Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ The Crow: Spirit Bullet ❯ Descending With a Smile ( Chapter 5 )

"The Crow: Spirit Bullet"

Chapter 5: "Descending With a Smile"

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu Yu Hakusho and The Crow, do you think I'd be writing stories about them and posting them online for free? Yoshihiro Togashi owns Yu Yu Hakusho and James O'Barr owns The Crow.

Author's note: Sorry about the delay; the real world has been keeping me busy. Specifically, I had to write three essays for three different classes. Now that that's over, I've got some spare time on my hands, which means I can write some more.

Previously in "The Crow: Spirit Bullet": After reuniting with Keiko, Yusuke agreed to fight alongside the Spirit World resistance force. His first act upon joining them was to stop the planned transpacific deployment of demon soldiers to America in a traditionally violent fashion, culminating in the killing of Hikari. Yusuke proceeded to break into a board meeting at Toguro-Sakyo, Inc. and kill many of those present. His rampage of vengeance was stopped only when Toguro revealed to him that there was a spy in the resistance. Fearing for the lives of Keiko and his allies, Yusuke raced back to the resistance's headquarters only to find it deserted and to be confronted by the spy --- Kiyoshi Mitarai.

The hydro-beast opened its mouth and fired a torrent of water at Yusuke, who dodged and fired a Spirit Gun blast at it. Unfortunately for Yusuke, the dark energy blast didn't do anything to the beast at all. He should have expected as much, since the beast was made entirely of water.

"That was kinda silly of you, wasn't it?" Kiyoshi mocked. "There are only two things objects can do when they touch water: float or pass through."

"I'm still gonna kill that thing!" Yusuke snarled. "And when I'm done with it, you're next, you miserable double-crossing piece of shit!"

"Humanity doesn't deserve to live," Kiyoshi stated simply, as if it were a fact that everyone should know.

"How would you know that?" Yusuke asked angrily. "Who the fuck decides if an entire race is worth destroying?! You? That freak Sensui?! You're not Kami!"

"You don't know," Kiyoshi stated in a tone that was a mixture of sadness and anger. Chuckling bitterly, he continued on. "You're trying to save a doomed race, Yusuke Urameshi."

"Says you," Yusuke retorted before pointing both fingers at the hydro-beast in a gun-firing position. "Spirit Gun Automatic." He fired a barrage of Spirit Gun blasts out of both fingers like automatic assault weapons. The blasts perforated the hydro-beast but they served no real purpose as it just regenerated.

"Did you think a new variation of the same tired trick would do anything different?" Kiyoshi asked.

"I gotta ask," Yusuke replied, "why the hell are you siding with Toguro and his demon thugs?"

"I told you before, humanity doesn't deserve to live," Kiyoshi replied. "We've condemned ourselves to extinction through our sins."

"Yeah, I get that the human race as a whole has done a lot of fucked-up things," Yusuke said, "but that doesn't mean we fucking give up and trash 'em all!"

"There's no hope for us, Yusuke," Kiyoshi stated bitterly. "Our only hope for salvation lies in death."

"Shut up!" Yusuke screamed. "I'm sick of hearing you talk! All you talk about is how we're doomed as a race and how we all deserve to die!"

"Because we do!" Kiyoshi screamed back, losing his cool composure. "Don't you get it?! If you'd been through what I'd been through, seen what I'd seen, you'd be on our side!"

"I've heard enough out of you," Yusuke snarled. "Like I said before, I'm gonna tear apart that beast and then I'm coming for you, you double-crossing worm. Shotgun."

Like he had done with Akuhi in his dragon form, Yusuke fired the Shotgun as a tightly concentrated wave of energy bursts, all aimed at the center of Kiyoshi's hydro-beast. The blasts tore the hydro-beast apart, leaving it nothing more than a puddle on the ground, virtually indistinguishable from the other puddles formed by the rain.

"There," Yusuke said. "I took care of your stupid monster. Now all that's left is you."

Kiyoshi just smiled.

"What the hell are you smiling for, punk?" Yusuke asked.

"You'll see," Kiyoshi replied.

"Is that so?" Yusuke asked as he stalked toward Kiyoshi. However, his path was interrupted when water sprouted from the puddle in front of him like a geyser. Before he had a chance to do anything about it, the water wrapped around Yusuke and swallowed him. "Ahhhh! Shit! What the fuck!?"

"Did you think my beast would stay dead forever?" Kiyoshi asked. "Water always eventually returns to its original state. Why should my beast be any different?"

Yusuke struggled inside the hydro-beast. Sure, he had no actual need to breathe but that didn't mean he was all right with being swallowed by that traitor's damned monster.

"What the hell is this?" Yusuke asked angrily.

"You're in my Territory now," Kiyoshi replied, "a dimension made entirely of water. To escape, you have to beat me --- and to beat me, you have to escape. Somehow, I don't see either of that happening."

Yusuke struggled ferociously but to no avail. Kiyoshi's Territory had him firmly in its grip and it had no intention of releasing him anytime soon. He was trapped like a mouse in a mousetrap, or a rat in a rattrap, or a gorilla in a cage.

Damn it!Yusuke cursed silently. I've gotta find a way out of his Territory! He let out a scream of rage that was distorted by Kiyoshi's watery Territory. Damn him!         I'm trapped like a fucking gorilla in a fucking cage!

As his rage grew so did his aura. Black energy surrounded him with red energy crackling in it. Said energy converged at the tip of his right index finger, which he pointed in a gun-firing pose.

"Not another Spirit Gun," Kiyoshi moaned, rolling his eyes. "It didn't work when you were outside my Territory and it won't work now that you're inside it."

"This isn't another Spirit Gun, traitor," Yusuke retorted coldly. "I call it --- the Dimension Gun." He fired the black-and-red energy out of his finger and to Kiyoshi's amazement . . . it pierced the hydro-beast and punched a hole in his chest. The hydro-beast dissipated and Yusuke landed agilely on his feet.

"How . . . did you do that?" Kiyoshi asked, clutching his bleeding chest.

Yusuke didn't say anything to the other boy; he just walked over to him. "Shit, you're bleeding. Let me see."

"Sure," Kiyoshi conceded, letting go of his chest. Yusuke felt the wound.

"I'm no doctor or medical student, but even I can tell that my blast didn't hit any vital points," he said. "The only way you'd possibly die now is if you bled to death and with you bleeding all over yourself there's a good chance of that happening."

"Why are you so concerned about me?" Kiyoshi asked. "I just tried to kill you and I helped Kagero to capture or kill your friends."

"Lift your arms," Yusuke ordered. "I have to remove your shirt."

"Why?" Kiyoshi asked.

"I only did it once, but I can use my power to heal people," Yusuke replied. "I can do the same for you . . . if you'll trust me."

Kiyoshi couldn't reply, as he was passing out from blood loss. So Yusuke removed the other boy's yellow sweatshirt for him and then his undershirt. He cut his wrist with his Kukri knife and held it over Kiyoshi's wound, letting his blood seep into it and mix with the other boy's blood. The mixed blood retreated into the wound and the wound closed.

The water psychic immediately began to regain consciousness. "I'm alive," he said in hushed tones.

"Of course you are," Yusuke replied, giving Kiyoshi back his undershirt and sweatshirt.

"Why did you save me?" Kiyoshi asked after he'd put his undershirt and sweatshirt back on.

"In all honesty, I should have let you die," Yusuke admitted. "For all I know, Keiko and my friends could all be dead or captured or worse. For that I should have let you die, but an old friend of mine once said, 'When men do what they should, it's not always about what they want.' So I couldn't let you die no matter how much I hated you at that moment."

"This isn't . . . this isn't how he told me it was," Kiyoshi murmured.

"Isn't how who told you it was?" Yusuke prompted.

"Sensui," Kiyoshi replied. "He was the one who got me into spying for Toguro. He told me that all humans exist for is to hurt each other."

"Why did you believe him?" Yusuke asked. He got the answer to that when his hand brushed against Kiyoshi's arm.

Yusuke saw the world through Kiyoshi's eyes. Before the demons had taken over Japan and much of the Eastern hemisphere, Kiyoshi had been a lonely boy, ignored by his peers at best and tormented by them at worst. No one had ever reached out to him and any hand extended to him was extended to land a blow on his vulnerable frame.

Ironically enough, the opening of the gate to Demon World had resulted in the awakening of many human psychics, Kiyoshi among them. Toguro had ordered a purge of all human psychics but the Spirit World resistance had made a habit of saving as many of them as they could. Sensui had become aware of this and found Kiyoshi, recruiting him as his spy after persuading him by showing him a videotape known as Chapter Black.

The flashbacks finally stopped at that point. "What the hell is Chapter Black?"

"It's a videotape Sensui stole from Spirit World," Kiyoshi replied. "It contains thousands of hours of footage of every horrible deed committed by the human race. Concentration camps, war crimes, genocide, slavery --- it goes on and on and on! Just five minutes of seeing such horrors would make a human being turn against his own kind."

Yusuke was silent after that. All those things Kiyoshi lived through and saw, he thought. I've seen shit that really pissed me the fuck off about people and here I am trying to save them. Could Kiyoshi and Sensui be right? Am I fighting for a lost cause?

He shook his head viciously, as though he was trying to force out demons. No, I can't believe that! There are good people in the world! Like Kuwabara, and Genkai, and Keiko, and Shizuru!

"You're both wrong," Yusuke stated finally. "No matter what's been done to you or how you think the human race fucked up, we don't all deserve to all go up in flames."

"Don't you get it, Yusuke?" Kiyoshi asked sadly. "Ever since humanity was conceived, all it's sought is to destroy itself. Sensui and Toguro are just helping it along."

Yusuke said nothing for what seemed like an eternity but really only was ten seconds. When he spoke at last, it was with a heavy heart.

"Do you think we're that bad?" he asked Kiyoshi. "I know the human race isn't perfect, but do you think we've done that badly by each other that we should all die?" Hearing no immediate answer from Kiyoshi, he pressed on. "I saved your life when I could have just let you die. What does that tell you about people?"

"I . . . don't know anymore," Kiyoshi admitted.

"All right, enough beating around the bush," Yusuke said abruptly. "What the fuck did Kagero and his punk-ass friends do with Keiko and my friends?"

"By the time Kagero and his crew showed up, Kurama had already organized a retreat," Kiyoshi replied. "He, Hiei, Touya, Jin, and Rinku had already managed to get away with about half of the trainees. The others stayed back and tried to fight back. The ones that weren't killed were captured."

"What about Keiko?" Yusuke asked in a voice that was slightly more insistent than earlier.

"Kagero took her," Kiyoshi replied. "He knew how important she was to you and figured she'd make a good hostage. Not to demand anything from you in exchange for her safety but just to torture you. That's the kind of sick freak he is; he likes to see his enemies suffer emotionally. That's why his favorite victims are lovers; he likes to see the helplessness on their faces when they realize that there's nothing they can do to save each other."

"You're coming with me," Yusuke declared, his auburn eyes aflame with hellish rage.

"Why?" Kiyoshi asked in a confused tone.

"Because you're Sensui's spy," Yusuke replied. "That means you've got some idea of what's going on with Toguro and his freaks. 'Sides, think of it as your big chance to redeem yourself."

"All right," Kiyoshi relented. "I'll come with you."

"Good," Yusuke said. "I already know where to go. Toguro-Sakyo, Inc., here the fuck we come. Hold on to your hats, you shit-eating sons of bitches."

Yusuke and Kiyoshi walked to the corporate headquarters of Toguro-Sakyo, Inc. as the crow watched over them from above. However, their arrival did not go unanticipated.

"Sensui, are you ready to face Yusuke?" Toguro asked.

Sensui smirked coldly at the sunglasses-wearing demon. "I've been looking forward to pitting my skills against Yusuke's since I found out he walked the earth once again. I'm ready for him."

"Good," Sakyo said. "Because here he comes." He pointed to a screen showing what was currently being recorded on the corporate complex's security cameras: Yusuke and Kiyoshi racing down the halls, presumably looking for Toguro.

"I knew Kiyoshi didn't have it in him," Sensui sneered. "He is still too attached to this world, despite the cruelties it has visited upon him." Without any more words he departed to greet Yusuke and Kiyoshi.

Yusuke and Kiyoshi raced down the halls, searching for the kidnapped trainees and Spirit World resistance fighters. Sensui arrived just in time to interrupt that search.

"Hello, Yusuke and Kiyoshi," Sensui greeted with a deadly smile. "How goes it?"

"Sensui," Yusuke snarled. "Recruiting tormented kids to do your dirty work, huh? How low can you sink, you son of a bitch?"

"Yusuke, you and I both were Spirit Detectives at one point or another," Sensui stated. "As Spirit Detectives we were charged with the task of protecting the universe. That's what I'm doing."

"You think destroying humanity is the way to protect the universe?" Yusuke asked, genuinely horrified by his predecessor's words.

"Yes," Sensui replied. "Humanity is a disease, Yusuke. The only way to cure the universe is to purge humanity from its system."

"You're one sick fuck, you know that?" Yusuke snapped, glaring at him. "I don't have time for this shit. I've gotta find my friends and the trainees that Kagero kidnapped."

"Sounds like you're looking for an excuse to back out of this fight," Sensui replied with a smirk. "Kiyoshi can look for your fallen friends while you and I battle."

"As much as I hate to say it, this psycho's right," Yusuke admitted to Kiyoshi. "Without any water around, your powers are no good and I don't feel like risking your life."

"I'm already risking my life by being here and on your side," Kiyoshi replied.

"Oh yeah," Yusuke said in delayed realization.

"It's all right," Kiyoshi said before turning around and running off into a side hallway.

"Now that he's out of the way, you and I can get down to business," Yusuke stated. He lunged at Sensui with insanely fast punches. However, Sensui blocked each and every one of his punches without moving an inch from his spot. Finally, Sensui kicked Yusuke in the solar plexus, sending the undead Spirit Detective crashing into a wall. What the fuck was that? Yusuke wondered.

"Surprised, Yusuke?" Sensui asked. "That was the Resshuuken, a style of martial arts that relies on fast footwork. As you've experienced just now, it works by blocking attacks with your hands and then retaliating with powerful kicks."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Yusuke asked as he got up.

"Arrogant boy," Sensui replied. "You may be stronger and faster than I am and you may be unable to die, but I will still win this fight. Allow me to tell you the reasons."

"Oh, I'm just dying to know what exactly is going to prevent me from kicking your ass," Yusuke retorted.

"Reason number one: You're too predictable," Sensui stated. He summoned twenty-five or thirty small energy orbs and combined them into one medium-sized orb. "Remember this, Yusuke? This leads us to reason number two: You're too accustomed to fighting your opponents one at a time. This attack was formed out of the necessity to deal with multiple opponents. Splinter Resshuuken!" When his foot touched the orb, it split into twenty-five or thirty smaller orbs that attacked Yusuke all at once.

Yusuke tried to dodge the Splinter Resshuuken, but the energy orbs simply followed him, striking with vicious accuracy.

Damn, if I could feel pain, that would hurt a lot, Yusuke thought.

"Reason number three: I'm simply more skilled and more experienced than you," Sensui added.

Screw this,Yusuke thought and charged Sensui, not minding the energy orbs that were still attacking him. He felt them but they didn't hurt him at all. He made it past the Splinter Resshuuken and punched Sensui in the face, knocking him to the ground. "How's that? If you're so skilled and experienced, how come I just knocked you to the ground?"

"I haven't put my full effort into it, that's why," Sensui replied. "Watch carefully, Yusuke. I'm about to show you a rare form of spirit energy, a form that only a few fighters per lifetime have ever mastered."

Yusuke's interest was piqued at that moment. This better be worth my time, he thought. His next thought was, Holy shit, his aura is growing!

Indeed it was. Sensui's aura was growing and it was causing him to glow an interesting ethereal shade of golden. In fact, his aura had grown so immense that it was pushing Yusuke back.

"See this, Yusuke?" Sensui asked as Yusuke struggled against his aura. "This is Sacred Energy. Only one out of every five thousand fighters has mastered this energy, the reason being that it is so incredibly difficult to do so. But for those like me who have, mastery brings about a rewarding experience. Sacred Energy is so powerful that even a relatively weak fighter can become an extremely formidable opponent, so imagine what it's like for someone as strong as I am."

Despite himself, Yusuke was in awe when he looked at the glowing Sensui. Irrationally, he thought, He looks like an angel.

"Yes, Yusuke, I do look like an angel, don't I?" Sensui responded, as though he had read Yusuke's mind. "Don't look so shocked. I can't read minds but that was an easy enough guess. In the early days of Spirit Detectives, the first fighters to master Sacred Energy were called 'angels' by the demons they fought. That's where human religions that include angels came from."

Sensui charged at Yusuke and kicked him into a wall with such tremendous force that the undead Spirit Detective was embedded into the wall.

"As for the key to mastering Sacred Energy, mastery requires an innate desire to correct the world," the madman continued. "Something your deceased mentor discovered that she did not possess."

"You think you're pretty tough, don't you," Yusuke snarled as he pulled himself out of the wall, "with that Sacred Energy of yours. Guess what, motherfucker? I got my own kind of energy that I can take you down with!" With that declaration Yusuke powered up, his aura growing much the same way Sensui's had. However, Yusuke glowed an unholy deep violet color.

Sensui smirked. "I was waiting for this. So this is the unique aura of those guarded by the crow."

"Sounds like you've seen this before," Yusuke remarked.

"Yes, I have," Sensui confirmed. "Necrotic Energy. The reanimated corpse of a powerful fighter can tap into an inexhaustible well of spiritual energy, energy born from the depths of the underworld. Those that have seen fighters wield such energy have called those fighters 'angels of death.'" He chuckled. "So about it, Yusuke? An angel of death versus an angel of light."

"You're going down, Sensui," Yusuke snarled and in the blink of an eye he was in Sensui's face. He viciously punched Sensui in the face and sent him flying into a wall. However, Sensui somersaulted backwards and landed on his feet. Then he bounced off the wall and kicked Yusuke from an unexpected angle.

Yusuke rolled on the ground before leaping back up on his feet. "Don't think I'm out just yet, motherfucker."

The battle resumed, both glowing fighters charging at each other. They met in midair with extremely fast punches and kicks. However, neither one of them could lay a finger on the other. For each punch that was thrown, an arm would be raised to block it. For every kick, the would-be recipient would simply move out of the way.

"This is getting pointless," Sensui stated, backing away from Yusuke.

"What's the matter, tough guy?" Yusuke asked. "You seem so afraid of me all of a sudden."

"Me? Afraid of you?" Sensui asked. "Don't make me laugh. I've just decided that a change of clothes is in order." The golden glow of Sacred Energy began to solidify and condense around Sensui, causing Yusuke to stare and wonder just what the hell his predecessor was up to. He got his answer when the golden glow became blue armor that covered Sensui's torso and pelvis and a cloak.

"What's with the armor?" Yusuke asked irritably. "You look like a cross between a knight and some fucked-up sorcerer from an RPG."

"This is my Spirit Defense Armor," Sensui replied with a smirk. "As you might be able to infer from the name, it boosts my defensive abilities to their maximum potential."

"Whoop-de-frickin'-doo!" Yusuke snapped. "Let's see you defend against this! Machine Spirit Gun." A rapid barrage of black energy bullets came forth from Yusuke's finger, but Sensui was blocking them all with ease. "What the fuck?!"

"Spirit Defense Armor, remember?" Sensui remarked.

"You bastard!" Yusuke snarled, charging at Sensui and directing swift punches and kicks to his skull. Unfortunately, the Defense Armor enabled Sensui to block each and every one of his attacks.

"Is this the best you can do, Yusuke Urameshi?" Sensui asked mockingly.

"You haven't seen my best yet, bitch," Yusuke snarled in response. His fist glowed with black light. "In case you don't know this, you're not the only one with an attack that can work against multiple opponents. Shotgun."

With the method of release, it was like a wall of black energy bullets aimed directly at Sensui. Unfortunately, the madman came out largely unscathed.

"What the hell is going on!?"Yusuke asked angrily. "You should have been dead by now!"

"Really, Yusuke?" Sensui asked. "You forgot about my Spirit Defense Armor. Even if an attack manages to penetrate my defenses, the armor will absorb the damage."

What the fuck do I do now? Yusuke asked himself. That Spirit Defense Armor makes it pointless for me to attack! Ahhh! What do I do? How can I win!?

"Is it finally sinking in that you can't win?" Sensui asked.

"Why are you working with Toguro and his thugs?" Yusuke asked. "You were a Spirit Detective once, like I was! You're supposed to be protecting humanity, not conspiring with demons to kill them all off!"

"Our motives might be different, but our goals are the same," Sensui replied. "The demons want to eliminate humanity because they want this world to be theirs. I want to eliminate humanity because it has committed too many evils to be spared. The demons fight with evil and greed on their side, the same qualities that have damned humanity to its fate, while I fight with justice on my side." His armor changed from blue to yellow.

"What is that?" Yusuke asked.

"My Spirit Offense Armor," Sensui replied. "It increases my offensive capabilities to their maximum potential. And one more thing about justice, Yusuke: It kills!" That last word was accented with a vicious kick to Yusuke's solar plexus that sent the undead Spirit Detective crashing into a wall.

"Miserable fucker!" Yusuke screamed. "Shotgun Double Barrel." Shotgun blasts came out of both fists, resulting in a massive barrage of energy bullets aimed for Sensui, who dodged as many as he could. However, the volume of Shotgun blasts was so immense that not even he could dodge them all. "Your mistake was switching from defense to offense, shit-face. I figured once you didn't have your defense-boosting armor anymore, you wouldn't be fast enough to avoid all of those Shotgun blasts."

"Yusuke, Yusuke, Yusuke," Sensui mocked as he rose to his feet. "Why do you keep trying so hard?"

"Because I know that there are genuinely good people in this world," Yusuke replied, "something you forgot. Yeah, I think I got you all figured out. In your mind, there's just good and evil with no room for shades of gray. You believed humans were good and demons were evil, but when you saw demons getting tortured by humans, you couldn't adjust your worldview to cope with it. So you decided that humans were the true evil and joined up with Toguro and his crew because they wanted to kill off all the humans, too!"

"Close, but no cigar," Sensui said. "We humans are capable of justifying anything. That's what makes us so evil, because under any circumstances, we can kill and come up with some convenient excuse for it. That's why I like demons. They don't make excuses. They accept their evil."

"Shut . . . UP!" Yusuke screamed, lunging at Sensui and punching him in the face. He followed up with a vicious kick to Sensui's torso before flipping away from him. He clenched his hand into a fist, concentrating his aura in it as it began to glow with crackling black light.

"What, are you going to punch me again?" Sensui asked.

"This fight has gone on long enough," Yusuke replied. "Good-bye, Sensui. I'll see you in hell. Death Magnum." In a blur of almost incomprehensible speed, Yusuke lunged at Sensui and punched him with his glowing fist. Sensui raised a hand to block his fist but upon contact, the dark energy transferred to him and engulfed him.

The former Spirit Detective screamed in agony. "What's happening to me?!" he asked.

"Necrotic Energy," Yusuke replied. "The power of death channeled into my fist . . . and no living creature can handle it once it mixes with their aura. The death aura causes their own aura to turn on them, killing them from the inside out."

Cracks formed in Sensui's Spirit Offense Armor and in his body, releasing what looked like black liquid light. Sensui collapsed to the ground as the liquid energy bled out of him.

Yusuke watched as Sensui bled the tainted aura out. Once he was sure that the other Spirit Detective was dead, he ran to find Kiyoshi. Hopefully, he'd already freed the others.

Unfortunately, a figure emerged from the shadows and punched Yusuke in the face. Yusuke just got up and grinned evilly at the figure. "Kagero, nice to see you again. You ready to fight this time around, or are you gonna run again?"

"That's my coat you're wearing," Kagero replied.

"Yeah, I know," Yusuke mocked. "It looks good on me."

"I'm gonna rip that coat off your dead body, you human freak," Kagero threatened.

"I'm already dead, but bring it on, anyway," Yusuke replied coolly, shifting into a rather strange fighting stance. Although Kagero didn't know this, it was the stance that Genkai used when she performed the Spirit Wave technique.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kagero asked.

Yusuke's aura surged as his eyes glowed a hellish red. "You'll find out soon. You'll be dead soon after that, but you'll find out."

"How about I put your sorry ass back in the coffin instead of waiting for you to pull off your stupid move?" Kagero suggested before forming his shadow aura into a sword and charging at Yusuke, who was smirking cruelly at him as he advanced.

"Time to say your prayers, motherfucker," Yusuke sneered before delivering a vicious kick that had been boosted by the power of the Spirit Wave. Kagero found himself flying headlong into the wall. "I don't have time for this shit. I gotta find my friends and Keiko."

"Oh, the little human bitch?" Kagero asked mockingly as he removed himself from the wall. "She's perfectly safe, Urameshi."

"Where is she?" Yusuke asked angrily as he followed up with a vicious punch that was charged with the power of the Spirit Wave. This time, Kagero caught the punch and squeezed Yusuke's fist painfully. Of course, it would have been painful if Yusuke was still capable of feeling pain.

"She's being cared for," Kagero replied in that eerily calm voice that just pissed Yusuke off. The undead Spirit Detective just grabbed Kagero's wrist and had a vision.

Keiko, bound and gagged, wondering where she was. She looked around her and all she saw was darkness with faint slivers of light peeping out from between the bars of the door window.

"Bastard!" Yusuke cursed as he set off a Shotgun right into Kagero's hand. Kagero screamed in pain as his hand was blown apart by Yusuke's Shotgun blast.

"You'll pay for that, you little shit!" Kagero screamed in both pain and rage. "You wanna be reunited with that little bitch so badly? Guess what? Never gonna happen!" He extended his other hand and a black hole opened in it, generating an unholy wind that swept Yusuke up and sucked him inside the hole. Oddly enough, Yusuke didn't even attempt to resist.

Kagero chuckled to himself. Sure, it'd cost him a hand, but it was worth it. That human punk Urameshi was dead.

Dead, am I?Yusuke's voice asked.

"What was that?" Kagero asked.

Me, dipshit, Yusuke's voice replied.

"You're supposed to be dead," Kagero growled. "I absorbed you. I transported you into the void! There should be nothing left of you!"

The void is your soul, right? Yusuke replied. In that case, I'm right where I need to be so I can kill you.

"You kill me?" Kagero asked. "That's a laugh."

Not really,Yusuke replied. And you won't be finding it so funny once I'm done with you. Kagero heard his voice chanting something but it was not a chant he recognized. As the chant continued, Kagero could feel a strange power growing within him. However, it was not a power that he could use. It was a power whose growth worried him, mainly because it was starting to seep into his own aura.

When the chant finished, Kagero screamed as a stabbing pain made itself known in his gut. Energy began to pour out of his mouth and eyes as he screamed. Finally, he died in an explosion of black light and blood.

The fading light from Kagero's explosive death revealed a black-clad boy with a black crow painted on his white face.

Yusuke Urameshi.

"Now it's your turn, Toguro," he snarled as he turned around and ran. First, he would make sure Kiyoshi was all right and had found his friends. Once that was taken care of, he'd find Keiko, and once he was certain that she was all right . . . then he would unleash hell on Toguro.

To be continued . . .

Next: Botan here and we are winding down toward the finish. Yusuke's ready to take down Toguro once and for all and with the power of the crow behind him, he just might do it. But Toguro's gotten even stronger since two years before and he might just prove to be a match for Yusuke's powers. And just when it seems that all is lost, a surprising new power makes itself known to Yusuke. How it happens? You'll just have to read the next chapter to find out. All this and more next time in "The Crow: Spirit Bullet."