chapter six: in which things go boom

Hiei stared at the settling dust, then looked around. "Damn."

"Damn," echoed a pile of rubble from which Yusuke emerged. "All right, one mystery has been solved. You thought this would happen, didn't you?" he accused, brushing rock dust from his hair.

"I wondered," Hiei began carefully, "if he was thinking that someone would come looking for him. No, I didn't wonder. You are right; I did know."

"I think we all had something of a guess," Yusuke replied, looking around warily. "Oh, what was his name...Karasu. Yes. He can't be far. He liked to attack from within speaking distance."

"But we're not the ones being attacked," Hiei pointed out.

"Mm," Yusuke agreed. "And now we have no real way to find Kurama save for screaming and praying the wind is blowing the right way."

"Let's not discuss the wind," Hiei said, swallowing.

"Fine. Let's discuss that Kurama has an undead and thoroughly psychotic stalker who gets off on killing people!" Yusuke wailed. "Because that's so much better than merely puking!"

"It could be worse," Hiei said with a crooked smile. "Your Toguro could be back looking for a rematch at the same time. It is well that he was satisfied with you when he died."

Yusuke shuddered. "Don't say such things. I believe firmly in Murphy's Law. So which way do you think we should go?"

"Back to where the bomb detonated," Hiei said, to which Yusuke nodded.

This was the exact opposite of the decision being made by Yukina and Kuwabara, who were both groggily waking up at the other end of the alley. "There's a wall in the way anyway," Kuwabara reasoned. "And I bet Urameshi's going to go tearing after whoever made that thing go off, and we have to go find Botan."

"Mrr," said Yukina blearily, wobbling to her feet. "We do indeed. And you have your phone, so you can call Yusuke."

"Even better," Kuwabara agreed equally blearily. He fumbled in a pocket, drew out his phone, and gazed hopefully at the screen. "That is, I could if I had a signal worth anything."

Yukina pulled Kuwabara to his feet, which allowed for a somewhat predictable five-minute interlude. When this was concluded and they had remembered why they were on their feet in the first place, they both cast one last look at the destruction behind them, then hurried away down the alley.

"I wonder," Yukina said. "You have very strong psychic powers."

"I can't just find Botan," Kuwabara reported. "It's not that easy."

Yukina looked slightly evasive. "Actually, I distinctly remember you telling me stories about your ability to navigate mazes or traps in order to meet a specific goal. Perhaps you could try that?"

Kuwabara looked somewhere between annoyed that he hadn't thought of it himself and amazed that Yukina had been listening that closely, to come up with such things. So might Othello have looked if Desdemona had started offering strategic tips. "It's been so long since I've done that, I clean forgot about it," he explained in an awed voice.

Yukina beamed. "Aren't you glad you have me, then?"

"Like a sexy walking Post-it," Kuwabara assured her. "All right. Operation Save Botan starts! Super-awesome navigation skills, on!"

Giggling, Yukina asked, "Which way?"

Kuwabara looked around, the prideful expression fading as he thought. "There," he said, pointing to a side street that cut off to the right. "That way."

"So do you just get a sense of where you have to go, or do you see the whole thing at once in your head?" inquired Yukina.

Kuwabara shrugged. "I just go," he said, absently turning into a side street. Yukina doubted that he had consciously noticed the direction change and chased after him. "Say, Yukina, what were those green spot things and how did the others know to be spooked?"

Yukina made a face from the effort of racking her memory. "I can't really recall it. It was something I saw after you freed me from that...person. I remember that there was something beautiful about the situation, but that the green things themselves were horrible. But that doesn't mean much to me," she added. "I have seen many beautiful things that were horrible as well."

"Can you pick out a specific event?" Kuwabara asked. "Was I there?"

Yukina nodded energetically. "You were there. You were fighting," she added.

Kuwabara smiled. "I'll take a winger on this and guess at the Dark Tournament, since I was more or less useless afterwards for rather a long time."

"The Dark Tournament!" Yukina agreed, snapping her fingers. "Yes, that's it! Thank you." She left a quick imprint of blue lipstick on Kuwabara's cheek, then continued. "You weren't the one actively fighting, though." Yukina frowned, then started muttering to herself and ticking things off on her fingers, not really noticing when Kuwabara nudged them down another alley. "Oh," she finally said, looking up. "Oh, dear."

"That sounds bad," Kuwabara noted. "Is it bad?"

Yukina quirked one corner of her mouth thoughtfully. "It's not good, but at least I remember it. There was a demon in the Dark Tournament who liked to make things explode. Kurama killed him but lost anyway."

"And nearly got himself killed in the process," Kuwabara finished. "Much like the rest of us."

"At least the near-death was evenly distributed," Yukina said gravely. "It shouldn't be very much fun if only one person had all the near-death experiences among you all."

"If one person had all our near-death experiences combined, they would be a walking miracle," Kuwabara predicted. It was about then that the impact of Yukina's words sank in. "Wait. Wait a minute. You're saying that the guy with the bombs is back."

"It looks very much like it," Yukina said. "If you'll consider the way Kurama bolted, it makes even more sense."

Kuwabara shook his head. "No, it doesn't. Okay, he was killed with a plant. But as far as Kurama's kills go, this one was relatively whole...until the entire damn tournament dome exploded. I don't think that someone fetched him out before the place went up in smoke."

"They must have, though," Yukina replied. "Don't you remember? Between Hiei, Kurama, and the people they fought, that dome was nearly destroyed before you even got up there to fight. They had to stop and repair it, and of course they had to clear away the dead after each fight. Besides, a plant that sucked demon blood was living on him. They would have moved such a thing away from a fight between demons. Either way, they probably dumped his body and killed the plant."

"Wonderful," Kuwabara groaned. "I remember that he didn't care about collateral damage when he went for a kill."

Yukina slipped one arm through his. "Well, one thing has improved since then," she said. "The last time I saw Kurama confronted with explosives, he tended to tamely stand around and let them hit him. Now he knows enough to leave the area. He's learning."

"Running away is so undignified," Kuwabara spluttered.

"So is dying," Yukina pointed out as they rounded another corner. "How close are we, do you think?"

Kuwabara slowed to a halt and peered around. "Quite close. The closer I get to something, the harder it is to figure out where to go, because more options open up."

Yukina looked around as well. "That's a strange place to put trash cans," she noted, gazing at what seemed to be an outdoor cellar. "I know. Let's see if there's anyone inside the building."

"That is a strange place for trash cans," Kuwabara agreed, his eyes narrowing. "I'm going to see what's under them."

Yukina nodded. "That sounds good to me. I'll go look around the building. It's a dormitory," she added after reading the sign.

Kuwabara caught her gently by the shoulders. "If you need help, scream."

Yukina grinned at him. "You too." Shrugging out of his grip, she turned and trotted into the building. It was dark and cool inside, with just a faint smell of blood and decay. "Hello? Is anyone in here?"

"Yes," a voice said sharply from the stairs. "It wouldn't be too much to hope that you are from a hospital, would it?"

Yukina blinked and let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She finally picked out a stocky girl with hair cropped to her cheekbones and rectangular glasses sitting on the banister. "In a manner of speaking, I could be of more help to you than a hospital, if you would have me."

"I'll have you," the girl said fervently. "I'm a med student, but there's only so much I can do with my kit and my textbooks. I'm not certified for a thing."

Yukina crossed quickly to the stairs. "Then I'll help you. You have injured people here?"

The girl nodded. "Word got out that I was doling out first aid to my dorm, and then half the campus shows up. I treated and released those that I could, but some were too afraid or too badly hurt to go anywhere else. Traffic is impossible with all the things in the roads and no one could land a med chopper here. And...some of them aren't actually alive, but they don't know where else to go. My...my boyfriend, he's one of them. I didn't treat him before, and now he's...not alive. I mean, I guess it's some comfort that he died before I saw him first, but I'm kicking myself for not doing something then." Flinging a door open, she added, "I'm Touya."

"Yukina," the ice maiden introduced herself as she looked around. It seemed that all the beds from the floor had been introduced into the second floor lounge and yet people were still lying on the floor. Another group of nervous-looking people huddled in the kitchen, talking distractedly to each other. They looked relatively whole, but tended to have clouded eyes, faintly greenish skin, and seemed to be dealing queasily with rigor setting in. "Are you the undead?" she asked the kitchen-dwellers.

The knot of students looked at each other, then at the boy who seemed to be their leader. He was meditatively smoking an expertly rolled roach. "Yep," he said with a sigh. "Doesn't get much worse than this."

"Could you smoke that where the windows are open, please?" Yukina asked. "It mightn't be good for the sick ones."

The boy coughed. "Do I have to? Hey, it went out!" he added, looking at the formerly lit end. Icemelt dripped from it to the floor. "What the hell?"

"I realized that the smell outside is too powerful for you to open the windows," Yukina explained.

The boy squinted at her. "Do I know you? I saw someone who looked a lot like you. Taller, carried a big stick, more hair. That was when you didn't believe me," he added sulkily to Touya.

"I'm a believer," Touya muttered, removing an ice pack from a female student's burn.

"You saw her?" Yukina asked, putting the pieces together. "Where did she go?"

The boy shook his head. "We were talking, she said I was dead, and then suddenly...it's like someone sneaked up inside my mind, put a bag over my head, and shoved me in a closet. Then I wake up and she's gone and there's all these people everywhere. I really needed a drink after that."

"Um," Touya broke into Yukina's thoughts. "Could you help me with her?"

"Of course," Yukina replied, kneeling next to the female student. It took her five seconds to heal the burn and another five to fix the cracked jaw. The smashed hand would be worse. "I need someone to hold her arm steady while I work," she said to Touya. "Can you do that, or are you busy?"

Touya picked her lower jaw up off the floor. "Um. Okay. I know that there's undead people walking around and all, but you were just like..." here she twiddled her fingers, "and then she's just fixed!"

"She's not fixed until I do her hand," Yukina persisted. "Will you hold her?"

"Hey, Weed, come lend a hand," Touya said, getting over her initial disbelief with the ease of desperation. "Do what the new girl tells you. I'll go check on the others before you get to them."

Touya's boyfriend Weed obediently came and took the student's arm. "Like this?" he asked.

"Tighter," Yukina said, pressing his hands down. "Now, he's going to make sure that you don't move, but I want you to do your best to stay still, all right?" she told the girl gently. "This is going to tingle," she added as she numbed the hand with a touch. "Ready?"

She progressed through the dimly lit room, healing burns, broken bones, intracranial bleeding, torn skin, bite marks, and easing shock as she went. One nasty case required her to reattach an eye. The spooked undead in the kitchen were quickly obeying her commands under the guidance of Weed, who took his cues silently from Touya. Yukina tried not to think about their relationship. It was obviously a close and affectionate one, despite the bickering. She liked relationships very well, but wasn't too sure how one between a living girl and a dead boy would hold up. Then again, her own relationship probably made equal sense.

"Hey," Weed said as she looked at the room of recently healed students. "Um. I was wondering if you could do your magic on me."

Yukina gave him a long look. He did look rather beaten up. "I don't know," she said. "I could stitch those wounds, but I can't heal dead tissue."

Weed rubbed his head. "I just don't want to have to go to that guy from inside my head to get fixed up, is all. He's the one who went into my head when the girl who looked like you went missing. He feels nice, but he also feels kind of dangerous."

"I think that's an accurate idea," Yukina told him. "But you might want to consider going anyway."

"I really need a smoke," Weed said mournfully, looking at his joint.

Yukina took the joint from him and sniffed it. "Cannabis?" When Weed nodded, she smiled. "The human version must be very tame, if you smoked it in here without any ill effects?"

"The human version? What?" Weed stared at her with cloudy, dilated eyes.

"The demon world kind is more of a party trick," Yukina said. "We dry and burn it in great braziers and everyone starts to relax and hallucinate. The stuff is quite potent. A whiff of it will have you seeing blue ostriches for three hours."

"Hell of a party," Weed said. "So, the demon world, huh?"

Yukina nodded. "Oh yes. I'm an ice maiden, but I studied healing. We live in the demon world."

Weed nodded sagely. "Was the other girl an ice maiden too?"

"She was a guide for the dead," Yukina answered.

"She told me something like that," Weed recollected. "Well, anything else we can do here?"

Yukina looked at him seriously. "If you or anyone else can remember anything about where Botan, the girl who looks like me, might have gone, you need to tell me right away. She's missing, and we think she might be hurt."

Weed looked at his hands. "I don't like this. I mean, being the undead is kind of cool in a novelty way, but it's...it's starting to sound like the guy who did this just walked into my head and took over, and while he was there he killed a girl. I might have killed her."

"She's probably not dead," Yukina told him firmly. "We'd have found her."

Weed shrugged. "Then I hurt her. I still hate it."

Yukina could see his point. "Well, don't worry. My boyfriend and some of his friends and...and my brother, at least I think he's my brother, they're going to go get the guy who did this."

"Yukina!" The shout came from outside, sending Yukina scrabbling at one of the windows before she realized what she was doing.

"I have to go!" she called to Weed and Touya, turning away from the window. "That's my boyfriend and he said he'd call if he needed my help. He wouldn't need my help if it wasn't bad." She didn't wait for their reaction but pelted out of the room, down the stairs, and out the door.

Kuwabara had been carefully excavating the outdoor cellar, trying not to tip the trash cans over and spill the muck any more than he had to. It had been a painstaking task even with the use of his aura sword as a grabby tool, and he had never had much patience with painstaking tasks. But the need was great enough for him to keep at it, though all his instincts clamoured for him to go and punch the wall in frustration once or twice.

He had been nearly to the bottom when he had spotted the flash of blue hair and the fingers. That was when he screamed, though he kept after the last two cans. He had pulled one more out by the time Yukina screeched to a halt next to him. She stared down into the hole, then clapped both hands over her mouth. "Oh no."

Kuwabara pulled the last can free with a savage flick, then drew in his aura. "We've got to get down there."

"How will we get back up?" Yukina asked before he could jump down. "And what's to say we won't land on her?"

"There's a back door to down there from inside the dorm," Touya said. "It's a favourite spot for couples. The girl goes down the back way and the boy jumps in here. It's also good for storing your extra stuff."

"Or for getting high," Weed contributed.

"Show me," Yukina ordered, heading back towards them. "She's badly off."

Touya and Yukina disappeared into the building, leaving Kuwabara crouched anxiously by the hole and Weed shuffling his feet on the front steps. Weed glanced around, then drew in a deep breath and strode over to Kuwabara. "I'm Weed."

"Kuwabara Kazuma," said Kuwabara. In his distraction he forgot to add some of his usual descriptive adjectives.

Weed took another deep breath, then looked down at Botan. "God." He sat down with a thump and covered his eyes. "Oh, God."

"What?" Kuwabara asked sharply.

Weed sighed. "I'm the undead. She came to try and...get me. Then someone else jumps into my head and shoves me aside. When I wake up, she's not there, but there are a bunch of other undead people. I did this," he concluded wretchedly.

"Not necessarily," Kuwabara told him. "Someone else was in your head, you know."

Weed made an unhappy noise and stared down into the hole. "She looks really young."

"She's not," Yukina called up, hurrying into view. "Don't worry, she's tough. She's a ferry girl. But this is bad..." she added in a whisper, running her fingers lightly over Botan's face before concentrating. She went over the ferry girl's entire body twice, the injuries incurred in the fall and burial shrinking in her wake. When the whole procedure was done, she gently shook Botan's shoulder. "Botan. Botan!"

"Nngh," said Botan. "Five more minutes."

Yukina burst into relieved laughter. "Botan, you need to wake up."

"Here, we can carry her," Touya said. "Actually, I can. You need a strapping girl like me for that, though she doesn't seem to weigh much."

Kuwabara and Weed both exhaled and sat back on their heels. "Good," Weed said. "That's good."

Surging to his feet, Kuwabara stuck out a hand to Weed and helped him up. "You're not as cold as I thought you'd be," he said, looking confused.

Weed shrugged. "It's warm out. I should go back in where it's cool, though. Touya said it would slow the decay for us, to stay in there. It feels like a meat locker. Makes us stiffer, though."

"It is a meat locker," Touya said, emerging from the front door with Botan in her arms. "That would be the point. Unless you want me to pull out your internal organs, pickle you, and spice you up."

Weed stared for a long moment. "No."

"Good man," Touya said. "Okay, here's your girl. Who's going to carry her now?"

"You can put me down," Botan suggested, and this was gingerly done. "Thank you."

Weed looked uncertainly at Botan. "I'm really sorry," he finally said woefully. "I didn't mean to. I didn't want to. I'm really sorry."

Botan blinked. "Oh no, I exorcised you long before I got tossed down there," she said. "Our necromancer must be able to restore souls. I'm not surprised, but that's a bloody pain."

"I didn't do it?" Weed asked.

"You didn't," Botan confirmed. "So. What now?"

"We," Kuwabara said, "are going to deliver you to Koenma, who is absolutely raving. Did we mention that the hells have broken open? Because they have. And Karasu, you remember him? Crazy guy, had a red-haired fox-demon fetish, liked to blow stuff up? He's back too."

"Oh," Botan said, blinking with the memory. "Ugh. He was sick in many, many sick ways. I never want to see that kind of torture again."

"Who is this guy? Wait, he's around here?" Touya demanded, backing towards the dormitory door and pulling Weed with her. "None of us have red hair, do we?" she asked Weed.

"No redheads," Weed confirmed. "Kon bleached out a little while ago."

"He's pretty well fixated on Kurama anyway," Botan said. "Wait. Wait a second. The hells have done what?"

Yukina's mouth twitched. "It sounds like it's time to go," she said solemnly. "Kazuma, perhaps you should call Yusuke."

"We can get back faster if we find my oar," Botan added, looking around.

"The thing you were waving at me?" Weed asked, rooting under the steps into the dormitory. "Here you go."

Botan took it with a cheery smile and hopped on, indicating that Yukina and Kuwabara should follow. "A bit dirty, but it still flies."

"That looks incredibly uncomfortable," Kuwabara said, though Yukina had gotten on without a qualm. "I feel vaguely threatened by it."

Botan rolled her eyes impatiently. "Men always do. Look, this is a one-shot deal. I'm in a hurry and I'm leaving, so if you want to stay with your girl, get on and damn the consequences."

"The consequences are important," Kuwabara said weakly, but he complied. "You certainly recovered quickly."

"Flying is easy," Botan said. "I sit here and move the handle around some. I can be very energetic, even when I don't want to."

"Flying?" Touya and Weed asked in unison. They got their answer when the oar started rising.

"Flying!" Botan called down. "Bye now!"

Weed felt in a pocket and pulled out a joint. "You know, I think I'm going to go into the cellar and have a toke. I deserve it."

"I think you should share with all of us," Touya muttered. She shooed Weed into the building, looked around with scared eyes, then slammed the door and threw the bolt.

In a much dirtier alley quite far from there, Kurama slowed to a halt and looked around. "I'm an idiot," he said bleakly. "That definitely could have been handled more gracefully." He sighed and leaned against one of the grimy walls without thought for his clothes or hair. "And maybe getting thoroughly lost in the back streets of wherever the hell I am wasn't such a good idea either. Am I even in the same city?"

There was a large whoosh and thump. "I never knew that you were in the habit of talking to yourself. Charming."

Kurama's thought processes did the mental equivalent of running into a wall at full tilt. "I'm not, actually," he said. It was about all his brain could handle at the moment.

"Well, one can't assume everything," said Karasu. "You're looking pale. Surprised to see me?"

"You're one to talk," Kurama retorted.

Karasu gently touched the wall to either side of Kurama's head. "I suppose that I am. If I were you," he added, "I would not move."

Kurama could just barely see the green glow out of the corners of his eyes. "Are you saying it would be a pity to kill me so quickly?"

"Yes and no," Karasu said. "I like your pretty face as is, leading me to prefer another manner of death for you. I could nick your arteries, flay your skin off, break your neck, or suffocate you. I could destroy you from the inside out. But I should prefer to stretch your death out. I would certainly like to make it last for days."

"So you just want me to hold still," Kurama said. "And if I don't? What if I want to die rather than let you touch me?"

Raising one hand, Karasu ran one skeletal finger down the side of Kurama's neck, drawing blood. "Then I'll pick up the pieces and have you put back together," he murmured. "It would be interesting, I think, to see how much you can take before you throw yourself into my bombs. But remember," he added, grabbing Kurama's face before the fox demon could move. "If you die, you won't stay that way. And I do so love to kill beautiful things like you."

"My vanity thanks you," Kurama said softly. "But I killed you once. I can kill you again."

Karasu looked like he might be smiling behind the somewhat squished metal mask. "You cannot kill what is already dead."

"You speak of killing me over and over when I am dead," Kurama challenged.

Karasu's eyes crinkled. "You speak of destroying me, of not letting me ever walk this earth again. I speak of feeling you shatter in the most final and ultimate way, and then having you restored and doing it again." He leaned closer and breathed the scent of rot into Kurama's face. "Because that will be part of the horror I feel in you. The horror that you will never die."

"Maybe I don't want to die," Kurama said.

Karasu reached up and unhooked the battered mask, exposing a lipless smile. "Maybe you don't. But when I am around, I think that you very much do. I prize this feeling highly, that I am worth your life."

"You're not worth my life." Kurama stared at him emptily. "You just want to think so."

"But dearest," Karasu said. "You tried to kill yourself to kill me."

Kurama directed all the aimless hatred floating around inside him to his eyes. "Go back to hell."

"You once said, you know, that Minamino Shuuichi was not yet up to the task of killing me," Karasu contemplated. "Is Minamino Shuuichi ready yet? Or do we get the pretty youko form instead?"

Kurama reacted, both hands flying up to pry Karasu's fingers from his person. One of them had been reduced to bone. "If you detonate anything at this range you'll hurt yourself too," Kurama hissed.

Karasu dug in the fingers of bone, making Kurama flinch slightly. "Now, what could I do to make you stop struggling so?" He looked calculatingly at Kurama, then finally said, "It would be nice to know how you taste. Ah, see how I am right! You stopped moving."

This was true. Kurama had frozen from a combination of horror and confusion. "The hell it would," he finally managed. "Now get OFF MRRPH!"

What Karasu had not allowed for was that Kurama was something of a worldly demon and could actually continue making panic-stricken plans while being very unpleasantly pashed.

Shuddering mentally, Kurama closed his eyes, bit down hard on Karasu's tongue, and then went limp, dropping straight between the two bombs on either side of his head.

Karasu made a strangled noise as his tongue was ripped from his mouth, which was almost drowned out by both small explosives detonating. Kurama didn't stop, but instead swept Karasu's feet from under him as he fell. He was moving before Karasu hit the ground. It didn't take much effort for him to scramble up to a broken window at the end of the alley, set ten feet above the ground. By the time that Karasu was on his feet and popping his jaw back into place, Kurama had disappeared from his sight.

Karasu put his mask back on and made a gurgling noise that might have been interpreted as, "Shame about that." He considered all paths of egress from the alley, including the window, then decided that it might be a better idea to postpone his stalking until he had a tongue. Speaking was a useful thing when terrorizing, tormenting, or otherwise having fun.

"Wergle glurk," said Karasu loudly to the alley. This could have been taken to mean 'I'll be back', or it could have been meant literally, as there was a demonic language that included those words. However, 'Thursday puffer-fish' was nowhere near as menacing as a demon of Karasu's stature demanded from an exit line. He then turned on his heel and walked lazily away.

Kurama had been huddled under the window, still biting down on Karasu's tongue, and wondering whether it was a good idea to breathe. But he knew Karasu rather well, and it was not in Karasu's repertoire to pretend to leave.

The second he could no longer hear footsteps or sense Karasu, Kurama spat out the well-decayed tongue, then threw up again. "Oh, God," he said. It sounded like a prayer. "This isn't happening. Not like this."

Kurama contemplated screaming hysterics. They probably would have made him feel temporarily better, but killing Karasu would make for much more long-term warm fuzzies. Regardless, he didn't feel obliged to try and stop shaking. He had read in a biology textbook that people trembled to warm up, and he felt like he wouldn't be warm again any time soon.

"Weed nodded sagely." I deserve to be shot.

Bluespark: He has a cell phone. It's an eighties cell phone that's ABOUT THE SIZE OF MY FOREARM. I don't blame him for not carrying it either. Sssh, there's no time discrepancy here.

Nyte Kit: I feel like the Sixth Sense man. I thought it was painfully obvious, and yet...no.

Oya: ...I think this is more than a 'slight' decaying smell. Still, I think I'm now going to procrastinate my homework and do YYH research.

KyoHana: I think my college essay is all right now. Wibble.

Deannamaydeemcelwee: ...dude, what's wrong with zombies?

kikira-chan: I volunteer my dorm's cellar for that purpose.

Capella Alpha Aurigae: It was a one-time deal. He took a cough drop and moved on with life. XD

Kooriya Yui: I shall tap my fingers together and laugh evilly.

Evenewytenyght: Funny dialogue is good.

A lilmatchgirl: I thought about it. I really did. Then I realised there's an annoyingly low number of people who have died and resented it and are also worth resurrecting. The Saint Beasts would be worth about five sentences. Less. But I did toy with it. Because they would have been five funny lines.

Will write for reviews.