chapter fifteen: in which things go decidedly south

"Fuck," Yusuke groaned into the floor. "Ow. Fuck."

"Are you well?" Yukina chirped, popping up from under some nearby rubble.

"Oh, peachy," Yusuke complained. "I spend all of my time bleeding copiously from my face and afraid that the place is going to go up in smoke if I make the wrong move. No big deal here. How's Kuwabara?"

"Er," said Yukina delicately. "Unconscious, it seems. I rather...ah, fell on him."

"He'll be delighted," Yusuke assured her, scanning the area for hovering green spots, red hair, or really hacked off homicidal maniacs. None of the three presented themselves. "I feel like I'm in the middle of a guerilla war."

"Sorry, Yusuke," apologized Kurama. Yusuke jerked, lost his balance, and sprawled over to behold Kurama hanging upside down from one of the few intact beams overhead. "But you sort of are."

"Hiei was right. You cheat so fucking badly," Yusuke said expressionlessly, throwing one arm over his eyes. "I think I'm going to just go to sleep now. Wake me up when someone dies, all right?"

Yukina shook him gently. "I think that person might be you if you continue to do such a thing. I think you have a concussion, for one thing. The other thing is that Karasu looks very angry over there. It would be well to get you and Kazuma somewhere safe so that I can heal you before your fight."

"Argh," Yusuke said, sitting up and scooting back. "Waugh. If you can get Kuwabara up now, do it. We don't have time to go be healed and come back."

There was a loud explosion, which dropped Kurama to the floor in a shower of blood. "No," Yukina said, backing up quickly. "We don't."

"Ow," whispered Kurama. "Go away," he added to Yusuke when the latter made a move towards him. "Just go away. You have to be somewhere else, Yusuke, and you have to do it without me. I trust you, all right?"

There was a moment where Yusuke hated himself violently and without reserve. He had been fixed as a leader for so long that he knew what he had to do, and the very thought made him sick and ashamed. He had never counted himself as a decent person, but against all the stark evil that the demon world could produce, he was unquestionably good. And despite his hesitation to show affection for others, he had a streak of loyalty that had been so used and manipulated to draw out his own strengths that he could turn it on and off when he needed it.

Looking at Kurama sprawled in a pool of his own blood on the floor with murder on his face and a demon in his eyes, Yusuke turned off every feeling, every shred of loyalty, everything that made him want to stay and at least chew his fingernails over Kurama, and loathed himself for it as long as he could afford the sensation. "Good," he said at last, and turned away.

Yukina was waiting for him and attempting to haul a groggy Kuwabara to his feet. "Take him," she ordered. "He needs to get his blood flowing."

"Where's Hiei?" Yusuke wondered, deja vu tickling across his mind.

"Resolutely not helping me," Yukina murmured in his ear as he bent to pull Kuwabara all the way up.

Yusuke bit back a grin and looked around for the second pair of red eyes in the gloom. "Walk around, Kuwabara," he commanded. "We have something of a problem. We're over here, El Zorromancer and his very strange assistant is over there – "

"Secretary," Kuwabara corrected.

"I don't care," Yusuke replied in the same tone. "Anyway, they are there and we are here. In between us is..." There was a sound much like that of a wall being ripped apart in order to make way for something much stronger and more alive. "That," he concluded weakly.

"He'll be looking for us as well," Hiei said. "And the back way is probably now our only option, as the front entrance to El Zorromancer's office is down here with us, and hence not of much use."

"The back entrance, then!" Yusuke declared, trotting for the mostly intact stairs.

"Urameshi!" Kuwabara caught him by the shoulder before he could make the leap to the fifth step, as all previous ones were not in ideal condition. "Are we just leaving Kurama?"

Yusuke looked at him with careless eyes. "Of course. It's what he wants."

"And you're okay with that?" Kuwabara asked.

"I am now," Yusuke said dismissively, then leapt for the stairs.

"He's such a good liar it's creepy sometimes," Kuwabara said, an odd expression on his face.

Hiei brushed past him impatiently. "He wasn't lying."

"Don't tell me he's not lying!" Kuwabara exploded. "Of course he's not okay with it!"

"He is because he has to be," Hiei retorted. "He's not the one we all look to because of his ability to make an idiot of himself when lives are at stake. Or do you want to be here when Kurama can't keep holding back so he won't hit us?" By the time he finished this speech, he was at the top of the stairs, Yukina not far behind.

Kuwabara bounded forwards. "He'd never hurt us!"

"Shows how much you know," Hiei said, and stalked away.

It occurred to Kuwabara that he had said something either disastrously wrong or disastrously inaccurate, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out just how.

Kurama breathed a very irrational sigh of relief when the door to the stairs closed after Kuwabara, then winced as the motion jarred one of his newly broken ribs.

"How polite of them," said Karasu. "They have left you alone with me."

"We don't know we're alone," Kurama replied, wondering if it would be worth the effort to not breathe in exchange for a few pain-free seconds. "We don't know where El Zorromancer went."

"We," said Karasu slowly, dwelling on the word. "I like that. And I do not care where that one went. He will not object to your death."

Kurama ignored him, instead racking up a frantic mental tally of his injuries as compared to Karasu's. So far, he was bleeding heavily from the area around his broken rib and his left shin, though he could almost feel the fractured bones knitting together. Karasu, on the other hand, sported nothing more than a few grazes and bruises from the fall he had taken, all of which were only there by way of having been more serious injuries some time before.

Then again, he had only been trying to dodge so far. The closest thing to an attack that he had tried was a halfhearted attempt to find the nearest plants and force them to grow down to him, with mixed results. The best thing had been a tree which had grown through a wall, only to be blasted apart. In the back of Kurama's mind, he was starting to be a little worried about the structural integrity of El Zorromancer's office.

"Are you even listening to me?" Karasu demanded, flicking closer. "Are you waiting for some drug of yours to kick in, because such things worked so well for you before?"

"Actually," Kurama said distractedly, "I was contemplating how very unattractive you were without the mask and with blonde hair. It really doesn't suit you. If you're going to make me your kinky sex-and-death slave, I think I deserve a say in these things."

Karasu smiled liplessly. "Think faster, dearest. You tried to plan for this, didn't you? You thought of all the things you could do or say. But now that you are here, facing me, doesn't it all seem so trivial? Everything I can do – everything I can be – is inherently destructive. You have no such advantage."

Kurama had been thinking something like this, with the added bonus of cursing himself fifteen ways from Sunday for not remembering that he had been in a similar state of mind the last time he had been up against Karasu. Repressed memories could be hell sometimes. "You said something to me once," he mused, praying he could finish before Karasu started manufacturing more bombs. "You said you had no interest in horticulture. Is this still true?"

"I don't care about plants," Karasu said diffidently. "I died once, yes, but just what made up that plant was of no interest to me. I was dead too quickly, you see."

Kurama would have replied immediately, but he was dizzily aware that his vision was being crossed with purple streaks and white lightning. He had not done such a massive summons in ages and he had forgotten the painful pleasure of the way the power raced through him like the conduit he was. He wondered with the clarity of the not-quite-lucid if this was how Karasu felt when he used his body to channel explosives. His body wanted to change, to regain the shape it knew best when being filled with this power, to take the strain off of this almost-human one. Kurama hung on anyway, half-crazy with the rush and deliriously amused at what a slap in the face it would be for Karasu if he didn't even touch his other form to kill him.

With one painful, electric snap, it all stopped. "Then," Kurama managed, feeling with fleeting satisfaction how much less his rib twinged, "I won't tell you what I've done."

He left out that if Karasu had asked, he wouldn't have explained anyway.

It would have taken all the drama out of it, really.

"I think I can guess," Karasu said, looking at the plant looming over him. "You have improved."

Kurama decided not to disclose that the wall was all that was holding him up for the moment. "You've been dead for a long time."

"And yet, dearest, there is still one thing you haven't taken into account," Karasu said, taking a step back and hefting a bomb in one hand. "Plants burn. And no matter how much they burn back, eventually there will be nothing left. Not only of it...of you."

"This one doesn't burn back," Kurama said, gazing at it with a vague smile. "Oh! I'm sorry; you said you weren't interested. How bad of me. Continue, please."

Karasu's eyes narrowed. "Don't patronise me," he snarled, flinging the first bomb straight through the waving tendrils of the plant and at Kurama. One end of his mouth tipped up as he saw the realization creeping across Kurama's face that he couldn't dodge or block it, and he smiled outright when Kurama screamed.

He really did sound arousing when he was in pain.

Eyeing the base of the plant, Karasu was preparing to inhale combustible materials and recycle them for his own use when blinding pain slashed him across the face, sending him reeling to his knees.

Kurama coughed wetly. "You see, what happens when you dismiss plants is that you forget all the important little things, such as avoiding poison ivy. Especially the sort you find in the demon world. It's not the tame little plant that waits for you to come to it. It will come to you, especially when encouraged to lash out. And its oils are more than a skin irritant."

"I noticed," Karasu gritted out as he clutched his face, feeling blood drip through his fingers. When he finally managed to get his eyes to focus, he beheld Kurama standing with the ivy twisted around him like supports. The blood running from his flesh hissed and evaporated on the ivy's surface. "And yet you seem to enjoy its touch."

"Compared to you," Kurama said thoughtfully, wiping at the blood darkly staining his lips, "it's a joy. Besides, to me it is nowhere near as poisonous."

"You prefer even plants to me," Karasu said. "I do feel snubbed."

"Well?" Kurama asked, shrugging out of the coils of the ivy and trying not to show the brief moment of dizziness that swept through him. "It injures you, and the corrosive power is great enough to keep you injured," he mused aloud.

"Yes, it is a danger to me," Karasu finished, sounding less than entertained. "But I see nothing stopping me from destroying it." He spread his hands with a flourish, eyes fixed on Kurama's. "Or you."

He savoured the moment of terror etched on Kurama's face as the stream of explosives poured from between his hands and towards the base of the plant. With the ease of practice, he sprang away and rode the blast force back, delighting in his brief flight.

Something slimy and thick closed around him with a snap, pulling him in and melting around his body with electric jolts. Karasu realized just what had been done to him a second too late, as his brain was already slowing down. He reached wildly inside him to pull out all the explosive power he could find, but –

Kurama picked himself up from the wreckage of the poison ivy and took a long, shuddering breath. The demonic version of the Venus flytrap was well accustomed to devouring things that would kill if given a chance, having evolved an electric charge into its digestive juices. The combination was enough to destroy the nerve impulses of even the most non-conductive of meals while devouring it from the outside in.

Shakily backing into the wall, Kurama slid bonelessly to the ground and waited. Either Karasu would burst free from the flytrap, a scenario which would probably leave Kurama no option but to switch forms, or the flytrap would spit out what it preferred not to digest – mainly, bones and hair.

Kurama dimly considered healing his wounds, then dismissed the thought in favour of preserving what youki he had. It had been a hell of a feat to pull two separate plants from two separate places and to drop the second one behind Karasu without the other demon noticing. But he had pulled it off, and all he could do now was wait and wish that he wouldn't have to do a similar thing any time soon.

Back when Yusuke, Hiei, Yukina, and Kuwabara had emerged into the back hallway, Yukina had made a dissatisfied face and stepped back towards the door. "Kazuma..."

"Is something wrong?" Kuwabara inquired, adding on a term of endearment so sappy that even Yukina winced slightly.

"I shan't be coming with you," Yukina said. "This is where I leave you."

"Is it because you think you're no good at fighting?" Kuwabara asked. "Because you did for the entire mob out front, right there."

"That," said Yukina with a faint blush, "was an accident. I was thinking of other things. But I truly do not want to be a part of this. I know that you think me at least somewhat bloodthirsty of late," she added with a look at Yusuke. "This is not true. I wish to leave you here. I have taken enough lives today that I do not want to be a part of the destruction of hundreds, possibly even thousands more. Also, you three show a regrettable tendency to try and protect me, which I admit that I rather need. Please, I will leave you."

Kuwabara decided to agree reluctantly to this pronouncement by engaging in a very prolonged farewell snog.

Yusuke made a faintly nauseated noise. "I have so many friends who would look incredibly hot making out, but no. If it were Botan instead of Kuwabara, it would show promise, but the gods mock me instead."

Hiei stared at him for a very long moment. "I," he finally said, "really did not need that mental image."

"You need that one even less," Yusuke retorted, flinging a hand at the liplocked pair by the door. "Ick. Slobbering noises."

"Why are you even paying attention?" Hiei asked with the faintly disturbed look of one who is trying desperately to ignore the topic of discussion. "Why is this even an issue right now?"

"You know, I'm considering sacrificing some of my hard-won gains just to get revenge for this moment," Yusuke said thoughtfully, gazing at Kuwabara. "Because that's just not something I ever wanted to see."

It was probably a good thing for Yusuke that Hiei knew very little of the particulars of Yusuke's death and subsequent activities before life. There would have just been too many opportunities for a thoroughly humiliating remark for Hiei to pass up. As it was, he only inquired, "Revenge?"

Yusuke allowed a thoroughly evil smile to drift across his face. "I had something in mind that might do to avenge myself for this moment, yes. And possibly you, because I think behind that poker face you're deeply considering walking up to El Zorromancer and saying 'Distract me.'"

"Oh my," said El Zorromancer. "So that's what the sucking noise was. Hello, by the by. Will they be done any time soon, or will we just be waiting here?"

"Gah," Yusuke said plaintively. "What is with all the sneak entrances and disappearing secretaries around here?"

"Oh, is Julian being reticent about his nature again?" El Zorromancer asked. "I'm not surprised, but that very reticence really should tell you what he is."

"Why are we having a cordial conversation if you want to kill me?" Yusuke decided to find out.

El Zorromancer shrugged, pulling his hair back from his bare chest. "Because I like and respect you, Urameshi Yusuke. I don't want to kill you because I want you out of my way. I wish you dead – note the difference in wording – because then I have a better chance of getting you to work for me. Really, I don't have much in the way of offensive capabilities against the living."

"Is that what Julian is for?" Yusuke asked.

El Zorromancer laughed, a beautiful and delighted sound that was severely at odds with the setting. "No. Julian is one of those people who have always harboured a secret desire to work for someone as he works for me. Some people, apparently, wish to be the invaluable second-in-command to...well, to someone who could be crudely termed a megalomaniac," El Zorromancer said modestly. "But his abilities do not run towards being crudely violent. His style is more to slip from the fingers of those who would assault him, especially when they want him most."

Yusuke had the sense that he was being given a hint. "Why do you object to telling me outright what he is?"

"I think I see," Hiei said at the same time, though his eyes had slid to Yukina hastening out the back door. "This talk probably will end very shortly."

"Oi!" Kuwabara bellowed. "What's he doing here?"

"We're having a chat about his secretary," Yusuke said dryly. "I'm really not sure why we're talking like this. Possibly it's to avoid watching you suck face with Yukina. You want to warn a guy before you do that again?"

El Zorromancer grinned engagingly. "You do like me, don't you?"

"Against my better judgement," Yusuke admitted. "But you are trying to take over three worlds, and I really would prefer you to not do that."

"Your young lady friend is clear of the building, your attractive thief friend is otherwise engaged, and we finally have the attention of that well-toned swordsman," El Zorromancer mused. "I suppose we come to blows now."

"Sir?" Julian had appeared so discreetly at El Zorromancer's side that it was a bit confusing as to whether he had actually been there all along. "Will you be requiring my services?"

Hiei slid the covering back over his third eye. "I was correct," he said to El Zorromancer. "How very interesting."

"You know what he is?" Yusuke demanded of Hiei. "Would you like to tell us before or after he uses his super power on us?"

"There won't be a super power," Hiei said dismissively.

"No," agreed El Zorromancer. "Julian is a super power." Drawing Julian to his side, he continued absently, "You see, Julian West is a djinn. He never died, but after being shot twice, he couldn't continue to work for his former employer, as that employer was a human. He came to me seeking work."

"Doesn't that mean you only have limited wishes?" Kuwabara demanded.

"No, sir," Julian answered. "Those are the lower djinni, the disembodied kind that reside within objects. The higher djinni such as myself have bodies, and our wishes are our weapons."

"This is bad, isn't it?" Yusuke asked Hiei.

Hiei wasn't paying attention to him. "That is how you move," he realized. "You wish yourself somewhere."

Julian smiled politely. "That is correct, sir. I apologise if I caused you any worry over your capabilities."

"Is this bad or what?" Yusuke demanded from Hiei.

Hiei shook his head slowly. "I have no idea." Off Yusuke's look, he continued, "I only guessed because I know the stories. You wouldn't; you haven't lived in our world."

"So do we do the ass-kicking thing now?" Kuwabara asked hopefully.

"Three on two," El Zorromancer said as Julian carefully disentangled himself and stood upright. "I think I'm glad your thief is otherwise occupied."

As fate would have it, at that current time, Kurama was watching with increasing elation as the Venus flytrap spat out bone after bone. It twitched, made a gagging noise, then coughed the skull up, with hanks of black-and-blonde hair sliming from its mouth. It was a thoroughly gruesome sight, but Kurama had seen a lot of those. Carefully weaving to his feet, he started picking his way towards the back stairs in order to be useful somewhere else.

He was two steps from the bottom rung when an explosion sent flaming pieces of Venus flytrap soaring past him and into the wall.

"Not again," Kurama breathed, whirling. "Not again. Not again!" The deja vu was almost too overwhelming. At least, until his eyes focused.

Karasu's skeleton was more or less assembled, glowing all over with youki. Even his hair was in place. He tried to speak, but nothing came but a strange gargling from the air and clacking from his jawbone. Nevertheless, Kurama felt terribly certain that Karasu was smiling at him.

Kurama bolted for the stairs and fled into the back hallway, taking a fast inventory of all the youki he had stored and all the life force he could muster on top of that. He wasn't like Yusuke, who needed to feel that a friend was in danger before he could tap everything he had. He just had to be terrified beyond rational thought and seething with hatred at the same time. It was a feeling that Karasu had never failed to instil in him.

The sight of the hallway nearly made him stop dead, but the sensation that Karasu had to be following him gave him the strength and the initiative to flip over the first clump of people, land in the middle, and do another aerial somersault over the next group before flying off in the other direction without ever knowing where he was actually headed, aside from Not Here.

Yusuke stared at Kurama's retreating form in horror. "Look at this," he said to Hiei, holding out the blood-streaked hand he had just touched to his face and hair. "How can he be losing that much blood and still be on his feet?"

"I don't know about him, but that would do it for me," Kuwabara said, staring at the head of the stairs. Everyone followed his gaze and froze in turn.

"Oh my," said El Zorromancer, eyes widening. "You are quite the determined one, aren't you, my dear?"

Karasu made a soft moaning noise. It seemed about all he was capable of, but Yusuke's hair stood on end anyway. "Holy. Fucking. Shit."

"So where does that hallway lead?" Hiei asked, looking at where Kurama had gone. The hall went past the back door and banked sharply to the left, so that the red-haired demon had effectively vanished.

Julian glanced at the blood trail. "Actually, sir, it doesn't lead anywhere. It is a dead end."

"Oh my God," Kuwabara blurted as Karasu sprang over the group with the ease of someone who no longer cares about the accepted law of gravity. Or any basic rules of biology, for that matter. "That's so not right."

"Yusuke," Hiei said. Something in his voice distracted Yusuke entirely from the sheer creepiness of the scene going on right then. "He'll kill himself if he has to."

"I know," said Yusuke, wishing he could let himself ache over it. "And this time I can't stop him."

"You won't," Hiei corrected, and Yusuke knew it was truth rather than accusation.

El Zorromancer heaved a breath. "My," he said, touching the blood that had been splattered across his face during Kurama's flight. "Well, my dears, are we in battle or aren't we?"

Yusuke could feel all the eyes on him, just as he could feel the heat patting him from the explosion at the end of the hallway and feel the scream punching through his ears to his brain. "I'm sorry," he said to El Zorromancer, "but I have to make you stop."

"And damn the consequences," El Zorromancer finished. "My dear, I too am sorry."

"Urameshi," Kuwabara said in his ear, sounding horrified. "You're not – ?"

Yusuke closed his eyes. "There are worse things to be than dead."

"A pretty answer to both questions," El Zorromancer said, sounding approving. "I wish you alone, my dear, but take a second if you wish. Julian – " He broke off, kissed Julian deeply, then released the djinn. "I who resurrect the dead implore you not to die."

"Of course, sir," said Julian obediently, looking at Hiei and Kuwabara in a new light.

"No, no, they'll kill each other before they touch you," Yusuke said tiredly. "You and Hiei should have fun. Kuwabara will be my second. I trust him to do what I can't."

Julian bowed. "If that is your wish, sir." He had only barely straightened up before both he and Hiei disappeared into a violent blur.

"Then come at me," El Zorromancer said, beckoning with both hands.

There was another explosion and scream from the end of the corridor. Yusuke smiled sadly and opened up everything he had to the rage and pain he felt for Kurama. "Once," he said to El Zorromancer, "my teacher asked my opponent to kill my best friend. It gave me strength that I never knew I could have."

"And now you are older and wiser in the ways of demons," El Zorromancer said. "And if you let someone dear to you do as he will against one of the ones I raised, the hatred and sorrow which gives you power is compounded by the feelings you have for yourself. My dear, you should not have had to live thus."

Yusuke looked at him with eyes that were barely sane. "I only wanted some kid with no traffic sense to live," he said, and the war was on.

OMG THE DRAMA. No, seriously, I'm having fun playing with Yusuke's head as the leader. He has such incredible trauma potential. Don't worry, he gets better.

Kladsffjkafk.df. SCARY SKELETAL KARASU ICK.

I need to keep a tally of how many pints Kurama is losing. He's going to pass out soon. Not that this is a hint; just a scientific fact that I haven't quite accounted for yet. Oh dear.

I want to be like Julian when I grow up. Seriously.

I listened to Megalomaniac for when El Zorromancer and Yusuke were talking, Prologue and The Dope Show for Kurama and Karasu, Hotel California and Tusk for the crazy in-between bits, and Why for the rest of it. At least, those were the repeat-songs when I needed inspiration. Just thought you might actually care.

On one of the reviews of my one-shots, someone asked me if I was British, because I didn't sound American or Japanese. The truth is that I read a lot of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. Hell, I read a lot of mysteries. I also have a severe fondness for 'fics written with a sort of dark, knotty style, and when I was but a wee writer, I read many a 'fic written thus. I also have an English (UK) spell-checker that changes things on me. I use it because I learned a tendency to throw an extra u into a lot of words and to flip the re ending of words when I was also a wee writer, and I get confused easily with spell-check. And then there's the Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. And Diana Wynne Jones. I also go to an international school, so I can hand in papers and type thus without anyone really...noticing.

I didn't actually answer that question, did I? AHAHA PIRATES.

Kooriya Yui: Yukina rocks.

KyoHana: I offer a tissue?

Kurama'sGirl88: Yes! People are actually disturbed by him! I keep hoping for that and it's never happened. Woe.

Chichiro Ketsueki: Yay for reviewing!

kikira-chan: Hurrah for the unconsciously-put-in Toshi/Weed dynamic! I've done real, live subtext!

Nyte Kit: Is this ending better? I'm trying to be amusing, I'm only trying to be amusing! Don't hurt me!

Aithril the Elf-Maiden: It's salaried, actually.

Seijaku Kage: I, too...

kahuffstix: Erm. Thank you?

Capella Alpha Aurigae: I'm sorry!

Bluespark: Being sick for the holidays is just...inconvenient.

A lilmatchgirl: There's a first time for everything, I guess.

Inktail: Hurrah!

katia-chan: I'm sorry! It just...happened.

RehdFawx: Erm...thank you? You're welcome?

Don't make me parody holiday songs by sticking 'review' into them at random intervals.