Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of its characters.

Kurama did not remember waking up. He stared at the white ceiling of his room with a blank mind for several minutes before it occurred to him that he was awake. When the realization finally came, he sat up abruptly. How long have I lain here? he wondered absently.

He was back in his room wearing the pair of sweatpants he normally slept in and tucked tightly in bed by stiff linen sheets. Yusuke must have taken him back, which of course meant Yusuke was not dead, which strongly implied that they had somehow won the fight.

The fight, that's right, he thought suddenly. With an immense wave of relief he found that his youki was intact and almost up to full strength.

With a small smile to himself, Kurama slipped out of his bed and dressed quickly, but with his usual care before heading down to the kitchen. He did not know how long he had been incapacitated, but if his stomach was any judge, it had been a fair amount. It had at least been two days as all of his wounds from the fight had healed completely.

He stepped into the kitchen without any care of being quiet. He had quickly learned that humans disliked being surprised so he was deliberately loud.

Still, his mother did not look up immediately from the paper she had spread out on the kitchen table until Kurama cleared his throated discreetly. She looked up with mild surprise before her entire face lit up in a smile.

"Oh, Suuichi," she said standing and giving him a hug. "I'm so glad your feeling better." She pushed him away slightly as if to inspect him. Apparently he met her approval since she promptly pushed him down in a chair. "You must be famished. You stay put and I'll fix you something."

Kurama watched as his mother began to busy her self around the kitchen. He waited a few moments before speaking. "I don't remember exactly what happened…" he said slowly. Of course he did remember, but he had no idea what story his mother had been told.

She turned to look at him quickly and said, "I suppose that shouldn't surprise me." She turned back to the cutting board in front of her. "You went out to meet your friends Monday and you just collapsed. Yusuke took you to the hospital and called me. Apparently you ate some bad meat which affected you. The doctor gave you some medicine and said you'd wake up when it had all run its course."

He was silent for a moment. "What is today?" he asked quietly.

"Friday," his mother said over his shoulder. Hm, four days he thought slowly. Not too bad considering, but he doubted any real ningen doctor would give that advice. It was probably a memory alteration thanks to Koenma. It was a good thing his mother was probably to worried to question it.

~*~*~*~

It was almost two hours later that Kurama was finally able to convince his mother that he was well enough to go out for a walk. In the end he told her he wished to thank Yusuke for 'taking him to the hospital' as that was the only reason she would find acceptable.

The day was pleasantly warm and the wind whipped through his long red tresses playfully. He started towards Yusuke's house immediately. He wanted to know what had happened and to ensure that Yusuke and Hiei had ended the battle without injury.

The stroll to the spirit detective's home was blissfully uneventful. Just as Kurama lifted his hand to knock on the door, he felt Hiei's familiar youki boil slightly under the demon's normally tight concealment. Hiei is here? he thought bemused.

Without knocking, Kurama slipped inside and headed towards Yusuke's room. The door was open and inside he could see Kuwabara, Yusuke, and Hiei all standing together looking like they had just gotten into a fight. Kurama cleared his throat softly exactly as he had for his mother this morning.

The three stopped glaring at each other to glance at him. Yusuke gave him a genuine grin, Kuwabara looked puzzled, and only Hiei looked annoyed.

"You are interrupting a conversation, kitsune," he said in his normal annoyed voice.

"Good to see you back on your feet, Kuwabara," Kurama said ignoring the other demon's comment entirely. Kuwabara scratched his head with a bemused look on his face.

"We should be saying that to you," Yusuke said with the same grin plastered on his face. "Kuwabara was up almost immediately after Koenma destroyed the pendant. We didn't think you'd be out as long as you were."

Kurama raised an eyebrow at that comment, but did not take offense at the implied weakness. "So how did the fight end?" he asked steering the conversation in a different direction.

"It ended with us kicking ass!" Yusuke said as he plopped down on his bed. Kuwabara did the same on the floor, and Hiei stood with his arms crossed although he did look less annoyed. "Right after you touched him, that Kiosh bastard got all weird for a second and I blasted him to smithereens."

Hiei snorted, and Kurama got the distinct impression that Yusuke had left something out of his brief narrative, but neither spoke up. Well, what ever it is, that's their business, he thought with a smile to himself.

"Good," Kurama said with a genuine smile. His plan had worked despite that definite risks involved. If they had not defeated him then, Kiosh would have become quite strong with Kurama's power added to the punch. "I am relieved to hear my plan worked so well."

"You doubted?" Hiei asked, watching him shrewdly. "How much?"

Kurama gave him a winning smile. "You should know by now that most plans aren't based on the chance of success."

"Then what are they based on?" Hiei growled.

"Desperation," he answered with the same smile. "What were you guys talking about just now when I came in?" he asked changing the subject before Hiei could respond.

"Oh! It's our next mission!" Kuwabara went off. "It's going to be really cool. See there's this guy with an enchanted dinnerware…"

"It's a tuning fork, you idiot!" Yusuke interrupted him with a hard knock to the head. "It's not for eating, baka!"

"Fork smork!" Kuwabara yelled rubbing the lump on his head. "A fork is a fork even if you don't eat with it, Urameshi!"

"Well it's certainly not dinnerwa—where are you going Hiei?"

"Hn, if you think I'm sticking around listening to this moronic conversation, then you even stupider than I thought, which is an impressive feat. What are you laughing at, Kitsune?"

"Nothing, it's just that when you get mad, tendrils of smoke tend to form around your ears."

"They do not."

"Actually, shrimp, he's right."

"Hiei, you wanna not stop throttling Kuwabara till after the mission?"

A/N: That's right! It's the final, last, and concluding chapter, hurray! Thank you to all of my reviewers, because when I went back and reread this, I realized how much of my original concept had gotten lost. If the reviews hadn't come, I would not have finished; I would have hit the delete key. (still might) I left so much out of this that I wanted to put in and so I really don't like this one too much. Also as per usual, the ending is uber lame. Blame it on the turmoil in my life right now. Finally I am pretty settled into college life. I am also getting a ton more exposure to anime, for free! Maybe an Inuyasha fic, that's my newest obsession