Chapter 9 – "Shuichi"
Keiko turned to Shizuru, watching her exhale a swirl of smoke before letting out a small sigh herself.
"He's not coming back, is he?" she asked.
Shizuru moved her eyes to look at Keiko, keeping her head forward.
"Which one?" she asked with a dry smile.
"Koenma," Keiko said. "Or… Any of them. All of them. None of them are coming back, are they?"
"Doesn't look like it," Shizuru replied.
"What do you suppose happened to them?"
"I think Yusuke has probably repeated Hiei's mistake and Kurama has gone to help him. As for Koenma… Who knows? I think Yusuke might have been right that our friend from spirit world was hiding something and whatever it was has probably just come back to bite him in the ass."
"What should we do?"
Shizuru frowned slightly, reaching out one hand to close the kitchen window ahead of her whilst stubbing out her cigarette into an ashtray with her other hand.
"We should get ready to put our training into good use," she said darkly.
"What do you mean?" Keiko asked, trying to suppress the anxiety in her voice.
"I can feel a pretty powerful aura heading this way," Shizuru replied.
Keiko could not help but notice that Shizuru had turned a shade paler, which was never a good sign. Since she had begun her training with Kuroko, Shizuru had become considerably better as staying strong in the presence of dark auras, but the limits of her training had never been truly pushed, as she had only ever encountered the odd low-level demon Kuroko borrowed from demon world to test her. And likewise, Keiko thought with a gulp, she herself had only been involved in defensive sparring sessions against Kuroko's children and friendly, low-powered demons.
"Maybe Kurama will come back soon," she said faintly.
"I don't think so, kid," Shizuru said, retrieving a pair of chopsticks from a nearby jar. "Here's what we're gonna do: I'm gonna fight whatever it is and you need to watch carefully to see if you can spot any weaknesses, you got me?"
Keiko watched Shizuru wind her long hair around into a ball at the back of her head and then pin it in place by crossing the chopsticks through it.
"I can fight," Keiko said. "I-I don't really like to, but I can."
"We can't let this thing take both of us," Shizuru said, turning to look directly at Keiko. "If it takes me, you need to be fit enough to run away and get help."
Keiko gave a small, humourless laugh.
"Help from whom?" she asked. "There's nobody left to help us!"
Shizuru nodded.
"Still, we should be careful how we deal with this," she said.
"I'm ready," Keiko insisted.
She was not entirely sure that she was ready, but Shizuru, despite clearly being concerned herself, was also obviously ready to fight with all she had, and knowing that made Keiko feel more empowered. At the sound of a knock on the door Keiko's heart skipped a beat and Shizuru narrowed her eyes.
"If that's another note from the cat demons, they must be letting their guard down, because I could feel them approaching," she said.
When the sound of the front door opening followed Shizuru's words she and Keiko exchanged one last look of confusion before starting towards the door.
"Shizuru? Keiko? Kurama?"
"Yukina!" Keiko cried, breaking into a run.
The sound of the ice maiden's voice had been a sweet relief, but Keiko's reprieve was short-lived when she reached the hallway and found Yukina standing in front of a cat demon.
"You've got some nerve bringing your prisoners here," Shizuru said to the cat demon as she joined Keiko in the hall.
"No, wait!" Yukina quickly said, holding up her hands. "It's okay, she's not here to fight you or to take any prisoners! She's here to help us!"
Keiko studied the cat demon silently for a moment before sidling into the living room to retrieve the demon world wanted poster. She took it with her back to the hall, glancing back and forth between the picture on the poster and the demon before her. She then passed the poster to Shizuru, who seemed to relax slightly as she apparently came to the same conclusion as Keiko.
"So… Raspberry Sundae didn't really die?" Keiko asked Yukina.
"No," Yukina said, shaking her head. "Her real name is Yasashi and she can help us get our friends back and convince the other cat demons to leave the living world."
"What do you say, ladies?" Yasashi asked. "Are you ready for an adventure?"
"I wouldn't exactly call storming your friends' lair an adventure," Shizuru replied.
"Why do you need us?" Keiko asked. "And… How do we know we can trust you?"
"I need you because a band of bounty hunting demons have been allowed passage into this world and they are attacking my girls," the rebel leader explained. "And I suppose you don't know if you can trust me. You'll just have to decide whether or not you want to take a chance on me."
"Please, we have to go before all the rebels are killed!" Yukina added.
"Your rebels have caused us a lot of problems," Shizuru said. "And you're asking us now to help them?"
"Yes, I am," Yasashi said. "And I can see that idea doesn't appeal to you, so allow me to propose the offer from a different angle: come with me and rescue your friends and get the satisfaction of being the hero instead of the victim."
Keiko smiled in spite of herself.
"Tempting," Shizuru admitted. "And it would give me a chance to put this little bad boy to the test."
Keiko recoiled from Shizuru as she produced a set of brass knuckles from her pocket.
"Where did you get that?" she asked.
"Botan gave this to me," Shizuru replied, slipping her fingers into the holes. "When Kuroko started training us how to channel our spirit energy into a spiritually powerful object, I mentioned it to Botan and she got me this. She said she'd had it in her briefcase of spirit world items for a long time, but she'd never felt they were right for anyone. I guess she thought they were right for me though."
Shizuru curled her fingers over, closing her fist around the brass knuckles, which began to glow with spirit energy.
"Why didn't Botan give me a weapon?" Keiko asked.
"Do you need one?" Shizuru asked.
"Yes!" Keiko cried. "I only learned how to channel my spirit energy into organic spiritually powerful objects!"
"Oh, I can help you with that!"
Keiko and Shizuru both turned to Yasashi, finding her smiling brilliantly.
"I have just the thing for you!" she added. "But – do you have any string or yarn?"
Shizuru smirked.
"Why, because you're a cat?" she asked.
"I like you," Yasashi replied with a smile. "But no. I need string to make a weapon for Keiko."
Keiko looked up at Shizuru, who shrugged.
"I'll get some string," Shizuru said, before leaving the room.
"Bring it outside," Yasashi called after her.
Keiko hesitated before following after the cat demon and Yukina as they moved back outside to the small front garden. She arrived on the porch as Yasashi waved a hand over a patch of grass and then dropped to a crouch, touching a hand to the ground. Keiko yelped involuntarily as several shoots of bamboo burst out of the ground, each growing to eight feet in length in seconds. Yasashi stood up and turned her hand over, looking down at her palm as though confused.
"Are you okay?" Yukina asked her.
"It's still a little strange to have my powers back," she replied. "I was stuck in spirit world for so long and to suddenly now have my body and my powers returned to me…"
She slid one hand up the opposite sleeve, closing her fist around what she had retrieved briefly before opening it out again to reveal a blade of grass that look as strong and sharp as a carving knife. She then cut down five of the bamboo shoots, cutting them all to a certain length before turning to Shizuru, who had joined her in the garden with a ball of string. She took the string from Shizuru and wove it around the ends and the middle of the bundle of sticks and then took a moment to admire her handiwork.
"It's a kendo stick!" she said cheerfully, turning to Keiko.
"Isn't that like a training sword?" Keiko asked.
"Yes," Yasashi replied. "But the key to making a good one is to use the right thickness of bamboo, use five sticks to create a pentagon shape and tie them all together with a slight gap between them to reduce air resistance when you do this!"
She swung the stick swiftly through the air.
"Did you hear that whistling sound?" she asked Keiko. "That's the sound of a good beating stick!"
She held the stick out towards Keiko, who reluctantly accepted it. She eyed it over curiously at first before grasping it with both hands and focusing her energy into it the way Kuroko had taught her to. A faint glow illuminated the area around her hands briefly before fading away again.
"I don't know if I can handle a stick this big," she concluded.
"I won't tell Yusuke you said that," Shizuru muttered.
"What?" Keiko echoed.
"I said you'll be fine," Shizuru quickly lied. "Trust me, adrenaline will be on your side when we get there. Speaking of which, where are we going?"
"Ping Island," Yukina answered.
"Where?" Keiko echoed.
"We can explain on the way," Yasashi said. "We have to get going."
"We can take my car," Shizuru offered. "If we're going island hopping, I take it we need to get to the harbour?"
She led the way to her car, Keiko sitting into the front passenger seat and the two demons sitting in the back.
"So, um, Yasashi?" Keiko asked as Shizuru reversed out onto the street. "If you don't mind me asking, where have you been all this time?"
"In spirit world," Yasashi replied. "My soul was transferred into another body and I lived as a servant in spirit world."
"That must've been a real come-down after being an all-powerful leader of a rebellion in demon world," Shizuru commented.
"Did you ever try to escape spirit world before now?" Keiko asked.
"No," Yasashi replied. "I never had the opportunity to."
"Why not?" Keiko asked.
"I didn't know who I was," Yasashi replied. "The last thing I remember of my demon existence was falling down for dead during a battle."
"But you can remember what your life has been like in spirit world?" Shizuru asked.
"Yes… I remember everything now. Which is also quite odd, because now I have memories of two different lives in my head…"
"Koenma wiped your memories," Yukina told Yasashi. "I saw it in your file."
"My file?" Yasashi echoed.
"Yes, Koenma hid it, but I found it," Yukina explained. "It said that he was desperate to save your life, so he bargained with his father and instead of donating the land he promised to you and the rebels, they created a life for you in spirit world."
"Yes, I knew he had made the trade. I'm not too pleased about that, but as it's done there's nothing I can do to change it now. It does mean the rebellion will have to take a different direction."
As Shizuru parked at the harbour, Keiko looked back over her shoulder at Yasashi.
"What direction is that?" she asked.
"War," Yasashi replied before exiting the car.
Keiko turned to Shizuru with wide eyes.
"She means in demon world," Shizuru assured her. "She means the rebel cat demons are gonna go fight the loyalist cat demons head on: which is why we have to make sure they all leave our world as soon as possible."
Keiko felt less than convinced and still more than a little wary of the idea of teaming up with a demon whose followers had systematically taken every one of the former spirit detective team prisoner; but as Shizuru was confident, she decided not to question their actions. At the dock she watched Yasashi eye some boats critically before throwing something invisible out across the water. Something the size of a grain of rice disturbed the water surface and an instant later a giant, upturned leaf appeared. Yasashi leapt onto it and helped Yukina on behind her. Keiko turned to Shizuru for reassurance before acting.
"We've come this far," Shizuru whispered, before taking a running leap onto the leaf.
"Come on, Keiko!" Yukina called out.
"You better appreciate this, Yusuke Urameshi," Keiko muttered before running and jumping at the leaf.
She landed a little awkwardly but Shizuru caught her before she fell. She nodded in gratitude to Shizuru and then looked out across the water as the leaf began to float away from the harbour. She had no idea how the leaf was controlled or navigated, but it seemed to be heading towards a shape on the horizon and the others all seemed quite confident and so she allowed herself to relax.
"Anyone else hungry?"
Keiko started in amazement when she saw that Yasashi was looking around the others as though her question had been a serious one.
"Not especially," Shizuru said.
"It's a funny thing being a spirit," Yasashi said, sliding her hands over each other and producing a sharp blade of grass like she had done earlier to cut down the bamboo shoots. "You don't ever feel hungry when you're a spirit, because although you can still eat, you don't need to. Now on the other hand, us demons like to eat a lot."
She reached up one sleeve and retrieved the ball of string Shizuru had given her earlier and tied one end of it to the blade of grass.
"Did you give her that to keep?" Keiko whispered to Shizuru.
"No," Shizuru replied. "But I'm starting to think she really does like balls of string as much as a real cat."
Keiko watched in bemusement as Yasashi sharply threw the blade of grass into the water, waited a moment and then wound it back in with the ball of string. Keiko then balked as the cat demon hauled a fish out of the water and took a bite out of it without hesitation.
"Wow, she really is a demon," Keiko muttered.
"Do you reckon Yusuke acts like this when he's back home?" Shizuru asked.
Keiko shivered involuntarily.
"I hope not," she whispered. "And I hope we can trust her."
Shizuru nodded and Keiko thought that perhaps her friend had as many reservations as she did: but one glance at Yukina showed that the ice maiden did not share her concerns as she was smiling in admiration at Yasashi as she messily scoffed down the fish.
Kurama sat back hard against a nearby tree, trying to focus his eyes. The twin cat demon girls had finally moved, but only because their mother was back on her feet. She had not responded to his healing herbs and, driven by a compulsion he could not explain, he had resorted to donating his spirit energy to help the fallen cat demon. It had taken a substantial amount of effort to bring her back to full health and he found himself weakened from the effort; and he was not so sure that he could recover himself as quickly as he would have been able to had he been in his full demon form.
"Thank you," the cat demon said to him. "I don't often meet anyone who cares for me or my cause."
Kurama managed a smile.
"I care for your cause more than… I ought to," he said.
The cat demon started to tell him how glad she was that her children were alive but she stopped suddenly, her jaw dropping and her eyes locking onto something behind the tree Kurama was resting against. At first he thought she was watching the approach of more of Iruka's henchmen, but then he felt the aura of a demon far more powerful than even Iruka and he realised something else was afoot. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, the scent of peonies oddly strong in the air. He opened his eyes again and found himself looking at the last face he had expected to see on Ping Island.
"Keiko?" he said.
"Kurama!" Keiko said with a gasp. "When did you get here?
"When – and how – did you get here?" Kurama asked, ignoring Keiko's question to him. "It's not safe for you to be here."
"Doesn't look like it's too safe for you to be here," another familiar voice said. "You don't even look like you've got enough strength to stand up."
"Shizuru?"
Kurama started to wonder if he was dreaming.
"Where are the others?" another voice asked.
"Yukina?" Kurama said.
Shizuru and Yukina stepped into his line of sight, Shizuru smiling at him in an almost sympathetic manner and Yukina looking about as though she thought she might find Kuwabara or Hiei hidden under some of the weeds around them. And, just as Kurama was sure the moment could not get any more surreal, the cat demon he had saved dropped to her knees, her face even more shocked than before.
"My goodness, I can't believe how big your children have gotten!"
Kurama froze.
"They were alive thirty years ago?" Keiko asked.
"Demon children don't mature at the same rate as human children," Yukina replied.
"I'm so glad you're here, I need your help."
Kurama managed to turn his head enough to look up at the figure joining the others, still not really believing what appeared to be happening even when he could see it with his own eyes.
"I need you to release the hostages."
The cat demon on her knees nodded slowly.
"If all six of you work together, it should be easy."
Kurama blinked and squinted. If he was looking at a demon with the power of copy, it was an incredibly impressive likeness.
"Are you asking us to fight for your side?" Shizuru asked.
"No," Yasashi replied. "My girls will free the hostages, I just need the three of you to distract anyone who tries to stop them. Once your friends are free, you will be safe, none of Iruka's men would be brave enough – or even stupid enough – to challenge Yusuke, Kuwabara and Hiei."
"I can do that," Shizuru said with a nod.
Keiko tightened her hold of what looked like a kendo stick and nodded her head.
"What will you do?" Yukina asked Yasashi.
"I have to get this one back on his feet," the rebel leader replied, pointing at Kurama.
Kurama watched as the three dark-haired cat demons joined Keiko, Shizuru and Yukina and all six ran inwards towards the centre of the island. As they were disappearing from view an unforgettable face suddenly appeared directly in front of his.
"Well hello there, "Shuichi"."
Kurama paused. Yasashi was crouched over him, one foot either side of his legs and a mocking smirk on her face.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Oh, neither do I," she replied with a flippant wave of her hand. "But here I am. And there you are. "Shuichi"."
"…You don't have to say it like that."
"It was very sweet of you to help one of my girls the way you did. Is that sweetness a trait of the new, reformed Yoko or is that the influence of "Shuichi"?"
Kurama felt his face twist against his will as he once again noticed the way Yasashi scrunched up her nose when she spoke his human name.
"I still don't understand," he said, partly hoping to change the subject and partly hoping to make sense of what was happening. "I was reliably told you were killed by Iruka many years ago: how is it that you are still alive?"
"Oh dear, didn't your mother ever warn you about us cats?" she asked, looking quite serious despite the oddly jocular nature of her words. "We have nine lives."
Kurama's face dropped.
"Not even a smile?" she asked. "Oh well, at least "Shuichi" hasn't stolen your sense of humour… Or lack thereof…"
Kurama made to argue with her but stopped as she started opening buttons in the middle of his shirt.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Helping you," she plainly replied.
She stopped after opening the middle three buttons of his shirt, parting the fabric to slide her hands under it, her palms coming to rest against the bare skin of his chest underneath. Kurama watched her through perplexed eyes as she closed her eyes and he shortly felt the warming sensation of her spirit energy entering his being. He thought it odd that she was choosing to relinquish her strength to restore his, particularly when her fellow rebels were far more in need of her assistance, and he intended to question her on the matter. As she finished, her fingers sliding back out of his clothing and her eyes opening again, he looked directly at her with the intention of asking her why she had done what she had: but for some reason he could not explain, the question that left his lips was not quite the same as the one he had intended to ask.
"Did you really need to open my shirt to do that?"
"No," she said, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "But aren't you glad that I did?"
"I don't know where you've been these last thirty years, but neither the experience nor the time has changed you," Kurama said with a small smile.
"Would you want it any other way?"
"Where have you been?"
"I have a better question: why are your trousers so wet?"
Kurama looked down at himself in alarm, the moment of panic only passing when he realised that Yasashi was referring to the fact that his trousers were still wet from where he had jumped out of the little rowboat.
"I'm fine now, we should catch up to the others," he said as he lifted his eyes again.
"What's the deal with the glasses?" Yasashi asked as he met her eyes again. "Does Yoko need them, or are they just something "Shuichi" needs?"
Kurama started to move and Yasashi leapt to her feet, hopping back from him to allow him room to stand; and as he reached his feet he felt another pang of awkwardness.
"I see I'm shorter than you in this body," he muttered as he found that his eyes were level with the cat demon's lips.
"I wouldn't worry too much about that," she replied.
"No?"
"No. Your height in that body should be the least of your concerns."
"What?"
Yasashi shot him one last grin before spinning on her heels and running through the vegetation towards the centre of the island. After a moment of confusion, Kurama hurried after her, still in a daze as he tried to figure out how the rebel leader was still alive and where she had been since her alleged death.
Kuwabara strained against the vines holding him but still could not free himself. Behind him Puu was starting to stir, and behind Puu there was a battle ongoing, but he could not see any of it and he was growing anxious to be free. When he heard a groan he turned his head as far as he could to look back over his shoulder; and although he could only see a mound of blue feathers, he held his position.
"Urameshi!" he shouted.
"Kuwabara?" Yusuke's voice responded.
"Urameshi, what's going on?"
There was a brief pause before he heard Yusuke mutter out something indecipherable.
"C'mon, Urameshi!" Kuwabara moaned. "I'm stuck here, you gotta tell me what's happening!"
"Damn it Kuwabara, you don't wanna know what's happening right now!" Yusuke shouted back.
"Why?" Kuwabara asked. "What is happening?"
"We're being rescued by Keiko, your sister, Yukina and a pair of eight year old girls!"
"…What?"
Kuwabara sat still for a moment, torn between wondering why Yusuke would crack jokes at such a time and worrying that there may be an element of truth in what he was saying: especially since Keiko and his sister were apparently the new spirit detective team.
"It's those same little brats who squirted me in the eyes with their dumb little plant!" Yusuke said suddenly.
"…And they're helping Yukina, Keiko and Shizuru now?" Kuwabara asked.
"Damn it, I don't need this!" Yusuke complained. "Can't you cut through these plants with your sword, Kuwabara?"
"I can't get my hands free to summon my sword!" Kuwabara pointed out.
"Do you need to have your hands free to summon your sword?" Yusuke asked, his tone bordering on sarcasm. "Can't you still summon it anyway and use it to cut your own hands free?"
Kuwabara paused to consider what Yusuke had just said.
"Yes, the answer is yes, you clown."
Kuwabara's face dropped as Hiei stepped into his line of sight.
"Well what are you just standing there for, shorty?" Kuwabara snapped at him. "You could cut us free!"
Hiei looked down at his sword – which he was holding in one hand, his other hand was hidden in his pocket – and he appeared to think about what Kuwabara had just said.
"Hiei, is that you?" Yusuke called back over his shoulder. "If you're free, can you get us out of this damn plant?"
Hiei lifted his head and appeared to look at something by Puu's back end. Kuwabara followed his eyes, flinching as he caught sight of the mother of the twin cat demon girls running towards them.
"Quick, Urameshi, close your eyes!" he shouted, before doing the same himself.
Hiei muttered something inaudible that Kuwabara was sure was also highly derogatory, but he held his position, only relaxing when he felt the vines around him start to slither off of his body. He cautiously opened one eye to a squint, looking down to see that he was nearly freed. He opened the other eye and looked up, again finding himself looking directly at Hiei, who was giving him a very strange look.
"What are you staring at, hamster legs?" Kuwabara asked him.
"Another one of Koenma's massive errors of judgement," Hiei replied.
"…What?"
As Kuwabara waited for Hiei to offer him a less cryptic answer, he heard Yusuke standing up behind him.
"Hey you!" Yusuke shouted. "Cat bitch woman!"
The dark-haired cat demon who had freed them paused, looking over at Yusuke curiously.
"Are those little girls anything to do with you?" he asked her.
Kuwabara stood up and turned around to see that Yusuke was pointing at the twin cat demon girls; but more alarming than seeing the girls again was the visual confirmation he received that his girlfriend, his sister and his old school friend were indeed fighting the demons. As he panned across the battle scene, Kuwabara saw Yukina trip up a wolf demon with a sweeping kick and then freeze his face into a puddle, he saw his sister punch out a bear demon with a single, brutal upper-cut from her glowing right fist and he saw Keiko jab the end of a glowing stick into the gut of a bald-headed demon, causing him to double-over, whereupon she whacked him over the back of the head, sending him flying to the ground, face-first.
"They're my daughters," the cat demon said to Yusuke.
Kuwabara turned to the twin cat girls, even more surprised to see that they were disabling demon plants and acting as decoys to stop any of the demons launching sneak attacks on Yukina, Shizuru or Keiko; apparently they were helping, despite them having been willing participants in taking Hiei, Yusuke and even Kuwabara himself prisoner.
"Well they're a pair of little brats and you're a lousy mother!" Yusuke yelled.
Kuwabara turned to Hiei to gauge his reaction to the madness around them, but promptly wished he had not done so, as he found the fire demon still regarding him in a very strange manner.
"We never would have assaulted you had we realised you were allies of our leader," the cat demon said to Yusuke.
"Hey newsflash dumbass!" Yusuke snapped back. "We're not on anybody's side but our own and your leader is dead!"
Hiei's expression changed and, much to Kuwabara's relief, his gaze shifted to Yusuke.
"No, she's alive," the cat demon told Yusuke. "Koenma transferred her soul into the body of a spirit and he's been making her work for him these last thirty years, but now she has finally broken free and returned to us."
Yusuke turned to Kuwabara.
"Please tell me this bitch is talking out of her ass," he said flatly.
"Uh, not really," Kuwabara replied. "I think everything she just said is true. Yukina said it was."
"Yukina?" Yusuke echoed. "She told me she didn't know any more about this whole mess!"
"I dunno Urameshi, but the cat with the jagan eye told me their leader has been gaining power in spirit world, and I guess now she must be free."
"Do any of you have any wounds that need tending to?"
Yusuke rounded on the cat demon upon her question, glaring at her in a way that made her take a wary, shuddering step back from him.
"You gotta be kidding me!" he snapped at her. "First you send your kids to blind us, then you tie us up with creepy plants and now you're asking if you can help us?"
"I thought it was the least I could do since you have joined our cause against the loyalists," she replied.
She waved a hand at the battle scene and Yusuke glanced at the chaos as though he intended to turn back to her with another bitingly sarcastic retort: but when he saw a large, fanged and horned demon creeping up behind Keiko he darted off, reaching her an instant after Shizuru punched the demon in the gut and one of the little cat demon girls blinded him with her plant.
"Yusuke!" Keiko said as she noticed Yusuke standing in front of her. "What happened? How did you end up here?"
Yusuke looked around himself, his face twisting increasingly into a look of bewilderment. Kuwabara – having grown tired of the way Hiei was standing still and glaring at him – started to jog towards Yusuke, but he stopped as Yukina leapt into his path.
"Yukina!" he said cheerfully. "Your plan worked!"
She blinked at him and then shook her head.
"But… The cat demons are letting us go…" he said slowly.
"I failed," she said sadly. "But I need your help with something else now."
"You know I'd always do anything for you, my dearest," he replied.
"I need you to help me rescue Tora."
She pointed at something over his shoulder, but Kuwabara hesitated, taking a moment to register that the name "Tora" belonged to the short, rusty-haired cat demon with the jagan eye.
"Isn't Tora one of the bad guys?" he asked. "Or, um, I mean, bad ladies?"
"Kazuma, please!" Yukina said urgently. "Iruka will kill her if we don't do something quickly!"
"Iruka?" Yusuke echoed, turning around.
He looked first at Yukina and then up at where she was pointing, his eyes filled with even more rage than when he had been arguing with the cat demon who had freed him. At last overcome by curiosity, Kuwabara turned around, finding that two cat demons were struggling on the roof of a nearby building that had once been a grocery shop. A male cat demon – the first one Kuwabara had seen and apparently the only one on the island – was trying to push Tora into a demon plant that Kuwabara himself had chilling memories of.
"That's the sinning tree," Yusuke said, moving to stand alongside Kuwabara.
"Yeah, and that's the girl who started all this trouble," Kuwabara replied. "She's the one who showed up on my date with Yukina at the ice cream parlour and she tried to take Kurama's plant and she's the one who set all the rest of the cat demons against us because she was trying to get to Yukina, Kurama and Koenma."
"Yeah, but that guy holding her is a smug son of a bitch and I've been waiting for the chance to rearrange his face," Yusuke said before stomping off towards the old shop.
"It's so great you've all decided to join our cause!" a bloody-faced and spotty-legged cat demon said cheerfully as Kuwabara happened to glance her way.
"Come on Kazuma, we have to help."
"Whuh?" Kuwabara grunted as Yukina grabbed his sleeve and started running after Yusuke.
In his confusion he stumbled after her, one last glance over his shoulder showing that most of the fighting had died down; though he did see his sister give a roundhouse kick to one demon who tried to stand up. He and Yukina caught up to Yusuke as he snuck around the back of the grocery shop. Kuwabara started to whisper to Yusuke that they should plan their approach but he was cut off when Kurama appeared – seemingly from nowhere – and signalled for all three of them to stop and hold their position. Kuwabara watched the fox demon silently scale the wall of the shop as the sinning tree took hold of Tora's left leg and she began to struggle frantically, the male cat demon clearly greatly outmatching her in terms of strength as he was easily pushing her into the plant with just one hand.
Kuwabara flinched as a figure dressed in blue and white dropped onto the roof of the grocery store, landing in a graceful crouch. He recoiled slightly as the male cat demon staggered back, suddenly missing an arm. Turning his attention back to Tora, Kuwabara saw that the severed arm was still attached to her, the hand still gripped around her neck. Kurama leapt up onto the roof and dove at the base of the sinning tree, gripping his hands into its roots. The plant eased back, releasing its hold of Tora, who was tugging the severed arm from her neck in a blind panic.
"You!" the male cat demon said, staring at the figure in blue and white. "I don't believe it!"
"Pfft, don't give me that nonsense, Iruka!" she replied. "You can't go around hanging up wanted posters and then act surprised when you learn the girl in question is still alive!"
"I thought that… I thought you'd been changed…" he said weakly.
"I've changed my mind, if that's what you mean," she replied, pointing a blood-stained blade of grass at him. "I've decided that I'm not running away any more."
She grinned in a way that was far more chilling than friendly.
"Don't look so scared, Iruka," she said. "I'm not going to kill you. I need you alive because I need you to take a message back to your leader: tell him he has three days to vacate the hinterlands, or the rebels are coming to take it all by force."
"By force? I think living in spirit world has made you go even softer than before, Yasashi. Have you seen how many rebels are left? And two of them are children!"
"Take my message to your leader or I will cut another appendage from your body."
Iruka looked down at the stump that remained of his left arm.
"No Iruka," Yasashi said darkly. "Not an arm this time."
She lowered her blade, the tip coming dangerously close to his crotch.
"You wouldn't dare," he growled.
"Try me," she growled back.
He hesitated a little longer, but as Kurama stood up, the sinning tree banished, and helped Tora up at his side, he then looked about himself, seeming to realise that his men had all been incapacitated and that he stood alone. When he noticed Yusuke and Kuwabara watching him he began to look fearful and started backing away. He gave one last survey of his surroundings before leaping from the roof and running off into the trees. Yasashi watched him go before turning to Tora and grabbing her into an embrace. The other cat demons climbed up to join them – even the little girls – and their leader took it in turns to hug each of them.
"This sappy reunion is touching and all, but don't we still have a problem here?" Yusuke grumbled.
"Something's not right with Hiei," Kuwabara said, pointing over at Hiei.
Keiko, Shizuru and even Kurama had joined the others, but Hiei was still standing over by Puu, watching everything with a very odd look on his face.