Disclaimer: I could tell you I own Yu Yu Hakusho, but it would be a lie.

This is now also rated T for language and self-mutilation.

Note: When I post the next chapter, this will change from Drama/Angst to Horror/Angst. I decided to make this change because I realized I was using "Drama" like TNT (which I also do not own) does, to mean anything that's not cute and fluffy family stuff, and this is about curses, cutting and death and deserves to be treated as such. (Please don't hate it—or me—for pointing that out.)

"Makaigo"

Thought

This is an intense thought, not Makaigo

---

Blood spilled from the cut in the boy's arm. He fell forward over the sink, eyes clouding in pain. He was breathing heavily. Blue eyes were becoming glassy. He threw back his head to open his airway. He had to stay conscious. This time he had to hold on.

The man had really died. Usually they were left alive to spread the curse to others, but not this one. He died for the crime of giving Kurama the Spider's Web.

The boy collapsed back against the wall. He had to hold on… But he was slipping. He could feel himself falling beneath a haze of pain and blood loss. Someone else pushed him out of the way and took control of their shared body.

The alter reached up and switched on the water, splashing it down over the ground. Wherever it turned red with blood, it formed a pool and rose into a massive beast. Finally, there was one monster. This one grabbed its master, sealing the cuts in his arm, and picked him up and headed for the nearest hospital.

---

"My god, what in the hell did you do to your arm?"

The doctor pushed up his glasses as he bent to look at the cuts running along the length of the boy's forearm. They had been cleaned and stitched up, but this doctor was new, not an ER surgeon but a psychiatrist.

"Cut it, what's it look like?" The boy's voice was no longer the more gentle voice that Mitarai Kiyoshi had, but a harsher sound to match the more demonic aura he exuded.

The doctor pushed his glasses up again. Sea Man, as he was again calling himself, itched to smash the glasses into his face until they broke the bone. The habit reminded him of Kaitou, who in turn reminded him of Kurama, who was a mistake. A mistake, and he was stuck unable to remedy that mistake.

"Why did you cut yourself?" the doctor asked.

Sea Man shrugged. "I felt like it." He failed to mention that it was Mitarai's insistence on cutting himself instead of just dosing himself that let Sea Man keep saving them. Probably if Mitarai passed out from drug overdose, Sea Man would take over and save them again anyway.

"You felt like it," the doctor repeated. No inflection. No emotion. No indication at all that he knew what he'd just said except for the intelligence in his voice and manner. Damn it, why did everything he did have to trace back to Kurama?

Sea Man sneered. "What are you, deaf? Yes, I felt like it. Got a diagnosis for that?"

"Actually, yes." Finally. Something that was completely unlike the fox. Of course, now Sea Man noticed it because it wasn'tlike the fox. Damn it.

The man continued. "You have experienced a great amount of anger and pain recently," he began.

Both parts of the shared mind agreed.

"With no target for the anger, and no release for the pain, you turn the blade against yourself. You try to relieve some of the pressure of your anger. You also may find that it gives you a sense of contact with the material world. When numbed by medications or events, you may find that pain is something almost beautiful in its existence, in the fact that you have evidence that you are there—"

"Nnn… nn-ooh."

The doctor stopped abruptly. "What?" This side hadn't come out before. Usually Sea Man was on various drugs so he wouldn't cut himself again until they could find out what was wrong with him. The drugs kept Mitarai asleep, but now he was waking up.

"That's… not… it." Every word cost Mitarai to get out. He reached for the glove on his left hand, slowly, his right hand shaking like a leaf. Before he'd made it halfway, his left hand seized his right and he fell from the couch down onto the floor.

"No," the harsh voice hissed in Makaigo. "You fool, NO!" He lashed out, slamming their right hand into the wall. Mitarai's voice cried out.

"Have to… can't… must… look…" Mitarai reached out a trembling left hand. Almost immediately it was snatched back. The doctor reached out toward them, apparently intending to do as Mitarai wanted and remove the glove.

Sea Man forced Mitarai back and launched a blow from the floor up into the man's ribcage. The doctor stumbled back, gasping. Sea Man pulled at the stitches until his arm was bleeding again and knocked the man's glass over, mixing the liquids into a monster. He directed the creature to kill the man just before a familiar energy assaulted his senses. Two familiar energies, to be exact, one intertwined with the other.

The water creature stopped in its task to look over at its master. Sea Man, in control again, had looked toward the window. Without further hesitation he gave the beast a new order.

Sea Man left the hospital to the sound of running feet and shattering glass, leaving the doctor behind stabbed with a piece of the window.

---

Kurama was still running. He had stayed overnight in the city—or part of the night; he had run away when they discovered the man he'd murdered when he came in—before running on. Since then he had barely stopped to rest.

The fox froze where he was, in the middle of the woods. Was he being followed? He turned, not expecting to see anyone and, as expected, not seeing anyone. He pulled a rose from his hair and raised his arm to create his rose whip when the last person he'd expected emerged from the trees.

The blond raised his hands, grinning. "Hey, you're not gonna use that on me, are you?" he asked, feigning worry. "I mean, I'm pretty young. I don't wanna die."

Kurama lowered his arm, then replaced the rose as it had been, twined into his hair. Forcing his old, unaffected manner into his expression and voice, he answered, "And yet, you were going to help Sensui create a portal that would be the death of all humans, including yourself."

The boy nodded. "Yeah, I know. Not one of my better choices, you know? But hey, humans aren't so bad. I mean, they have their uses, right?"

Kurama's eyes narrowed. This wasn't the boy he'd invited to join their cause. "Who are you?" he demanded suddenly, reaching for the rose. "What have you done with Mitarai?"

The youth in front of him laughed. "Mitarai? That weakling? He's here, I guess. Can I take a message?" His eyes widened; his mouth stretched into a wicked grin.

Kurama barely had time to register the movement of the water beast before something pierced his neck. He fell as though in slow motion, seeing the world blur under the influence of the sedative.

---

The expression on Mitarai's face changed faster than he could blink, from wicked and gleeful to panicked and sorrowful. Mitarai dropped beside Kurama and pulled the needle and syringe from the demon's neck. Glancing at the level of the drug, he found that he'd just made it; any more would have caused fatal overdose, even in Kurama. Mitarai beckoned to his water beast to come help.

This creature was about six feet tall, and had Mitarai been thinking clearly he never would have tried to command it. It had been formed from his territory under the influence of Sea Man's increasingly demonic aura. Sure enough, his command provided the perfect opportunity for Sea Man to emerge and take control.

The alter in question grasped the needle again and targeted the major artery in Kurama's neck. He was determined to ensure that Mitarai would not save the kitsune again.

No… Mitarai's voice in their mind was faint, but he held on just enough to gain partial control of his hand. The needle hovered above the other youth's neck, but failed to get any closer, even to touch the skin.

You can't!

I can, and I will. The images that flashed from alter to original were the mental equivalent of stabbing oneself and twisting and dragging the knife from neck to chest. Mitarai's control wavered, but didn't fail.

No! It's not… it's not his fault… He can still spread it…

He's affected by paranoia, Mitarai. He's not going to touch anyone, not if he can avoid it. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending you can convince me not to kill him.

I'll infect the ningen Tantei! I'll infect the other psychics! Just leave him alone!

The promise was so rash, so unlike Mitarai, that in the instant afterwards, Mitarai was able to seize control back from a stunned Sea Man. He hurled the syringe into a tree, where it broke and fell to the ground, and shut down his territory for a moment before recreating his water beast with his own, human aura.

This time the beast obeyed his command to lift Kurama and carry him toward Mushiyori city.

You will infect the Tantei…? Hardly… I could do it myself.

They wouldn't trust you, Mitarai argued desperately. As hard as it was for him to control Sea Man's beasts, there was no difficulty at all the other way. You saw Kurama… you can't be me… just please, leave him alone…

If Sea Man had had control, he would have grinned more evilly than before. The Tantei… hmm… that could be interesting… Fine. The fox is off-limits. You have three days.

For the first time, Mitarai took note of his surroundings. While he had been talking with Sea Man, his beast had guided him to the cave they'd found up the face of Demon's Door. There were two of them, connected only by a thin tunnel that even Mitarai had difficulty getting through. His water monster set the fox down in one of the rooms and collapsed down the face of the cliff; Mitarai went into the other cave and collapsed, asleep before he fell.

---

A/N: Thanks to the people who reviewed! I know, it's a day after I got two positive reviews, but my computer was down yesterday. If this one sucks, please don't be mad… tell me and I'll take it down and fix it. My beta is gone for the day, so to get this up when I said I would I had to edit it myself, and I like being evil to characters I like, so this is how it turned out.

To answer the confusion: Yusuke and Kuwabara don't have a clue about all this. Next chapter we learn exactly what the heck is up with that. (Okay, I said I'd explain it this time, but it didn't really work out.) And in case anyone doesn't know how language name formation works in Japanese, usually you take the name of the country and add "go" to the end, so "Makaigo" is "demon world language." (You could probably figure that out from context, but I felt like showing off… --')

And by the way, the doctor's interpretations were not official. They're just things I've picked up from various sources (except the pain… that one just made sense to me). The "what in the hell" was me making a doctor who's not all business all the time.

Same deal, but let's up the ante. I got four reviews last time, so here it is: four positive reviews, and I update the next day. Four negative reviews, and I take it down and fix it. Four reviews, mixed, and I leave it until I have a majority of either positive or negative reviews, then go with the majority.

See ya!