Radical
By Ky
DISCLAIMER: Dictionary quotes are from Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. And, of course, Yu Yu Hakusho is not mine. I claim all rights to Librarian-Ogre-Man, however.
Summary: After his first encounter with Itsuki, Spirit Detective Shinobu Sensui decides to have a look at the odd demon's criminal record. Learning that he lives among humans in Shinobu's own hometown, curiosity draws Shinobu to pay Itsuki a visit one day after school. The Spirit Detective seeks to prove that demons can be nothing but evil, unless Itsuki can convince him otherwise.
Genre: General/Drama
Rating: G-PG
Warnings: Math.
Author's Notes: If this website had a head, I would chop it off with a dull, rusty axe. But I keep coming back to it, for some reason. The rule against symbols is annoying and, in my opinion, completely arbitrary. Because of it, I couldn't type "squared" in any sort of symbolic form that I knew of, so I had to write out the entire equation in words. If the math part of this fanfiction is confusing because of this or any other reason, I'm truly sorry.
I've checked this over so many times that my eyes feel like bleeding, but please tell me if there are any errors that I missed. And, of course, read and enjoy!
What an odd guy, Shinobu Sensui thought, smiling as he watched the demon leave the forest clearing. Wanting to live so he could see the end of his favorite TV series. Ha. He couldn't help grinning at how incredibly pathetic it was. What an odd guy indeed.
Shinobu pulled his Spirit World Communicator—a round, purple device that slightly resembled a compact—out of his pocket and flipped it open. He pressed a button and the screen flickered to life. An ogre sitting at a desk appeared on the screen.
"I want to speak to Koenma," he told the ogre.
"Lord Koenma is busy right now," the ogre replied.
"Well then, could you look something up for me?" Shinobu asked. "Does Spirit World's library have anything on a demon called Itsuki?"
The ogre on the Spirit World Communicator's screen put on a pair of reading glasses and asked helpfully, "Was this demon sighted in human world?"
"Yes."
"Well, then he should have a file. We keep tabs on every demon that crosses the border." The ogre opened a large drawer in his desk and began rifling through it while muttering to himself. "G, H, I…Itsuki. Here it is." He pulled out an index card with a call number on it. "I'll go to the library and find it for you, if you like."
"Thank you." Shinobu waited several minutes while the ogre left and then came back, carrying a file folder. He sat back down at his desk and opened the folder, then flipped to a sheet somewhere in the middle. "There isn't much here—Itsuki hasn't done anything to get himself in trouble with the law—but here it is."
A picture of the teal-haired and golden-eyed demon Shinobu had just recently met, accompanied by a few short lines of text divided into several sections, appeared on the screen of his Communicator. Many of the sections were blank or pointed out obvious information such as the demon's hair and eye color, but two sections caught Shinobu's eye. Apparently, Itsuki had entered Human World a few months ago and, under the "last sighted" section, there was listed an address in Mushiyori City, where Shinobu lived. He read the address several times aloud to commit it to memory and said to the ogre. "Thank you. I appreciate your help."
&&&
Shinobu rapped on the door of the apartment. This was the address he had memorized the day before, he was sure of it. The door opened.
"Mr...Sensui…? How—why…Come in." Itsuki held the door open while Shinobu kicked off his shoes in the entryway. "I apologize for the mess. I don't get many visitors."
Walking inside, Shinobu glanced around the apartment. "It's small."
"Yes, well, why have more space than you need? It's just me living here, after all," the demon replied reasonably. Shinobu nodded; he did have a point.
The apartment was indeed very small. Much of the furniture looked as if it had been bought either secondhand or very cheaply. In the living room area, all kinds of books, ranging from classics to textbooks, were stacked against the wall, apparently for want of a bookshelf. Plunked in the middle of the room were a television set and a worn-looking beanbag chair. Several video tapes and movies were scattered about between the beanbag and the TV. Throughout the apartment, a curious and random assortment of knick-knacks clogged many of the available surfaces.
Itsuki lead Shinobu into the combination dining room and very condensed kitchen, where a collapsible plastic table and a chair were set up. "Please, have a seat," he said, gesturing towards the chair. Shinobu sat down gratefully, setting his backpack on the floor next to him. The demon wandered off into another room in search of an extra chair and was gone for several minutes, during which time Shinobu took his math homework out of his backpack and began work on it.
Itsuki came back with the chair and sat down in it, across the table from Shinobu. "So, what brings you here? And right after school? And, better yet, how did you find out my address?"
The lanky, dark-haired teenager shrugged. "I read your file. Koenma keeps files on all demons that cross the boundaries between their world and Human World." He couldn't believe he was sitting here--in a kitchen that belonged to a demon, in an apartment that belonged to a demon, talking to a demon--without the creature attacking him.
"But why bother taking an interest in me?" the demon wanted to know.
"You certainly do ask a lot of questions. It's because you're odd, Itsuki. I could tell from the moment you gave your reason for me to spare you." You're weird. You're not only a demon freak but a freak demon.
"Oh? And how am I odd?" Itsuki asked, teal hair bobbing as he cocked his head to one side.
You're just downright weird. You're a freak. You're not how you're supposed to be. "This apartment. It's so normal."
A faint smile twitched the corners of Itsuki's mouth. "Were you expecting something different?"
"You're a demon. A…a subhuman species. Unintelligent and ghastly to look at." He paused, waiting for a reaction, but Itsuki was still watching him interestedly, so he continued. "If I were an average human, not one gifted with a strong sixth sense and psychic abilities, and not possessing training as a Spirit Detective, and had we met under different circumstances, it is quite possible that I would have thought you a human. But you're not. You're a demon. A demon living a life in which he pretends to be a human, living in an apartment that could—and should—belong to a human. A demon who, I presume, shops at the nearby grocery store, buying food grown and processed for humans. A demon who goes to a human's library and checks out books for his own use which could better be used by humans. A demon who may even," Shinobu threw an exaggerated glance around the cheaply-furnished room, "though I doubt, hold a job at a place of work dominated by humans, filling a position meant for a human, leading to a human's unemployment. When a demon decides to go traipsing about in the Human World, he is a menace to society. He has a plan to disrupt the way we have lived our lives for centuries. If you have really lived here, a freak of nature demon, as long as your file says you have, why haven't you been arrested yet?"
"Not every demon crosses the border with a plan to destroy the human race. Some of us--though it is very few, I'm afraid—seek only a change of pace. New scenery and different company," Itsuki replied softly.
"Demons were meant to stay in their own world," Shinobu argued back. "That's why it exists in the first place." He turned back to his math homework, which was still spread across the table in front of him.
"Solve each of the following equations:" Good, a review problem. He began to solve the first equation.
Itsuki stood up from the table and walked back into the living room. He returned, carrying a thick book under his arm. He set it down on the table next to Shinobu, who noticed that it was a dictionary.
"Human literature gives demons a rather bad reputation. They seem to confuse the word 'demon' with the word 'devil'. Listen to this: 'Demon. Noun. An evil spirit.' 'An evil or indescribable emotion, trait, or state'—those are the definitions that most frequently come to mind when one says the word 'demon', correct?"
Shinobu nodded but pretended not to be interested.
"But there's more. A demon is also 'an attendant power or spirit,' 'a supernatural being of Greek mythology intermediate between gods and men,' or 'one that has unusual drive or effectiveness.'" Itsuki glanced up from the dictionary, his eyes finding Shinobu's. A fleeting expression that Shinobu could not name glittered in those pale, golden orbs and then disappeared when the demon's gaze turned back to the definition. "The word 'demon' itself comes from a Late Latin word meaning 'evil spirit,' but also from a Latin word meaning simply 'divinity' or 'spirit.' So there you have it, right from a human-printed publication. There is more to us demons than the criminals you have to deal with as Spirit Detective."
"I don't see how this proves your point," Shinobu replied with a sneer. The very word 'demon' means 'evil spirit', and you have defined it as such, and yet you stand here before me, seeking to convince me that you demons are merely benign and can cause no harm. It's laughable. It truly is. Everything about you is laughable. Do you know how many humans have been killed or injured by demons in the past year alone? Do you? And you try to tell me they are not evil."
"I am not denying that some--"
"You see!" Shinobu laughed triumphantly. "You are 'not denying that.' Demons are evil and it is my right—it is my duty—to judge them as I see fit."
Itsuki opened his mouth as if to say something, then, changing his mind, took a deep breath and closed it, a slight grimace straining his otherwise handsome features. Shinobu's mind worked rapidly to think of a suitable verdict—guilty of something, some crime against humanity—but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't come up with one. This demon was just too sane. Too passive. Too human. But he was a demon. Surely his mind could be filled with nothing but evil thoughts.
Frustrated, Shinobu returned to his math homework.
7x squared plus 20 equals 252. Subtract 20 from both sides to cancel it out. 7x squared equals 232. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Itsuki cross behind him. He felt the demon looking over his shoulder, reading his paper. Divide both sides by 7; that cancels the 7 out. 232 divided by 7 is equal to… He punched it into his calculator. 33.14285714. That's what x squared equals. Find the square root of both sides and… He hit a few more calculator keys. X is equal to 5.756983337. Round that up and x equals 5.76. He wrote down the answer next to his calculations.
"Actually, that's technically incorrect," Itsuki replied softly, crouching down beside Shinobu's chair.
Shinobu's eyes skimmed rapidly over the paper. He had done everything right; he was sure of it.
"If I may…?" When Shinobu did not respond, Itsuki reached over and gently took the pencil from his hand. "Whenever you square a number, the result will always come out positive because when you multiply a negative number by a negative number, the product is positive, and the same is true when you multiply a positive number by a positive number." With the eraser end of the pencil, the demon gestured to the point where Shinobu had found the square roots. "Any time that you introduce a radical to 'undo' a squared equation, as you've done here, the answer can be either positive or negative." He wrote on Shinobu's paper in light, even, and perfectly legible cursive, "x ≈ + or – 5.76," and circled it loosely. When Itsuki saw Shinobu's appalled expression—as if he had just watched his perfect homework brutally murdered before his eyes—the demon retorted, "Check it with your calculator if you don't believe me."
Dumbly, Shinobu punched into his calculator "-5.76 x -5.76" and then "5.76 x 5.76." "It's the same," he mumbled.
"You see," Itsuki replied, standing up and brushing his teal bangs away from his eyes, "even in something as straightforward as mathematics, there can be more than one correct answer."
Shinobu stared, amazed, as the demon turned and walked out of the room. Then, he hastily gathered up his things and hurried out of the apartment.