Robin Autumn- Okay.
Bar-Ohki- The end. :)
whowhenwhatever- Why does everybody say they're gonna die! I have no idea how many people have said they're gonna die from laughing at my stories! AHHHHH!
C.C.C.- Hyper from lack of sleep, are you serious? Dude, I'd be dead if I didn't sleep. But I was really hyper ALL DAY today because I didn't talk for like, three hours, then I was really hyper and now I'm really hyper again. I was dancing around acting like Shadow more than me... And THAT is scary. And guess what? I wrote the end of this chapter today, so it's really messed up!
Draikitha- You're weird. Trigun's awesome, though.
PicoPicoZufuChan- Yes, I taped that episode of Cowboy Bebop when it was on. MUWAHA! I love it. I watch it, then walk around talking about mushrooms for the next few days until my mother gets pissed and tells me to shut up.
kaida13- I doubt they're eating my brain, cuz I don't have one!
Abanasinia- Ah, yes, of course. I'll take your word for it...
Black Cat- You're weird too....... O.o Don't kill Youko... I need him for my stories.
Shessha's Crazy- I like money, but it killed me.
Mari Youma- That's to be expected, as I think I intended for you to get bad thoughts...
Rei Jaganshi- UPDATE YOUR STORIES! ::cough hack hack cough:: Yes, well, this story is over after this chapter.
xkuroxshinobix- Uh... huh? All right, you're normal too.
-Glad you liked it... Nameless person... Of doom...

CHAPTER EIGHT
Taste the Freaking Rainbow

"So... You mean you have no idea what to do? You, the supposedly 'all-mighty' Koenma?" Yusuke accused.

"No. I don't really have any idea what to do," Koenma replied.

"BRAINSTORM!" Shadow hollered, jumping onto the back of the couch and throwing jelly beans and Skittles up in the air. "TASTE THE FREAKING RAINBOW, DAMMIT!"

"Ow! Shadow! God, I don't want to be showered with jelly beans, dammit!" Koenma snapped, jumping up and picking a few off the couch to throw back at her. They hit her and she gasped and went into a psychotic fit, fell off the couch, and lay on the floor faking a seizure.

"I'm not in the mood for her stupidity..." Koenma muttered.

"What about that other time these two were separated and we met those two tree-huggers? Whatever happened to them?" Hiei said.

"I dunno," Koenma said. "But that's a possibility... If I could ever remember what exactly happened to them... However, if I don't find them, I need more options."

"I s'pose I could do some research... See if there isn't maybe some kind of poison I could make that would--" Youko said.

"Poison?! You're gonna poison yourself?" Eclipse exclaimed, cutting him off. "Isn't that kinda stupid?"

"It wouldn't be deadly, fool!"

"Oh. Damn."

"Excuse me?!"

"I didn't say anything!" Eclipse said innocently.

"Yeah, I bet..."

"What about the way they were separated in the first place? That demon or whatever?" Yusuke said.

"That's a possibility..." Koenma said. "And that would be simplest because we still have him around. I say we go to Reikai now and see what he can do."

"But isn't he evil? I mean, he did it on purpose, didn't he?" Kuwabara pointed out. Koenma shrugged.

"We're very persuasive. If something goes wrong, he'll regret it. If he can fix it in the first place."

"To Reikai!" Shadow exclaimed, jumping up and thrusting her fist into the air. She paraded off, fell down the stairs into the basement, and slammed into a wall. "Ow."

"Stupid..." Youko muttered.

Koenma led the group to the room he was keeping that demon in. They all filed inside. The demon turned around.

"Recognize these two?" Koenma asked, grabbing Kurama and Youko's arms and dragging them forward.

"Yes I do," the demon said, smirking.

"Can you fix what you did to them?"

"I don't know. What did I do?"

"You know what you did. Don't joke around," Koenma snapped. The demon's eyes fell on Shadow.

"Ah, you're that pretty girl that burnt me... The idiot."

"Yes I am. Thank you," Shadow said coldly. "Now fix what you did before I suffocate you with this overly fluffy rabbit I found." She held up a big fluffy white bunny rabbit by the scruff of its neck. The demon laughed.

"You're pathetic."

Hiei snorted. "Can you fix what you did, you fool? Or will I have to kill you?"

"I didn't separate them. I just moved him," the demon said.

"Well can you move his soul from Youko to the human body it was in BEFORE?" Koenma snapped.

"Probably."

"Probably isn't good enough," Kurama said.

"Fine, I can do it, dammit, but what's the benefit for me?"

"We'll talk about that later," Koenma said.

"How about you do it and you get to live?" Hiei threatened.

"Ooh, is that supposed to scare me?"

"Dude, you're a freaking idiot!" Shadow said. "Just fix what you did and we'll all be happy, and we'll leave you the heck alone, and it'll be like nothing ever happened!"

"So naive..."

"KOENMA, I'M GONNA KILL IT!"

Eventually, Koenma decided he'd handle it and only himself and the two forms of Kurama were allowed inside the room with the demon creature. He sent everyone else off to an empty room down the hall to wait.

"If that stupid little freaker doesn't fix it, I'm killing him," Shadow said. Hiei clubbed her in the side of the head.

"You're acting weird. Be normal."

"Oh. What? Right! Hi!"

"I thought she was acting normal..." Yusuke said. "Isn't it normal for a friend to be pissed at some guy who's supposed to be doing something to help their friend but he isn't? Cuz I'm pissed, and if there's something weird about that, I'd like to know."

"... Yeah. That's normal, by your standards, at least. But if you recall, Shadow is not normal by many peoples' standards, so if she's acting normal by your standards, that's weird for her. Normal for her is weird for everyone else. Got it?" Hiei said.

"Um... I think, maybe..."

"Glad to hear it."

"So now, all we can do is sit here and wait, I suppose," Kuwabara said.

"Apparently," Hiei agreed. He sat down, his back against the wall.

"I don't want to wait! I'm worried!" Yusuke said.

"Worried about what?" Shadow asked, skipping past. "They're all capable adults, aren't they?"

"Yeah, that one dude is a capable adult, pretty capable of hurting Kurama," Yusuke snapped. Hiei tripped Shadow as she skipped past and sent her sliding into the wall.

"Koenma can handle it," Hiei said.

"That's what I said, and you yelled at me and tripped me for it," Shadow complained, sulking in the corner.

"I didn't yell," Hiei replied. "How often do I yell at you?"

"VERY."

"How long is it supposed to take?" Eclipse asked, changing the subject.

"How am I supposed to know? It took about two seconds for him to screw the entire thing up last time, so I don't see why it would take much longer than that this time..." Hiei said.

"THEN WHY AREN'T THEY BACK YET?" Yusuke screamed. Koenma walked into the room just then. Alone.

"Well?" everyone prompted.

"Kurama is--"

"DEAD! HE'S DEAD, ISN'T HE?" Shadow screeched. She lunged at Hiei and sobbed into his chest. "Kurama's dead, Hiei! He's dead!"

"Shadow, I don't think that's what Koenma was going to say," Hiei said, trying to pry Shadow away from him.

"But he's dead! And it's all Yusuke's fault!"

"Mine?!" Yusuke yelped, but he was overridden by Koenma.

"Shadow, Kurama's not dead. He's perfectly fine," he said. Shadow froze.

"Seriously?" she said, still hugging Hiei and practically sitting on his lap.

"Seriously. He's just resting. He's back to normal, as far as we can tell."

"AND YOU HAD ME WORRIED!" Shadow accused, glaring at Hiei.

"What? I didn't say anything!"

"How dare you? You had to go and be so pessimistic, saying he was gonna die!" Shadow screamed, jumping up and kicking Hiei's leg.

"Ow! Hey! Back off!" Hiei said, jumping up.

"WHY SHOULD I?"

"BECAUSE I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" he snapped. Dodging Shadow's kicks and punches, he managed to ask Koenma, "Can we go see Kurama?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Really?" Shadow froze. "He's okay?"

"... Didn't I already say he was?" Koenma asked.

"Well let's go then!" Shadow said. She grabbed Eclipse's wrist and dragged her out the door. "Don't worry, Eclipse. I know you were worried sick over your lover, but he's okay, didn't you hear? You can stop crying now!"

"LOVER? CRYING? I'M NOT CRYING, I WASN'T CRYING, AND HE'S NOT MY LOVER!" Eclipse snapped, jerking her wrist out of Shadow's grip and punching her in the side of the head.

"Ow... That's not what Hiei told me..."

"Hiei?! What would Hiei know? What did Hiei say?" Eclipse exclaimed.

"Well, he told me he was talking to Kurama, and the fox accidentally let something slip about you and him, but he made Hiei promise not to tell anyone, then I interrogated Hiei and Hiei accidentally let the same thing slip, but he made me promise not to tell you or Kurama that he knew or that I know. I guess that blows that, though... Cuz now you know I know, but I don't see why you didn't tell me in the first place, being best friends like we are and all..."

"What are you talking about?" Hiei snapped, clubbing Shadow in the head.

"Stop hitting me! You people are so abusive! I feel unloved!"

"Hey guys, you're going the wrong way," Koenma informed them.

"I KNOW!" Shadow snapped, turning and stomping down the hall.

"We're not lovers," Eclipse growled. "And I wasn't crying. That was you. Maybe you're cheating on Hiei."

"What? There wouldn't be any 'cheating on' if I was with Kurama, which I'm not, because I'm not with Hiei in the first place," Shadow said. "I think Hiei and Kurama are having a secret relationship behind our backs."

"WHAT?!" Hiei screamed.

"Well, it is rather suspicious... You two vanishing off into the forest, telling me you're gonna go spar, then coming back shirtless and covered in cuts and bruises..." Shadow said, smirking with her eyes closed as she walked down the hall.

"How do you explain the cuts and bruises you spoke of? What would we be doing that would make us bleed like that other than fighting?" Hiei snapped.

"Hmm... I can think of a few things..." She opened her eyes and focused them on Hiei, still grinning evilly.

"You're sick! You've got a sick mind!"

"She's got a point, though," Yusuke agreed.

At this point, Koenma had long stopped leading and was hanging back a good five feet from his Reikai Tantei team.

"What? You should know, you've gone sparring with us before!" Hiei said.

"Threesome!" Shadow said happily. Yusuke gagged horribly.

"Yes, 'sparring,'" Eclipse said, making quotation marks with her fingers as she said 'sparring.' "They go off and 'spar' in the forest..."

"OKAY, ENOUGH TALKING LIKE THAT! You're making me nauseous," Koenma said. "I personally think Hiei loves Shadow. Yusuke's got a girlfriend, and Youko Kurama had plenty of girlfriends in his time in Makai..."

"Ah, the all-knowing Koenma solves another case," Eclipse said.

"What about Eclipse? I bet Eclipse loves Koenma," Shadow whispered to Hiei. He snorted back laughter.

"What was that?" Eclipse said menacingly.

"Nothing!" the fire demons said in unison.

"I bet it was nothing!"

"Here we are!" Koenma said, grateful for a reason to shut them up before he had more of his capable warriors lying around in recovery. He pushed past everyone and went to the door they were just about to pass. Putting his hand on the handle, he stopped, looking thoughtful. "This is the second time this has happened to Kurama, you know that? He doesn't have very good luck."

"It balances out with his above-average intelligence," Hiei said.

"Ah..." Koenma muttered, pushing open the door.

They all walked inside to find Kurama lying in a king-sized bed in a rather large room, with big windows and fluffy pillows and a big, fancy, expensive TV, and potted plants on the windowsills and perty lace curtains.

"Jeez! He doesn't deserve royal treatment just because he's been through a traumatic experience twice!" Shadow said. "That's not fair!"

"Jealous?" Eclipse asked.

"Yeah! I want my soul sucked out of my body just so I can have a king-sized bed in Reikai and sleep as much as I want and have somebody serve me!"

"You already do sleep as much as you want," Hiei said. "I forget you exist half the time because you're always asleep!"

"Except when she's screaming and parading around the house in a skimpy nurse's uniform," Yusuke said. "Do you forget about her then?"

"No, but the thing about the skimpy uniform isn't very common," Hiei said. Shadow climbed up on Kurama's bed.

"Jeez... Fluffy comfy bed." She lay down next to him. "Well, good night everyone! You can leave now."

"... Shadow... Um..."

"What? This bed's big. He won't even notice I'm here! And if he does, he won't mind," Shadow said cheerfully.

"Get up," Hiei ordered in a semi-whiney 'I'm sick of your abnormalities' tone.

"You're mean," Shadow said, sitting up. "I can be his nurse while he recovers!" She jumped off the bed and spun around 360 degrees, magically changing clothes in a two-second time span and appearing in front of them in her skimpy nurse's uniform Yusuke had spoken of.

"He doesn't want you as a nurse, Shadow. You'd just prolong his recovery," Koenma said.

"You guys are all so mean... No wonder I have to take pills and go to therapy every Tuesday... And Thursday... And Friday... And Monday and Wednesday."

"You don't go to therapy, Shadow," Hiei said.

"I don't? When'd that memo come? Cuz I didn't get it."

Hiei groaned. "You've never gone to therapy, and I can't say that it would help any if you did."

Shadow glared.

"So how do we know he's really back to normal? How do you know that other demon guy didn't just disintegrate Youko and make Shuichi pass out?" Yusuke asked, changing the subject before Shadow could retort.

"Do you know how stupid that sounds?" Kurama asked groggily. He opened his eyes and looked up at them all. "Hello."

"Are you normal?" Shadow and Yusuke asked in unison.

"Yes... As far as I can tell," Kurama said, looking at his hands.

"As far as you can tell?! What's that?" Eclipse yelped.

"What?" Kurama asked, confused.

"Don't confuse him!" Shadow snapped, bopping Eclipse with a rolled-up newspaper. "Or I, as his acting nurse, will have to ban you from his recovery ward!"

"... You're mean," Eclipse pouted, crossing her arms. Shadow grinned, taking a superhero pose.

"I know!"

Kurama chuckled. "Acting nurse?"

"Can't you see?" Shadow asked, standing like a normal person again. "I'm in a nurse's uniform, aren't I?"

"If that's what you call it..."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Have you ever been in a hospital, Shadow?"

"Sure I have! When I got hit by a bus!"

"You weren't in a hospital! You just took pain killers endlessly until I had to make something to kill your addiction!" Kurama snapped.

"I wasn't addicted! I just liked painkillers! They kill the pain! And give you an odd floaty sensation at the same time!"

"You overdosed."

"I did not!"

"You did, Shadow," Hiei added.

"What do you know, Mister I-Grew-Up-In-A-Cave?"

"I didn't grow up in a cave..."

"Can you prove it? I bet you were raised by a pack of bloodthirsty carnivorous mutant HAMSTER DEMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Hang on a second!" Koenma interrupted. "When was it Shadow was addicted to pain killers, and why did nobody inform me? That's a black mark on your record, Shadow."

"YOU'RE ALL-KNOWING, AREN'T YOU? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO KNOW, AREN'T YOU? We shouldn't have to tell you. You always know the bad things," Shadow said. "Yet you seem to never know the good things."

"About who?"

"Me!"

"There is nothing good about you!"

Shadow sniffled fakely. "Now you hurt my feelings..." She went bawling over to Hiei and hugged him, sobbing and bawling on his shoulder.

"My God..." Koenma muttered.

"I thought you were God. Who's your God?" Eclipse asked.

"Eclipse... You're just about as smart as Shadow..." Koenma said.

Now it was Eclipse's turn to fake sniffle. She started bawling and turned to hug Kuwabara, stopped and stared, then bawled even more as she turned to Yusuke, froze, and bawled even more, standing still between them.

"I HAVE NOBODY TO CRY TO!" she wailed. Everyone stared as she ran around in tiny circles bawling and waving her arms in the air. Shadow screamed.

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ATTENTION TO ME!!!"

Hiei rubbed his ear, wincing. "I think I'm deaf."

"Pity," Koenma said dryly.

"I thought they were supposed to be paying attention to me," Kurama muttered, confused.

"That was my understanding," Koenma agreed. "That's why I brought them here, at least."

"Huh."

"Kurama! You're alive! I'm so glad to hear you and see such great news about your recovery!" Shadow said suddenly, completely normal. She lunged at Kurama, stopped dead in mid-air and moved over a few inches so she wouldn't land on top of him, and dropped down to the bed, which she promptly tumbled off and landed on the floor, grabbing an armful of blankets and hugging them with a happy smile while rolling around on the ground.

"Yes... Of course..." Kurama muttered, edging away from that side of the bed slightly.

"So, how are you feeling?" Yusuke asked.

"I'm fine... Just tired."

"Tired?! Really?! How interesting!" Shadow said loudly, popping up on the other side of the bed. Kurama jumped.

"Jeez! God, Shadow, don't do that!"

"YOU'RE GONNA GIVE HIM A HEART ATTACK!" Yusuke screamed, picking up Shadow by her collar and tossing her out the large window with the potted plants on the sill and the perty white lace curtains.

"Yusuke... We're in Reikai, did you forget?" Hiei said.

"Yes, I did," Yusuke said. They all stood silently for a minute before rushing to the window.

"Shadow?! Hellooooooo!" Kuwabara called in his loud, stupid, annoying voice.

"Hello!" Shadow said cheerfully. They looked down to see her hanging off a ledge about five feet down.

"Oh. Shew. We thought you'd fallen into the cloudy eternity below..." Eclipse said. "It wouldn't have been a big loss, but I would have missed laughing at you."

"Gee. Thanks, Eclipse, you evil child. I could just let go now and NOBODY WOULD CARE!" Shadow screamed.

Nobody said anything.

"Oh! So you really wouldn't care! You're a bunch of bums!"

"Shadow, if you let go and fall into the cloudy eternity below, we'll all miss you," Kurama said. Everybody looked at him.

"Hey! You're supposed to be resting!" Shadow said. Kurama blinked, looking from Hiei and the others down to Shadow.

"Oops."

"Get me back in that room or I'll throw YOU into the hellish fires of... the cloudy fluffy perty eternity below," Shadow said in a confused sort of way, like that threat hadn't exactly come out as she'd planned.

"Nice... Stupid," Eclipse said.

"Why... you... If I weren't in this horrid life-or-something-similar-to-death situation, I'd come flying up there and kill you! But I'm just gonna hang from this ledge until somebody proves they care enough to rescue me! Hmph!"

"God. You're pathetic, Shadow," Hiei said. "If you can't tell if your friends care about you just because they put up with you all the time, then you really don't have a very good grasp on reality."

"Re-aal-it-ee... What is this... Re-al-ih-tee you speak of?" Shadow asked in a foreign accent.

"You're stupid."

"I am not!"

"You're just gonna hang there all day, aren't you?" Yusuke asked. Shadow nodded.

"If that's how long it takes for some kind person to rescue me..."

"My God, Shadow, you're so pathetic!" Hiei said.

"Well you're stupid!" she retorted.

"You're braindead."

"You're fat!"

"You're weak, too."

"I am not!"

"Oh, yeah, sure..."

"I'm not! You're mean!"

"I bet I could beat you with my hands tied behind my back and my eyes shut."

"You could not!"

"Wanna prove it?"

"Yeah! I'll prove it right now!" Shadow snapped, flinging herself up through the window and tackling Hiei. They rolled around strangling each other for a while until Shadow suddenly realized she was back inside the room and nobody had rescued her.

"Dammit!"

Hiei snickered.

"Shut up!" Shadow snapped, clubbing him in the side of the head.

"Ow..."

. . .

The next day, Kurama was as good as new and we were all the much happier for it... Or whatever.

Shadow danced down the street behind Kurama, singing.

"Youko's back in hiding, Youko's back in hiding, we are all so haaaappy, ya ya ya ya yaaaaaa ya...!"

"Shut up already, Shadow... Youko isn't hiding, he's just... Not out and about like he was," Kurama said patiently.

"Ya ya ya ya yaaaaaaaa ya...!"

"And if you don't shut up..."

"Ya ya ya ya yaaaaaaaaa YA!"

"He won't be 'not out and about like he was' anymore, and he'll be loose, a raving lunatic pervert chasing after you and trying to get your to sleep with him," Kurama snapped coldly, his patience gone. Shadow silenced instantly and walked like a normal human being.

"Thank you!" the fox sighed.

"No, thank you," Yusuke said to Kurama. "You got her to shut up without using violence."

"Threats work just as well."

"You're all so mean," Shadow sniffled. "I'm gonna go into this psychiatrist's office here and tell them that all my friends are mean and mentally and physically abusive and Youko uses me as his sex slave and he also abuses me in every other way possible... Maybe you'll all get thrown in prison..." She turned off the sidewalk and headed across the street to the psychiatrist's office she'd spoke of.

"Shadow, you idiot!" Hiei called. Too late. Remember the 'Tour de Japan' from my Wolf's Rain crossover fic?

Splat.

Dozens of hundreds of bicyclers went flying by and crushed Shadow into the asphalt. Then came the people in cars and stuff who follow the race, and for some odd reason, a small child on a fat Shetland pony went by too, stomping all over Shadow.

"Well, she's dead," Yusuke said. "Let's go."

The police came later that day and scraped up her remains into a Ziploc bag...

The End.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

YES IT'S THE END DON'T COMPLAIN! OR I'LL CHASE YOU INTO THE MIDDLE OF A BUSY HIGHWAY WITH A CROWBAR AND GET MYSELF HIT BY A SEMI!