A/N: Sadly, I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho.

Spirit Detective Saga
Chapter Three - In Search of Yūsuke

Attending class as a ghost was, in a word, odd. Her desk remained hers by merit of not having been filled or cleaned out yet (news of her 'survival' had, as far as she knew, been kept contained so far while the police investigated how she'd gotten into the mortuary alive). She wished she could take notes but chose to rely upon her excellent memory over her nearly nonexistent ability to move physical objects. Having to share textbooks with no control over what page she looked at also proved surprisingly frustrating. Moreover, on several occasions, she found herself attempting to speak with a friend only to recall that no one could see or hear her after going ignored for a short while. Well, there was one boy who'd very clearly felt her presence when she'd passed through him in the corridor, but that was beside the point. That no teacher called upon her to give an answer or read something aloud might have been the most disquieting. She felt like one of the school's seven mysteries. She really hoped she wouldn't come back to hear her peers telling ghost stories about something she'd done.

On the more interesting side of things, she'd discovered that her ghostly form had a psychosomatic aspect to it, as her outdoor shoes always changed into her indoor shoes upon entry. What did it say about her that she was always in her uniform? Perhaps she needed to focus a bit more on herself when she came back to life.

She'd also paid attention to gossip for once. Wedged between who was dating whom, the latest fashion, and such trivialities, she'd picked up the names and approximate locations of a few schools to look into. Transferring over might make for a nice change of pace, though she'd steer clear of the nearer ones that she knew had serious problems with her own Sarayashiki. Kasanegafuchi came to mind. Perhaps she'd head to Rugafuji or Iwamano first. Meiou High was an option as well if she felt like challenging herself.

Of course, in all of this, there was one major problem. Keiko honestly didn't know why any part of her had bothered hoping. Maybe she'd thought her death would have made him want to try harder on his own to make her proud now that she couldn't carry him through school. She'd known better, known that wouldn't be how he'd react, but she'd really wanted the chance to see Yūsuke today. She'd missed her opportunity to talk to him when he hadn't come home last night. And if he didn't want to be found, then showing up to class was the only realistic way she had to find him, because that was the last place anyone would look for him.

Now that she'd put those vague yearnings into words, she sounded so stupid to herself. He couldn't not be found in the middle of a classroom. She needed a better way to track him down and see how well he was coping.

The idea came to her after school ended for the day.

The boy from earlier, the one who'd noticed her presence, had gathered with his group of friends for a chat. He was taller than most adults, had eye-catching red hair, and sported a pompadour. Seeing them all together, she realized she recognized them (by reputation, if not by sight). The redhead was the one who kept stubbornly challenging Yūsuke to one on one fights and hadn't won once. Kuwabara, she thought his name was. According to Yūsuke, the boy's friends always had to carry him off in the aftermath to heal after they begged for mercy on their hands and knees.

Sometimes, Keiko took the things Yūsuke told her with a grain of salt.

Regardless, she didn't know the places Yūsuke, desiring to vent physically, might frequent very well for reasons of personal health and safety, but Kuwabara well might. And who better to find Yūsuke than his relentless rival? The only problem was that Kuwabara freaked out whenever she drew near. Which, she allowed, was a reasonable reaction to ghosts, but it complicated things somewhat. She'd just have to keep her distance, let him act natural, and hope he led her straight to Yūsuke.

Not long after the group left school grounds, ghostly tagalong in tow, Botan returned with a cheerful, "Good afternoon, Keiko. How was school?"

"It was okay," Keiko summarized. "Math was difficult, though. I never realized before how much I manipulate symbols on paper to understand them."

For what it was worth, Botan tried to express sympathy, but she clearly didn't have the right frame of reference for it.

"What about you?" It felt a little morbid to ask Botan how work had gone, so Keiko went with something a bit more neutral. "How was your day?"

Botan shrugged. "Fairly usual, I'd say. Nothing so dramatic or as unexpected as your death."

That sounded somewhat like a compliment of sorts, so Keiko decided to take it as such and returned to tracking Kuwabara and his friends. Botan, naturally, expressed her curiosity. After a quick rundown of what Keiko hoped to get out of this, Botan reminded her that she wasn't allowed to actually talk to Yūsuke. Keiko didn't quite get why but assumed it had something to do with the not-so-secret secret test of character she was undergoing. If she were writing a book report on herself, it would probably focus on who she was in the dark.

At any rate, it would be enough just to see Yūsuke. Well, it wouldn't, but it would have to be, because that stupid boy hadn't come home the one night she'd really needed him to.

For now, Keiko contented herself with a nice chat with Botan while they followed Kuwabara together.

Keiko hadn't seen this coming. She'd known the city had a real problem with gang violence. Yūsuke couldn't get into a fight every day out in the open and never get into any lasting trouble with the law without a good reason. Atsuko, Keiko knew, had pulled some shady strings for her son on occasion for minor things, but that didn't explain how his opponents kept coming back for more. No, this was on a wholly different scale than she'd thought.

This was Kuwabara's fifth fight of the day. He and his friends had together taken down thirty-three — oh, it was thirty-four people now. She could only guess that her little bubble of peace around the infamous, undefeatable Urameshi Yūsuke had blinded her to the extent of the problem. She strongly suspected the police simply didn't have enough resources to control the streets.

And that was where Kuwabara's gang of honorable street punks stepped in.

"Yes! Go for the kidney!"

Oh, and Botan had turned into a cheerleader.

At any rate, Kuwabara seemed happy enough to take any fight that presented itself. The first two brawls had been of the spontaneous variety. The third, however, had demonstrated that if he had an excuse, he somehow leapt into the fray twice as fast. This fifth fight had started with some delinquents from Kasanegafuchi Jr High menacing a few girls from a school whose uniform Keiko didn't recognize. One of Kuwabara's friends had pointed the incident out as they'd walked past, and it hadn't taken even a second before he'd led the charge.

It was noble in a way, Keiko supposed. She kind of thought Yūsuke and Kuwabara could be good friends if only they'd speak to each other with something other than their fists. Or maybe they were already, and that was just how the alien male species communicated. She'd have to think about that. And as a ghost, she could observe their interactions up close without getting in the way of whatever dumb boy thing they had going on.

As this fifth fight progressed, Keiko could confidently say that while Kuwabara was not Yūsuke, he fought well. And the phenomenal teamwork he demonstrated with his friends was something Yūsuke would be hard pressed to match.

"Oh no!"

Botan's alarm drew Keiko's attention from the main action. It didn't take her long to spot what had Botan worried. One of the Kasanegafuchi punks had drawn a knife. This had just escalated from a schoolyard brawl to a life-threatening encounter. He charged straight at his main target, screaming Kuwabara's name in anger.

Keiko reacted without thinking. She aimed and fired all her spirit energy at the knife. The blast struck the boy's hand instead, but it was enough to stagger him and loosen his grip.

In that moment of weakness, Kuwabara struck. He grasped the boy's wrist and forced the knife out and away from them, consequentially also pulling them in close together. From point blank range, he delivered a punch to the gut that left the other boy falling to his knees in pain. The knife came free of his grip and clattered to the ground, whereupon Kuwabara spared a moment to kick it away out of sight before returning to the carnage.

A sigh of relief escaped Keiko through her spiritual exhaustion. Maybe Kuwabara could have handled that on his own, but she'd seen enough brushes with death over the last couple days. Besides, it wasn't as though she'd put herself in any danger. She was a ghost. What more could happen to her?

"Keiko."

Keiko stiffened at the tone of voice. What more could happen to her? She could get herself disqualified from her exam; that was what. Slowly, she turned to Botan with a carefully neutral expression.

"First off, that was very well done."

The leading compliment disarmed Keiko somewhat. She glanced back at the boy on the ground, where his knife had vanished off to, and then to Kuwabara before finally landing on her own index finger. Yes, it had been, hadn't it? Mixed with having done a good deed, the warm glow of pride that usually accompanied academic achievement grew within her. It might not consist of ordinary school subjects, but she'd taken to her spiritual studies with the same dedication and enthusiasm. Above all else, that felt normal. It was almost like she'd joined, say, the school archery team and gone on a club retreat to get their new members up to speed, herself included.

That aside, the reprimand followed.

"Secondly, that was a good thing you did. Truly. But you can't do that. The living must be allowed to live their own lives."

Keiko wanted to protest, but she couldn't find the right words.

"I know it's hard to watch someone get hurt, but the Spirit World doesn't exist to play guardian angel or to impose its view of how things should be upon this world."

That argument had a fatal flaw. "I'm not part of Spirit World."

"No," Botan allowed, "but you are dead. Until you return to your body, you fall under our laws."

"That's…" Entirely reasonable. Part of the deal. A matter of sovereignty. Unjust. There were a lot of ways Keiko could phrase it. "—fair." She breathed and let the matter go for now. She'd think about it later on her own. "I'm sorry for causing you trouble."

Botan's easy smile returned in full force. "No need to fret, Keiko. It's not strictly against the rules for you to interfere. But when a poltergeist starts causing problems, we usually, shall we say, step up our efforts to move them along to their next life."

So don't. "Got it." But those words left a bad taste in her mouth.

With that out of the way, they went back to watching the fight. It was almost over now with Kuwabara's gang mopping up the stragglers.

An entire afternoon spent following Kuwabara had come to nothing. They'd seen neither hide nor hair of Yūsuke. Where was that boy?

With no better option in mind, Keiko decided to spend the night at Yūsuke's home in case he came back. She just wanted to see him once to know he was, well, hopefully not okay but at least alive after their head-on collision. Not that she truly had to worry about that last part. Presumably, the shinigami she hung out with would tell her if he'd died in the aftermath.

Actually, how would that work with her test? If Yūsuke died and became a ghost, would she not be allowed to talk to him? However cruel, that sounded consistent with the ordeal's purpose. Would Botan not tell her, then, so she wouldn't be tempted? Botan wouldn't, would she? But…she might. She could see it as a kindness. Or what if because Keiko hadn't spoken with him, he'd done or would do something stupid and get himself killed in the near future. Botan would know that in either case and keep it to herself, surely.

Keiko had faith that Yūsuke, of all people, could take care of himself in rough situations. But the worry was there now and niggling away at her mind. She needed to see that Yūsuke was alive and well. It wouldn't go away until she had. Why couldn't she just stop thinking for once? Maybe then she wouldn't always work herself into such a state over one thing or another.

As they were about to part ways for the time being, Botan made an offer she hadn't last night. "You're welcome to come along if you'd like. Lost souls often take some convincing to move on. You might find you like the work."

It was an invitation Keiko would happily accept another night if for no other reason than pure curiosity, but she declined this one with a shake of her head. "I've made plans already. But I'd love to tomorrow."

"School is one thing," Botan led, her tone skeptical, "but you don't want to overtax your spirit. Too much exercise or dream trawling for entertainment is bad for you. Especially while hatching a spirit beast."

Just as Keiko was about to reply, Botan let out a small oh of understanding. "You've met another ghost, haven't you?"

"No, it's not that," Keiko replied. "I'll be at Yūsuke's if you need me. I just…want to know that he's all right."

Botan's voice turned knowing as she said, "I understand." There was some deeper meaning there that Keiko had missed.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know," Botan replied. "It's night. His home. He'll never know you were there."

A blush colored her face as Keiko's mind conjured images of just what she could see were she so inclined. "I'm not that type of girl, Botan!" Though it would serve Yūsuke right for how many times he'd flipped her skirt.

The ferrygirl only laughed as she sailed off into the night.

"Honestly!" Keiko huffed, not that there was anyone around to hear it.

Alone and glad for it at the moment, Keiko flew off toward Yūsuke's home. She peeked in on her parents along the way. They looked well, far more so than they had only the day before. Her body hadn't been released to long-term care yet as the doctors wanted to keep her in observation for a few days, but she noticed that they'd already packed an overnight bag anyway for when they could visit her more freely.

Only a short walk or flight away, Keiko arrived at her final destination. No lights were on, which wasn't promising. While Atsuko was usually out at this time of night, Yūsuke would typically be at his home or her own. If he'd gone to hers, he would almost certainly still be there celebrating the good news. But he hadn't been there, and when she peeked inside, he wasn't in his own home either.

And that meant she was stuck waiting. Keiko sat herself on the floor for a little sense of normalcy and resigned herself to her vigil.

When she thought about it, this seemed somewhat fair. She was, after all, asking him to wait for her in a sense.

Time passed at a crawl.

Keiko was going to have some very choice words with Yūsuke when she got back into her body if he didn't come home tonight.

For now, however, she contented herself with the spiritual exercises Botan had taught her to keep herself occupied. She couldn't perform them for very long before tiring and needing to rest and recover, but Botan assured her she would grow stronger 'soon enough' if she remained diligent. Soon enough couldn't come soon enough. She really wished she could read books again already. Maybe she could ask Botan for some Spirit World literature. Even in death, there should be a thriving market for it, should there not?

It was during one of her periods of rest that Keiko heard the faint jingle of keys. Then came the metallic scraping of one entering a lock so very close by. The front door opened, but who was it? In the dark, it was hard to tell.

Then the light flicked on, and Keiko's heart soared.

"Mom?" Yūsuke called out, only to receive no response. He clicked his tongue. "Figures."

As Yūsuke properly entered the room, Keiko got a better look at him. His normally slicked back hair was a mess. On the other hand, his green jumpsuit showed none of the usual signs of having gotten into a fight. She might not have guessed he'd not come home last night if she didn't know better, but there was no denying he'd had a rough couple days. She saw that in the way he moved more than anything. Yūsuke had never been one to hide when he was angry, but even at his worst, he'd always possessed a sort of cocky awareness of his surroundings, alert for trouble but unconcerned. Right now he had none of that.

But he was alive and in one piece.

Yūsuke said nothing more as he went about making some cup ramen for himself. Really, if he'd wanted that, he could have gone to her parents for a real bowl. Then he would know she was alive, and she wouldn't have to worry about him. Everyone would be happy.

A long sigh escaped Keiko. She knew he wouldn't go to her parents for anything as things stood. He would eventually work up the courage to face his demons and apologize to them for his 'fault' in her death, but she suspected that wouldn't be for a while yet. With any luck, her parents would stop by instead in the morning with the good news and catch him before he could slip off to who knew where.

After Yūsuke finished his meal, Keiko trailed after him into the next room over. She could go now. She'd accomplished what she'd come here to do. But she didn't want to leave just yet. She could almost pretend she was just spending the night here again. How long had it been since she last had? It must have been before hormones had reared their ugly—

Keiko blushed and fled the room when Yūsuke unceremoniously began disrobing. She wouldn't peek. She wouldn't want Yūsuke to were their situations reversed. Or, well, she would, but she wouldn't actually want him to. Maybe she just wanted to know he'd be as tempted as she was.

Why was growing up so confusing?

Once Yūsuke settled down and the sound of his breathing evened out, Keiko dared poke her head back into the room. She found him snuggled into a futon and fast asleep. Even at rest, though, he didn't look at peace. The corners of his lips had pulled down into a dour frown, and there was just the tiniest furrow above his nose between his eyes.

Here lay the real temptation. Entering someone's dream required almost no effort. It was, Keiko found, nearly instinctual for ghosts. She could reach out and insert herself into Yūsuke's with barely a thought. She could talk to him, soothe his dreams, convince him not to blame himself, tell him the truth, and so much more.

But she was being watched. By her spirit beast's egg, if no one else.

So with a heavy sigh, Keiko withdrew from the room. She didn't go far, only putting a thin wall between them, but it helped her resist the urge to dive headfirst into trouble. She would stay until morning. She didn't feel up to talking to anyone else, and if luck sided with her, she might get to see one of her wishes fulfilled.

At some point during the night, Keiko drifted up to the roof to watch the dawn. It crept over the horizon in hues of orange and slowly bathed the world in light. Even this late in the year, it should have brought some warmth with it, but ghosts couldn't feel such things. Nor could she recall precisely what that felt like. If she'd ever taken the time to do this when she'd been properly alive, she must have been too young to remember it.

Now she found herself staring straight at the sun knowing it couldn't hurt her to do so. This unusual opportunity, however, revealed no secrets. Alive or dead, the sun was merely bright.

But how did that work? Vision ordinarily required the absorption of light, yet ghosts couldn't be seen except by the dead. And the living could see through her, so she couldn't merely radiate an aura that caused people to ignore her. She had to have a net zero effect on the sunlight passing through her. There had to be some alternative mechanism that allowed her both to see and for other ghosts to see her. Spirit energy had to be the answer. It allowed her to interact with the physical, so surely it also allowed the physical to interact with her.

And on the subject, the same had to be true of hearing as well. However, her sense of smell and touch was confined to the ghostly, for whatever reason, and she hadn't given taste any thought at all. Looking around to ensure she was alone, she licked her sleeve. The bland, empty, awful, cotton taste told her that it, too, was available, although largely useless to a being which didn't eat.

Curious. I imagine the living can see and speak with ghosts if they learn how to harness their spirit energy properly. She had a proof of concept in Kuwabara, since he could tell when she was nearby. It would be nice to be able to speak with Botan from time to time even after this is all over. Keiko put that on her mental list of things to do when she had her body back.

Thus the morning dragged on in quiet contemplation. If Keiko had to name one thing she would miss about being a ghost, it was the eight extra hours of time she had each day. They gave her the chance to slow down and think about anything and everything that struck her fancy. The pressure to excel in school no longer had such a stranglehold on her time.

"—answered the phone," came the distinct voice of Keiko's mother. "I do hope they'll be home."

It came as no surprise when Keiko heard her father next. "Atsuko might not have heard anything yet at all."

"Yūsuke, though…"

If anything more was said, it was lost as Keiko's parents stepped out of the audible range. They soon cleared the fence enclosing the apartment block Yūsuke's home resided within and approached his front door. Not wanting to miss this, Keiko let herself sink through the roof back inside. There she found Yūsuke still asleep, the lazy bum, despite the approaching school day. Not that she'd say a word if he hadn't planned on going today, but she wouldn't ever admit that to him.

A knocking came from the door, but Yūsuke didn't rouse with it.

Keiko bit her lip. She wouldn't want Yūsuke and her parents to miss each other like this. Surely this much interference would be allowed. So she gathered a tiny bit of spirit energy and used it to flick his nose.

With a startled cry, Yūsuke kicked his quilt off of him and rolled onto his feet in one smooth motion. He had his guard up, ready to throw a punch, when the sleep finally cleared from his eyes. Whatever he'd been dreaming about must have been intense to get this level of overreaction from him.

On a side note, it was fortunate he still liked to wear pajamas.

"Yūsuke? Is that you?"

The boy in question, rather than relax at the friendly voice, only grew more tense. He eyed the window for a quick escape before resigning himself to the inevitable. Rather than brood and try to pretend he wasn't home, he squared his shoulders, prepared to face his doom, and moved to the door.

Before he could get a word in edgewise, Keiko's father said, "She's alive," with the level of undirected gratitude that accompanied an apparent miracle.

The shock rendered Yūsuke silent for a good long while. "That's impossible," he said. "I saw her." The far away look in his eyes was enough to know that much. Then his anger bubbled back up to the surface with a new target. "Don't say shit like that, Mr Yukimura. It's not funny."

"But it's true," Keiko's mother insisted, tears in her eyes. "My baby girl is alive. She's in a coma, but she's alive. Visiting hours are this evening."

Keiko wished she could take a picture of Yūsuke's face. As disbelief warped into cautious joy, his expression turned into comical, open-mouthed shock. Between that and his bedhead, she would dare call him cute over handsome. Alas, she'd just have to commit the scene to memory.

Her parents stepped inside at Yūsuke's invitation. He was too happy for anything else to weigh him down. And although he soon excused himself to properly prepare for the day, he cleared some space for them to sit and chat. He returned shortly and, surprisingly, managed to scrounge up some tea to offer them.

Conversation flowed naturally from there. In hindsight, Keiko shouldn't have been surprised to learn Yūsuke had spent the night in jail for assault and battery. The person who'd killed her had perhaps wisely declined to press charges, however, so he'd walked free the morning after. On the other hand, her father's reaction did genuinely surprise her.

"What? No broken bones? Well, context and all. Guess I can't blame you for going easy on him." While Keiko's father had always tried to make himself available as the supportive father figure Yūsuke lacked, he'd never approved of his not-quite-son's penchant for getting into fights.

Time passed far too quickly with Keiko content to silently listen in the whole while. Her parents told Yūsuke of their dreams, of her speaking with them about her test, and of discovering their daughter had miraculously survived the next morning. She couldn't quite say if he believed any of it (or if they did either), but he at least had the decency not to make an argument out of it. He only said one thing.

"If she only needs to pass a test, then we have nothing to worry about."

Though this test was less academic than she was used to, Keiko offered her thanks for the faith in her abilities, not that anyone heard her. She'd not thought she'd fail it, but now she knew she wouldn't.

Eventually, Yūsuke addressed, to him, the elephant in the room.

"I'm such an idiot. She had the whole situation under control, and I didn't even know she was there. It's my fault she's in the hospital."

Keiko's mother promptly dismissed that notion. "None of that now. We're so proud of both of you for helping that boy."

"What happened was just bad luck," Keiko's father added.

It was obvious to Keiko from the clenched fists, the tension he carried, and the persistent frown he wore that Yūsuke wouldn't actually believe that until he'd heard it from her directly and probably more than once. However, he chose not to argue with her parents over the matter. Not directly, at least. He still said, "I'll find a way to make it up to her."

Well, if he's going to go that far. Keiko glanced at the clock. If he hurried, he could still make it to school on time. She floated over to where his long forgotten schoolbag sat on the kitchen counter and carefully aligned herself so she wouldn't knock any other part of the mess over. A blast of spirit energy gave it enough momentum to slide over the edge and fall onto the floor with an unignorable thud.

All three other occupants in the room twisted toward the noise from where they sat. Keiko's father was the first to recognize what had fallen. He turned back toward Yūsuke and said, "Maybe Keiko is trying to tell you something."

Yūsuke groaned. "Jeez, even half-dead, she finds a way to nag me. Go haunt someone else!"

Giggling, Keiko decided she'd done enough for today and obliged.