Disclaimer: YuYu Hakusho is copyrighted and belongs to its creator, Togashi Yoshihiro. I do not own YYH, nor do I own the characters. And no, I do not make any money off of writing this fiction.

Author's Note:

I was inspired to make this story, actually. What's to blame? Kuwabara's image song "DACHI". Yes, if you have not heard or read the lyrics, you should. It's very sad. Such a sad song for such an awesome yet misunderstood guy such as himself. It truly gives you a deeper look into his character, like seeing him in the mirror staring right back at you. Yes, I know. Creepy. But it's a must see, hear, and read. So, please check it out.

This is not a chapter, by the way, but a prologue as to show what has happened since everything we know has come to an end. It's post-series, post-manga, too, since I mix my stuff up when it comes to picking either one.

So, please, I hope you enjoy it and I hope you comment. This story is for any true Kuwabara fan out there. This all goes out to you!

By the way, I came up with the name so far by knowing what Kazuma's name means. It means "peace and truth", "true harmony" and also "peace and true reality".

Pairings: (so far) YusukexKurama [with mentionings of YusukexHieixKurama], YusukexKeiko (sort of, mostly mentionings), ShizuruxKeiko [hints], MukuroxYukina, Botan/Koenma [hints], HieixBotan (later in the story), Reficul(OC)xKuwabara, SensuixItsuki, [SensuixKuwabara (hints), Hiei/Kuwabara (hints)]

Rating: Rated R/M

BETWEEN PEACE AND TRUE REALITY

The Prologue

By The Grimster

Kuwabara Kazuma hated his life.

No, correction, he despised it.

It wasn't so much that he felt so ardently towards life in such a way all together, no.

He had enjoyed many things, things in which no one took any consideration or the time to know that he did.

However, mark this in your notes: He didn't care too much for the mundane, the same old humdrum that the average everyday human looked forward to. He was a fighter and a sworn protector of the innocent, nevertheless. In the inner machinations of his mind, there lied an honor code that he devotedly abided to. To most if not by all, he didn't seem all that complicated at all. In fact, people took the liberty of degrading him by placing him at the bottom of the totem pole, stating that he was perhaps the dullest crayon in the box, let alone the least powerful of his team.

Like any normal human, he enjoyed the splendors that life provided; materialistic pleasures like playing games at the arcade and listening to Megallica, along with other various types of rock and roll. He enjoyed spending time with his normal gang of human friends, fighting and defending his territory, and of course his beloved cat Eikichi.

Well, that was all in the past, gone but not all together buried, unlike his beloved feline companion who finally passed away from obtaining a sickness that could not be helped. His friends had all moved on; he no longer even had his old gang for all three had met a foul end. People whom he came to love and care for now lived their own lives.

Yusuke was married now to Keiko and already were expecting their first bundle of joy in less than a month's time. Then again, maybe they already had it, he didn't know. He had lost the track of time with that one, but he did know about them having opened up their own family restaurant. Hiei had long since gone back to demon world, living his life in total freedom to do now whatever he pleased, including coming back and forth from demon world and human world. As for the very girl he loved, well, as much as it pained him, he knew that in the end it was never meant to be. He may be a bit slow, but he is far from being mentally challenged. Yukina wounded up falling in love with Kurama instead, so he had come to believe, and the two had developed a strong bond with one another, something he dared not try to break. They were happy together and that is what mattered most, despite his ever breaking heart.

Although, any genius could tell you that he was a hopeless romantic at heart, you needn't investigate into his privacy to see if you could find one shred of evidence of it. He had hope for love, but it was dwindling. Slowly but surely, all hope for himself was dissipating, soon to leave him as nothing more than an empty shell left to burn and turn into ashes.

Time itself seemed unobtainable, the world around him passing like fast moving lights, colorful but not all that promising.

Ever since he was forced to remove himself from his old home, he now spent most of his days wandering with no real place to go but his quiet apartment he that he was renting. He had long since moved to another city, a more major city that was at least three times the size of where he originally came from, particularly after deciding to attend another college instead of the one that he once was aiming for. He no longer desired to persue that dream of becoming a scientist, and in any case, that was once his plan to use in hopes of achieving the love of his longest and withstanding crush. Now it was just pointless and inevitably a fruitless effort.

Despite his stubborn will and determination, Kazuma knew he had been beat.

Kuwabara did not know why so many people hated him, they just did, both that of humans and demons alike. Of course, there were the fans, but there were too few and in between that admired him for his abilities. Hatred for him had always been a prominent factor that played in his life, especially as now.

Speaking of abilities, it seemed his powers were no longer at a stand still, now ever increasing, perhaps even ten folds. He didn't know why, but instead of just having an unnerving tingling feeling whenever spirits are around, much to his discontent he was now able to see and hear them. Hell, he could even communicate with them! And that wasn't the worst of it, now he was finding himself in an even greater pickle, having dreams and nightmares that turn into predictions.

Even more, he now also could not only see the strings of destiny upon the fingers of each and every individual, now he was able to even read a person's soul, which made it difficult to really get to know people having already know what lies in the very hearts and product of their very souls. He intended to avoid looking people straight dead in the eyes, because there was where he saw it, the gateway that lead into their minds. Besides, it was already bad enough as it is with having to see their auras, such a gift made him more leery of every person whom he happened to take a simple glance at. He also swore he that he could sometimes see numbers above their heads, ticking away, all to which becoming a much lesser number.

Moreover, he seemed to be having difficulty sleeping at night, and not just because of the dreams or the spirits that came to visit him either. No. Now he seemed to be waking up to reoccurring tremors in his very own bedroom, by what he had no earthly clue as to explain such a phenomenon as that. And it didn't just happened while he slept, either, it seemed to happen whenever certain emotions became stronger. Like anger for instance, it seemed whatever he was concentrating it on at the very moment, like his books for an example, such objects would either fall or be thrown across the room by some unknown force. He thought like any normal person in such situations, that these were either coincidence or someone was playing tricks with him, perhaps the spirits he attracted into his apartment. Either way, he was at a loss as to explain any of this.

Life was a continuous struggle, if anything that is what he had learned up until now. Besides having to deal with his own personal growth, his changes, both school and work, he also still dealt with demons. And not just demons, but also evil men who were just as bad if not any worse than the sprites who ravage the innocent for their meat on their bones. He came to learn quickly that after all, humans and demons were not at all much different from each other, especially when it came to committing the seven most deadliest of sins known to all kind.

That's why he finally came to a decision that life was not going to get any better from this point, at least not for him.

To make matters worse, he was now all alone in this.

His friends and ex-teammates, having moved on to live on with their lives, had all lost contact with him. Well, that's putting it more nicely, to be perfectly honest. In all truth, it was them that chose to no longer remain in touch with him. Not a letter nor a simple phone call, not even a visit even for old times sake, it seemed they had all forgotten all about him, not much less caring if they did. At least that was what he saw from his own perspective of the matter. In time, he was fading away from their minds and perhaps even in the photographs that were taken of him when they were together. It hurt, deeply, because in the end of it all it just proved how worthless he was to them, how he was nothing more than a spare wheel tugging along their adventures. He once thought that they were his friends, but he was sadly mistaken.

Hell, if that wasn't the shit end of the stick, his own family, his own flesh and blood, had not even talked to him...at least not genuinely face to face. Of course his bossy sister had been worried about him since the moment he left, as sick as it sound since she insisted that he moved out and live a life of his own. He could roll his eyes about how she proclaimed with much joy about how he was leaving, announcing it as if it was the greatest news and development that have ever managed to take place in all of existence. He could another time, also, for when she bitched about how she was sick and tired of keeping an eye on him. Not that he ever asked her to, to begin with. And all of the more sickening was the fact that she had the unmitigated gall to call and tell him about how the others and her were celebrating his absence from their lives. Such pain can never be erased, ever.

At least his mother seemed hesitant upon his leaving, as if she wanted to say something but could not. As for his father, much to his surprise, the bastard seemed as if he could not be any happier. He often wondered if that man was even his father, especially since he didn't look a thing like him. He had his suspicions, but never questioned about it. Whoever his real father was, if he wasn't related to the one he came to know, was perhaps not even worth getting to know, especially not after the man abandoned his mother with having to deal with having given birth to him and then turn around to raise him.

Yeah, some life he has. At any rate, Shizuru was kind enough to sometimes keep him in the loop of things, he'd give her that much. Emphasis on "sometimes". And oddly enough, so did Atsuko, Urameshi's mother. Of course, every time she called him she was in a drunken stupor, wondering when he was coming back so that "lonely people such as ourselves could party and hang out" during the late hours of the night. How she got his number, he'd never know. Possibly Shizuru as a joke, that or she had somehow stumbled across the number that perhaps Yusuke had decidedly left behind in her apartment. In any case, he'd simply tell her that it was late, that she should just go to sleep and hung up. That woman was certainly on something and it wasn't just booze.

As for his educational and career pursuits, he was now working his way into obtaining a degree in justice, wanting to become a detective in hopes of shaping the world into a better place in his own sort of way. Perhaps this was an effort to make up for the role he always wanted to have amongst being with his teammates all those years ago, make that going on five years really.

As for a job, he had signed up in the police academy, now serving as a police officer and enforcing the law. Being a law enforcer was a full time job, however, so he attended a university as a part time student. This is what he did to ensure the protection of everyone who was innocent, for the sake of it all in the name of honor itself.

This was who he was. Not a doctor, not a beautician, not a wanderer without a cause, nor a restaurant owner, and neither a brilliant mind that attended science clubs after class, he was a sworn defender through and through. Either for pay or for free, he'd do it all the same.

"Are you sure, My King, that this is the one you want?"

"Yes, he is perfect for the job." A deep and rumbling voice answered. "After all, if you have gone over the files and videos as much as I have, you can clearly see as to why he is."

"Yes, My King, but his family heritage is not all quite clear. We know everything about his mother and that she came from a long line of powerful psychics and temple keepers. But as for his biological father, we know nothing about. How do we even possibly know he's not got the blood of a demon's? After all, he did manage to open up the barrier, despite Lord Koenma's claims of being completely human."

"Then it will be of your best interest to deal with that endeavor and find out." Came the answer in a domineering tone. "And as for him, retrieve him and bring him here to spirit world."

"But sir… I apologize for these questions, but what if he is not willing? What if he doesn't want to play the part that you intend him to give him?"

"He will. And if he doesn't, then he will pay for the consequences of his actions. Now, enough with the questions. You know what you must do."

"Yes, King Enma. As you wish."

...To Be Continued…

Okay, I know it seems choppy, but this is the prologue. I wanted to give you guys some background information about Kuwa and what has happened before ending it with a bit of a twister. Why was most of the written dialogue in italics? Chances are, if you can figure it out, they've been watching him. Keeping tabs about what he has been doing.

Makes you wonder what these people do in their spare time up there.

And what of this job, this role King Enma has instored for him? What is it exactly?

All this and more can be answered in the future.

Please review and feel free to comment. Your comments and reviews help fuel the fire to my creativity. They are greatly needed and very much appreciated.