Everyone was looking at the young man with sympathy as if they knew something he didn't but come to find out that wasn't the reason they were staring at him. Koenma was the first person to speak up. "One of the ogres found you unconscious in one of the janitor's closets. Why were you in the janitor's closet?" he asked cocking an eyebrow quizzically. Shuichi wasn't even listening as he sat up to think about what had just happened. He knew the girl's name but what was that? Had he just been dreaming? He couldn't really tell but the looks from his teammates and ex-boss woke him up from his train of thought. Shuichi couldn't help but let out a chuckle that was a bit on the nervous side.
Shuichi crossed his legs as a woman would and placed his hands on his elevated knee staring at the others with his humorous, understanding green eyes. "That's my little secret," he said giving one of those expressions that made everyone think of Yoko for a second. It was gone a second later a soft clearing of the throat coming from their ex-boss who had yet to explain why they were there in the first place. Shuichi had a pretty good idea what was going on but he didn't want to speak up and have everyone think he was crazy. Well, they would think he was crazy or maybe psychic but he thought it might be the first one more than the second. His smile didn't falter when he was graced with the company of Yusuke at his right side and Kuwabara at his left. They were good friends of his and he didn't mind them sitting with him on the couch.
Koenma pushed a button on his desk to bring up the face of a man on the screen to the left of everyone. Even Hiei could see it who was sitting at the window like usual. Though, this wasn't the surprising thing. The thing that shook Shuichi was the man on the screen was none other than the man he had talked to in the vision. This confirmed his suspicion about him knowing what was going on but what did this man have to do with their new mission? They weren't supposed to be there anyways. They had been fired way back when they had finished up the Demon Tournament and the Spirit Squad had taken their place. "This is an A-Class Demon that goes by the name the Demon King and he was wanted years ago by the Demon and Spirit World for trying to gather together a Rebellion against the Seven Worlds or Realms as some people call them," Koenma told everyone with his hands crossed across the desk in front of him. "He was captured and sentenced to Limbo but sadly he escaped a few days ago. My father has sent out the Spirit Squad again since they were the ones that caught him the last time but now they can't find him. He has help."
He pushed another button and the frame changed to a young woman shown in white armor with long purplish black hair that was falling down her back to contrast deeply with her white feathered wings. Her eyes were a shimmering red; they were full of life and humor. Even with all of those things Shuichi knew who she was. That was the girl that had held him by the neck up against the wall in his vision. Her eyes, her hair, and her choice of clothing had changed drastically. "This is Yuri. Or at least it was Yuri when she was an Arch Angel for Heaven, the First Realm, years ago. She was the one who lead the armies of Heaven into a battle with Hell that shook all seven Realms. It was because of her that we have peace in the Realms but that's all changed now. She is an S-Class Demon and is just as dangerous as Yomi or Mukuro or Raizen. She has changed to this now," he explained while changing the picture to the woman Shuichi knew all too well. Her eyes were that swirling pit of black and red that he had gotten used to and her hair was pitch black along with the wings that she had extended from her back. "This is her as of not too long ago. She goes by the name Raven now. We don't know when it happened but she showed up one day with this done to her. She never told anyone what had happened except for two people."
Quickly, he turned the picture again to a face that made Shuichi freeze; he stopped breathing for a second or two when he saw a picture of three female friends hugging each other and having fun at a water park. Raven was the girl on the right of a pink-haired human girl with bright blue eyes. On the other side was a young woman with blue hair and violet eyes. Shuichi didn't know who the third girl was but the one in the middle was definitely Ivory. He didn't know how he knew this but he did. "This is The Balance of the Seventh Realm. The Human World's Balance basically and before you ask I'll answer your question," he said holding up a hand to Yusuke who was about to ask something.
"The Balance is a person put into a World, or Realm, to protect that Realm from the opposite of what it should be. For example the First Realm, Heaven, has God as you call Her who keeps Heaven on the good side; She's there to make sure that nothing evil gets through Heaven's Gates. The Second Realm, Purgatory, has Luna who helps to make sure this Realm stays Neutral and keeps the other Balances from doing things they aren't supposed to. The Third Realm, Hell, has Satan who keeps this Realm on the side of Evil so that Evil spirits can go there when they die. The Fourth Realm, Limbo, has their Balance who tends to stay hidden away from the world. He has to make sure the punishment is hard for all of the hardened criminals that come through those doors. The Fifth Realm, Spirit World, is helped out by my father, King Enma, who makes sure all of the Spirits that come through here go to the right places. The Sixth Realm, the Demon World, has the King or Queen that is changed every three years with the tournaments and they make sure Demons keep to their ways. The last and final Realm is the Human World and it has Ivory. This girl on the screen in the middle is the World's Balance. It was believed that she wasn't supposed to know of the other Realms to keep her Realm in check but sadly she knows and the Realm is just fine," he said looking at them over his intertwined fingers.
This was about the time that the door opened to show a short young woman who looked oddly like the girl in the picture to the right of Ivory. The only difference was that she had butterfly wings sprouted from her back. "Yes, but something has gone terribly wrong with Ivory. As you probably have figured out she was kidnapped and is being held prisoner by the Demon King. I haven't been able to figure out why but I'm on it right at the moment," she said her violet eyes full of worry and there were black rings under them as well. She looked tired and strained from too much anxiousness but as she looked around it was clear that she truly cared about Ivory. "May I have a word with Shuichi for a second?" She looked straight at the red-head with her darkened eyes that seemed to be out of the ordinary for her cute facial features. She appeared almost dead as Shuichi stood up to follow her his eyes laying on the young woman while she closed the door and gestured for him to follow her down the hallway.
"I would like to ask you a few things," she said her voice drawn out and strange. "I am Luna of the Third Realm but as Koenma told you I am the Balance that keeps an eye on the other Ones who are like myself. When something goes wrong it is my job to take command and make sure everything goes back to the way it was. Ivory was my best friend, I am afraid to say. I am supposed to stay neutral but when I noticed Raven near her I had to take action since I knew what had happened to the once Heaven-bound woman. She was captured by someone, whose name I shan't give to you at the moment, and tortured severely until her wings were burnt, melted, and reformed into black leather. The woman you saw in your vision and the woman you saw in the picture to the right of Ivory." Her face dropped further down and there were a few tears to fall from her eyes, which Shuichi found compassion and fear in the pearly depths. She sobbed dryly as if she had cried a lot in the past few days but when she regained herself it was clear that she would do anything for her friend.
For a few more minutes they walked saying nothing and Shuichi had a feeling this was going to take some time even as they got outside of the tall, tall building known as the Spirit World. She stood there looking up into the sky before there was another person to come down in front of them a soft smile on the woman's face. It looked like the two of them knew each other and it was confirmed as they started to speak to each other in English, yet again a language he wasn't very fluent in though he was trying to learn. With a bow the other woman left in a flash of light showing nothing but what had been in front of them earlier. "I thought Raven had changed when Ivory had shown her the best of Human compassion but this only caused obsession from Raven. She soon convinced me that she had fallen back into the world of the lovely and beautiful but she hadn't. It's hard to say what happened first but the next thing I knew was that Ivory and Raven were both gone out of my life. I was moved away from Ivory to Japan. My Human family made me do so and since I was being Human I had to but when I next saw Ivory it was on the wrong terms. Her mind has been taken over by Raven's words; her body has been decaying from the inside out with the change the Demon King has placed upon her. I've tried to get through to her many times but every chance I get she turns away or Raven comes to take her away from me," she whispered the tears flowing again. It looked so out of place for such a cute young woman to be crying that Shuichi wrapped an arm around her shoulders to comfort her tenderly.
"I saw a glimmer of hope though," she said after a long time of sobbing into his shoulder. Her violet eyes looked up at the young man and she had a soft smile on her face the small hands that belonged to the Neutral Angel gripping in his shirt. "When you talked with her in the cemetery I saw that hope. She was happy around you, Shuichi! I could see it in her eyes that you were the one she would listen to! You have to help her! I know she gave you a vision to see what would happen if you didn't act soon!" She was basically begging him now and all he could do was give a determined expression as he took her by her shoulders to look down into her violet eyes. They were so inhuman with the sparkle of sadness and anticipation but full of understand. He didn't understand how she could look like that but as she clung to him, desperate for his help, he knew this was something he was destined to do.
He nodded his head and she smiled brightly almost attacking him to give him a thankful hug. Before he knew what was going on the world around him was turning and spinning around her face becoming distorted in the changes. Shuichi fell backwards into nothingness but a hand gently grabbed his wrist to hold him up from the ground that was no longer there. Next was a kind of ascending feeling filling his body and causing him to open his mouth in protest but nothing came out. There wasn't a single sound that could be made in this kind of void as he was soon placed down onto the ground. And there he was yet again looking down at his mother's gravestone with his emerald eyes full of confusion. He had no clue how he had gotten here and yet there was a feeling that he had been here before. This was about the time when someone bumped into him causing him to turn around and look down at a very familiar and comforting face. "This isn't Delia Talor's grave is it?" she asked in that calm voice; the one that made him want to melt into her body and tell her everything.
Standing there for a few seconds he soon took her by the hand and started to pull her away from the cemetery. Her hand jerked back at his pulling but he turned around to grab her by her shoulders; she jumped cowering away from him causing him to make his gesture a bit gentler. "Ivory, I know what's going on and I want to help you," he whispered making a gasp exit the girl's lips and though she struggled for a bit, afraid, she calmed down after a while. "Do you trust me?" Her blind eyes looked up at him their grayness piercing right through him to the very core of his body. It was like she could see everything inside and out of him even if she was blinded of all physical sight. His eyes lowered to her lips for a second contemplating on how soft they were until he blushed lightly and shook his head. Her mind was racing, he could tell, her eyes were blurred with thought until she relaxed in his grasp melting into his chest crying silently. He understood there were many things going on and she had probably been force fed into the whole there-are-other-realms speech from the Demon King or possibly even Raven. "Don't worry, Ivory. I'll get you out of this, I swear," he whispered while grabbing her up into his arms taking off into the sky.
He didn't know where he was going but he had to take her some place safe. Too bad that even Spirit World felt like a danger just as much as standing outside in the streets of the Human World. Well, he didn't have much time to think before he was knocked in the head by some flying fist; he fell towards the ground managing to keep up so he could land on his feet in a couching position on a building. Looking around he found himself to be surrounded by three male Angels with dark wings, dark hair, and red eyes. Raven was right in front of him with her swirling eyes of red and black piercing his soul without the slightest bit of trouble. "Yoko, a pleasure," she said crossing her arms across her chest a scythe in her lithe hands making it all the more threatening to stay there. Ivory's hands had clenched in Shuichi's shirt making it known that she had figured out what was going on around her even with the blindness in her eyes. "Hand over the girl."
The tone in her voice shook the very foundations in his body; he hated being afraid of a single person but the way she spoke to him make it feel as if the world had turned around. Hell was unleashed in her body though it was quite apparent that she wasn't Satan. Surely Satan would be much more dreadful andugly than this young woman. She looked as if he she hadn't aged since she had turned eighteen and yet there was a wisdom in her eyes that made her seem older. His adrenaline rushed while he stood there spreading his legs a bit just in case he had to jump into action until the world around them seemed to slow down. He saw the two men to his right and left move down but it was like time had been cut in half. Shuichi noticed that his own movement to get out of their way seemed a bit slow though not in the least sluggish, justmeasured just as much as the other men's. So maybe it wasn't much of a surprise when Luna decended from above with a huge mallet in her tiny hands. She was in slow motion too but her moves seemed practiced and graceful as was her swing as she took down the two Angels with a one-hundred-eighty degree spin.
She jerked her head at Shuichi who nodded quickly before jumping off into the sky with Ivory clutching tightly to his shirt. Her face was buried into his chest and he knew he had to find some place safe before things went all to Hell. Where though? "Go to a Church of God! They can't go there!" came that soft voice, which brought on a sense of calm that made sure he wasn't going to freak out through the journey. Usually he was very level headed with the fights he was thrown into but now he was worried about Ivory and nodded his head as he made a beeline towards the only Catholic Church in town. Most of the time it was only Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Shrines but sometimes there was one Christian Church for the tourists that flocked here in the Christmas or Easter Seasons. There were many different festivals that tourist came to see but those were the ones they liked the most.
Finally, Shuichi came to a large crowd of people in the streets darting in and out of them like a needle and thread through fabric. People gasped when they saw him doing such things without even touching them but all he could see was the Church coming up around the hill in front of him. Too bad Raven was two steps ahead of him with her body standing in front of the Church long blue hair held tightly in her hand. Luna was struggling to get away from the taller woman her mallet gone from her small fist that was trying to get a hit in on Raven but sadly she was held down too tightly for anything to get even close. He stood there glaring at the woman though she was smirking through the courtyard of the nice Church Monks coming to look at what was going on in front of their beloved House of God. That free hand reached out with the palm up a deep hatred coming to Raven's face. Shuichi didn't move but his soul did; he was frightened of this woman and he didn't understand why. What was so scary about her? Perhaps it was because of her inhuman looks; he figured it was the eyes. No Human could have that shade of eyes and yet she pulled it off to look so Demonic and hateful.
"Give the girl to me, Fox," she said calmly her hand clenching tightly enough to show that her nails were black, Devilish and all too sharp. Just to flaunt this she placed one at the jugular vein of Luna's neck the sharp fangs shimmering in the sun that was setting behind the buildings behind Shuichi. "Do it or else!" She looked as if she would do anything she threatened but he couldn't give up Ivory to Raven! Luna shook her head furiously and it was then that the rumors of the Balances were confirmed. He had heard as a young Fox that the Balances of the Realms couldn't be killed unless they gave up their position willingly so he guessed this to be true now. A high pitched scream came from the girl being held and the world around them froze giving Shuichi just the right amount of time to run into the Church. He for once felt as if he was safe from the advances of the Demon King's minions.
Short Story in the Results! Prayer of the Walking Child By: Celine Dion
