"For your sake, I hope you're thinking during that silence," Yomi said.
"I've developed a plan to make you stronger Yomi," Shippo said, likely more aware that their conversation was being watched than Yomi was, simply because Yomi did not care. "There are six fighters that I encountered in a previous Tournament, I would like a few months to recruit and train them for you."
Shippo could have bitten his cheek. This was Kagome's plan, and it would not make Yomi stronger, but his competition. He couldn't believe he'd almost spilled the beans about there being another tournament in the works.
"On the surface it appears you've gained the ability to make friends now," Yomi said pleasantly.
Shippo resisted rolling his eyes. Yomi hadn't noticed his slips. Making Yomi stronger by training other demons? Ha!
"But you don't care about them," Yomi continued. "They're just pawns to further your plans. Your family is tougher. What do they give you?" Yomi laughed.
Shippo didn't take the bait. He knew that Kurama would have, but the Kurama that Yomi knew would not have, and besides, he didn't need to. He would be training with the guys at Genkai's place – though their training had actually already begun – and Kagome would be there. They would have to be careful though.
"Allow me a few months in human world to ready your fighters," Shippo said. "I'm sure you will be watching anyway."
Yomi chuckled, and Shippo couldn't help but think it was a cruel sound. "Of course," Yomi said. "I have to protect my investment," he said.
Shippo was silent. Yomi had remained cruel, goal-oriented, and callous with those under him, just as Kurama had described him to be when last they knew each other.
The very next day, Shippo returned to Human World, still disguised as Kurama. He went straight to Genkai's temple, not dropping his disguise. He wouldn't now until Yusuke arrived at Yomi's castle as already arranged. Since he had missed his opportunity at the initial contact to declare his falsehood, he would wait until the meeting to reveal himself. They wouldn't be slipping up and letting Yomi know anything that they didn't intend for him to know. The goat demon even believed that Hiei was with Mukuro, so careful was their planning.
"Hey Kurama," Kagome welcomed, smiling gently, and winking. She knew this was Shippo, but only because he had flashed his eyes to his own green colour, a more sea green than the illusion's deep emerald colouring. "Come to see the fighters?"
"Has all the training been going well?" Shippo asked.
Kagome nodded, smiling brightly. Genkai, standing beside her snorted in contempt.
"Yes, but I don't think it's enough," the old woman said. She had been in the room at both of the explanations Kagome had given – to Koenma, and to these six demons. "Hell, I doubt Yusuke's strength is enough," she added, genuinely concerned with this plan of theirs, though she understood that it was the best option.
"Shall we go in?" Kagome suggested.
Shippo nodded, and once the door closed behind them, he asked about Kurama's family and Yomi's surveillance.
"They're fine and were only being watched by a weak parasite demon, so there's no need to worry. I dropped by the other day while they were all out and put wards and exorcism sutras around the house, which drove the pest out. I threatened him a bit so he's going to keep up a false feed to his masters. I'll have to take the wards down if you or Kurama want to go visit them," Kagome answered just as quietly.
They reached the bottom step where their friends were waiting for them.
"'Bout time, piker," Chu said, smirking like he'd been invited to the party of the century.
"Chu, in high spirits as always," Shippo said, just as Kurama might have.
Chu laughed, loudly. "Very funny mate," he said. "Why don't you take a real hard look at these muscles I've been working up? Urameshi and I will have one rager blue this time! I guarantee it."
Rinku hopped up to hang from one of Chu's rather impressive shoulders. "Yeah, it'd be pretty awesome to throw down with Yusuke," he said with a smile. "Though Miss Kagome here has been giving me a bit of a hard time," he added, directing a small glare at the young woman who had defeated him in the first round of the Dark Tournament.
"It's for your own good," Kagome teased with a smile.
"We've fought with all sorts of belly-biggies, bein' shinobi and all, so I see it as nothin' new, but it's the chance to fight with Yusuke again that brings me back around," Jin said, his thick accent and speed of speech causing his words to take a moment to register.
"Well said Jin," Touya said, almost immediately. Apparently continued exposure made for faster uptake. "Not only do we believe in this cause, we are anxious for a good battle."
"Ever since that embarrassing loss against Miss Kagome, I've been craving a reason to start fighting and feel beautiful again," Suzuka said, causing Kagome and Genkai to chuckle.
"Good! Maybe you'll stop asking me to call you pretty," Shishiwakamaru, his imp form smaller even than Jaken, grumbled from where he was floating near the blonde's shoulder. Of course, his loss to the priestess had been no less embarrassing for him.
"Not all of us have groupies to pad our self-esteem, Shishi."
"Hn, so true," Shishi conceded, pleased by the reminder.
"A slew of motivations, but the result should be the same," Shippo said in Kurama's voice. "We'll fight hard to protect the balance of all three worlds."
The six demons cheered, and the training began once again, but with Shippo's illusions to be extra opponents for them to fight against, it became more intense.
Phone calls came in regularly from Hiei and Kurama in Demon World, updating them on their progress – as well as the progress of Yusuke, and most of all of Raizen. Kagome always had a smile on her face when she hung up from these phone calls, and Shippo always returned that grin with one of his own, which looked slightly out of place on Kurama's face.
The day that Yomi was to come and inspect the fighters, Kagome and Genkai left the area. They didn't want the demon lord to so much as know that they existed if it could be helped.
Yuda approached Jin first, a small device in his hand that Shippo knew measured the level of a demon's power in an abstract, numerical sense that nevertheless gave an indication of strength.
Yuda's shock and wonder grew as the ugly little creature moved from one demon to the next.
"I never would have believed it. Six fighters for us all with energy levels of a hundred and twenty thousand or higher!" he said with wonder.
Shippo smirked to himself within his own mind. It was actually more than that. He was using an illusion to suppress their levels. It wouldn't do for Yomi and the rest to know their real strength, they just had to be suitably impressed.
"That can't be," Shachi, Yomi's general growled.
The other two of Yomi's highest advisers were as impressed as Yuda, and not baring even a tenth of the hatred of Shachi as they stared at the fighters.
"You said you've spent some time on them, but these levels are rare feats," Yuda said to Kurama, not pleased to be so impressed by the 'weak, half-human'. "How did you get them so strong?"
Shippo shrugged. "Just good nutrition and the proper exercise, nothing special," he said pleasantly.
"Funny," Touya said with clenched teeth and a scowl on his face, unamused and dripping sarcasm.
"Why don't you say them the real training she put us through!" Chu growled.
"Yeah, like the four weeks locked in that cave!" Rinku said, also unimpressed with the joke as he stepped up a little.
"Or balancing on spikes," Shishi added.
"Or bein' buried alive with the snakes an' things,!" Jin said with an Irish loath for reptiles of all kinds, his own teeth clenched as well.
"Hag didn't let me shower for months," Suzuka complained.
Yuda could only blink at the strange recounting of the training methods he was hearing. It made no sense.
Yomi smiled and turned to Shippo. "Excellent work, you've done as promised, and so, I'd like to make you my new second-in-command if you'll accept it."
Shachi didn't like that idea much, it was clear on his face. After all, that was his position!
Shippo had to stir the melting pot though. "Sure," he said simply.
"But, Lord Yomi, should you be so rash?" Shachi appealed. "We don't know if we can trust these six, where their loyalties lie," he pointed out.
Shippo was almost ready to applaud the large, ugly demon and congratulate him on demonstrating smarts. Of course, it was really just his prejudice talking, but Yomi would have been more sensible to listen to his old general.
"That is enough from you," Yomi said sternly, like a parent scolding a complaining child. "What have you done these past five hundred years to further my power Shachi?"
"But, our army!"
"It is true, by numbers you are the second strongest fighter we have on our side, but in brains and leadership you are weak," Yuda scolded.
"What do you know?" Shachi growled.
Shippo was inclined to agree with his enemy.
"You speak of the army you've maintained, but what good has it done? Can you name so much as one soldier with energy levels even close to a hundred thousand? There is a dark time ahead of us. A great war for power where any edge we get could mean the difference between order and bowing to Mukuro's chaos. In his short time here, Kurama has brought six fighters stronger than your entire army combined, yet you can't even give him praise!" Yuda scolded, even more so that Yomi had.
Shippo could only be reminded of Jaken's long-winded speeches when he would scold someone, only to defer when Sesshoumaru said something along the lines of -
"Yuda, that's enough," Yomi said.
Shippo fought down another smirk. Just like that. Kagome would be amused to watch them.
"Your point is heard. Now please draw up the papers to make this change of power official," Yomi continued, then stood from his chair. "What matters here is that our path to unification can live another day," he said, turning to leave the chamber.
The next night, as Shippo walked the corridors of Yomi's castle, he was aware that Shachi was following him, and suppressed his energy level down as low as he could while maintaining his illusions. "Shachi," he called. "No more hiding." It was unfortunate that the fool had to die, and Shippo didn't really want to kill the fool, but he was in the way, and that could be a problem later on. "Let's settle this."
Shachi stepped out from the shadows he had been so poorly concealed in, his trident-like weapon in hand. Appropriate for something that looked like it had crawled out of a lake near a nuclear power plant.
"Be wise," Shippo advised, "A blade can't undo what is past."
"And that's what your kind never gets," Shachi said, pointing his trident at Shippo. "Blades can undo anything."
Sounded like what Kurama had said Yomi was like in his younger days to Shippo, and they probably had the same level of intelligence.
"What Yuda said is correct, dark times approach," Shippo warned. He wasn't normally a string-it-out kind of demon, but he felt he should give the idiot some warning. "I cannot waste effort on your personal feelings. I have acted solely on what I think is right, and my moves have been precise. The only thing you can influence now is the time of your own death."
"I'll put your head on a stick!" Shachi declared, charging, furious.
Shippo dodged with elegance only achieved by foxes, and worked on a new illusion within his own mind. Time to pretend he wasn't just Kurama, but also Yoko to this fool who would be dead in moments.
"Your power's nothing to mine!" Shachi declared, unaware that it was suppressed before, and that it was less so now. "You don't stand a chance with that human stink on you!"
Shippo transformed, now a silver fox as he remembered Kurama to be when they had first met, his energy signature also changed to how he remembered the great demon's power to be. He used the other demon's trademark rose whip to chop up the demon, and did it quickly.
He glanced at the device that measured energy levels, checking to see how much he had allowed out at that moment.
One hundred and fifty-two thousand.
"Your... power... how?" Shachi ground out, likely his last words.
"Fool. You should have known your enemy," Shippo said coldly. It was good advice for everyone in the castle, but advice he knew they could not take, with the way their plan which had been conceived in Human World was being so very carefully executed. He transformed back into Kurama's human form, knowing that Yomi was aware that 'Yoko' had surfaced.
~oOo~
Kurama had quickly discovered that Mukuro needed a therapist of some kind more than she needed a new second-in-command, and between killing her hordes for her amusement, he endeavoured to get to the bottom of everything. One night when he found her asleep at her desk, he cut the cuffs of her slavery from her wrists. He also gifted her a sinning tree to torment her tormentor. Small tokens.
He also told her that Hiei, whom she had originally wished to join her, was the owner of that hiroseki stone she kept, and that he wanted it back.
"You have a way of delivering it to him?" Mukuro asked.
Kurama shook his head. "Not presently. But when this power struggle has resolved, I know he intends to return to his sister in Human World, as I intend to return to my human family."
Mukuro nodded and gave it to him, so that he could return it to the fire demon when they saw one another again.
Some months after that conversation, and approximately in time with when Kurama knew Shippo would be dubbed Yomi's second-in-command in accordance with Kagome's plan, Raizen's stomach-growl was off time – late.
"Do you suppose that means he caved and ate? Or is he dead?" Mukuro asked.
"I believe that even if he did eat at this stage, the pain of taking something into his shrivelled stomach would prevent him from eating enough to save his life," Kurama answered.
"Which means that the time has come to take the fight to Yomi," Mukuro said, a smirk in her voice.
Kurama nodded.
~oOo~
Raizen had slowly been regaining his strength, thanks to the foods that Yusuke had brought from Human World. He had also been training the boy he thought of as his son, as well as his friend Hiei. Lessons of how certain things were done mostly. Haukushin and the others were the ones they practised with, or on rather. He was pleased with their progress, as well as his own. It took a while – some six months – but he was finally able to eat a truly filling meal again, and his stomach was silent in perfect time with the plan Yusuke had relayed to him.
"Feelin' better?" Yusuke asked as he burst through the door.
Raizen smiled at his boy. "Yes, thank you Yusuke."
"So are you ready to tell me why you stopped eating?"
Raizen smirked quietly. "Alright," he conceded at last, and told of the medicine woman he had met, lain with, and then realised he was so unworthy of that he left with an oath.
"She sounds a lot like Kagome," Yusuke said at last. "Apart from the, you know, ingesting poisons and the sex bit."
Raizen chuckled. "But she's not the one you're in love with."
"Nah, Keiko's the only one for me. She packs a hell of a punch too," Yusuke said fondly.
"Like father like son, even if it is several generations difference," Raizen said.
"Yusuke," Hiei called from the door. "Your 'peace offering' for Yomi is ready," he said with a smirk, holding up the bag of stones they had both had spent many nights carving.
Yusuke smirked. "Thanks Hiei. Can you go dig Raizen here a grave? I reckon some of his old pals are gonna want to visit when word gets out that he's dead," he said with an amused snicker.
Raizen chuckled as well. "Yes, this will bring them out of the woodwork," he agreed. "I can't wait to see them all again," he paused. "Except for maybe Koko."
"Ex?" Yusuke asked.
Raizen smirked and nodded. "She wasn't too pleased about me choosing a human woman."
"Right, well, I'll call Haukushin and tell him it's time to get moving," Yusuke said, accepting the bag from Hiei and leaving the room.
"How far from full strength are you still?" Hiei asked. "And Yusuke compared to you?"
Raizen chuckled. "I'm an old demon," he pointed out. "It's a little late in life for me to reach the full potential I had when I was your age. I'd say I can get to three quarters of what I once was."
Hiei snorted in contempt. "Old age is for humans. Drop the act," he advised. "Any demon can reach their full potential as long as they have the will to do so."
Raizen laughed. "Yes. Thank you Hiei. If you will order my grave, I'm going to the kitchen," he said, excusing himself and leaving his throne room for the first time in centuries. "As for Yusuke, his bird, and yourself, I would suppose you have reached almost half of the power I have in my current state. It's quite impressive for so short a time," he added over his shoulder.
"Then I shall train harder," Hiei said to the empty room before returning to the training area. There wasn't any point in actually ordering the tombstone after all.
~oOo~
"Raizen's stomach has ceased it's incessant rumbling. What do you make of it Kurama?"Yomi asked.
"Two possibilities," Shippo answered. "First, he couldn't stand it any more and gave in, eating a human and satiating his hunger. Second, he suffers no longer, meaning..."
"Meaning he is dead," Yomi finished with a pleased smirk.
"But so much earlier than we anticipated?" Shippo asked, recalling Yuda's prediction that Raizen would die in approximately a year, and it had only been a little over six months. "I think it too early to come to that conclusion just yet."
"We'll wait. Whatever you suggest Kurama, that's why I made you my top advisor," Yomi said.
Shippo knew that Mukuro would be moving, and in their direction. More importantly, he also knew that Yusuke would be heading their way as well.
~oOo~