His fist struck hard, unyielding flesh. His knee came up and narrowly blocked a blow to the groin. Something struck him, hard, against the face, and he felt the burning sensation of metal slashing shallowly across his chest.

Their bodies moved under the direction of a purely instinctual rhythm: violence and anger, the most primal of urges. Irresistible, unavoidable, impossible to deny. They were like animals as they ripped into each other, and there was no room for things such as friendship or loyalty – if those things had ever existed at all. Caution, hesitation, courtesy, and respect were only mere words, formless ideas, and could not exist in a world of teeth and claws, fists and steel, power and strength.

They ripped into each other like ravenous beasts, forgetting anything like discipline of training, blinded by the simple, primitive need to rend and tear. They abandoned all thought, losing themselves to the instincts and urges of their bodies, following their rage.

Fists, teeth, steel, fists, pain, fists, snarl, blood. The ancestral youkai powers that throbbed and pulsed in Yusuke’s veins urged him past everything he had only known, dashing him against the unyielding wall that was Hiei, blanking his mind completely and, in the chaos and fury of battle, somehow calming him.

Yusuke twisted to avoid a vicious sword swing, punched, was blocked, ducked a kick. His youkai blood pulsed and sang in his veins, urging him to abandon himself to the violence, lose himself in the brutal savagery.

He poured his everything into his fists, and for the first time he was finally able to see how frightening and lonesome it had been when their group had fractured the way it had. For the first time he really allowed himself to understand how truly terrified he had secretly felt, and how exposed and vulnerable it had left him each time he was forced to see just how far the four of them were drawing apart. He had been avoiding Kurama before the fox’s death because he’d been afraid to see him – him or Hiei – afraid to see just how much things had changed.

The desperation that had led to his relationship with Kurama was had been due in large part to the utter hopelessness of seeing a friend die – of facing the reality of the fact that their ‘unbreakable’ team had broken.

His power throbbed in his body, strained against his skin, howled in his ears like a great wave, and he fought – seeking destruction, forgiveness, weakness, strength, reassurance, punishment –

Oblivion.

Yusuke laughed, and lost himself.

His concentration narrowed down into a thin line, he focused his powers into a fine point – bending, shaping, crafting the plant to his will, influencing the path of its growth with a silent and stubborn determination. The white, fibrous plant yielded willingly to him, curving itself delicately around the glassy red bulb, pressing close into the other plant and then, under his careful direction, beginning to grow into it, fusing the two plants together.

Leaving that alone for a moment, he urged a separate part of the plant to begin to elongate. Its nature was quite admirable – its ability to change, to bend and shift without breaking, to continue to grow no matter the obstacle it met.

Working the plants put Kurama in a calm, almost meditative state. His lips twitched into a small smile.

At last satisfied with the length, he turned his attention back to the bulb. Previous attempts at this had all caused rather unattractive results, but he seemed to have finally gotten it right this time. The fusion appeared completely flawless.

Nodding to himself, Kurama stripped his powers away so quickly that the plant was instantly petrified, leaving it smooth and hard as stone. The fox admired his work for a moment before opening the small can of clear gloss Botan had been kind enough to smuggle from the human world for him. Painting his creation would give it a shine and serve to hide any remaining imperfection.

When he finished and set it to dry, he sat back to admire his work. The staff he had created appeared relatively fragile, yet he knew the materials he had used would prove durable. Completely smooth and without the smallest scar such as would have been left by a carving knife, even another plantmaster would hesitate to name the materials he’d used or the method with which it had been made. Its seamless appearance would seem to many a lesser demon a sure sign that it was a thing of mystery, magic, and power. Their minds would be unable to fathom its making, and so imagination would take the place of logic and they would develop theories of their own.

He would think of a suitable mysterious and legendary-sounding name for it later, if there was time. There wouldn’t be much need to spread rumors of its powers – the imaginations of the camp’s inhabitants would do it far more justice. When Yusuke returned, Kurama would merely need to convince him to play along and carry it along with him for a while, and then the detective’s status as a youkai legend would be cemented forever.

Kurama smiled to himself once again, enjoying the simple beauty of his plan.

The smile only lasted for a moment. With Yusuke’s ‘holy weapon’ now complete, there was nothing left to distract him from taking on a much more important – and much more dangerous – project.

He had to find a way to make sure he survived another confrontation with Janus – and not merely survive, but win.

The thought caused knots to twist in his belly, yet he managed to keep himself steady as he rose, carefully wrapped the newly-crafted staff in silk, and hid it within the bedsheets.

Only recently had Kurama even been able to summon the courage to consider to consider facing his killer at all. It would be far easier to simply stay back and allow Yusuke of Hiei to avenge him. In truth, Kurama was…afraid.

He didn’t fear dying. It had happened more than enough times, after all, that he knew what to expect – even if none of his other brushes with eternity had managed to stick.

No, it wasn’t dying that sent shivers of terror down his spine.

Kurama was afraid to think about Janus…because Kurama wasn’t sure that he’d really given his all during their first battle.

Kurama nearly always held something back, true, but at the time when he had first fought Janus, his mind had been so clouded and dark that he feared he may have unconsciously left himself open, vulnerable…

He feared that he may have wanted to die.

Kurama shook his head, shaking away the guilty thought at the same time, and knelt to sort through his array of seeds. It was dangerous to think of such things right now, without anyone present to pull him back should he step too close to the brink. Hiei and Yusuke were too far away to rescue him, and so he had to be responsible for rescuing himself. He could not risk dwelling on darkness while they were gone; better to focus instead on strategy.

Kurama had made much leeway replacing his store of seeds since returning to Makai, and he was certain he was now within reach of the materials he would need to defeat his enemy. The thought could even be exciting – when he could manage to ignore everything else.

Yomi had recently been filling him in on the progress of Janus’ tournament battles following Kurama’s death. The fox had little doubt of his ability to counter most of the former god’s favored moves – the only thing, in fact, that truly concerned him was the very attack that had killed him.

Within the void Janus had sent him to, there had been no time, no light, no air…and no relief from the crushing, heavy atmosphere. That, in Kurama’s opinion, was his opponent’s greatest weapon. How could the fox fight something that was, by its very nature, nothing at all?

Hiei and Yusuke had no idea what it was they were facing – that, in itself, proved that Kurama could not leave the battle to them. Kurama was the only one who could fight him.

He shifted through his store of seeds, mind busy at work creating, then rejecting, dozens of ideas in the space of a single breath.

For once he had succeeded in pushing the darkness away – not because someone had distracted him, but through the force of his own will alone. Cut off forever from his family, his despair should have been at its greatest levels – yet it wasn’t. Sometimes he even felt happy. When Yusuke was near, he was happy more than ‘sometimes’. He would hold nothing back when next he faced Janus.

Kurama smiled grimly. If fate really was so determined to make him pay for the sins of his past, she was going to have to try a hell of a lot harder.

He wasn’t going to give up a second time.

They stared, unblinking, untrusting, each too exhausted to move, yet each ready to throw his last reserves back into battle if need be. Breath came heavily, hands clutched at injuries. Both demons grinned like madmen.

Yusuke was the first to make a sound. He laughed – a crazy, wild, out of breath sound.

“Is this a truce,” he asked, “or do you wanna go for a few more rounds?”

“That depends,” Hiei’s own grin was dangerous and feral, his blood-colored eyes bright with enthusiasm, challenge, excitement, or pain. “Are you giving up?”

“Hell no!” Yusuke laughed again, and prayed he wasn’t going to have to move again any time soon. “You honestly think…you won? I…wasn’t using…half my powers!”

“Neither…” Hiei glared, “was I!”

Yusuke’s body decided, without permission from his mind, that it was time to sit down. “You wanna go again?” he demanded as his rear hit the gound painfully.

Hiei shook his head, leaning heavily on his sword. “I’ll…let you off easy…this time.”

Yusuke flopped backwards and stared blankly up at the canopy of trees above him as he waited for the world to stop spinning. Whatever powers his demonic inheritance had given him, Hiei still had far more battle experience, damn it.

“So this is it?” the detective demanded, finally beginning to catch his breath. “We good now? Or do I need to kick your ass again in a few days?”

“My ass remains unkicked,” Hiei stated defiantly, slumping back against a tree.

“Please!” Yusuke scoffed.

“You must have injured your brain, detective,” Hiei accused. “What little of it there is, I mean.”

“Forgot you were funny.”

“Forgot you were such an idiot.”

Yusuke grinned. He felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d been feeling guilty for ‘stealing’ Kurama – even if Hiei and the fox had broken up years before Yusuke had begun sleeping with Kurama – and Yusuke hated feeling guilty. He was sure that guilt was what had made him act so childish and competitive toward Hiei.

But he didn’t feel guilty anymore.

“What now?” he asked.

Hiei jerked his chin skywards. “Because of your stupidity, we’re in no shape to continue right now. Might as well set up camp.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Hiei snorted, his small body finally hitting the ground as he sat. “Be wise enough not to press something which I’m obviously ignoring,” he advised.

Yusuke propped himself up on his elbows so that he could look at him. “I thought you said I was an idiot.”

“You are,” Hiei grunted.

“So, then, how the hell d’ya expect me to be ‘wise’ about anything?”

For a wonder, Hiei laughed.

tbc

Yeah. Boys are stupid.