Disclaimer: Yu Yu Hakusho and all related characters/products are most certainly not my property. Lawyers, back off.

A/N: Hmm. A non-romance? Without it being requested? I surprise myself at times. Kurama-centric. Yet another Shiori-finds-out fic. From Kurama's POV. Is it possible to explain to a human exactly what a complex creature the Youko truly is?

Layers

I live a life of lies.

            On the one hand, there is Minamino Shuuichi. Perfect son, perfect student, perfect brother. I care deeply for Shiori-san, and, more recently, for Hatanaka-san and my step-brother who bears the same name as I do – Shuuichi. Red hair and emerald eyes lend themselves to an unusual appearance, especially since I am a full-blooded Japanese. Or – this body is, at any rate.

            I excel at school. It's a given fact. Minamino Shuuichi cannot possibly do badly in any of his subjects. It's just not heard of. Even English, a subject many of my peers have trouble with, I do well in. I have even taken advanced courses before, sitting in a class filled with people three or four years older than me – and yet, surpassing them.

            I am a good friend, or so I would like to think so. I do not have many friends at school, but then there are those outside of said facility. Yuusuke, Kuwabara and Hiei probably aren't what you would call normal. A Demon Lord, an empath and a demon? Hardly likely. And yet, they are close to me in a way no one else can ever be.

            No, okaa-san. Not even you.

            Because that's just Minamino Shuuichi. Beneath that, there's the Youko.

            He's known as Kurama most of the time. I am, should I say. He is a fox demon, many centuries old. The kitsune of legend can have up to nine tails. It is rare that any fox demon gets more than three tails.

            He has five.

            He has seen a lot, felt a lot, done a lot. He was very promiscuous. Youko, after all, were known for their beauty and seductive ways. I believe… he has only had one true friend in his life before, another demon by the name of Kuronue. Said demon died before his eyes.

            He grew bitter and cold after that. And now, in my head, his voice flares to life, denying that Kuronue meant so much to him. But it's true, he did. Why else would I keep that gem for which he risked his life? Ah, Youko grows silent at that reminder.

            He died. But not truly. He was a thief, the thief. There was not a single demon in the whole of Makai who did not know his name. He was renowned as the one person who could probably break into Koenma's palace and steal something from under his nose.

            He did, but that's not part of this story, now is it?

            But his luck had to run out one day, and it did. Escaping from a heist, he was wounded by a hunter. He escaped, but realised that the injury was fatal. He felt shame and anger then. Shame that a mere hunter could have brought him down, anger both at himself and the hunter. He vowed that it would not be so very easy to destroy him. Gathering up the remnants of his ki, he fled to the Ningenkai.

            Once there, he sought a body without a soul that he could take over. Obviously, this meant that he would need to enter an unborn baby's body. A person only gains a soul when they are born.

            So he did. He entered the first unborn child he came across. He was born some months later, his soul fusing with the body to create an abnormally beautiful creature. A human, to all appearances, and yet, so much infinitely more.

            Do you see where I am going with this, okaa-san? Hatanaka-san, Shuuichi? Do you understand? Youko merged with a baby and was born as Minamino Shuuichi.

            I am Youko Kurama.

            You've heard my friends call me that before. Now you know why. But the story doesn't end there.

            Youko, as I said, grew cold and bitter after Kuronue's untimely death. He had no one to care for, no one to care for him. He saw no point in trivial emotions such as love or affection. Indeed, most demons rarely have place for emotions at all, terming them as weak human characteristics.

            Humans, as you may he able to tell, are not welcome in the Makai.

            And Youko was no different. Indeed, he may have been more embittered than any other demon in the Makai, and with good reason. Initially, he had planned on staying in his human body, maturing as a human would, until his ki reached acceptable levels. Until he was able to fight, and defend himself. Then he would leave, back to the Makai, and exact revenge.

            And then something unexpected happened.

            You did, okaa-san.

            You showed Youko Kurama what it meant to be loved. He had never known a mother's love, or if he had, he had forgotten it. You treated him as your own – though, admittedly, you did so because you believe he was. You were loving and caring and sweet and gentle, and so many things he wasn't, and that surprised him.

            And then he started loving you back.

            Oh, he wasn't supposed to, and he was terrified when he found out. But he couldn't help it. He started caring for you too. He tried to stop, tried to find all your bad points. But as he pointed them out as cruelly as he could, you merely smiled and tried to change, for him.

            For me.

            He fell, hopelessly and hard. He fell in love with you, though in an entirely platonic sense. He'd never known this kind of devotion before, and if I'm honest, it scared him. It scared me. But we both knew that we would do anything for you, die if we must.

            And we did.

            Do you remember, okaa-san, when you were so terribly ill? You were in hospital, delirious and sick, and the doctors were sure you would die? And then the next day, you were well again, the doctors termed it a miracle and sent you back home.

            I stole the Mirror of Utter Dark when I knew that you would die. It's an ancient Reikai artefact, one that can grant any wish of the user – at the cost of the user's life. It would literally drain my soul away.

            I knew that, but I chose to go ahead with my plan in order to save you.

            I stole the Mirror, as I said, and then I came to your hospital room. Yuusuke was already a Reikai Tantei by then, and he had tried to stop me. I told him that he could retrieve the Mirror after I used it to heal you.

            He was confused, but I left without explaining further.

            He came after me, though, and that I did not expect. I turned the Mirror to you, told it that I wished for your happiness, reiterated that I knew the price for my wish. It started to drain my soul away.

            And then Yuusuke came bursting in. He told the Mirror to take half his life and half of mine, so that neither of us would truly die. And the Mirror did so, because that was his wish, and the Mirror's job is to grant wishes.

            So you lived, okaa-san, and so did I and so did Yuusuke. You remember, for the first few days that you came back, I was weaker than you? Now you know why. It took time for my ki to build back up to an acceptable level.

            So you understand what Yuusuke is. A Reikai Tantei. The name itself is self-explanatory. He handles any cases that Koenma sees fit to dump on him.

            Do I like Koenma? Of course not. Neither Kurama nor Shuuichi do. But I do answer to that overgrown toddler for now. It's my payment for having stolen the Mirror. I believe I may have repaid my debt at long last, with my participation in the Tournament. I'll have to check with him and see. I'm sure I can make him see reason if he doesn't want to let me go.

            Because I want to stay in the Ningenkai.

            I want to stay with you, okaa-san.

            I'm sick and tired of getting injured all the time. I've bled more than most people will in a lifetime. I have gotten up after being struck down, time and again, covered in my own blood, so weak I can barely stand, the entire crowd jeering at me, my opponent smirking at me, and there are those times I think I cannot go on, that I will surely die this time – and then I remember your face, and I remember why I cannot die.

            I cannot leave you.

            I want you to at least know who I am. The many layers of my personality. It's hopeless to try and understand me. I don't understand myself. I'm too complex, too difficult to work out. There are only two people who have gotten close. One is dead. The other is Hiei. The fire demon and I have a lot in common, more than we believed at first.

            Yes, okaa-san, Hiei is a fire demon. He's a few centuries old, but not as old as I am. Truthfully, his heritage is quite a tangled web of pain and heartache, but that is his story to tell, not mine. And it has nothing to do with what I say now.

            Okaa-san. Hatanaka-san. Shuuichi.

            What I am trying to tell you is that I care now. I feel now. I love all of you, and I don't want to give that up. But I also care for my friends, and if they are in danger, I will go to them. I will not give them up. There are demons aplenty who would love to kill them. Kuwabara, because they believe a mere human should not be allowed to wield such great ki powers. Yuusuke, because of grudges and because he is Demon Lord. Hiei, because of grudges, once again, and because he is heir to a third of the Makai.

            I will not allow any of them to die.

            And I suppose that is what finally spurred me to tell you the truth. I fought a demon recently, one that was trying to kill Hiei. He could have defeated it, but we were in the Ningenkai, and he couldn't risk using one of his Darkness Flame attacks. We were in the park, so it was child's play for me to finish him off without any humans seeing.

            My powers? Let's just say plants and I are old friends. But that's neither here nor there.

            I realised then, okaa-san, that it's very possible I die soon. I don't want to. I have far too much to live for now, here in the Ningenkai. But feelings aside, it's entirely possible I die very soon. And so I wanted you to know about me.

            I have always been afraid to tell you, okaa-san. I have always been afraid of what your reaction might be. There are few stories which cast demons in a favourable light, and truthfully, most demons do not deserve to be. Most live for killing.

            I don't, not any more.

            I have always been afraid that you would see the blood on my hands, the people I've killed. They may have been demons, but they were living creatures. I have blinded and crippled as many as I have killed, and to some, that is a worse fate than death. I left them crippled deliberately, knowing that I had destroyed their spirit, and somehow, that was better than killing them.

            I have always been afraid that you would hate me for taking away the son you could have had. The Shuuichi that would have been had I not stolen his body.

            I have always been afraid of many things, okaa-san, but I have always been most afraid that you would stop loving me.

            Because if you did, my heart would break, and my human body would die. And my spirit would be released, as the Youko. I would return to the Makai.

            But I would have to leave you. And that hurts, okaa-san, it hurts.

            Do you understand?

            No… how could you?

            It's a lot to take in, isn't it? I'll leave you here, I suppose. Think about what I've said. All of it is truth.

            … Look at me, Hatanaka-san, and say that I am joking.

            I suppose I should be glad that you, for the most part, held true to your promise not to say anything while I talked. While I bared my soul to you. But if this is what it takes to make you understand – on full and sickle-moons, I transform into the Youko.

            It is a sickle-moon tonight.

            I have held back the transformation thus far. No longer. I will show you how I transform, what I truly am.

            The light from the moon hits me as I push the curtains aside. Liquid silver, washing over my body, and I feel the familiar thrashing of my ki as the fox in me struggles out. My hair lengthens and turns silver. My ears elongate and grow fur, migrating up the side of my head. Fox ears. My clothes have changed into my traditional white outfit, my silver tail waving gently behind me. When I turn back to look at you, it is with sharp, cold, golden eyes.

            You look surprised, Hatanaka, I note, in a voice that is certainly not what you are used to. It is a deep, low rumble this time, sultry and menacing all at once.

            You flinched, okaa-san.

            I understand. I stole your son from you, and it will be hard for you to accept me. I understand if you hate me. Your happiness is all I have ever desired, Shiori, and if it will make you happy never to set eyes on me again, I will leave. I will discard the human shell of Minamino Shuuichi, and I will flee to the Makai.

            I will never truly live again, but I will make you happy.

            And that is all that matters to me.

~owari

.:does it matter if you are golden or silver?

                        you will tarnish in either case:.