"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of
childishness and the desire to be very grownup." 

(C.S. Lewis, 1947)


________________________________________________________________________


Shonen
A Yuyu Hakusho fic
By Chester Casta�eda
chester.castaneda@gmail.com
http://www.fanfiction.net/~abdiel 
http://abdiel.florestica.com/
http://members.lycos.co.uk/joseargao/shonen.htm 

Tomorrow, C&Cs will cease to exist. Give yours out today while you still
can. Nanchatte.

________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 19: Rebirth (Part 2)
________________________________________________________________________



"Oi! Kurama-sama! Kurama-san! Kurama-kun!" beckoned an adorably shrill
voice just as Kurama trotted past Kaito's dream of Meiou High School,
still following the straight and narrow path of springtime.

As Kurama turned, a large bead of sweat dripped just above his left
eyebrow. <Who was that? And what's with all the honorifics?> He looked
around his immediate surroundings, but saw nothing. <I'm not just
hearing things, am I?>

"Up here, Kurama! ABOVE YOU!"

Kurama blinked and looked up. "Ah. Botan! What a surprise." He cocked an
eyebrow as he cautiously asked, "What are you doing here in the Dream
World? How did you get here?"

"I'm here to help, silly!" Botan chided as she slowly descended from her
place above the clouds. Upon landing on the cobblestone path, she got
off her oar and declared, "Originally, Tetsuma only had the power of
manipulating life force; all his other powers, he gained as a shinigami.
A 'ferry-girl' is basically a shinigami, only cuter. In so saying, I
also have the power to go into the dreams of others."

"Uh, okay. That's nice to know," Kurama supposed, supplementing, "I
still don't understand why you'd help me now of all times, but I guess
it's the thought that counts. So what can the Spirit World do for me?"

Botan seemed bowled over by Kurama's question, but she nonetheless
continued, "It'll take you forever to get to the first pillar of light
at the rate you're going, so I figured that I could get you there much
faster by flying on my oar. Furthermore," her eyes shifted from left to
right before she willed herself to calm down and mumble several
unintelligible words.

"Pardon?"

"I said I wanted to make sure of something!" Botan exclaimed, hiding her
rosy cheeks behind the folds of her kimono sleeves. She shifted her foot
in embarrassment. "I also wanted to do something which I've wanted to do
for a long, long time... and this may be my last chance to do so."
Kurama winced at her words.

Taking deep and relaxing breaths, Botan timidly walked towards Kurama,
startling him. The half-youko spirit, in turn, looked at her anxiously
with a fervent gaze that seemed to bore holes upon her person until all
that was left was her bare and shivering soul.

"Excuse me," Botan said as she gently took hold of Kurama's hand. There
were traces of nervousness in the tall, crimson-haired adolescent's
unnecessary breathing as she wrapped his arm around her slim waist.

Botan sighed with bated breath as she drew Kurama near her. So there
they were, face to face. Their mutual anxiety and embarrassment were
practically palpable in the atmosphere-laden air around them.

"W-What did you want to make sure of?" Kurama finally stuttered in
apprehension, his voice almost cracking. He nonetheless stood his
ground. In a mellower intonation, he managed to say, "Botan, before
anything else, I have to tell you..."

"I already know everything. I already know about your 'death scene', and
your good-byes," Botan disclosed. She bit her lip as she looked straight
into Kurama's olive eyes. Her own eyes were moist with withheld tears as
she confessed, "And to be honest, it really hurt my feelings that you 
intentionally planned to not say good-bye to me from the start."

Kurama quickly backpedaled, explaining, "Botan, it's nothing personal.
Truth be told, I was so afraid that the Spirit World would--"

Botan hushed Kurama by placing a finger on his lips. "It doesn't matter.
What's important is that I'm here, and you're here. Let's say our good-
byes here and now and be done with it." 

"Okay, if that's what you want." Kurama smiled. "By the way," he began,
"what did you want to make sure of?"

Without missing a beat, Botan whispered, "I want to know the truth about
my feelings," which surprised Kurama. "Don't worry. I have no
expectations."

"Eh? Expectations? What do you...?"

Soft lips met with smooth ones as Botan gently puckered hers almost 
playfully, teasingly. The innocent butterfly kiss quickly melted into a
deeper kiss; it was so intense that it was as if they were suffocating
and the only way for them to breathe again was through each other's
mouths. The rest of the Dream World melted into inconsequence.

As soon as the kiss started, it stopped. As their lips parted, Kurama
was left dumbfounded.

Botan sighed dreamily. <Wow.>

After a few minutes of mystification, repentance and regret soon
followed. "I'm sorry," Kurama instinctively said, bowing apologetically.

<Way to ruin the mood,> Botan thought with half-lidded eyes and pouted
lips. <He's _sorry_? Why? Was it that bad? Is it because Hiei's a better
kisser? Honestly, can't he just...?>

"I mean..." Kurama scratched the back of his head laughingly at the
chagrined Botan, humbly stating, "Thank you. Thank you very much."

Botan halted in the middle of her mental rant. After a few more moments
of poignant silence, she smiled and blushed. "You're very welcome," she
replied pleasantly, giggling with barely contained giddiness. "Consider
it your good-bye kiss," she added with a wink.

Kurama insisted, "But still, I'm really sorry that I never intended to
say good-bye to you in the first place. I hope that the... the k-kiss
made up for it." He recoiled after realizing what he just said. "Oh, I'm
so sorry! I don't know what possessed me to say that. I-I don't know
what I'm saying."

Botan coyly grinned, beaming. "You're cute when you're all flustered and 
confused." She reassuringly patted Kurama's back. "Don't worry about it.
You don't need to apologize. All is forgiven." 

Kurama blinked. "Are you sure that you're okay with it?"

"I don't see why we should dwell on such things. We should let bygones
be bygones, don't you think?" Botan summoned her oar. "Hop on. This
beautiful and ravishing Angel of Death is about to assist you with your
good-byes and your honorable suicide!"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but thanks again," Kurama said, feeling a
droplet of sweat trickle just above his eyebrow for a second time. He
wiped it with his free hand as he climbed on the wooden paddle. <Only
Botan could make me sweat bullets like this. She truly is one of a
kind,> he reflected, taking note of Botan's demure smile after she heard
his thoughts.

"So tell me," Kurama probed, "did you find your, um, truth?"

Botan laughed. "Well now, I do believe that's my business. A girl has to
have her secrets, doesn't she?" she teasingly replied. Her previous
feeling of consternation began to engulf her again, but she ignored it
once more.

Very quickly, the pair espied the first of the four tower-like pillars
of light that stretched up into infinity. Passing through the splendor
of the bright, multicolored river that made up the aurora borealis that 
surrounded it, they marveled at the luminescent column's simple majesty.
Up close, it was far larger than they had anticipated.

"So this is it," Botan said as she circled around the surprisingly
immense structure... if it could be called that. "Where do I drop you
off? I don't exactly see an entrance anywhere."

"Let's go straight into the light," Kurama instructed Botan with a fair
amount of certainty. "The Representative of Springtime is somewhere
inside that pillar."

"'Representative of Springtime', eh? My, you have such kooky dreams,"
Botan joked. "All right. If you're sure, then you're sure. Let's go."

Kurama nodded in kind. "She's been waiting for me after all this time.
She needs to know the truth." And so the pair headed straight for the
colossal beam of radiance.

"Kurama?" Botan tentatively called out.

"Yes?" Kurama responded.

"So the Representative of Springtime is a 'she', right?"

Kurama's moment of hesitation was far too lengthy for Botan's tastes.
"...Yes."

"So who is she?" Botan nonchalantly inquired, a strangely alarming smile 
plastered on her face.

Kurama gulped. He could hear Botan's cyclic mantra of 'I have no
expectations' at the back of her mind, which made him feel oddly tense.
"Why do you want to know?"

"That's not the answer to my question, Kurama." There was an almost
imperceptible hint of acrimony in Botan's voice. Kurama again winced at
her words, but for a different reason than before.

"Are you going to kiss her too?"

Rather than go through the difficulty of stumbling through sentences and
figuratively walking on eggshells, Kurama opted to simply plead, "Can we
not talk about this, Botan?"

Botan casually shrugged. "Fine. It's not really any of my business."

Kurama was far too privy to the intricacies of feminine psychology to
not see through the true meaning behind Botan's 'Fine.' Without any
further prodding, he relented, "It's Maya-san."

Botan stirred. "Who?"

"She's a girl that I knew back when I was about the same age as Yusuke
and Kuwabara-kun. She was a classmate of mine in Junior High."

"Was she a girlfriend of yours?" Botan queried.

"She was a close friend of mine," Kurama clarified.

"How close?"

"Close enough to matter." Kurama cleared his throat. "Truth be told, I'm
not even going to say good-bye to the real Maya-san, but to an image of
her in my mind. A memory, if you will."

There was a puzzled look on Botan's face. "Why is that?"

"Because I had endangered her life by getting too close to her." Kurama
averted Botan's subsequent gaze, opting to stare sightlessly at the
psychedelic rainbow sky. "In order to protect her, I gave her mind-
controlling pollens to make her forget about the whole incident... and
me. Now all that's left of her to me is a memory. She doesn't remember a
thing about me, even though I myself can't forget her. Ironic, isn't
it?" 

Botan supposed, "So the Maya-san in your mind is some sort of
personified guilt-trip, huh?"

Kurama smirked in concurrence to Botan's assessment. "Something like
that," he assented.

Silence passed the pair in a leisurely pace. During this momentary gap
of reticence, they quickly realized something that should have been
fairly obvious to them had they been paying attention to their task at
hand. Because of their rather extensive conversation, they missed the
pillar of light by about a mile.

"Oops! Sorry! Let's circle back and try again," Botan shamefacedly said
while Kurama sweat beaded for the third time.

As they sheepishly flew back to their intended destination, Botan broke
the ice by giggling and sharing, "Keiko-chan's right. You really are a
good guy, Kurama. You don't have to do all of these 'good-byes' of
yours, yet you felt compelled to do so. You also didn't have to explain
anything to me about 'Maya-san', but you still did. Asuka-san's a lucky
girl to have you as her protector and savior."

"I'm glad that you think so," Kurama said as he sighed in relief. This
may actually be his last night of existence, so he certainly didn't
want to leave on a sour note.

"People can't help but admire you for your selflessness. Maya-san
probably did. Even Keiko-chan did. Even I..." Botan closed her eyes in
consternation. "But have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe,
people don't want you to act so selflessly? That your very selflessness
can hurt the very same people? That, even though you'd go through heaven
and hell to save Asuka-san, there are people who'd also go through
heaven and hell just to save you from yourself?"

"I've considered that. But the bottom line is, unless they're willing to
endure what I've endured to save Asuka-san, they won't be able to 'save'
me. They have to know the true meaning of going through heaven and hell
before they can even hope to go against my will," Kurama declared, which
dismayed Botan all the more.

Botan once again quieted down for perpetuity contained within an awkward
moment as she contemplated Kurama's avowal. Before long, they were but
mere seconds away from the resplendent column.

"Well, here we are." Botan squeezed her shoulder in apprehension.
"Before anything else, there's something I have to tell you. I'd like to
talk to you about the kiss..."

"Botan, I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think we have the time--"

"Please, listen to me first. I... To tell you the truth, it was..."

Just as the pair finally reached the shining pillar, a powerful and
radiant pulse knocked both of them off the paddle and into the colorful
night sky. After an instant of mutual shock and confusion, the pair 
simultaneously realized that they were falling.

"Kurama!"

"Botan!"

Botan quickly righted herself, beckoning the wooden oar to come back to
her. Once she regained her ability of flight, she frantically searched
the skies for any sign of her fallen comrade. 

"Kurama, where are you?"

"Over here!" Kurama's tone was faint, almost muffled.

After what seemed to be an eternity, Botan eventually located the
hapless half-youko. He was trapped within the pillar of light, his body
a soft blur of crimson as it continued to succumb to the laws of
gravity.

Botan maneuvered her paddle of flight to follow Kurama's descent in the
gigantic, tube-like pilaster. Upon reaching him, she directed, "Kurama!
Grab my hand!"

Kurama tried to do as Botan said, but to no avail. "There's some sort of
barrier inside the pillar! I can't get my hand through!" Kurama's voice
was harsh and tinny inside the luminous edifice.

"No! Not yet! Not this way! I haven't told you about--"

"Good-bye, Botan," Kurama said with melancholic finality. "Will you
please say good-bye to Koenma for me?" Strange sparkles seemed to
surround the young man as he added, "Don't worry about the kiss so much.
It was... nice."

Kurama never saw Botan's reaction to his last statement. Seemingly taken
aback by his heartfelt words, she halted her descent in the middle of
her rescue effort. The ferry-girl's image promptly faded away, swallowed
by the neon sky as the kitsune plunged deep into the sea of immaculate
white.


***


A memory of a dream from many, many months ago...

As Kurama's vision became clear, all he saw now was a smiling Maya. He
looked around his surroundings. Sure enough, he saw the same street
where he and Maya used to walk home from school together. The situation
was set in the same afternoon sun. Every detail of their daily routine 
was there in full lucidity.

Maya offered a congratulatory smile, saying, "Well done, Shuichi-san.
Well done."

"What was 'well done', Maya-san?" Kurama asked, in awe of Maya's image
before him. He had many other things to say... many things to explain to
her, or at least to the Maya inside of him... but he didn't know how.

"I think what Shuichi-san did was worth the congratulations," Maya said,
smiling enigmatically. Seeing Kurama's confused face, Maya continued.

"You haven't realized it? You have made this dream into your own dream,
Shuichi-san... just like Keiko-san suggested," the specter said. She
melancholically sighed. "I am able to address who Keiko-san is although
in reality I've never met her, but your subconscious doesn't even allow
me to call you by any name other than 'Shuichi-san.'"

Kurama was about to mutter an apology when Maya signaled for him to
stop.

"I am happy being what I am now... an image in your mind... because I am
glad that somehow, you've let me in your heart. This is enough," she
stated, wiping a tear away. "I am happy that when you made this dream
your own, I was a part of it... I'm more than glad to be part of your
dreams, Shuichi-san. Never forget that."


***


Back to the present, inside the first pillar of light...

As Kurama's vision became clear, all he saw now was a smiling Maya. He
surveyed his surroundings. Instead of the expected veil of light, he
saw the avenue where he and Maya used to walk home from school together.
Every last aspect of their habitual tradition was there in complete
perspicuity.

And it was indeed true; every _last_ detail of their daily routine was
present in the dream. As Kurama looked at his reflection on a nearby
car's windshield, he was astounded by what he saw. His hair was cut
short and his build was more slender. He was also a few inches shorter
than before. He quickly put two and two together. <I'm... fourteen
again?> 

Maya was the first one to speak, asking, "Hmmm? Did you say something,
Shuichi-san?"

"Ah, no! Nothing," Kurama assured, silently wondering if it was really a
good idea to make all his thoughts open to everyone in the Dream World.
He wanted to say more, but he still had no idea how to break things to
her. He still didn't know how to say good-bye to a memory which he clung
onto for so long. He inhaled deeply. <I better calm down.>

"Kurama-san always has so many things to think about... Such is the life
of a genius, ne?" she cheered.

"You exaggerate," he said with a half-smile, and then said nothing more. 
Poignant tranquility reigned supreme as the pair continued their casual
stroll.

"The sun is so beautiful when it's setting, isn't it? I just love
sunsets," Maya conversationally started, openly smiling. "Like Midas's
touch, the fading sunlight makes everything turn into gold."

Kurama rubbed the back of his head, consigning himself to his 'boy-next-
door' act. "I agree. I never get tired of watching sunsets. That's one
of the main reasons why I love walking you home from school." 

Maya giggled gaily as she mockingly surmised, "I see. So basically
you're saying that the sunset's more important to you than hanging out
with dreary ol' me?"

"Yup," Kurama jokingly responded, chuckling in kind as his earlier fears
started to dissipate. "But as much as I love sunsets, I love the stars
at night even more."

"Oh, please give me the 'star's death' speech again! I've only heard it
about a zillion times!" was Maya's tongue-in-cheek riposte as she
blithely rolled her eyes at Kurama. 

Kurama let out an affable laugh. "Sorry about that. I do tend to repeat
myself." He felt more and more relaxed as the feeling of wistfulness
slowly engulfed him. "On the other hand, even though it's admittedly
heartbreaking to see a star fade away, its death isn't really all that
pitiful compared to a star that dies in a blaze of glory. The fact that
it's tragic is where its true beauty lies."

Kurama checked out Maya's reaction. "I'm not boring you again, am I?"

Maya shook her head. "No, don't be silly. As usual, you've shared a very
interesting and thought-provoking treatise," she kidded, imitating
Kurama's overzealous use of deep words. "As for me, I think it's all
very romantic, if not sad."

"Sad?"

"Yes, sad. It's very, very sad. Though I agree with you that a fading
star is not without its charm and romance, it's still very much tragic.
Who wants to see a star fade away anyway?"

There was another pregnant pause.

Maya tilted her head in askance, querying, "What's the matter, Shuichi-
san? Is there something wrong?"

Finally summoning the courage to divulge everything to her, Kurama
started, "Maya-san, I have something important to tell you. It's
about..."

But before Kurama could continue what could have been a good ten minute 
narrative, it took only all of two seconds for Maya to say, "I know."

"You do?" Kurama cocked his head quizzically at Maya as she bobbed hers
in concurrence. "I can understand why Botan already knew, but how did
you find out?"

"I found out because I'm just a figment of your imagination. Remember,
I'm but a memory of yours. I'm a part of your mind. Heck, I even know
who 'Botan' is, even though I've never met her."

"Wait, so you've been leading me on all this time? Why didn't you just
tell me that you knew?" Kurama queried, more in shock than in anger.

"Nonsense. We haven't had a heart-to-heart talk in a long time, that's
all." Maya looked at the dimming sky. It was already twilight. She
pensively added, "Nowadays, you rarely daydream about me. I miss our
little talks."

Kurama held Maya's hand and squeezed it a little bit. "I'm sorry. I
guess it's partly because I got fed up by all the dreams Taka-kun kept
putting in my head."

Maya playfully flicked Kurama's nose, a familiar gesture to the kitsune.
"Now don't lie to yourself. You've been forgetting about me long before
'Taka-kun' reared his bishonen head. The real reason is that you've
simply outgrown me."

"You know I can't do that. Crazy as it is for me to have an imaginary
friend, I still kept you around, didn't I?"

Maya smiled wryly. "This conversation is getting us nowhere, Shuichi-
san."

Kurama took a deep breath, remembering Yusuke's advice to him from way
back last summer. <Don't beat around the bush. Go straight to the
point.>

"It's fairly obvious that it's tough for me to let you go, since you've
been around my mind for so long. I know all I need to say is good-bye,
then it'd be all over. But the problem is, I couldn't bring myself to
say the words. Botan's probably right... I can't help but keep my
'personified guilt-trip' around. That's just the way I am."

"That's sweet, but you really have nothing more to say to me. To be
honest, I'm not the one who you should be saying good-bye to."

"What do you--?"

"She's here," Maya said as she motioned towards the intersection in
front of them. As Kurama turned, he did a double take at what he saw.

Just across the street in front of Kurama was a slumbering 'twin' of the
Maya in his mind, floating above the pavement like an eerie phantom. The
sleeping Maya was slightly older than her imaginary counterpart, about
nineteen years of age.

Somehow finding his voice, Kurama addressed the fourteen-year-old Maya,
asking, "What's going on here? Why are there two of you, Maya-san?"

"I believe it's about time you came clean. This is the person who you
should be saying good-bye to, Shuichi-san. The only way you can truly
bid me farewell is to tell her everything. She," the cognizant Maya
motioned towards her unconscious self, "is the real Maya. Your former
friend and classmate; the girl you gave selective amnesia to five years
ago."

"This... is Maya-san? The _real_ Maya-san?"

He couldn't believe his eyes. It was her. After all these years, he
finally saw her again. 

So many questions filled him as he kept staring at her, his green eyes
almost shining with amazement.... and yet, in that moment, he couldn't
find his voice to ask a single one. 

Her face. Pale, yet radiant in the cool starlight. 

Her hair. Long, unbelievably long, tangled and wild. 

Her body, lithe and smooth... taller somehow... her loose pajamas could
not hide the soft, sweet familiar curve of her shape... 

His mouth felt suddenly, impossibly dry.

And her face. She had always been pretty to his eyes, but now, in her 
more mature form, she was breathtakingly ravishing. The fact that she
was unconscious made her all the more alluring; his sleeping beauty.

<Maya-san... I'm glad to see that you're doing okay after all these
years. But still...>

After a fair amount of quiet contemplation and deliberation, Kurama
nearly demanded, "Why are you doing this? This is pointless. Do you hate
the fact that I'm saying good-bye to you instead of the real Maya-san?"

Maya's smile was promptly replaced by pursed lips and downtrodden eyes.
"No. I hate the fact that, after you're gone, there won't even be a
memory of you in the real Maya-san's mind. For her, it's as if you've 
disappeared completely off the face of the Earth, like you never
existed."

"It's better this way," was Kurama's succinct reply.

"How is it better? How can it possibly be better?" Maya queried, almost 
challenged.

"She's been living her life quite well without me, so I don't see the
point in making her know things she doesn't need to know. I do believe
that this time, ignorance truly is bliss," Kurama rationalized as he
felt his discomfort rise. 

"That's a lie," Maya patently declared. "I'm a part of your mind. I can
tell when you're lying and when you're simply in denial. Actually, after
all these years, you finally have come to the point where you _want_ to
tell Maya-san the truth. It's time to let go. Free yourself. Enough of
the lies."

"I can't, and I won't... and that's no lie. What could she possibly get
out of it? The very reason I removed part of her memories was because
she knew too much." Kurama adamantly stared eye-to-eye at the equally
defiant Maya. 

"This would have been what she wanted; it's what you want to do as well.
Please, do her... us... this one favor. Trust me, I know her. I am her.
This is what _we_ truly want."

"You can't be sure of that. You're just an impression that Maya left in
my mind. You're an idealized picture of what could have been, nothing
more."

"Don't second-guess yourself so much; you were a lot closer to her than
you give yourself credit for. You knew almost everything about her: her
insecurities, her shyness, her crush on you, the way she shares your
passion for literature, philosophy, and the arts; I'm a reflection of
all that. I'm neither a figment of your imagination nor a personified
guilt-trip. I am Maya-san."

"No, you're not. And I know what I need to do. Even though I want to
tell her the truth, what needs to be done goes beyond that. I've said my
piece, so we should let this matter rest. I came here to say good-bye,
and that's what I'm going to do. Good-bye, Maya-san." 

The illusory world of Kurama's childhood memories housed within the
pillar of light started to fade away as the red-haired ghost began his
trek anew. Springtime was nearing its end.

The pubescent and conscious Maya, in either panic or desperation, nearly
pleaded, "Why couldn't you talk to her the same way you'd talk to me?
You were always so quiet and secretive around her. Why can't you be more
honest with her?"

Kurama paused and, for a second, seemed reluctant to answer. "I didn't
want to hurt her. And I also don't want to hurt you. I don't want either
of you to get hurt because of me. Why can't we just let things be? This
is what I want to remember before I die."

"Wait. Let me get this straight... Before you die, you want to remember
seeing yourself chicken out on telling Maya-san the truth about you?
That's preposterous!" the willful Maya countered, livid and seemingly 
oblivious to what was happening around her. The first pillar of light
was already dimming from the inside out, judging by the way the
surrounding environment was disappearing into nothingness.

"Why must you continue to lie to her and to yourself? There's more to
you than just Kurama!" Seeing Kurama stop in mid-stride, Maya prodded,
"I know! I've met the true Minamino Shuichi! Why can't you let her know
about that part of you? Why can't you tell her about your philosophies
on human nature? Your likes and dislikes? Before you disappear from the
world altogether, she deserves to know the truth! The truth is what
she really needs!"

Just before everything inside the pillar of light faded forever into
obscurity, the young Maya's eyes widened in surprise. "Kurama. I just
said Kurama. That's your real name, isn't it?" She smiled sweetly as she
hastily wiped the tears that formed in the corners of her eyes. At long
last, the Maya in Kurama's mind was finally able to call him by his real
name.

"Thank you," the imaginary Maya gratefully said before being swallowed
by the converging darkness.

Before everything melted into inconsequence, the older, slumbering Maya
finally awoke, mouthing Kurama's name. She then stopped levitating
altogether, falling into the vanishing earth like a puppet whose strings
had been cut.


***


Henceforth, springtime ended, and summertime was about to commence. 

The early morning sky appeared instantaneously, winking into unnatural
existence like a bad cut scene from a low-budget movie; nevertheless, it
was still a gorgeous sight to behold. The weather was nice and sunny,
with just a hint of moisture left over from the morning dew. The air
wafted lazily with a deliciously crisp fragrance, full of perfumes and
smells, yet clear and fresh, with just a hint of suppressed dust
tickling the nose. A day like this was to be savored whenever possible.

Kurama, however, hadn't the time to indulge in the heavenly utopia
staring him right in his face; he had far more pressing matters to
attend to.

"Maya-san! Watch out!" Kurama exclaimed as he frantically tried to halt
his childhood friend's descent by catching her with his open arms. 

Strangely enough, as soon as he caught her, Kurama felt Maya return his 
unintentional embrace. Blushing, he held his female companion by the
shoulders, put her at arm's length, and declared, "M-Maya-san! I mean,
who--?" the former youko sputtered, blinking in bewilderment.

"Hey! My name's not Maya-san! Have you been seeing other girls on the
side, behind my back?" the girl demanded, then giggled and stuck her
tongue out in a playful manner. "I'm kidding, of course. Long time, no
see, Minamino-kun."

"A-Ayame-san? Is that you?" Kurama inquired in dazed confusion before he
shook his head clear and collected his thoughts. As he let go of the
girl, he briefly hoped that it was actually the shinigami Ayame that
suddenly appeared in front of him; no such luck. No doubt, the girl that
stood before him was his constantly daydreaming classmate who sported
long bangs of hair that dangled in front of her ears like earrings,
loved reading comics, and was _formerly_ (he hoped) infatuated with him.
 
For good or for ill, he wasn't really planning on saying good-bye to the
girl of dreams; it would just be too complicated and unnecessary. "Um,
what exactly are you doing here?" he inquired anxiously, still wondering
just how she managed to end up in the Dream World.

Ayame shrugged. "Didn't Midori-chan and Chiho-chan call me the 'girl of
dreams'? Well, I've always dreamt about you, Minamino-kun. And even
though you're probably just a figment of my imagination, I don't care.
It just goes to show how much Minamino Shuichi means to me; he will
always be the boy of my dreams," she said it as if it was the most
obvious thing in the world. "But you know what's strange? I usually
don't notice that I'm _dreaming_ in my dreams. This is a first. Weird,
ne? Oh well. Whatever." She shrugged again.

Kurama didn't know what or how to respond to that. "Uh... okay."

Neither the boy nor the girl spoke again for several minutes. There was
a breath of silence in the very air, and every few moments the birds
would twitter joyously to break the ice. Then, without even a beckoning
word, they walked as one, exploring the magical place which surrounded
them. They first passed through many beautiful gardens of flora, which
grew nearest from the now-nonexistent first pillar of light; but even
Kurama the plant expert could hardly tell what kind of plants they were,
for their colors were constantly changing under the shifting lights of
the summer sun. 

<They're like chameleons,> the half-youkai noted idly. A plant would be
green one second, white the next, then blue or yellow; and it was the
same way when they came to the hedges, which had broad leaves and grew
close to the ground. But Kurama was hardly one to back away from a
challenge: he surveyed the myriad of vegetation, daring himself to
recognize at least _one_ plant from all the different undergrowths
present.

Tricky as it was, he was able to distinguish _two_ plants; an extremely
toxic Sardinian herb and a young baobab bush. He pocketed little bits
and pieces of both plants as a sort of personal reward to himself for
identifying them.

Meanwhile, Ayame's ears were smoldering hot for some reason, and every
muscle of her petite body tensed as she trotted behind Kurama. She
breathed in deeply as she looked around; there was no denying that they
were in a world of pure imagination, an idyllic paradise, but she still
felt oddly perturbed by it all.

Beyond the multicolored plants that the pair espied, they came upon row
after row of large and handsome hedges with wide leaves gracefully
curving until their points nearly touched the earth. In the center of
each hedge grew a daintily dressed flower, for the clothing of all
these aromatic blossoms grew upon them and was attached to their
bodies. What an enchanted, chimerical dream the girl of dreams had.

Nevertheless, Ayame felt something amiss in this supposed dream of hers;
her female intuition could not be fooled. "Tell me, Minamino-kun... this
isn't really my dream, is it?" she finally said, not asked. As creative
and inspired as she thought she was, this alien world she was currently
cohabiting with Kurama was neither familiar nor personal. "I'm not
really dreaming about you, but somebody else is dreaming about the both
of us."

Kurama tilted his head at Ayame. "But didn't you just say that since
you always dream about me, this dream must be yours? How can you tell
that it's not?" he tentatively asked.
 
Ayame's eyes became hooded, her features unreadable. "I don't know how;
I just can." She bit her lip. "Y'know, Minamino-kun, I've entered other
people's dreams before. In fact, I believe I've entered the dreams of
the real Minamino-kun once upon a time. Even then, I dreamt of him too,
but I still knew that the dream was not my own."

Ayame was now acting more like her reserved self at school whenever the
'real' Shuichi Minamino was nearby: her mood perpetually pensive and
thoughtful. "It's a weird feeling, looking into the innermost thoughts
and desires of total strangers. Because once you do, they don't feel
like strangers to you anymore, even though they still are."

The demon fox mulled over the contemplative girl's words carefully.
After much hesitation and deliberation, Kurama finally confessed,
"You're right. This isn't your dream. Because of the occurrence of a...
poltergeist phenomenon, you have been transported directly into Amano
Shigeru's mind. He and I, with our thoughts as one, are sharing the
same dream. The body that you now have is your astral body; the
corporeal form of your subconscious self."

"Amano Shigeru? Poltergeist phenomenon? My subconscious self?" Ayame
repeated with a fair amount of incredulity in her voice. "I don't
understand. What does Minamino-kun's little admirer--I mean, Midori-
chan's friend, have to do with any of this? Why would my subconscious
self be in Amano Shigeru's mind, of all places? You're not honestly
suggesting that I'm having an out-of-body experience, are you? I find
that--"

"I know, I know. I had the same misgivings as well, when Midori-san
informed me of these things, but..." Kurama heard Ayame blissfully
chortle. "Uh, yes?"

"To be honest, I have no idea what this crazy dream is all about. But
you know what? I don't care. I've yet again entered somebody else's
dreams, but I didn't come alone; as long as I'm with you, Minamino-kun,
I have nothing to complain about. If Shigeru-kun wants to dream about
you and me, then I'm all for it. Let's just enjoy the ride," Ayame
beamed enthusiastically.

Impressed with what she just said, Kurama looked at Ayame in a different
light. "So what do you propose we do now, girl of dreams?" he suavely
inquired.

"Well, we've apparently arrived in the great frontier that is the
subconscious mind. Here, anything can be made, anything can happen, and
everything is real," she wistfully stated as she tucked one of her wild
bangs behind her ear. "With that said, in this world, we can do
absolutely anything we want."

"Wow. That sounds profound," Kurama commented.

"Isn't it, now?" An outrageous thought occurred to the impulsive girl,
making her smile impishly. "I know what we can do next! If this really
is a dream, then give me some sugar, Shu-chan! The way I figure it,
since this is just some crazy fantasy, then I'll be spared from the
potential embarrassment!"

"Huh?" No matter how hard he tried, Kurama couldn't see the logic behind
the girl's latest declaration. He simply stared at her, aghast... and
fidgeting. For Ayame's part, she didn't appear to notice the non-
sequitur. 

A tear trickled down Ayame's cheek as she again unceremoniously hugged
the object of her past, present, and future affection. "I missed you!"
she said through muffled sobs as she cried softly on the redhead's
shoulder.

Kurama couldn't help but laugh uncomfortably and helplessly at his
current state of affairs. "Easy there, Ayame-san," he cooed while
gingerly patting the emotionally-unstable girl's back. To himself, he
whispered, "How can I say good-bye to you now?" Aloud, he reckoned,
"You're certainly friendlier here in the Dream World!"

There was a giggle interspersed in between Ayame's sniffles. "You have
no idea just how friendly I can be..." Kurama didn't quite like the
sultry glint in Ayame's eyes; he especially didn't like how she was
twirling her finger on his chest. He gulped. 

Then, hastily, he cleared his throat. In a deliberate and very obvious
attempt to change the subject, he said, "My, we've stumbled into quite
the delightful place! Just look at all the multicolored plants, the
rolling knolls, the infinitely blue and crystal clear sky, and..." He
trailed off as his gaze drifted from the sky to the ground. He couldn't
believe what he saw underfoot.

"I was only kidding, Minamino-kun. Don't get your panties in a bunch!"
Ayame tittered girlishly, her distasteful words notwithstanding. She
afterwards noticed the serious look on her classmate's face. "What's
wrong?"

"I don't believe this," Kurama murmured as he looked down on the road
beneath him. "Are we going to pay the Wonderful Wizard of Oz a visit?"
Sure enough, the road to summertime was ostensibly and entirely made out
of yellow bricks. It stretched all the way through a landscape with
mountains and plains, lakes and rivers, very like those upon the Human
World's surface; but the entire scene was splendidly colored by the
variegated lights that also served to highlight the glimmering, golden
road all the more. 

Ayame laughed stiltedly and hesitantly at the scenario. "And here I
thought _I_ had bizarre dreams." She contemplated the scene for a bit.
"Hey, didn't you say that Midori-chan's friend Shigeru-kun is the one
dreaming this dream? So he's the one who imagined all this?"

"Yes, that's partly true," Kurama confirmed. "From what I've heard, he
developed a great interest in literature after entering Meiou High. And
not just literature here in Japan, but literary works from all over the
world. In so saying, I guess it does make sense for him to dream about
the yellow brick road from the 'The Wizard of Oz.'"

"A book worm, is he? I guess that makes sense." Ayame pouted musingly.
"But this is your dream too, right? You said so yourself."

"That's also correct," Kurama replied. "Though the facade of the dream
is purely dependent upon Shigeru-kun's thoughts, I'm still the one who
dictates its framework and architecture. I'm the one who has the final
say on how events will unfold. Everything has been arranged from the get
go. Granted, my memory is a bit hazy on some details, but this dream is
still most certainly my handiwork. So right about now, I'm guessing
that the next two persons we're about to meet with are..."   

"The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman?!" the girl of dreams all but
shouted, pointing towards a faint rainbow while it flaunted its majestic
hues.

"I was thinking more of my two friends, Yusuke and Kuwabara-kun. We'll
meet with either one of them and... Oh." Kurama was rattled, flustered,
and faintly amused by what he saw. "Oh. My. Lord. Inari. No way."

"Hey, buddy! Fancy meeting you here," Yusuke greeted the dumbstruck fox
spirit. "I dunno what I'm doing here myself, but what the hey; I'm here
anyway." Hearing Kurama's lack of a response, the sleek-haired teen
promptly noticed his friend's fixated stare on his person--or rather, on
what he was wearing. 

"Oh yeah. About the funky armor, the leather cloak, and the big-ass
axe... W-ell, I actually came here _already wearing_ the original Tin
Woodman's costume, but that rusty old bucket o' bolts sucked hairy
moose balls. So I just closed my eyes and imagined myself wearing _this_
getup instead; to my surprise, it worked. And so here we are."

With a perfectly straight face, Kurama pointed at Kuwabara's tattered
garments and asked Yusuke, "So what's his excuse?" The half-demon, for
his part, smirked and shrugged.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Kuwabara wasn't able to catch his fellow
spirit detectives' brief repartee. "Heya, Kurama! It's been a while. As
a little by-the-way, nobody but _me_, the great Kuwabara Kazuma, can
pull this look off. Oh yeah." The tall, muscular teenager turned and
posed as he showed off his healthy physique and his so-called costume--
if it could be called that. He sported a rather 'gothic hobo' look, with
his pointed, silver-studded hat with frayed brim, his hangman's rope
loosely tied to his neck and collar, and innumerable chains decorating
his ratty overcoat.

"And who are you supposed to be? The Wicked Witch of the Ghetto?"
Yusuke snidely remarked. 

"You should talk, you... you... Saint Seiya wannabe! That isn't a
costume, that's a cry for help!" Kuwabara growled as he tipped his hat
and adjusted his 'rope-collar'. "I'm guessing that I'm experiencing a
crazy, Halloween-themed nightmare or something. So where the hell's my
candy?" the carrot-topped adolescent demanded.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to your, um, friends, Minamino-kun?"
Ayame inquired demurely as she insistently tugged at her ex-crush's
sleeve, her eyes set on the ornately-armored and, in her humble opinion,
oh-so-strikingly handsome Yusuke Urameshi. "Oh yeah. Incidentally, why
are they calling you 'Kurama'? That's such a strange nickname."

Before Kurama could answer Ayame's question... not that he could...
Kuwabara, without knowing, performed a timely interruption. "Speaking of
candy... Hello there, sweet-cheeks! What's your name?" the chain-
bedecked youth hailed. 

"E-Excuse me?" the poor, unfortunate girl whom Kuwabara directed his
attention to managed to squeak.

"My name is Kuwabara Kazuma, currently a student of Sarayashiki Junior
High, and future student of Meiou High! Nice to meet you!" Kuwabara
introduced himself at length, his grin threatening to split his face as
he bobbed his head animatedly.

Ayame somehow managed to look both appalled and frightened at the same
time. Who was this large, yakuza-like thug? Why was he acting so
familiarly toward her and her 'Shu-chan'? She couldn't even begin to
_imagine_ seeing the inelegant brute enrolled in the very same school as
she and Minamino were, and here he was telling her the very same thing
as fact! It was just too much for her delicate constitution to handle.

"Oh. Silent type, eh?" Kuwabara, for some absurd reason, began to nod
his head sagaciously. "This girl is quite demure and... Hey, what's
another word for demure? Anyway, she's just my type! Too bad I'm already
taken. Yep, Yukina-chan is the only one for me." Before the topics in
the gangling adolescent's head became any more desultory, he chanced
upon spotting two, maybe even more, eyes glaring straight at him. He 
involuntarily shuddered. <What was that all about?>

Kurama, on the other hand, was all giggles and smiles after hearing his 
friend's wonderful news. "Really, Kuwabara-kun? You've passed the Meiou
High School Entrance Exams? That's simply amazing."

Kuwabara cackled deliriously in kind. "The tests were no sweat to me!
For when I put my mind into something, nothing can stop me! NYAHAHAHA!!"

Yusuke made a clucking noise with his tongue. "Please, not this again.
You're just like school in the summertime, Kuwabara; no class. Now stop
scaring the poor girl already!" As the hanyou caught sight of the
understandably shell-shocked Ayame, his half-lidded eyes all of a sudden
widened so much that they practically bugged out. He then smacked his
fist on his palm in realization. "Hey, I know this chick! You were the
girl I saw back in chapter eight, I mean, back in Meiou High! Yeah,
that's right, I saw you running away from Kurama when I came to visit
him--"

"...After cutting classes," Kurama and Kuwabara unthinkingly said in
unison.

"Shut up. Anyway, this is incredible! What are the chances? What a
coin... coin... coin-ki-dink!" Yusuke happily surmised as his wide grin
nearly split his face in half.

"Uh, yeah. I guess it is a funny _coincidence_, isn't it?" Ayame gave
Yusuke a curious and wary once-over, the raven-haired boy's peculiar
behavior somewhat unnerving her. She shrugged the feeling off as she
resumed the conversation, stating, "In any case, isn't this exciting? I
mean, we have a Tin Woodman and a Scarecrow! That must mean I'm the
cute and shy lioness, while Minamino-kun is the main character,
Dorothy!"

Now it was Kurama's turn to be startled and unsettled. "What?" 

Yusuke, for his part, huffed nonchalantly. ""Uh, okay. Fine; I'm the Tin 
Woodman, only cooler. Whoopee."

"And I'm the Scarecrow. Goodie." Kuwabara grumbled. "Well, it's
certainly better than being Dorothy." 

"Mou!" Kurama protested, still at a loss for words.

"Yeah. Lucky you. Dorothy had brains, after all. Good thing you don't...
Eh, Scarecrow?" Yusuke wittingly jibed in Kurama's defense.

"Being dumb isn't a crime. If it were, then you'd be in death row by
now," came Kuwabara's retort.

"Huh? HEY!" Yusuke yelped, then unceremoniously started attacking
Kuwabara with retaliatory 'kancho' attempts. Up until that moment,
Kuwabara never moved so gracefully.

Ayame couldn't help but gape in bewilderment at the antics of Kurama's
two friends. The half-youko, after recovering from his own bafflement,
snickered in kind; he was really going to miss them both once he was...
gone for good. He also hoped that, for their sakes, they weren't there
to stop him from what he was supposed to do.

"Yusuke, you've already seen Ayame before, but this is the first time
you've gotten the chance to meet her. So... Ayame, Yusuke. Yusuke,
Ayame. Sorry for not introducing you two earlier." He leaned towards the
girl's shoulder and whispered, "Sorry, Ayame-san. Yusuke's already
taken."

Ayame sulked, then indignantly hissed, "It's not what you think! I was
only curious because he looked so familiar. And he _explained_ where
I've seen him, so that's that, okay?!"

With a deep and heartfelt sigh, Kuwabara loudly complained, "Hey, what
am I? Chopped liver? Introduce me too!"

"If you don't shut up and behave yourself, then that could be arranged."
Yusuke cracked his knuckles to illustrate his point.

"Don't be so silly, Kuwabara-kun. You've already introduced yourself to
everyone." Kurama gaily waved off the group's nominated Scarecrow.
"Anyway, it's about time we went our merry way. Shall we?"

"Fine, then. Whatever. Hey, aren't you short of a parade, Dorothy-chan?" 
Kuwabara taunted childishly, but Kurama was too strangely cheerful to
really notice. <What's with him all of a sudden?> He cleared his throat. 
"Anyway, speaking of parades, shouldn't we be singing merrily as we
gaily frolic in this charming li'l yellow brick road? C'mon, sing it
with me, people! 'We off to see wizard...!'" The fact that Kuwabara was
tone-deaf _and_ had a rigidly Japanese tongue that mangled each and
every last English word in the song didn't escape anybody's notice.

"Shut the fuck up, Toto," Yusuke reproved. After that, he proceeded to
exhale noisily as he addressed Kurama. "Well, we better get going to
wherever you're supposed to go. Don't mind us too much; we're only here
to keep you company."

Kurama grinned in barely-concealed relief. "I don't mind you being here.
Let's go." And so off they went to an unknown destination that lay
beyond the road of summertime. However, the half-youko couldn't help
but feel like his two fellow tantei knew something he didn't and often
caught them looking at him oddly, almost speculatively, as they
continued to thread forward.

The zigzagging yellow brick road led them to many places that closely
resembled things found in the real world, but not quite. When they came
to the mountain, it proved to be a rugged, towering chunk of deep jade
rock, and looked dismal and forbidding in the extreme. Halfway up the
steep was a yawning cave, black as night beyond the point where the
rays of the dazzling sun reached into it. They journeyed in the abysmal
darkness undeterred. 

Soon, to their joy, they found it was sandy, caramel plains at the end
of the tunnel that now greeted them, for all were weary of the rainbow-
colored plants which, after a time, had made their eyes ache with their
constantly shifting hues. The sides of the tunnel presented themselves
before the quartet like the inside of a long spyglass, and the floor
became more level. Yusuke hastened his languid steps at this assurance
of a quick relief from the dark passage, and in a few moments more they
emerged from the mountain and found themselves face-to-face with a 
refreshingly new yet at the same time alien terrain.

It had been one thing after another that had delayed them in their
journey. As they continued to follow the yellow brick road, the terrain
around them turned dusty white and the quartet was forced to slow down
to a snail's pace as the sweltering heat wave exhausted their inner
reserves of energy. Yusuke, in particular, was figuratively kicking
himself in the rear for opting to wear the heavy, iron-cast bejeweled
armor that was, incidentally, an excellent conductor of heat.

They hadn't covered as much ground in the day as Kurama had hoped they
would; it worried him a little, but he figured that they had enough of a
head start to compensate. Tomorrow, they'd definitely have to make up
for lost time. All and all though, they hadn't made a whole lot of
progress on the first day of their grand journey together. 

Eventually, they moved out only late at night and then stopped at noon,
which, as a consequence, made their sleeping habits quite erratic. The
fact that they even _had_ sleeping habits in the middle of a dream, of
all things, really annoyed a rather nonplussed Ayame. In fact, she made
it a point to make the strange, illogical phenomenon known to everyone
present. Loudly.

"What is with this RETARDED DREAM?!" Ayame whined for the umpteenth
time. "Nothing makes sense! If we can still sleep while we're already
asleep, then how come we don't need to eat? Or bathe? Or--"

"Take a dump?" Kuwabara, the self-proclaimed jokester of the group,
added helpfully, earning himself a distinctly feminine look of contempt.
"Kidding aside, the girl's right. Oh man, isn't this all just a crazy
dream? Can't we just wish ourselves out of this heat? Hell, can't we
_think_ ourselves out--Shut up, Urameshi," the curly-haired youth
preemptively reproached just as Yusuke was about to open his mouth. "Oh
yeah! Speaking of wishes; hey Kurama, I've been meaning to ask--"

"No, Kuwabara-kun. I don't have silver _or_ ruby slippers."

"...That's not what I'm going to ask."

"I doubt it."

"KILL ME NOW!" Yusuke screamed as the sweltering heat practically baked
him alive inside the deathtrap he called armor. He lay there on the
equally-searing summer pavement like a flapjack that was waiting to
be flipped. "We should have kept traveling at night; there's no way I
can lug these pieces of crap around any further in the middle of this
heat."

Kuwabara harrumphed. "So much for your badass armor that sucks hairy
moose balls."

"Did the actual Dorothy have this sort of problem when she first came to
Oz?" Ayame mused as she desperately tried to distract herself from
another round of "kancho fighting" and the humid temperatures of the
dunes. "From what I remember from the movie I saw on TV when I was just
a kid, Dorothy also slept while sleeping; that is, the Oz that she
visited was also just a long and involved dream."

"That's an interesting theory, but that can't be right," Kurama muttered
mostly to himself, shaking his head in dissention. "Shigeru-kun loved
the _novel_ of The Wizard of Oz. I don't think that the movie version
had any special significance to him or this dream I'm sharing with him.
On the other hand, any sort of hidden meaning that the original story
had is also lost on the average reader."

"Say what?" Kuwabara queried as he broke off stomping on the drained and 
deadbeat Yusuke. "What're you talking about, Kurama?"

"What I mean is that there is a variant reading of The Wizard of Oz that
features a slightly political slant. From what I've read, it's actually
an election story, and to read it against the political climate at the
time it was published will give you a distinctly different view of the
whole story," Kurama explained at length. "Nevertheless, The Wizard of
Oz's allegorical meaning has no bearing to its success as a famous
children's fairytale, and it �_especially_ has no bearing on our current 
situation."

"Oh, Minamino-kun is so smart! I would have never thought that The
Wizard of Oz has an underlying meaning of some sort! You truly are
brains and beauty combined!" Ayame swooned as Kuwabara and Yusuke
collectively gagged. "So tell me, what's this supposed variant reading
of the story?"

"W-ell, the gist of it is that Oz, despite it being a land overflowing
with milk and honey, is a flawed ideal; just like the American
Government during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
century. All the story's characters, places, and plot devices represent
someone or something in that industrialized society: Dorothy is the
everywoman, the Scarecrow is the uneducated but sensible farmer, the
Tin Woodman is the oppressed and dehumanized industrial worker, and the
Cowardly Lion is the political leader of the 'silverite' movement
himself, William Jennings Bryan, who had a loud roar but little
political power."

"Bryan who?" was Yusuke's two yen's worth on the digressive discussion.

Kurama wiped the sweat off his brow as he surveyed the horizon; his
eyes narrowed. The second pillar of light was already in sight, though
still far away. Then, noticing Ayame's expectant stare, he continued
their little tete-a-tete. "If my memory serves me right, the yellow
brick road and the silver--not ruby--slippers symbolize the proper
parity of gold and silver. The Good Witches represent the 'magical'
potential of the people of the American North and South. The Emerald
City epitomizes both the dollar standard and Washington itself. Finally,
the seemingly powerful Wizard embodies the President of early twentieth-
century America himself, William McKinley. The tale of Oz was merely a
barely-hidden propaganda piece which claims that then-president McKinley
was nothing more than a little man who pulls levers behind a curtain."

"At the time, Bryan and his 'silverite' supporters accused Eastern banks
and railroads of oppressing farmers and industrial workers. Bryan
believed that a switch to silver-backed currency would make money
plentiful. Although correct, Money Reformers today would argue that
money need not, and should not, be backed by either silver or gold, but
only by the people, their skills, and their resources."

"So The Wizard of Oz is not only a propaganda piece, but an _outdated_
propaganda piece," Kuwabara concluded acerbically. "Great. Well, I for
one think that it was better off as a fairytale, seeing that its 'true'
message will forevermore remain only in the realms of fantasy."

"Perhaps," Kurama concurred as he smirked; Ayame, for her part, was
currently directing an angry glare at Kuwabara for interrupting her
"Shu-chan's" little speech. "In any case, with so much election
literature during the period featuring the ratio of sixteen ounces of
silver to one ounce of gold, Frank Baum's colorful utopia just had to be
called 'Oz'."

"Wow. I didn't know that! I get it now; 'Oz' is short for ounces, and
they represent the 'silverite' ideal of sixteen to one. That's so
clever!" Ayame chirpily twittered.

"Yeah, yeah. You learn a new thing everyday." Kuwabara rolled his eyes
and used his large, brimmed hat to fan himself. "This li'l trivia
session is now over, toots. Like the man said, the whole thing has
nothing to do with us."

"Hmmm... So," Yusuke started after slightly recovering from being fried
like a hash brown by the fiery hot sun, "it's all about the money, huh?"

"...Yes, I guess you could say that," Kurama said with a smile and a
shrug.

"Figures." As Yusuke looked up to the sky, he breathed a sigh of relief;
the sun had finally begun to set. At last, his lengthy session of solar-
induced torture was over. "Let's set up camp. It's getting dark. But
please, can we start sleeping in the morning and moving at night again?
It's a fucking _yellow_ brick road, so we can see it even in the dark."

In the morning, despite Yusuke's protests, they traveled on until they
came upon a thick forest in the midst of the barren wasteland. The
yellow brick road cut a path right in the middle of the aforementioned
wilderness. There was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend
to the right and left as far as they could see; and besides, they did
not dare change the direction of their journey for fear of losing sight
of the road to summertime. So they continued onwards, unfettered.

Kuwabara the Scarecrow, who was in the lead, was the first one to chance
upon the gargantuan tree with such wide-spreading branches that they
served as a natural archway for the party to pass underneath. So he
walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under the first
branches, they bent down and twined around him, and the next minute he
was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his fellow
travelers.

This did not hurt Kuwabara, but it really did catch him unawares, and he
looked rather dizzy when Kurama and Yusuke helped him up to his feet.
"What the FUCK was that all about!?"

"There's another space between the trees," pointed out Ayame. "Maybe we
can pass through that. I'm pretty sure we can find our way back to the
yellow brick road from there, no problem."

"I'll go, because it doesn't hurt me to get thrown around; I'm made of
stronger stuff than that," boasted Kuwabara as he preened himself. He
walked up to another tree as he spoke, but its branches immediately
seized him and tossed him back again.

"Uh. Okay," Yusuke said, sweating bullets of vexation while Ayame
moaned, "What will we do now?"

"The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our
journey," observed Kurama.

"Well, you're the plant expert! Do something!" Kuwabara demanded as he
scuttled away from yet another wayward, sentient branch.

"Let me try," said Yusuke the Woodman, and shouldering his axe, he
marched up to the first tree that had manhandled Kuwabara so roughly.
When a big branch bent down to seize him, the armor-clad teen chopped at
it so fiercely that he cut it in half. At once the tree began shaking
all its branches as if in pain, and the half-demon passed safely under
it.

"Wow. That's so cool," Ayame whispered in amazement.

"Come on, everyone!" he shouted to the others. "What are you all waiting
for? Hurry!" They all ran forward and passed under the tree without
injury, except Kuwabara, who was again caught by a large branch and
shaken until he howled. But Yusuke promptly chopped off the branch and
set the traumatized adolescent free.

"One thing I'll never be," Kuwabara confessed, gasping and panting in
alarm, "is a tree-hugging dendrophiliac."

The other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they
made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down
their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the
forest, and they were given this wonderful power in order to keep all
strangers out.

The four travelers walked with ease through the trees until they came to
the farther edge of the woods. Then, to their surprise, they found
before them a high wall which seemed to be made of white china. It was
smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. The
yellow brick road went right underneath it.

"What shall we do now?" whimpered Ayame once more.

"I'll make a vine ladder," said Kurama, "for we certainly must climb
over this wall." After Ayame again went into appreciative raptures over
her classmate's natural-born versatility, the half-youko set to work. He
labored feverishly until he made the nearby strands of bulbous outgrowth
into a long and sturdy enough ladder to accommodate all four of them.

It was already noon by the time they reached the top of the ceramic
barrier. They realized far too late that the uppermost part of the wall
was actually hollow, and their combined weight had begun to break the
fragile porcelain. With an audible crash, they slipped and fell as
shards of white came raining after them.

"I'm sure we are in no danger," said Kurama in a sober voice amidst his
friends' frenzied shrieks of terror. Just then, to the laws of physic's 
annoyance, strong gale winds slowed down the party's descent to the
speed of a feather falling. "See? We're falling so slowly that we can't
be dashed into pieces when we land."

"Is this dream screwing with our heads? First it made me and Urameshi
wear dorky outfits, then it nearly blinds us with rainbow-colored
plants, then it bakes us alive care of the hot sun, then it made some
trees throw me around like a rag doll, then it threatens to kill us all
by making us fall, and _now_ it's trying to save us? I... I... God damn
it, stop the world, I want to get off!" declared Kuwabara with a groan.

"Oh, I'm not so sure of that," replied the half-youko. "But don't let
us worry over such things, Scarecrow-san; we can't help ourselves just
now, you know, and kaasan always told me that it's foolish to borrow
trouble."

"Whatever you say, Dorothy-chan," grumbled the Scarecrow.

"We're landing," was Yusuke's terse observation. Apparently, on the
other side of the ceramic wall was, to their relief, a treeless, dune-
less plain filled with grassy knolls. The yellow brick road was still in
plain sight.

In the afternoon, the sun shone hot in their faces for there were no
more trees to offer them shade; so that before night Ayame was tired,
and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, while Yusuke, Kurama, and
Kuwabara kept watch.

"You should also get some sleep too, Kurama," Yusuke insisted.

"I'm not that tired," Kurama yawned as he rubbed his eyes.

"Right. Sure you are," Yusuke deadpanned. "Listen, we've already figured
out that it was you who saved us from that nasty fall. Like you said,
you're sharing this dream with that guy from your class, what's-his-
name. It was your free will that made things happen the way you wanted
them to happen, and it obviously took a lot out of you."

"Urameshi's right, Kurama," chimed in Kuwabara. "While I couldn't
understand for the life of me why your little admirer would choose to
think of a dream that could possibly kill us in our sleep, I really did
appreciate your last minute save. Let me and Urameshi return the favor.
So sleep already or I'll knock you out cold!"

Kurama smiled wanly. "While I appreciate the gesture, I just can't..."
He trailed off before nodding off to sleep. 

"Well, that's that," Kuwabara said as he rolled Kurama right beside
Ayame, who involuntarily hugged the pretty boy in barely-conscious
pleasure. 

"Good, 'coz _they're_ already coming," Yusuke resolutely stated as the
subtle, almost inaudible rumble from the distance started to increase in
volume.

"Have I told you that I really, _really_ hate this dream?" Kuwabara
commented. It was truly lucky that the Scarecrow and the Woodman were
wide awake when the pack of wolves arrived.

"This is my fight," said Yusuke the Woodman to his Scarecrow
counterpart, "so get behind me and I'll take care of the rest." He
smirked cockily as the wolves started to surround the both of them. "I'm
trapped between the frying pan and the fire, huh? Lucky for me I'm
Urameshi Yusuke. REI-GAN!" 

Yusuke aimed his index finger at the wolves and pulled the proverbial
trigger. Nothing happened. "Shit, I'm all out of spirit energy!" As a
pair of wolves suddenly pounced at him, Yusuke dove desperately between
the two creatures and bolted down the road as fast as his coltish legs
could carry him. "Ayame's right, this dream _is_ fucking retarded!"

"But that's crazy! Kurama was able to use _his_ powers when he made that
rope ladder, so you should be able to use yours... right?" Kuwabara
cried out anxiously. 

"Tell that to my fucking finger!" Yusuke yelped, and then blinked. "Come
to think of it, Kurama wasn't really using his powers when he made that
vine-rope-ladder thingy a while back, was he? He was using good old-
fashioned elbow grease." A furious swipe from the leader of the wolves
knocked the Spirit Detective down in a boneless heap. Lucky for him, his
thick armor saved him from being gutted like a fish.

"URAMESHI!" Kuwabara hollered just as he uncoiled one the chains wrapped
around his torso and whipped it across several of the snarling beasts.
"Stop goofing around and fight! What the hell do you think that damn axe
is for, anyway? Get it on with the elbow grease already, asshole!" 

"Hmmm... Elbow grease, huh?" Yusuke seized his razor sharp axe, and as
the leader of the wolves came on he swung his arm and chopped the wolf's
head from its body, so that it immediately died. As soon as he could
raise his axe another wolf came up, and he also fell under the sharp
edge of the Tin Woodman's weapon. There were forty-two wolves, and
forty-two times a wolf was killed, so that at last they all lay dead in
a heap before the half-demon mazoku prince.

Then he put down his axe and sat beside Kuwabara, who said, "That fight
kicked ass, man. It was old school head-chopping without all the fancy 
fireworks."

They waited until Ayame and Kurama awoke the next morning. The young
girl was quite frightened when she saw the great pile of shaggy wolves,
but the Tin Woodman Proxy calmed her down and told her everything.
Kurama thanked both Yusuke and Kuwabara for saving them all, after which
they started again upon their journey.

Yusuke was very happy, as evidenced by the eerily self-satisfied smile
on his face. The skirmish that just took place yesterday had definitely
picked up his mood. He whistled a merry tune as he sauntered about the
yellow brick road, his trusty axe at hand; it was going to be an
interesting journey after all.

Kuwabara was restless. Every two steps, he would punch his right hand
with his left, limbering up his arms and shoulders for the fight he
could practically smell coming. Yusuke's battle with the wolves had
whetted his appetite; he wanted a piece of the action. The wielder of
the Rei-Ken had never pretended that he was a complex man: he liked his
sister's stock of beer cold, his rock music loud, and his enemies
pummeled severely to a pulp. All this boring waiting around for stuff to
happen and trying to figure out what people were up to crap was totally
Kurama's job. Kazuma Kuwabara was mostly there for the clobbering.

Ayame was anxious. The good-looking but scary Yusuke just killed an
entire pack of wild wolves in cold blood, while the not-so-good-looking
and scary Kuwabara was evidently readying himself for some rabble-
rousing of his own; it was just too much for a sensitive girl like her
to handle. 

Kurama was lost in thought. <The Wicked Witch of the West also sent
wolves to kill Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz; so there's a 
semblance of continuity in this part of the dream after all,> he
reckoned. <Wait a minute. Could it be that the so-called Wicked Witch
exists in this dream as well? If there really is a Wicked Witch here,
then she must be the one responsible for all these troubles that we're
currently experiencing! It's the only way this whole dream makes sense.>

"What makes sense, Minamino-kun?" Ayame inquired as she tilted her head
at the half-youko in askance. "And what were you mumbling about just
now?"

"Uh, it's nothing, Ayame-san. Nothing at all," Kurama replied as he
scratched the back of his neck in his usual feign of ignorance. <I
almost forgot that in the Dream World, thoughts cannot be hidden because
the Dream World _is_ composed of thoughts.>

"What was that about thoughts?" the girl of dreams questioned further.

"Darn it. I mean--Look out, crows!" Kurama shouted.

"Don't change the subject! I'm not falling for that old... Oh." 

Straightaway, a murder of wild crows went flying towards the foursome,
their sheer numbers enough to darken the clear skies. These scavengers
flew in one great flock, and when Ayame saw them, she screeched in
panicked fright.

"The fun never ends, huh?" Yusuke stated as he took hold of his Tin
Woodman axe once more. "Well, boys... and girl... it looks like we're
having black bird pie tonight!"

But Kuwabara the Scarecrow said, "Stop right there, Urameshi. This is my
battle, so you all should just lie down beside me and you won't get
hurt." He knew he could take of himself, on account of how he was a
totally cool super badass. His friends, however, lacked the natural
advantage that being Kazuma Kuwabara lent him. Ergo, he figured that 
he should be the one to face the murderous legion of aviaries this time
around. 

"You're being an idiot. Axe beats chain every time! It's like rock to
scissors! Let me at those crows!" Yusuke protested, but Kuwabara
steadfastly held his ground.

"You sure about this, Kuwabara-kun?" Kurama concernedly asked as he
obeyed his curly-haired friend's orders and ducked down on the ground.

"I'm sure. And don't give me that look, Urameshi. You've had your fun,
so shut your mouth and keep your head down." With a grim smile, the
stocky Japanese boy cracked his knuckles and popped the vertebrae in his
neck. "Now's my turn."

So they all lay upon the ground except the Scarecrow, and he stood up,
bound his fists with several pounds of chain, and stretched out his
arms. And when the crows saw him they were frightened, as these birds
always were by scarecrows, and did not dare to come any nearer. But the
King of the Crows said, "It's only a man dressed like a scarecrow. I'll
peck his eyes out!"

"I'd love to see you try, birdie!" Kuwabara dared. "I don't need the
Spirit Sword or spirit energy to handle all you cawing bozos."

The King Crow flew at the Scarecrow, who deftly caught it by the head
with his heavy chains and twisted its neck until it died. And then
another crow flew at him, and he also strangled it to death. There were
four hundred and twenty crows, and four hundred and twenty times
Kuwabara wrung a neck, until at last all were lying dead beside him.
Then he called to his companions to rise, and again they went upon their
journey.

"That was hardcore, Kuwabara!" Yusuke waxed lyrical as he clasped his
comrade's hand in congratulations. "I can't believe you've killed that
many crows! There must have been a hundred of those birds! That was
fucking amazing!"

<Actually, there were four hundred and twenty of them. So far... Wait,>
Kurama cleared his throat, inhaled, then exhaled, "So far we've come
across forty-two wolves, and four hundred and twenty crows..."

"So that makes... four hundred and sixty-two enemies?" Kuwabara quipped
as he readjusted his wide-brimmed hat. "Sorry. I didn't know we were
supposed to keep count."

Kurama let his friend's wisecrack slide for the time being. "...So that
means we'll either be facing the killer bees next or go straight to
confronting the Winged Monkeys; either of the two or both. I can't be
sure, since this version of the Oz story seems quite broken up and
inaccurate. The only question that remains is, 'When?'"  

"Ow!" Ayame exclaimed as she slapped her cheek. "Stupid mosquito. Huh?
Wait a sec--Gross, it's a bee!" She froze. "A BEE!? Uh-oh. I guess that
answers your question, huh, Minamino-kun?"

Soon, just about everyone present heard the ominous drone of hundreds of
bees. "S-So whose turn is it to take care of the enemy?" Ayame asked
nervously. 

"Run," Yusuke ordered. "I'll handle it. Don't worry, I'll catch up."

"The hell with you and your hero complex, Urameshi! We won't leave you
behind with those poisonous bees!" Kuwabara said as he stood side-by-
side with Yusuke in a ready stance.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" Yusuke scoffed. "I'm the only one
who can survive all those bees and their stings. That is, unless you
have three extra sets of armor hidden inside that raggedy black gown of
yours."

Seeing that they had no other option except to leave their armored
friend behind to face the lethal insects, the three reluctantly agreed
to continue following the yellow brick road's trail while the half-demon
bought them some time.

"Come back to us soon, Yusuke," Kurama said. "I would like for you to
keep us company for a little while longer."

Yusuke smirked. "Sure."

"You take care of yourself, buddy. I don't know what will happen if a
person dies in this dream, but I sure hope you don't intend to find
out," Kuwabara advised as he affably slapped his rival's back.

"It's you who should take care of yourselves," Yusuke austerely said.
"'Coz if Kurama's guess is correct, then you three will be the first
ones to face the Winged Monkeys. NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
 
"G-G-Good-bye, Urameshi-kun! P-Please don't die!" was Ayame's not-so-
reassuring plea as the three scurried off into the distance.

Soon--if anyone bothered to count--forty-two hundred bees swarmed the
entire area like a howling black gale of death. Yusuke went into a fetal
position, covering his unprotected head with his arms as he waited. The
bees found no one but Yusuke the Tin Woodman to sting, so they flew at
him and broke off most of their stingers against his armor without
fatally hurting him. And as bees could not live when their stings were
broken, that was the end of their endemic pestilence, and they lay
scattered thick about the Woodman, like little heaps of fine coal.

Yusuke winced as he rubbed his slightly swollen hands and face; the only
parts of his body that weren't covered in armor. After a few minutes of
well-earned rest, he started off anew towards his friends, hoping
against hope that he could catch up with them before the Winged Monkeys
did. 

Meanwhile, the Tin Woodman's three companions were currently and
excitedly sprinting towards the end of the yellow brick road; the second
pillar of light was, by now, a mere stone's throw away. They slowed
their pace to a brisk walk in order for the half-demon to catch up with
them sooner.

"I sure wish Urameshi-kun can catch up to us in time, before we reach
the yellow brick road's 'finish line!'" Ayame fervently hoped in between
heavy pants and gasps. "But what am I saying? Of course he can make it!
Jeez, I don't even know why I was so worried about him in the first
place. I mean, dealing with an entire wolf pack is obviously more
dangerous than weathering down a bunch of bugs while wearing large
chunks of thick armor."

"I myself am a bit worried, though," Kurama admitted. "Actually, that's
an understatement; 'worried' doesn't even begin to describe what I'm
feeling right now."

"Worried? About Urameshi? He'll be fine," Kuwabara casually avowed.
"Even though he can't use any of his awesome spiritual powers in this
dream, he's been through tougher situations before. At this point,
facing imaginary killer bees is nothing to him."

Ayame raised an eyebrow. "'Spiritual powers?' What in blazes are you
talking about?" 

"That's not what I'm worried about," Kurama clarified. Rubbing his
forehead in consternation, he closed her eyes and screwed his mouth up
into a moue of deep thought. "Now that the fierce wolves, wild crows,
and stinging bees have come and gone, I'm afraid that only leaves us
with the Winged Monkeys; the worst of the lot. Despite appearances,
they're no laughing matter."

"Holy shit, you got a point there, Kurama," Kuwabara agreed. "As silly
as 'Winged Monkeys' may sound, those unholy sins against nature are
indeed a force to be reckoned with. To think, if I had that kind of
power over a herd of primates mighty enough to blot out the sun with
their sheer numbers, I'd probably--"

"Kuwabara-kun! Just what do you think you're... thinking?!" Kurama said,
scandalized beyond words.

"Hey, you were once a bad guy, right?" Kuwabara rhetorically inquired as
he shrugged. "Maybe that's a sweeping statement, but you know what I
mean. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that, one time or another, you've
entertained the thought of gaining control over a legion of mindless yet
loyal peons to do as you wish."

Kurama was taken aback by the curly-haired teenager's left field method
towards logic. "T-That's an interesting theory. So you _have_ been
studying hard to get into Meiou High."

"Damn straight." The Scarecrow smugly snorted. "Who needs brains now,
bitch?"

"Uh, guys, I _really_ think you should see this," Ayame insistently
called out as she awkwardly tugged at both Kurama's and Kuwabara's
sleeves.

"Not now, toots--Hey, wait! You're not seeing what I think you're
seeing, are you? Have the Winged Monkeys arrived here already?" Kuwabara
asked in dread as he tensed up, looked around him fiercely, and
brandished his metal chains like lengthy pieces of nunchaku. 

"Er, not exactly," she quietly disclosed as she turned away from the
larger but younger teenager in confusion and embarrassment, blushing an
intense shade of red.

"Well then, it can wait! Kurama and I are discussing a very important
topic here!" Kuwabara admonished as he started to put his chains away,
wrapping them around his abdomen. 

"Y-You don't understand! Don't put those away just yet, we're still in
danger! I think..." Ayame cried out, her eyes fiery yet pleading, as if
she was uncertain about something.

"But there aren't any flying, winged monkeys around, Ayame-san. How can
we possibly be in peril?" Kurama tranquilly reasoned as he raised both 
his hands in what he thought was a consoling gesture. The young woman
merely found the act patronizing.

"JUST GO LOOK ABOVE YOU AND SEE FOR YOURSELVES!" Ayame irritably snapped
as she pointed straight at the sky. This time, the two spirit detectives 
obediently complied with her demands. Their mouths afterward went agape
in incredulity.

Ayame was right; the creatures flying above them weren't Winged Monkeys
at all. The sky was darkened, and a low rumbling sound was heard in the
air. There was a rushing of many wings, a great chattering and laughing,
and the sun came out of the dark sky to reveal a herd of bare-chested,
lean-muscled boys of early adolescence to shining manhood soaring above
the trio's heads in gossamer wings. Each young man possessed one to six
wings, a bright halo of light on top of his head, and tight leather
pants.

"Aren't they beautiful? They're just like multi-winged angels!" the girl
of dreams squealed as she nearly keeled over in delight. "I'm not really
sure, but maybe they're here to help us. Perhaps they're one of the
friendlier races of Oz; just like the Munchkins!"

A six-winged, young Asian-looking boy that looked to be the leader of
the flock of birdmen landed gracefully on the lush green carpet of grass
just beside the yellow brick road. He held a flat, level stare at the
weary travelers, reminding both Kurama and Kuwabara of a certain,
'recently deceased' nemesis. 

"We're the Seraphs, and we're here to kill you," the boy said plainly. 

"'Munchkins', you said." Kuwabara harrumphed as he looked straight at
the stunned Ayame with half-lidded eyes. "It looks more like amateur
night at Chippendales to me."

So the Leader of the Seraphs stood upon his left foot and said slowly,
"Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke." Next he stood upon his right foot and said,
"Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo." After this he stood upon both feet and cried
in a loud voice, "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!"

"Never mind the Chippendales' crack, these goons really _are_ monkeys!"
Kuwabara said as he wielded his lethal chain-links once more. His
knuckles hardened with how hard he gripped his tools.

"Watch out! That's the ceremonial chant that the original Wicked Witch
of the West used to summon the Winged Monkeys!" Kurama warned. "Looks
like this time the Seraphs' leader is using it as an order to attack!"

Another one of the so-called Seraphs, a white-haired man with a single
raven-black wing and a really long sword, swooped straight down at
Kuwabara and announced, "I am Thoriphes. Get on your knees, dog. I want
you to beg for--"

"Huh. That name's kinda hard to pronounce. Like 'Kurapikt'," Kuwabara 
conversationally cut the Seraph off, then lunged at him with his fists
clenched and ready. With a single, shackle-assisted grab, he snatched
Thoriphes from behind and sent him flying backwards care of a well-
executed German Suplex. The birdman's neck fractured in several places
as his head landed hard on the bricked pavement.

"I will not... remain a memory..." Thoriphes gurgled before altogether
expiring. The rest of the Seraphs became livid with unified rage; from
there, all hell broke loose.

"Here's a head butt, butthead!" Kuwabara howled as he crashed his thick
skull onto the nearest Seraph's head. The poor thing was knocked out
cold.

Swan-diving and then somersaulting together in midair, a pair of sandy-
haired, blue-eyed, identical twin Seraphs bolted towards the orange-
haired Scarecrow. Kurama intercepted one of the winged attackers and
landed a bone-shattering palm strike at the bridge of his nose. Even
Ayame was able to assist in the battle by kicking the other, distracted
double right in the groin. "Look, guys! I got one!"

"I'm real happy for you, sister!" Kuwabara rasped as he struggled
against three of the flying adolescents who were trying to choke him off
with his own weapon. He did his best to untangle himself from the mass
of chains and birdmen, pushing his body weight forward and somehow
managing to shove himself even closer towards freedom well after physics
should have intervened.

Kurama pivoted and kicked at one of the lower-flying Seraphs as it shot
out of the hovering horde above him, flapping alongside the summertime
road. Hurling himself to safety at the last moment, he grabbed another
of the flailing pseudo-angels and swung off his leg like a trapeze
artist. While in midair, the half-youko had time to take a shaky breath
and look back at the throng of enraged Seraphs congregating in his
direction. That had been a lot closer than he had expected it to be.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kurama could see a thick mist of blood
spreading through the churning legions of Seraphs as they tried to fly
away to the left. A metallic flash caught his eye, and he smiled to
himself. "Yusuke," he murmured.

"I'm back! Miss me?" Yusuke called out, charging at the Seraphs head on, 
swinging his sharp axe in wide arcs while doling out haymakers with his
free hand. Ducking under one of the creatures' outstretched fists, the
Woodman chopped an arm and leg off and leapt clear as the angelic lad
bawled in agony. 

"Shonen Jump!" Moving quickly, he planted his foot in the face of the
next Seraph to charge at him and leapt towards the open plains. Except
his foot never landed on the Seraph's face and he lacked the added
leverage that would have made his leap towards the open plains possible.

"My name is Hirou Eye. I will kill you," said the apathetic leader of
the Seraph army as he pushed Yusuke and his foot away from his face with
one wave of his hand. 

"If you don't mind, I'd really like to know why," Yusuke said after
recovering from his unceremonious backpedal, and gave his battle axe an
idle twirl.

"Two Reasons. First reason: Life is something that's cheap, especially
my life. Second reason: I kill crazy people." Hirou held his flat stare
at the armored teenager, a stare of utter hatred. Or maybe it was one of
expectation. Or boredom. It was hard to tell when it came to this
particular Seraph; he apparently hadn't learned the art of 'emoting.'

"Don't use such fancy words, 'coz they make you sound like a pretentious
dick." Axe swinging, Yusuke leapt into the fray with a warbling battle
cry. Hirou weaved, soared, and dodged through the armored boy's fists
and axe, as agile and slippery as a rising dragon, and threw around
several small spheres of explosives to strike back. 

"Motherfucker--!" Yusuke barely evaded the ensuing chaos of the volatile
upsurge. The resulting bomb shrapnel cracked against the half-demon's
shoulders, causing chips of enamel to fly off of his armor. Rolling with
the fiery blows, Yusuke ducked and slid under his opponent's guard. The
uppercut began somewhere near his ankles and exploded on contact with
Hirou's chin. Blood and sweat sprayed out from the Arch-Seraph's face
and the he flew rearward in a graceless arc that left him sprawled
inside a person-sized crater.

Hirou, after all of three seconds, sat up, shook his head clear, and 
nonchalantly popped back the dislocated bones in his right arm and upper
left wing. As he gave his target a flat stare of appraisal, for a split-
second, one of the muscles under the far end of his left eyebrow
twitched slightly.

Ignorant of the tremendous emotional outburst that Hirou just exhibited,
one which would have sent even his fellow Seraphs heading for the far
east, Yusuke roared, "Still alive, eh? LET'S FIX THAT!" his axe raised
high above his head like a hammer of judgment that was waiting to fall.

The axe embedded itself cleanly on top of Hirou's cranium, but the Arch-
Seraph gave it no mind. An axe to the head was a hindrance; not an
excuse to die, despite what most people claimed.

Faster than the eye could see, Hirou Eye seized Yusuke in a full nelson,
lifted him up to the air and carried him until they were over a country
thickly covered with sharp rocks. Here he dropped the poor Woodman, who
fell a great distance to the rocks, where he lay so battered and dented
that he could neither move nor groan.

"Weichu Fang. Wren Tranquir. Pick the Woodman up and take him to the
Witch's castle," Hirou Eye ordered two of his subordinates as he
inelegantly pulled the sharp axe out of his head and threw it away. 

Despite the three Spirit Detective's extensive experience in fighting,
the Seraphs' incredible numbers were too much for even them to handle.
Couple that with the fact that they currently didn't possess any
spiritual energy whatsoever, and they barely even stood a chance.

A number of Seraphs assisted the three who had already entangled the
Scarecrow, throwing pieces of stout rope around him for good measure and
wounding many coils of metal and fiber about his body, head, and legs,
until he was unable to struggle in any way.

Seeing that he was utterly defenseless at that point, they took their
frustration on him then and there, attacking him like a pack of feral,
winged dogs. After they were done with him, they lifted him up and flew
away with him into the pitch-black skies.

"Thanks for saving me some leftovers, Deux Mallow," a Seraph with pointy
long hair softly said to one of the three Seraphs who apprehended the
dangerous Scarecrow.

"You better not be talking sarcastically, Titan Bloom," Deux Mallow
answered back.

None of the Seraphs harmed Ayame at all. She stood, watching the sad
fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her turn. Hirou Eye
flew up to her, his arms stretched out and his bloody face contorted
into a flat stare of murderous intent... resolve... indifference... but
as he saw her up-close, he stopped short, motioning the others not to
touch her.

"Do not harm the girl," he said to them, "for she is very important to
the Witch, perhaps slightly more so than the red-haired one himself. All
we can do is carry her to the Witch's castle and leave her there."

The remainder of the Seraphs caught up with Kurama, and with their
clenched fists pummeled him into submission. "Oh Inari, how powerless we
are..." the half-youko lamented before the oh-so-familiar silken
darkness draped itself upon his consciousness once more. Had he still
been awake, he would have been surprised to see that the Seraphs were
actually carrying them straight to where they intended to go in the
first place; the second pillar of light at the end of the yellow brick
road. They were now headed directly towards Emerald City. 


***


To be Continued...


Next: The second pillar of light and the road to autumn.

Writing this chapter (while a hefty chunk of my writer's block is
still crushing my muse's frail, weak, and asthmatic body) is like
cactus-patch diving and warm beer; the former because it's
somewhat troublesome and unpleasant to bear, and the latter
because being able to enjoy such unnecessary punishment is an
acquired taste. But I digress. Long story short, what's done is
done. Enjoy the fruits of my labor if you so choose.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), it'll be another long
wait before the next chapter. But you know what? I humbly believe
it'll be worth it.

Note that I put in the title _Shonen_, not _Shonen-Ai_. Shonen-Ai 
(male-male relationship) and yaoi are just not my cup of tea. This 
is dedicated to Chimamire Kitsune for giving me the inspiration to 
write this fic... Wherever you are, this is for you.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro
Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St. Pierrot. The Wonderful Wizard
of Oz was written by L. Frank Baum and is currently the property
of the public domain. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

Paalam!
Abdiel

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