I don't own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of it's characters. I only own Mikai and Sotto.

Last chapter of this upload! Please enjoy!

"Mikai!" Yusuke yelled as he watched Mikai walk out of a long hallway and towards him. "You did it!" He cheered as he ran over to her and hit her on the head playfully.

"I know," she said gently. She smiled, and even though it looked okay to the world, Yusuke could see that it was an empty, melancholy smile. "Did you figure out what Rinrei did? I couldn't figure out how she cut me. She never made contact with me." Mikai asked, changing the subject.

"She didn't have too," Hokushin said, cutting in with information. "When her pole hit your clothes when she first attacked you, it placed a sort of homing device on you. So when she called out the name, the device exploded."

"How do you know this?" Mikai asked as she looked at him.

"It's an old demon trick," Hokushin answered. "Some demons use touch but she used her pole."

"Damn," Mikai said in amazement as she looked towards Yusuke. "You're lucky you've got someone smart on your side."

"Really." Yusuke giggled.

"Mother!" Shura called as he ran over to Mikai with Yomi by his side. "Mother you won!" He called out.

"Shura!" Mikai said in a motherly tone as she bent her knees down so she could be at eye level with the smaller demon.

Shura ran over to Mikai and wrapped his arms around her neck. Mikai squeezed Shura gently and let go as he pulled away and looked down towards her stomach, which had a few bloodstains, which soaked through her bandages.

"Does it hurt?" Shura asked.

"Not so much." Mikai giggled. She brushed Shura's black hair out of his face lovingly and smiled. "How are you?"

"Fine."

"Mikai," Yomi said as he walked over in front of Mikai, getting everyone's attention. "Kurama's battle is coming up soon."

"I know." Mikai stood up. "I'll be watching."

"Very good."

"Mother," Shura called as he tugged on Mikai's right arm. "I have something I want to show you."

"Okay hold on." Mikai looked back up at Yusuke, and he watched as the mother like eyes he had just seen disappeared. They became the ones that he had seen the day after her fight with Seme, the blank, empty eyes.

"I'll meet up with you later to watch Touya's battle," she said to Yusuke. "Alright?"

"Sure. I'll be watching it from the room where Chuu is staying." Yusuke smiled.

Mikai was then pulled away by Shura' little arm into the dark hallway where she had just came from. Yusuke watched as she disappeared and Yomi followed, not even moving his head towards Yusuke in some kind of recognition.

Shura led Mikai into a small room where he showed her one of his new moves and told his story of what happened during his fight with his father. After he had finished, Yomi had asked him to leave the room so he could talk to Mikai alone. Shura obeyed, as always, and left the two of them alone.

"What?" Mikai hissed as she crossed her arms.

"How did you find out about the object the Kith placed in you?" Yomi asked.

"Shigure told me." Mikai laughed. "And the only reason I'm telling you who told me is because Shigure's going to die in the fight with Kurama."

"And how do you know that?"

"It's an educated guess," Mikai snarled. "Besides, he told me that he didn't care who I told. But answer me this, did you know about this?"

Yomi sighed. "I knew many things and I knew more then anyone else."

"How dare you!" Mikai yelled. "You bastard! You knew I was in pain and you knew that I was suffering everyday and you did nothing to stop it just so you could rule the Makai?"

"I had one plan but thanks to Yusuke everything has changed," Yomi said as he moved his head away from the younger woman.

"What the hell was that plan?!" Mikai yelled, feeling herself almost becoming hysteric. She couldn't believe that someone could do something like this to someone else for his or her own selfish reasons.

"The original plan was for you to fight Yusuke because both of your powers come from the same source, Raizen. I hoped that by the end of the years that's you'd be stronger then him, and you would kill him. By then the little ball would have been inside of you and the pain after the fight would have overwhelmed you so that you wouldn't be able to rebel against me if you wanted after all of the emotional trauma from killing your friend," Yomi explained. "But when Yusuke promoted the new tournament everything changed. You now had to enter as your own person, representing only yourself instead of a kingdom. So I changed my plans so that you would fight Yusuke, win, and then the pain would drag you down too far to fight me."

"And then what?!" Mikai yelled. "You're doing everything for yourself! You've been fighting this war for so long that you set out plans so that you wouldn't lose when the rules were changed you bastard! You could have done whatever the hell you wanted if you hadn't fucked around with my life and the people I love lives!"

"I wanted to rule the Makai with you," Yomi answered.

"What?"

Yomi walked over to Mikai carefully, and wrapped his arms around her neck. He moved his mouth so that it was near her ear, letting her hear him breath in and out. Mikai shivered, the bit inside of her, Senkai, began to tug at her. She wanted to embrace Yomi back, and tell him that she loved him, but Mikai couldn't.

"Yomi-sama…stop," Mikai whimpered as she tried to remove his embrace. She closed her eyes and pulled away as hard as she could only to open her eyes once more to find that she was in the same position.

Dammit not again! Please not this time! Mikai thought as she began to shiver.

"I wanted to rule the Makai with you. I wanted you by my side as I rule over all three worlds because," Yomi whispered gently. "I love you."

Mikai felt those words hit her deeply, and everything changed within her. All of his motives became clear, and it hit something inside of her hard. She felt herself lose her body, and she changed into the young kitsune buried inside of her.

"Yomi," Senkai whispered as she wrapped her arms around Yomi, gripping the back of his tunic as she pressed her body against his. "Yomi…I…"

"What?" he asked as he laced his fingers through her hair, feeling the hair he used to run his fingers through so many years ago. It still felt the same, almost mocking him, making him think that everything was the same but he couldn't see it, any of it.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "For everything."

Yomi pulled away from the embrace and picked up Senkai's face. She blinked, and looked up to were his eyes used to be and found that she missed looking into them. Yomi pushed his face down towards Senkai's, and their lips met.

Stop it Senkai stop! Mikai called out from inside. He hurt you and you're going to fall right back into his arms? What the hell is wrong with you? Can't you see that Kurama is the one?

Kurama…My Youko. Senkai thought. I spent so much time looking for you…and once I found you…everything was perfect. Here I am now…but I'm not with Kurama…I'm with Yomi.

It's wrong! Mikai yelled. Yomi wants you now that he has power! What happens if he loses everything? Will he throw you away once more? Youko loves you no matter what!

Youko… Senkai thought.

Senkai pulled away from the kiss and looked away from the blind demon. He felt her fingers gently release his tunic, and eventually her hands fell away from him.

"What?" he asked.

"Yomi…" Senkai sniffled. "I'm sorry…I can't"

Senkai ran away from Yomi, opened the door where she had come in as Mikai, and ran down the hallway. She couldn't look at the person she was being so cruel too. She was being ruthless and cold when it came to his feelings and only cared about what she wanted and she hadn't realized that until he said that he loved her. She only clung to Yomi because of what happened in the past, and couldn't see that there was something blocking her from making her own choices.

Mikai.

She was no longer her own person. She was merely a parasite and she was causing Mikai to feel things that she never had before. She knew that Mikai loved Kurama, and that was because of her and as she realized this, she found out that she didn't really love Yomi, but instead she was dragging him along because she missed Youko so much. It was no excuse, but it was the only reason for her actions and the only one she could see as tears ran down her face.

I'm…so sorry. Senkai thought.

Yusuke walked into the screening room where he had promised to meet Mikai. He walked towards the front of the crowd and saw that Chuu was standing there, watching Touya fight.

"Hey Chuu," Yusuke said as he stood next to him. "How's it looking?"

"Fine," the blue haired man answered. "Touya doesn't seem to be having any problems."

"That's good." Yusuke looked around, trying to see if he could find Mikai somewhere in the crowd.

Damn where the hell is she? Yusuke thought.

"Lookin' for someone?" Chuu asked, noticing that Yusuke wasn't paying attention to the screen in front of him.

"Mikai. She told me that she would be here to watch Touya." Yusuke answered with a sigh. He turned back to the screen, feeling somewhat defeated. "She's probably out with Kurama or Yomi." He snarled.

"Oh." Chuu grinned, catching Yusuke's snarl. "Jealous are we?" He teased as he hit Yusuke on his right side.

Yusuke blushed as he pushed Chuu away. "No."

"Whatever you say Yusuke!" Chuu laughed as he walked away, leaving the new prince alone in the room.

Minutes later, Kurama walked into the room where Yusuke was watching Touya fight. He stood next to Yusuke and let the same light flooding off of the TV to hit him as well. They spoke about Touya's fight, and how they thought everything was going to go. Kurama told Yusuke about what happened earlier when Kurama met Touya in the hallway and talked to him about his feelings towards his fight. But now, the two had fallen quiet, and the battle in front of them filled their minds and their conversation.

"How's Mikai?" Yusuke asked, breaking the silence between them.

"I don't know," Kurama confessed. "I haven't seen her for a while now. Don't you know how she is? You saw her earlier didn't you?"

"Yeah but just for a few seconds." Yusuke sighed. "Then that kid Shura took her away." Then the question Yusuke placed in his mind before the fights popped back into his head. "Oh! That kid that looks like Yomi, is that Mikai's kid?"

"Shura?" Kurama asked, trying to get the right person named. "No he's not Mikai's son, Yomi just has Mikai as the mother figure in his son's life right now."

"And you're okay with that?" Yusuke asked with a slight laugh. He knew Kurama was nice but he didn't think that Kurama wouldn't have some hint of jealously tugging at him inside.

"It's the best for Shura." Kurama sighed. "But I am a bit jealous."

"Hey…" Yusuke turned to Kurama, and the red head could see that Yusuke was now serious about everything. "I heard that fight you and Mikai got into right after the Shura kid's fight and…I just wanted to know if you guys were okay…"

"We'll be fine," Kurama said as he smiled. "Just fine."

Mikai was running down the hallway, soon after she had reverted back to her human self. She was heading towards the stadium to watch Touya fight but while she was running, she spotted a small kitten in the corner with her head down.

"Sotto!" Mikai yelled as she ran over to her and bent down to the floor to meet her eye to eye. "What's wrong? Why are you in your kitten form?"

The small kitten looked upwards with small water beads under her eyes. Mikai already knew that something was wrong because whenever Sotto got upset, she reverted back to her animal demon form, which happened to be a small kitten.

"Come on talk to me," Mikai said as she petted the small kitten.

A white puff of smoke appeared, causing Mikai to cough, and when it all cleared Sotto was sitting there with small tears falling form her eyes.

"What's wrong?" Mikai asked as she pushed away all of the smoke.

"It's Hiei!" Sotto cried. "I can't be with him anymore!"

"Aw…Sotto," Mikai said lovingly. "Everything will be fine. Hiei loves you with all of his heart. If he didn't then he wouldn't have asked you to marry him."

"I can't keep living in secret like this," Sotto whimpered.

"I understand." Mikai sighed. "Hiei's trying to protect you from getting hurt because he knows that if you get hurt or killed that he'll never forgive himself or the person who did it. I don't think that Hiei could live without you…he's told you that. I can also see were you're coming from through, but for now everything has to be put on hold. Until this tournament is over, nothing is for sure okay?"

"Okay…" Sotto wiped her tears.

"Just keep being strong okay?" Mikai smiled. "You be strong…and I will too."

"Right." Sotto smiled a bit. "But just make sure that you remember to take care of yourself okay?"

Mikai stood up, and helped the kitten to her feet also. "Don't worry. There's a lot of things on my mind right now but I won't forget what's important. And that's why I have to go right now."

Sotto nodded, not knowing why Mikai had to leave. Mikai turned away from the kitten and ran down the hallway she was before, but this time she had a different. She turned a corner in the wrong direction.

"Mikai!" Sotto yelled. "You're going the wrong way!"

"Don't worry!" Mikai yelled back before she disappeared.

"What is she doing?" Sotto asked herself out loud as her right cat ear twitched.

"Will everyone please report to a viewing station?" Koto yelled over the intercom. "The next fight, Kurama vs. Shigure will begin in just a few moments!"

Oh. Sotto thought as everything became clear. That's were she's going.

Dust rose off of the ground as Kurama walked towards his next battle, which would be against Shigure. He had just finished talking to his mother no more then a few minutes ago and his heart ached to see her once more.

The closer Kurama got to the large battle platform; he could see another figure walking towards him. He didn't recognize it at first but it became clear within moments who it was. Yomi.

They didn't say anything as they walked by each other, but once they began to part, Yomi spoke.

"Kurama I hope you do well in this battle," he began, "Thanks to Yusuke, I've changed a lot. I know see where I truly stand. There's more on the line then just your life you know. This battle will allow you to see whom you really are inside. People change Kurama…"

"I know that Yomi," Kurama answered as he began to walk once more.

"Senkai rejected me," Yomi said; Kurama to stopped walking. "She loves you with all of her heart and I can see that now…I just don't understand it."

Kurama closed his eyes and waited until he heard Yomi's footsteps before he began to walk towards the fighting platform once more. He thought about what Yomi had just said, and understood it. Yomi had confessed his love for Senkai but she turned him away which meant that Senkai really did love Youko under everything.

"Kurama?" a female voice said, breaking through all of his thoughts. He turned around towards the voice and saw Mikai standing on his right side. She slowly walked over to him, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"You'll win," she said gently. "And I'm not talking about against Shigure…"

Kurama smiled a bit, and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He took in the smell of her hair once more, and felt how her clothes felt against his skin. He felt her breath on his neck, and relived the feelings he loved so much.

"But if something does happen in there." she whispered. "I'll love you no matter what."

Kurama pulled away from the hug and gently kissed Mikai on the forehead. He felt her fingers gently release his clothing, letting him go. She pulled away completely, and gave him one last look before she ran away from him. Kurama didn't watch, instead he walked forwards, towards his own battle.

"Begin!" Koto yelled, telling Kurama and Shigure to begin their fight.

They fought over and over, each other them hurting one another as they both attacked. Even though Kurama was silent, his mind was full of thoughts. He kept reliving his childhood over and over again, thinking about his mother and how he had growing up thinking that she was below him and yet no matter what she never gave up on him. He thought of his mother's arms and how they scars covered them because of the time she saved him from falling to the hard, cold floor. Then Yusuke filled his mind. He had been so helpful and was ready to give up his life so that Kurama could live for his mother.

I owe all of them so much. Kurama thought. All of them, Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei…each one of them have been so loyal and kind to me no matter what I was going through.

Kurama then thought of what they would think if he gave up everything. If he reverted back to his Youko form and lived in the Makai away from everyone. His mother, or course, would be the one who would be more upset then anyone else, but what about everyone else?

Yusuke wouldn't care as long as Kurama was happy and safe, Kuwabara would be upset but happy that Kurama found something that would make him happy, and Hiei wouldn't mind because he knew that he would see Kurama around and hear about him once in awhile. But would anyone protest? Would anyone miss him and want him back?

"I love you too," Kurama whispered. "I'll never leave you."

Mikai.

"Almost everyone I've met in my life has left me. My parents left without giving a reason why…Yusuke has been the only one who's never left my side unless he's had too. I never want any of you to leave."

She would want him back, and she would be the one to protest if he wanted to stay in the Makai. A part of him wanted her to be happy for him if he did decide to stay in the Makai, and yet the other part of him wanted her to protest and hold him close. She would be the one who would tell him that she missed him, and would call him to make sure that he knew when to come home and that's what he wanted, someone to come home to. And that's why he had to keep fighting…as Shuuichi.

The fight went on, and it wasn't until Kurama had come close to death and reverted back to Youko once, that he realized that it was Shuuichi that he wanted to be. He wanted to cut lose Youko and live as Shuuichi with the people he loved.

Kurama felt Shigure's sword cut him once more, and then Shigure went in for the kill. Kurama, even though blood was spilling out of him, caused a plant he planted back as Youko Kurama to grow around both him and Shigure. Shigure's sword got caught in the branches, inches away from Kurama.

"Are these flowers from your homeland?" Shigure asked as the light pink cherry blossoms fell in front of his face, creating a gentle smell.

"Yes," Kurama answered as he grabbed a small blossom in the palm of his hand. He feel and smell reminded him of the tree in the backyard of his home. An image of his mother filled his mind as he smiled a bit.

"Very good." Shigure smiled. "I've already failed Mukuro-sama and a warrior cannot fail twice." He walked over to the edge of Kurama's plants, and jumped down into the dark pit below never to come back out.

Yusuke, Botan, Koenma, Hiei, and Mikai ran out towards the battlefield in order to see Kurama and make sure that he was okay. The dust blew in front of them all, shielding them all from who was walking through the field.

"Who is that?" Hiei asked as he saw someone walking towards them.

"Is it Kurama?" Botan asked.

"Who else could it be?" Mikai asked as she ran out to the field ahead of everyone else.

There in the field stood Kurama and Yomi. Yomi was walking slowly, while he held Kurama up so that he wouldn't fall to the ground and become more injured.

"Why did you abandon Youko Kurama?" Yomi asked.

"Never abandon anything Yomi…never." Kurama groaned through his pain as he looked ahead and saw that was Mikai coming.

"Kurama!" she yelled as she ran. She arrived next to the two and gently touched Kurama's face, making him feel a bit better. "Come on, we've got to get you healed."

"I'll be fine," Kurama groaned once more as he stood up on his own. "Save your energy."

"Thank you," Mikai said as she looked up at Yomi gently. Mikai wrapped both of her arms around Kurama as she led him back to the stadium were he would be able to heal.

Yusuke stood there, looking at Mikai and Kurama walk back over to the stadium, arm in arm only to feel a strange feeling rise from the pit of his stomach and travel quickly towards his throat.

Mikai…? Yusuke thought as he tried to figure out the feeling inside of him. Would you do something like that…for me?

R&R please!