D A M N A T I O N ?

A Hunter x Hunter fanfic co-authored with fellow forum member and special title holder: Azile

Disclaimer: Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho are copyrighted by Yoshihiro Togashi, Shounen Jump Weekly, Shueisha and Nippon Animation

Author's Note: Azile came up with the idea for this fanfic. Even though I was the one who penned the words, Azile's contribution, in terms of ideas, phrases and scenes, was substantial. Her inspirations and ideas came to her after reading "Salvation". If anyone wishes to dispute the content of the fic, please do so at my forum: and start a thread under "Fanfic Discussion". I do not particularly care for your opinions about our ideas on religion but feel that even though we have put this disclaimer, discussion about our lack of faith is inevitable, hence if you do want to rant, please do so at the forum instead. However, the review board is open to comments on whether you believe that our portrayal of the Hunter characters is accurate or not.

Author's Notes 2: Few have complained about the OOCness of Yomi's character. I will not seek to argue that he's remotely in character, only that I ask, as I am inexperienced in this genre, whether such distortions of character are acceptable for the purposes of humour. I have generally come to accept that OOCness has the potential to arouse mighty laughs, as I have had such experience, but perhaps the OOCness has failed on the point of amusement this time, or has this only been pointed out to be for and only for the sake of criticism? If it's unfunny, I welcome any suggestions on how I could have managed the 'humour' aspect of my fanfic with more skill.

As for Azile, she is an original character in her own right, for although the real-life Azile is at times Bitchy, I believe that the Azile in the fanfic is one-dimensionally bitchy and it encompasses her entire character. It's perhaps a parody of the co-author herself, and so derivation of her character forms the OC Azile. Does the fact that Azile is an OC bother you, or give you some other cause of concern, DW-chan?

I have spoken with Azile on the phone last night concerning the problems over Killua's character. I am guilty of formalism, but after a lengthy discussion, we do not believe that Killua is prattling against religion, as you so put it. Maybe that's the way it came out, in which case I would be at fault, but we found plenty of other reasons in the text, and in the context of the scene, to suggest that Killua is not prattling against religion so much as he is trying to demolish everything that Yomi stands for, as Yomi pissed him off. We are under the impression that Killua would twist people's words and mock their ideas because of his brattish nature and arrogance in his intelligence. In some respects, I had wanted to make Killua appear boastful and generally brattish. I conceded to Azile in our discussion that more description of facial expression and tone of voice was necessary in order to show that Killua was being outrageous and outlandish with his last speech. We hypothesized that if I had added a growing, smug, 'mischievous' tinge to Killua's voice, playful and narrowed catlike eyes, and an increasingly bewildered expression on Yomi's face, they would have better conveyed the precedence of mocking such ideas over the prattle against said ideas. After my exams are finished, I will experiment and rework Chapter Three first by reducing the formalism and adding in more description. Culling the content of Killua's speech will be a last resort, if the edited chapter still does not communicate what we intend to express.

On the subject of the 'needless' appearance of Hisoka and Illumi, I submit that you cannot ignore the spark that set the powder keg off. Furthermore, Illumi's growing dislike for Geezus' rant and the fashion of the ranting was to yet again prove another point – that the condemning nature, narrow-minded vision of the Cult is uncalled for. You accuse me of extravagantly depicting the crowd as well, and I felt that comment was unfair. Many a left-wing socialist rallies that I've witnessed display more tendencies to commit violence and vandalism than said crowd in the previous chapter. Believe you me, only the slightest assertion that they're wrong in their ideas is enough to set off the shouting, fist shaking, and push and shove is only too common and acceptable. We could put it down to a difference in culture, for I am also well aware that protestors in Hong Kong do not clash with police with the same ferocity and frequency as Australian protestors.

As for Kurapika's character, we wonder whether it is a good idea to pigeon hole a human being as "relentlessly calculating" at one stage in time and "a walking ice box" at another stage in time. If personality and character is flexible and fluid, then we find it too stringent to impose only one type of behaviour onto a character merely because of a time frame that includes certain events. Granted, certain events may have impact on Kurapika, but we don't believe that deprives him of the ability to react differently, so long as that reaction is still within his capacity. Or maybe you were trying to say something else and we've misunderstood. Please feel free to extend on what you were trying to say.

Summary: Yomi is pestered by his personal secretary, Azile, to masquerade as Geezus Krist and go to Ningenkai to gauge the reactions of the Hunter characters to his preachings.

Chapter: 4 / 4

Yomi self consciously preened himself, smoothed his beard, straightened his crumpled robes and steeled himself with the determination that he was going to be able to convert the youngest and most naïve of the four people Azile had assigned him to evangelize to. Gon's stubborn streak, as reported in Azile's databanks, was the greatest challenge to be hurdled if he was to succeed in his endeavour. Gon broke into an exuberant greeting before them.

"Hey Killua, who are you talking to?"

His white haired friend fought to keep his face composed, although a shudder of humour managed to seep into his voice. "Gon, meet Geezus. Geezus, Gon."

Gon stuck out his hand and fully looked into the fake eyes of the rubber mask. Yomi shook the hand and felt a wave of calm wash over him. Unlike Killua, who subtly sent the fear of all that was mutilated and pointy into him, Gon's aura had a reassuring effect. It made the smile come easier to his face. It made him relax without effort or exertion. He could breathe more deeply and smell the tingling fragrance of newly cut grass. The hypnotic sound of his mortal heartbeat in his ears faded and he could hear the murmur of the wind, the twitter of the birds in the trees and the steady hum of the crowd two hundred meters up the road in the shopping complex again.

"I saw you guys talking! Can I join in?"

Killua snorted, then pretended that he had only choked on some pollen and weakly hid his impishness behind some dry hacking coughs. However, the malicious twinkle in his eyes could not conceal the triumph of his masterful oratory, that had taken wicked delight in deconstructing everything Geezus tried to propose and stand for, so he found a piece of cloud in the sky to concentrate on.

"Oh, it wasn't much Gon," unless you take delight in twisting someone's words and making them look utterly stupid, Killua giggled in his mind, "just some chit chat."

Yomi went to the ice-cream van and bought two more cones – another one for Killua to shut him up and not blow his cover, and the other to win Gon's trust. Seeing that Killua accepted the ice-cream without any qualms, Gon freely followed suit and on Geezus' beckoning, sat down. Whilst Killua tore away at the paper wrapping and effectively tuned out, Yomi turned the full brunt of his charisma and charm on the youngest boy.

"So, Gon, how's your day been?"

Gon meticulously removed his paper wrapper and scrunched up the rubbish, placing it into his pocket so that he could find a bin to properly dispose of later. He took a small bite, testing to see if the taste was agreeable, before breaking out into another smile.

"Good. Killua and I were going to meet Leorio for afternoon tea, and Kurapika as well, if he can make it, you know, he's a mafia bodyguard and all and is very busy."

"Don't you like Kurapika being a mafia bodyguard?" Yomi said serenely, with all the world's empathy and understanding. Killua snorted more pollen, declared that he was suffering from hay fever, and offered to find a bin for Gon's ice-cream wrapper. He scrambled away before the bubbles of laughter bust from his lungs and decided that he should find a bin quite far away.

"Well, I suppose he's old enough to decide what he wants to do with his life. I could say that I worry about the danger he gets caught up in, because all mafia bosses have nen users as their bodyguards, but I guess I put myself in the path of danger all the time too!"

It was like groping in the dark for the light switch, or drowning in the ocean and reaching for the life saver. He had found a way to make a beeline straight into Gon's simple psyche. "Would you like to see Kurapika stop being a bodyguard then?"

Gon licked the front of his teeth clean before he replied, so that Geezus didn't have to put up with the sight of bits of waffle cone wedged between the cracks of his teeth. "I don't know. I would hate to make him do something he didn't want to do though."

"Gon, my son, you can introduce my grandfather the lawd to him."

"The lawd? Who's he?"

"The ageless. The almighty. The one who sees all. He has the power to make all your dreams come true."

Gon laughed, hastily covered his mouth as he unwittingly sent droplets of icecream sailing through the air which then splattered onto Geezus' worn and dirty robes. That made Gon feel a bit better – at least Geezus didn't have to go out of his way just to get rid of the mess he made.

"That sounds like that genie in the story Aunt Mito used to read to me when I was two."

Yomi could almost taste the sweetness of victory on the tip of his tongue. "Would you like to know gawd then? If you pray to him, accept I Geezus Krist as your lawd and saviour, worship only me and my grandfather, we can help your friend."

Gon leaned forward and said quietly, "Are you all right, Geezus?"

Yomi blinked. "Whatever do you mean?" Sure, he had been king hit, rabbit punched and then assaulted by a savage crowd baying for his blood, but as an S class youkai, he managed to recover from it quite quickly and was adamant that no traces of injury could be perceived from his actions.

"I mean," Gon continued in low, hushed tones, "that you don't believe my Aunt Mito's stories, do you? I grew out of them when I was four, and that's slow compared to all the other children on Whale Island."

"Gon," Yomi said, once again taking the authoritative and patronizing attitude, reflected in the generously patient breathy way in which he expelled Gon's name, "it's all very real, I assure you. You see Gon, we are all gawd's children."

"My mum died when I was born and my dad's called Gin."

"Ah, I meant to say that we humans are the creation of my grandfather. He created us in seventeen days, and it all started with Adonis and Eave in Nellie's backyard."

Gon furrowed his brows. "Geezus-san, we evolved from monkeys!" To demonstrate, Gon touched his thumb with the forefinger on the same hand, repeatedly for greater emphasis. "No other animal can do this, except for monkeys. And see how they look like us? See how intelligent they are? Have you seen their bone structure? It's all quite similar to us!"

"No my dear child, gawd made Eave by taking the funny bone from Adonis – "

"You need a male and a female to get a baby. You can't make babies from funny bones."

Yomi breathed in deeply and counted slowly to five. "Gawd created the universe, ok? Just stop rebutting and learn to believe it instead of asking so many questions and trying to think for yourself."

Gon's eyes lit up. "Wow! Can you tell gawd to make dinosaurs again? I've read in books that they're huge." Gon stretched his arms out on either side of him to the fullest and puffed his chest. "Huge. The ground shook when they walked, and the biggest ones were vegetarians with really really big bodies and small heads and brains the size of a walnut. They liked to stay in water, because the water's buoyancy puts less of their weight on their legs. Smart creatures aren't they, even if they have such a tiny brain?"

The words "Dead End" flashed like dying street lamps inside his head. Yomi realized he had to change his approach before Gon formalized that he was just another crackpot spouting garbage that even a stray cat would find worthless. Time to turn back and manipulate his concern for his friends.

"Do you want to help your friend, Gon? Do you want my grandfather the lawd to save your friend?"

Gon scratched his cheek. "Save? How do you mean? Has someone currently targetted Kurapika?"

"I mean Like," Yomi searched for the words and mentally scanned through the script for the corresponding line, "make him happy again."

"Oh no, it's ok," Gon said and politely shook his head, "Kurapika's going to find his own happiness. There's no need to trouble your grandpa."

"It's no trouble at all," Yomi hastened to reassure, giddy with the excitement of imminent success. "Gawd wants to help us all you see, he wants to make us happy, share his love and tell us everything that happens in this world happened because it was his almighty will."

The crooked finger scratching the cheek stopped. Gon struggled to reject the offer and sound polite at the same time for that was what Aunt Mito had taught him. "That wouldn't be good. There are probably plenty more people who need gawd's help than Kurapika. He's a strong person and self reliant. It's ok. I'm sure he won't be mad that gawd didn't help him if there are others who are in greater need."

Yomi spread his arms and made his voice richly resonate. "Gawd is everywhere. He's omnipotent. He can be in two places at one time."

Gon sweat-dropped. "Geezus-san, now you're really pulling my leg. No one can be in two places at once. Except for Castro though - he could materialize a double, but Wing said that was no good because he's Reinforcement and Materialization is very hard for Reinforcement people to do."

"You see! That's what I mean about my grandfather's powers being kickass! He can be in two places at once. He can help more than one person at once. He wants to help your friend, Kurapika, and he also wants to help you too, Gon, and let you know that his love for you is infinite."

"Um….that's nice." Gon started looking around for Killua, but his friend was well out of sight and smell. How did Killua manage to have a long and animated conversation with a man who thought characters from fairy tales existed beleaguered him, as Killua generally scoffed at, and looked down on, people who were silly enough to believe in ghosts and monsters. What's more, Geezus' declaration of love was starting to get a bit out of hand. He seemed to be a bit too enthusiastic about it, which wasn't a bad thing, but Gon surmized that if he didn't go around declaring his love and goodwill for people like that, it was strange for others to do so. "I better go and find Killua now, so –"

"Oh sit down." Yomi tugged hard at Gon's sleeve, yanking the boy back onto his backside. "Killua's gone to give us a moment together. Now, I want to talk about your life."

Gon obediently quieted down and put his hands into his lap, now curious as to what Geezus had to say about his life, or more importantly, "Why?"

"Because I want to help you understand why it is that unlike all the other children in the world, your mum died when you were a baby and your father left you with your aunt."

"What's there to understand, Geezus?"

Yomi was back in his comfort zone again and he was back on track with the script. "Well, aren't you upset that you never had a mother's love or a father's care whilst all the other children around you had the comfort of having two parents to dote on them?"

"Aunt Mito and Grandma look after me fine. They raised me up to be a healthy boy with good manners!"

"Don't you feel that it's unfair everyone has a mum and dad and all you had is an aunt and a stuffy old grandma?"

"It's not who they are that matters; it's how much they love me that's important. I could be an orphan in an orphanage, but if I had the love of my friends and the people who looked after me, I would be just as happy."

Now that was the answer Yomi least expected. Where the hell was the kicking and screaming and the devastating tantrum of being different from everyone and not having what everyone else had? Yomi felt his mouth turn dry and his mind, taken completely off guard for a second, had been a total white blank.

Then the script resurfaced and though he stumbled, found his footing again. It was time to cast aside suggestive language and use assertive language. It was time to use the YOU(TM) again.

"I feel all this pain in you, pain that you try so hard to suppress. Let it out. Tell me it's hurting you – I understand, because I am Geezus Krist your lawd saviour who has come to heal your wounds and provide a comforting shoulder for you to lean on."

Gon thought it was rude to oogle, so he settled for pensively pursing his lips and worrying his brows until it resembled one long caterpillar resting on his brow.

"Aunt Mito and Grandma are family to me. You're not saying they did a bad job are you, because you're never met them and it's a rude suggestion to make."

"I would never mean it like that. But Gon, tell me, didn't you ever wish your father was there when all the other children had their fathers to hang around? Aren't you angry with your father and felt a loss, an emptiness, a void in you that couldn't be filled no matter what?"

Gon blandly shook his head. "I won't deny that Whale Island can be a lonely place, but I was never angry at Gin. It never occurred to me to be angry, because I guess I knew that there was something he had to do that was so…great…that it was more important than raising me. I mean, he knew Aunt Mito was going to do her very best to look after me, so it's not like he was totally irresponsible or anything."

"Will it make you feel better to know that your mother is now with gawd in a beautiful place?"

"My mother is buried near the bend in the river, where I usually fish. But yeah - it's a pretty nice place."

There was not a trace of anguish in his voice, no hurt or sadness. Yomi had always been intrigued by human mortality and the brevity with which their lives began and concluded, or humanity's myriad of ways of dealing with death. Yomi discarded his Geezus façade and directly asked,

"Gon, do you fear death?"

"No. I grew up in the forests and saw animals kill and each other for food and fight each other for territory to stay alive. We're part of the big food chain, maybe we're at the top, but I never believed that I would live forever. I don't fear death. Death is just another part of nature, and I will never see the brighter colours of this world if I become obsessed about death and what may lie beyond when there is just so much for me to do in this world."

"Well Gon, Death is the end. Do you know what happens after the end?"

Gon laughed. "I become part of the soil and absorbed by nature and be one with the earth again – just like everything else."

Yomi casually leaned forward on one hand and unobtrusively bore down on Gon. "Don't you want to believe that there's a beautiful place, a paradise, where you can be reunited with your mother?"

Gon shrugged and did his best to appear apologetic. "Not really, because that doesn't happen. And besides, I don't need it. I don't need to be told that I am going to live forever in paradise, because like Gin, I want to live on in the memories of others for the things I've contributed to the world. This world is paradise enough for me and contains all the adventures I can go on."

Yomi's voice was driven by an unwholesome intensity. "What I mean is don't you want that to happen?"

"The laws of nature are not something you can change just because you want it to." Again, Gon threw in an apologetic half laugh so that Geezus wouldn't be offended that he wasn't agreeing with everything that he said.

"But you can change it!" Yomi urged, "you just have to believe and have faith"

The smile dropped from Gon's face, but although it was serious, it wasn't intimidating in any way. "I'm afraid the world is not like that and no matter how much I want to believe otherwise that still won't change anything. It's not right. Why do you want so much for me to wish for something that's not real anyway?"

"I only wanted you to believe in Krist and accept him as your lawd and saviour because you needed him. I saw that you were hurt, and I saw you have no father and your mother died before you got to know her. I wanted to help by sharing the love of Krist with you so you could feel like you were part of a family. What's so wrong with that?"

Grey puffs of smoke shot out of Gon's ears every time he applied his brain and attempted to seriously think. He felt that Geezus was genuine enough in his sincerity to help, but as much as he appreciated the concern, his resolution in the truth would not allow him to compromise. And so he told Geezus: "Because the reality is that my mother died when she gave birth to me, and the reality is that Gin is somewhere out there contributing his skills for the good of the world. I don't need to know that she's happy in paradise because I treat Aunt Mito as my mum. I don't need to know that Gawd will love me even if Gin has never been in my life because I know he thinks of me. He left me this box and tape and trained me to be a stronger person by creating Greed Island. I have the bestest friend in the whole world. What more do I need?

"And besides, Aunt Mito says we shouldn't lie no matter what," Gon said sounding exceedingly reasonable. "You shouldn't lie and keep on lying to make people feel better. We have to accept that there are problems in life that we have to work through, not to be reassured and ignored by being told happy stories we want to hear. You aren't helping. You're just trying to numb the pain but not treat the wound."

Gon stopped and dutifully waited to allow Geezus to reply and have his say. But Yomi was a stunned mullet and the white flash of mental blank was now an extended daylight in his mind. There was no colour, no images and no noise, just empty white space that he found himself floating in. Perhaps this was the space he inhabited when he was still in his mother's womb – his mind a white sheet, a clean slate, the world before he knew what it was to perceive shapes, colours and sounds. Gon's words reminded him of everyone's origin, of everyone's beginnings and of the origins and mechanisms of life. Nature never proposed to make our lives more complicated – youkai used to live for next day's fight. It was only when he contested for dominion of Makai that he broke with the nomadic youkai traditions, constructed a fortress and attempted to structure and organize youkai society and give youkais another purpose to life other than the brutal instinct of fighting, raping and killing.

In the beginning, the world proposed that we could live, grow old and then die. And in the middle, humans grew big-headed, convinced themselves that they were special and could be freed from this simple proposition. And some of them drew great and elaborate stories to reassure themselves of their self-perceived superiority to transcend the incredibly simple equations of life. Whatever they couldn't understand, they spun great tales of fantastic beings to answer. Then, they forgot that those were only tales used as a substitute for problems later answered by scientists. Other humans on the other side of the globe never departed from the truth of the world, acknowledged it, and hence wrote incredibly short works, one only eighty one stanzas long, which have not only endured the test of time, but remain as tailor-made to modern humanity as it worked for primitive societies thousands of years ago.

Gon didn't know what to think of Geezus' blank expression. He couldn't tell whether the man was sad or coldly angry. It was impossible to tell whether he accepted what he had said or not. He cautiously reached out and patted the older man on the shoulder, an ambiguous act of consolation or merely to extract Geezus' attention. When Geezus remained impassive, Gon tentatively finished his explanations.

"Coming up with imaginary figures and making them love us isn't help. You give people false hope and ideas that there is this place after death where we will all be together again, but that only makes us more blind to the realities around us. Death and life are part of the cycle of nature. We should see it as beautiful, not something to be afraid of and then to make up stories about it to make feel less afraidr.

"Don't you think we should be looking for the truth ourselves, and not be looking for the person who can tell us the truth? We should not be longing for something that we don't have and that exists in another world after we die, but to treasure the things that we do have now and to find an even greater beauty in it for what it is, not by comparing it to something else that we can only build in our imaginations.

"I don't want to be told what I want to hear. I want to discover the realities and truths of this world on my own and interpret them as I choose. If people made things up to make themselves feel better every time they were scared or were confronted with a question they could not answer, we as humanity would never progress and we would never move forward and learn more things and discover new things.

"I don't want my world to be built on lies and other made up things. It might be nice to dream of Nellie's backyard and what this world is lacking, because sometimes there are flaws, but if this world lacks the beauty and perfection, why not try to uncover the perfection that already exists around us? Isn't that a more better and enriching life, Geezus-san?"

Yomi groaned. There were sick and dying men who sounded more alive and healthier than him at the moment. He palmed his forehead and fell flat onto his back. "This is useless," he said aloud in one explosive breath, "totally useless and pathetic. I'm being lectured to about the meaning of life by a gawddamn eleven year old. For goodness sakes Gon, wasn't there just one time, one time in your life where you were unsure and had to find something to believe in? Come on. You're human. You have your failings and insecurities."

"I do. But sitting around relying on a genie from picture books isn't going to help me, is it?"

Yomi kicked, like a three year old in the throes of a tantrum. "Bloody never-say-die optimist aren't you?"

"That's how some people describe me! You should try it too Geezus, and stop looking to gawd and paradise when you are when life is a bit down and not the way you'd like it to go. We should be thriving on what we do know and trying to build up the courage to find the answers to the things that we don't know. We cannot live our lives by fear, Geezus-san, and we cannot allay those fears using unrealistic stories. Humans weren't endowed with imagination and creativity just so we can hide in it because the world is not the most perfect place sometimes. We have been given the gift of intelligence to explore the problems and find solutions to them! You should be encouraging people to garner the strength to find the answers and to discover the truth and experience reality.

"Having your head stuck in the clouds because you think what we have on this world is not good enough is a waste of life really. Reality may hurt us sometimes, Geezus-san, you see people kill other people, you see death and you see other people crying, but running away into our own little made-up worlds or looking for over simplistic explanations will never be the answer because the world and reality is a complicated place. You want to encourage people to live without needing to look to anyone to approve every move and act they take. You want people to go out and seek love, by doing good things, by being good people because that's the right thing to do, not merely because they believe in you and do as you say – "

Yomi suddenly bolted upright. He heard the approach of three people, two with footfalls he's heard before. If they belonged to Killua and Kurapika, he deduced that the mysterious third stranger could be no other than Leorio. He grimaced as he heard Leorio chuckle.

"Well well, what have we here? Still trying to preach your rubbish stories to us, Krist?"

"Didn't I tell you that pushing your belief in other people's faces was an unconscionable thing to do?" Kurapika asked.

Killua smirked. "I take it Gon has left you speechless."

"To hell with it all," Yomi grumbled. He took a hold of the damnable rubber mask and ripped it off, false beard and fake eyes and all and celebrated as his skin was instantly cooled by the refreshing breeze that was lazily blowing in the park. He switched off the holographic device that was attached to his shoulder strap and his six ears and seven horns blurred into life.

The four Hunter characters collectively gasped and took one step back.

"I've had enough of this ridiculous bullshit. I'm not going to put up with that stupid rubber oven for a minute longer. What? Never seen a demon before?" he hissed.

Kurapika glanced at his compatriots, all of whom exhibited similar degrees of shock and opened their mouths to a considerable size, although in Gon's case, it was rapidly waning and was being replaced by great fascination that would like to hold Geezus' head in his hands and examine exactly what miracle of nature graced the demon with so many pointy ears.

"My name is Yomi. I'm Overlord of Makai – it's another dimension where demons live. And no, before you ask, you may not follow me there, and I'm not your zoo animal, so stop gawking at me!"

"How can you see?" Leorio asked, amazement erasing the lines on his tired face. "I mean…do you have eyeballs elsewhere that I don't know about?"

"My eyeballs were cut from me over a thousand years ago. I fight by using my sixth sense and sound and smell."

"You mean you're more of a dog than Gon?!" Killua exclaimed.

"I am offended by your simile, but yes, my other senses have all bee tuned to their finest ever since I lost my sight." Yomi stood up, stretched and also dramatically tore aside his ruined robe, showing his smart and well cut Gundara uniform underneath. The tailcoats billowed with another gust of wind and his hair rode the air waves. He clapped his hands free of dirt and cleared his throat, acting every inch the leader of Makai commanding the attention of his insubordinates.

"Now, I would like to apologize for disrupting your day. You see, this whole stint was the product of extortion. My personal secretary, who I fantasize about as a mutilated corpse dangling above a pack of ravenous, starving dogs, has pictures of me from one of my general's bachelor parties."

"Fascinating!" Kurapika remarked, enthusiastically thumbing his chin, "you have generals and military rankings of an organized army so I presume you understand the concept of large-scale, organized warfare. You also have 'bachelor parties' and presumably marriage – it's clearly human cultural influence! Tell me! Do you someone get media from earth transmitted to your dimension? I see you have superior technology – observe that small black antennae that is attached to your shoulder strap. Was this responsible for your impeccable façade?"

Yomi shook his head and pretended he didn't hear that. "So here I was, pretending to be Geezus Krist spreading the word of Kristianity. It was Azile's experiment to see if I could…"

Leorio cocked an eyebrow and settled his glasses more firmly on his nose. "Brainwash us?" he drawled.

Yomi shrugged and curtly nodded. "More or less. There was a detraction halfway through the experiment. I evangelized to some nutcase called…Hisoka and this guy with a very musical voice. His name escapes me…"

Gon and Killua shared a look. "Illumi?" Killua took a stab in the dark.

"Ah! That's right. That's him. He didn't take to Dialogue D so well and some loudmouth suddenly urged the crowd to try to lynch me and throw spikey, smelly fruit at me. Anyway, I found you two kids, gave it my best shot and spectacularly failed."

"So what will Azile do with your photos then?"

"Don't worry Gon. You see, you taught me something very simple today. We should be proactive and deal with our problems. I've lived under her constant annoying threat of going to the Gundara Times – "

"Fascinating! They have the concept of independent media!"

"– and I think I've finally got my answers. In fact, Azile has given it to me with both hands, imagine that!"

"She has?" the four echoed. Yomi held up his hands again and asked for quiet.

"We youkai are very simple creatures – unlike humans, who like to weave complex webs of relationships and hierarchy for yourselves. Goodness, we'd be in chaos if we tried to introduce the ballot and parliament. Instead, what we havein Makai is the good old fashioned winner and loser. I am powerful. I am the winner. I get to tell weaklings what to do, what to say, where to go and when they can go, just like the Cult of Kristianity dictates to people. I'm going to go straight back to Makai, give my lackeys a show of awesome force, then arbitrarily burn down the headquarters of Gundara Times and keep an iron fist on independent media for the next two hundred years or so to remind them the consequences of even thinking about laughing at their boss."

"You mean re-establish an autocratic dictatorship?"

Yomi nastily grinned, and everyone felt their shadows fleeing for cover. "Exactly."

"I can't believe Gon gave you that inspiration," Killua muttered.

"Oh, he did, you bet he did. Gentlemen, boys, now you understand why some whacky looney approached you today. Don't let any other nutcase tell you that what happened today was gawd's plan to reveal to you some even more authoritarian regime that he thinks he's got planned for you in the afterlife. This happened because somewhere, in another dimension you'd have never envisaged even in a drug-induced vision, a demon was feeling bitchy, extorted her theoretical superior to don on a stupid costume, and decide to take up a few minutes of your time today. And now, with Gon's wonderful exhortations to stay away from retreating to our imagination to block out the unpleasantries of life, my life, I will be heading off home to throw out the trash that I should have done five decades ago."

Leorio hesitated, but managed to ask, "What will you do to Azile?"

"I've always wanted to stick her head on a pike and wave it on my battlements to enforce the idea that I'm the invincible Overlord of Greater Makai. Now, I must be off. Carry on with your day. Feel free to forget that I, the Overlord of Makai, ever came to you in a rubber mask and white robes preaching hate, intolerance and preying on your vulnerabilities. That, my temporary acquaintances, had to be the biggest and most shameful stain of my life."

And with that, Yomi was gone in a flash, leaving the four Hunter characters to scratch their heads as they stared at the remnants of the decimated rubber mask and shreds of white robe discarded uncaringly on the grass.

"Gon, exactly what did you say to Geezus?"

"I didn't tell him to kill people and set fire to buildings! Honest!"

Yomi tore down half of his massive private quarters at Gundara to hunt down Azile and kill her. The unceasing lightening that flicked in the Makai sky paled in comparison to his youki that was unleashed at full fury and licked the lining of the clouds. The entire Gundara was rocked to its very foundations, and a spear of cold ice struck the hearts of all youkai as they trembled in the face of Yomi's show of awesome force. Before Azile slipped from his grasp, he smelt real fear exuding from her sweat and had perhaps deliberately allowed her to escape. He wanted her to live with the constant fear that he was relentlessly searching for her to hunt her down like a cornered rat. He hoped that she wouldn't be able to sleep for the next few decades, afraid of her own shadow, jumping at the slightest sounds of the secret assassins that he will send after her. He anticipated that in a hundred year's time, he will have her head stuck on that pike that he could wave on the battlements.

As for Gundara Times, Yomi replaced the head editor, installed a compliant and submissive puppet and forgot that said compromising pictures of him ever existed.

And besides – he probably looked good in those pictures anyway, and could easily make the centrefold of any female targeted magazine.

Yomi sat in his black leather executive armchair with the latest edition of Gundara Times and smiled with content.

Life was good.

Author's Notes End: And so this fanfic finally comes to its last chapter. Much has been said, but evidently not a lot absorbed, especially by a pretentious, self-righteous lot whose essence is the pure distillation of hypocrisy yet disclaim it. "I will stop judging, but you are a sinner nonetheless" – how trite, what rubbish, filthy hypocrisy. The fanfic was all about capturing this type of behaviour, ridiculing yet, demeaning it, yet it seems to have completely gone over people's heads. If anyone were to ever construct a case that humans do practice selective vision, this fanfic, and the select replies in this review board, would provide ample evidence.

DW-chan, as much as I respect the insightfulness of your review, it does your argument no favours to disown from the Christian faith anyone who doesn't live to your expectations of Christianity. They are clearly Christian, and as pointed out by Cassavar, Beatrice Ang, formerly known as 'passerby' and re-modelled into the highly paradoxical "logic", speaks for the faith yet cannot show us how to lead life of greater happiness and instead coerces us, using fear, to become subjugated to a god who, what I emphatically believe, has anger management problems and quite a lot of sin as compared to my standards. I could continue to put up the defence that it's only the Cult of Kristianity that embodies all these 'negative' and 'corrupt' traits, but what is presented on my review board alone tries to make me look like I'm lying.

Hands down – any god that shakes his fist demanding to be worshipped or else we will be burnt for all eternity rightly deserves to be dismissed, laughed at and ignored. I believe they call these people 'dictators' today with a miserable to non-existent track record on human rights and are consequently hauled off to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. After Beatrice's bout of plagiarism, of sicing her bully of a god on us if we refuse to submit, reminded me of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and has led me to conclude that the current day Communist Ruling Party of China is a more benign and democratic institution than the wonderful Christian faith. I did not want to travel down this path, and have stripped similar content out of Gon's dialogue, but if I'm addressed, and I presume I fall into the category of 'people who support this fanfic', and am asked why I don't want to believe in your Christian god and would write this fanfic, I will honestly give you my answer.

I am atheist in name but I don't deny that there is a lot of philosophy in Chinese Buddhism and Daosim (if anyone can properly separate the difference given how both seem to have borrowed and leached off each other for the past two thousand years) that I can only ardently agree with. Incidentally, they stand in sharp contradistinction with the monolithic nature of any religion which claims to be the one and only one and utilizes fear to cultivate belief. Rather than cloak ourselves with superficial self-importance, for that's the only kind of vibe I've received from these 'good' Christians on my review board, Buddha never tried to assert there was some divine being who created this world and had to be worshiped on penalty of eternal burning, for he rightly stated that humans were just another species in line of the long chain of evolving life-form on this planet. This, over two thousand years before Darwin.

Going back to the monotheistic problem, the idea of compassion that these 'good' Christians practice apparently cannot extend past their exclusive little elitist club, whereas Buddha held all life to be sacred, even those of insects and animals, whilst gung-ho Christians and their Hitler-esque god burnt people at the stake and went to war and killed the most in all living history. Modern day fundamentalists would like to go to the fanfic review board of atheist authors and tell them that they're sinners, send them descriptions of hell by plagiarizing the Bible, then patronizingly and condescendingly treat us as if we're scum and they're fabulous shit. If there has to be only one god in this world, it would be one who truly understands what compassion means, and which is not conditional upon something as fickle and superficial as belief that the false pretender tries to assert is a 'god'. If there has to be one god in this world who wields justice, then it would know how to judge people by character, not their beliefs, and punish deeds, not thoughts, and punish only to teach, not to torture and vent some infantile and immature rage. Is this kind of justice reflected in Beatrice's, I mean, Logic's, portrayal of Christianity? Fuck no. The only kind of justice that I've been shown in Christianity by these dutiful, 'good' Christians, is that 'might makes right' – because god is apparently so goddamn powerful he can do whatever he wants with your soul you see, so if you don't do as he says, not that what you were doing was hurting anyone or wrong in the eyes of half the world, he's going to make you suffer anyway. Gees, if civilized humans are repulsed by that, you wonder exactly what kind of moral fibre this Christian god truly has if it thinks it can kill and torture us for not believing. And then you want to wonder whether such inhuman and vile despots can be overthrown so we can establish a better god who won't throw us to the fiery pits merely because we choose to have our own state of mind. I'd nominate Buddha, but he never let the power get to his head that he could be something more and remained human instead.

If these 'good' Christians on my review board wish to convince me of the existence of their god, show me that crystal of wisdom that will endure the times and will not need to be changed or reinterpreted. As it stands, the Bible, the authority of the Christian faith, is frighteningly fascist and dictatorial on a literal interpretation, brimming with gross hatred, condones violence, hideously sexist against women and embodies the divisive 'them versus us' mentality (for the end product – please observe Logic's review), whereas a liberal interpretation can only be justified on the grounds that the message in the bible would otherwise be inapplicable to modern times.

How pathetic. Your omnipotent and magnanimous god could not see a mere two thousand years into the future to see how humanity will develop hence decree a faith that does not need to undergo metamorphosis in order to remain relevant?! Your god is that short-sighted and weak? Your god has absolutely no clue how to function in a democratic society of diverging values, universal human rights and peaceful-coexistence?

It appears that a great number of human philosophers had more wit, eloquence and intelligence than your false god, the self-same god who has no capacity to judge humans on their character and deeds, only on whether they have faith. Are your god's powers really that limited? Is your god's idea of justice so terribly restricted and short-sighted and has no accord with the modern perception of justice?

Persecute us with your words and condemnations if you must, but judgement lies in the heart of each person, and conscience is who we sleep with at night. Wasting your life by falling for primitive mind control cults is your prerogative – just don't come aknocking on my door and blaming me for having wasted so much of your life and killed so much of your individual thought when one day, you come to realize that our lives are not exalted above animals and that when we die, we merely decay, rot and become part of nature once again. Enlightened are those who understand this simple concept – pitiable are those who are trapped in a diabolical story of fear and retribution. Seek professional help.