Disclaimer- I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho, and I'm not making any profit from writing and posting this drabble.

Warnings/Notes/Rating- Rated T. Character death and light shounen ai warnings. I was going for tenderness and a little bit of tragedy with this. I'm not really certain what to say, overall, about this drabble, but I did write it for a friend at tumblr who loves ItsukixSensui (I don't know if the friend wishes for me to reveal the tumblr address linked to that person). It's…ItsukixSensui. Not really graphic. I don't know I guess…I tried to answer with this ficlet where Itsuki and Sensui could've ended up after the anime...since we don't really know via canon. However vaguely I accomplished that… I guess I wanted to put a little bit about where Itsuki comes from, too, in this (I thought, maybe he is the last of his kind? Maybe ancestors are important to him? It's not canon…I know…god I know… I also wanted to tackle a life after death kind of thing, too… forgive me if I step on toes regarding spiritual/religious connotations...I mean no offense) Again, though vague. The ancestor thing… I'm not sure what I was trying to do with this. Itsuki/Sensui is really difficult for me to write, and I don't write it very much...I think I might've been in my midteens when I last tried my hand at this pairing. But I wrote this out of love though…and did my best with it. I tried to give them a "sort of" happy ending without overdoing it… Yeah. I've been nervous as hell trying to figure out what to write for this….and then…I end up with this… thing… -sigh-

...I would appreciate any and all constructive critique to make this piece better. I do not feel confident about it at all...

The Yu Yu Drabble Chocolate Box Series
Drabble 35: Itsuki 1
By Yo (dragonheart-butterfly soul at tumblr); Written 2.7.17; About 685 words

Long blue-green tendrils of hair fell to hide a pair of tired, amber eyes…eyes that were slowly losing their light. Itsuki bowed his head slightly forward in supplication and clasped his elegant hands together. With pale limbs shaking, his weak, emaciated body struggled to stay upright on bent knees before a dimly lit altar where a single drop of his blood—an offering—dried at the bottom of a gold, ruby bejeweled chalice. The chalice was the only item on the altar, except for a single, small, lit candle and the maroon cloth, adorning that altar.

Itsuki was beseeching the spirits of his long dead people to open the way for him and Shinobu, so that they could return home. To the dimension where his ancestral home was…to the sacred place only a Yaminade (1) and his chosen could go at the end of life. In human tongues, this place roughly translated to being called "Hall of the Highest."

The fools in Spirit World would never find it because they knew nothing of the place's existence. No one alive knew of it, aside from himself, nor would anyone ever have the chance to find out because the knowledge would die with Itsuki. For Itsuki was the last Yaminade, and his vigil was coming to an end after countless centuries. He no longer had the strength to keep safeguarding their peace and quiet inside the dark nothingness of Uraotoko's fathomless depths.

Perhaps, Spirit World never looked for them. Perhaps, he and Shinobu had been forgotten by them after all these years. Perhaps, the chance of Spirit World finding him and Shinobu was so remote it might as well be impossible. Still, Itsuki had refused to ease up on his watch over Shinobu's rest, lest the fools find him and Shinobu and cast their hypocritical stones of fiery judgement upon them.

But he could be a gatekeeper no longer…not with the decay of his body and the fading of his once formidable powers.

The day he began his watch, the same day that Yusuke Urameshi defeated and killed Shinobu hundreds of years ago, was the day Itsuki stopped eating (2). He made himself as mortal as he could by the hunger, so that he could reach the plane of Shinobu's soul faster. He welcomed death with wide, open arms, just as he had so tenderly embraced Shinobu...even long after his beloved's physical body deteriorated and crumbled to dust. Itsuki welcomed death on that first day of his vigil, just as he welcomed it now.

"I've been able to hear Shinobu all this time. I've been able to feel the presence of his soul enfolding around me like the barely-there kiss of warm, feather light wings. But I've not been able to see him. To taste or to smell him. Please, ancestors, let us come home. Let us be wholly together at last," Itsuki murmured his prayer aloud into the resounding, empty silence.

Itsuki collapsed against the altar, knocking the chalice over, unable to hold his frail body up anymore. He could hardly keep his eyes open either as he waited for a sign, for approval or denial, from the ancestors. As the minutes crawled forward, his breathing became shallower, his heart beat slower, and his body grew colder…

Until the final moment of life.

As his soul emerged from his physical body, he was overcome by numbness, devastated by his ancestors' answer…

But then a portal burst into existence before him, a portal to the Hall of the Highest blazing with blinding white light (3). The stark form of a body he would know anywhere accompanied the portal's sudden appearance (4).

Closing his eyes, Itsuki let a tiny smile fall onto his lips. He soon felt strong arms pick him up, supporting him behind his neck and his knees. One of Shinobu's beautiful, unforgettable hands cradled his head into the crook of that graceful, warm neck that stood out like a beacon to Itsuki…beckoning to be kissed.

"It is time I finally carried you," Shinobu whispered.

And the soul of Shinobu Sensui did just that—he carried Itsuki home.

Owari…I think

Notes-

(1) I watched the anime and interpreted Yaminade to be a type of demon. I hope I was right about that.

(2) This bit of the ficlet is inspired by the hunger Raizen enforced upon himself...the hunger that ultimately killed him because he abstained from consuming human flesh.

(3) Not quite heaven in a "traditional" sense. I did not want to delve too deep into this…though I still may have to come back and flesh this story out…

(4) My logic: A deceased soul sees another deceased soul, where the living, even one as gifted with the extrasensory as Itsuki is in life, cannot see the dead—though some among the living may be able to sense, in various ways, the dead whom might be near.