Hey readers, what's up? Welcome to Swallowing Cyanide's companion, Applying Aconite. Liking the poison themes?

Disclaimer: If I've said it before, then I've probably forgotten, so I'll say it again: it's not mine. Not, and never will be

Warnings: I don't think there will be any this time, maybe some angst, some adult themes, and blood at the end. Okay, so I fibbed about the no warnings. Suing is pointless.

He knew it was wrong, but that didn't stop him. The greatest prize comes at the greatest risk, and he held a fondness for Forbidden Fruit; being able to kill those standing in his way just made things a bit easier. Of course, killing people was what he did best. Ever since the tender age of thirteen, he'd lived by the gun and ascended through the underworld's ranks by climbing over the corpses of his victims. He knew more about keeping himself alive and killing someone than the best trained Navy SEAL. His gun hung in the holster at his hip, a constant reminder of the day when everything had been taken from him.

The sickening sound of flesh pounding against flesh, the ear-shattering crash as something expensive breaks, most likely one of his mother's porcelain vases, two thumps as both of his parents' lifeless bodies hit the floor. At the bottom of the stairwell, shocked and terrified, stands a twelve year old Karasu. His wide eyes roam over the corpses of his parents, the blood stains on the floor, and finally to the murderers standing in the center of the living room. There are two. One is large and covered in thick muscle, while the other is ridiculously short and hardly seems that much of a threat. They turn towards Karasu. He freezes. The welling scream dies in his throat. The small one smiles. Karasu can now see the knife he holds in his hand; both the blade and the hilt are covered in blood.

"Well, would you look at that brother? Neither of us were informed that our targets had a child."

The muscled behemoth looks toward the frightened child. His hidden eyes observe the quivering form, the trembling lip, and the shock shining in the boys eyes, or are those unshed tears?

"You're correct, what should we do with him?"

The small one moves much too fast to comprehend. One moment he is standing beside his brother, the next he is pressing cold steel against Karasu's throat. A sickening grin split's the tiny man's face as the edge of the blade draws forth a bead of red blood.

"I think we should kill him. Would you like that boy? Like to go see Mommy and Daddy?"

As he feels the blood kiss the blade and begin to slide down his neck, he is certain of one thing: he does not want to die. His eyes roam over the corpses of his parents once more, brutally mutilated and beaten. Karasu knows that the killers plan to do this to him as well. Fear grips his brain in icy black claws, reaching deep for the shuddering boy's heart. As he looks back to the assassin standing right in front of him, rage builds up in his heart, and the hand of fear stops its downward descent. He won't die. He won't tell these bastards what they want to hear. He swallows, aware of the outwards pressure of the movement driving the blade in a fraction further. Cold violet eyes glare deep into insane orbs of amber.

"No." he states in a firm voice that just moments before would have shaken with terror. "I don't want to die."

The small man does not respond at first. Then, his eyes narrow and the blade is pulled away from his throat. Those eyes never lose their mad gleam.

"What would you like then, child?"

Karasu glares up at the men. They are intruders. They are murderers. They are assassins. And he will have his revenge.

"To kill you."

Another moment of silence passes in the living room as the corpses of his parents grow colder. A flash of movement, and blood is dripping down Karasu's cheek. Another quick movement, and he is on the floor, the guilty foot hanging in the air for a moment after his body hits the floor with a hard 'thump'. Laughter bubbles up from the small man's chest, spewing out into the room. Poisonous, insane laughter.

"You want to what?"

Another kick. Karasu is sent reeling into the wall.

"I don't think I heard you quite right."

The foot slams into his ribs. Pain blossoms out from the point of impact, throbbing with every breath. Karasu curls up to protect the damaged area. The foot does not let up.

"Kill me? Kill us? Such a stupid boy. There s no way you can kill us."

A rough hand seizes him by the hair and hauls him to his feet. Cold steel kisses his neck once more, this time hovering over the jugular vein. The man puts his face close to Karasu's. His breath is foul.

"Now, be a good pup and die."

Karasu looks around for something, anything that can save him. His eyes find no objects within reach that he can hit his attacker with. His legs are not responding to the urgent messages his brain is sending, telling them to kick, kick hard darn it! His arms are equally useless. All he can do is stand here and scream at himself to move, to do something, to fight…but he can't. A steel fang bites into his neck, tasting blood and becoming thirsty. The man's eyes gleam as the blood travels down the pale flesh of Karasu's neck, stopping in the divot of his collar bone. He leans in to whisper in Karasu's ear. Karasu tenses. This will be it. He will say something, then the blade will swipe across his neck, spraying blood everywhere; and he will watch as the two men leave him. Alone, with the bodies of his parents. Alone, to die. He does not want to die. He wants to avenge his parents' deaths. He can't die!

"That's enough brother, let him alone."

Heavy footfalls punctuate the silence as the taller man comes up behind his brother. The knife wielder grinds his teeth, but obeys his brother's command. Spindly fingers untwist themselves from ebony tresses. He steps out of the way as the muscled brother bends down to look at Karasu. While his eyes are hidden by thick black shades, Karasu can tell those eyes are boring into his own, scrutinizing his face, searching for signs of weakness in his eyes. Searching for the fearful heart of a young boy. Karasu stares back, wondering why this man stopped his brother from killing him. The man speaks.

"When my brother asked you what you wanted, you chose to live. You said you made that decision because you wanted to kill us. Is that still true?"

Surprised, Karasu can only blink at the behemoth before him. Is it still true? Why would that change just because he had gotten the crud kicked out of him by this man's douche of a brother?

"Yes. My decision won't ever change." he tells the man in front of him.

A smile, intimidating and poisonous, curls outward from the center of his lips. Pristine white teeth leer out from the gum-line. The man stands up and begins walking towards the door. A million questions are swirling around in Karasu's head, caught in the chaotic winds of his confusion. Why? Why did the man ask him that? Why was he walking away? Why was he not dead yet?

"Boy."

The rough voice, clawing its way out of the throat and scratching at the vocal chords, snaps Karasu out of his reverie. Karasu looks up at the man.

"My brother is right, but not wholly correct. You cannot kill us…if you stay the way you are. If you want to achieve your dream of revenge, then come with us and grow strong."

Before he can voice his opinion on the matter, he is drug my the smaller man. Bewildered, Karasu can only follow them out of the house, and into a bloody future.

He had trained hard since then. The recoil of the gun now felt as natural as his own heartbeat. He could not imagine life without the comforting weight of the weapon in his hand. Since then, his goal had not changed. He was still determined to kill the Toguro brothers for what they'd done to his parents. Each person he killed brought him closer to his goal. With every corpse headlining the news, his ranking in the organization increased. Soon, he would tell himself soon, I'll be on par with them. Then, I can kill them.

And so, he had thrown himself down the chaotic, corrupting path of retribution. Bang, his first target killed when he was fourteen. Bang, the second a few months later. Third, fourth, fifth, he soon lost count of the number of people he had killed. The meaning of life lost its glowing vitality. People were job assignments to be dealt with. They did not deserve compassion. They did not deserve pity. The only reason for their existence was to be swept out of his way like the insects they were.

His perspective changed when he had received an order concerning the assassination of a young man named Suuichi Kurama Minamino. Karasu had taken the assignment with the usual lackluster demeanor. Just a job, that's all this was for him. He left Headquarters with his routine cemented into his brain: kill the target, ascend once again, check how close he was to the Toguro brothers, repeat. However, his plans came crashing to a halt when he saw her.

Assessing his target before he killed them was a quirk of his. Strange yes, but he liked to know just what kind of person he would be killing. He had spotted Kurama in a square full of people, smiling and conversing with a blue-haired young woman on his right. The moment Karasu laid eyes on her, his breathing halted. She smiled back and he was captivated. Telling himself this was part of his target assessment, he followed the pair, trailing a few feet behind. As he watched, Karasu found his eyes straying from his target to the woman beside him. She was, in one word, radiant. The air around her glowed with her vitality and invigorating youth. The target, whom he had assumed by now to be her lover, said something to her and she laughed. The sound reminded him of wind chimes, tinkling softly in a light spring breeze.

He felt his gun, hidden in an inside coat pocket, tug a bit on the jacket he was wearing. Just the slight shifting of his pistol brought his feet to a dead stop. He scrutinized the woman. Her laughter, her smile, her radiance. They were all for him, for the target. Kurama Minamino was her happiness; and Karasu was going to take her happiness from her. He saw her smile again. Would she still smile after her lover was taken from her? Probably not. Karasu shook his head. By completing his assignment, he would be taking away the happiness of this stunning young woman.

At once, logic decided to slam into Karasu's head and plant a firm foot down on his thoughts. What the hell was he thinking? He was an assassin! Human life had ceased to hold meaning for him ever since the day of his parents' deaths, so why was he getting so bent out of shape now? One girl, one of a potential thousand of others who would join the ranks of the mourning widows left behind from his jobs.

But her smile…

Karasu sided with logic and buried his emotions. Later, once the moon had risen, he took Kurama's life.

After a short period of time, he forgot about the assassination on Kurama. The man's face blurred together with the faces of all his other victims. However, he never forgot her. Her smile, her face, and that wonderful, soul-salvaging laugh haunted his dreams, always just out of reach. Each morning he would wake up, push his swirling thoughts and cascading emotions beneath the surface of his stoic façade, and pretend she was not driving him crazy. The more her image appeared, the more he wanted her. Was she still mourning? Had she found someone new? Would she ever? More time passed, more assignments delivered, the routing once more solidified itself inside his head, and, at last, she began to fade from his mind.

Until that rainy night, when she had tried to kill him in the alley.

He had been taking a shortcut back to his home that night. His boots sloshed through puddles just beginning to form. The scent of rain and wet pavement coalesced to the smooth, yet gritty scent of a storm-soaked city. Thunder rumbled overhead, lightning leapt around in the clouds, playing tag with the thunder, dangling itself just out of the thunder's grasp. As he made his way deeper into the alley, the lights from the city begun to fade, pushed back by the oppressive shadows. Somewhere off to his left, a cat yowled in displeasure, shaking rain water from its fur and running off to find some place to get dry. The clouds over his head parted a fraction, and he saw lighting illuminate the moon. It was beautiful.

So taken was he by the unusual display of nature, that he failed to notice that someone had crept up on him. The sound of the bullet blasting from the chamber tore him out of his vigil, and he ducked to his right, dodging the bullet that, had it been faster, would have lodged itself in Karasu's upper left shoulder. He spun around to see who would have the audacity to fire a gun at him. Standing there, near the mouth of the alley, soaked, was the woman he'd seen with one of his targets. Holding a smoking gun in her hands, was the woman who haunted his dreams, whose face he could not seem to forget. Her confronting him was proof of that. Stunned, he could only stare at her. Framed by the misty streetlights, her eyes seemed to glow, or was it the intense hatred that set them ablaze? Karasu couldn't tell. The one thing he knew for certain was that she was even more beautiful now then when he had first seen her.

"You…you took him from me." she snarled. Her teeth ground together Her eyes blazed brighter. Ah, so it was hatred after all. Karasu continued to watch her. The woman growled.

"I won't forgive you!" Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Die!"

Bang! This time, Karasu was fully aware of his surroundings. He dodged once more, took aim, and fired his own gun. The bullet tore through the air and struck her in the right arm, knocking her off balance, and spilling the gun from her hands. It clattered to the ground, now just useless metal. Her body sunk to the ground. Blood poured from her wound, staining the gray ground red, soaking her sleeve. Karasu re-holstered his gun and stepped closer to her. She watched him approach, glare intensifying with each step he took. He could see sleep's fog trying to descend upon her vision, he could see her fighting it off with every ounce of fading strength she had. He knelt in front of her. This close, he could see deep into her eyes. Fiery lakes of the brightest pink, so full of emotion, so very unlike his own frozen orbs. He put a hand to her face. Such smooth, soft, delicate skin. Warm and wet, the raindrops glittered like pearls. The woman narrowed her eyes.

"Bastard." She hissed. Her voice was strained, her eyelids were growing heavy. Against her will, she fell unconscious. Karasu studied her. Such a beautiful woman. Such a strong woman. He then became aware of the wound he had given her. He glanced down at her arm. The bleeding had slackened, but had yet to come to a full stop. For a moment, he debated leaving her in the alley for someone else to find, but one look back at her face, and more thoughts about her caused him to pick her up, grab her gun, and take her back to his home.

While he walked home in the pouring rain, with a bleeding woman in his arms, he could only think one thing:

He had her at last. No longer would she haunt his mind.

The idea of locking her up had never occurred to him. Well, to say that it had never crossed his mind would be an outright lie. He'd thought about it, he just couldn't see the reasoning behind it. To lock her up implied that he was afraid of her trying to escape, or mount some sort of assault on him. She would not escape, she still had yet to succeed in killing him. Therefore, she would not leave. As for mounting an assault on him…well, he was the trained assassin wasn't he? Besides, an assault implied an all-out attack. All she had was a gun. And so, he'd left the door unlocked and placed her gun, fully-loaded (courtesy of himself) on the nightstand next to the bed.

He'd told her to rest so her arm could heal. She'd complied, albeit a bit unwillingly. After that, he left her in that spare room, unsure of what to do. Should he make her his? Should he tell her he loved her? A thought then sprung up from the soil of his musings:

Did he love her?

Her face hung in his mind, her laugh played over and over again in his ears, and he saw her eyes reflected in his. He had saved her from possible death in the rain. But was it love? Or was it obsession? Was he obsessed with her laugh, her smile, her beauty, her name (which he'd learned recently. Botan, what a pure name. As sweet as the flower from which her name was derived) enough to the point to take and confine her to a spare room of his house, even though by rights he should have killed her, or at least left her for dead that night? He didn't know, so he reacted the only way he knew how: he immersed himself in his work. He killed, and killed and killed. Karasu drowned his mind in the blood of his victims to silence the mental rambling. By this time, avenging his parents' deaths had been forgotten. She drove him mad.

Eventually, he couldn't take the incessant self-interrogating anymore. Thoughts of Botan clogged his brain, making it impossible to think. Her face, her eyes, her hair, and most of all, her skin, That soft, unmarred, ivory skin teased him, begged him to touch it, To taste it. To submit to it.

At first she had been completely against the idea, but that served to fuel his desire. After a while, she began to accept him, but there was always a hesitation on her part. As if something in her mind was holding her back, too tentative, or too angry to be cowed. More assignments were thrown at him. However, this time when he pulled the trigger and killed, he saw the face of her lover. Why him? Karasu wondered. Why was he seeing that man's face? He should not be thinking of him. That man was at least three months dead; he was no one to Karasu.

But he had been someone to Botan.

The moment the realization struck him, he froze. That was what was always holding her back. Her love for him, for Kurama, for her dead lover. Karasu didn't visit her that night. He sat on the edge of his bed, brooding. For the first time in so many years, his face contorted as emotion forced its way out from beneath the stoic mask, first cracking, then shattering it. He hated Kurama. He hated Kurama because of who he had been to Botan; he hated Kurama because of his love for Botan. Most of all, he hated Kurama because he had gotten to Botan first. Kurama had loved her first. Karasu had come behind and fell in love with the shattered pieces he had created from her once whole image.

Unleashed from its cage, his hatred lashed out, a torrent of long pent-up rage. He hated the Toguro brothers for killing his parents. He hated his parents for being their targets. He hated himself for becoming so consumed with revenge that he'd chosen to throw away the chance (if he had ever had that in the first place) at a normal life. He couldn't however, hate her. To him, Botan, even tainted by his touch, represented effervescence. Even darkened by the gunpowder stains and her own desire to seek retribution, she still possessed that glow that had so captured Karasu.

Yes, he supposed he did love her.

Their love-making that night was unrestrained. Both sides, free as the western wind. They tore at one another with ferocious swipes. Gentle hands caressed the smooth surface of the other's skin. Their boundaries blurred until they were nonexistent. Karasu laid back on the bed, languid after their coupling. Down into the comforting recesses of sleep he fell, never having felt so complete before in his life.

In his dreams however, comfort was nowhere to be found. Kurama's face floated out of the darkness again and again. Botan's laugh, the one he had first heard, echoed throughout the confines of his subconscious. He awoke in a daze. What had all that been about? Karasu couldn't say, but it made him rather uncomfortable. Botan's laugh replayed in his head. He wanted to look at her; to stroke her hair, to kiss her and tell her that he loved her. That action, he was sure, would set his mind free.

He turned his head to the left to find the spot next to him empty. A hollow apprehension gnawed at his heart, and slowly, he raised his head to look around the room.

There, at the foot of the bed, bathed in moonlight and naked, stood Botan. In her hands, she held her gun, finger on the trigger and the barrel aimed right at his head. Karasu drank in the image. There was something surreal about it; something so dream-like and magic that it took away the cold reality of his death being seconds away. She looked at him. He looked at her. No words were spoken. No emotions resided in their eyes. Without warning, Botan pulled the trigger.

Right before the slug tore through his skull, Karasu had enough time to laugh at himself. What had he been thinking?

She had never been his.

Yes! I'm back to Yu Yu Hakusho! Oh, if some of you were wondering about the use of the term 'cowed', it's just a weird way of saying intimidated, or brought to submission. I have a cool thing to add, that I just now noticed(weird huh?): The title to this it Applying Aconite. It is Botan's skin that attracted to Karasu the most. Aconite is a poison that can either be ingested or absorbed through the skin.