Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Mission Impossible ❯ Death--Twice ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho or any of its characters.

Raven: *grins* Not that she wouldn't love to own them, of course.

Nathaniel: Not only that, she's not getting paid to write these.

Kagome: Really? *pouts* And here I thought the money was just late in coming. Damn!

Raven: Nope! Sorry boss, but since you don't own them, you don't get paid for them either *smirks*

Kagome: *glares* Yeah, but just remember, I DO own `you'

Raven: *gulp* Um………yeah………I think I'll just go play with Nathaniel for a little while

Nathaniel: *bolts from room* Nooooooo!

Kagome: If you can catch him, you can have him.

Raven: *cheering* Yay! *yelling* Oh, Nathaaaaniel! Where are you, boy? *prowls house hunting for missing muse*

Kagome: *rolls eyes* When is she gonna realize that Nathaniel's faster than her? *shrugs* Oh, well, please enjoy this fifth chapter. And review at the end please.

Chapter Five: Death-Twice

Yusuke couldn't believe it. Here he was, wrapped up in a tangle of vines, waiting to die by the hand-well, plants-of one of his closest friends. His arms and legs were bound and he was suspended in the air of his bedroom. How the hell had things gotten this bad?

Oh, yeah. He had a youkai form that went on a rampage and murdered several innocent ningens. Their boss, Koenma, had ordered them to bring in the inu youkai responsible for the slaughter so that justice could be served and punishment meted out. However, what Koenma hadn't realized-Yusuke still didn't know how he had managed to overlook something so important-was that the inu youkai was actually part of Yusuke.

Although, according to Kurama, while his human and hanyou sides both shared part of one soul, his youkai aspect had a soul completely different. As a result, it was possible to separate the three forms, then put the human and hanyou back together while taking the youkai in for trial, without harming Yusuke.

However, in order to separate the bodies, Yusuke had to die-twice. The first death would bring forward his hanyou side as it struggled to keep him alive. His human form would be separated from the hanyou. The second death would separate the hanyou from the youkai.

Yusuke turned his head and let his eyes and mind wander, finally coming to rest on Hiei. The small fire demon was crucial in this procedure, and for only the second time in his life, Yusuke truly had to depend on him for his survival. He had trusted him once before with his life and the lives of both Kuwabara and Kurama, when they went to face off against the Saint Beasts. Now he had to trust him again, this time to hold his soul until it could be returned to his body.

Yusuke gulped silently, as the impact of what would happen if this failed hit him. He had already been brought back to life once. If he lost his soul a second time, there would be no coming back. He would be well and truly dead.

Suddenly his attention was diverted from Hiei as he felt someone approach him. On instinct, he whirled around, tearing at the vines that held him, to face the intruder. Seeing Kurama, he froze, then slowly relaxed.

"Don't sneak up on me when I'm distracted," he scolded the red-headed youko. The fox just smiled gently at him and bobbed his head in apology, then held a goblet to Yusuke's lips. The leader of the Reikai Tantei looked at him, demanding an explanation, clamping his mouth shut against the liquid.

Kurama just smiled enigmatically at him, and stated simply, "This will render you unconscious beforehand. Unless, of course," he smirked, "you think you'll be able to stay still as you're strangled to death."

Yusuke shook his head quickly and swallowed the sweet tasting liquid. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Kurama?" he asked tentatively, feeling drowsiness creeping up on him. When he had his friend's attention, he asked, "Why can't we just use a potion to kill me?"

Kurama looked at him, then smiled. Yusuke fought the urge to roll his eyes. He swore nothing fazed the fox. Maybe his face would get stuck like that. Yusuke repressed a smirk at the image that presented and waited patiently for an answer, hoping that the youko actually answered before he lost consciousness.

"I suggested that to Genkai," he began softly, realizing that Yusuke deserved an answer before he fell asleep. "She pointed out that while it was a valid idea, any potion I could have come up with to kill you with would be poisonous to you, and so would likely affect the outcome of this mission more severely than a more physical method."

Yusuke just nodded in understanding, his eyes drooping with the effort to stay awake just a little longer. Even now his basic survival instincts were kicking in, telling him to fight off death for as long as possible. He had never given in, and he wasn't about to start now.

But he felt so tired. His bound limbs were like lead weights, pulling him down into the all-encompassing darkness of the unconscious mind. He fought to stay awake, tried to distract himself, to focus, but none of it worked. The darkness continued to pull him forcefully, inexorably downwards, down into death.

Kurama continued to watch Yusuke for several long moments after his eyes had closed and his breathing had evened out, signifying that he was asleep. He truly didn't want to hurt his friend, and wasn't about to take any chances that he'd be aware of what was happening as the life was slowly drained from him.

Satisfied that Yusuke truly was asleep, and with affirmation from Hiei, Kurama began to call his plants, sending them slithering through the room towards Yusuke. One of the vines wrapped around his abdomen, cutting of his breathing. The other snaked itself around his smooth throat, choking off his windpipe, but careful not to crush it.

Once the plants were in place and beginning to squeeze the life out of Yusuke, the koorime moved up next to him, the Jagan settled firmly on the boy whose soul it would soon possess, even if temporarily. For all that Hiei enjoyed his solitude, he still considered Yusuke as a friend.

Yusuke was the first of the group to trust him, to truly believe in him. Although Kurama was his lover now, they had always had a more rough-and-tumble relationship, where they worked together because of their common goals and extraordinary fighting capabilities.

When they went up against the Saint Beasts, Yusuke had instinctively trusted him to save them, to prevent them from being crushed to death. He had trusted Hiei, even though Hiei had tried his best earlier to kill him and hurt his girlfriend, Keiko.

The jaganshi would never admit it outloud, but he truly respected the leader of the team, and willingly supported him, even above his own ruler in the Makai, Mukuro. He may have been her heir, but he supported Lord Yusuke in the Makai as he supported ningen Yusuke here.

Suddenly, Yusuke's body went limp as he died for the first time. Well, technically, it was the third time, but the first for this particular procedure. After all, he had died in Ningenkai while saving a small child, and he had died again at the hands of Sensui, which permitted his hanyou side to awaken.

Hiei quickly focused his Jagan on Yusuke, waiting for the first glimmering of the boy's soul. He didn't know where exactly the soul would chose to exit from, since it often exited from the strongest part of the dead.

If his body was strongest, the soul would seep out through the skin. If the mind and will were strongest, then the soul would rise above the head in a cloud. If the heart were strongest, then a small sphere would come from the chest right above the heart, containing the soul. The brighter the sphere, the more brilliant the heart.

Not really surprised, Hiei observed as the soul left via the heart, the sphere of soul energy like a miniature nova in the small bedroom. Hiei smirked. Yusuke certainly had a big heart. He wondered briefly where the hell all that energy was spent.

Concentrating once again on the task at hand, Hiei focused his Jagan on his friend's soul and started drawing it towards him. Once it had completely left Yusuke's body, Kurama's plants set the boy gently on the bed, uncoiling from around his throat and abdomen. After all, once the boy's forms were separated, they'd have to hold hanyou, not the human form.

Hiei focused all his concentration on drawing Yusuke's soul towards him. Surprisingly, it came easily, sliding into the small koorime via the violet Jagan. He realized with a start just why it had been so easy. Yusuke was still fighting! Well, his soul was at any rate.

Kurama must have noticed some expression pass over the youkai's face, because he asked if something was wrong. Hiei just grunted, "Hn." Then he decided that perhaps Kurama deserved a slightly better answer than that. After all, he was doing the killing, so naturally he'd be worried that something might have gone wrong.

"The baka ningen's still fighting death, even after the fact," he clarified. Kurama just blinked for a few seconds, trying to interpret Hiei's clipped sentence. Then his eyes opened in surprise. "You mean he actually latched onto you willingly to try and keep himself, at least to some extent, in the world of the living?!"

Receiving an affirmative, "Hn," from the reclusive fire demon, he grinned. "Just like Yusuke, to keep battling death even after it's found and claimed him." Hiei didn't reply, just glared pointedly at the bed, where the first separation was beginning to occur.

As they watched, fascinated, Yusuke's body began to glow and shift. It appeared at first to stretch, then the two friends realized that it was actually they hanyou body pulling away from the human shell.

After the glow had died down, they gazed upon the bed, seeing the ningen form as well as the hanyou form. The markings, the long, shaggy mane that told of his relation to Raisen, the slightly bulkier build, the taut muscles rippling under bronzed skin as the hanyou lord stirred………wait a minute………stirred?! The hanyou was waking up.

Unsure of what to do now, Kurama decided to let the hanyou wake up unrestricted by plants so that he could orient himself. If he woke up trapped firmly in vines, Kurama wasn't sure what he'd do, but doubted it would be anything good.

The hanyou slid his eyes open and looked up at Kurama and Hiei, who were now standing at the foot of the bed. His eyes narrowed slightly before he remembered exactly why he was here. Curious, he gazed to his right and saw himself there-well, his human counterpart to be more precise, but still, there was no doubt it was him, Yusuke Urameshi.

Sighing, he glanced at the youko ruefully and murmured wryly, "Well, I suppose the first stage of the separation worked smoothly." Kurama nodded and assured him that nothing had gone wrong in the procedure.

Once he was prepared, he stood up and allowed the red-headed fox to bind him once again with plants, although this time, there were more of them and they were stronger, thicker, than the ones he had placed him in as a human. Of course, that was most likely because his hanyou aspect was much stronger than his human body.

Which brought up another question. Sighing, Yusuke turned to Kurama once again, refusing the potion until after he had asked his question. "If you need this much for my hanyou form even when I'm willing, how much stronger will the plants have to be to hold my inu youkai?"

Kurama just shook his head and replied softly, holding the goblet to Yusuke's lips, "As soon as you two are separated, we're going to put the sleeping draught in him and send him immediately to Koenma, then put the rest of you back together."

Yusuke choked on the potion he had been drinking and began wheezing in laughter. Hiei snorted over in the corner; whether it was a Kurama's words or Yusuke's actions or something else altogether, they didn't know.

"Put me back together," giggled Yusuke-an odd sound to be coming from a hanyou lord-"you make it sound like I'm a puzzle that broke and now has to be reassembled." Kurama grinned, admitting at least to himself that it had been pretty funny how he'd worded that.

Sighing, he finally calmed down enough to pay attention to Yusuke, who was starting to drift off again. It took him nearly twice as long this time, and that was with the potency doubled.

This time, Kurama decided to take no chances that it would take too long for him to die. He sent thick vines creeping around his abdomen and throat again, but he decided to add one more vine. This one he sent into Yusuke's mouth, effectively blocking the windpipe from receiving any oxygen.

Even with the added precautions, it took a good fifteen minutes before Kurama was confident that he had succeeded, and was only sure then because the soul began to exit the body. Once it had done so and Hiei had captured it within his Jagan, the youko set his friend gently on the bed and withdrew the vines, waiting with potion in hand for the separation.

After five whole minutes of waiting, Kurama began to worry. Why hadn't the bodies separated yet? The soul was missing, which meant the body was dead, so why didn't they separate?

Surprisingly, it was Yusuke who answered, although indirectly. With both halves of his soul intact inside of Hiei, he found he could communicate with the small jaganshi directly. However, what he couldn't do was snoop around inside the youkai's mind, which is what he really wanted to be able to do.

Hiei passed Yusuke's answer onto Kurama. "It's because the youkai knows what's happening. We have to entice it to come out." Kurama just gazed down at the still form on the bed, wondering how to go about this.

Then he grinned, and slipped his fingers back into his hair, pulling out a small seed, which he threw onto the ground. As the plant grew, it emitted a rather pleasant hum as well as sweet scent that was easy on the nose.

Hiei just looked at Kurama curiously, but remained silent. He knew from experience, first as a partner in crime, then as a teammate, then as a lover, that when the stupid fox didn't want to talk, nothing he could do would force him to.

Resignedly, he looked back towards Yusuke and was mildly startled to see the body glowing and separating yet again. As soon as the hanyou and youkai bodies were separated, Kurama forced some more of the potion-most likely even more strongly concentrated-into the youkai, then opened the window.

Shortly afterwards, Botan arrived and carried off the youkai on her oar, heading for Koenma to report another mission completed. Kurama and Hiei were very careful to let her see only the youkai form, and not the two dead bodies still on Yusuke's bed.

When Botan noticed that they were in Yusuke's house but the boy himself was nowhere to be found, they explained that after they had beaten the youkai, Yusuke had been injured and needed to recuperate and since his house was closest to where the fight had been, they had gone there. It was true, at any rate, just very susceptible to misinterpretation.

Sighing in relief, the two friends turned back to the task at hand-putting Yusuke back together. Fusing the bodies together was simple. All they had to do was make sure that their skin touched, and they slid together easily. Afterwards, Hiei released Yusuke's soul and it flew back into his own body.

While waiting for Yusuke to awaken, the fire demon turned to his boyfriend. "What was that plant you used?" he asked curiously. Kurama grinned and had to suppress a bout of laughter before he could answer. "It was similar to ningen catnip, but was intended for dogs instead. I figured it might work since that final form was an inu youkai."

Hiei just snorted his disbelief at his friend's antics and they turned to face the bed and wait for Yusuke to wake up so they could check on him.

Kagome: All right, I know this is long, and I apologize, but oh, well. I just couldn't find a good place to stop. Since Raven and Nathaniel have both been rendered unconscious by Kurama's potion, I'll do this. Read carefully, okay?

[1] This story can either end here or continue. If you want me to continue, you must tell me so. This works as an ending, but it could also work as just anther chapter in a longer story. Let me know.

[2] I accept constructive criticism, but not flames. If you were going to flame this, then you shouldn't have read it in the first place. Please be considerate and don't send me any flames.

[3] Please, people, REVIEW! An authoress needs feedback to know if she's heading in the right direction. If people don't like the story, then the authoress needs to know that so she can fix it. I have already done so. Most authors/authoresses take their reviews very seriously. So, please, please, PLEASE review.

Kagome: All right, I think that's everything. Oh, if you read either Digimon or Gravitation fanfics, please look mine up. I have six other fanfics out there: When Past Turns Present, Unexpected Attraction, Love Triangle, and Perfect Opportunities are all Gravitation fanfics and are all yaoi, as anyone who knows anything about Gravitation should know. A Perfect Picture and Return of the Kaiser are my two Digimon fanfics, the first is yaoi, the second isn't really (it's just boys who are friends, but nothing mor). Arigato, minna-san!