Four Rinkus?
Mai awoke the next morning with a big yawn and stretched her arms high above her head. She felt something attached to her finger and opened one eye to see what it was. It was a note with a phone number and a message.
49-925-5432
Call if you want to learn
more about being a demon.
It was not in her hand writing, "So it wasn't some drug induced hallucination," she gathered to herself. Then she realized she didn't remember much after she met her brother, "Damn, that booze was some strong shit!" She jumped out of bed to reveal that she was still wearing the clothes from the boxing match. She didn't seem to mind, or notice at all. She searched her studio apartment for her phone only to find it strategically placed on her nightstand. She picked it up and stared at it, then at the paper. "What am I doing?" she heard herself say which startled her, "I'm going to be late for work!" and with that she propped everything, including the clothes on her body and jumped into the shower. She barely made it to work on time. The morning shift manager was waiting at the office door tapping her food impatiently. "You're late, Mai," she hissed in her middle aged, agitated because she didn't go to college voice.
Mai dropped her bag inside the office and turned to address the manager, "Actually, I'm five minutes early," she grinned, "Plus, you're not my boss, you're my co-worker, get used to it." The middle aged woman stormed off muttering something and Mai snickered as she got herself ready for her shift as manager. Her duties were rather simple actually, walk around the grocery store to make sure everything was in order, go back to the office and do some paperwork, then wait for an employee to need her assistance, then close the store at nine pm. During her free time she altered between studying for college and smoking marijuana behind the building with a few employees. The employees loved her, she was still new to the job but she wasn't a pain in their sides like the middle aged manager. She also seemed to know how to do everything related to the store, and that's why the owners promoted her from cashier to manager after only working there a month.
At seven forty-five a cashier buzzed her for assistance. She hopped off the seat in the office and strolled to check-out line three. As she approached, she thought the customers looked rather familiar: a man with long red hair and a shorter man with slicked back, black hair. The cashier was the new replacement for her old position. Mai wasn't sure how to greet them so she just waved and asked the cashier what the problem was. The boys were trying to buy alcohol but the cashier was confused about Kurama's ID. Mai looked at the ID then at Kurama, "You should probably get a new ID dude, this ID says you're a minority, but your date of birth clearly indicates that you're not," Mai giggled at the silliness of the situation as she turned to the cashier, "When this happens, just look at the birth date." Mai turned back to the customers and finished the transaction.
"I really should get this changed," Kurama smiled as he accepted his ID back from Mai, "Chu's been waiting for you to call all day, you know."
Mai paused, the last of her weed high wearing off, "Um," she paused again, her face growing a looking of struggle, "How am I supposed to know you guys are serious about all that?"
Yusuke busted out laughing, "Looks like you were right, Kurama!"
"Right about what?" Mai asked curiously.
"Believing us without proof," Kurama grabbed the bags and gave Mai another polite smile, "We'll meet you out back to talk about it, if that's ok with you," and he elbowed Yusuke in the ribs and started for the door.
"Are they friends of yours?" the cashier asked and Mai giggled awkwardly and walked away. The cashier stared after her. Mai sat in the office and watched the video cameras. She saw Kurama and Yusuke come into the view of the camera that was positioned outside in the back where the loading docks were. They sat down against the wall and Yusuke started drinking a beer.
Mai sighed, "Maybe they are serious," she said to herself and started for the back. She pulled a joint out of her pocket as she stepped outside to meet them, "I want this proof, please," she said half-heartedly as she lit her "green" cigarette.
"Sure, you want something scary or cool?" Yusuke jumped up.
"Erm… both?" was Mai's response.
"Well, I'll go first then, I guess," Yusuke was talking more to himself, "I'm kind of a special cause though," he smiled and scratched his head. Kurama had to hide his face in response to Yusuke's words. "Well, here goes nothing!" he pointed his right index finger towards the sky, "Spirit gun!" he shouted as a blue ball of energy shot out from his finger tip and penetrated the clouds and disappeared.
"Oh my god!" Mai gawked at the hole in the clouds, "How the fuck did you do that?"
Yusuke grinned, "I focus my energy at my finger tip and imagine I'm pulling the trigger of a gun," he explained, "It took some practice but now I can do all kinds of things with my spirit energy."
Mai looked back at Yusuke, "I'm guessing that was the cool one, right?"
Yusuke laughed, "Yeah."
"So what's the scary one?" Mai asked, far more interested now. Yusuke pointed to Kurama as a response.
Kurama came over to them with a tired look on his face, "You owe me Yusuke," he growled under his breath then turned to Mai and gave a small smile, "My apologies, keeping these demons under control is hard work, I'm very exhausted."
Mai giggled, "It's ok, it's hard for me to keep myself under control," she stuck out her tongue a little.
Kurama gave a small chuckle that seemed to say 'I bet'. He then began to glow a silver-white light and before Mai's eyes he morphed into a completely different person. His skin became pale, he was taller and for more muscular, his nails had grown out, and his hair was now even longer but straight and silver. He had fox ears and a tail and his eyes were now a piercing gold. When he spoke, his voice was deeper and sent shivers up Mai's spine, "This is my true form."
Mai studied Kurama up and down for a while, until she realized she had a joint in her hand and she took a huge drag off it, never taking her eyes off of Kurama. She was a little frightened but then she had an idea, a high idea, "May I ask you a favor?" she said sheepishly.
Kurama looked down at her, "What is it?"
"Can I touch them?" she pointed above her head to indicate that she was talking about his ears. Yusuke started laughing in the corner of Kurama's eye. Mai could tell that Kurama was having a brief episode inside his head, and then he gracefully knelt down on one knee and tilted his head down to hide his facial expression. Mai handed the joint to Yusuke, to which he happily accepted, and slowly got closer to Kurama. When her hands finally touched the back of the ears, Kurama's body shivered a moment. Mai's eyes grew wide and her smile followed her eyes, "They're so soft!" She started to stroke them, but as soon as she did, Kurama vanished and appeared next to Yusuke who was leisurely enjoying the joint. Mai laughed, "Looks like the scary demon is ticklish!" Kurama reverted back to his human form before his demonic side decided to kill Mai and Yusuke. Yusuke busted into more laughter as he handed the joint back to Mai.
She took a hit, "Well, I'm convinced. What next?"
Yusuke swallowed his laughter and handed her a piece of paper with an address on it, "Come to the temple after work, we have arcade games."
Mai took the paper and lifted an eyebrow, "Arcade games?"
"Yeah, you'll like them," Yusuke grinned.
"Ok," Mai trailed off, "So where's my brother?"
"Genkai has forbid him from leaving her property," Kurama informed.
"As in the Master Genkai?" Mai exclaimed.
"Yeah, you heard of her?" Yusuke asked.
"Yes, I've always wanted to meet her!" Mai beamed.
"Well, I guess we'll be seeing you later," Yusuke chirped as he picked up a bag of alcohol.
"Alright then," Mai waved as they departed.
Mai reached the top of the long stairway to the temple. It was dark out and she was using a Zippo lighter to guide her. "SHEILA!" Chu ran to meet her at the top of the stairs, "I was afraid you weren't going to make it!" he chuckled and took a swig of alcohol and then offered it over.
Mai took it and followed suite, "Me too, what the fuck is with all these stairs?" she asked rhetorically as she lit a normal, menthol cigarette.
"To hell if I know," Chu shrugged, then started to get jittery again, "Come on, they have these fun games that test our strength!" and he took off towards the temple. Mai walked after him, taking in the scenery and the gardens around the temple. She put out the cigarette and followed Chu inside the open door. Inside was a giant room that could be mistaken for an arcade.
"Oh wow," Mai gasped.
"Over here," Chu waved. He was standing next to Yusuke who was thoroughly drunk yet again. "Come try this one!" Chu handed her a boxing glove and Yusuke slurred some instructions. The machine is designed to measure spirit strength. All she had to do was punch the paddle. So she did.
"Two hundred and nine!" Yusuke exclaimed then scratched his cheek, "That's better than when I first tried this machine."
Chu laughed, "My turn!" He hit the paddle so hard that the numbers never stopped to give a result.
Yusuke laughed, "Look, you broke it, lemme see if I can fix it," he hit the paddle so hard that it broke off. "Oops," he gently took the glove off and ran out of the room. Chu and Mai laughed and went outside as they heard Genkai scolding Yusuke for playing the arcade games.
"Hey, Chu?" Mai asked quietly into the night air.
Chu looked down at his newly found sister, "What's up, little sis?"
"Will you teach me to be as strong as you?"
Chu laughed, "We'll have you built like a brick shit house in no time!" He handed her a newly opened handle of alcohol, "But first we hit the turps!"
Mai laughed, "How'd you get an Australian accent?"
Chu tilted his head, "Beats me." Mai laughed again but it was interrupted by a loud yell.
"CHU!" A kid ran up and jumped up on Chu and hugged him, "What are you doing here?"
Chu stood up and threw the kid into the air and he landed on his feet, "I found my baby sister! What are you doing here?"
The kid grinned wide, "My brothers wanted to meet Yusuke, so we decided to take a vacation in the Human World."
"You have brothers?" Chu gawked.
"Yup, I sure do, three of them!" The kid laughed.
"Crickey, Rinku! How come ya never told me?" Chu put his hands on his hips and leaned forward to interrogate Rinku.
"You never asked, silly," Rinku laughed then skipped over to Mai, "Hi, I'm Rinku!"
Mai laughed a little, "I'm Mai, Chu's sister."
Rinku gasped, "No way! Do you get stronger when you get drunk too?"
Mai laughed harder this time, "Yeah, I do," she looked around, "So where are your brothers?"
Before Rinku could reply a big bouncy ball hit him in the back of the head, "We'weh wight heweh!" came a much smaller kid's voice.
"Haru," older boy's voice came in, "That wasn't nice."
"Sorry," the youngest voice replied as Mai looked over to see a small child, a teenager, and a man about her age.
Rinku laughed, "It's ok, Natsu," Rinku pointed to the oldest brother and faced Mai and Chu. Yusuke, Keiko, and Botan had just walked outside to see what the commotion was. "This is Natsu, he's the oldest," Rinku introduced as Natsu gave a light bow. Rinku pointed to the teenage boy next, "That's Jirou, he's the second oldest," Jirou waved, "He's a little shy," Rinku leaned over and commented towards Mai. "And this is my baby brother, Haru!" Rinku chirped as he picked up his little brother playfully.
Haru giggled, "HI!"
"Four Rinkus!" Yusuke exclaimed, "When did you guys get here?"
"Just now," Rinku grinned up at Yusuke, "Hey guys, this is Yusuke Urameshi, savior of the worlds!" Rinku joked.
"Savior of the worlds?" Yusuke put his hand to his chin, "I like that title."
"My brothers wanted to meet you really bad, I hope its ok that I brought them here," Rinku admitted to his self-invitation.
Yusuke laughed, "Hell yeah, now it's a party!"
"Little kids shouldn't party with you, Yusuke," Keiko's voice of common sense tried to speak up.
"What are you talking about? I'm all good, clean family fun!" Yusuke rebutted then tripped over the edge of the porch. He fell into the garden pond and everyone erupted into laughter as he spit out a koi fish.
A/N: First things first, AGAIN, this is honestly for shits and giggles, I'm not trying to impress anyone so your negativity is not welcome here, If you must post a review, let it be praise or constructive criticism not some useless bullshit like "it could be better." Really a waste of my time.
Secondly, Haru is about 5, he can't pronounce "R", lots of little kids have problems pronouncing certain letters and usually replace it with "W".
And I did lots of research for this chapter, like the area code for Tokyo so it would seem realistic. I used the setup I got off of wiki, not sure how reliable it is but it was complicated enough to not be able to figure out what the hell was going on on that page. I also had to go back and remember Yusuke's score on the game and in doing so I realized that the crowd before they draw from the pot at Genkai's temple, the first row of people look similar to the characters in Street Fighter. That was pretty cool!
Ok, I think I'm good now. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
(minus the jack ass who posted that useless review. To that guy/girl, people like you piss me off not because you're insulting my abilities to write, but because your fucking useless and wasting both our times. Unless you enjoy being called useless. If you can't give advise to help a fellow writer out, you have no place to be telling me I can do better because you can't give me examples and advise as to how to get better. So don't waste your time insulting people here, it's useless.)
To everyone else, love you guys :3