It was Urameshi Hideo who pounced on Oga next sunny Saturday afternoon and challenged him to a battle. Hilda was busy filling out Oga and Baby Be'el paperwork with all the fury of a thousand grammar gestapo on the rampage with red correctional pens, and Furuichi just wanted to loaf around (milking every moment that he could of Oga's older sister being kind to him out of his sprained ankle, and it wasn't going to last for long, so Oga decided that he wasn't going to hang around to witness the fallout). Oga was bored and so was Baby Be'el, so they decided together that they would visit the near-by playground.

Oga hadn't exactly been expecting a little ragamuffin preteen, wearing a brightly-colored purple track suit, to kick him in the shin and challenge him in front of one of the kiddy slides.

"Dabu!"

The kick in the shin kinda stung, especially with those brand-new, steel-toed combat boats that she wore. "Who are you again?" Oga asked as he looked down upon the girl with as much disdain as he could muster.

"I bet I could get a hundred points if I fought you," Hideo said slyly, rubbing her chin and tapping a foot.

"You won't win against me."

She spat. "It's not the winning or the losing, it's the fighting!" She raised both fists and hopped from foot to foot. "So put up your dukes!"

"Where's your parents?" Oga demanded.

Hideo sighed and stilled. She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder. "Papa is doing the couch potato thing on a park bench somewhere over there, watching the twins. Mama's at home, napping. We don't have to worry about any interruptions or interference with our fight."

"No," Oga said. "I don't like to fight girls." He jammed his hands into his pocket and headed off in the direction that she had pointed. With a growl, Hideo jumped on his back (right beside Baby Be'el), and began pounding on his head with her fists.

Oga ignored the pounding as he walked across the playground. He stopped beside a bench, where a figure dressed in rumpled jeans and a red-and-white checkered shirt was slumped backwards over the bench, his arms resting across the wood. "Oi." Oga nudged Urameshi Yuusuke with his foot. "Your urchin has taken on the role of a symbiotic parasite."

Urameshi didn't even sit upright. "Hideo-chan, you're too young to be playing with boys."

"I'm not playing, Papa!" Hideo sounded indignant as she continued her pounding. She ignored Baby Be'el curiously poking her in the ear.

Urameshi finally sat upright with a dejected sigh. "You're too young for boys. Look at how it ruined your grandmother's life."

Hideo stopped the pounding out of embarrassment. "Papa!" She hunched down against Oga's broad shoulder as her eyes darted side to side. "Do we have to have this conversation right now?"

Urameshi held up a lecturing finger. "Why, your grandmother was only three years older than you are right now when she had me, so that's why Mama and I made sure we used protection for lovemaking when Mama was still in high school-"

"Eeek!" Hideo jumped off of Oga's back and slapped her hands over her ears.

"Unfortunately," Urameshi continued blithely, "we didn't know that antibiotics would decrease the birth control's effectiveness when Mama was in college, and that was how you came about."

"I can't hear you! Lalalala!" Hideo's immediate retreat to the other side of the playground left a dust trail. Urameshi watched as she moved out of hearing range, and then slumped over backwards on the bench again, a smug smile on his face.

"Fight me," Oga said as Baby Be'el slithered off his back and crawled away.

Urameshi raised a fist. "Feel free to beat yourself senseless against this. I'm comfortable where I'm at."

Baby Be'el crawled over to where a small two-year-old toddler sat quietly watching the others, her dark hair pulled up in one stiff ponytail on the top of her head. She wore a pair of pink-striped overalls with a white shirt, and she held a mutated stuffed penguin in the crook of her elbow. Baby Be'el's eyes flickered from her to the penguin, and then he snagged a long ear. Urameshi and Oga both looked over at the resulting scream of indignation.

The toddler shrieked, "NOOOOO!" as the penguin was yanked out of her arms.

"Dabu!" Baby Be'el flashed a victory sign at the toddler as he squeezed his prize close.

Said prize seemed awfully alarmed. "Puuu?"

"MINE!" The toddler grabbed the other ear and pulled back. Baby Be'el frowned and maintained his tight grip on the ear.

"Puuuuuuu!" The penguin's eyes bulged and its little feet kicked desperately in the air as it was pulled taut between the two delinquent toddlers. "Puu puu puu puuuuuuu!"

The toddler socked Baby Be'el in the nose with her other hand, and Baby Be'el released the ear in shock and pain. His eyes watered as he covered his bloody nose.

"Uh oh," said Oga. And then he lunged as Baby Be'el began crackling.

"Puuu!" The mutated penguin launched free of the toddler and intercepted the bolt of electricity that Baby Be'el released before Oga could reach him. The penguin flopped to the earth, charcoaled and crackling slightly.

Oga swept Baby Be'el up. "Hey, hey, no crying, remember? Real men don't cry, even when they're punched in the nose. Especially if they're punched in the nose by a girl. And we don't zap 'em, either."

The toddler burst into a high-pitched wail as she snatched the penguin by an ear. "PAPA!" she cried, racing to where Urameshi sat. She dragged the penguin behind her on the ground. It winced with every jostle and bump. "He kilt Puu!"

"No, he didn't," Urameshi replied nonchalantly, as if his kids were routinely saved from Certain Death By Several Thousand Volts of Electricity by pet mutant blue penguins. The toddler fisted his pants and buried her face against his knee. "Puu's okay, Satoshi-chan." As if to assure its young charge that it was indeed still alive, Puu coughed up a small black cloud. With a gasp, Satoshi pulled Puu into a tight hug, which made the beady eyes bulge again.

"I sorry, Puu!" Satoshi cried. "I makes you better with kiss." She proceeded to plant little smooches on top of Puu's head.

Baby Be'el whimpered and reached a hand out to Puu. "Mah?"

Satoshi turned and gave him a ferocious glare. "No! Mine!" Baby Be'el wilted at her shaking fist and sniffled again. But he didn't seem likely to let loose another large bolt of electricity.

"Actually, mine," Urameshi corrected. He carefully extracted Puu from Satoshi's grasp and dropped the mutated penguin on top of his head. Puu sighed in relief and rolled its eyes heavenward with gratefulness.

"I wants one, Papa," Satoshi said with a pout.

"Yeah, well, you go right on ahead and get yourself killed before your life is meant to end by socking baby demon lords in the honker, and I'll see what I can swing with the Great Diapered One."

Satoshi looked as if she thought Urameshi might have been joking. Oga hoped he wasn't; it sounded ruthless and cruel, which was exactly what he needed to foist Baby Be'el onto the other man. Urameshi didn't precisely fit the traditional sense of evil, but he figured that any father who attempted to give his (not-quite) teenaged daughter sex education in public definitely qualified as evil.

"Fight me," Oga said again.

"Bit busy mediating with my toddler, kid," Urameshi said. Then he rolled his eyes at another wailing cry. "Now what?" An older woman, a young boy sobbing and rubbing his eyes balanced on her left hip, pulled along another toddler by her right ear over to them. This toddler was identical to Satoshi, right down to the pink-striped overalls and bristly pony-tail. She, however, was valiantly trying not to cry.

"Excuse me," huffed the old woman indignantly, "your brat kicked my grandson."

"He bites me!" the toddler cried, trying to twist about to glare at the older woman, but was restricted from the grip on her ear. The old woman shook the toddler in her rage.

"He bit you after you punched him, you little monster!"

"Is this true, Tsuneo-chan?" Urameshi asked sternly. The old woman released Tsuneo, who turned around and kicked her in the ankle. Then she dodged the old woman's grab and scampered to hide behind Urameshi's knee, right beside her twin. "You know better than to get caught," he told them as the twins pressed shoulder to shoulder.

"I insist you discipline your brats!" The old woman shook her finger in Urameshi's face. "They're going to grow up to be hoodlums and delinquents and whores, the lot of them! And what is that filthy thing on top of your head?"

"What's wrong with being a delinquent?" Oga asked defensively. Puu looked offended at being called filthy.

Urameshi shrugged, and dropped one large hand to rest on top of both little heads. "They're a work in progress, but I have every hope in them becoming the best delinquents in their daycare. They're already on their way to being known as the Monsters of Kurenai Playground. My only hope is they don't follow in my own mother's steps when she had me at fourteen. But I am trying to educate my daughters on proper sexual protection so they're well-versed by the time teenaged hormones and senselessness hit." He flashed the old woman a thumb's up with his other hand. She huffed indignantly once again, and stomped away. Urameshi cackled wickedly. "Kurama's right – this passive-aggressive shit is awesome."

Tsuneo stuck her tongue out at the woman's retreating back.

"Did you really kick the kid?" Urameshi asked as she pulled herself up onto the park bench and sat next to him.

"I kicks him in the balls!" She looked inordinately proud of herself.

"We don't kick anyone in the balls unless it's deserved. What did he do?"

Tsuneo pouted and crossed her arms in front of herself. "He hits me with his truck. So I punches him. So he bites me. So I kicks him."

"You know, Mama would say that two wrongs don't make a right. Or in this case, four wrongs." The twins looked at Urameshi with identical frowns. Satoshi tugged at Urameshi's pants.

"I has to pee, Papa."

"Oh? Huh. Your sister should take you then. Hideo!" Urameshi yelled.

A distant call answered him from the other side of the playground. "No, and you can't make me!"

Urameshi scratched his head. "I'm already having nightmares of that one being a teenager," he muttered. "Hey, Keiji-chan. Take your sister to the restroom."

"Okay, Papa," said a voice above Oga's head. He looked up in time to see a five year old jump off the top bar of the swingset overhead and land on the ground beside the bench. "Come on, Toshi-chan," said the girl as she extended her hand and grabbed both twins. "May as well take you, too, Tsu-chan." She wore a fluffy yellow skirt and blue shirt with billowing sleeves. Wilted flowered were woven in her waist-length braid of light brown hair. Oga and Urameshi watched as the three left.

"Why are all your girls named like boys?" Oga asked. "That's just cruel, man."

"Well, I wanted sons, but I only seem to shoot X chromosomes. My wife's cool though. She said I could name our girls whatever I wanted, although she was under the influence of narcotics at the time following Hideo's birth, so it probably wasn't admissible."

Oga held Baby Be'el out to Urameshi. "Here's a son for you. All you need to do is fight me."

Urameshi laughed. "Nice try kid, but you're wrong. Beelzebub only attaches to humans, and I ain't human enough for the Contract to be successful."

…oh. Well, crap.

Oga sat down on the bench beside Urameshi. He thought for a moment. "But you do have some human in you, right?" Because some human meant that there was an itty-bitty chance that a Contract could be made. If nothing else, Oga managed to get that much out of his math homework. (Somewhere, Alaindelon suddenly felt deeply offended.)

"Don't even think about it. I've been a demon since…" Urameshi's lips turned upright, a fang poking downward, "since I was born."

Oga glanced at the twin toddlers returning with their (slightly) older sister. "You've got human kids."

"Their mother is wonderfully, gloriously human."

Damn it. Back to the drawing board, then.

(Oga thought about what kind of woman could possibly be wife and lover to the delinquent-demon that was Urameshi Yuusuke. He wondered if he could pawn Baby Be'el off onto her. Shouldn't be too hard. She must have lots of experience with demonic little monsters, and he bet she wouldn't even notice the first few weeks that there was an extra mouth just hanging around…)


Author's notes: I... I really, really like Yuusuke and his four daughters. ;_; Have been delayed in posting any new chapters for new stories. My sister got married last week, approximately five hundred miles away from where I live. (CONGRATULATIONS, J!) So, naturally, I went. And, naturally, as it always happens with me, I got hurt, at the wedding reception. I sprained my ankle, and then - to add insult to injury - my brother stepped on my foot and broke it. I'm no stranger to crutches, but the cast is a new experience that I honestly could've gone without. :(