Disclaimer: I own not Yu Yu Hakusho nor Harry Potter nor Naruto.

For future reference, keep in mind that mentally, no matter how smart he is, Whisper is still eleven. So he will have people chasing him but no actual relationships at this point.

Thanks!

Whisper opened one of the double doors and poked his head around, ears pricked forward and nose twitching.

This room had obviously been skipped by his mental adjustments. It was big. It was dark. And it stank. The walls were slick with dark greening slime and Whisper didn't even want to contemplate what would have been in the ankle-deep water had it been 'real'. Taking up most of the room was a barred off section with a piece of paper reading 'Seal' stuck to the bars.

There was a massive blood-coloured fox looking at him from behind the bars.

Whisper raised a hand in a half-wave. "Yo."

The red fox's ears flickered uncertainly and he whined. Whisper found this very odd behaviour for someone who outranked him by a tail. He tilted his head inquiringly.

"Ano…Is something wrong?"

Kyuubi shifted and looked away. "I have…never met another like me before."

"Waaaahhh?!" Whisper face faulted. "You're kidding! At least a thousand years of life and you've never met another kitsune?!"

The house-sized head nodded. "That is correct."

"The hell is Inari-sama thinking?!"

Hiding behind a ramen stand and waiting for Malice to move on after his twin and deranged little brother, Irony only just managed to help stifle Inari's sneezing fit.

A red ear twitched curiously. "Inari-sama?"

Whisper face faulted again. "You don't know of…Inari-sama?"

Kyuubi shook his head.

A big bead of sweat could be seen sliding down the back of the blue fox's head. "What do you know about Kitsune culture?"

"Nothing."

Whisper sighed.

It was several hour later when Whisper was finally able to leave the Kyuubi to his musings.

He had spent much of his time explaining kitsune laws, traditions and beliefs, as well as subspecies, to the Kyuubi, who happened to be a fire-orientated mountain ruby. There was something like twenty-two different subspecies of kistune.

"How'd it go?"

Whisper waved his hand at Arashi (who wisely hadn't entered the chamber). "Okay. He expects me back again either tomorrow night or the night after." He continued down the hall. "C'mon. If we're not out by the time Naruto wakes up, we'll be stuck here until he goes back to sleep."

The eight-tailed blue and black fox wandered back into Naruto's apartment just as dawn was touching the horizon.

He paused in the bedroom doorway, foot still lifted and ears pricked.

Itachi was sitting on the edge of the bed, hand idly stroking the long dark blue-black hair as it lay fanned out around the pale, so-graceful figure, a look of wistful longing on his face.

Whisper knew, factually, that he was beautiful. It was a genetic trait inherent in all kitsune. But as he looked at the sleeping form in a pool of fading moonlight, he came to understand something of why humans were so enamoured by the otherworld-ness of kitsunes.

The fox shook his head and leapt back into his body, knowing Itachi wouldn't be able to see him in this form.

Whisper felt the strain of using so much energy to remain in incorporeal form upon entering his body and fell into a deep sleep.

The last sensation he was aware of was snuggling into the hand that brushed his cheek.

"You know," Inari confided to Irony as they hid in a tree, "I don't think it was a good idea to mess with Hope."

Irony nodded reluctantly. "Malice and Chaos can be reasoned with, but Hope's just nuts."

"You know," Malice confided to Chaos as they stood well back. "Maybe it wasn't a good idea to agree to help Hope with this."

Chaos nodded reluctantly. "Irony and Inari are okay on their own, but together they're just nuts."

"But they only ruin lives. Hope burns stuff."

Chaos sighed in defeat. Why argue the inarguable?

Hope cackled and danced around a bonfire depicting the fiery deaths of the Irony and Inari dummies, tied as they were to stakes.

Quote: Evil Overlord List" No. 78: I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."