People are dying, Kurama thought, gazing down ahead from the hilltop. Battles were fought, blood were spilled, lives were lost, and still, the war will rage on. How typical of the mortals.

Kurama hunched forward, wrapping his arms around himself, shuddering ever slightly as he sensed yet a batch of souls leave their body and entering the realm of the dead. Hiei's realm.

Kurama's lips curled wryly even as he internally frowned at his weakness. As the god of life, as some had considered him, it was inevitable that he would be affected by the massive number of souls departing, but it was no excuse for the extent which it affected him.

Was it as he thought, that the time he spent with Hiei influenced his essence as a god, that the ruler of the Underworld had tainted the core of the god of the living? There was absolutely no other reason for how in tune he was with the departure of the souls. If Kurama wished, he could calculate the number of lives lost within a mile without ever needing to exert himself by purposely extending his senses. That was not an ability of the god of life; it was that of the dead.

Kurama shook his head as the thought entered his mind. He shouldn't dwell on that any longer. Hadn't he done that enough for the past few years already? It was time to move on.

As Kurama made a move to do exactly as he said, a soul, brighter and more willful than any other he had ever seen, flashed across his mind. Kurama reached out for the soul without a second thought, extending his power, and was forced to let go at the sheer brightness of the soul, brilliant and dying in the way only a mortal's soul can be.

Kurama was standing up right in seconds, eyes quickly scanning the battlefield below. He knew without a doubt that he needed to save that soul, rules be damned.

Where was it?

xxx

"Damn it, Urameshi! Don't you DARE die on me! I promised your ma that I'll bring you back alive!" Kazuma exclaimed. He angrily swiped at his eyes with his hand, even as he kept the other hand on his best friend's stomach, trying in vain to cover the gaping hole with a torn sleeve. His hand was covered in Urameshi's blood.

Urameshi attempted at a smirk and half succeeded, along with a pained grimace. "Y-you should have known better than to p-promise that, fucktard." There was no heat in the insult. He tilted his head to the side, looking far away, and this time, truly smirked. His eyes landed back on Kazuma. "Tell ma I got the fucker, alright?"

"Tell her yourself. I'm not your messenger!" He could feel his front breaking as his friend's life bleed out before his eyes. "Y-you're going to be fine, you hear me?! Yukina's gonna come and f-fix you right up. Then... then..." Tears dripped down his face as he bowed his head, knowing in truth nothing could be done for his friend. Not anymore.

Someone landed behind him, and Kazuma immediately spun his head around, his body tense and ready to fight even when he was torn with grief and knew there wasn't much of a chance with Uramshi's head on his lap. Kazuma absolutely refuse to leave his side, though, not if there was a possibility that Urameshi would die alone while he fought.

The stranger looked taken back by his reaction, but a quick glance at Urameshi steeled his expression. He took a step forward.

Kazuma bunched up and raised his fist, but the red-haired man didn't even pay attention it. He keeled beside Urameshi, placing a hand a few inches over his chest.

"What-?!" Kazuma looked at Urameshi, hoping for some kind of hint, but his eyes were already becoming glassy. Goddamnit! He spent too much time on the stranger. If he missed Urameshi's last words because of that... Kazuma didn't think he could ever forgive himself.

...Was it just him, or was Urameshi's breathing getting less shallow, like he wasn't struggling to breath as much? Kazuma looked at the stranger's face, eyebrows scrunched up in concentration. "Who...?"

The other man pressed his lips to a thin line. "I suggest getting a certified medic here. I don't have the power to heal the wound."

But, Kazuma wanted to argue, isn't he getting better? Except he didn't want to waste any time. He didn't know the stranger, didn't have any reason to trust him, but he was helping Urameshi, that much he knew, and that was enough. Kazuma carefully placed Urameshi's head down, and, with groundless confidence, went without a second glance back.

Besides, his sixth sense, the one that tells him whenever a supernatural being was near, was tingling.

xxx

Yusuke hissed. He felt as though he had been dunked under water for god-knows-how-long, successfully escaped to the surface, only was pulled back into the miserable water after a breath of air. What was the big idea here? Can't a man die without first being tortured?

His body burned, especially his stomach. Fuck. Yusuke instinctively struggled to escape the pain, to reach for the metaphoric air again, only to feel a literal tug at his soul that refused to let him go. Who was the goddamn bastard that was doing that?

Yusuke didn't realize he spoke aloud until he heard a somewhat strained chuckle. "It seems like you won't die yet, if you're cursing up a storm already." Yusuke automatically tensed at the unfamiliar voice and tried to get up, reacting to months of finely tuned reflexes on the battlefield. "Ah, don't m-"

"Motherfucker!" Yusuke sworn loudly as pain flared at his stomach, his hand automatically going to the injured area. It came away coated with blood. Yusuke stared at it incredulously, and then down at the ground he was laying on. It was soaked with his own blood. His lips suddenly felt really dry. "Shouldn't I be, I dunno, dead by now?"

The red-haired man (definitely a man. There was no way a lady's chest was that flat, Yusuke thought, even if he got the looks) raised an elegant eyebrow. "Should you really be asking someone you previously thought, and most likely still think, of as the enemy such question?"

Yusuke shrugged as he relaxed. "If you're the enemy, you would have probably killed me by now. Since you didn't..." Yusuke shrugged again, not needing to explain the rest.

"Logical," the other man conceded with the tilt of his head. His red hair swayed to the side, enabling Yusuke to see that it was waist length. "But," his eyes twinkled, "what if I wanted to take you prisoner?"

Yusuke blinked, never really considering that. "Well," Yusuke drawled out. "Sorry, or not so sorry to say, but you're out of luck. The higher ups never tell the grunts anything." Yusuke settled his head back in a more comfortable manner with a scoff, before a thought occurred to him. "Hey, where's Kuwabara?"

"That's the orange-haired man, correct?" The redhead questioned. Yusuke nodded. "He went to fetch you a doctor."

"So I'm not going to die any time sooner, huh?"

An amuse smile formed on the other man's face. "Do you wish to die?"

Yusuke was silent for a moment, before finally answering. "Nah, not really." His eyes sought the other man's. "So, what's your name? I've been calling you pretty-boy inside my head for a while," Yusuke lied.

"Kurama," the other man answered after a beat, showing he didn't miss Yusuke's sudden change of subject. "And yours?"

"Yusuke Urameshi at your service," he introduced, throwing in a cocky grin as well. His eyes then caught the other man's red hair and something occurred to him.

"Kurama," he murmured, rolling on his tongue the familiar sounding name. "Kurama as in the god of life Kurama?"

"Yes," Kurama replied.

"Cool." Yusuke hesitated for a moment, but seeing as Kurama wasn't about the fill in the silence and he did wanted to talk about this, Yusuke plunged on. "Hey, Kurama, have you ever felt how it was like to die?"