Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ White Noise ❯ Track Two : Face The Music ( Chapter 2 )

The group of four sat down at one of the tables in the far corner of the coffee shop as to not have their conversation overheard by the people around them. Yusuke handed Aria her coffee, which she promptly took a big gulp from without any hesitation only to yelp in pain from the heat and also the unappetizing taste. "Icky." Aria muttered, setting the drink down and sticking her tongue out in disgust.

Yusuke huffed slightly, glaring at the cup of coffee that had cost him the last amount of money he'd had and now she wasn't even drinking it. That was bullshit! Yusuke grumbled under his breath before Botan nudged him slightly in the side and gave him a nod in Aria's direction, who was currently more interested in the tiny straw she got with her coffee than the group of people looking at her.

"Ahem!" Yusuke said, clearing his throat loudly.

"Mm?" Aria hummed, not looking up from her fascinating tiny coffee straw, grinning from ear to ear.

"Well if you don't mind," Yusuke just about growled. "I've bought you your coffee, I haven't hauled you off to Koenma yet kicking and screaming, so now would you mind at least telling me how in the hell you got here!?"

"Hmm," Aria hummed again, still playing with her straw, the smile not changing and her eyes distant, obviously not paying any attention to Yusuke.

"Hellooo~?"

"Mmm?"

"Hey!" Yusuke barked.

"Wha-!?" Aria's head snapped up from what she was doing to stare in surprise across the table at the confused faces of Kuwabara, Yusuke and Botan, acting as if she hadn't even realized they had been there the whole time.

"Have you been listening?!" Yusuke growled.

"Yes." Aria said, slightly confused. "I'm a sound demon. I'm always listening.” She stated as if she thought this was obvious then to prove her point, continued, “Those people over there, sitting at the table two to our right are talking about something called 'a bank account' and that guy is lying a lot."

"How did you get here!?" Yusuke repeated, a little louder this time, beginning to lose his patience for what must have been the hundredth time that day.

Aria looked confused by his question as if now realizing she was dealing with a child. “I was born from my mother of course. Most demons are born just like humans are you know.” She explained.

Yusuke growled furiously, his patience truly wearing out. “That wasn't what I meant.” He snapped. “I meant how did you get to the Ningenkai? I want to know how you got from the Makai to the Ningenkai!” He said, choppy hand motions accentuating what he was saying.

"Oh, that!" Aria laughed, "Why didn't you just say so? It's quite simple. I just got a portal maker to make me a portal to the Ningenkai is all. Simple." She chirped, seeming happy to be of any help.

Botan shifted nervously, obviously not pleased with the idea that it seemed just any demon could get to the Ningenkai with this portal maker the girl was talking about and felt the need to speak up. “Do you remember the portal maker's name? And did you have to pay anything to get here?” She asked, hoping that maybe if they got his name someone could be sent to put an end to his behavior or at least if she couldn't get that much, the girl could assure her that the fare to the human world was incredibly high so not that many demons could get through (though this wasn't exactly a desirable outcome as generally the more powerful demons had the most money anyway).

Aria thought for a few moments, trying to remember the portal maker's name but came up blank. “I don't remember his name.” She responded, seeming sad that she couldn't provide the desired information but then seemed to recover as she remembered something else. “But I do remember his voice!” She stated enthusiastically. “He sounded like this.” She said, her voice having suddenly changed to that of a raspy male, the pale tribal markings covering her body beginning to glow slightly as she used her youki to mimic the portal maker's voice exactly.

“Ah!” Botan cried, looking around quickly to see if anyone had noticed what had just occurred but was relieved to see that everyone seemed oblivious to the display of demon magic in the café. “Thank you very much but please refrain from using your youki while in the Human World.” She tried. The girl seemed reasonable enough, so Botan hoped that maybe one warning would be enough.

Aria cocked her head to the side, confused that she'd done something wrong. “I will for right now.” She agreed.

“Good,” Botan said with a bit of relief. “But back to the matter at hand, what did you have to pay for the portal maker to send you here?”

“I had to give up my most valued possession to get here.” She chirped, seeming unbothered by the fact that she'd had to give up her most treasured object. Material possessions had never been that important to her. Plus, she didn't have that many possessions to begin with.

Botan frowned, but her mind was put slightly at ease by Aria telling her about the fee she'd had to pay. She would have to relay this information to Koenma later.

“Maybe we should just continue this conversation at Koenma's office.” Yusuke interjected before Botan could ask any more questions, just wanting to get the whole ordeal over with as soon as he possibly could, not to mention, he doubted Aria would remember that she'd been told not to use her youki for very long.

Botan nodded in agreement. “Good idea.” She said as Yusuke stood from the table along with Kuwabara.

“You will have to come too Miss." Botan interjected, standing from the table, noticing Aria didn't seem to be showing any signs of following along.

"Yay!" Aria cried, leaping up from her seat, to trot after them, happy to be included in their `adventure', following blindly in the hopes that they might lead her somewhere `interesting', not paying too much thought to the fact that she was now being led happily to the same place that she had denied going to earlier.

"Yeah sure, whatever," Yusuke grumbled. "Come on Kuwabara."

****

The young leader of Spirit World tapped his hand on his desk impatiently, causing the large stacks of papers to wobble dangerously. He didn't have the time to be just sitting around, waiting for people to show up.

And yet that is what he had been doing for the last hour or so. He knew that during that time he could have been doing paper work but he was just too nervous to see how his Spirit Detective had done on their jobs to focus on work!

Koenma was so wrapped up in his own angry grumbling that he didn't even notice when the door to his office opened quietly to admit two people....well, technically two demons.

"Sir?" Kurama called out, followed in by a not too happy looking Hiei.

Koenma jumped slightly, before settling back into his chair, trying to play off his surprise. "Oh, good. You're here."

Hiei cleared his throat loudly, glaring over at the toddler.

Koenma shrank back slightly. "And yes, Hiei. That will be another week off your sentence once all this is taken care of." Koenma added quickly to avoid any conflict with the small fire demon.

Hiei smirked victoriously and chose to stand while Kurama seated himself in one of the chairs.

"Did you find what I asked you to?" Koenma asked, looking towards Kurama, knowing he probably wouldn't get far with Hiei.

"Yes, we did." Kurama said, smiling pleasantly. "Well...we found the energy trail of it at least. The portal the demon used to get into the human world has already closed."

"Good, good. Now all we have to do is wait for Yusuke and the others, then I can tell you why you're here."

"Leave it to the idiotic humans to be the last to show up." Hiei growled, with a sniff of disdain.

"Just give them some time Hiei. Their job was a bit more time consuming than ours." Kurama stated calmly, trying to reason with him.

Hiei just huffed in response, glaring off to the side, obviously not finding this to be a sufficient reason to be kept waiting.

Suddenly, the double doors to Koenma's office flew open, revealing Yusuke, Kuwabara, Botan and their companion/captive. Yusuke and Kuwabara led the girl to her position in the seat at the center of the room before Koenma's desk and Botan took up her usual position next to the toddler to inform him of what had happened.

"We got your fugitive binky breath!" Yusuke called out, plopping gracelessly into one of the chairs.

"Yep! They got me!" Aria chimed in, smiling and obviously not taking everything as serious as the situation merited. "And aww! A baby! So cute!" Aria cried.

Yusuke and Kuwabara snickered in the background while Koenma shot the two of them a scathing glare.

Hiei rolled his eyes. 'What a disgrace to the demon race.' Hiei thought with a mental huff of annoyance. 'And she was considered the big threat to the humans. How pathetic.' He scowl only got deeper when the girl seemed to notice him and shot him a bright smile which only caused his scowl to deepen and he shot her a glare in return. The girl didn't seem bothered at all and merely chuckled and looked away.

Clearing his throat and choosing to ignore Aria's comment, Koenma quickly read over the report papers Botan had given him before setting them aside to be claimed by the overwhelming chaos on his desk. "So your name is Aria?" Koenma questioned, folding his hands in front of him.

'Aria?' Hiei thought with a small amount of shock, glancing over at the girl quickly, giving her a closer look before deeming her to look nothing like the young girl that had literally forced him to be her 'friend', but still slightly unnerved by the reappearance of that name, especially when connected with a sound demon.

"Today it is." Aria chirped, which put Hiei's mind slightly at ease.

'This girl must change her name then. And that's not an uncommon name after all for a sound demon. Just coincidence.' Hiei thought with an internal roll of the eyes at his own behavior, almost chuckling aloud at his own foolishness.

Koenma sighed, already feeling a headache coming on. He hated dealing with sound demons. They always either told you too much or talked in circles so they told you basically nothing at all. "Is it true that you managed to get into the Ningenkai yesterday?" He asked.

"Mm." Aria hummed, smiling, staring off absently as if listening to a song that no one else could hear.

"Direct answer if you please." Koenma ordered.

"To what?" Aria questioned, grinning, finally snapping to attention and looking at Koenma directly.

"The question!" Koenma snapped.

"Yes, I got to the human world a day ago." Aria answered, giggling. “It's so much nicer than the Makai. At least I think so. So much brighter colors and better noises. I hardly hear any screaming.” She added with a grin.

"What was your purpose in the human world?" Koenma asked, ignoring her unnecessary added information, knowing that if he acknowledged it it would only give her cause to give him more.

"It's a secret~." Aria sang, her feet swinging as she looked around the room curiously, not really ever looking at Koenma when she was talking to him. Behind her, she heard the shortest of the group sniff in disdain but she just chuckled. It didn't bother her at all. She was either oblivious or just chose to ignore it and not let it bother her.

Koenma growled and....yep, there was the headache, right on schedule. "Well how did you get there?" He huffed.

Just as Aria was opening her mouth to respond, Yusuke interjected. “Ask her a different question.” He stated, already knowing how she'd reply to the current one.

“Huh?” Koenma looked over at his Spirit Detective, confused.

“Just trust me. Ask a different question or at least phrase it different.” Yusuke commented, obviously growing bored with the entire situation.

“That information should actually be in the report of the ordeal anyway sir.” Botan piped up, helpfully.

Koenma just raised an eyebrow, figuring they must have asked this question and encountered the famed sound demon rambling. "Fine then. Did you realize you were breaking the law?"

"Of course." Aria giggled.

"Well, then...." Koenma said, pausing for a second to think. "I guess since technically you have done no harm, your punishment will be less severe. But you will still be sent back to the Mak-"

"Um sir?" Koenma's blue-skinned ogre interrupted, sticking his head through the slight opening in the doorway.

"What is it ogre?!" Koenma snapped, angry that his professional, adult sounding talk had been cut short.

George gulped and fought back a shudder of fear. "Um well, about sending the sound demon girl back sir. The guy we use to create the portals has um....gotten sick sir." He said bracing himself for the verbal explosion he was sure was about to occur.

"What do you mean he's sick?!" Koenma shouted, causing Aria to wince slightly as her sensitive ears were blasted by the sudden increase in noise.

George winced at Koenma's outburst. "He's currently being nursed back to health by our top medics." He said, trying to ease the small ruler's anger.

"But his cough sounds awfully bad." Aria interjected, smiling. She didn't really understand that all of this was a bad thing, only tuning in for bits and pieces of the conversation.

Koenma snapped his attention back to the girl, regarding her carefully, which gave George the chance to make his hasty retreat out of the room. "Hm. Well I suppose you're stuck in the Ningenkai until Yusouki gets better.” Koenma grumbled, though growing suspicious of the fact that Aria's arrival and the sudden sickness of his portal maker seemed to sync up so well.

“Yep! I don't want to go back to the Makai.” Aria chirped, seemingly completely okay with the outcome, despite how it had negatively affected Koenma's portal maker.

“So until then, you will need to be sealed.” Koenma said, opening one of the drawers on his desk to riffle through it and then pulling out what looked like a choker with symbols inscribed onto it. He handed it to Botan who then brought it over to Aria.

Aria looked down at the collar with a curious expression before looking back up at Koenma. “Why?” She finally asked.

“Why what?” Koenma snapped.

“Why do I need to be `sealed'?” She asked.

“To make sure you don't hurt anyone.” Koenma huffed.

“What if I just promise not to?” Aria asked, seeing this as a completely appropriate solution. After all she couldn't lie, so it wasn't like she could actually hurt anyone if she did promise not to.

“I want you sealed.” Koenma snapped.

“How come he doesn't have to be sealed?” Aria asked, pointing over to Hiei.

“Just put it on.” Koenma bit out. “He's a special case.”

“But-“ Aria started to protest before Koenma cut her off.

“Regardless, you can either wear that or stay in jail until we can return you to the Makai.” Koenma snapped.

“But-”

“Just put it on!”

“Fine...Jeeze.” Aria sulked, looking down at the collar sullenly with a pout.

“And she just allows herself to be collared like a damn dog.” Hiei muttered under his breath, and though Aria heard it, she seemed unbothered by his judgment and merely looked over at him.

“Wouldn't it be better than someone that remained somewhere they didn't want to be without a leash?” She asked, not meaning any offense in what she said, having overheard Koenma and Hiei discussing his probation earlier.

Hiei snarled and whipped his head around to glare daggers at the girl only to be distracted by snickering from both Kuwabara and Yusuke.

“Oh he's not one to talk about being collared. He is leashed to the human world too.” Kuwabara snickered.

“And what's that supposed to mean dumbass?!” Hiei growled dangerously, reaching for his blade while Aria began to ignore them and put on the collar as instructed.

Meanwhile, while Hiei and Kuwabara bickered, Aria seemed to be gagging on something as she pulled desperately at the collar that she'd just put on, finding herself unable to remove the object, distress evident on her face.

'What's going on?! Why can't I talk?! This is bad. Very bad! I need out. I need out!' Thoughts swam around Aria's head even more sporadically than normal. She clawed fruitlessly at her neck, finally gaining the attention of the group.

*Aria began to panic as she realized her inability to talk and then began to panic further as the fear and anxiety began to well up in her chest. Her fear of the negative emotions themselves began to almost overshadow her fear of her inability to talk. Her before unfocused eyes now seemed to finally snap back to reality to focus on the situation at hand.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she realized that she didn't even know if she would ever be able to speak again, suddenly regretting ever agreeing to wear the collar.

`I need to find a distraction.' Aria thought desperately, looking around frantically as she sought out something to take her mind off her fear while still clawing at the collar but being too panicked to find anything to distract her from her current situation.

She looked over desperately at Yusuke, not knowing how to plead for help without words, sound demons being unknowledgeable in the use of body language. She felt trapped in a world where she didn't speak the language now that her voice seemed to be gone. The tears finally started to run down her face.*

“Koenma what's wrong with her?! What did that collar thing do?” Yusuke exclaimed, pausing in trying to break up Hiei and Kuwabara (though in all honesty, he hadn't been trying very hard) to look at Aria with concern. Both Hiei and Kuwabara took notice too, looking over at the girl while Kurama resolutely focused his attention off into one of the corners of the room just to the left of Aria with a hint of sympathy in his eyes, not liking to look at the obvious hysterics the girl was in.

“It is a demonic seal and since her youki stems from her vocal cords, it has sealed her ability to speak. It can only be removed or broken by someone other than the wearer.” Koenma explained, nodding.

Aria opened her mouth in a silent scream, continuing to fight the collar, despite what Koenma had said. 'I want out! Let me talk! No! My freedom!' Aria screamed in her mind.

“Isn't this a bit inhumane?” Yusuke asked, casting the frantic girl a sympathetic look.

“Not at all. It isn't painful in any way. It just makes her less of a threat.” Koenma stated calmly, seeming unfazed by Aria's obvious distress.

“If you say so.” Yusuke grumbled, settling back into his chair, still not liking the idea. She hadn't seemed dangerous. “Hey, you're going to be fine.” Yusuke called out to Aria, but she didn't seem to hear him as she continued to fight with the seal around her neck.

“Hiei,” Koenma said, addressing the small apparition, who just growled in response. “From here on out, you'll have to serve as her voice box since you're a telepath. That way you can also keep an eye on her as well. Killing two birds with one stone, I suppose you could say.”

Hiei snarled at Koenma, baring his fangs, causing Koenma to press himself back into his chair to attempt to get farther away from Hiei and his rage. “Remember that week! Remember that week!” Koenma cried. “I said you'd get it taken off your sentence after this job is completed and if she has any information about why she's here or her connection with the Black Market she wants to tell us, I want you there to be able to hear it.”

“Just let the girl write out what she wants to say.” Hiei growled, “I refuse to be the voice box of some useless mute.”

Aria cast him a look as if to say that wasn't a good idea and just out of curiosity, Hiei dipped into her mind. 'I can't write. Don't know how.' She told him in his mind, still obviously hysteric, `I don't have any way to communicate!' She tried to plead but if she was looking for compassion she'd gone to the wrong demon and Hiei simply looked back towards Koenma with a growl over what he had just learned.

“Fucking perfect.” Hiei snarled. “Make it two weeks.” He snapped at Koenma.

“Fine.” Koenma sighed, just relieved that Hiei had obliged without too much of a fight. “But you'll have to be around her at all times.”

Hiei growled but chose to stay silent.

Oblivious to what the two were talking about, Aria continued to struggle against the collar around her neck. She tried to pool all her youki to force it off, but found that she couldn't control her demonic energy at all. She let out another silent scream, trying to use the force of the yell to will the collar off but without realizing it, went too long without breathing and while the group of boys were all still arguing about where to keep her, fell unconscious.