Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Thief in One Life, A Thief in the Next ❯ New Agents ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: So, did anyone guess just who Duo’s old partner was?

A Thief in One Life, A Thief in the Next

Chapter Two

New Agents

Watching his partner make a sluggish beeline to the coffee pot the next morning, Duo couldn’t help but to grin and barely held back full blown laughter. Old war habits had worn off, and it was now evident that Heero Yuy was not a morning person. As for himself, growing up in the Makai and then on L2 had trained habit of waking up early since childhood. Shaking his head with a sigh, Duo took the mug from Heero’s hand, an act that would have been suicidal if the pilot had been more awake, and started adding things from the ‘shelf of doom,’ a shelf covered in odd spices and food that he had never identified to the others. They had learned to leave it alone after something from it had turned Quatre green for a month.

“What is that?” Heero asked, glaring down at the creamy concoction Duo handed to him a few moments later.

“Best thing in existence for waking up nice and quick,” the braided pilot said cheerfully, taking a gulp from his own black coffee. “My partner’s old recipe. Cures hangovers too, if I remember correctly. Don’t worry, it won’t make you change colors, promise.”

Heero’s eyes widened a fraction at the first taste, which was quickly followed by the rest of the mug in rapid succession, making Duo laugh.

The pair made it to work in plenty of time. A pair of strangers were already waiting outside their office. The taller of the two had long, red hair and leaf green eyes, in which Duo was delighted to see a similar glimmer of mischief to his. The other was shorter than Quatre, with black hair spiked up and red eyes. His face looked to be set in a permanent glare that only softened when he looked at the redhead.

“So, I take it that you’re Minamino and Jaganshi?” Duo asked, grinning.

“Call me Shuuichi,” red said, shaking Duo’s hand. “This is Hiei.”

“Duo, Heero,” Duo said, pointing to himself and his partner in turn. “Come on into the lair and make yourselves at home. Believe me when I say that it’s going to be long day. The Une Lady loves piling any and all paperwork she can on us. So, what made you want to join us lowly Preventors?”

“Boredom,” Hiei said shortly, dropping himself into one of the armchairs Duo had dragged into the office three months before, his feet propped up on one of the arms. Shuuichi took the other one, though he sat in a much more polite manner.

While Heero got directly to work, Duo brought his desk chair over to where the other two were sitting and sat in it backwards, facing them. “Alright, here’s the schedule we follow around here. Don’t listen to anyone else if they tell you differently, because they don’t know what they’re talking about. We get here at six in the morning, pretend to work for a couple of hours, and then slip out to someplace more interesting like the gym or the shooting range. If the Une Lady catches us, me in particular, start flirting like mad until she cracks up laughing and escape. If Wufei catches us, call him some nickname and run like hell. Wuffers, Fei-chan, and Justice boy seem to be effective names to use. Don’t think you’ll have a problem, Hiei, but you, Shuuichi, may want to watch out for your hair. Right before lunch, slip back into the office so it looks like you’ve been hard at work all morning if anybody sticks their head in to invite you someplace or sees you leave. Repeat for the second half of the day. They release us around five. Days when we have fieldwork, on the other hand, follow the instructions or things tend to blow up when you don’t want them to, and not when you do. Got everything?”

“How do you talk that long without stopping?” Shuuichi asked, smirking good humorously.

Duo flashed him a grin. “Circular breathing, but don’t tell Wufei or Une. They still think I hold my breath and are waiting for me to suffocate myself.”

The looked up as the door opened to admit a small blond man, precariously balancing several steaming mugs of various liquids.

“Good morning,” Quatre said, balancing briefly on one foot as the other was used to shut the door. Duo jumped up to take a couple of the mugs so that the rest could be set down. “Thanks Duo.”

“No problem, Cat,” he said, setting one of the mugs of tea on Heero’s desk and a coffee on his. “Hey Cat, meet Shuuichi and Hiei. Newbies, this is Quatre Winner, and if we wait just a couple of seconds…” The door opened again. “We have his shadow, also known as Trowa Barton.”

“Duo, tell me that you haven’t been timing us,” Quatre said, shaking his head. He turned to Shuuichi and Hiei, handing them drinks as well. “I wasn’t sure exactly what you’d want, but you can always get something else later if you wish to.”

“You’re an empath,” Hiei said, meeting the blue eyes directly. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. Shuuichi shot the short man a look that went unnoticed by all but Duo, who’s eyes widened in sudden realization. He smacked himself in the forehead, making the others stare at him.

“Now I know why your name sounded familiar!” he said, looking to Hiei. “You’re the Hiei Jaganshi, from the isle of the koorime. I’ve heard that the beaches there are nice, but all the babes give men the cold shoulder.”

Quatre, Heero, and Trowa glanced at each other in confusion as the other three started to laugh, clutch their stomachs.

Trowa followed Quatre out of the office when the blond left for theirs, and Duo paired up with Shuuichi, Heero with Hiei, to explain the work they were supposed to do. It was around nine when Duo quietly tapped Heero on the shoulder, pointing at the clock. The ex-soldier shook his head, signifying that he was going to stay and actually work. Duo shrugged, muttering “It’s your loss,” before grabbing hold of Shuuichi’s arm and pulling him from the office. The shadow known as Hiei followed quietly, inwardly laughing that his fox would allow himself to be dragged around by a mere human.

“So, where to?” Duo asked once they were safely outside of the office wing.

“The gym sounded interesting,” Shuuichi said. Hiei nodded in agreement. “So when did you learn about the Makai?”

“Don’t tell the guys, but I was born there,” the braided boy said. “I once got a little too close to King Enma, if you know what I mean, and moved to colony L2 and met my old best friend Solo. According to all my records here, that’s where I came from, but even they’re unsure. You can never quite tell anything about L2 brats.”

“Duo for Solo?” Hiei asked quietly, glancing up at Duo with a curious tilt to his head.

“Yeah, Duo for Solo,” he confirmed. “Couldn’t exactly go by my first given name, or my last name. They would have raised suspicions. You’re one of the first to figure that out so quickly. Well, here we are. Come on, they supply gym clothes so you don’t have to get your uniform all sweaty.” Beaming, he looked around, waving to a few friends before his eyes fell on a particular woman. “Oh, crap.”

“Right on schedule,” Lady Une said, closing her pocket watch with a snap. “Things would run a lot more smoothly here if you only showed such dedication to your real duties, Maxwell. Today though, I was actually hoping you’d be here.”

“And why is that?” Duo asked, flashing the famous, perhaps infamous, Maxwell grin. “Have you started to long for my presence beside you already?”

The corners of the stern woman’s lips twitched into what could have been interpreted as a smile. “You never fail to figure out a comeback, do you, Maxwell? I’ll get back to the point though. As you know, the Preventors do a fundraiser each year to help the programs caring for war orphans. You missed the last one our branch was in charge of because you were still on L4 running a salvage yard at the time.”

Duo nodded in agreement to her recollection. “So what’s all of this have to do with me? I was too old for any of those to affect me by the time they reached L2 kids, you know that.”

“If you hadn’t skipped the staff meeting last week you’d know,” Wufei said, walking up to them, seemingly from nowhere. “Several of the top agents, along with any volunteers, will be performing in the fundraiser. Your name is on the list.”

“What?” the braided pilot asked with a blink. “Me? Just what do you expect me to do?”

“That depends on what weapon you pick,” Une said, laying a firm hand on Duo’s shoulder. Behind them, Shuuichi stifled a laugh at the look of glee bordering on panic that kept flitting through Duo’s eyes.

They were led out of the gym and into a room normally reserved for staff meetings. As such, Duo usually made a point to avoid the room at all costs, but it was different this time. Racks of old fashioned weapons, not a single gun or grenade among them, covered the walls.

Wufei’s eyes widened when Duo walked straight past the reaper’s scythe and picked up a pair of smaller ones connected each by a fine length of strong chain to a weight with a touch that smelled of old familiarity.

“Maxwell, I’d be careful with those,” Une warned. “They aren’t easy to master and I don’t think you’ll have time to practice with them much before the-”

“Don’t need to,” Duo said, his eyes distant. “These babies and I are old friends. Hey, Shuuichi, you going to volunteer? Somehow I doubt the evil ones convinced Heero to do it and I wouldn’t want to be all alone in this.”

The red head smiled, lifting a coiled whip that had been dyed green with sharp points all down its length. “Yes, it does sound interesting, and I do believe that this will do. Lady Une, you mentioned that our tasks depend on our chosen weapons?”

“Yes, you’ll be performing skits based on old legends of youkai and the such,” she said, picking up a clipboard. “Who you play in which legend depends on your weapon. Let me see…” She blinked in surprise. “That’s odd. You chose a pair from the same one.”

Duo swallowed, the action escaping the woman’s notice, though his other companions noticed it. “Which one?”

Ignorant of the tension in the young man’s frame, Une pulled two short scripts from the stack of them. “Kurama and Kuronue. A pair of thieves from the demon world. Maxwell, you have Kuronue and Minamino has Kurama. Costume fittings are tomorrow afternoon. Attendance is mandatory.”

Wufei couldn’t figure out why the news has caused both Maxwell’s and Minamino’s eyes to flash in pain briefly before they regained control. It was just a legend after all, wasn’t it?