1. Chapter 1 (1/2)

be careful what you summon

chapter 1

"koenma sir, here's the latest report!"

"just set it down and i'll get to it when i have the chance" the toddler spoke through his pacifier without looking up from the paper he was currently pretending to read, before stamping it and moving on to the next.

the blue oni set the manila folder that contained the report on top of the stack of papers closest to koenma, letting it balance precariously, before stepping back and waiting. the prince peered up at it and let out an annoyed sigh. he had a bad feeling that he knew exactly what it was about.

not wanting to deal with that particular problem just yet, he continued his mind-numbing duty, not paying any real attention to what he was doing, as if set on automatic. these papers were insignificant compared to the issues he knew the report contained, but so much less stressful to have to deal with. he continued with the stamping for several more minutes, every so often throwing a glance up, then continuing on.

as much as he would prefer to ignore it and hope it fixed itself, the chances of that happening were about a million to one. but then again, he had heard somewhere that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten, so there was a bit of hope.

the random looks were turning to glares, and with each glare his pacifier sucking became quicker as he thought this over before concluding that who ever had said that must have been smoking some giggle weed.

jorge, the blue oni, seemed to have an idea as well as to what was in the report he had been sent to deliver to the prince. after all, it seemed to be a recurring problem lately. he didn't understand why koenma was putting off something so serious. normally the prince would have sent a team out to deal with this by the third incident at latest. but then again that team was no longer taking missions and the current tantei were incomparable to their predecessors. this was a delicate situation considering the circumstances and especially the location, and would thus require experience and some form of tact, whether it was the right form or not.

this would be the sixth occurrence of an attempt to summon a demon and something had to be done about it. now, what exactly had to be done was the problem.

demon summonings really weren't that rare of a thing and happened a lot more than most would find comfort in knowing. it typically consisted of an overly curious human finding a spell written down in a mass produced book found in any local bookstore. these clumsy attempts would show up early on reikai's radar and the portal would be blocked before the person performing the ritual would even notice anything unusual. they would just assume that the book was full of crap, like so many of them were, and not bother with it anymore.

and then there was the magically inclined community.

these people, wizards and witches as they were called, weren't as easily fooled. if they didn't get the results they were after with the first attempt then they would fiddle with the spell, making small changes in the wording or revising the wand techniques, until they achieved their desired results. they were stubborn like that and suffered from a superiority complex that koenma would normally call laughable, if not for the fact that they were undoubtedly the cause of his current frustrations.

thankfully those cases were a lot less common since most tended to have a natural fear of what they considered the dark arts. it was a taboo subject, and demon summoning certainly fell within the category, that most of them looked down upon and was practiced by only the darkest of wizards and witches.

and that was a large part of the problem.

it was true that under normal circumstances he would have sent a team out by now, to deal with the situation despite their inexperience, but this unfortunately went beyond that.

this was a tight rope balance between reikai law regulating involvement in wizard affairs, with which they had no jurisdiction, and those involving makai, with which they had full jurisdiction.

koenma paused his work with another annoyed sigh. as always, things could never be simple. even the endless mountains of paper work seemed harder to stamp, which was probably just due to his cramped fingers from gripping the stamper for so long, and that just added to his irritation.

"don't you think you should read it, sir?" jorge spoke aloud, startling koenma out of his thoughts.