AN: This was written in first person, in Koenma's POV. Set at the end of the Chapter Black arc. I was listening to the song "We are" by Ana Johnsson while writing this, just saying if you're the kind that likes listening to music while reading. Anyway, read, enjoy and review if you feel so inclined!

My Burden to Bear

In what I believed to be my final moments, I felt nothing but acceptance… and guilt.

I had been the cause of my own demise – but the demise of the entire Living World, of my Spirit Detectives weighs far heavier on my conscience. For the first time in my immortal life, I wish to die.

I deserved it.

I had failed Shinobu when I had sent him on a mission I'd known would be too much for the boy, and I was failing him now as I let him destroy the very thing he had once sworn to protect – humanity.

I had failed Yusuke as well. While the idiot had protected me, whether intentionally or not I wasn't sure (though I could hazard a guess, Yusuke always liked to stick to his bravado that to admit his true intentions), I'd done nothing but cower and wither on the cold cave floor.

I was no fighter. I was no warrior. I had no offensive power. All I had was my Mafukan – and even that had come to naught.

And perhaps that's when I realized how much I hated it all. How much I hated being immortal and untouchable – when in truth I was weak and vulnerable. How much it pained me to watch the world pass me by, mortal and fading before my eyes. How much I wished to be out in the field instead of in my comfy chair back at the office, watching my employees – err, colleagues, uh, comrades – oh dammit, friends! – as they fought for their lives, for the lives of others, for me. I was the one who had dug their graves after all. I was the one who'd bury them.

I had dug Yusuke's grave, or perhaps it was Shinobu's – only one thing had been for certain there, in that cave, one of my Detectives would die. Was it selfish of me to want for both of them to survive? Was it arrogant of me to want to protect them after I'd pushed them both over the point of no return?

Perhaps that was the moment I realized how much I hate myself.

With that discovery, a strange sort of calm had overtaken me – I was going to get my just deserts, and in a way it felt right. I had caused this, it was only right that I'd be the one to pay for it (not Ningenkai, not Team Urameshi and certainly not Yusuke).

But Shinobu didn't killed me, he'd forced me to watch my new Spirit Detective – the one that had had the gall to call me a toddler to my face even after learning that I could quite literally send his little human soul to Hell – fall before his feet, dead.

Dead in my place.

Dead because of my mistakes.

Dead because I'd been too weak and too cowardly to stop it.

Dead because of my indecision. Dead because of my guilt.

Dead because of me.

The word had never seemed as heavy and accusing as it had in that moment. I, the immortal, had been humbled by it – by something that could so scarcely and so rarely touch me. I'd been humbled by a human.

In a state of shock, while my brain was still frozen on the image of a copse and my mind a bit too fuzzy for any rational thought to surface, I wished I was human too. A simple, ignorant human – who leads a normal, mortal life and has at least a meager tenth of Urameshi Yusuke's bravery and strength.

For the second time that day, my perception of the world had been thrown for a loop.

One of my Spirit Detectives had been dead, and then he hadn't.

Then he'd become a Monster of the highest rank for my father's men to execute. The statement had been so ludicrous I had wanted to shout my head off at the supposed "elite's" stupidity.

I had want to bash their heads in once they announced that they wanted Yusuke dead, murdered, gone. Not on my watch!

I was the one in charge when it come to dead souls, and Yusuke wasn't going anywhere as long as Koenma was concerned. Damn the consequences.

. . . . .

Admittedly, I'd known that that particular train of that would lead to a thousand spankings from my father – at least. I hadn't expected banishment, but strangely I did not regret my decision. Strangely, I did not flinch or whine or beg for a lighter punishment.

It had been my decision to employ the young Shinobu, my decision to employ Yusuke, my decision to stand and fight and my decision to accept my responsibilities.

It had been my decision to stop running from my responsibility. From Shinobu and his insanity. From Yusuke and the many things he'd gone through for me. From my own immortality. From my insufficiency.

From myself.

In my final moments as Prince Koenma, Ruler of the Spirit World and protector of Ningenkai, son of the all-mighty King Enma, I felt nothing but acceptance... and perhaps the slightest bit of pride.