InuYasha Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Blue Anshan ❯ The Rescue 4 - Hapless ( Chapter 26 )

The Blue Anshan

By Alesyira

Summary: Interruptions, interruptions, interruptions...

Chapter Rating: PG. Bad language!

Disclaimer: Inuyasha is owned by Rumiko Takahashi, and Yu Yu Hakusho is owned by Togashi Yoshihiro. OCs are my own. I make no profit from this piece of fiction.

Arc 4 - The Rescue 4 - Hapless

the present

The door chimed again and drew attention from the waitress clutching a still-ringing pot; she stood akimbo over her very sorry boyfriend as he nursed a growing lump on his head. Her highly annoyed (although not quite murderous) gaze immediately softened as she noticed who'd just entered her family's shop.

Her greeting died on her lips as she noticed the odd expression on her red-haired friend's face. Yusuke had already stood and moved toward him. "What's up?" he asked, his injury already forgotten.

"It was here," Kurama muttered. Keiko and Yusuke exchanged a glance.

"Um, what was here?" Keiko asked. "Are you looking for someone?"

Kurama narrowed his eyes in contemplation. "Maybe." He walked slowly toward the table near the register that had been occupied not even ten minutes ago by the girl with the backpack and bow. He reached out and touched the chair she'd been sitting in and turned to Keiko.

He didn't even need to voice the question before she said, "She just left. Didn't say where she was going." Kurama was gone a moment later, the jingling of the door the only sign of where he'd gone. Keiko, unwilling to have a completely dull Friday, hurriedly took off her apron and tossed it to her mother before running out the door after him.

"Sorry folks," Yusuke said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Mrs. Yukimura," he said with a nod at the woman behind the counter before following the other two.

"Next time, don't be late!" he heard her shout after his retreating form.

Yusuke caught up to his girlfriend as she came to a stop at the entrance to the park. Keiko was a little out of breath as she pointed inside the darkening wooded area. "I saw him go in there, but I was still a block away." Yusuke motioned for her to be quiet and stared into the trees looking for any sign of their friend. If there was some kind of danger, he knew that he shouldn't bring Keiko with him, but she would be safer with him rather than alone at the entrance to the park.

Keiko quietly followed him as it became more difficult to see. The lights along the paths in the park had just begun to turn on, but they didn't penetrate some of the thicker trees as the couple headed off the path. Keiko's mind was less on any possible danger as her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. 'What if Kurama is involved with that girl, and we are moments away from walking in on something private?' She pressed her cool hands to her face in hope of staving off the growing pink.

The two caught up with the kitsune avatar as he knelt in the grass near a tree. "What's going on, Kurama?" Yusuke asked. "Who was that girl?"

"Oden?" Keiko murmured, noticing the faint smell of the food she'd served. "Why is it all over the ground? Did something happen to her?"

Kurama stood and followed a slightly winding trail through the trees. "She went this way..." He stopped and the two watched him in confusion as seemed to look around at the trees themselves. "This doesn't seem right," he said, his voice quiet. He turned slightly to look back at the two and said, "Get Keiko out of here. I think she was kidnapped."

"Oh, no - that's terrible!"

"What? Are you going after her?" they spoke at the same time. "Do you want me to tag along after I drop Keiko off?" Yusuke added as an afterthought.

"You jerk!" Keiko elbowed him in the ribs and stalked off into the woods back toward the path.

"No, this should be quick. Go enjoy a movie with her before she gets too-" He was cut off by the sound of their communicators going off at the same time.

"Ah, shit. Tell him, if he really needs me, I'll be escorting Keiko home... or something." Yusuke dashed off after his girlfriend moments before Botan popped in.

"Where did... oh, never mind. I thought I'd be able to grab both of you at the same time," she muttered aloud as she opened a portal into the Reikai. "Koenma has an assignment that just popped up. It needs to be taken care of ASAP." She nudged him into the portal before he could protest and zipped off to find the next member of the team.

'Why would it go to a ramen shop?' Kurama thought, following the scent across the street.

~I've no idea. Just move faster before we lose it again!~

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, ignoring the gazes that had focused on him. In fact, his internal argument with Youko about his reluctance to give up information had left him so preoccupied that he barely noticed what appeared to be the end of an argument between Keiko and Yusuke.

"It was here..." Kurama muttered, echoing the inner exclamation Youko had made. 'But nothing seems out of the ordinary. Are you sure you're not mistaking this for something else?'

~Nothing else has this particular scent.~

He vaguely realized Keiko was asking him something as his gaze focused on a table near the register. "Maybe," he absently responded without knowing what she'd asked.

~We need to know for sure. The possibilities, should we get our hands on a sample...~ Kurama reached the table and touched a chair. The scent was of a human female; nothing strange or special was evident aside from the oddly sweet smell. There was a touch of anxiety present, but if Keiko had been yelling as loudly at Yusuke as she was oft to do, then nervousness was to be expected.

He turned toward Keiko to ask if the girl had said anything before leaving, but she spoke before he had a chance to even open his mouth. ~She said she just left! Go, Go Go! You still have a chance to catch her!~ As soon as he got out the door, he turned right and practically flew down the street in the direction he'd been walking. He knew he hadn't passed her coming in his direction before entering the noodle shop, so it only made sense...

There were definite traces of the girl's scent that followed the sidewalk and turned toward the park. 'This doesn't make sense. What kind of human girl goes into the park at night?'

~You are underestimating what it is that we're tracking.~

'You can't tell me that I'm underestimating anything until you've given me more information than 'It's extinct' and 'Oh, the possibilities!'

~I suppose you're right. I'll tell you more once we find it.~ Kurama stopped next to where the scent lingered and found a large portion of what had obviously been the girl's dinner spilled across the grass. Strangely enough, Hiei's scent was also in the area, which either meant the two had coincidentally taken the same path, or one had been following the other.

The sound of crunching grass met his ears moments before the wind brought along the scents of both Yusuke and Keiko. While he was moderately pleased that his friends would choose to assist him in his... dilemma... he was also disturbed that they would poke so openly into what might very well have been his personal life.

~Does this mystery have you so intrigued that you would continue to ignore your friends?~ Youko's voice held far too much amusement for his liking. ~I think they are concerned for that girl's welfare.~

Kurama stood and didn't even spare them a glance as he followed her trail through the underbrush. "She went this way," he said. As he stepped between the bushes and trees, he noticed something amiss. There was a sort of tingle in the air, and the plants that he passed seemed... pleased? "This doesn't seem right," he muttered quietly. Whatever was going on most certainly made no sense whatsoever.

A girl, wandering through the woods with an extinct plant that had ensnared Youko's attention...

following both her and Hiei's scent through the woods...

and now this odd feeling to the plants and the air around them?

As he passed by an old, rotten tree trunk that had recently squashed a poor, defenseless bush, he recognized the sharp tang of fear permeating the girl's scent, right before the scent vanished completely. One of his eyebrows quirked in annoyance as he clenched his fist at his side. "Get Keiko out of here." He turned his head a bit to glance back at Yusuke. "I think she was kidnapped."

~Doubtful. Why do you spout such silly remarks to your friends?~

'Do you have a better excuse to get rid of them so we can continue our search?'

He ignored their barrage of exclamations and questions as Youko grumbled about having to deal with saving another hapless human just to get a few answers. When Yusuke offered to come back and help after dropping Keiko off, though, both halves of the kitsune avatar were adamant in their refusal. (Although Youko growled his inner mutterings with far less tact than how Kurama said his own aloud.)

And then, their communicators went off. ~Ignore it. Let's just go after her.~

He watched Yusuke sprint after his girlfriend for a brief moment before he turned and prepared to tear open the thin wall of the barrier separating the two realms.

Botan appeared unexpectedly and shoved him into the Reikai before he'd had a chance to protest or even register what she'd said.

Hiei glared down at the offending device in his palm, willing it to short out or spontaneously combust -whatever would shut the damned thing up. While he was within Mukuro's fortress the Reikai wouldn't send a ferry girl to bring him to the demigod's office, and he wasn't about to go back so soon and deal with further annoyances. If he was seriously needed for something, Kurama would know how to find him.

He lifted the lid to the solid trunk at the foot of his bed and stuffed the still-beeping communicator between some very thick blankets, then slammed the lid shut. He frowned in annoyance; although only the smallest of trills was still audible, he knew it would continue to bother him until it stopped. He scowled and stalked back over to his windowsill, taking his seat once more. A cool breeze washed in through the opening, ruffling his hair and giving him a measure of peace.

-o-

twelve minutes earlier...

In the ever-busy Reikai offices, tucked away in an insignificant corner, sat a little orange man; his eyes were tired and his expression bored as he tapped away at a small keyboard and stared dully at a flickering monitor. A stubbed finger pushed a pair of crooked glasses up the bridge of his even more crooked nose, and the short oni stifled a monstrous yawn.

He sighed and glared up at the clock, willing it to move just a bit faster so that he might be able to enjoy his evening meal. His stomach growled its agreement and he clutched it in annoyance as he returned his gaze to his never-changing monitor.

He blinked in astonishment and rubbed his tired eyes, convinced for a moment that he'd imagined what he'd seen. His orange face paled into an odd shade of yellow as he swallowed and stood on shaky knees to pull a small sheet of paper that his printer had just spit out.

He looked over the report once, then twice to be sure he hadn't misread… Then suddenly, as though he'd been struck by lightning, he raced from his desk toward his supervisor. "Sir! Sir! I've got a code 3-b, here!"

His supervisor, an older oni with oddly placed patches of fur, peered over the rim of his glasses at the paper he'd been handed and shook his head. "Those silly humans need to watch where they're going. Border patrol will find him. Don't worry, Bob."

"But, Sir, I said three-b. A holy person has gone through!"

The supervisor dropped his coffee cup in his haste to stand, and the ceramic shattered on the edge of the desk, spilling hot liquid all over the supervisor's legs. He ignored the burning liquid as he shook the paper at the orange oni. "Damnit, Bob, why didn't you just say so sooner!" He snatched a red phone off of its base on the wall behind him. "George! We've got a three-B on our hands, here... What? No, not a human invasion... What? No What gave you the idea that we have a code for vampiric rabbits? No! George, shut up- Holy person! Holy! Koenma needs to know about this right away!" The supervisor waved Bob closer and made him sit in the coffee-soaked chair at his desk. "We've already got someone gathering further information-" He pointed to his keyboard and Bob began hunting through Reikai surveillance footage.

-o-

the present, again

"Good, you're already here. I'll brief the others as they arrive, but this is a rush job that we need to start on immediately." Koenma thumbed through to the appropriate page in a folder on his desk.

Kurama still stood where Botan had pushed him into Koenma's office. Outwardly, he appeared calm and collected, but the kitsune spirit within him was growling in annoyance about meddlesome ferry girls and demigods that needed to learn a little bit of patience.

"Approximately fifteen minutes ago, a human entered into the Makai. Unlike other rescue missions, this person set off one of our alarms designed to detect holy auras." He picked up the remote to turn on his viewing monitor and brought up a map of the park that he'd so very recently followed the girl to. Kurama felt his hand clench in a terrible mix of frustration and indignation as Koenma spoke next. "This is where the alarm was triggered. She, or he, must be located and escorted back to the Reikai for debriefing and memory alteration. We want to avoid any... incidents."

Kurama's eyebrow twitched upwards and betrayed his slight amusement. 'Incidents, as in a human's unnecessary death or dismemberment.' "She or he? You don't even know the person's gender?"

The teenaged demigod looked sheepish for a moment before he pressed another button on his remote to change the displayed image. "We're not sure what happened, but the surveillance footage is blurred and indistinct. We think it's a she, based on the length of her black hair. She was wearing what appears to be a backpack and a grey shirt with some sort of blue pattern." Kurama nodded slowly in agreement as he examined the picture, although the feeling of excitement that wound through his nerves when he saw the vague blue lines made little sense. "As you can see, it is difficult to make out the details."

~That stupid bastard... and we were about to go after her! There's no mistaking what that is, Kurama. We need to get going, NOW.~

"The holy energy was measured to be a low amount, so there should be little to no danger when you encounter her. But be cautious just the same, because she might react differently if she thinks she's being attacked."

Kurama took the pause as his opportunity to get out of there. "Then I think I should make haste. If there is any further information I should be made aware of, I'll have my communicator. Oh, and can you have someone deliver these to my mother?" He held up the flowers and dry cleaning.

"Of course." He snapped his fingers and a portal appeared next to him. "Good luck, Kurama. I'll send the rest of the team as soon as I can brief them."