Disclaimer: I do NOT own Yu Yu Hakusho, nor do I own its characters.

MORTALITY

The dank air was thick and suffocating, his surroundings drowned by a sea of white. The whole experience was like meandering within a glass filled with diluted milk.

Kazuma gagged, entirely disgusted with that concept. He abhorred milk. Yeah, sure, he drank plenty of that stuff whilst enduring an insufferable youth, but that was before he realized how nasty milk genuinely was.

Now, I bet you're wondering: How did this come about? Well, a long story short… Whilst he was in medical school, Kazuma had taken it upon himself to learn nutrition and, as an upshot, gave his diet a total revolution. He had developed a completely different perspective on sustenance, you see, and became more particular as to what he was shoving down his throat. And quite frankly, he could not believe some of the foodstuff he used to consume, like the illiterate boob that he once was.

So, definitely, he was beginning to really despise the fog. What with the cold mist which seemed to rain in on him from all angles, and the dampening cold that penetrated into him as the moisture itself had begun to soak well into his attire. Still, the sky was becoming abysmal, a dark and a thundering portent of doom.

He cursed under his breath at the unremitting climate conditions, sensing it in his bones that it would rain soon. The man could literally feel it in his battle scars, his chest particularly. His heart throbbed like a son-ova-bitch.

Unfortunately, the only good news about the rain was that it would clear away all the haze. And the bad news, of course, was that he would be caught in the midst of that, like he needed to be washed away with all the rest of the stench and filth.

Already a sickening ache was settling within him.

He needed to find shelter, and how?

Good question.

Somewhere, wherever it may be, that presented a payphone… Such an arbitrary thought, for since when were there any kinds of phones accessible to the general public?

Ashamed to say, most of today's newer implements were attesting themselves to be shoddy in comparison with the "ancient" yet still sufficient technology he grew up with. To make matters worse, the corporations were so compelled by the demand of their current generation that they were getting rid of what actually worked and had completely replaced them with their faultier devices. This was one reason why Capitalism sucks, both literally and figuratively, in his opinion. Then again, all systems were corrupt, greedy, and benefitted no one but usurpers in power.

The world was a vampire.

As it was once said to him by another; "Mankind was nothing more than an arrogant beast, a useless species of narcissists. Otiose, ignorant, selfish, ungrateful and diseased, the only good they were capable of was how often they would run towards their demise and did so by the herds."

Wait.

Kazuma stiffened for a moment. His orifice twisted into a hideous grimace when having felt his blood curdled suddenly in and under his skin. And there was a deadened chill which crawl over his skull, all prior to the puckering of his upper lip.

Why was he thinking like that? Correction, why did he think that?

Maybe it was merely him falling behind with the times and, because of that, he was gripped by his ever prevailing hostility?

No, the reason behind his ill-temperament was far deeper than that. What he abided in was "Misery" and in of her most genuine form, whereas his cynicism was their love child. Being "forsaken" was one setback out of the many he borne, and it played the utmost essential component as to why he had become such an epic failure.

But who could he really blame?

He had been dropped, discarded here as a godforsaken place, with no direction. His grace had been procured from him, but not by whores. And no longer did he believe in anything sacred, much to Heaven's disappointment.

The ginger had renounced everything, including the gods themselves.

…The "gods"?

Palpably there were no "gods", only "the few" who controlled "the many". In Kazuma's sense of veracity, there were no deities, only élites cads who dupe every single imbecile into believing that they were somehow "different" from the rest. And without fail the pathetic masses ate of it, partaking in the decay while the "gods" reaped the lots.

Intelligent being or not, an asshole was still an asshole…

…And boy did Koenma articulate through a paper one at that.

The "prince" might have fooled all and sundry, but he was neither "deity" nor a "demigod". Frankly, the pompous prick needed to keep his head mounted on his shoulders and away from his ass, away from where the sun never shined. All the more, emphatically, Koenma was merely a spoiled brat who knew and understood how the universe functioned.

Still, mind you, that damn bastard would do ANYTHING for Urameshi, which included a refraction of "the rules". And he did this for his "champion" though never for the likes of him, Kuwabara, especially when the sensitive needed him most.

The child had let him down, had turned him down flat onto his face, regardless how seriously the man had groveled upon his knees before him. The ginger could never forget that cloying smile, neither the faint twinkle of amusement that shined in the shade of the Prince's eyes.

For all of this and more, for what he had ensured, the demigod was deemed unforgivable, besmeared, and forever barred as a deceiver by the sensitive.

"Truth" was, indeed, sickening, vile yet exhilarating!

"THE NAKED TRUTH" was crude and validating.

"Freedom" was life's greatest lie, but it took a REAL "nobody" to cognize that.

"Equality" was a fallacy, and of which only fools believed in.

Hell, life itself was generally an unrelenting malefactor, for it mixed truth and lies, confusing them as one.

The validity of this datum was a heavy one, and the burden of which still continued to grind down upon the ex-fighter, mercilessly. After all this time, he was still bleeding, lasting a slow asphyxiation.

Kazuma could not bring himself to follow anyone, not anymore, and he had no "team" as far as he was concerned.

He was through with pretending, through with everyone's shit.

With an apocalypse on the rise, at last, he had begun to see… See that everything was twisted, wretched and hideous.

All that was left was rot, his broken dreams exposed as nothing more than fetid tales when his hopes had shattered at his feet. He received a revelation: they were all illusions, worthless efforts wasted on fruitless pursuits based on unrealistic ideologies. It was all a dream and, like all dreams, one must wake up. That was when the world had, at last, revealed its true face to him. Nothing was as picturesque as he had once anticipated, for the prophecy he had entertained himself and had done so since he was a child was all self-deception. The quixotic allure of life was no more than smoke and mirrors, a highbrow scheme conjured by wicked fiends to lead you into a state of exhaustion and emptiness.

Bliss was a canard conception, for life was cankered and effusively callous, obscured and cruel.

This useless existence was the muck in the well of tears, all ashes turned to mud.

Who was to blame for this…life of desolation?

Kazuma did not know anymore. He used to think he did know, and that he knew everything he needed to know, but that was long ago. Truth be told, he did not know where he was going anymore, nor did he feel as though he had a purpose "to be".

Perhaps he was anathematized due to his own impetuosity throughout his youth?

Anyhow, not even his keen precision with the knife or his mending skills could liberate him from this hell. Be that as it may, his true gift in this world was his belligerence and his whetted knack for slicing through bone and tissue.

His constitutions were strong, gluttonous for blood so it seemed. As a matter of fact, he worked as a butcher before and during those nine years of his college attendance, and to which afterward he was a fully licensed medical surgeon. So, if anyone knew how to render flesh into tiny proportions, sever limbs either from joint or through bone, and carve so artistically through flesh… Look no further, for you had found your man.

Often regarded as "The Butcher" or "Doctor Butcher", Kazuma had practiced and experimented on many cadavers, having spent a vast majority of his time in morgues and dissection workshops, let alone a proficient butcher. You could say that he had become well acquainted with the deceased, and in due course became desensitized.

Irrefutably, Kazuma was more divine than any "deity", for he personated "god" on a systematic basis. This physician saved untold souls who were on the periphery of their demise.

He was far too familiar with that thin line between life and death, and recognized it so well that knew when another was gone and when one was about to croak.

True, death was inevitable.

But this clairvoyant could see it, feel it, hear it, and taste it…that ultimate release; i.e. their shedding away from this mortal coil.

Through discerning spirit pressure, he mutually experienced another creature's passing. Actually, he underwent this process with them and, with an established connection, psychosomatically proceeded along with these souls on their journey to "the other side". This bracing sensation of their departure was akin to a wave of cool, refreshing rain on a hot summer's day, and this essence crashed over him every time when an entity had sank their teeth into the dust. And, he knew everything there was to know concerning them, knowing strangers personally as they faded away.

Kazuma could not explain why this was or how it could be. The intuitive was extraordinarily intimate with death, more so than any underworld ferryman. All the more disconcerting, he remembered their names, each and every one of them. And he witnessed the world ripple, like a pool disturbed by a sudden pebble, whenever someone's light went out.

The curtains between this dimension and the others were like gossamers, and were almost frail when in opposition with HIS fingertips.

Likewise, he possessed an advanced perception on aura fields. He gauged individuals based on their glow. All the more peculiar, though, were the hair-like wires connected to the living. In time, he distinguished each of these threads and thus understood their purpose very clearly. Even more, each life form had mutable numbers, and of which decreased by the millisecond.

Concisely, Kazuma always knew when someone was going to die.

He could even restore the threads, if time permitted, or amputate them.

Kazuma had done so many times, and with his patience, saving lives while purposely destroying others he held to be contemptible.

He was the cutter that gutted the dissemblers, right alongside their tender bellies.

So, in a sense death had become an old friend of his, albeit their rapport had developed into a rather romanticized bond.

The psychic had been spared from his fate many times before. Death should have already been his, but she teased him accordingly to his flirtations with her.

But was it by time that he handed over his ghost, and by his own hands?

He understood well enough to know that he had nailed his coffin shut, and had nothing else to lose but his final breath…

…Any last words or goodbyes?

Death would only know for sure.

Notwithstanding, he had developed a preconception toward his own mortality… Though he was not exactly sure whether or not he would someday die, he was certain enough to believe that he could never be killed.

Without warning, the image of his childhood crayoning, the one he had reacquainted himself with prior to now, had flashed before him.

The psychic hardly cringed when his shoulder grazed against a chainwire fence, the tiny barbs rending shallow gouges in his flesh. Somehow, the metal had managed to break the surface of his skin…without damaging a single thread of his clothing.

This fog had made him susceptible to just about anything.

He craved to somehow sever through this insufferable brume.

…TO BE CONTINUED…

I want to thank you all for your patience and time. I have been busy.

Any questions I had received, I have posted the replies onto my profile.

Like the story thus far? READ "WORMBOY", it's a one shot that's connected with this story.