking his head.
"How could they take him?" she asked. "I thought you said these cat demons were weak?"
"Weak, but very cunning," he replied. "They could easily outwit a… Um…"
"A simpleton?" Hiei offered. "They could easily outwit a simpleton? Like Kuwabara?"
Kurama gave Hiei an admonishing look but he ignored the gesture.
"They've taken one of ours," he said. "First they openly mocked us and now they have made a blatant attack. This is surely cause enough to ignore spirit world's mandate."
Hiei drew out his sword to help illustrate his point.
"No Hiei!" Kurama said firmly. "We are not about to kill any cat demons!"
"You said yourself: they could have been here in the living world for long enough," Hiei replied with a shrug. "Anyone who knew of them in demon world will surely have forgotten about them already therefore I don't see the harm in erasing them from existence."
He swung his sword through the air and watched Kurama carefully to gauge his reaction.
"I'm with Hiei on this one," Shizuru said, causing Kurama's eyebrows to shoot upwards out of sight behind his hair. "We can't just let them take Kazuma – and before they managed to take him they must be much stronger than you all thought they were."
"We have to remain calm," Kurama said, lowering his eyebrows again. "It's imperative that we formulate a plan to find and approach the cat demons with care–"
"This situation is beyond reasoning," Hiei cut him off. "I saw eight or nine cats, there could be countless more. They've all escaped demon world undetected, this is a serious threat to the living world. Spirit world will be all over this if we don't fix it and the quickest way to fix it is to eliminate the source of the problem: we kill the cats."
"We cannot kill any of them," Kurama insisted.
"But we can beat some sense into them, right?" Shizuru asked.
"Shizuru, please," Kurama implored.
"This human woman speaks more sense than you, Kurama," Hiei said.
"Hiei you know this is wrong–"
"Can you imagine the bounty we could collect if we surrendered nine female cat demons?"
Kurama paused and Hiei smiled.
"I'm not agreeing with you on this Hiei," Kurama warned him. "And I never will."
Hiei started to argue with him but stopped short as a screaming voice filled the air and a mass of pink and blue landed on a nearby mailbox with a clatter.
"Botan?" Shizuru said, approaching the tangled mess.
"My goodness, this night just keeps getting worse…" Botan groaned as she carefully detached herself from the mailbox.
"Are you okay sweetie?" Shizuru asked, touching a hand to her shoulder. "You look like you've been through the wars!"
"Oh thank you so much for asking Shizuru," Botan said. "I've just had the worst night, nobody seems to–"
"Your timing is perfect, Botan," Kurama cut her off.
She leaned to one side to look past Shizuru at Kurama.
"It's not often anybody says that to me!" she said cheerfully.
"Fetch Yusuke and Keiko, we need to regroup," Kurama answered her.
Her face fell. When Kurama turned back to Hiei, Botan slowly looked up at Shizuru again.
"They got Kazuma," Shizuru told her.
"Oh dear!" Botan gasped.
"Hn, that's an understatement," Hiei spat. "Typical spirit world. You have no idea how serious this all is."
"Neither do you," Kurama said to Hiei. "You just suggested we round up those girls and take them to demon world to claim the bounties on their heads."
"And it was the first good idea anyone has had all day," Hiei plainly replied.
"You know you're being ridiculous," Kurama told him. "Botan, did you hear me? Go and fetch Yusuke and Keiko!"
Botan gasped at Kurama's outburst and Shizuru quickly stepped in front of her, putting her hands on the ferry girl's shoulders and looking her straight in the eye.
"Botan, my brother's in trouble," she said gently. "Please, do this for me. We need to find the big goofball before something bad happens to him."
Botan nodded and sat onto her battered oar.
"I'll bring Yusuke and Keiko here," she said. "For you, Shizuru. And for Kuwabara."
Shizuru nodded and stepped back as Botan began her wobbly ascent into the sky.
After a long, awkwardly silent evening sitting in the living room of the Kuwabara household with Yukina, Koenma was glad when someone knocked at the door: he did not even care who it might be. He watched Yukina expectantly, but she made no attempt to move.
"Aren't you going to get that?" he asked her.
"Oh no," she said, shaking her head. "It could be dangerous. It could be a trap."
Koenma narrowed his eyes at her before getting to his feet and going to the door himself. He was unsure how he would explain his presence in the house if he found a friend or relative of the Kuwabaras standing on the doorstep but he persevered, still simply glad of the distraction; and so he felt more than a little disappointed when he opened the door and found there was nobody there. He looked about outside for any signs of someone leaving but found none.
As he backed into the house he noticed the folded piece of paper on the doorstep.
He crouched down to retrieve it, opening it out and quickly reading over it. He slowly stood up again and folded the note over, pulling forward the front of his tunic with his free hand, readying himself to stuff the note into the folds of his clothing out of sight; but before he could complete his task a strong hand caught his wrist and another hand effortlessly plucked the note from his fingers.
"I saw that, you scheming little rugbrat," Yusuke said as their eyes met. "You were about to hide this from us."
Koenma looked over Yusuke's shoulder, seeing Keiko, Shizuru, Kurama, Hiei and even Botan.
"What is it Yusuke?" Kurama asked.
"A note," Yusuke replied. "And it's addressed to me!"
"What does it say?" Keiko asked.
""Dear Yusuke"," Yusuke read aloud. ""We have taken the one you call Kuwabara. Rest assured that if you do as we say, he will be returned to you unharmed. We understand that he is very precious to you. Meet us tomorrow at dawn at the city harbour. We expect you to give yourself as a trade for Kuwabara's freedom. We mean you no harm, but we have reason to believe that you are withholding information about Raspberry Sundae from us. If you willingly share this information we will gladly leave you alone and we will peacefully return to demon world.""
Yusuke turned his attention back to Koenma.
"Why were you trying to hide this from me?" he asked.
"It's not addressed to you!" Koenma replied, attempting in vain to snatch the note from Yusuke's hand.
"It is too!" Yusuke argued back. "The handwriting is pretty bad, but it looks to me like it says Yusuke. Keiko, wouldn't you agree?"
Yusuke passed the note to Keiko, who studied it for a moment.
"I think it says "Yukoenma"," she concluded.
"Huh?" Yusuke echoed.
"Let me see," Shizuru offered.
Keiko passed her the note and she too studied it.
"It's hard to say," she concluded. "It kinda looks like "Yokorina"."
"Huh?" Yusuke grunted again.
"It says Koenma!" Koenma said.
"It says Yusuke!" Yusuke insisted.
"It says Yukina," Botan said as Shizuru showed her the note.
"What?" Hiei growled, rounding on her.
"Yes, it looks as though it did say one name originally, but they later over-wrote it with another," Botan explained. "It now definitely says Yukina."
"That's ridiculous Botan," Kurama said. "The cat demons have no reason to want information from Yukina. They have no reason to even know of her name or even of her very existence."
"Well smarty pants, it definitely says Yukina!" Botan snapped.
Kurama gave her a hard look before taking the note from Shizuru. As he studied it, Hiei stretched onto his tiptoes and peered around Kurama's elbow to look for himself.
"It does say Yukina," they both concluded.
"There, you see!" Botan said smugly.
"I've had enough of this," Hiei said, shouldering his way past the others to confront Koenma directly. "We are not going to negotiate with these purring idiots. We could easily over-power them, I say we go there tomorrow morning and terminate every last one of them."
Koenma gave a small shake of his head, taking a moment to notice just how murderous the gleam in Hiei's eyes was before working up the courage to answer him.
"I'm sorry Hiei, but that's not an option," he said carefully. "In spirit world, as a rule, we don't negotiate with terrorists–"
"That's exactly what I told that cat demon when she attacked me!" Botan interrupted.
"–But in this instance, we have to make an exception," Koenma continued. "Surely you, as a resident of demon world, understand better than anyone here how risky it would be to fight or kill a cat demon."
"The concern would not be yours or spirit world's," Hiei replied. "If you are too cowardly and too fearful of repercussions, then I will go alone and kill them all myself."
"No."
Koenma was surprised to hear his own answer being spoken by another voice. He stepped slightly to one side to allow Yukina to join him on the front porch.
"I don't want anything bad to happen to Kazuma," she said, focusing her attention on Hiei. "If you attack the cat demons while they are holding him, they could kill him before you get to him."
"You don't understand what you're saying," Hiei answered her. "Kuwabara is much stronger than all of those cat demons combined – and for me to say that, you must know that it's true, given how much I despise him – they could not kill him even if they wanted to. They are calling our bluff. I don't know how they managed to catch him, but I doubt they will manage to hold him until dawn; and even if they do, we are not about to offer them any more hostages."
"Hey, I know my own brother and I know he won't fight his way to freedom," Shizuru interjected. "Not if he's being held by a group of girls. It goes against his moral code to fight girls, so unless one of them seriously threatens his life or seriously threatens one of us, he won't fight back."
"He'll fight back if he knows they're suggesting we trade Yukina for his freedom," Yusuke pointed out.
"Should we try to set them up?" Keiko suggested. "Should we pretend Yukina is going to surrender herself to them and once they release Kuwabara we could attack?"
"We can't attack, they will fight and we can't fight back," Kurama reminded her.
"Can't you use one of your plants that catches bodies without harming them?" Yusuke asked Kurama.
"Catching a body and holding it in place by force requires some sort of incapacitation, usually achieved by inflicting some form of injury on the victim," Kurama replied.
"No!"
Koenma was again surprised to see that Yukina had been the one to voice his thoughts.
"I will meet with the cat demons tomorrow morning," she said once the others had fallen silent. "If they wish to take me in Kazuma's place, then so be it."
"No, that won't work," Yusuke said. "Kuwabara will lose it if he sees you handing yourself over for his freedom."
"You don't know what you're saying!" Hiei added. "They will abuse you for your tears!"
"I don't know about that," Kurama said. "According to the note they left, they seem to think Yukina might know something about their cause. I don't think they wish to extract anything from her other than the answers to some questions."
"That's ridiculous, Yukina doesn't know anything about them or their cause or their stupid code names," Hiei spat.
"Exactly," Yukina agreed. "I don't know anything. I can't tell them anything. If I can explain that to them, they will leave us alone."
"That might be a good idea," Kurama said.
"Absolutely no way!" Hiei roared.
"Why do you care so much if Yukina goes to meet the cat demons?" Keiko asked him. "You don't care about anybody but yourself!"
Hiei glared at her until she gulped audibly and moved to stand slightly behind Yusuke.
"I think we should let Yukina meet with the cat demons," Koenma said.
The others all gave him looks of varying degrees of interest, but he pressed on.
"I think she is correct: they seem to be under the misconception that she knows something useful to them. If she meets with them for even five minutes they will realise that's not the case and, if they are true to their word, they will have already released Kuwabara and they will then release Yukina and leave this world to return to their own. I need this problem resolved very quickly."
"Is time a factor for you?" Kurama asked.
Koenma took a moment to study the devious fox demon, silently wondering if the look in his green eyes was one of curiosity or one of prior knowledge of something he really ought not to have been privy to.
"The cat demon problem is a well-known one in spirit world," he carefully replied. "Higher powers than me in spirit world will not tolerate the problem spilling out into the living world. The SDF will be despatched later tomorrow if we don't put an end to this."
"Oh so it's your old man that's driving this," Yusuke said.
"Something like that," Koenma quietly replied.
"See?" Yusuke said, turning to Keiko. "And I bet there's still a whole truck-load more information he's not sharing with us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Koenma asked.
"You know what it means," Yusuke grumbled, pushing past him to enter the house.
Koenma stepped aside to let everyone else in before closing the front door and following them all to the living room, where they had all gathered.
"Okay, here's the plan," Yusuke said as Koenma joined them. "Tomorrow morning Yukina goes to the harbour to meet the cats. The rest of us split up and follow her, but we stay out of sight. As soon as the cats release Kuwabara, we attack."
"No," Kurama said. "A better plan would be for us all to wait until they release Kuwabara and then to give them half an hour to talk with Yukina. They will quickly realise she has nothing to tell them and then they will hopefully leave peacefully. If not, or if they try to harm or kidnap Yukina, then we can act."
"Have you lost your mind?" Hiei snapped. "Right now they're holding someone perfect able of defending himself and you're suggesting we swap him for someone defenceless? You're playing right into their sick little plan!"
"Is there any reason that they would want anything from any of us?" Koenma asked, hoping to bring the conversation back to order.
"According to the note one of us knows something they'd like to know more about," Yusuke said.
"The note was addressed to Yukina," Botan pointed out.
"You're really not helping!" Hiei snapped at her.
"Gosh, it seems like everybody is in a snippy mood today…" she grumbled.
"Nobody cares what you think about anything," Hiei muttered.
"First Koenma snapped at me, then Kurama, now Hiei…"
"Botan unless you have something useful to contribute to this discussion then be quiet!" Koenma warned her.
"Maybe I did have something useful to contribute, but now nobody will ever get to hear it because everyone is being so mean to me," she muttered.
"Really?" Hiei roared, rounding on her. "Do you really have anything to contribute to this? Maybe it's up one of your over-sized sleeves or in one of your suitcases of useless trinkets? You are not contributing anything and now you are actually detracting from the discussion!"
"Botan, perhaps you should leave," Kurama suggested, putting a hand on Hiei's shoulder.
"Perhaps she should!" Hiei agreed, shrugging off Kurama's hand. "She should go back to spirit world before the cat demons take her too!"
"I bet you wouldn't even come to rescue me if they did take me!" Botan said snootily.
"Botan, I think you should go," Koenma told her.
"I don't want to go," she replied, folding her arms and turning her nose up in the air defiantly.
"I'll escort her out."
Koenma was relieved to see that he was not the only one surprised by Hiei's offer as even Yusuke twisted his face in confusion.
"In case she gets herself into trouble," Hiei added. "Frail, useless burden that she is."
He glared around the others before ushering Botan out. At first she looked as though she might resist, but one hard look from Hiei had her moving. Koenma waited until they had both left the house before continuing the conversation.
"So we're all in agreement that tomorrow we should let Yukina meet with the cat demons?"
The others nodded and, after a brief pause, they began to disperse; but Koenma could not help but overhear Yusuke's remark to Keiko as they left the room together.
"How much do you wanna bet Koenma is only letting Yukina meet with the cat demons so that spirit world can spy on the whole thing and try to learn something for one of their stupid files?"