Disclaimer: YuYu Hakusho belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi

A WARNING, since it has come to my attention that these are needed… If you don't like Kurama, Yomi, or Shura, or have objections to mentions of a Kurama and Yomi or Kurama and Shura pairing, then please don't read the story. I'd really hate for you to subject yourself to such torture and then blame me for it.

His Father's

Shura was his father's son.

He had picked up many of his father's mannerisms as he had grown. Like any father and son, it was a point of pride for Yomi and one of admiration and ambition for Shura. When he was small, he had only two role models—his father and Youko Kurama. However, Youko Kurama had died and was replaced with a sentimental human who did not live up to the legends of his bedtime stories, but whom Yomi seemed to think sufficed.

So that left one viable option. Youda liked to joke about Shura strutting around the fortress like a miniature Lord Yomi. Others in Gandara echoed this amused sentiment, of course, but few dared to call the pair "adorable" to their faces. Shura could never quite match his father's calm and cold rationality, but he certainly tried to mimic it in his face, voice, and imperious attempts to intimidate.

Once he had grown enough not to care about idolizing his father, the actions had transformed into habits. No one could mistake him for anyone but Yomi's son.

Shura was his father's clone.

He came from Yomi's genes, created artificially with no second thought ever given to a "mother." After all, Yomi was very fond of himself, and so Shura was the only perfect heir—anyone else would be inferior in Yomi's footsteps.

"He looks just as I remember you," Kurama affirmed, nodding to himself. "Were you really so young in our glory days?"

The statements were unnecessary, considering the situation. But Yomi was blind, so it was pleasant to have someone confirm such details as he had never memorized the feel of his own face.

If he could have seen, he would have noted that the Youko had not changed since that day they first parted. If he could have seen, he would have thought himself transported back into time, gazing upon a memory of the two bandits.

There was no doubt that Shura was anything but a perfect clone of his father's genetic material.

Shura was not always certain who "Shura" was.

The closer Shura came to the age when Kurama had met Yomi, the more frequently he commented to the other, "He has your temper, hot-headed and stubborn. His aura even looks like yours did, fiery and full of vitality."

Shura's disposition could be passed off as hereditary, but he liked to think Kurama was making the last bit up in a fit of foxy mischief. Auras were related to souls rather than bodies, so in that regard he and his father ought to be nothing alike, unless by coincidence. Shura would have liked to verify that he and his father had strikingly different souls, but one cannot truly ascertain their own energy signature, and Kurama was the only person available who had been close to Yomi before the demon mellowed.

Shura knew, logically, that he was not Yomi. Ideally, his father wanted them to be as alike as possible in power, strength, and cunning. In that respect, Shura was destined to be forever fitting into his father's footsteps.

Sometimes, though, he could not quite find where the line was drawn that separated them.

It had not bothered him much for most of his life. In the same way, he had given very little thought to what he was well aware his father and Kurama did in the dark behind closed doors.

But Kurama, it seemed, had gotten a little odd with the passage of a few thousand years and the gaining of most of his tails. On occasion, he would approach Shura in an empty corridor. He had always been very subtle, so Shura never realized the thief was there until arms wrapped around his waist and words he did not think he wanted to understand were being whispered in his ear.

"Kurama, stop. I'm Shura."

Kurama would come back to himself and apologize. He had thought it was Yomi. With the many similarities between the two, it was an easy mistake to make, considering that he had known Yomi so well at that same age.

And Shura would be left alone to squirm uncomfortably, wondering just why the youko's touches made him feel so strange. They were unwelcome intimacies, and he disliked being confused for his father. That much Shura knew logically, rationally.

But he could not avoid the persistent accusation that the discomfort was because, like his father, Shura wanted the fox.

With his father's mind, his father's body, and his father's soul.

…
Owari
…

-Windswift