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looked rather absurd on her currently hideous visage. However, at this
point, the spectacles were all that was left of the undead girl's
humanity--she was now warped and twisted beyond all recognition. She
barely even looked human anymore...

The cold, hard truth hit Kurama's face like a crisp slap: the psychotic
Toguro Ani, using the Tiyanaks to infect Midori with his filthy genetic
code, had merged with the young girl's body and turned it into a
perverted parody of a human being. In light of this, the half-youko's
mind raced for a way to somehow save his friend from a fate of wretched
damnation.

Kurama attempted to entangle and immobilize the bespectacled mutant girl
with his Rose Whip, but she quickly tore through the weapon with a
single bite from her mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. She lunged again 
and ripped through the muscles of his left shoulder. He staggered back
as a pang of pain and regret washed over him; he had somehow dragged
Midori into this mess, _his_ mess, and he might be forced to do
something unforgivable to get her out of it.

But he couldn't! She was his friend! His classmate! What would Shigeru
Amano think if he found out that he...?

Midori flicked her elongated tongue and caught Kurama by his ankles; his
dillydallying thoughts had left him vulnerable. After he tumbled and fell
down on his posterior, his ghoulish classmate was instantly upon him in
a fraction of a second, charging headlong with reckless abandon, her
sharp claws and pointed teeth suffused with the third pillar's gleaming
light. 

It wasn't a matter of choice any longer. Kurama's survival instincts had
taken complete control of him as a scream of rage and horror tore itself
free from his throat. From there, the half-youko didn't even have time
to think or regret; he quickly summoned the Tsukeyaki Grass Blade and
swung it directly at Midori's midsection with all his might, using the
monster's own momentum to cleanly slice through her stomach and cleave
her in half. Her torn halves thudded lifelessly on the ground soon
after.

Kurama knelt on the ground, his arms outstretched, his back arched. He 
squeezed his eyes shut with all his might, his mouth gaping wide 
in a silent scream. For a seemingly infinite moment, he was simply
frozen in a world of unbelievable shock and disbelief. He struggled to
open his eyes and catch his frantic breath as he stared down at
Midori's remains, his eyes wide open and intense, his shoulders heaving
up and down at every mouthful of air. What had he done? What the hell
did he just do?

It took a full minute for Kurama to realize the full ramifications of
his actions. With a heavy heart, he howled in grief and frustration. He
was distracted! Depressed because he had just abandoned his mother and
his friends for a quest to search for his human self's original soul!
He wasn't thinking straight! Midori came out of nowhere, and she...
he...!

HE HAD JUST KILLED HIS CLASSMATE! Goddammit, no! Please, no! Midori was
just standing there a few minutes ago, chatting with him, laughing with
him, talking about things like school, and friends, and how their lives
were going... and then, in the blink of an eye, it was all over. She
was now gone.

Midori, mutated into a beast through Toguro Ani's machinations, had
attacked Kurama and tried to kill him, so the half-youko had no other
recourse but to defend himself! He couldn't just stand there and let her
do Toguro's dirty work, even if she were his classmate. After all, he
still had to return the life he had stolen to its rightful owner: The
True Shuichi Minamino. He only wanted to do the right thing for Asuka
Matsui's sake, to make amends for his past mistakes... but what about
Midori? He didn't mean to kill her. He was forced to do it, or else he 
would've... Asuka would've....

He had to stop there. The name, as well as his reasons and resolve,
felt hollow in the face of the terrible deed that he had just done. A
part of him screamed that his justifications for his actions made him
sound like a coward; a sniveling, selfish lowlife who had no regard for
anybody but himself. But that didn't sound quite right either: He killed
for Asuka Matsui's sake, not his own.

Nonetheless, it didn't change the fact that his dear, shy, introverted,
yet adorably sweet, intelligent, and surprisingly candid classmate's
life had just been extinguished by both his and Toguro Ani's hands. God,
the poor girl, no! She didn't deserve this! She didn't deserve any of
this!

And here words fail. Kurama wanted to scream, yell, cry, rip things
apart like the way he sliced through Gama's body with his Rose Whip way
back in the Middle Rounds of the Dark Martial Arts Tournament... but he
couldn't for any number of reasons--it simply wouldn't do him any good. 

He shouldn't have willingly accepted her help. Or Shigeru Amano's help,
for that matter. At the very least, he should have protected her. But he
tried! He fucking tried! He who was the most intelligent among Koenma's
Four Favorite Spirit Detectives should have found a way to counteract
Toguro Ani's little mind game, but for some reason he couldn't; he
wasn't able to think of a solution fast enough. Though he did everything
he could to restrain the rabid and mindless Midori, by then all was
lost. Failure: for when one's best wasn't good enough.

Midori was sweet, kind, patient, loving, considerate, brave in spite
(or even because) of herself, a great and loyal companion who was always
willing to put her friends' welfare above her own, and a thousand other
good things, _and more_ besides. Admittedly, she and Kurama didn't have
the closest of relationships, but what they did have was filled with
caring, thoughtfulness, and mutual respect. Those three things could
make for many, many years of fond memories, far more than a brief,
nightmarish end.

Dammit, he couldn't see.

Squelching sounds and foul odors filled the air, rousing Kurama from the
turmoil of his inner thoughts and choking him with their overpowering
presence. Just a few yards from him, the maimed Tiyanaks' underdeveloped 
entrails, internal organs, grey matter, and skin tissue started to crawl
and creep towards one other like countless worms, centipedes and snakes,
coiling unto themselves and coalescing into a tangled, pulsating mass of
putrid bodily fluids and organic matter. 

Something crunched underneath the thickset, chitinous bulk of inhumanity
with a loud series of stifled cracks, like twigs being snapped under a
wet blanket. Afterwards, the thing opened up like a flower made of folds
of pinkish tissue and gave birth to a whole menagerie of limbs, vital
organs, bone fragments, and miscellaneous appendages. The sea of flesh
and blood roiled violently on the ground before they, along with their
fleshy container, merged and impossibly disposed of their entire mass
into the diminutive body of a vaguely human form. The thing stared back
at Kurama with haunting eyes that weren't really eyes. It did not see.
It did not hear. It barely even subsisted at that point.

Then, it started to shift its shape all over again. Bones aligned, nerve
endings grew, and organs developed. Its brain flickered into a state of
self-awareness. Its lungs remembered how to breathe, and its heart began
to beat once more. It doubled over, clutching its chest and panting
laboriously. Every one of its muscles strained to its limit as its body
tried to recall how to be a sentient, thinking being. After a moment, it
calmed down and stood up. Strangely enough, the freakish effigy against
nature soon spoke.

"Sorry to interrupt your thoughts, but I believe it's time for you to
die," Toguro Ani's unmistakable voice slickly announced before he
himself, in the flesh, metamorphosed right before Kurama's weary eyes
care of the undulating mishmash of human-shaped flesh. Kurama spared a
look at his horrid hobgoblin for a nemesis and saw him in his full,
freakish regalia. 

The man... if he could be called that... was slim yet lithe, and clothed
in plain black pants and loafers, both of which had seen decidedly
better days. Also, his glossy, gray hair was long, stringy, and slightly
mussed from his most recent 'exertion.' Toguro Ani was little more than
a shambling black blotch at this distance, a diminutive derelict hobo 
highlighted against the brightness of the third pillar and the shimmering
rocks of Irima, but Kurama could still feel the demon's presence like a
hot, sickening wind on his face.

Kurama regarded his old adversary warily, and with good cause. The Elder
Toguro brother had the power to manipulate and regenerate himself, to
form any weapon from his body, to stretch out his limbs, to impale his
opponents with sharp extendable spikes that could emerge from any point
on his person--though he seemed to prefer using his hands for this
purpose--and to move around his internal organs, making him difficult
to kill. He could also alter his appearance and size: at one point he
created an entire body double of himself out of his hand. From the very 
beginning, he was already quite the dangerous opponent for a mere B-level
demon; he was so strong that it took the B+ level abilities of the
powerhouse Younger Toguro to finish him off.

"You can't kill me, I'm already dead," Kurama countered, sounding
strangely like Yoshitaka Tetsuma himself. He then scowled in vexation;
of course Toguro Ani could hear his thoughts, even those not explicitly
said through his mental voice. After all, the immortal demon had
absorbed, through Sadao Makihara's powers, the psychic abilities of a
certain Shigeru Murota. That, coupled with the fact that Kurama had made
it his will to have his thoughts known to everyone within the Dream
World, made things all the more complicated for him. 

'In our last fight, Gourmet couldn't use Murota's abilities against you
because you were able to hide your inner voice. However, you've actually
made it your will to make all your thoughts known to everyone occupying
this Dream World. This will prove to be a fatal mistake on your part.'
Toguro did not actually say the above statement, but judging from the
glint in his amber eyes, he _knew_ all these unsaid words to be true
without even bringing them up.

During the last time they met, the human-turned-demon's abilities made
him so powerful that he became virtually invincible; on top of being
immortal, he could also indiscriminately read minds _and_ absorb other
people's abilities, characteristics, and memories by assimilating them
unto himself through cannibalism. Had Kurama not used his unconventional
method to defeat Toguro Ani, he and the rest of his compatriots would
have been killed, maimed, tortured, or eaten whole by the fearsome
monster. And now the beast had somehow returned once more...

"On the contrary, you look very much alive to me. Don't worry, Toguro
Ani will soon fix that. In just a matter of minutes, you'll feel as
dead as you really are," Youko Kurama interposed as he indolently
lounged about on one of the smoother areas of the Irima Cave. Judging
from the lazy, contented look on his face, it appeared as if the former
Makai thief had just stolen an entire kingdom's worth of a king's
ransom. If he were worried about his other self's plot to resurrect
Asuka Matsui by giving up their second lease in life, he did not show
it.

"That's right! That's right! I wish I'd thought of it that way! How
clever!" Toguro Ani appreciatively exclaimed before he threw his head
back and let out an insane, warbling laugh that stretched on for much
longer than should have been possible without needing breath. It was a
shrill, piercing thing... like shattering glass, like screeching
rubber... as annoying as the chittering hoots of the Tiyanaks but his
was devoid of all remnants of sanity. Kurama wanted to cover his ears at
the sound of it.

"Don't worry Youko, I'll make sure that your human self is double dead!
Triple dead! Even Enma Daio would not know what to do with Kurama's
broken spirit once I'm through with him!" Toguro Ani let out another
peal of megalomaniacal laughter, only to switch to a fit of furious
coughing a split second later. This certainly wasn't the effect he was
going for: If the situation weren't so grave, Kurama would have
perspired blase drips of sweat at the bizarre, choking midget right
then and there.

Finally, with an irritated look, Toguro Ani... dissolved. Or at least
that was what he appeared to do as the structure of his body seemed to
transform into a liquefied state, allowing him to ooze into the ground.
A moment later he emerged from a spot a few feet away, swiftly resuming
his former shape. After clearing his throat a couple of times, the
diminutive shape-shifter shook a fist at Kurama in what appeared to be
comical rage.

"Your damnable," Toguro Ani rasped, making a cat-like hacking noise,
"plant is still stuck in my throat. Or at least I _think_ it's stuck in
my throat, what with all the trauma it caused me after all this time.
Personally, I'd rather not think about whether or not your Janen Ju
exists in this dream, because I'm not into all that existentialist,
'there is no spoon' bullshit." He smirked and let out another bout
of hysterics for a few minutes, then finally regained his breath and
continued.

"You thought you could keep me there for all eternity, but now the
tables have turned and you're in _my_ world now! Welcome to my
nightmare, Kurama! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA...! Look at me when I'm speaking to
you, worm!" Holding up one hand, Toguro Ani leered at it and changed it
into a petite yet perfect likeness of Kurama, which obligingly cringed
before the wrath of the gray-haired demon.

"Yes, cower, you sniveling fool! Be afraid, because I'm going to kill
you! You, and every one of your friends!" His other hand formed into a
buff-looking man with a crew cut and sunglasses. "And I'll kill you too,
you worthless, traitorous, pathetic excuse for a brother!" He paused for
a moment, frowning. "No, wait, he's already dead, isn't he? Oh well,
I'll kill you anyway!" The miniature versions of Kurama and Toguro Ototo
began  beating each other up, which was abruptly ended when a miniature
Toguro Ani grew out of his chest and extended a bunch of spikes,
skewering both of the combatants. Both Toguro Anis then cackled
together.

After a moment, Toguro Ani relented, "But there's no time for this." His
various puppets reformed back into their appropriate body parts. "After
all, all play and no work means less people dying horribly!" He giggled
some more.

The earlier corrosive waves of terror that tore through Kurama's body
had been replaced by a sense of bemused apprehension. Could it be that
this pint-sized murderer had become nothing more than a fool and a
simpleton after going through the horrors of the Sinning Tree? The Elder
Toguro certainly didn't appear very threatening at that point; perhaps
the Janen Ju had taken more out of him than even he had anticipated?

To the half-youko, the Toguro Ani in front of him was nothing more than
a mere buffoon, an annoying thorn on his side. In retrospect, it was
such an unfair and unforgivable tragedy for Midori to fall prey to such
a bothersome, irritating charlatan pretending to be a sociopath.

Toguro Ani jerked his head back at Kurama; there was something swift and
savage in the movement. "You _dare_ mock me, kitsune? ME? You and your
insolent thoughts... I'll teach you to underestimate me!" He ground his
molars in anger--he didn't like 'hearing' any of Kurama's impertinent
musings; not one bit. "I've killed you a thousand times before in my
nightmares, so one more time won't make much of a difference. DIE, you
son of a bitch!"

A grim smile of anticipation appeared on Kurama's face as he readied
himself. Toguro fell for his taunting hook, line, and sinker. "Go
ahead. I'm waiting. Or do you only reserve your impressive powers 
against people whom you _know_ can't fight back?"

A red haze threatened to drown out Toguro Ani's vision as he clenched
his fists. His whole body quivered as his muscles tensed, his heart
thundering in his ribcage. He stamped a foot with force enough to shake
the pebbles out of the stalactites. With a primal, guttural roar, a
myriad of sharp, tube-like spikes emerged all over his body as he 
charged headlong at his 'eternal' nemesis.

Kurama avoided Toguro Ani's tendril-like barbs in the narrowest of
margins as they made a series of shallow gashes on his shoulder and
clipped off a chunk of his hair. The kitsune then reeled back and
smoothly dodged the attacks which followed. The demonic creature
shambled forward, launching strike after murderous strike towards the
stoic half-demon. The monstrosity pressed its assault with deadly
accuracy and ferocity; perhaps infuriating the beast wasn't such a wise
move after all.

His vixen ears flicking irritably, Youko Kurama sternly called out,
"TOGURO, you FOOL! You should be the one with the psychological edge,
not him. Don't let that human get to you; don't fall for his mind
games!" But it was too late. Toguro Ani was too far gone with his blind
rage and months of pent-up frustration to notice any of the Silver
Fox's warnings. 'It's just as well. Let's just hope that his rage is
actually an advantage instead of a detriment in this fight.'

Kurama nearly lost his balance when he dodged Toguro's knife stabs, and
recovered just in time to get out of the way of the mace-like strikes
which followed. He parried with his Grass Blade then hopped backwards,
trusting to luck that he'd find firm footing when he landed instead of
loose stone or treacherous waters. He recovered his fighting stance and
ducked away from the next series of blows with a little more ease.

There was no question about it: Toguro Ani had gotten much faster than
before, his reaction time particularly quick. Killing all those phantom
Kuramas apparently had its advantages as well as disadvantages.
Nevertheless, Kurama had already deduced as much from the get-go; the
trick to his victory, he reckoned, lay on Toguro trying desperately to
prove his superiority to him, to the point where he would leave himself
wide open to counterattack. He only hoped that his opponent was too 
distracted to read any of his most recent reflections... 

Kurama threw a couple of sharp sword strikes at the horrid gnome,
getting him to drop his guard towards his abdomen, then sprung up and
bounced off his head. The momentum of his leap carried him up over his
opponent, and Kurama knew it was a move that would help further
aggravate Toguro's nerves. Instinct told him to tuck his feet up, and he
barely avoided a backhanded, bladed counterattack. He rolled in a
somersault when he landed, finding his feet an instant later and pivoted
to face the psychotic martial artist once again.

The creature advanced, scraping along the stony floor in his unnatural
shuffling gait, transforming his arms into grotesque, curved claws
covered with chitinous armor and sharper than the edges of broken glass,
and Kurama had no more time to think of anything else but the fight. 
Surprisingly enough, Toguro's arms also ignited in a shadowy blaze of
malevolent, choleric youki, making them appear like otherworldly torches
of the damned.

"Die! Die! DIE!" The words tore themselves out of Toguro's throat as he
struck repeatedly, impenitently, heaving his ghastly, fiery limbs into
the air, whipping them around his body with ferocious force, and casting
them wholesale towards his prey over and over as they exploded like
gunshots upon contact. Kurama desperately parried the countless strikes,
his sword moaning in agony at their sheer power.

"DIE! DIE!" A scorching talon ripped at Kurama's temple, narrowly
missing his eye. Still, Kurama could see that Toguro's miasmic aura
began to flicker and wane in his effort. The demon was near the end of
his rope, but the half-youko was still wary; the Tsukeyaki Blade was
starting to smolder and fracture amidst the strenuous assault.

"DIE! Damn you, DIE!" Toguro's dark aura flared with one final surge of
effort. His claws blazed with energy as they snapped the Grass Blade
into hundreds of burning splinters and plunged down the surprised half-
youko's stomach with deceptive swiftness. He struck with an explosion of
heat and a crack as loud as thunder.

Toguro had won. He had impaled Kurama's abdomen with his large, flaming
limbs. It took long enough, but he was finally on the verge of killing
the half-demon boy once and for all. "Don't feel so bad, Kurama; I've
been practicing how to kill you for quite some time now. It's only
natural that this would happen to you in the end. Now be a good boy and
DIE!"

Toguro also left himself wide open. Kurama--protected from the dark
flames of the chitin-armored claws by his fireproofed, plasma-feeding 
plant armor--made quick work of his adversary's short-lived 'victory'
in three swift, fluid motions: he pulled a special seed from out of his
matted hair, put it on one of the sharper tips of the Grass Blade's
fractured handle, and stabbed it straight into the demon's left eye. 

Kurama struck true. Toguro howled in shock and anguish as his world
exploded in pain, half of his vision suddenly disappearing into a smear
of deep crimson agony. Reflexive panic flooded him as his hands
scrabbled at his face, feeling the damage that had been done, feeling
the blood on his cheeks. "My EYE!" he shrieked, the disbelief almost
greater than the pain. "My EYE!"

"Justice." Kurama's voice trembled as he spoke, staring straight into
his nemesis's remaining eye. "That was for Midori."

Toguro Ani was just about to vengefully lash out at the kitsune with a
new set of dangerous appendages when he unwittingly froze stock-still
in mid-swing, his entire body paralyzed by an undeniable, immitigable
force. 

Toguro felt it... felt it inside of him... the compelling, vile
sensation that was neither fear nor karma; the repulsive, invasive
feeling of a million tiny roots filling each and every last available
crevice inside him at an astonishing rate. Afterwards, his hijacked
body began to buckle and writhe against his own behest. He shrieked in
terror and exquisite agony as his bones shattered with a series of
muffled cracking sounds. His screams were cut off as his skull abruptly
deformed into something utterly inhuman.

The Shimaneki Sou, as its name implied, indeed brought 'death' upon the 
inviolable Toguro Ani, feeding directly into the his perpetually
regenerating flesh and making its growth rate rise exponentially; it
took root far more rapidly inside of him _because_ of his special
healing talents. Subsequently, sooner than what was normal, beauteous
and fragrant violet blooms emerged and blossomed from the demon's gauged
eye, mouth, ears, and other, more embarrassing orifices as his deformed,
Picasso body served as a grisly, tasteless vase of sorts for the
parasitic flowers. Kurama's will had once again prevailed.

Each breath came in a ragged wheeze now, and Kurama felt his knees
beginning to tremble with weakness. Drops of blood from the cuts
inflicted on him by the monster's claws splattered on the ground as he
moved. His heart palpitated erratically with each desperate beat. He
hadn't taken a truly serious wound yet--even the injury on his abdomen
wasn't all that deep thanks to his hybrid, gauze-like plant--but he
could still feel the strength seeping out of his body. All those high-
octane incursions that Toguro Ani unleashed upon him were beginning to
take their toll. He couldn't hope to hold out for much longer at this
pace.

To Kurama's surprise, the Silver Fox began to clap softly behind him in 
apparent admiration of his grisly handiwork. "This is certainly a first,
human. I always thought you needed _me_ to give you a backbone, but it
seems that you yourself have some moxie to spare. First the girl, and
now Toguro Ani. You have more of me in you than you give yourself credit
for," Youko Kurama silkily appraised.

"Don't you dare compare yourself to me; you make me sick," Kurama
practically spat at his other self with surprising venom. "To think,
you'd stoop so low as to align yourself with the likes of Toguro Ani
just so he could do your dirty work for you. Worst of all, you've forced
me kill a friend of mine in retaliation to what I did to you and your
so-called life. Well, you should be careful in doing that. Last time
someone forced me to kill a person, horrible things happened to them."

And it indeed was true; the last time Kurama was forced to kill a
person--namely, "Game Master" Tsukihito Amanuma--he became especially
cruel to both "Gourmet" Sadao Makihara and Toguro Ani, trapping them
inside the Tree of Thought Manipulation and making them suffer through
an endlessly looped hallucination.

"I concur," a familiar voice rang, his tone raspy but clear. Both
Kuramas turned towards the shrill, stinging sound and reeled at the
horrid sight and unbearable stench that consequently greeted them. The
aromatic blue violets and Toguro Ani's warped body had now disappeared,
replaced by a humongous Rafflesia flower that reeked of decay and death
in the blackest stygian abyss of the depravity of the soul... or at
least within a few miles from it.


***


To be Continued...


Next: The Boys of Reflection.

Damn, this chapter was hard to write! Edits, reedits, additions,
continuity fixes, dialogue redistribution: it's a lot of work!
Whew! Apart from struggling with the worst cases of writer's
block I've ever experienced since forever (or is it rather a
writer's block that I've been experiencing _forever_?), those
opening scenes were a killer. Good thing I eventually came
through. :) Oh, by the way, if you want to know what 'pulling a
Minamino' means, then you need to backtrack to about Chapter Ten
to find out. ;)

Also, since my last author notes featured something that was
admittedly pretentious-sounding coming from a newbie writer like
myself ('Tips to Aspiring Writers', anyone?), let me now present
to you advice from someone who actually knows what he's talking
about. Let 'er rip, Twoflower!

Stephan "Twoflower" Gagne's Tips to Aspiring Writers: Write.
Honestly, that's all I can give. I'm not learned on the writing
'industry', I just write, and write, and hope someone out there
enjoys it. Fortunately I happened to be in the right place at the
right time -- the fanfic community, during the mid 90's rise of
anime fandom... and the NWN community during its earliest days. I
don't think you can organize yourself to be in a prime position to
gain a following, though, and even if you COULD I wouldn't know
how. So, just write. Go for it. Let the rest happen as it will.

Send all C&C, flames, death threats, etc. to me at either
gabriel_gabdiel at yahoo.com or chester.castaneda at gmail.com;
whichever suits your fancy

Note that I put in the title _Shonen_ not _Shonen-Ai_. Shonen-Ai 
(male-male relationship) and yaoi are just not my cup of tea. This 
is dedicated to Chimamire Kitsune for giving me the inspiration to 
write this fic... Wherever you are, this is for you.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro
Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St. Pierrot. This fic therefore
also belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St.
Pierrot.
 
Still chipping away at my damnable writer's block with a spork,
Abdiel

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