Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Faux Pas ❯ Chapter 1

Faux Pas - Chapter One

 

 

When it happened, Koenma was in his private office going through the mundane task of sorting through souls and directing them to their final destinations. Jorge, however, was out in the central office area and happened to learn about it sooner.

 

Jorge had worked faithfully as an agent of the Spirit World for a long time; so long, in fact, that he had steadily lost all memories of his life before death. In his time as Lord Koenma's assistant he had seen and been part of a number of strange events. These included, but did not limit to, the kidnapping of his employer, the complete and total flooding of his workplace, and his own misadventures in voiceovers. One of the most notable of all the strange events was a case that had remained open (though only a few knew about this fact) for years due to a minor technicality; the soul had never been recovered.

 

Fate seemed to work in mysterious ways and caused things to return full circle. This event was of no exception. At the precise time the void was collapsing on itself, Jorge was in the middle of a debate with a junior employee on soul recovery, who had misplaced several files and caused a complete system backup. No doubt it would cause Lord Koenma to be very angry and, though he was more patient and understanding than his father, he could certainly cause misery if he were so inclined. So involved was he in trying to explain just why you never misplaced files, that at first Jorge didn't notice the excited commotion behind him.

 

“It just turned up on my desk. I've never seen anything like it before.”

 

“I've never even seen this name in the records. It looks almost as though it were written off. What am I supposed to do with a form that can't be confirmed?”

 

The blue ogre paused in his reprimanding. There were very few cases that were ever written off. There were only two that came to mind, and Lord Koenma had seen to both personally. One involved the late detective Urameshi Yusuke and his rather questionable lineage. The other involved the former detective Sensui Shinobu and his whereabouts after death. Even if it had nothing to do with either, Jorge reasoned it should be brought to his superior's attention immediately.

 

And if it did have something to do with either of the detectives… well, better for Lord Koenma to know before Lord Enma.

 

“I'll take care of it,” he said, dismissing the harried junior and walking over to the two talking ogres. The one who had the paper nodded and handed it over, returning to business.

 

Jorge's eyes widened as he scanned the paper, all the while walking in the direction of Lord Koenma's office. He was surprised, to say the least. The last thing he ever expected to turn up was a file recording the death of Itsuki, due for processing. In truth, he had almost forgotten about Sensui's quiet partner. He thought the demon had retreated to the void, where his soul would remain even after death. At least, that had been his understanding as Lord Koenma had recounted that particular case to him, oh so long ago.

 

But if his soul had escaped… Jorge's mind spun with the possibilities of that simple statement. Itsuki's soul had turned up and if Itsuki was dead, where did that leave Sensui? Perhaps the real question was what had happened to Sensui's soul?

 

No matter the answer, he was wasting time. He was only an assistant, after all. Such things were far beyond his expertise. Jorge picked up his pace and ran the rest of the way to his destination.

 

* * *

 

Sensui had to blink a few times in order for the world to come into focus. Everything seemed a little too bright, despite the fact he was in the shade of a large grouping of trees. Still, the greens and browns were just a bit too vibrant, a bit too real. After all, they couldn't really be there, because he was nowhere. He was dead.

 

The former Spirit World detective raised a transparent hand to his forehead. It was an unconscious action that he had done when frustrated in the years leading up to his death. The movement seemed so natural that at first he didn't realize he had done it. The greater significance dawned on him as he felt pressure against his forehead. He was no longer a hovering consciousness, he had obtained a form. He frowned. What was going on? This wasn't supposed to be happening.

 

Memories were resurfacing, long suppressed by his years of dormancy. He had died. Been killed by a boy whose power far surpassed his own. No, not a boy exactly; he had been a descendant of the demon race. Demons were those he was sworn to protect from the vile filth known as humans. Or was it the other way around? Sensui clutched his head as a low moan escaped from his lips. Slivers of information that jumbled together were bombarding him, being recalled vaguely but not remembered in full detail. His head felt as though it were being split, ripped apart by the waves of information that were cascading through his already overridden senses.

 

Who… what… was he exactly?

 

He was the notorious demon killer, known throughout the three worlds as the one who let none that were born in the Demon World live after crossing paths.

 

He was a boy who was stalked by strange creatures. They killed and murdered, unprovoked. Yet he was the only one who could see them, who could see all the blood.

(so much blood)

What had he done to warrant their anger? Why was he so different? Why could he see them?

 

He was a killer, a murderer of innocents. He enjoyed the thrill of fighting, reveled in the screams of his enemies, and took joy in their cries as they begged him for mercy. A mercy that manifested itself only through a quick death.

 

He loved all things including plants, cows, birds, and everything in nature… except the animals known as human beings.

 

It was his duty to protect humans; he was a spirit detective entrusted with preserving the welfare of the Human World from any malicious demons that happened to cause trouble. He worked for Koenma, the junior lord of hell; he was partnered with the demon Itsuki, a rare specimen even among his own kind.

 

He destroyed humans…

 

He destroyed demons…

 

A man, a boy, a saint, a monster, a victim, a murderer, pure, tainted…

 

He was all these things. He was Sensui Shinobu.

 

* * *

 

Koenma was not in the best of moods. He was already behind on his forms since someone had made a mistake with sorting files, and now he had to deal with the sudden appearance of a criminal who had been missing for over seven hundred years. A criminal that had directly opened a tunnel to the Demon World, endangering the entire Human World as a result. A criminal that was one of his former agents. A criminal that he had dismissed from his mind, never expecting to hear of again.

 

Normally he would not put much thought to the souls that he sentenced to hell; after all, his detectives were the ones that dealt with them personally. He usually had very limited involvement with offenders of the Demon World except for giving out the missions in the first place. However, Itsuki was an entirely different matter altogether.

 

Though he didn't always show it, he cared for all his employees. But out of all his detectives, he had only ever been particularly close with two. One of those being Sensui Shinobu. It had hit him particularly hard when Sensui had lost his sanity and did a complete one-eighty in his beliefs, causing the near destruction of the Human World in the process. Koenma had, and still, felt in a large part responsible for Sensui's condition, having been the one to give him the assignment that had caused him to lose his mind. Having, as Itsuki had once so eloquently put it, trained a boy to be a killer then hunted him down for being one as a man. He hadn't counted on the Black Black Club engaging in their deranged form of entertainment when his detective had arrived, and that had been a grave miscalculation on his part.

 

Yes, Koenma blamed himself for Sensui's downward spiral towards madness, this was true. In retrospect, it seemed there was so much he could have done, even the smallest things, that could have made all the difference.

 

If he had explained things properly in the first place, if he had made the initial effort to alter Sensui's beliefs, if he had been the one to try harder, if he had been more responsible…

 

Then maybe… just maybe…

 

Maybe Sensui wouldn't have developed such a radical black and white view of the world. Maybe Itsuki's presence wouldn't have initially sparked the conflict in Sensui's beliefs. Maybe the Black Black Club encounter would not have gone so horribly, terribly wrong.

 

Maybes were about as useful as `what ifs'.

 

But as much as he blamed himself, wasn't there a small part of him, a darker part of him, that wanted to blame Itsuki too?

 

Koenma had been the one to allow Itsuki to accompany Sensui after the demon's initial defeat, letting him go so far as to help Sensui with the majority of his missions. At first he had thought it would be a welcome change for the young spirit detective. A demon companion could perhaps show Sensui that there was a good side to every species. Itsuki hadn't had any significant criminal record at the time, and had seemed to be the voice of balancing logic that Sensui had been missing.

 

What he hadn't expected was for Itsuki to seemingly be the first element in causing Sensui to doubt his choices in defending the human race. If one demon could appear almost human, with feelings, emotions, and needs, then why couldn't they all be that way? At the time, the teenager had battled with conflicting emotions over whether he was just in killing any demons that he came across, and whether he was a murderer rather than a savior. Following orders always won out in the end, as Koenma had explained that the demons were criminals, threats, and nuisances Sensui was responsible for disposing of. But rather than Koenma himself consoling the troubled boy, Itsuki had been there as his confident. And if Koenma were honest with himself, didn't, deep down, he resent that just the slightest?

 

That, however, was all in the past as well. Whether Itsuki had in fact had an influence in the decline of Sensui's fragile reality, there would never be any way of knowing for sure; never any solid proof. The true decline, the true questioning, the true uncertainty had started after Sensui slaughtered the BBC. The facts were that Koenma knew he himself had done wrong, and his actions were the only ones he could hold accountable.

 

After Sensui's death, he had done what he could. Koenma had taken careful precautions to write off Sensui's file and all things relating to it. He would let the troubled man's soul be at rest as per his wishes. Itsuki was considered a key part in his `disappearance' and so the demon had unknowingly been dismissed from the records in an attempt to keep Sensui's soul safe. Koenma had never actually counted on the demon's soul returning from the void, but now that Itsuki was no longer in the confines of his protected haven, Koenma found he desperately wanted

(needed)

to speak with him. Since Itsuki's soul was now up for processing, it was too late to worry about cover-ups. It was only a matter of time.

 

He'd use what time he had

 

If Sensui's soul was free… there was a chance. He could speak with him and try and make amends for the past.

 

And Itsuki was his key to finding Sensui…

 

Jorge was watching him nervously, keeping the desk between himself and his superior. Probably a good idea considering that, on more than one occasion, he had proved an unwilling outlet for Koenma's anger. Luckily for him, Jorge was the furthest thing from Koenma's mind. The junior lord of hell raised his golden-brown eyes to those of his assistant and spoke with a careful deliberation he rarely displayed.

 

“I want Itsuki brought to me immediately. If he refuses to cooperate with the ferrygirl, deploy the Special Defense Team on a retrieval mission.” He leaned forward across the desk, his eyes never straying from Jorge's. “My father is not to know of this. Understood?”

 

“Yes, Lord Koenma.”

 

As Jorge exited the office Koenma leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. One hand lifted, rubbing lightly at the bridge of his nose. He knew that the demon would not be inclined to speak with him, but this was something he felt he needed to do. He would track down Shinobu with Itsuki's help, willing or not.