Just so you know and won't be overly disappointed, that is the last time they have sex for a while. Between the semi-finals, finals, and everything else that happens in the next few days or so, there really isn't time. They did manage to get a day rest in there, though, not that any of them truly rested. Well, Kuwabara rested, in a way, though more forced to because his body hadn't recovered as much as it needed to yet. But, he was quite pleased to have Botan and Yukina watching over him, though Botan did have to leave.

As you remember because I told you before, back when Yusuke was dead, he was given a spirit egg to help him come back to life and to determine his fate in the afterlife, because it is obviously impossible to determine whether a punk like Yusuke is a good or evil person without having something feed off his spiritual energy and make it obvious. That, and it works as a wonderful plot device. Consider for a moment that Yusuke's been, after a fashion, pregnant with that thing for a year, or maybe half a year, it's difficult to remember. Pregnancy will both draw a lot of energy and, toward the end, give the, well, normally, woman a burst of energy just before birth. This burst of energy allows for 'nesting' as well as labor. In Yusuke's case, it contributed to his ability to survive and continue in the tournament as the egg was about to hatch.

It's now that Koenma decides to remind Yusuke that he was about to give birth, or rather, tell him the egg was about to hatch. Now, no one, not even Koenma, knew what type of creature would come out of that egg, whether it would destroy the world and Yusuke was only shamming everyone into thinking he was any kind of decent person, or if it would reveal Yusuke to be a weeaboo little boy, full of squishiness he couldn't let anyone else see, a perfect tsundere. As it turns out, the result, while definitely not creature of hell bent on destroying the world, isn't quite completely cute, either. Something between a long-eared dog and a penguin that was christened Pu because of the sound it made, kind of like naming a baby 'Whaaa' because of the sound it makes. Definitely cute, though a lot stronger than it looked. Keiko was around and decided that it was utterly cute and decided to take care of it for Yusuke since Yusuke found the thing rather embarrassing and Koenma and Botan laughed.

That was the morning. The afternoon took a turn Yusuke hadn't really expected though he should have. The masked fighter called him out to the other side of the island. Now, Yusuke, had he thought, would have recognized the pretty little girl under the mask as Genkai. You'd kind of think he'd known the whole time since the masked fighter arrived with him. I suppose he could be forgiven since Genkai was a pretty little thing and he was used to seeing her as a withered old granny.

She revealed to Yusuke that in order to master the techniques he'd need to face Toguro, the whole reason they'd come to the tournament in the first place, he still had a lot of training. And, of course, to speed through the training could potentially kill Yusuke again, but if he didn't go through with it, he wouldn't be powerful enough to stand in the ring with Toguro, much less win against him.

Isn't it nice how it's just assumed that they're going to the finals even though everything's been stacked against them so far? Even Toguro's team pretty much assumes they'll be at the finals. In fact, they take steps to assure that the committee is more…objective. Though, that does come a little later. First things first. I really should stop jumping around on you, shouldn't I?

So, let's go back to what's going on the afternoon Pu hatched. Genkai challenges Yusuke to kill her to learn the ultimate secret of everything. Of course, Yusuke wasn't enough of a bastard to go for that, which ended up being a good thing, because if he'd tried to kill Genkai, he'd have had his ass handed to him and lost everything. It wasn't long before he was almost wishing he had, though. It would have been far easier than what Genkai put him through, or rather, left him to go through.

In the mean time, back at the ranch, as it were, the four have to fight again. This time, they're fighting shadows of children's stories. Hiei started off with Kintaro, the golden boy of Japan who carried a hatchet. Then there's Momotaro, the peach boy who gave away dumplings to a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant to keep them from attacking them and they became his friends. Hiei managed to beat both of them, but just barely in the case of Momotaro.

Kurama went up against Urashima, the fisherman who found a very troublesome box. Again, Kurama's habit of playing with his opponents gets him into serious trouble, though in this case, it works out for him because this Urashima's box makes him younger, younger than when he was a human, drawing out the Youko. Now, Kurama thought that he'd lost any chance of drawing out Youko again before his body grew capable of handling his power on its own when he decided to remain in a human body. There is a bit of a difference between being strong enough to leave Shuichi's body and being strong enough to channel the power of Youko through the human form. By remaining, Kurama also forfeited the option to leave later since there was a narrow window that he could have left, the time between 'healed well enough to survive' and 'entrenched too much in the flesh to leave.' In essence, Kurama didn't fully ensoul the body until after that point and now he couldn't leave.

Youko is a bit more of a bastard, especially before the tempering influence of Shiori, which isn't to say that Kurama isn't, he's just 16 years out of practice at being an absolute utter bastard the way he was before he borrowed a human body, but this was Youko without that tempering experience. He was vicious, punishing Urashima for waking him most severely.

Next, Kuwabara was up against Ushiwakamaru, legendary samurai monk warrior trained by the tengu. This legendary swordsman, given the gift of a cloak of obscurity, was so far beyond Kuwabara's skill level that he didn't even break a sweat in sending him to the old ring.

Next, the Masked Warrior, or Genkai as we now know for sure, is up against Ushiwakamaru. Of course there's a stink about her looking old again, but when Toguro speaks up for her, the committee decides not to press its luck, for once, and allows the fight. Of course, Genkai is smart enough to let Ushiwakamaru hang himself, offering him enough rope to do so before yanking on it and defeating him.

Now, I know I said I'd stop jumping around, but we have to visit another ranch for a moment here. The girls managed to get themselves lost on the way to the match because they moved the semi-finals to another ring, not using the same stadium as before. There's also another ring girl, but that's totally beside the point. While searching for the new ring, the girls find Yusuke and Pu, exhausted, but still alive despite their trial. The point of this diversion is that Keiko and company were harassed by some demons mostly because they were human, but also because they were with Yusuke and company. They were rescued by Jin, Chuu, Rinku, and Touya, though, because they'd come to respect Yusuke's team and, even though they lost early, they were still stronger than most of the demons at the tournament. Together, they head to the ring for the semifinals, though Yusuke's pretty much out for the count and couldn't fight even if the committee would let him at this point.

Anyways, back to the main point of this part of the story, the fight. Kuwabara made his way back to the semifinal ring and is supposed to fight against Onji only to be sent back to the old ring again. On his way back, he catches up with the girls and Yusuke.

Now, Genkai is up again on the human's side. She fights against Onji, who's up again as well. He's not really from a fairy tale, unless you want to call him the 'old man' in many of the fairy tales, even though he used them and supplied them with their toys. I wouldn't be surprised if he named them, too. Let's go with he did, just for the sake of it amuses me.

So, while he starts off calling himself Onji, he takes off his costume and reveals himself as Suzuka. He's not from any particular fairy tale, though there is a city of that name that suffers communication issues due to the mixing of three dialects of Japanese. This really is beside the point. So, this Suzuka is rather vain, to put it mildly. And used rainbows to attack, believing himself to be utterly beautiful despite his rather ridiculous make up and rubber nose.

Genkai's not having any of his shit, though. She steals his nose and deflates his ego, forcing him to fight her. Of course, even in her weakened state, she still hands him his ass.

Even though he's defeated and made a fool, Suzuka isn't really that bad a demon. Even though he lost completely, he still gives Kurama the Fruit of Past Life, giving him the option of turning back into Youko again, and gives Kuwabara, who didn't really even get a chance to fight, the Sword of Trials to him to help him improve his strength with his spirit sword. To Kuwabara, this actually reinforced his belief, whether it ever actually reached a conscious level or not is debatable, that this was some type of elaborate game. After all, when you defeat an enemy in a game, you get something from that fallen enemy.

So, now we're down to three teams. Obviously there's another semifinal match. Do we really need to go into that? I mean, you know Toguro's team wins with only three members of their team. Kurama watches because he's really into torture porn, Hiei goes to train more, knowing he needs better control and stamina with his Kokuryuuha, whatever the cost. Kuwabara takes Yusuke back to the hotel and watches over him until he suddenly wakes and leaves. What causes that? Keep reading.

The reason only three of the Toguro team fight is that the younger brother seeks out Genaki. See, they were together when they were young and fought in the tournament fifty years before. Toguro still has a beef with Genkai for not following him when his wish turned him into a demon. He loved her, in his way, but she decided to remain human. Now, with most of her spiritual power in Yusuke, she's a pretty poor target for Toguro, but that doesn't stop him from overkill…and killing her while Yusuke watches. Then, to add salt to the wounds, Toguro punts Yusuke to the other side of the island.

Now, let's keep something in mind. While Kuwabara has a very strong spiritual sense, he didn't know Genkai was the masked fighter and also wasn't fully aware of Toguro's attack and murder of Genkai. He wasn't aware of why Yusuke was depressed, wasn't aware of why the Masked Fighter didn't show up again, didn't understand why Kurama and Hiei were so tender to him. But, then, he also wasn't fully aware of how deep their relationship was, either.

So, the finals are set, to be between Team Toguro and Team Urameshi, despite all their challenges getting there.