Obviously, Yu Yu Hakusho and it's characters are not mine; they belong to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shonen Jump, Fuiji Television, and the other talented people who created and published them. I am not making any money off of this and have nothing but the greatest repect for them.
Karasu's Torment
It is night. I should be sleeping, regaining my strength for tomorrow; whether I need it or not does not matter. Instead, I lie here awake, and my thoughts will not be still.
Even in the dark, even with everyone asleep, I can feel the tension on this island. The night is unnaturally still. We've all been waiting for what the dawn will bring. The others are quiet, and I know they sleep in confidence, knowing, as I do, that we have nothing to fear, nothing to face but our victory. And yet, rather than taking solace in that fact, I find my thoughts tormented with memories of him.
Morning smiles
Like the face of a newborn child,
Innocent, unknowing…
Winter's end,
Promises of a long lost friend,
Speaks to me of comfort…
Damn him. DAMN him, how can he do this? How can he possibly haunt me? I am the one that stalks and kills; I am the one who waits in the night. I am the annihilator, the destroyer. I am the nothingness that waits for all in the end. I am he who destroys what he loves, because it is in the denial that truth is found. This is all that I am, all that I have been for so long now that I do not remember what came before. There is nothing of that time left in me. Nothing but my life here with Toguro, my hate and my devotion, and my only hope is that one day I will kill Toguro for what he has done to me. Even if I no longer remember what it is that he took.
But I fear…
I have nothing to give,
And I have so much to lose here in this lonely place,
Tangled up in our embrace,
There's nothing I'd like better than to fall…
And then he came here, to this island and this fight. I'd heard rumor of him, of course, at this point, most have. But then we watched the first fight and chose our opponents and I knew I had to have him.
What is it about him? I have defeated and humiliated so many others, stalked them until they cried out in terror, then granted their wish for release. What is it about him, though, that he should draw me like a moth to a flame? Why do I look at him and remember things that I had finally forgotten? He brings something with him when he walks into a room, and I found myself longing for it, longing for him. Damn him! How can he have this hold over me?
But I fear…
I have nothing to give,
And I have so much to lose here in this lonely place,
Tangled up in our embrace,
There's nothing I'd like better than to fall…
I've watched him. All through this tournament, I have watched him, and not just during the fights. I've seen the gentleness, the kindness he offers his friends. I've seen the pride and the nobility with which he faces his opponents. I've watched him kill without mercy and I've watched him spare lives, and he does it all as if there is no question in him. I watched as he chose his time and made his stand and I saw what it took to finally defeat him. But I do not know yet what will break him.
Why did I confront him? Why did I finally seek him out? What was I hoping for when I faced him? Absolution? Redemption? Or was it just that I had to see for myself what the look in his eyes would be when we finally stood face to face, when all the masks and disguises were stripped away, leaving us nothing but our power and our fight?
I had intended to terrify him. I wanted to see him unnerved, rattled… angry, perhaps? I tempted him with darkness, and watched his rage, and I thought I had power over him. So now, the irony; it is I who lies here sleepless, unable to forget him. He has that power over me, at least, a power I cannot allow, a power I intend to break.
Wind in time,
Rapes the flower trembling on the vine.
And nothing yields to shelter…
From above,
They say temptation will destroy our love.
The never – ending hunger…
And yet I cannot forget what it was to feel him there. Him frightened of my power? Longing to feel it? I could not have spoken truer for myself.
His eyes… they are the color of the growing things he wields with such skill. They blazed with anger when they looked at me, but I have seen other expressions in them when they thought they were alone, the innocent and yet powerful little group. I have seen warmth touch those eyes, sadness, determination. I have seen them laugh; I have even seen them playful. I have seen them tremble with tears.
Damn him… I can feel his hair in my fingers, broken, perhaps, but so soft. His body trembled when I touched him. I didn't know until then what would happen to me, I didn't know until then what I had been keeping from myself. After all this time, how can I have this hunger?
How can I dream of him here? How can I ache to see what it would be like? How can I wonder how his hair would fall over my pillow, what his hard body would feel like, covered with a slight sheen of sweat? Could I, if I tried, get from him a harsh and unintended moan?
And when I touch him tomorrow, and I inevitably will, will I hear in his dying scream of agony its echo?
But I fear…
I have nothing to give,
And I have so much to lose here in this lonely place,
Tangled up in our embrace,
There's nothing I'd like better than to fall…
I will not think of this. I will not torment myself with what could have been, once, if things had been different. Or is it that I will not let him torment me, tease me with the life he holds out? He shines of life, holds it in his hands. It is a weapon he wields with the same skill he shows with his plants, with his whip. I cannot fall to that weapon, I can not allow it to slay me.
But it has already. Damn him, he will haunt me, dead or alive. He has shattered this life… no, to call it life is a mockery. He has shattered my existence. I fear that I will not be able to find the pieces of it when he is finally dead.
I used to love the night. That much, I do remember. Even before Toguro and my unholy bargain, even before I sold my soul for power, I used to love the darkness and the peace of the night. He is of the light, of the sun and the morning. And I find that I long for him the way I have longed for nothing else, ache for him even more than I ache to see Toguro die in his own blood by my hands. He has already won our battle.
But I fear.
I have nothing to give.
I have so much to lose…
I will kill him tomorrow. I will kill him, and deny myself that which I love. Truth is in denial. Perhaps this truth, and this denial, will kill me.
I have nothing to give,
We have so much to lose…
To know what I'm fearing now.
To know what I fear…
The night is very long, and his name haunts me. Damn him…
Kurama.
("Fear" Sarah Mclachlan)