Disclaimer: I own no part of Yu Yu Hakusho.
Yusuke's arms dropped in front of him, suddenly feeling incredibly heavy. His knees buckled and he found himself kneeling on the ground, dizzy and unable to move. He couldn't see Kurama.
Swallowing thickly and blinking hard, the Spirit Detective couldn't help but feel like an idiot. Really, he knew better than this! The phantom chick had to be a distraction. Getting caught by some weird plant fumes was a rookie move, right? Kurama did say this tree was pretty powerful, maybe there was some way to salvage his ego.
'Hell, I'll never hear the end of this from Kuwabara,' He thought, gritting his teeth, dreading the fraternal torment he could expect in the future.
Kurama was faring significantly better at that moment. He had expected that the furutsubaki no rei was growing more suspicious of them and was preparing to attack.
The foundation of this particular specimen was impressive, as evidenced by the display of coiling, woody appendages erupting from the ground. Kurama evaded the assaulting roots without much trouble, but was acutely aware he would tire quickly. He caught the sharp new odor in the air, then noticing his movements become slower. Golden eyes glanced landed on his friend, finding him kneeling in the grass, almost completely immobile. Yusuke was enveloped in a cloud of this new, sour smelling pollen that Kurama supposed was the concentrated blast from which he himself was feeling the secondhand effects. Fortunately the Tsubaki tree was no longer focused on the former Spirit Detective for the time being, however the paralyzing toxin was permeating the entire field.
The spirit fox vaulted over a twisting bundle of roots, ducking and rolling under the next spiraling cluster intent on smashing him. Landing in a crouch, he gasped as the pressure in his chest amplified abruptly, his temples now throbbing. Arms raised to shield his face from dirt and woody debris as the massive twisting limbs crashed into the ground around him.
'I have to end this now,' Kurama grimaced, hand combing through his hair and producing a red rose. With a sharp downward flick of his wrist and a loud crack, the rose became a barbed whip.
Kurama stood stiffly, body feeling heavier every moment from the cutting stink of tsubaki pollen. Eyes narrowed in resolve, glaring at the next wave of incoming roots. The ground burst open with ligneous appendages reaching upward, but found no purchase on the elusive fox demon. He managed to slip out of their grasp and avoid the direct assault, slicing apart what he could not evade with a crack of his rose whip. Kurama leaped, dove and cut his way through the root infested field in an attempt to get closer to the malevolent tsubaki tree, but every advance was thwarted by a new barrage from his target. The effort combined with the sour smelling pollen and pressure in his chest soon resulted in rapid, wheezing breaths and sweat beading on his forehead and temples. His arms and legs felt leaden.
He inwardly cursed this newfound weakness. The tolerances of his human form had deteriorated dramatically in the last several months, physical stamina perhaps suffering the most. This inadequacy made him feel utterly human, and was monstrously frustrating. Though he had been living as a human for 19 years, he had never felt more so than he had in the months following the Makai tournament. Continuous building, expanding pressure behind his rib cage felt like it was compressing his lungs, the constant leaking of his youki wreaking havoc on his endurance. He wouldn't be able to contain the vast cache of demonic energy and continue this fight.
Seeing no other reasonable option, the fox demon released the youki building up within his chest. The immediate release of pressure was instantaneous relief. His demonic energy swirled around him in a smokescreen, crackling like lightening. The smoke cleared to reveal Kurama's transformation into his native demon form. Long, untamed silver hair hung loosely down his back and a similarly silver tail twitched in agitation behind him. Pointed silver ears and calculating golden eyes trained on the furutsubaki no rei.
The acrid, briny scent of the air made Yusuke's eyes water. Movement was almost impossible, he could only try to twitch his tingling fingertips. All Yusuke could do was watch. Explosions of dirt and wood chips rained down on the battlefield amidst thick tendrils of roots twisting and crashing into the ground.
He could sense the sudden increase of youki coming from Kurama across the field, an oppressive demonic aura. In the midst of the clearing rose a silver spirit fox looking especially wild and deadly, wielding an equally wild and deadly whip. At least one of them wasn't incapacitated and Kurama finally looked to be in respectable fighting form, having transformed. The reality was, the demon fox had looked terrible when Yusuke had seen him at Genkai's place, and worse if possible this morning when he met up with him at the park. Now that he had transformed-
'He transformed,' Brown eyes widened, realizing the implications. 'Hopefully that was on purpose..'
A dramatic wave of his free hand released a torrent of rose petals and thorns, creating a hostile floral atmosphere around himself. Taking advantage of his improved personal condition and augmented physical ability, Kurama advanced on the enemy again, now tolerating the toxin in the pollen and unburdened by the infernal pressure in his chest, slashing and cracking his way through the tree's defenses with his whip. Movements were made awkward by ill fitting teenager sized clothing, though proved to be no hindrance in evasive maneuvers. The tree appeared to have abandoned the illusion of the young woman, focusing all of its energy into defending itself.
Kurama nearly reached the trunk of the tsubaki tree before the tree itself slammed into the ground where the fox demon was standing. Rolling out of the way, he cracked the tip of the rose whip at the crown of the tree and retreated several paces. Loathe to admit it, he was rather impressed at the age and strength of the tree. Though not intelligent in the traditional understanding, it did posses a remarkable will. The desire to survive was powerful, even without conscious thought. Dispatching this specimen had proved more difficult than originally anticipated. The garlic bulbs were an extremely effective, if simple, nullifier to demonic plants, however the difficulty came in administering the countermeasure.
'If it would hold still, I could reach the base of the trunk.'
An idea struck, though Kurama had hoped he would not be required to use any of the more aggressive plant varieties. Running deft fingers through his hair, he withdrew a seed between his fingers, slamming it to the ground with his palm. Within moments, the dark purple stalks of his favored Ojigi plant sprouted violently behind him. The darting roots caught the attention of the mouths on the mammoth Ojigi plant, earning swift, debilitating blows. The crown of the tree threatened to descend once again upon Kurama as he approached the base, however the Ojigi thwarted the attack. The leaves clustered around the mouth wrapped themselves around the trunk of the tree, holding the furutsubaki no rei in a vegetative grapple.
Kurama was admitted to the base of the tree, trusting the Ojigi possessed enough brute strength to maintain the physical stalemate with the furutsubaki no rei for a few moments longer. Extracting the package of garlic from a too-tight pocket, a little youkai was all it took to manipulate the bulbs into growing their own roots and flower stalks. The paper package disintegrated with the sudden exponential growth. Setting them down at the base of the demon tree, now shaking with the strain of it's struggle against the similarly powerful Ojigi plant, Kurama continued to feed his energy to the garlic bulbs.
When the bulbs had grown to the size of tennis balls, Kurama pressed them into the dirt with the heels of his hands. Coaxing the thin allium roots to intertwine with the furutsubaki no rei, he could feel when they had made contact. The demon tree appeared to shiver, starting from the bottom and reverberating to the tip of the tree and through the roots, at the intrusion, leaves separating from their stems and floating gently to the ground. He placed a hand on the trunk of the tree, using his youki to sense that the allium bulbs had done their job of integrating themselves with the vitality of the tsubaki tree.
Satisfied, Kurama backed away to evaluate his handiwork. The tree's roots were no longer struggling against the Ojigi plant, falling limply to the ground. Leaves and now brown flower petals littered the ground surrounding a graying tsubaki tree trunk, the acrid scent of paralyzing pollen fading quickly. Seeing that the tree was dying and no longer a threat, the fox demon placed a gentle palm on his trusted Ojigi plant, reducing it once more back into a seemingly innocuous seed. The thorny whip shortened and became a red rose once more. He tucked the seed and the rose back into his long, silver hair, combing strong fingers the rest of the way through the ends.
'It's easy to forget how powerful he is. Once he changed, the stupid tree was no big deal,' Yusuke thought, finally able to sit back on his bottom and stretch his legs out in front of him. 'Its weird not being needed in a battle. My stupid ass gets paralyzed and Fox-Boy has to do all the heavy lifting!'
Admittedly, the detective was concerned in the beginning when Kurama started to look fatigued, but the tables sure turned once he became Youko. Of course, he knew Kurama was an extremely capable fighter. That fact had been reinforced in Yusuke's brain more than a few times. Kurama was incredibly talented at manipulating others' perception of him, he preferred to be underestimated, another fact that had been drilled into Yusuke's memory bank. As a master of controlling his outward emotions, and even his thoughts for all you mind readers out there, he did an exceptional job of passing as a star student and mama's boy while concealing the ability to decapitate you with a flower stem.
Yusuke rubbed his tingling hands together, elbows resting on his knees, as he watched the demon tree wither.
"I don't usually favor a brute strength approach," a smooth, low voice said beside him. "Thanks for the help."
Yusuke looked up to the fox demon standing adjacent to him, watching his friend stiffly lower himself to the ground. He was fairly sure that was a hint of sarcasm he heard, though it was often difficult to be certain when talking to Kurama.
"I do what I can," The Spirit Detective offered with a mirthful grin. Only now that the anxiety of the short battle was over did he take in the fox's appearance. His jeans-and-sweatshirt ensemble was entirely too small on the taller and broader Youko Kurama. Even with his legs outstretched in front of him, Yusuke could see the lower half of long shins. Sweatshirt fabric stretched too far across his shoulders and no longer covered the waistband of his jeans, t-shirt peeking out from underneath the bottom hem. "You look ridiculous."
"I feel ridiculous," Kurama replied honestly, leaning back on his hands. He turned to look at Yusuke. "Can you feel your legs?"
"Getting there. You look better than you did before." Yusuke commented, and it was true. Kurama's skin had noticeably more color, he wasn't so tired looking and he seemed more.. alive in his demon form. The Detective's arms had regained most of the feeling and he had moved on to rubbing his calves.
Kurama looked straight ahead, surveying the field and the remains of their soul-eating opponent. "It's fortunate we arrived to dispose of the furutsubaki no rei when we did. Many more people would still be in danger, otherwise."
"Yeah, but it's too bad about those four other people," Yusuke responded, not missing that Kurama had ignored his observation. "I appreciate your help with this."
"I'm glad you called. A demon tree of this nature would be challenging to exterminate alone. Truthfully, if you hadn't taken the brunt of the paralyzing pollen, this mission might have ended very differently." Kurama gave Yusuke a small smile and shrugged.
Modest as always. He never wanted to take all the credit. Yusuke sighed and grinned back. "I guess you're right."
Yusuke rolled his ankles and wiggled his toes inside his tennis shoes. Finally satisfied with his recovery, he pushed himself up off the ground.
"You will notify Koenma?" Kurama inquired, making no move to rise.
"Later. This was a favor, after all, and I'm ready to get back to bed!" Yusuke rolled his shoulders and covered a wide yawn with his hand. "Ready to go?"
"I suppose," The fox demon said with an exhale, standing slowly. Yusuke couldn't help but notice golden eyes darken.
The typically composed expression on Kurama's face was substituted with a pained grimace as silver hair reverted to red. A hand raised to his chest, clutching at his sweatshirt as the fox demon slightly curled into himself. Yusuke knew his own spirit awareness wasn't the greatest, but it looked to him like Kurama was trying to compress his giant demonic aura to fit inside a human body. Ten pounds of flour in a five pound sack, or whatever. Pointed fox ears slowly be came rounded on the sides of his head, his height decreased and shoulders became more narrow. Narrow golden eyes squinted closed and re-opened a brilliant emerald. The aura of youki grew more and more concentrated, finally settling within Kurama's torso. The fox demon's transformation back to his human(ish) form was completed, though taking significantly longer than Yusuke thought it had before, though he had to consider how much better his clothing fit now. Maybe there was something to his loose, flowing fighting uniforms.
That being said, the condition of his friend had deteriorated dramatically with the transformation. Yusuke's eyes widened. Kurama was gasping for breath, fingers twisting in the front of his sweatshirt. His other hand had tangled itself in his bangs, now sticking to his sweaty forehead. The amount of visible effort it took to transform back was staggering. Kurama staggered, face turning a pale. Green eyes were a little too bright, unfocused. They closed tightly.
Yusuke hurriedly put a steadying hand on Kurama's shoulder to keep him from falling over. "Whoa, man. You ok?"
Kurama didn't answer for a moment, only leaned into Yusuke's supporting hand gratefully while trying to calm his breathing and regain something resembling composure. He had not intended for Yusuke to bear witness to this level of distress, though he also had not intended to have to transform on this early morning outing, either. It didn't bode well for him that his youki was becoming so wildly more difficult to maintain over the last few days.
"It's getting more difficult," He admitted, still out of breath but no longer wheezing. "The amount of pressure is always increasing. I can't release the excess energy sufficiently anymore."
'I fear I will no longer be able to control it. If I transform again, I doubt I will have the ability to change back.' He thought to himself, gritting his teeth.
Yusuke looked worried, though with good reason, Kurama supposed. He straightened up and released the grip on his sweatshirt. Combing his fingers through his bangs to fix the hair he had tousled, both hands were lowered to his sides. He blinked deliberately to refocus and he caught Yusuke's eye. Yusuke seemed to understand the meaning and removed his hand from Kurama's shoulder with a nod.
"Huh. So, what do we do about it?" Yusuke asked.
"Nothing," Kurama said apathetically.
Yusuke considered that response for a moment before erupting in a frenzy of shouting, arm waving and pointing. Clearly he had something he wanted to get off his chest.
"What do you mean, nothing? You've been doing nothing! I can't even believe I'm hearing this. You're supposed to be the responsible one! I know you've thought of every possible outcome a hundred times by now. Why on earth-" Yusuke continued on his tirade with no signs of stopping, Kurama decidedly tuned him out, considering the truth of his initial statements.
Sure, he had considered all angles of his predicament. The significance of permanently assuming his true form, as it were. There were no S-Class demons with the ability to maintain a human form. The energy available to an S-class demon was too great. Youki was often possessed in much larger quantities than spirit energy, therefore compressing the vast amounts of energy into a weaker form would be detrimental to the body. His upper S class youki capacity was far too much to be containing within his human form which could operate at a lower S class ability. Yusuke, being a demon hybrid and possessing youki and reiki, was something of an exception.
"-even love your mother? She raised you! How do you think she-" The spirit detective continued.
Kurama shoved one hand into his jeans pocket. His own power couldn't be contained by this form for much longer, therefore he had two options. Either allow the transformation to happen and accept that, as much as he hoped he would have more time as Shuichi Minamino, or continue to fight his own demonic nature and be torn apart by it. Currently, Kurama had no plans to die. The difficulty lay in being unable to predict when all of this was going to occur. Based on his rate of development from infancy, he surmised he should have had at least ten additional years before his energy levels became unmanageable in human form. Granted, the exposure to the Fruit of the Past Life potion was most likely the catalyst for the new timetable.
"-member the mirror on the roof of the hospital?! You're telling me you-" Yusuke really was long winded.
With no intention of dying any time soon, or ever, his decision came down to how to leave his family. His predictions were based on the premise that a demon would not be accepted by a human family, and even if one just so happened to be welcome, there was no place in the Human World for a being such as himself. Fox features, wild silver hair and intimidating golden eyes that all lent to a vastly inhuman presentation, that he would be unable to conceal meant there was no school or job he could attend without risk to himself or his family. There was the risk that old enemies would track him down, or the risk of exposure to other humans. Neither of which were acceptable. Therefore, Kurama had determined two options, neither of which was he satisfied with: he could simply disappear, or stage Shuichi Minamino's death, and return to Makai. Hiei would be thrilled.
Yusuke seemed to finally run out of air. He inhaled deeply, seemingly to start again but Kurama tiredly held a hand up to stop him.
"Enough, Yusuke. I am aware," he said with thinning patience. His mask of impassivity cracked, betrayed by traces of anguish. He looked away from Yusuke. "After all of my considerations and planning, none of that makes leaving my family any easier."
"Shiori loves you, Kurama. Don't you think she deser-"
"No," Kurama cut him off. He knew where Yusuke was going with that. "Telling her isn't an option."
"It's up to you, man. You've been lying to her for a long time. Maybe you should come clean before you abandon her," Yusuke crossed his arms. "Stop being selfish."
Kurama was silent for a moment before responding. Yusuke was far more intelligent than he gave himself credit for. Kurama had been dismissing that very thought for years. Maybe he was just being selfish for continuing his charade. But was it worth it? Disappear and allow his mother to grieve her son, or reveal his identity and most likely tarnish her memory of him?
"I will consider it."
Yusuke sighed and uncrossed his arms, a sign of acceptance. His hardened facial expression relaxed.
"Good enough for now," He said, grinning and giving Kurama's shoulder a punch. "Let's get breakfast."
A/N: Thanks again to all readers! It took me a little longer to work this one out. I find certain things difficult to express and have a tendency to understate the gravity of events. A few spots in this chapter are a little choppy, I will probably edit them more later to make it flow better. As always, if you like it or if something is unclear, please let me know! I'm definitely having fun writing this, so hopefully you guys are enjoying!
Also - Kurama was stated to be lower S class in his human form and upper S class as Youko. The anime suggests the power difference between upper and lower S class is greater than the gap between lower S class and E class. Exponential curve. And, Hiei will be making his appearance soon!