I thought I'd seen it all as a former Spirit Detective. That nothing else could shake me.
Boy, how do I wish I was right!
What I witnessed years later haunts me to this day.
Can't say for sure how everything started, but if I had to pinpoint the exact moment everything started to crumble, I'd say it was that goddamn day I met with Koenma. Trust me, I was doing a fine job avoiding people until then. Ever since what happened to Keiko, everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells around me, so I'd rather just be on my own.
But it was raining cats and dogs that day, visibility had gone to shit, and I ended up stumbling on Koenma by chance.
Funny how I still remember all the details of that god-forsaken day. How the skies were dark as hell, how we could barely manage to stay out of the rain, how the wind was so strong it took me three tries to light my cigarette. How we'd rather stare at the dirt rainwater flowing on the streets than face each other.
I should have known. It's not every day you get to see the leader of fucking Spirit World walking around between us mortals. He was somber than usual. Things were not going well, even I knew that. The war in Makai forced Koenma to pull up the barrier between worlds again — a decision I think he always felt bitter about. For someone who tried his best to put some distance between himself and his father's works, this was almost the same as admitting defeat.
The war was Makai's own problem, of course. But when things threatened to spill over to this side, the Reikai had no other option. I knew most of Reikai was tired of dealing with this mess, so up with the barrier. It was the easiest solution to spare the humans of any potential trouble. Some would argue demons were too busy fighting each other to even bother coming this way, but what do I know? Besides, the Spirit Detective role was long gone — another way Koenma found to erase his ties to King Enma's ruling. Talk about dad issues, am I right?
I wondered how long that would last. I always kinda expected Koenma to reach out to me and ask for help at some point. He never did, probably because he knew what my answer would be.
But on that day, he shared his concerns about the youkai living in the Human World. With their own personal safety — those were his words. For years, demons had a free flow to the Human World, and that had brought a shitload of demons to this side of the puddle, probably way more than the Reikai expected. The good news is the existence of youkai was no longer taboo. Humans everywhere were aware of us. That didn't mean there was no prejudice. Apart from a privileged few, most of the youkai nowadays lived in ghettos, were piled in slums, cast away in places like the High Town, a wretched suburb on the outskirts of the city.
"Why don't you let human police take care of those things for a change? Isn't that their problem now?" I said.
Koenma drew back the saddest smirk I had ever seen. He still wouldn't face me, his eyes focused on the gutter ahead of us, his voice just as muddy.
"C'mon, Yusuke. You know damn well the police won't lift a finger to investigate a thing."
That got me. Something clutched my stomach, a pain that years of avoidance had prevented me from feeling.
Deep down, I knew he was right. So right, it was borderline uncomfortable. Wasn't that what my former career as a private eye was all about? To deal with the cases nobody else would touch?
"Since when does the Reikai care so much about youkai's safety anyway?" I replied, perhaps a tad more bitter than I should have. Blame the stomachache for that.
I never forgot what he said next.
"My concerns and the concerns of the Reikai are two separate things."
He didn't go into details, but it was at that moment I knew something was going on.