Author's Note: Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar but one dissatisfied with his life who therefore makes a pact with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.
"I asked a question," Kurama husked, straightening a wrinkle from his festival yukata. The only difficulty in this fight had been making sure his clothes and hair stayed pristine. "Will you answer it?"
"There are others who know you're the Youko Kurama, but let me go and I'll, I'll lead you straight to them! Please, won't you let me go?"
Kurama gave him a schoolboy's smile. "I can smell when you're lying, demon. You're lucky I can't be away from mother long."
He watched the death plant rip through blue skin with disinterest. Cupping his hand before him, he blew hard until the spores of flesh-eating mushrooms he'd collected spread over the tangled heap of limbs he'd hidden behind a dumpster in this blind alley. The mushrooms would rot the bodies to nothing, leaving no trace in a matter of hours. He timed them to die after one night.
Phosphorescence glowed from the swelling bells of mushrooms. He theorized a less obtrusive light, and fed the new make-up to the fungi, pleased when they dimmed. Then he withered the death plant's bright, luminous flowers. Finally, he walked over and dragged cardboard over the whole mess.
Scraping his short-cropped hair from his face, he sighed. His shoulders unknotted, tension loosening. The fact of being found had terrified him more than the reality of these cretins deserved. He'd had to move some distance to find a place he could finish this gang off that was isolated from the streets full of drunken college couples and children dragging their parents on to the next shaved ice cart, done up in kimono and pikachu masks. The cherry blossom festival only needed to be suffered once a year.
"Neat work."
Kurama spun on the ball of his foot and leapt back, skidding over a shattered bottle that screeched against the concrete, his hands automatically forming a handful of defensive petals, a grass blade scything from his arm.
A nasally voice cackled. "Look at this pretty thing. He knows how to play, brother! Would you like to play with us, boy?"
Their forms detached from shadows that shouldn't have hidden them, and Kurama's heart began to beat in his chest. The small lump on his brother's broad shoulder let out another high-pitched giggle. Kurama had no doubt he'd heard his heart thump faster, could smell the adrenaline in his sweat.
He recognized them. "The Toguro Brothers." He'd heard the stories, and standing before their colossal strength at a fraction of his own, he had one gamble. Green eyes narrowed. "I have no quarrel with you. I want no fight."
"I don't fight children," the mountain Kurama assumed to be the younger brother said. He stood solid and immovable as a boulder before wind.
Kurama began to edge to the wall on the side opposite from where he'd excused himself from Shiori, leaving her picnicking in the park with coworkers and family, hoping to lead them away from her.
"I do," snickered the elder brother.
"I want no quarrel," Kurama repeated. Then gasped.
It was faint, but from the way the younger's broad face cocked, and the renewed laughter from the elder brother, they heard it too.
"Shuuichi," Shiori called, far out on the road that led onto the street and branched into this alley. "Shuuichi!"
Kurama shifted. He couldn't fight them—he wouldn't win. He couldn't stay here—she couldn't see this. He couldn't run—they might hurt her.
The younger Toguro, watching him closely behind a pair of designer sunglasses, said, "Come back here tonight at four, Youko Kurama. We have things to discuss."
Kurama squared his chin, nodded sharply, and fled the alley, brushing past them to do it, his grass sword disappearing into his sleeve.
He caught up to her in the crowd on the main road. "Shuuichi," Shiori chided, "where did you run off to? The cherry blossoms don't look the same without you. We have cake!"
"Of course, Mother. Let's not linger!"
As he pulled his mother away by the wrist, he heard the laugh chasing him down the street, and moved all the faster for it.
Kurama found the alley again from above. He'd travelled over rooftops soundless as any bandit.
They were stationary among the littered leaves and the shards of broken glass, barely defined in dawn's grey light.
The Younger Toguro was watching him.
Kurama leapt five stories, and landed in a smooth crouch. He stood, brushing his bangs from his eyes. Younger smiled.
"How old are you, boy?"
"The body or the soul," Kurama asked.
"Body," Elder chimed in.
Kurama drew up straight. "I am eleven years old."
"And soul?" Younger inquired.
"Youko is more than 2,000 years old."
The Younger Toguro seemed intrigued. "Are you different?"
Kurama said nothing.
The Elder swung from his brother's back like a monkey and hunched forward, footsteps crunching in the glass. He leaned in close to Kurama's stony face, trying to get him to flinch. Giggling to himself, he hawked for a moment and spat on Kurama's cheek, still invasively close.
"Brother," Younger rumbled warningly. Kurama didn't move beyond using one hand to wipe spittle from his cheek. His cautious face stayed blank.
"You said you had something to discuss," Kurama reminded. His throat hurt from the tenseness of his muscles.
Toguro bared his teeth in a grin. "Indeed I do. What do you know of the Apparition Gang?"
Kurama closed his eyes, adrenaline soaking his heart. "A for-hire gang of mercenaries who operate in the ningenkai's underworld." His eyes flicked open and he looked up, far up, into sunglasses. "Run by you, if the rumors speak true."
"We want you to join," Elder Toguro said, craning his neck to speak directly in his ear. He cackled at Kurama's flinch. Dawn condensation that was making the cardboard behind the dumpster sag into mush made Kurama's skin clammy—or perhaps that was sweat.
Elder dipped his nose into Kurama's hair and inhaled. Kurama leapt back, arms up in a competent block, but the panic shaking him like vertigo was for nothing: Elder was ripped back abruptly, squawking.
"If I have a choice," Kurama said, eyes flickering from one brother to the other, arms still up in a block, "I refuse."
"You're young yet," Toguro remarked, his brother forcefully re-perched on his shoulder. "I won't force you to come with us."
"But brother!"
"Quiet." The sun began to rise, piercing the alleyway's gloom. For a moment Kurama was blinded. "For now, you're too young and weak to be of use, but I can see that that'll change. If I see you again, I warn you: you won't have the option of no."
Kurama nodded. Younger stepped back from blocking the sole entrance or exit to the alleyway, and gestured Kurama through.
Kurama walked, every muscle hard against attack. The moment he was far enough for pride to be assuaged, he ran.