Disclaimer: YuYu Hakusho belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi.

No Return

We are all very quiet in the hotel room tonight. Everyone is either sleeping peacefully, or faking it as I am. Wrapped in the darkness and the stillness, we are anything but.

I am counting the hours until morning. Or rather, until light—morning has already arrived. Sleep eludes me, for I am far too restless. You have brought me to the point where I must make a decision upon which I can never go back. Tomorrow—today—all words will disappear into silence. But for now, while I still have thoughts with which to resist, I cannot sleep for the clamor.

That look in your eyes as you walked away, mirroring the hidden twist of your mouth, haunts me. You knew, even as you laid your trap, what would be inevitable. All my ideas of resisting you, ignoring you, are little more than childish games of make-believe. My pretending amuses you.

A crow and a fox. We are two ancient tricksters, sly and cunning, since the beginning of lore. If—when—we fight, I wonder if any sort of true victory is even at all possible between us. And I want to know.

That is the trap you have set, a snare that tugs on my curiosity, and draws me deeper into your grasp.

I can tell by watching you that you know what it is you truly want. And that you always know how to obtain it. What is it, I wonder, that you hope to acquire from me?

You are so very certain. Your mannerisms ooze confidence, the belief that I will play right into your hands. And in my mind I am already imagining the multitude of things that might happen when I succumb to you, when I drop all my defenses and wait for your trap to spring and catch me. No matter what happens, you know you have already won this round.

But still, I cannot sleep. My mind is screaming that I will not lose. For the sake of my team. The sake of my own life.

Your hands are fatal, your touch explosive. Every aspect of you is dangerous. And I, I am vulnerable even now, ready to submit.

A curse almost clings to you. You destroy everything you touch; it corrupts, festers. Like a bird of carrion, everything under your domain rots, stricken with decay. How? Is it true? Curiosity eats away inside me like this plague of yours. That meeting in the hall, with your hands around my neck—will you destroy me? Am I to be your victim, or is that merely an unfortunate side-effect of something greater?

Even now you lure me in, a mysterious enigma I want to probe. The only protest that remains is the wordless beating of my heart. Are you worth the risk? I am almost afraid of the answer.

I already know I am going to take your offer. But if I pass this point of no return, can I ever escape you?

All of these thoughts are unsettling, disturbing, especially the idea that I wish for the moment when thought disappears and the dream begins.

If anyone else is awake and notices when I sneak out of bed to stand by the window, they say nothing. Right now, I am in desperate need of comfort. The moon shining through the glass spills silver across my skin, turning it pale and ethereal—a familiar, reassuring sight. I can almost pretend I am myself again, a demon, a silver fox.

I have often wondered what it might be like to have nine tails, to live to be ancient, wise, and powerful. I have learned that some wisdom comes with age. Time stops for no one, and as it sweeps past, things change. Things once familiar are lost irretrievably, vanished by the passage of time. Nothing is really eternal. The more that time steals, the less one is able to view things intimately. This wisdom sees hidden details because it objectively views an unfamiliar, unloving world.

Even with only four tails, I have sacrificed my ignorance to gain life. Now I realize that even had Kuronue and I survived, it could not have lasted forever, and that is a harsh blow. Even then, although we were happy, I think we secretly feared the day that thievery would lose its appeal and we would have nothing left.

I have been plunged back into a world I once knew, a world to which I have always silently longed to return. But now I have found that it has changed and moved on without me, a foreign society with no place for me. I cannot relate to my fellow demons lusting for power, because I already know that in the end, only emptiness will lie behind them.

Even here, in my new life, fifteen years is not long enough to grow accustomed to a stranger in the mirror. My companions I have known for even less, and this hotel room only used for sleep for a handful of days.

Strangely, the only thing that feels familiar, that feels like home in this whole damned tournament… is you.

And although I have tried to deny it, that is even more alluring than the intricate snare you consciously crafted for me.

A fox and a crow, we have followed tradition. Both of us are shrewd and sly tricksters by nature. You know what you truly desire, and you know how to take it. Your movements are skilled, seductive, demonic—the dark and secretive strings behind the dealings of thieves. My foolish make-believe games of resistance are only another step in the elaborate dance.

I want to go back to the world I called home. I long to be blissfully ignorant again.

And I know I cannot return… except by giving in to your trap.

Do I dare give up all that I have now to regain a few moments of a life long gone? Do I dare sacrifice my reality for the dreams that surround you? Do I dare give in, knowing full-well that I may never escape?

My mind still insists that I do not have to fight you. That I still have a choice. That I can avoid the trap—that I truly want to avoid it.

I made my name well-known throughout the Makai. I dressed all in white while committing my heists. I never defeat my enemies until I have discerned exactly how their minds work. My actions beg to be caught, if there was someone worth catching me. Are you?

I fear you. But that is simply another part of the game.

Between two such as us, I do not think any sort of complete victory is possible. You have already won the first round. If I submit to you, I lose, but I regain everything I have ever wanted. If I win, the rest of the game is mine.

My heartbeat still protests steadily against the thought of your fatal hands, a touch that will burn me into nothing. This pulse still fights the irrationality of crossing this point of no return, even though my foot is already past it.

You have brought me to that moment when I must choose what it is I truly desire, with no backward glances.

What you desire… is me.

The only way to catch a fox is with a trap, and you have set yours flawlessly. All you need do now is wait, like a crow by the hangman's noose.

…
Owari
…

-Windswift