Still not mine. Still gay. Still zombified.

chapter two: in which there is johnny depp

"Yukina, Kuwabara! Good to see you!" Botan said brightly. "Business is slow today, so you're a welcome surprise."

"I'm not surprised that business is slow," Kuwabara said darkly. "We have something of a zombie infestation in the human world."

"Zombies?" Botan asked doubtfully. "Voodoo and such?"

Yukina blinked. "It kind of looked like necromancy to me. Someone new, who hadn't quite figured out how he wanted to make them act yet. I think that the more of them we see, the more consistently they will behave."

Botan nodded. "I think I understand. Hey!" Snagging a passing guard, she said cheerfully, "Tell the other girls that there may be a reason that no souls are popping up," and led her guests down the nearest hall.

The guard watched them go with a sigh, then steeled himself for the round of questioning that he was sure to receive from the other ferry girls.

"Before you go," said a vaguely familiar person as they detached themselves from a convenient shadow, "I want to know the shortest way to get to Koenma's office."

The guard blinked before pointing down the corridor which Botan and company had taken. "That one. Why? Who are you? You really shouldn't go down there unescorted," he added as he turned back. There was a long pause as he beheld a plain, whitewashed wall that was entirely free of black-clad unknowns with creepy red eyes. "Bugger it, where are you?" he demanded of the wall.

"The wall is right there," his partner said cheerfully, clapping him on the shoulder. "I told you not to eat that funny-looking Jello today, now, didn't I?"

"There was someone here," the first guard insisted. "Scary-looking midget in black with red eyes. Wanted to know where Koenma-sama's office was. Vanished while I wasn't looking."

"Well, you've learned a lesson today, now, haven't you?" his partner said. "Never, ever eat the scary Jello. It makes you hallucinate vanishing teenygoths." She offered an inconspicuous-looking flask. "Have some. It'll take the edge right off. You shan't see any teenygoths with this stuff, now. A pink elephant, maybe, but at least then you know your eyes are being a bit funny. Only a few sips, mind you. This is the sort of stuff where if you drink too much, everyone else hallucinates with you."

The first guard nodded fervently and knocked back a mouthful.

Some hundred meters down the hall, Botan blew past some rather bemused-looking guards, only to stop short in complete shock. Yukina and Kuwabara nearly trod on her heels as they too screeched to a halt. All three of them boggled at the very unexpected scene which lay before them, namely Hiei and Koenma in the middle of a heated argument.

"If there is a necromancer running around, it's your job to fix it!" Koenma yelled. "Not mine! I don't even know why you're here, you independent pillock!"

"It is not my job!" Hiei retorted. "I'm not here on my own damn behalf either! The issue of it not being my job is exactly why I'm here! I've told you this already! Why are we still arguing?"

"Because it's not my problem!" Koenma announced, shoving a stack of paper at Hiei irritably. "Ah, Botan!" he added as Hiei dodged aside. "What is it?"

"Um, well, actually, what you were yelling about?" Botan began. "Um. Yukina and Kuwabara think that it kind of is our problem. And I kept meaning to tell you this, Koenma-sama, but...there haven't been any souls up for collection today. We've all been watching the meter, and it hasn't once lit up. All the girls are bored, so we were wondering if you had anything else for us to do?"

"No souls," Koenma said tiredly. "Hiei shows up raving about necromancers and you show up raving about absolutely no souls coming up on the meter."

"I'm not raving!" Botan said indignantly.

Yukina edged around Botan. "It does feel very much like a necromancer, one who isn't sure how they wants to make their slaves act. Perhaps they've been out of commission, or they're new to it, or they're doing something different than their usual style. And these...zombies. They are indeed a threat. Kazuma and I were...having coffee together, and we came across this young human," she said, flushing. Her blush faded as she outlined the run-in with the college zombie.

"And you left it lying in a back alley," Koenma groaned. "Wonderful."

Kuwabara's face set, prompting Yukina to hurry into speech. "Well, dumping human remains in the demon world has always been frowned on."

"It's not like you don't have contacts on the border!" Koenma wailed. "Don't you?"

"No," Yukina said primly.

Koenma looked at her suspiciously, then continued. "Well, I suppose that spending so much time with criminals has inclined me towards their methods. My apologies and I will send someone out to take care of it. That point aside, this really should not be my field. I did hand off all border issues to your lot," he reminded Hiei.

"This is a little more than a border issue," Hiei pointed out. "And how do you know it's not all over all three worlds? She said there were no souls coming up at all. You don't only handle human souls, you know."

"I tried to call Urameshi," Kuwabara said plaintively, "but the poor bastard talked Kurama into tutoring him in some academic thing, and I don't think we'll see either of them for hours."

Koenma meditated on the subtext of this declaration. "Well, I hadn't quite expected that," he finally announced.

Everyone but Kuwabara looked at him sharply. "I think you're reading too much subtext into his words," Botan finally offered kindly. "I can go find them, if you'd like."

"No, don't bother. I have something else for you," Koenma said. "How long has it been since you've done an on-the-spot exorcism?"

Botan thought. "A while?" she finally guessed. "It's not a very common need."

"Well, you're going to have a good chance to practice," Koenma said with a sigh. "It's just about all we can do for necromancy, short of incapacitating the necromancer. Since we don't know who it is, you and the girls are just going to have to improvise. If you get the soul out and your zombie keeps coming, try breaking the brain stem. If that doesn't work, run away."

"Run away?" Botan demanded. "Is that all you can think of?"

Koenma looked peeved. "Yes."

"Figures," Kuwabara muttered. "Look, what can we do?"

"Well," Koenma said slowly, "I'll certainly want your help once we find this necromancer. Until then, I'm not sure what you can do to help."

"We can shoot zombies," Kuwabara offered hopefully. "I mean, I'll need a machine gun first, but then I can shoot zombies."

"Wait on that idea until we know if the exorcism works," Koenma said hastily. "But at least tell Yusuke and Kurama about this. And Hiei –" Koenma found himself speaking to a wall rather than the expected fire demon. "I hate it when he does that," Koenma announced. "Then again, I think he's already gone to carry my position on the matter to Mukuro, so I suppose it's all right."

Kuwabara scowled at his cell phone. "I get no reception here," he pointed out. "You should do something about that."

"We're in a separate dimension, Kuwabara," Koenma said patiently. "I doubt your phone service carries over to other worlds."

Botan said, "I think I'd better get going, then. I'll give the exorcism a go, and if it works, I'll call the girls. Does that sound all right?"

Koenma made an approving noise, which prompted Botan to hurry from the office purposefully. "Go call Yusuke," he said to Kuwabara. "I don't care where you have to go to get reception. Be old-fashioned and go to his house."

"We'll try," Kuwabara said, taking Yukina's arm before they swept from the room.

Koenma stared at nothing for a long moment, then filled his lungs and bawled, "Jorge! Where are the files on all the necromancers?"

By that time, Botan was already spiraling down from the sky in the human world in search of a zombie. Deciding to start with the universities, she found herself led astray by many zombie-like students before she finally stumbled across the real item skulking in the shadow of a dormitory and arguing with what looked like a girlfriend.

Botan landed noiselessly and walked over to the bickering pair, to be greeted with an unfriendly "Shove off, would you?" from the zombie.

Botan tapped her fingers along the oar shaft. "I'm here to collect your soul." The direct approach had served her well in the past.

"Oh, God, not another lunatic woman," the zombie muttered. He grubbed in a pocket and flicked some spare change at her. "I've got religion already, lady. Buy yourself a drink or something."

Botan huffed impatiently. "Of course you do. Look, have you been in a car accident lately? You look it."

The girlfriend looked from Botan to the zombie, then back at Botan. "Why are you talking to nothing?"

"What do you mean, nothing?" the zombie asked. "There's some crazy girl there in a weird costume. I know she's there. I mean, she caught the change I gave her, didn't she?"

"If this is your way of trying to get me to think that you need immediate help, it's working," the girlfriend snapped. "Now, I've told you a million times not to speed so much, especially when you're stoned, and I am not going to be exploited just because I'm your girl and a med student and won't say anything about your weed habit. Go to the goddamn hospital and leave me alone, I have a test tomorrow." She pushed past the zombie angrily and stormed into the building.

"You don't want to go to a hospital," Botan said. "They'll check your pulse, and when they can't find one, they'll shoot you full of drugs until they do. And when they still can't find it, you'll be written up in a million medical journals."

"Will they pay me?" the zombie demanded.

Botan sighed impatiently. "No, they won't. Now look, that body you're in isn't going to heal, it's just going to rot. I can get you right out of it and we'll go to the spirit world, shall we?"

The zombie looked at her with deep suspicion showing in his dilated pupils. Botan smiled and radiated harmlessness. "The spirit world, you say?"

"Spirit world," Botan confirmed with a nod.

A very odd smile split the zombie's face and his eyes gleamed. "A girl with an oar from the spirit world who offers to exorcise a dead man," said the zombie, his voice suddenly deep and velvety. "You're a ferry girl."

Botan nodded again. "I am. You do know your mythology," she added, her eyes narrowing slightly in suspicion at the voice change. There was also the small matter of it not being human mythology that the boy knew.

"I do," said the zombie in its fruity new tones. "And I think I recognize you."

All the hairs on the back of Botan's neck stood up. "You do."

"Carry a message to your boss," the zombie said lightly. "Tell him that it is time."

"Time for what?" Botan demanded.

The zombie whistled rather than answer. "They will come," he said mildly. "Can you destroy us all?"

Botan whirled around, looking at the ring of zombies that was slowly closing in around her. Her first move was to wish herself visible, just in case she had to call for help. Next, she hastily sketched a few symbols into the air, aiming the last at the unctuous-voiced zombie. He made a funny squeak before flopping to the ground, a small sphere of pale fire hanging in the air where his heart had been.

"You have some power," said another zombie with the exact same voice and expression as the first. "But do you have enough to exorcise all of them at once?"

"Them?" Botan asked, then shrieked and flailed with her oar as the circle of zombies closed in around her. "Get off me!" Her skill at swinging around a heavy piece of wood did very little good, as the zombies quickly disarmed her and tossed the oar aside.

It occurred to Botan that it didn't matter if she screamed, because in all likelihood, no one could see or hear her. She did it anyway in complete desperation, though surely they didn't mean to really hurt her. Not if they wanted her carrying a message.

"But we don't need you to carry a message," said the zombie who had inherited the lovely voice, and she realized that she had been screaming her thoughts at them. "It would just have been a convenience. We have other methods of speaking to Koenma, my dear."

"What are you doing with me?" Botan demanded breathlessly. Some small part of her mind was shrinking in embarrassment at the state of her clothes, which had not recovered gently from her scuffle and were instead making her look a bit like a centerfold for the people who liked their girls traditional, blue-haired, and bloodied up.

"Well," said the spokesperson, "if you were to disappear from a simple mission of exorcism, Koenma might think twice about sending more ferry girls after you. And even if he does, we can handle them. Like we plan to handle you."

"Handle me?" Botan asked shakily.

The spokesperson hummed in thought. "I like burial alive for you, my dear. Open that outdoor cellar, please," he requested of the other zombies, who were moving before he finished his sentence. When the first zombie's arm broke off from the strain, another slid in and finished the job.

Botan eyed the dead arm on the ground, noticed that it was still twitching, and shuddered in her captor's grip. "You...you're really going to bury me alive?"

"It's the best thing I can think of on short notice," the spokesperson confirmed. "Be glad that you're the first one. By the time I encounter your successors, I'll have something much more...final arranged."

Botan, detecting that he was in earnest, began to fight wildly. "Let me go! Let me go, I tell you! I have friends who'll kill you all if you hurt me! You know who I work for! You know what he does to people who cross him! You know who he summons!"

"That," said the spokesperson, their smile curling at the corners into a very catlike expression, "would not be disagreeable."

"You're not him," Botan whispered as the zombies dragged her towards the cellar. "You aren't the person who died in that body, are you?"

"He's here," the spokesperson admitted, "but I just had to speak with you, so I am here too."

"Why are you doing this?" Botan shrieked desperately, feeling the ground go out from underneath her feet. The grip on her arms slackened and she fell hard, cracking the back of her head on the cement. "Why are you...?" she repeated as red mist drifted across her vision.

"I would be ruler of three worlds," said the velvety voice. "Bury her."

Botan heard the scraping of metal on asphalt just before the ragged spot of light above her was blotted out. Her scream of denial and terror lasted as long as it took the first of the trash cans to fall on her, and no longer.

The speaker for the zombies watched the burial process solemnly, then turned his eyes to the recently exorcised student. A quick gesture sent the soul back into the body, which the spokesperson helped to its feet. "Are you well?" he asked solicitously.

The zombie student nodded and rubbed his eyes. "Shit, man, I guess I am really dead."

The beautiful feline smile widened. "There are worse things to be." He raised a hand for attention. "My dears, we are found out. Be prepared to defend yourself. I will help you as well as I can, which I may pride myself in saying is very well indeed. Come to me if you are in any way harmed or otherwise desire restoration and I will see you. And watch for more of your kind. I will be opening the afterlife so that the souls may be allowed to return to their bodies. I will start with the hells," he mused, "and go from there. Until then." The spokesperson touched his temple as a quick salute, then blinked rapidly and looked around. "I could use a drink," he said in a very different voice. "Any of you want to come with?" There was a cheerful chorus of assent and the zombies began to disband.

One of their number trudged over to the outdoor cellar and stared morosely down at the arm lying on the ground. "Well, hell," she said sadly. "That was my dominant hand, that was. Hey, you think people will buy me drinks if I'm missing an arm?"

"Not if you're carrying it around, they won't," said a middle-aged woman with a large pocketbook. "You just pop that in here, hon, and we'll see about getting that fixed after we've gotten some food in us."

"And beer," a third zombie said. "Breaking out of the morgue made me thirsty, dammit."

"Do watch your language," the matron said, tucking the arm away. "Are we ready here?"

"First round on me!" announced another zombie, which effectively emptied the alley.

Koenma began to feel the effects of this meeting long before he knew that Botan was in any trouble. It started with a few flashing lights in a distant maintenance room. When these flashing lights could not be calmed by the poking of a few buttons and a coffee break, they got more insistent and shaded towards an alarming red. A minor alarm followed, which turned into a much louder alarm throughout more rooms, which eventually scaled up into a full-palace, eardrum-destroying wail accompanied by madcap strobe lights.

"Waugh!" Jorge said pitifully, dropping a stack of necromancer-related files to clap his hands over his ears. "Koenma-sama, what is that?"

Koenma had gone very pale and teenager-shaped. "It can't be," he whispered. "It's impossible."

"What?" Jorge screamed, completely unable to hear over the alarm.

Still bone-white, Koenma collapsed onto his chair, which had grown to fit him accordingly. "The hells, Jorge."

"What?" Jorge screamed again. "How do we shut off the alarm?" he added.

Koenma made a slight motion and the sound died away, though the lights still flashed wildly. "That alarm goes off when souls escape from the hells. An alarm of that magnitude means that all of the hells have been opened. All the souls that we have ever condemned are now roaming free into all of the worlds. All of them." Koenma dropped his face into his hands, switched forms twice in distress, and ended by tugging at his hair in frustration. "Find the ferry girls. Find them all. We'll need all of them to just close the hells back up. Find the guards. Get them off their vacations."

"But Koenma-sama," Jorge protested.

"But what?" Koenma nearly screamed.

Jorge shuffled in place for a bit. "It's Botan, you see. She hasn't come back. Or reported in. Or anything. She's vanished."

Koenma sighed heavily. "Then tell the ferry girls to try closing the hells back up again anyway. Haven't you tried scanning the human world for her?"

"Not yet," Jorge said. "Shall I go do that?"

Koenma made an unhappy noise. "Yes. Fine. Go. Give me those papers," he added, reaching for the files on necromancers. "I am going to find who did this," he added quietly.

"But Koenma-sama," Jorge said again. "You don't know anything that would help you distinguish him."

"Shut up, Jorge!" Koenma exploded. "Go! Get! Botan!"

Some time before this alarming incident occurred, Kurama was busy wondering what else was in store for them. "I really do not like this," he told Hiei when the fire demon had finished recounting the events of his afternoon, complete with espresso beans.

"I don't think anyone is pleased by this," Hiei replied dryly.

Kurama got up and paced to the window. "That's not what I was getting at. What I meant was that we have all killed a good number of people who probably resent us for it. If you have reason to suspect that the demon world is in the same condition, then there may well be people searching for us with massive grudges. And it's not just us, either. I'd bet that there are people looking for Yusuke and maybe Kuwabara, too, though he hasn't had the opportunity to thoroughly anger people like the rest of us have."

Hiei looked sideways at Kurama. "Are you thinking of anyone in particular?"

"No."

The problem with anything that Kurama said, Hiei reflected, was that he was a damn good liar. "So what do you plan to do?"

Kurama ignored him in lieu of following the sound of the front door slamming. "I'm home!" Hatanaka Shuuichi yelled.

"Good!" Kurama called back. "Stay home."

Hatanaka Shuuichi went to the stairs and looked resentfully up at Kurama. "God, what's your problem tonight? You're never like this."

"As long as you listen to me, I don't care," Kurama said abruptly, slamming back into his room. "I never yell at him. I think he'll stay here."

"You haven't answered my question of what you were going to do," Hiei pointed out.

"In a minute." Kurama didn't even stop, but went to stare out his window with an odd look on his face. "There's a zombie out there heading for the door," he added before climbing over the sill and dropping out of sight. He landed noiselessly, but the motion was enough to make the zombie turn to look at him. "Is there a reason for your presence?" Kurama inquired.

"You just jumped out of a window," the zombie observed. "What the hell kind of acrobat are you?"

"The kind that keeps the lawn well-seeded with demon sawgrass," Kurama informed him. "I'm not fond of trespassers."

"Hey!" the zombie protested. "You're not allowed to just casually kill trespassers, though!" he added as the sawgrass began growing at a terrific rate.

"I doubt that death will really bother you," Kurama pointed out as the sawgrass snapped through the air, then began scaling back up the wall of his house.

Hiei wordlessly handed him back in through the window, then said mildly, "All right. I will take that as an answer."

"Sounds good," Kurama said, leaving the room. "I want food. Are you expecting me to feed you?"

They had gotten most of the way downstairs in companionable silence before Hiei said abruptly, "You are thinking about someone in particular, aren't you?"

Kurama jumped, then nearly fell over his stepbrother, who was about to head upstairs. "I hate it when you do that."

"I've never liked your habit of sneaking up behind me, but it hasn't stopped you," Hiei said reasonably. "Who are you thinking of?"

"What are you talking about?" Hatanaka Shuuichi wanted to know.

"Zombies," Kurama said with perfect truth, and wandered into the kitchen. "And I'm not thinking about anyone, you are. Who do you think I should be worried about?"

"I don't," Hiei replied. There was the sound of a door slamming.

"It's Yusuke that we all should really be worried about. He's killed a lot of people who weren't exactly happy about it, and fairly recently. If these zombies need bodies to go back to, they're probably the most likely. Then again, he has rather destroyed the bodies of all who would challenge him again. Or managed to befriend them," Kurama pointed out, reaching for the phone. "You haven't talked to him? I thought not." Kurama dialed, listened impatiently to the ringing, then turned the phone off when the rings turned into a busy signal. "Damn."

"Kurama?" Hiei's voice sounded normal enough, but there was something in it that got Kurama's attention very quickly. "Don't move." There was a thunk. "I think this is a different one than you took care of a few minutes ago."

Kurama turned and examined the zombie, which had been stabbed through the heart. "It's still in one piece," he observed. "Are you practicing restraint?"

"You were in the way," Hiei replied absently, removing his sword and examining it for zombie entrails.

"You know, I don't think that you've quite killed it either," Kurama said, eying the lessening distance between himself and the zombie.

"How can it not be dead yet?" Hiei demanded, staring blankly as Kurama dodged out of the zombie's reach.

"I don't know, but it's not dead yet, I tell you!" Kurama insisted, eyes wide. It was one thing to talk about zombies or to kill them from afar. It was another to have one trying to grab him.

The zombie sighed heavily. "I am not an it! And there had better not be other people coming around trying to poach on my thieving grounds. Now, look, I know that your parents aren't here, so what say you be nice and let me do my job?"

Kurama blinked. "Did you miss the part where he just put a sword through your heart?"

The zombie looked unimpressed. "Did you miss the part where I'm still walking and talking, pretty boy? Now give over, will you? Just because I'm not so alive doesn't mean this doesn't work either," he added, hiking up his shirt to reveal the butt of a gun.

Kurama smiled politely at the man, then very deliberately moved to the side.

"Apparently, dying doesn't make humans any smarter," Hiei observed a heartbeat later from his new position of being next to Kurama. "But then, I suppose we already knew that. Look at Yusuke."

"Well, he has gotten much more intelligent since we first met him," Kurama noted. "It just doesn't seem to be related to all the times where he's died." He reached out and poked the zombie, which slid apart and crashed to the floor in several pieces. "I take back what I said about restraint. Thank you. What are these blasted things doing in my house? It's quiet outside, so it doesn't seem like there's more of them casually breaking into every house along this street. Why here?" Off Hiei's look, he added, "Fine, there are two relatively powerful demons sitting in the kitchen. But I don't think that that's it. Why would human zombies be going after demons?"

Hiei pointed out, "It could be a demon who knows very well that the best way to get rid of us is to attack in the human world. It could be a human who doesn't like having demons running around their world. Until you find the person creating these things, you won't know."

There was another loud crash from the region of the front door. "Maybe it's just a drunk," Kurama said in the dreamy voice of one who says "Maybe it's Johnny Depp."

"Hey!" Hatanaka Shuuichi said indignantly from the stairs. "You tell me to stay indoors and make nice while you destroy the house? That is so not fair!"

"Do I look like I'm destroying the house?" Kurama asked patiently.

Hatanaka Shuuichi chose to not answer, instead staring at the pieces of zombie on the kitchen floor. "What is that?"

There was a final, shattering crash from the direction of the front door, followed by a wafting smell of decay. "No more," Kurama said, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "I have had it with these things." He stalked to the entryway and looked emptily at the zombie trying to disentangle itself from the coat rack. "Hiei?"

"What now?"

"Do you mind keeping my brother alive? Thank you." If there was an objection, Kurama ignored it. "I'm the incumbent demon for this area. All of this is my territory, and I don't care how impervious you creatures think you are to dying. Why are you all pestering me?" he demanded of the zombie. This one was in a far more advanced state of decay than any others had been. Very little was left of its skin or hair, and what there was showed an alarming tendency to fall off.

The zombie scratched its head, with distressing results. "Because I have to," it finally confided. "Y'see, when you wake up and bang your way out of wherever you were, you sort of realize that if the Man wants you to do something and you've nothing better to do, you do it."

Kurama blinked. "And you have nothing better to do?"

The zombie nodded. "Correct. Anyway, he said to get rid of the girly demon that felt like you do right quick. There were others, too, but he thinks you'll be more of an asset dead than alive."

"I think I can see why," Kurama mused. "So he sends humans up against me, thinking that I might not resist because I'm squeamish."

The zombie shrugged. "Hell if I know. I don't even believe in demons. I went where my feet took me. And hey presto, I find a girly demon."

There was a fast blur of motion, a few thumps, and Kurama ended up with one bare foot firmly planted on the back of the zombie's neck and his fingers pulling the zombie's head back in prelude to breaking its neck. "I am not girly," he said indignantly.

"Yes, you are," said the zombie conspiratorially. "Gnk," it added when Kurama pulled a little harder.

"So tell me," Kurama said thoughtfully. "Just what does it take to kill you? I don't believe that you don't know. Everything knows instinctively what will kill it. It's how things stay alive."

"I know what would have killed me as a human!" the zombie wailed. "But I don't think anything will do it now! It doesn't seem to matter what happens to the body, as long as the spirit is still there!"

"Cutting you up into small pieces seems to have done the job," Kurama observed. "Or at least given you serious pause. Are you telling me that people who have been cremated might well be out and about?"

"I don't know!"

Kurama smiled. "Well then. I'd heard breaking the neck would do it, so..." There was a resounding crack. "How is that?"

The zombie rolled an eye at him, then cracked its jaw. "Ow," it gargled gloomily.

"So you do feel pain?" Kurama asked. "Wise of your maker."

"You just broke my neck!" the zombie complained. "And I did nothing to you!"

Kurama shrugged. "You broke in. And this is my territory."

"I'm really starting to believe that you are a demon," the zombie observed. "Geh," it added as Kurama idly twisted its neck to make sure that it was well and truly broken. "It's good, it's good, it's good," it squeaked as its voicebox was inconveniently squished. "Glk."

"There goes that idea," Kurama sighed. "And it seems unlikely that just removing limbs really stops you, unless it's all of them. Fire might do it. I hope fire does it, or we will have all the cremated people out and about as well. You don't seem to need to breathe, so drowning is out. I also assume that burying is pointless, as people in your condition must have already dealt with that part at least."

"Werble," said the zombie woefully.

"Kurama?" When Kurama twisted to look over his shoulder, Hiei was standing idly at the other end of the hall, looking thoroughly and studiously unconcerned. "So you told me to keep your human brother from dying."

"Something like that," Kurama agreed before turning back to his quarry. "Why?"

"I thought I should inform you that he seems to be trying to vomit up his stomach lining," Hiei said innocently.

Kurama dragged one hand over his eyes. "Don't use that tone of voice. It makes my head hurt. Why is he doing this?"

"I don't think that the undead agree with him," Hiei answered. "The fact that he is convinced that you're an undercover assassin might be helping. I wasn't aware that you knew how to break necks so professionally."

"Neither was I," said Kurama. "I'll be back," he added, and tracked the sound of retching to where Hatanaka Shuuichi was making copious sacrifices to the porcelain idol. "Are you all right?"

"No," said Hatanaka Shuuichi bitterly. "What are you, some kind of ninja? I am definitely telling on you. There is no way that you learned how do to that kind of stuff honestly."

"Yes, there is," Kurama said indignantly. "Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You're distracting me."

"I don't care," said Hatanaka Shuuichi stubbornly. "Go away."

"No," Kurama told him. "You saw those things? The ones that broke in?" There was a pause as Hatanaka Shuuichi got his gag reflex under control. "You won't believe this, but they wanted to kill us both."

"But you went totally ninja on them!" Hatanaka Shuuichi protested.

"I did not," Kurama retorted. "Listen, here's a deal. If you do what I say, I'll put you on the next train north with more money than you know what to do with."

"And what are you going to do?" Hatanaka Shuuichi demanded.

Kurama shrugged. "Stay here, I think. It depends on where I'm needed."

"And where do you get the money?"

"I have an after school job," Kurama lied blithely. "One that gave me all my ninja skills."

Hatanaka Shuuichi absorbed this with the evident delight of someone who watches too much television. "Cool."

"All right. You stay here for a bit. I have to actually go get the money, you see. I'll be back quite shortly," Kurama said brightly. "You might want to get out the bleach while I'm gone. The kitchen is quite a mess."

"Pay me extra?" Hatanaka Shuuichi tried to bargain. Kurama named the sum that he had originally planned to hand over, which effectively shut the other boy up and sent him hunting for disinfectant and toothpaste.

"Are you done yet?" Hiei asked from the hallway. "I have better things to be doing."

"No, you don't," Kurama said, heading for the front door and stepping over the remains of the third zombie. It had been fried to a crisp and was minus a few useful limbs. "Or if you do, pretend you don't for the next half hour."

Hiei decided not to explain that this would have been his plan of action anyway. "Where are you going this time?"

"I need money," Kurama said. "If we're going to be mobile on Earth, we're going to need a lot of it. And besides, I'm pretty much bribing my brother to go north to find my parents."

"Where are you going to get money?" Hiei asked.

Kurama gave him a long look that asked quite plainly if he had suffered any severe head injuries lately. "You are getting used to being a lawful figure, aren't you? I don't even know how rich I am."

Hiei had a suspicious feeling that Kurama actually had a very exact figure in mind when he considered his monetary assets. "I am not a lawful figure."

"We can argue about that later," Kurama told him before disappearing into the dusk outside.

Hiei glared at the space where the door had been. "I am not a lawful figure." Obtaining the last word had always been good for his ego.

Kurama/Johnny Depp. Oo-er.

Do they ever explain exactly how the ferry girls pick out which souls to grab? I'm guessing, here.

Bluespark: Wow. Someone was actually waiting for this. -dies of shock-

Oya: Ssh. That's a secret. (He wasn't actually bitten.)

CuriousDreamWeaver: I would totally not study if that happened.

Nyte Kit: Yukina is...difficult. She doesn't get a lot of screen time and what there is tends to not display much about her. I'm trying things, seeing how people react, then trying something else, etc.

Funara: Aha. The speaking style is my tremendous weakness. I shall strive harder. If there's anything specific, let me know. I tend to follow the manga more closely since I actually have access to it, however, and at least in the manga Kurama and Hiei tend to both be more vocal and, in Kurama's case, have a twisted sense of humor that I don't detect in the anime so much...

KyoHana: -blushgrin- Thank you! I'm glad I'm hooking people.

A lilmatchgirl: I'm loving the zombies myself.

darksaphire: Ut semper, ut semper.

Inverse-chan: I've done the whole thing beforehand, so you WILL get the end. I promise.

Capella Alpha Aurigae: Yes, you were supposed to be mostly lost in the first conversation, as it started in the middle. I liked it better than actually starting the conversation, because there was so much small talk potential, and neither of them really do small talk...and argh. Mostly the idea is that everyone but Kuwabara knows what is going on, and Yusuke is attempting a bit of a fine Italian hand and failing. Oh, and I do tend to have running jokes, hence the pr0n.

Kooriya Yui: ...there are other necromancy fics?

Funeral-Angel: He'll quiet down once things get serious. He usually does. Er. Sort of.

Pyro Falkon: Erm. Zombie drool. Thank...you?

kikira-san: Shotgun: Traditional weapon of choice against zombies.

Four Winds: Thanks!

Liviania: Oh, lord, are there more bets. I think I went a little crazy.

KD Ebonykitty: Oo. Thanks for the fave.

Dude. I can see you if you read and don't review. Please do!