This chapter got most of the editing. I went a little crazy with adding adjectives. So it's a little long, longer than... I think all of the other chapters. (And more boring, too, as a result of the many adjectives. But it was worse. I took a lot of them out when I realized how overboard I'd gone.)

I don't own YYH. I do own Kari. How unfortunate for me.

This used to be up on the site, but I took it down. And now it's back. Yay!

And for a short explanation, basically, Kari is Kurama's demon lover reincarnated as his younger sister. She looks identical to him (but with boobs and about a foot shorter). Oh, and she's a bitch.

I hate her. I wrote this to kill her. End of story. If you want her to die more (since she dies in almost every story she's in) go read "Your Horrorscope for Today". Or, if you want her to live, try "Angel Eyes".

Um. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Five chapters. And at least two sequels. Three, if I can finish it.

But no one cares. Ah well.

Yeah, and I had a class in Driver's Ed., and we discussed accidents and windshields... they don't crack like this anymore. Shut up! My story, my world, my logic. Nyeh.

Anyway, now I'm gonna shut up. Enjoy chapter one of "Until Death"! Review! Thankies!!

Kari was bored, bored out of her mind, with absolutely nothing to do. She stood up and wandered downstairs in search of her brother. He'd do something with her... or to her, rather; that's what she would prefer.

The girl's older brother by the name of Shuichi was seated on the couch, his right leg crossed over his left. A book was perched in his lap. He had found this book while searching in the attic, being – like his sister – bored, and having – also like his sister – nothing to do.

The thick volume had been on a shelf in the far back, the darkest corner. No one had touched it for a long time, though the title had made it seem quite interesting. And it was, more interesting than any other book he had ever gotten his hands on.

He had never understood the intense fascination of the fans of a series of books, especially Harry Potter fans, as he found Harry Potter dull to begin with. He understood them now... He simply couldn't set this book down, and his finger trailed along the page beneath each word, to make sure he missed nothing.

This author, whoever they were or had been, was a literary genius.

Normally, he would finish a book as soon as possible to move onto other things, but at times he would skip over whole paragraphs by accident. Each word in every sentence of this book was chosen by the author with painstaking care; each sentence was a frail thing, intricately woven to create something beautiful. He wanted to miss nothing.

This was how his sister found him when she came into the room from upstairs. She stood before him, staring intently. He paid her no attention. "Onisan," she greeted him then.

His gaze flickered upward toward the sound but instantly shot back down to the pages before him. Normally, when she found him with a book, he would stop reading and give her his full attention. But this... he couldn't set it down...

Kari pressed on, though this response was highly unusual. "I'm bored..." To most, that statement would have sounded like a complaint in its high-pitched whine, but to her brother, it was an invitation, a request.

But he had to decline. His schedule was full; he currently had more important matters to attend to. Like finishing this book.

"You can amuse yourself, Kari-chan," he answered the girl impatiently without even looking up. Now, would she please leave him alone? Things were just getting good.

She turned and stormed away, tears beginning to fall from the corners of her emerald green eyes. These were not her normal fake tears... These were real tears.

Normally, Shuichi would have followed his sister, apologized for being so rude to her. Normally, he would promise to make it up to her later that night. But this book...

It was not as though he didn't care about her. She was the most important thing in the world. Somewhere in the back of his mind, she was still his first priority. He chuckled lightly to himself and turned another page. He'd make it up to her... as soon as he finished.

Amuse herself, indeed, she thought bitterly with a huff as she plopped down on a chair in the kitchen. Her arms folded themselves over her chest. The way she wanted to be "amused" required another person. So she'd just have to find a substitute...

A pleased half-smile graced her lips when she realized she knew someone who might agree to "amuse" her that way. She walked over to the phone and made the call.

She thought long and hard about the way she worded it. She needed to ask without asking directly, but he also had to understand what she was asking. She finished, and after a silence that seemed to last forever, he said yes. Reluctantly.

But it was still a yes.

Without another word she smiled and hung up the phone, walking to the front door. "I'm going out!" she yelled to her brother, the only one home.

He didn't answer. He was so absorbed in his book, he barely heard her.

So she slammed the door behind her and she stormed out of the house.

- -

The driver reached slowly for the rear-view mirror and turned it toward his passenger with a single flick of his wrist. Their eyes met in the glass, and he flashed her a playful smile.

Kari forced a smile in return, the pain of trying to form one showing clearly in her green eyes. "Eyes on the road, Detective," she answered as calmly as she could, looking at him only in the glass of the mirror. Then she turned her gaze out the front windshield. "Not me."

Frowning slightly, he turned the mirror back and began to focus on the road. She was like her brother and only called him by "Detective" when she was annoyed. The rest of the time, it was his first name, "Yusuke".

But he understood her annoyance, though he had only tried to loosen the tension and break the ice. Yes, of course she was annoyed, even though this had been her idea.

She wasn't happy about doing this, but she needed to. She couldn't help that she was like this. Since her brother had turned her down, she needed someone else...

The Detective had no idea why he had allowed himself to do this with the girl, knowing how protective her brother was of her. She was his, she belonged to him. Yet for some reason, he had told her yes. After thinking it out while on the phone with her earlier, when he was about to tell her no... against his will, from his mouth had come yes.

A traffic light ahead of them changed from green to yellow, and as soon as Yusuke saw this he floored the gas. They sailed through the intersection as the yellow flashed to red.

"Detective, you appear to have run through a red light."

Yusuke scowled. "It was yellow."

"Yes. Well." She paused. "Yellow does not mean speed up."

He had no answer to that. He was male; his first impulse when a light changed to yellow was to stomp on the gas. Kari smiled triumphantly at his silence.

Only five minutes later, they passed a white sign with black lettering on it, but at the speed they were moving, the only readable thing on the sign was the large number.

"Ah, Detective... I think you're over the speed limit."

"I know what I'm doing, Kari." It was a sign that he was annoyed now.

"Yes, but... this isn't a video game." He usually spent his free time playing games at the arcade. She began to wonder how he had passed the driving test.

And anyway, how was he driving in the first place if they were the same age?

"You're speeding when you're ten miles over the limit," he explained, beginning to lose what was left of his patience. She generally had that effect on people. "I'm only eight over."

Kari was about to respond, but at that second Yusuke swerved sharply to turn onto an intersecting side-street. Neither of them reacted as the car they were riding in hit an oncoming semi-truck with full-force. The windshield cracked and instantaneously shattered, showering shards of broken glass on them.

In the same instant, their bodies moved forward with the vehicle. They expected to be pulled back toward the seat.

But neither of them was wearing the life-saving strip of fabric, a seatbelt.

The airbag released from the center of the steering wheel, engulfing the driver. The shock of the blow was lessened, but by not much. He could feel his legs, but they were deadweights, with the circulation cut off to them. The right half of his face and right arm were scraped and bleeding from the flying windshield debris.

But without a doubt, he was better off than his passenger.

Kari had no airbag to cushion her blow, nor a seatbelt to jerk her backwards. She let out the fierce howl of the wounded wild animal as the sharp glass cut her and her forehead smashed against on the dashboard. The sound cut out when she lost consciousness.

The driver heard the scream and when it died so suddenly, he looked over at her groggily. The girl's head lay still on the dash, and she was unconscious. Though he could not see her face he could tell that her blood was dripping steadily onto the vehicle's floor.

Yusuke stayed upright for a while, but eventually he began to feel himself losing consciousness as well and rested his pounding head and chest on top of the wheel. He no longer had the strength to support himself. The pressure he applied set off the car's horn, but how could merely resting so gently could be enough force?

The Detective found the separation of his spirit from his body was so slow it was almost painful, and it was draining a lot of his energy, leaving him extremely tired and weak. But as he began to leave this world and everything faded into the background, he thought of Kari's over-protective brother and was able to stay awake for a bit longer by holding onto one thought.

Kurama's gonna kill me.

The thought echoed around in his head until he fully lost consciousness.

Kurama's gonna kill me. Kurama's gonna kill me. Kurama's gonna kill...

- Kuramastrass -