In Which Yusuke Makes A Decision
"You're quite good, sir," said Julian, delicately bobbing on air with his hands tucked behind his back. He still had the air of not having a single hair out of place, though his suit was torn and stained with bright silvery blood. "But you seem a bit distracted."
Yusuke and El Zorromancer chose that moment to wrestle their way between Julian and Hiei and fall into another corridor. "It's hard to be focused with all these interruptions," Hiei answered. "And I do not think that I have your full attention, either."
"I'm sorry, sir, but you are correct. You don't." Julian's eyes flicked to El Zorromancer, then back. "I fear that you are more accustomed to fighting than I am, as well."
"You just wish yourself away," Hiei agreed. "You find it more honourable to avoid a battle?"
Julian nodded. "Yes, sir. I have an unfair advantage, you see, and I truly hesitate to use it."
"And that advantage is?" Hiei inquired.
"I could wish you dead and kill you on the spot," Julian said apologetically.
Hiei was momentarily puzzled. "So while we're fighting to the death, you hesitate to pull out the one thing that could drop me here and now."
Julian bounced in the air gently as he deliberated. "Well, sir," he finally said, "you are only using a sword against me. I think the word I am looking for is 'overkill'? You do not want to break out everything you have to kill a mere secretary, and I do not wish you terminate you where you stand and face the repercussions. It is very hard, when wishing, to influence living beings. This is why lower djinni are forced to grant only three wishes to whomsoever captures them."
"Would you at least wish yourself a weapon?" Hiei demanded.
"Ah," Julian said tactfully. "You would not kill me if it were not a honourable fight. My apologies, sir." With that, he touched the flat of a gently curved sabre to his forehead in a salute. "Or would you not kill me if the fight were not amusing to you?"
"You're perceptive," Hiei allowed.
Julian smiled, and his teeth were suddenly and discreetly sharper. "I wished to know, sir. Very well; you will have fun."
Hiei found himself fending off the curved blade only a heartbeat later. Realizing that this would be a test of speed and sheer skill with a sword, he completely discarded the idea of breaking out the hellfire with something akin to elation.
He would have fun.
"He's fast," Yusuke noted grimly to El Zorromancer, panting slightly. The man was far taller and proportionally as muscled as Yusuke, but Yusuke had that edge of human cunning which had seen him through several fights before. It helped that Yusuke was growing steadily more furious with the world in general and dying to find someone to take it out on.
"Julian?" El Zorromancer asked with a wince. "Yes, he can be when he wishes. You're quite quick as well."
"It's that or get my head taken off by Hiei when he's feeling cranky," Yusuke shot back. "Mostly I dodge, though. He can do entire fucking strategies at that speed. I don't know how he thinks that fast." He was on El Zorromancer before the sentence ended, punching and kicking whatever he could reach out of sheer desperation. So far the man had simply shrugged off all the injuries, barely resisting the shock waves Yusuke could incur. Yusuke was starting to wonder if the man had learned a few tricks from all the dead people he had encountered along the way, because he looked nothing more than winded and slightly bruised.
"I have very good control of my youki," said El Zorromancer breathlessly when Yusuke articulated these thoughts in frustration. "It's the first thing a necromancer learns. If I couldn't focus my youki to block your attacks wherever I needed them, I would be worthless at projecting myself," he ducked Yusuke's punch, "or at removing or replacing souls," he hit Yusuke on the side of the neck with a stray hand, "or at using my youki to repair dead flesh."
"Yeah, well, I trained with Genkai," Yusuke said, landing a solid fist in El Zorromancer's solar plexus and feeling the larger man fold up with some distant pleasure. "So I just had to do it right."
El Zorromancer choked up blood, then wiped his mouth. "So I see. My dear," he began carefully. "If he dies, he doesn't have to come back. I can ensure it."
Yusuke lashed out almost blindly, catching El Zorromancer across the jaw. "I'm not going to think about that right now," he said, forcing calm into his voice. "Don't try and distract me from you. It won't save you."
"I have asked for it," El Zorromancer agreed. "I made my bid for power. If I lose, I fail. If I win...I could use you to kill all three of your friends. It would be cruel and distasteful, and you would resent me much. I would not prefer it, but it is something that I could do."
"That," Yusuke said, horrified, "makes Karasu look fucking sane."
"I'm just letting you know that although many people find me intriguing, amusing, and otherwise pleasant company," El Zorromancer said modestly, "I have also dreamed of what I plan to do for some time. I am nothing if not determined. And if I sent you against them, you would win. One would not fight you, one is already dying, and the last would die at your hands, however unwillingly."
Yusuke suppressed the urge to punch El Zorromancer without abandon and instead peered at the demon critically. "Are you trying to provoke me?"
El Zorromancer smiled, displaying bloody teeth. "Perhaps I wish to see for myself just how far you can go. Unlike your sadly underworked thief, no one has returned to challenge you personally. Given more time, this could have been engineered, but..." He shrugged elaborately. "Now is not the time for me to detail my regrets. Please, come at me as you will."
The switch from deranged would-be dictator to polite opponent was a little more than Yusuke's brain could handle. "Would you pick an approach and stay with it?" he demanded angrily.
"So be it," El Zorromancer said lightly. "Shall I enumerate how I would have you kill them, or would that be too crude?"
"Oh, shut up," Yusuke ordered, taking a swing.
Standing guard by the back door, alternately bored out of his skull and worried sick, was Kuwabara. He had realized rather quickly that Yusuke's fight was a one-man deal, and he wouldn't have jumped in with Hiei and Julian for the world, even if he could actually keep up with their pace. Likewise, he didn't even consider going within fifteen feet of Kurama. This left him with very little to do but stand by the door, sulk mightily, and wait for someone else to pop up for convenient arse-kicking.
"Sir?" Julian quietly materialized at his side, bobbing several inches above the ground with a bloody sword in one hand and a certain exotic sharpness about his face that had not been there previously. "You seem to have been neglected. May I be of assistance?"
Kuwabara cast about frantically for Hiei. Said fire demon was holding an equally bloody sword and looking much more entertained than Kuwabara felt. "Would you suppress your secretarial instincts to please for one bloody fight?"
Making a dismissive noise, Kuwabara said scornfully, "We can play once the midget loses."
"Really, sir?" Julian asked. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to be entertained now?"
"I'll pass," Kuwabara said hastily. "Question, though. Why the hell are you floating?"
Julian looked politely surprised. "Should I not, sir?"
"Ignore him," Hiei advised. "He's probably still convinced that your permanent residence is a lamp. He gets like that sometimes."
"The most fantastical stories always travel the farthest," Julian said diplomatically. "If you will excuse us, sir?"
"Yes, go away," Hiei agreed.
Kuwabara felt thoroughly snubbed when the two disappeared back into a black blur that glittered with flashing blades. "Fine," he said. "I will. Thanks so much for making me feel needed." With that, he turned and sulked out the door.
"Kazuma!" Yukina leapt out of the Cthulhu car and dashed up to him. "Where are the others? What happened? You don't look hurt. Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," Kuwabara said peevishly, going over to the car and flopping into one of its many seats with a pout. "Kurama is getting the shit kicked out of him, Hiei and that secretary genie person are having a swordfight faster than the eye can see, and Yusuke is in a wrestling match with El Zorromancer. None of the enemy feels up to the might of Kuwabara the Great."
"How is that going?" Weed asked, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. "I mean, El Zorromancer and the death stuff?"
"Yusuke was screaming that he was a sick fuck a little bit earlier," Kuwabara said. "He's not happy. I don't foresee a peaceful ending for that one."
"Oh," said Weed softly, putting his head down on the steering wheel. "Well then."
Kuwabara awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. "I guess I'll go back in now. Kuwabara the Great turns into Progress Report Man." He kissed Yukina briefly, then turned and slouched back into the building.
There was a moment of silence which Toshi shattered by screeching, "Wait! Kurama's fucking losing? Dirty pool!"
Inside, Kurama was totally unaware of Yusuke slowly but thoroughly wearing down El Zorromancer, of how miserably useless Kuwabara was feeling, or of Hiei's efforts to out-think a sword-fighting djinn who could make anything come true with a wish. At the moment, all he was thinking about was how very much it hurt to be flung into a wall, even if it was only the shock wave of an explosion and not the actual fire itself.
Karasu made his now-trademark unearthly moan again, stepping towards Kurama lazily and distracting the fox demon from trying to decide whether he should throw everything he could muster into summoning another plant or if he should just give up, slip into his full youko form, and pray like hell that he survived. The tricky part about the decision was that Kurama could swear that there was some kind of soul-stealing plant, but he was damned if he could remember just what and where it was. He had been stalling like crazy so far, but it really hadn't gotten him anywhere, aside from three inches into a few nearby walls.
Wavering to his feet, Kurama walked straight into one explosive, staggered back, and felt metal prongs close around one outstretched arm and both ankles, shackling him to the wall, floor, and three more bombs simultaneously.
Kurama had never liked cages, traps, or any sort of restraints. He also really didn't like being systematically ripped apart. These two factors combined with a skeletal Karasu grinning at him drained the blood from his still mostly untouched face. "Can you even hear it when I scream any more, or is it all arbitrary?" he asked bitterly.
Karasu nodded and made another small moan, which set off all three bombs at once.
In the middle of screaming bloody murder with tears running down his face and blood dripping afresh from his arm and legs, Kurama had a thoroughly fiendish idea. It was one of those ideas where if it didn't kill him, he ran a very good chance of being arrested, but he was beyond caring about such trivial details.
It wasn't like he'd never broken out of prison before.
He was halfway through whispering the invocation through bitten lips when Karasu strode over and picked him up by the neck with one bony hand, making a triumphant-sounding moan.
Choking out the last three words with what remained of his air, Kurama felt the summons take hold with violence, ripping out the youki it demanded as a sacrifice and devouring it. Karasu felt it as well, closing finger bones around Kurama's throat.
"After all this," Kurama said, though there was no air to give his words any volume, "you'll just strangle me?" He reached out with his left hand and gripped the object floating down from a purple haze in the air, crushing it in his fingers.
Karasu made a chiding noise before taking a hand from Kurama's throat and touching Kurama's closed fingers. Kurama felt a cold jolt from his left arm, then nothing at all.
Dropping the demon, Karasu watched with interest as Kurama crumpled unconscious to the floor, the remnants of whatever he had summoned glimmering around them both. With a satisfied gargle, he pulled Kurama back to his feet and backhanded him across the face, leaving faint but oddly attractive lines over his cheekbones.
"Nn," said Kurama, blinking. Two seconds later had him fully conscious and trying to back farther into the wall as he realized how badly hurt he must be as well as how very close Karasu was to him.
Karasu felt a deep, indescribable sense of wonder and elation as he realized that he was not far from the kill. Putting fingers under Kurama's chin as he stripped off the leather collar (and how intriguing that he had worn it!), he started to look thoughtfully at the signature he had left, then stiffened when he saw the condition the scar was in.
"I thought you'd heard about that," Kurama said, a slow, mocking smile slipping across his face. "Besides, you seem to know so very well that I like it...rough."
Karasu backhanded him again, this time in fury. His mouth worked, but he could do nothing more than cause the air around him to shimmer with angry groans.
"I want to thank you," Kurama continued, trying to make the most of his temporary advantage. "You scattered my plant farther than I could have ever needed. You don't like horticulture, but I think you'll want to hear about this one anyway. The use of this plant is highly restricted, because you can use it to arbitrarily summon someone to you. Most of these types of things require precise parameters and consent, but this one is far more powerful and thus does not. And when the person is there, you can request something of them. Many warlords use it to get free assassinations done by people who mean nothing to them, or for interrogation purposes."
Tightening his grip on Kurama's throat to stop the flow of words, Karasu nevertheless found himself hearing, "I summon the succubus who traumatised Yusuke here." This was such flagrant cheating, Karasu felt, that he was justified in pressing his thumbs down over the big veins in Kurama's neck.
Stars exploded across Kurama's vision. His eyes flickered once, then slid halfway shut as his brain quietly started to shut down. Karasu found this dissatisfying and shifted his grip to cover Kurama's trachea alone. The pleasure, when Kurama woke up with a pained gasp and tears starting in his eyes, sickeningly dizzy and fighting for air before he was even fully conscious, was intense enough for Karasu to really start to regret not having much in the way of flesh and muscle.
They were called the pleasures of the flesh for a reason, of course.
"Hmph," said a female voice from behind him abruptly. "I offered him nothing he didn't want. How dare you summon me thus? I'm working for Koenma now! I'm all respectable!"
Karasu wished he could have his tongue back for the express purpose of asking Kurama just how he fancied completing this highly irregular tactic (and oh so illegal at that) without being able to make his request. However, he had a bit of an idea that he was communicating it anyway, what with the manual strangulation. It was rather how he had dreamed of killing Kurama, with blood dripping everywhere and life dissolving under his own grasping fingers, frantic terror in his eyes and that incredibly erotic expression that declared that Kurama knew just how long these next three minutes before death would be.
Really, it was a pity about his body. Perhaps he wouldn't kill him yet. He might keep him unconscious and broken until he was regenerated, and then kill him.
Karasu liked that idea rather a lot.
Kurama, meanwhile, hadn't quite counted on being strangled before he could speak, but clung desperately to lucidity and the function of his limbs. Karasu didn't seem to notice when he took one hand from trying to loosen the skeletal grip and instead pointed to the succubus, at Karasu, then back to the succubus.
Karasu did notice when the succubus inhaled obediently, her eyes rolling up behind her lids and her mouth curving into the smile of a sated predator. His extremities fell apart first, with all the little bones of his hands clattering around Kurama's feet. Dizzily sliding to the ground, Kurama watched as Karasu's youki and life force twined together and were pulled from his bones and into the mouth of the succubus.
The head fell last, gazing at him malevolently with an open mouth and blind eye sockets before it clattered to the ground, teeth and hair falling free.
"How very rude of you!" said the succubus when intelligence returned to her eyes, stamping one foot. "There was nothing for me but his soul! There was no body for me to have. It always tastes so much better when I can have them all the way. It's orgasmic in more ways than one."
"I'm sure," Kurama whispered, adding talking to the long mental list of Actions Which Hurt Like Hell.
The succubus pouted. "I don't appreciate being your mindless soul-sucking tool."
"I forgot the name of the plant that does the same thing," Kurama breathed apologetically.
The succubus eyed him, then giggled. "I'll forgive it for a pretty demon like you. Give a girl a goodbye kiss?"
Kurama decided that it would be a choice moment to pass out, and promptly did so.
"Hmph," said the succubus. "At least it was a tasty request." Stepping carefully over the remnants of Karasu, she licked Kurama's temple with a farewell air. "And a tasty requester," she whispered to Kurama as the plant he had summoned began to draw her back to the border.
Around the corner, Hiei had managed to knock Julian's sabre away and land on the secretary's chest, blade pointed at the djinn's throat. "This can't continue indefinitely," Hiei said. "But if I slit your throat, will it kill you?"
"I shan't let myself die until El Zorromancer no longer needs me, sir," Julian answered. "Do not worry, however. This will not continue indefinitely." With that, he made a sweeping motion along Hiei's torso, then sprang to his feet in a motion that threw Hiei into the wall, a knife glittering in one hand.
"Oh," said Hiei quietly, feeling blood stream from the slice Julian had inflicted. The wound ranged from his left hip to his right clavicle and had cut so deeply that blood was already welling in the back of his throat as a result.
Julian tucked both hands behind his back and bobbed absently in the air on the other side of the hallway, looking at the damage he had done. "I am sure, sir, that you heal quickly. I am also sure that you could hurt me without needing to move, though possibly at the expense of your life, if you divert too much energy from repairing yourself. Of course you know, sir, what wounds to the intestines and stomach invariably do."
Hiei knew very well. "Is this a prelude to your walking away?"
"No, sir," said Julian. "I wish to keep fighting." As he spoke, the various wounds which Hiei had sliced into his flesh and bone all quietly sealed up and disappeared, leaving only silvery smears of blood to mark where they had been.
Carefully sliding to his feet, Hiei came to terms with how elegantly he had been put at a disadvantage. "Good. Because even if you hadn't, I've never been good at obeying others' wishes."
At the other end of the hallway, Yusuke stood over El Zorromancer, shaking the feeling back into one hand. "You've lost a lot of power in the past few days, what with raising the dead and healing them and breaking open the hells and all that. You're running out."
"But what a lovely ride it has been, my dear," El Zorromancer said, making no move to get up from the floor. "You are correct. Any further and I will be tapping my life force, which is already on the meagre side."
"Then go on and tap it," Yusuke hissed. "Or are you going to give up your plans so easily?"
"Remember, my dear, I have tried this sort of thing before," El Zorromancer said gently. "Each time, I gain a little more. This time, I was enough of a threat for the rulers of each world to notice me. Next time...?"
"There will be a next time?" Yusuke asked, eyebrows raised.
El Zorromancer smiled up at him. "Not if you kill me now. That is what you do, is it not?"
There was a screeching roar from farther down the hallway, followed by the sound of fire tearing through cement and steel like paper. "It is," said Yusuke, raising one hand slowly and pointing at El Zorromancer's head.
El Zorromancer's eyes flicked to the black fire splashing towards them. "Au revoir, Urameshi Yusuke."
Yusuke closed his eyes and fired.
It was not until some time later that he opened his eyes. "I think you got him."
Glancing at Kuwabara, Yusuke said simply, "Oh."
Kuwabara hurried into speech. "Well, you fired, and then he vanished. I've never seen that before. And the secretary guy seems to have totally vaporized, too."
"I may have missed," Yusuke said meditatively. "Remember, his secretary had the ability to wish himself to places."
"I think you just totally destroyed him," Kuwabara said as Yusuke suddenly wobbled and put a hand on the wall to steady himself. "I wish someone would have let me have a piece of this, though."
"You wouldn't have lasted a minute." Hiei had slid back to the ground in the charred area of the hallway, blood pooling freely around him. Against his dark hair and the bright splashes of blood on his face and hands, his skin was even more greyish pale than normal.
"Oh my God," Kuwabara said. "That doesn't look healthy."
"Bastard had a knife," Hiei said expressionlessly. "I've never liked knives. Too personal."
"Where's Kurama?" Yusuke asked, pushing off the wall.
"Well, I don't hear anything exploding," Kuwabara hazarded, "so probably not around here?"
Yusuke made a dissatisfied face and strode away. Rounding the bend at the end of the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks, barely noticing when Kuwabara walked straight into him. "Oh sweet Jesus."
"Shit," Kuwabara completed, staring over his shoulder. Karasu was in several hundred bony pieces, with Kurama sitting very still at their centre, hair falling in his face and blood splashed everywhere. "Kurama!"
For several long, heart-stopping moments, there was no response. Yusuke finally looked at Kuwabara and said, "Well, maybe he's unconscious."
"I don't see breathing," Kuwabara pronounced.
"Damn," Yusuke said in the tones of one who has been trying to avoid thinking about such a thing. "This isn't happening."
There was an impatient sigh. "You two are sentimental idiots," Hiei said disinterestedly, slipping past them and sinking down to sit next to Kurama. "Are you done gloating?" he continued, grabbing something from under Kurama's hair and pulling it away.
Kurama made a face and took the iPod headphones back. "I am not gloating," he said hoarsely.
"Don't give us heart attacks like that, dammit!" Kuwabara screeched. "Are you breathing? Are you dead?"
Hiei made a disgusted noise and put one hand to Kurama's neck. "His heart's beating, if that's what you want to know."
"Ow," said Kurama, knocking Hiei's hand away. "I'm already in enough pain. Stop aggravating it," he said with as much heat as he could muster through a bruised windpipe. This motion was enough to make him dizzy all over again. "Hell," he murmured, putting both hands to his head in an effort to make the room stop spinning.
Yusuke stomped viciously on a few stray bones as he made his way over to Kurama. "Here," he said, picking up the demon. "I feel like death gently warmed over, but since you're a skinny bastard and we can deduct a few pints of blood from your weight, I think I can swing this. Kuwabara, you want to go tell Yukina that she's going to be putting in a little overtime on this one? Don't you dare collapse on me right now," he added threateningly to Hiei. "If you bleed out here, there will be indignities visited upon you to which you will not wish to wake."
"I'm up," Hiei snapped, though he was greyer than ever. "Now what?"
Yusuke marvelled at the telling power of extreme pain, if it made Hiei actually ask for direction. "We go and bleed all over Weed's car, that's what. Do you think he carries some convenient blood substitute? Because it's looking like we're going to need it."
The reason Karasu more or less killed Kurama was because I frankly didn't fare much better against the sod. It was damn hard to make him stay dead, fuck it. HARD.
Hands up for all those who wanted to be the succubus in this chapter.
Kdjf;lakjdf FIVE THIRTY IN THE MORNING. weepeth
I withhold information from your pathetic souls! BWAHAHA!
Katia-chan: You have a lelola account! Oh, and if you're on cold medicine, get better!
Kurama'sGirl88: Behold! Random sentimentality in the end of the chapter!
KyoHana: I will do. Happy holidays to you too!
Maxwell: One can but dream about their SAT scores.
Deannamay: Erm...sorry?
RehdFawx: Well, that's the end of skeleton!Karasu, so...
Nyte Kit: I am that.
Bluespark: ...that would be where my creativity ended, right there. Eheh.
Aithril the Elf-Maiden: Stay tuned for further information. Bwahaha.
Seijaku Kage: I have a great fear of small children.
It's gratuitous gift season! Or, um, gratuitous review season. Whichever.