http://clampfix.fanworks.net/guests/holy-g2.txt </head><body><pre> Supposedly, Chapter 1 took place in 1995. I've changed my mind; it was '94. Sorry about any confusion. <shi-chan makes mental note to change version on web page as well> Holy Ghost An X-Files/Yuu*Yuu*Hakusho crossover by Sionna Klassen Chapter 2 Note: This story is set shortly after the conclusion of "Anasazi," the second-season finale/third-season opener of X-Files, but before the "Dark Angels" storyline in YYH. Washington, D.C. Wednesday, September 20 4:31 P.M. "You sent *who*?" Assistant Director Walter Skinner glared at the speaker. "I didn't have a choice in the matter. Surely you were aware of that, with your vaunted resources." Smoke curled wraithlike in the air. "Don't patronize me, Skinner. You could have countermanded that, sent someone else." "Why bother? Look at it this way; it gets them out of your hair for a while, doesn't it? You'll be free to go about your... business." There was an audible snarl. "You've been pretty cocky lately, but don't think you can push me and get away with it. Why wasn't I informed that you were sending Mulder and Scully?" "I believe I was told not to contact you," Skinner said dryly. With a sudden violent movement, the man shoved his cigarette into the ashtray on Skinner's desk - there despite the "No Smoking" sign - and leaned over the desk to stare Skinner in the face. Skinner met the angry gaze impassively. "You listen to me, mister," the man growled. "You think you're invulnerable, but you're wrong. There are plenty of things I can still do to you whenever I choose. Just remember who's in charge here." "I know exactly who's in charge," Skinner said frostily. "I see you've managed to keep yourself in their good graces... barely." The smoking man twitched, like a shudder or a nervous tic, before he regained control. Pretending the comment hadn't affected him, he snorted. "I don't know what you're talking about." He turned to leave. "Next time I want to be told if something like this comes up. Beforehand." "Yes, sir," Skinner said, his voice holding just the right tone, right on the line of insolence. The smoking man turned his head to glare at Skinner again, then left the office. Skinner dumped the ashtray's contents into the garbage and put the ashtray in a drawer of his desk, then turned on the fan and opened the window to get the smoke out of his office. Tokyo, Japan Thursday, September 21 8:31 A.M. At the same time, accounting for sixteen hours of time difference, Mulder woke up as effectively as if the alarm clock had gone off, even though it hadn't. In fact, as he turned his head to look at it, he saw that it was blinking 12:00. The power had obviously gone out during the night. The TV was off too. Just as well. Mulder had no real inclination to be subjected to the horrors of early-morning Japanese television to go with the late-night programming of the night before. Half an hour later, duly showered, shaved, and dressed, he felt a little more ready to face the world. He wouldn't feel right until he'd had his first cup of coffee, though. As a substitute, he was about to reach for his bag of sunflower seeds when a knock sounded on the door. Since the timing was nearly perfect to the minute for someone to catch him when he was ready to leave, he raised an eyebrow as he opened the door, expecting to see Scully. Although her timing was usually perfect to the minute for being the most *in*convenient rather than the other way around... It wasn't Scully at the door, although it was a redhead. "Good morning, Agent Mulder." "You look entirely too awake, Shuichi," Mulder complained mildly. Then he turned to get his bag of sunflower seeds, asking as he did so, "So what's on the agenda for today?" Shuichi hovered in the doorway, his brilliant red hair trailing forward over one ear to fall against the shoulder of his green shirt, which - of course - was the perfect shade not only to set off his hair but to match his eyes. Everything about this kid was perfect; his looks, his manners, he even moved as gracefully as a dancer. That perfection made Mulder instantly suspicious. It was nothing he could help, it was just his natural instinct that something in that attractive a package had to be a lie. Too many times he'd been deceived by a surface gloss, when the truth was far uglier. He preferred the truth. What was more, he *needed* the truth. As far as Shuichi Minami was concerned, though, he had no idea how to get it. "We're going to meet with Inspector Tanaka," Shuichi said. "He's in charge of this case, sort of." "And you can't tell me anything more without his permission, right?" Mulder guessed wryly. "He didn't tell me anything else," Shuichi admitted. Mulder took notice of the fact that he *didn't* say "I don't know anything else." Either he wanted to avoid lying and was simply choosing his words carefully, or he really didn't know anything. With this kid, how could he tell...? Mulder glanced at Shuichi's eyes as he left the room, closing the door behind him. Eyes that were too old for his face. He knew something. He just wasn't telling what it was. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, Mulder wondered whose side Shuichi was on. Although in some ways it didn't matter, because Mulder had learned his lessons well. He didn't trust anyone. <He doesn't trust me.> Kurama led the way, sensing that Mulder would have probably maneuvered to get that result anyway. Mulder wanted to keep him in sight. The agent didn't even have to say anything; it was all there in his body language, although Mulder tried to keep his expression neutral. Kurama sighed inwardly. This was going to be difficult. Mulder would probably try to withhold as much information from him as possible, which meant that he couldn't pass anything on to Koenma, which meant that the Reikai's investigation would get nowhere... Worse yet, the reason the Spirit World was investigating this in the first place was that there was already something unusual about these missing tourists. It wasn't something Kurama could tell the agents, though. After all this time, it was assumed by everyone that the missing persons were dead. The papers had even begun printing stories about the deaths despite the fact that the bodies hadn't actually been found yet. Kurama privately thought that was bad journalism, but he had to agree that the likelihood of finding any of the missing people alive was virtually nil. But that brought up another problem, namely that no souls of murdered people had passed through the Reikai lately. If they had, it actually would have made things easier, because the spirits might have been able to identify their killers. But... there was nothing. And that was very disturbing. There just wasn't anything that could stop a human soul from passing to the Reikai, not that either Kurama or Koenma knew of. Unless... One of Kurama's erstwhile partners, an unmourned and bullying youkai named Goki, had chosen to steal a sphere that could hold souls. Yuusuke had retrieved it and it was safely locked up in the Reikai again, but what if there was another one, or something close to it? What if that was why the souls of the murder victims weren't passing on? Unfortunately, there was no way to tell yet. All Kurama had was speculation. But Koenma couldn't get access to the information he needed without going through human authorities, and that meant Kurama had to play double-agent, only for two halves of the same side. The problem with involving the human authorities in the case was that they could be hurt or killed in the process. Humans historically had very little in the way of good fortune when dealing with youkai. And with Mulder so determined to make things difficult, it was going to be even harder to protect him. Especially since Kurama couldn't do anything that would make him seem like anything more unusual than a bright high school student. <Well, no one ever said life was easy...> Inspector Tanaka turned out to be a large (by Japanese standards, exceptionally so) man whose face was entirely dominated by a black, scowling expression. Mulder doubted he'd be able to recognize the man if he was smiling, although it looked like smiling was something he never did. Scully was standing there as well, looking uncomfortable. Probably she'd already tried to talk to him, and with her limited knowledge of Japanese had only managed to irritate him. Tanaka said something annoyed to Shuichi, who ducked his head in response and then turned to Mulder. "He says you're supposed to come with us." "Well where else would we be going?" Mulder asked. Then he frowned. "*Where* are we going exactly?" Shuichi asked Tanaka, who growled a response as he walked toward a car sitting at the curb. "He won't say," Shuichi sighed. Mulder hated having people say "You don't need to know." He heaved a sigh of his own. Why was everyone so determined to make this case difficult? Their destination looked quite a bit like the FBI building. Mulder wondered if that was coincidence. Somehow, he doubted it. Before they could pass through the gate, he, Scully, and Shuichi were given badges, presumably denoting them as guests, which would only give them access to a limited portion of the building. Mulder was getting more and more irritated with Tanaka's refusal to answer questions, not to mention his habit of snarling at Shuichi whenever he attempted to translate one of Mulder's questions. Mulder had finally taken the hint and stopped asking anything, which freed Shuichi to be very small and quiet for the rest of the drive. If he was hoping the submissive display would mollify Tanaka, it seemed he hoped in vain, because Tanaka sounded as irritated as ever as they walked into the building through a private entrance and he started speaking. Shuichi quickly translated, keeping up easily as Tanaka led them through corridors at a swift pace. Mulder wondered if that was a by-product of his bad mood or if he was trying to keep them from seeing anything along the way. Maybe both. "He says to remind you that everything you're going to see is top secret," Shuichi said. "I think he means to remind *me*." "Any idea why he's so pleasant and happy?" Mulder asked sarcastically. "I think he's upset about having to work with you," Shuichi said. "That's all I can think of. Maybe he feels that gaijin shouldn't be asked to help on the case." "He might feel insulted," Scully contributed, the first thing she'd said all morning. Mulder wondered why she was being so quiet. "If he was the one in charge of this case, he may feel that our presence is a sign that his superiors don't trust him to do the job himself." Shuichi looked at her, then back at Tanaka. "He probably does," he acknowledged slowly. "In which case there's nothing we can do that won't antagonize him," Scully said. "So we won't be able to count on his help." "This is ridiculous," Mulder muttered. "Everybody wants us to give up and go home." Not that he would have been here if he'd had a choice in the matter. He would much rather have been investigating the X-Files. It would have been bad enough that this case held no interest for him, without everyone he met seeming to conspire to make the job more difficult. <I don't know why the hell I'm here. They don't need us for anything except to placate the American government. Couldn't Skinner have sent someone else?> "Mulder, you'd scare babies with that look," Scully murmured quietly. "If you're going to be in a bad mood too, can't you at least be a little less obvious about it?" Mulder was about to make a sharp retort when the Inspector stopped at a door and took a key from his pocket, reaching to unlock it. Shuichi glanced at Mulder. "I'd guess you're as upset about working with him as he is with you," he said quietly. Mulder flushed uncomfortably. <Damn, I didn't think I was being *that* obvious.> He floundered for a polite response, when Scully came to his rescue... sort of. "Mulder just hates being left in the dark," she said, throwing a glance in his direction. "He"ll feel better once he knows what's going on." Shuichi nodded noncommittally as the Inspector pushed the door open, motioning for the others to precede him. Mulder and Scully walked in first, looking around. Mulder had seen enough autopsy labs to recognize the place for what it was. There was a body laid out on one of the tables, covered with a sheet. Mulder traded a glance with Scully, but neither one of them said anything. <So it's not really just a case of missing tourists, is it?> Almost as if answering Mulder's thought, the Inspector started speaking and Shuichi translated. "This news hasn't been released yet, but the bodies of some of the missing persons have been found." "So?" Mulder asked. "Why bring us here, then?" "I'm getting to that," Shuichi said quickly. "The reason the news hasn't been released to the public is that there's something... unusual about these deaths." "Aside from the fact that they were murdered, you mean," Mulder said dryly. Shuichi nodded, waiting as the Inspector spoke again. Then he continued. "The bodies are unusual." He frowned, and before Mulder could ask anything, he asked something of the Inspector. The answer startled him, but he recovered himself quickly and turned back to Mulder and Scully. "They're - different than human." "What?" Scully demanded. "There are small differences," Shuichi said. "Things that humans don't have." He waited for the Inspector to continue, then kept translating. "Different blood, or strange bones. The Inspector says that's why you were asked for - because your government said you had experience with things like this." Scully didn't even have to look to know Mulder's eyes had lit up. Shuichi seemed blithely unaware of Mulder's sudden interest, as he continued speaking. "That's the most recent victim." He pointed at the table. "All of them were killed in the same way, and the rest of the autopsy reports are on file if you want to read about all of them. But the inspector thought you would want to examine at least one of the bodies yourselves." Scully nodded shortly and walked toward the table, hardly thinking about the matter at hand. Mulder was going to love this. She sighed. He'd probably end up telling her it was another one of those government experiments to combine human and alien DNA over dinner. He might even decide that the Japanese and American governments were working together on it. <I really don't feel like arguing him out of his theories again.> Scully sighed. <And I thought we were going to have a normal case for once. I should have known better.> She pulled the sheet off the body and felt a brief flash of nausea before her professional detachment set in, as always. She examined the body critically. Clearly the man's throat had been cut, which was probably what had killed him, but she doubted this murder was as simple as that. Especially with what Shuichi had just said about abberrations in the bodies, although the evidence of her eyes already told her there was something more going on here... "What's that say?" she asked, pointing to the Japanese character carved cleanly into the bloodless flesh of the man's chest. Shuichi looked surprisingly calm for a teenager suddenly confronted by a corpse. "It says..." He hesitated, searching for the right word. "'Demon' would be the best translation." As she glanced at him, Scully saw that his green eyes were clouded. Something was worrying him, and she didn't think it was the corpse. She wondered what it was, but didn't ask. "Primary cause of death was the sliced throat?" she asked, looking up again. Shuichi asked the inspector, who nodded in confirmation. Scully nodded again, to herself. "May I conduct my own examination?" she asked. Shuichi spoke again to the Inspector, who replied tersely. "He says yes," Shuichi reported. <Although he didn't sound happy about it,> Scully thought. She walked briskly to the chair and took off her coat. "I'll need access to the medical equipment. I don't think you'll be much help here while I'm working..." She glanced at Shuichi, telling him clearly that she was giving him tacit permission to leave if he wanted to. Actually, she was being about as subtle as a ton of bricks, but she wanted to talk to Mulder alone. Without worrying about whether the kid was listening to their conversation. Shuichi didn't look upset or put off by her thinly-veiled order. In fact, he almost looked grateful. Scully wondered what *he* was going to be doing while she was examining the corpse. "I don't want to hear a word from you until I've finished, Mulder," Scully said as soon as the door had closed behind Shuichi and the Inspector. "But you heard what he said, Scully. Why would he lie about that? I've been wondering why we were sent instead of someone else - now it makes a lot more sense." "Mulder. You're expecting me to believe that this body isn't human when I haven't even examined it for myself? When I'm done with the autopsy I'll trade wild theories with you all you want. Until then, just let me work. Please." Mulder adopted a lost-puppy expression which didn't affect Scully in the least. "You aren't curious at all about why these corpses are different?" "Of course I am - I'm just not in the mood to hear about how the Japanese government is conducting experiments on its citizens." Mulder gave up and said lightly, "Oh, I've known about that for ages. Where do you suppose the Power Rangers came from?" She glared at him. Kurama waited, listening to the phone ringing on the other end of the line. When it was finally picked up, he said quietly, "Koenma - it's me." "What is it, Kurama? Found out anything?" "Yes - and it's not good news." Kurama hesitated, then continued. "The missing people are dead. I saw one of the bodies just now." "And?" Koenma's voice prompted. "Someone cut his throat. That was what killed him - but before they did that, they carved 'demon' on his chest." Koenma paused. "So?" he asked finally. "You know there are unbalanced humans out there..." "No, that's not it," Kurama said. "The thing is that the dead man *was* youkai. At least partly." "*What*?!" Koenma demanded. "He was part youkai," Kurama insisted. "And so were all the others. When autopsies were performed on them, the examiners found aberrations in their bodies. Whoever is doing this is hunting youkai." There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "That could be anyone," Koenma said finally. "There are plenty of humans with psychic powers out there. One of them could see youkai. The Devil Hunters are still around. Maybe one of them is abusing her powers - or is just seriously confused." "But how could one person alone kill so many people?" Kurama argued. "It could be something else. Maybe it's a cult. If they had a psychic among them, they could find their targets easily." Koenma sighed. "I don't like this. You're putting yourself in danger by doing this, Kurama." "Is it any less dangerous to do nothing?" Kurama argued. "I'm in danger no matter what I do, just because I'm a youkai. Nobody knows the FBI agents are here. If anything, I'm safer while I'm with them." "...All right," Koenma said slowly. "For now, keep working on it. But keep close to the FBI agents! The more you can get out of them, the better. And you're right, there's safety in numbers." Kurama nodded and hung up the phone, then turned and walked down the hall. Inspector Tanaka watched from an adjoining hallway, eyes narrowed. ***************** Standard legalese alert: The X-Files, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and all related characters are still owned by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. The characters of Yuu*Yuu*Hakusho are still owned by Studio Pierrot, Fuji Television, and Yoshihiro Togashi. None of this has changed since I wrote the last chapter, that I'm aware of. No infringement of any of the rights of the creators or distributors is intended. I'm not worth suing, really. I have no money. This is a work of purest fiction of the mildly-sane variety. Any resemblance to any actual persons or youkai who are living, dead, undead, reincarnated, mostly dead, not dead yet and getting better, or just temporarily existentially challenged while the Reikai figures out what to do with them is completely coincidental. Arigato gozaimasu to K-chan the Nigh-Invulnerable for providing me with a good aesthetic kick in the pants that got me nicely out of my writer's block (since taking out the thirteenth chapter wasn't really a viable option this time). No thanks at all to my stupid VCR that recorded on the wrong channel so I didn't get last week's X-Files, but thanks to my little brother just for the heck of it and because he's a cool kid, even if he did tell me that my drawing of Scully YYH-style didn't work. But then, he was right anyway. </pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>