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glass, and in the midst of the falling shards of night sky, a voice
boomed, "I'm sorry, Spirit World; Kurama has already decided who his
executioner will be, and it isn't any of you oar-wielding, pacifier-
sucking freaks. So stand aside--his true grim reaper has finally
arrived."

Flying through the air like some sort of bird of prey, illuminated by
the shivering flames encircling the pendant that once belonged to him,
was a familiar figure that hovered above Koenma, Botan, and Kurama. On
cape-like wings did Kuronue, the Black Raven himself, glide through the=20
crumbling paradise of pretense even as new and improved versions of his
familiar scythe weapons started to rain upon the garden, dropping from
the broken ether like a million and one chained anchors.

Once he spotted his intended target, Kuronue tucked his feet from under
him and kicked at the nearest airborne object--the surrounding debris
of brittle filament--using it as a springboard and somersaulting back
to land next to his old partner below. "Looks like I've arrived just in
time," the Black Raven smilingly concluded.

"No," Kurama contended, smirking. "'Just in time' would be before I was=20
paralyzed from the neck down, nearly turned into a ball of flame, and
forced to take refuge inside the body of a ferry-girl. This is more
like, 'almost too late', old friend."

Kuronue chuckled. "I suppose. It's been... what? Eight, nine years since
you started your death scene? You sure took your time," he jibed dryly
as he wrapped several chains over Kurama's body and hauled him away from
a confounded, mouth-agape Koenma.

The endless downpour of metal links and blades from the damaged sky went
on undeterred for quite sometime until the ground underneath everyone's
feet finally gave way. A strangled yelp escaped Koenma's lips as he took
hold of Botan's unconscious body and flew away from the resulting bedlam
using the antiquated jetpack he'd sported since the days of the Ankoku=20
Bujutsukai.

Conversely, Kuronue and Kurama just about embraced falling into the
gaping darkness below them. They descended in what felt like a long,
cavernous shaft that ended with a shock of water--presumably coming=20
from the pond above--that was as icy and penetrating as death. Kurama's
head sank quickly beneath the surface, and the impact of winter flame
was there: blue, deep, and filled with unsaid regret. Also, in the
confusion, he'd lost track of where his ex-comrade went.

Kurama feverishly struggled against the currents of what was presumably
a deep trench from the River Styx itself, and by some miracle he managed
to bob his face above the water despite of the heavy shackles on his
body. He saw a forest of bamboo protruding all around him, which made
him instinctively cling to the nearest pole in order to try and pull
himself up from the bottomless channel.

The flames all around the pool were azure and depressing, and there was
an unknowable desperation in their dance. Kurama pulled himself up with
all his might, but the water clung to his body and made him heavy,
dragging him down like tar. His hands slipped over the shaft of bamboo,
and his legs kicked violently underneath the surface.=20

The water burned him, his feet were frozen, and the flame in that
abominable spring was like a million voices that shrieked death and
sadness at him. And, all the while, Kurama's gasps and the roar of the
fire overhead filled his ears with the need to break free.=20

After traveling from one pole to another, Kurama soon found a portion of
the spring that was no longer deep; he could almost paddle to the edge
now. Then, at that juncture, the Black Raven suddenly appeared, stepping
atop a bamboo pole near his former cohort. A wordless conversation took
place between the two ex-partners-in-crime as they looked at each other
meaningfully. Once everything was settled, Kuronue nodded his consent
and started to act in accordance to his old friend's unsaid wishes.


***


Somehow, because of Kurama's untenable will and Kuronue's sudden
appearance, the portal separating the Spirit World and the Dream World
collapsed with along with the filament that served as the container of
this fantasy Eden. Like the spilt blue blood of an ancient giant, water
from the Sanzu no Kawa itself flooded everything around the isolated
garden inside Kurama's subconscious, creating yet another channel for
the infamous river.=20

After what seemed like hours, the hail of steel eventually ebbed. From
there, just outside the devastated imaginary garden of porcelain, a
shell-shocked Koenma and a bleary Botan unceremoniously landed on the
debris-laden water from the River Styx, both of them suffering from
varying degrees of bewilderment, astonishment, and disbelief at what had
just happened. Fortunately, the sudden splash of cold water served to
somewhat awaken them from their dazed, thousand-yard stares.

The pair of celestial entities warily peered from the outer fringes of
what was once an idyllic piece of paradise, the whole place now looking
like something out of a Salvador Dali nightmare, except the melting
clocks had been replaced by metal chains hooked to blades that ravaged
the land beyond recognition.=20

Regardless, the once-flourishing and tranquil courtyard had quickly been
overrun by the dark and tangled snarl of heavy metals that stretched
from the infinity of the smashed heavens above to the murky depths of
the broken ground below, like an industrial park version of a kudzu
menace.=20

Weathered stones and battered trees jutted haphazardly from the cracked
and unsteady tiles that still creaked and groaned beneath the duo's feet
as they attempted to move through the junk and wreckage that choked
everything in sight. Then, unbidden, Koenma hissed a rebuke that
completely jolted Botan out of her trance.

"We were so close, Botan! So close! We almost had Kurama's soul at our
grasp--at our very fingertips--but you blew it!" Koenma scolded his
subordinate, torn between smacking her outright for her bungling or
going easy on her after being drawn in by one of Kurama's passion-driven
mind games. As a result, Botan couldn't tell if she was being told off
or given a guilt-trip.=20

"We could have stopped him, you know. We could have prevented him from=20
fulfilling that mad suicidal plan of his and... and... rehabilitated him
or done something, _anything_, to prevent him from hurting his friends
and family on a capricious whim! But you just had to lose heart, didn't
you? You just had to let him play with your emotions and hesitate;
Kurama himself told me that you did. How could you? Have you forgotten
what was at stake?"

If the Spirit World Administrator was feeling divided over this issue,
Botan felt the complete opposite. With nary a stutter, she answered
back, "If I hadn't let go at that point, I would have died right then
and there beside Kurama, and he _knew_ that. That's the reason why he
gave up fighting against my Kiss of Death and surrendered himself to--"

"Have you gone completely insane, Botan? _That was the whole point of
this entire plan_! Kurama was _supposed_ to give up!" Koenma suddenly
snapped, making Botan flinch at her boss's rare outburst of non-puerile
anger. "Look, we both know that Kurama won't let you die. It's become
less of a moral code for him and more of a natural consequence."

Undeterred yet growing increasingly emotional, Botan shakily retorted,
"So who's the real user, Koenma-sama? Who's the real hero and real
villain in this slippery slope of a plan of yours? Even during the time
when I was barely conscious--using all my strength to subdue Kurama--I
was still able to overhear you mock him with, 'Can you really say that
Botan and Asuka's lives are equal now?' Just because you wanted to fix
another one of your father's messes doesn't give you the right to go to
such extremes!"

"Don't you dare turn this around on _me_!" Koenma exploded just short of
jumping up and down in sheer exasperation over his underling's lack of
comprehension. "You weren't even really dying! It was all a bluff! Sure,
because of Kurama's unbelievable willpower, you would've needed to use
up your entire supply of spirit energy to get him, but you won't die
because of it! It's because you didn't turn him into a hitodama that
Kurama was able to possess your body and escape! It's your fault! Don't
you get it? We could have used his compassion to our advantage, Botan!
We could have saved his life through his own goodness! What in the
infinite hells is wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that? The fact that you need me to answer what's
wrong with using people's inherent goodness against them appalls me,
Koenma-sama!" Botan confessed with a mixture of bile and incredulity in
her tone, making the unthinking 'sama' honorific sound rather ironic.

"It's not like that! Don't twist my words, Botan! I was doing this for
both you and Kurama's own good," Koenma rationalized, pacing around
frenetically as he grasped for the right words to convey his intentions,
knowing deep in his heart that he was doing the right thing and that
Botan was merely misinterpreting his actions.=20

"This isn't about the road to hell or any other silly saying! It's about
us trying to save a man's life and making him see the errors of his
ways. Please don't give me that look. You're at fault because of your
misplaced idealism. Sometimes we have to bend the rules to accomplish
loftier goals, or be trapped by our virtues, accomplishing nothing. 'Sic
vis pacem, para bellum.' If you want peace, prepare for war."

"Stop. Just... stop," Botan quietly begged, turning her head away from
her superior. "It was a brilliant plan, maybe. A victimless crime at
worst. But understand this, Koenma-sama--as is the nature of the Kiss of
Death, Kurama and I became one mind at a certain point. Did you know
what he was thinking, at the back of his mind, when he gave up our tug-
of-war and voluntarily surrendered to me? I know. Aside from wanting to
save me, he also wanted to save you from yourself as well."

"What do you mean he wanted to 'save me from myself'? We're the ones who
are supposed to do that to him!" Koenma defensively remarked, adding,
"You can't blame me for deceiving Kurama, because there's no reasoning
with him at that point. I did what I thought was just, and that's that."

"There's no justice in what we've just done!" Botan exclaimed, finally
voicing out her apprehensions in one simple statement. "No, we have none
at all. Not in the way we've handled it. Lying to Kurama, lying to
ourselves, hypocritically breaking every last rule and moral code we
have just so we can outdo the schemer at his own game; can we really
cross the very edge of the ethical line and still justify our actions
with our good intentions? Yes, I have no doubt that we did have good
intentions for doing all this, but in the end, so did your father."

"I AM NOT MY FATHER!" Koenma shouted, doing the old and silly cliche of
trying to convince himself more than he did his accuser by screaming his
convictions really loudly. "Don't you dare compare me to that... to
that...!"

"Yes, I do dare. And you should be more like Enma Daio, really. At least
_he_ was under no delusions that the crimes he committed for the greater
good was just or right." It was at that point that Botan knew she'd
finally crossed the line she was hesitant to traverse for Kurama's sake
earlier.=20

She winced, expecting the slap and stern rebuke that never came. She
afterwards proceeded to apologize profusely to Koenma for what she'd
said, but her words appeared rather empty and insincere compared to her
sharp and sobering indictment.

Just then, out of the blue, the tense situation was diffused by the
echoing footsteps of a familiar stranger. "You're both wrong. You've
both been played for fools. The fox made you think that you were
manipulating _him_ and his good will, but then he turned your plan on
its head and beat you at your own game. Shame on you two."

"You...!" the Spirit World Guardians breathlessly chorused, surprised by
the newcomer's sudden appearance. "Weren't you...?" Koenma broke off
warily, unsure that who he was seeing really was who he was seeing.

"Spare yourselves this talk about ethics and justice. It's sickening and=20
pointless. Besides, I'm already here to beat some sense into the fox,=20
whatever it takes. Even if I have to take his kicking and screaming soul
back to the world of the living, I'll do it. So stop the morality play
and do something useful, for once."

"But... how? Why?" Botan managed to squeak out, intrigued by this
person's unwavering determination. "Everybody else who've tried to stop
Kurama from his heroic sacrifice has failed. He was even able to
confront his own mother about it, and her pleas for him to stop didn't
change his mind one bit. What makes you think you'll do a better job?"

"Because he's seriously pissing me off, and even he can't see what's
coming next."


***


The dream from the distant past replayed itself inside Kurama's psyche
for one last time...=20

The scene replayed itself painfully. The loss was silly, stupid; the
irony of it all lies in its stupidity and silliness. Then came the
gentle tinkling, like a little bell.=20

His smiling face casually glanced back at the jewel he accidentally
dropped. He couldn't be stopped. That pendant meant a lot to him. That
pendant was the very first loot he'd ever stolen as Kurama's partner-
in-crime, and he kept it as a symbol of his loyalty to the Silver Fox's
Guild of Demon Thieves and their own cherished partnership.

He promised that he would come back; all that for a simple necklace that
he always wore a certain way. He was always so headstrong. He always
went about things in a straightforward manner.

This--his efforts to always be true to himself--led to his own death.
Bamboo shoots shot up as he was helplessly caught in the elaborate trap.
Blood dripped mercilessly on the ground; an unwanted blood offering. He
still clasped the jewel with his right hand in an iron grip. It gently
swayed in the wind.=20

It swayed back and forth, glinting like a flying guillotine. Then there
was nothing but the black.

It was during in the ensuing darkness that Kurama realize why he'd been
dreaming this dream--his first dream since Munashii first appeared--in
the first place. He had one last loose end to attend to, and--because of
certain circumstances, this loose end now had the dubious honor of
ending his eventful life for the sake of another's well-deserved
rebirth. And this loose end's name was Kuronue, the Black Raven.

Indeed, the first dream that Kurama had since these events started would
soon become the last dream he would ever have.


***


Into Death's Dungeon did Kurama's chain-bound spirit fall; the storm of
guillotined death raining upon the hapless garden, putting a thousand
pounds of pressure on every square inch of the structure's surface. It
lifted all the floors upward, shearing off its very foundations and
demolishing it beyond all recognition.

Trees, the alabaster bridge, the tiles, and manicured lawns soon became
deadly shrapnel as chunks of land ranging from fist-sized to wall-sized
were tossed about. Millions of shards made from a variety of objects
quickly became sharpened daggers that sliced through air at the speed of=20
bullets. In violent undulations, whole floors were ripped apart by the=20
relentless chained blades. Then, yielding to gravity, the ground
collapsed, sandwiching together and funneling tons of debris down
towards a giant crater blasted out by the succeeding aftershocks.

Kurama's descent seemed to last forever. He was off-balance; he could
feel himself starting to go into a spin. Somehow, maybe by sheer
willpower, he kept his body straight. Then the onrush of air abruptly
ended with a sudden blast of water that hadn't been there a moment
before, jolting the half-youko awake with an abstemious shock of blue
regret.

He balked and choked; the liquid was as icy and penetrating as death.
The impact wasn't as bad as he'd feared, but it was still pretty bad.
There was a blaze of pain on his entire body and he cried out. He
rolled, sprawling in the water, feeling as much as hearing the garden's
muted scream of fright from above.=20

The water burned him, and the chaos on the surface of this abominable
spring was like a million voices that shrieked death and sadness at him.
All the while, Kurama's gasps and the roar of the ire overhead filled
his ears with the need to break free.=20

Then, upon realizing that his very struggles against the murky depths
would be the cause of an unplanned and not-so-meaningful demise, he went
motionless. Consequently, like a Chinese finger trap that had been
alleviated of unnecessary resistance, he found himself flat on his back,
free from his metallic and liquid bonds as he floated upward.

He saw a forest of bamboo protruding around him, which made him
backstroke to the nearest pole in order to pull himself up from the
bottomless channel. The will o' the wisp flames all around the pool were
azure and depressing, and there was an unknowable desperation in their
dance.=20

Indeed, this underground waterway truly was part of the infamous River
Styx of legend. Meanwhile, in the corner of his eye, something in the
depths of the small swamp croaked deeply, and a dark shape flapped
between the bamboo before disappearing into the darkness. He felt too
tired to pay the phantom any heed.

After traveling from one pole to another, Kurama soon found a portion of
the spring that was no longer deep. Feeling out a ledge connected to the
cavern's edge with his feet, he surmised that he could now walk upright
on these waist-high banks without fear of submersion. As such, he swam
to that junction and, once there, lay quietly against the cave wall and
rested his weary soul. He was beyond exhausted at that point.

Instead of the muted drone Kurama usually heard in pools and bathtubs,
he could hear nothing in this water other than interminable shrieking.
And when he at last found the strength to open his eyes, he saw his own
hair, flaming red and unraveled with water, and beyond it a pair of
eyes that burned as hot and intense as embers. 'Kuronue.'

The Black Raven stepped atop a bamboo pole near his former cohort. A
wordless dialogue took place between the two former comrades as they
looked at each other meaningfully. Once everything was settled, Kuronue
nodded his consent and started to act in accordance to his old friend's
unsaid request.=20

The pendant... Kuronue's one caprice... reintegrated around the youkai's
neck and swung to and fro like the flying guillotine Kurama kept seeing
in his first and most recurring Munashii-induced dream. It served more
than just a symbol--it was an outright insignia; a medal of honor, if
you will. The half-youko had finally picked who his executioner was
going to be, and the dirty deed was about to get done at long last.

Kurama saw Kuronue drop towards him as though he were easy prey riddled
with immeasurable, paralyzing fear, and yet the cry he let out when his
former comrade crashed onto him was more of pained resignation than
betrayal and surprise.=20

Pinned beneath his dead weight, the redhead was powerless; he felt the
spring water, that cold blue flame, rush through his nose and mouth and
into the deepest recesses of his body. From there, Kuronue pushed the
both of them back into the bottomless pits of this endless trench.

The water filled both of them, pulling them down to unreachable depths.
His chest ached with a pressure he never thought possible, and his limbs
had become leaden, dead with acquiescence and exhaustion. He didn't sink
as much as plummet into endless, paralyzing darkness.

But just before Kurama heard the deadly bell toll as his partner plunged
towards him like a more classical, westernized version of the infamous
scythe-wielding grim reaper--his raggedy hat, stringy hair, frayed wings
and robe, velvety eyes, and ominous features living up to his avian=20
counterpart's name--the Black Raven stopped short of outright
decapitating him, instead scooping him right out of the water using
the chains of his nebulous weapon and throwing him wholesale towards a
nearby ledge.

Kurama sputtered and blinked in surprise; he was at a loss for words.
Kuronue had him where he wanted him, but then decided to act needlessly
heroic and spared him at the last minute. What was going on?=20

Meanwhile, Kuronue followed through with his acrobatic feat, tumbling in
midair, rebounding perpendicularly on a nearby bamboo pole, and landing
near Kurama's feet with a flourish. The pair stared at each other for
quite sometime, the Black Raven's blank look complementing the redhead's
own incredulous glare.

Kuronue was the first one to break the ice. "You haven't given me a
reason yet," he began with barely a whisper, his eyes seemingly boring
into the very depths of Kurama's borrowed soul.

"P-Pardon?" Kurama managed to confusedly sputter, seemingly hypnotized
by Kuronue's predatory stare. "Give you a reason to what?" An image of
Yoshitaka Tetsuma's poker face briefly appeared in the redhead's mind,
superimposing itself unto the Black Raven's sharp and mischievous
features as though they were representing different sides of the same
coin.

"You haven't given me a good reason to kill you is what I'm saying,"
Kuronue huffily clarified as he tossed his ebony locks to the side of
his face, waking Kurama from his intense reverie-within-a-reverie. The
resurrected demon let out a long suffering and tired sigh.=20

"To be quite frank, I find this whole Russian Roulette of a plan of
yours rather dubious, if not altogether convoluted and nonsensical. Why
the hell did you choose me as your executioner? I'm sure that Toguro Ani
wanted very much to kill you, among many other enemies you've accrued
throughout your two lifetimes.=20

"Then there's also Yomi, who was a bit of an impulsive twat during our
heyday, but he became quite the magnificent bastard nowadays; I'd bet
he'd love to finish you off. Also, I'm informed of yet another bird-
themed opponent of yours that was quite obsessed with your death _and_
your beauty; the poor man's version of myself, the one who calls
himself 'Crow'."

Kurama couldn't help but laugh daintily at Kuronue's odd remarks; the
disdain that the Black Raven displayed over the psychotic Karasu's
obsession over him nearly bordered on to jealousy to his ears. However,
something rather amiss occurred to him. "Wait. You've been dead for
centuries. How did you know about Karasu? Or Yomi and Toguro Ani, for
that matter? And what would you care about the Human World practices of
playing with a loaded gun?"

"Huh. And here you claimed to have planned everything from the start,
yet you have no idea how I knew those things! For shame, Kurama! For
shame!" Kuronue teased playfully, just like in olden times, when he and
Youko Kurama were still adventuring across the vast wilderness of the
Demon World with their Guild of Demon Thieves. "Or am I just another one
of your long good-byes, old friend?"

Kurama sat up and stared up at Kuronue meaningfully. "If there's anybody
that's going to say good-bye here, then it's going to be me. I'll make
sure of that this time around."

Kuronue smirked and rolled his eyes at the sheer cheesiness of their
conversation, his tongue firmly placed on his cheek. Nevertheless, he
insisted quite earnestly, "So why me, Kurama?" as he himself knelt down
and leveled his gaze at the soaked redhead. "Why give me the dubious
honor of finishing you off? What makes me so special from all your
myriad of enemies... or even friends?"

His gaze downcast, Kurama quietly replied, "The same reason that I went
along with Yomi's diabolical plans during the period when the Demon
World was in political turmoil because of Raizen's then-imminent death.
I owed him that much after hiring a demon assassin to finish him off,
and now I owe you so much more for leaving you to die in that damnable
bamboo trap so many centuries ago."

Kuronue snorted and shook his head in mock disappointment. "...That's
it? That's your reason for picking me? How needlessly sentimental. I
specifically told you to run away and save yourself at the time. Stop
beating yourself up about it. My death was not your fault, unlike what
you did to Yomi."

"Is it really 'needless', Kuronue?" Kurama inquired. "A good friend of
mine once told me that, 'There is no one who does not carry scars on his
heart. If there were someone in the world like that, he would be a
shallow soul.' Sorry for not being shallow enough to brush your death
aside, old friend."

Kuronue chuckled. "No, no. You misunderstand me. I do appreciate your=20
sentimentally, but what you don't realize is that you don't sound a
thing like the Kurama I knew before. Have you forgotten? When you were
still the youko, you would probably say that my death served me right;
that the fact that I'd lay my life for a mere trinket was unfathomable.

"But now, you're actually getting so bent out of shape in regards to my
death that you're actually blaming yourself for it. Such a change in
attitude in just more than a decade and a half! Now that's something."

"Time isn't the only thing that makes people change, Kuronue. Certain
circumstances can do the job just as well," Kurama answered back, then
felt as though that his statement didn't quite cover what had happened
to him in the course of sixteen years. He tried again.=20

"Every month or so since participating in the Dark Tournament, I'm
assaulted with the feeling that I'm turning back into Youko Kurama
again, even though I remain in Shuichi's body. And when that happens, I
notice that I become extremely combative and belligerent. In many ways,
my regression to my youko state was supposed to be my plan from the very
start; to leave kaasan--Shiori-san once I've regained my full power, but=20
'certain circumstances' changed that plan altogether. Or rather,
something inside me... not quite the youko, and not quite Minamino
Shuichi... decided on doing _this_ instead."

"That's the thing, isn't it?" Kuronue smugly interjected with a
maddeningly cocky smirk on his face. "Doesn't this whole escapade make
you think that, at times, you have three instead of two personalities?
The good son, Shuichi Minamino; the cruel youko thief back in your past
life in the Demon World; and Kurama, the gray shade halfway between the
two. Neither fully human nor fully demon, this 'Kurama' is who you are
now."=20

"How did you know about that?" Kurama apprehensively demanded in a
manner more reminiscent of his darker shade of gray personality. The
pinpoint accuracy of Kuronue's deconstruction of the half-youko's
lifelong (in human years, at least) identity crisis bordered on nigh-
omniscience. "I've never told anyone about that. Not even Shuichi's
mother. How could you...?"=20

Just then, realization dawned on Kurama as Kuronue justified the
former's suspicions with a simple catchphrase. "You'd go through heaven
and hell for Asuka-san's sake, won't you?"

'I get it now. Taka-kun's eyes always did bother me. They kept reminding
me of something... something that I just can't put my finger on. But
now everything's crystal clear. Taka-kun's eyes were merely a reflection
of Kuronue's own eyes--a reflection of my oldest regret.'=20

"I knew Taka-kun must have been hinting on something huge when he first
gave me that pendant of yours, but the fact that he implied that _you_
were my long-awaited executioner came as a total shock to me!" It was
now Kurama's turn to chuckle dryly. "So now what? Are you now going to
admit that you and Tetsuma Yoshitaka are one and the same person or
something?"

"No, not exactly. This situation is more akin to what the Reikai Hunter
did to that Kuwabara friend of yours earlier; even before he confronted
Hiei all those months past, Munashii had already taken the trouble of
scouring the Spirit World for my lost soul and merging it with his,
combining both our memories together to develop an almost encyclopedic
knowledge of you and your history... or something to that effect. I
don't know; I kind of just got here," Kuronue professed with a smile
and a shrug.

"I see. Wow. The lengths Munashii has taken to assure my death scene is
amazing, isn't it?" Kurama appraised. "It's reassuring to me that
someone so powerful is doing something constructive with his powers
instead of the expected wanton death and destruction that most men like
him succumb to... Is there something wrong, Kuronue? What's bothering
you? Why are you looking at me like that?"

At that point, Kuronue's expression had turned somber. "Indeed, your
will is the shadow man's will, because he doesn't have a will of his
own. Whatever your heart desired, whether you were consciously aware of
it or not, he accomplished to the letter for the sake of his undead
girlfriend's life you've stolen but are now willing to return for some
reason. That's the gist of it, I gather. But, like I said, I'm not quite
buying the whole concept myself, sorry to say," the Black Raven
nonchalantly surmised as he idly fingered the bejeweled pendant around
his neck.

Kurama raised a curious eyebrow at Kuronue's deduction, not quite sure
if the youkai was setting up yet another one of his acerbic quips and
whatnot. Certainly, the whole thing sounded ridiculous when the Black
Raven put things that way. "What do you mean by that?"=20


***


To be Continued...

Next: The more things change...

Note that I put in the title _Shonen_ not _Shonen-Ai_. Shonen-Ai=20
(male-male relationship) and yaoi are just not my cup of tea. This=20
is dedicated to Chimamire Kitsune for giving me the inspiration to=20
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. This fic therefore
also belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV and St.
Pierrot.

Hanggang sa muli!
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