A/N: I actually have nothing against Shiori (that poor woman, she's been through so much), but it had to be done. Now – because Kurama is totally my favorite character and no fic would be the same without him – here's your daily dose of silver and gold!

Seriously, I love reviews.

Into the Light

Part II

"Thank you, Yuusuke, for staying with her."

The detective plopped down on the bare wood and sighed, shaking his head. "It was no problem. I figured it was the least I could do, considering that she will never see her son again, even in the form of a cold body at the funeral. It was really time-consuming to get her to calm down enough to sleep, though... But enough of my troubles. I'm more worried about you, silver. She was your mother, after all, and parting is never easy, especially a parting like that."

"She was not my mother, Yuusuke. Shiori Minamino, for all I admired and loved her, was Shuuichi Minamino's mother, and he does not exist anymore. Youko Kurama is who I am once again, and my mother died of old age almost twenty-eight hundred years ago."

"But still, silver..."

"No buts, Yusuke. It was time for me to reclaim this body once again, and discarding the physical body of Shuuichi had to be done. I will adjust to having a tail and ears and no mother and relatives, just as I accustomed myself to a mother and relatives instead of my tail and ears twenty years ago. I am now a spirit fox once again, and the largest concession I am able to make is for you to call me 'silver' instead of Youko. I know it is hard for you and all the others to believe I can escape from this and reaccustom myself so easily, but I have been preparing for this for many years. My decision to accompany Shiori for an extra decade was only a delay in my plan. It was either this, or death - if I had continued as Kurama for any longer, Shuuichi's body would have dissolved under the weight of a demon spirit and my demon spirit and youki would have withered and rotted inside of a human core. I was pressing it, living like that for as long as I did."

Yusuke made an indecipherable noise and flopped down the rest of the way so he was lying spread-eagled on the floor. "Hey, as long as you're not so torn up by this that you're going to kill yourself or cut us off... I'm not intensely worried for your mom - sorry, Shiori - or anything since I figure, and I know this is going to be hard for you to hear, that she'll be able to get over your death in a couple years especially since she has Hatanaka and the other Shuichi. But what are you going to do now that you're here in Makai with us? I mean, you did have a life here, right? Hiei's kinda just been a loner for his, what, five hundred years of life?, which is why it wasn't a problem for him to join the Tantei under Koenma 'till his sentence was through, and I'm just going to be around since I graduated a while ago and have no real obligations in the human world except for Keiko and my mom. Of course, I think that Keiko's finally got it in her head that I'm not gonna marry her...I'm nineteen, you know? You were twenty, Kuwabara's nineteen and in some great college... We had our entire lives ahead of us, and I think it's finally kicked in for them that you and I aren't going to be there with them forever. After I turn twenty I'll be staying in Makai permanently to help out with Raizen's old lands and fighting every three years in that tournament until I finally win and can sit back and relax. But you don't really have an obligation anywhere... Remember the first demon world tournament, when you were fighting Shigure? Everybody watched you renounce the Youko side of yourself, and Yomi and everyone kinda gave up on getting you back after that. So do you still have a life to go to anymore?"

The fox demon was silent for many minutes after his friend finished his speech. "I don't know, Yusuke. Officially, it has only been two decades since I abandoned this form and my connections should still be out there. Twenty years is really only a blink of an eye for most demons, and normally an absence like that could easily be smoothed over. But you are correct, many have certainly given up on me, and it is now no longer assured that I can find the demons I once knew and was friends with. You probably are aware of some of what I am about to tell you, but for the past two millennia I have carried the title 'the king of thieves' and have had many demons working with me. You know Yomi, obviously, and though we now maintain attitudes of neutrality towards each other, I still hate the bastard and I'm sure he feels similarly towards me. He was once my subordinate, and after far to many losses incurred at his hands I decided to off him - he wasn't always blind, you know. That was, in part, my doing. But he isn't the only one you've met. I'm sure you remember the creature I defeated a while back that took the form of a bat demon named Kuronue? He was once my dearest partner, a true equal to me in thieving prowess until the fateful day he was caught in a trap and killed. This may all seem rather like storytelling to you, but my point is that many of the demons I once knew are now lost to me, be it through physical means or mental. My last hope is the Thieves' Village and, if that fails, Fushimi Inari."

The mazoku frowned and shifted position so his head was propped up by his arm. "The thieves' village? That sounds ominous. And isn't Fushimi Inari a human shrine? You know, the one with all the fox guardians and torii gates?"

Youko sighed and uncrossed his legs to stand up. Walking over to the shoji door, he slid it aside to reveal a dreary courtyard and a pink-haired lady. "Hello, Genkai-san. You and the breeze are welcome to join us in our trading of stories." The short woman snorted.

"As if. I'm only here to let Yusuke know that that girl of his called and says Atsuko is expecting him home tonight. The breeze, however, will join you promptly, I'm sure." Stepping off the porch, she crossed the courtyard and made her way back to the main part of the house, moving quickly under the gray clouds. Youko left the door open to the elements and walked back to his previous position, sitting down and moving his tail into his lap to groom.

"The Thieves' Village is just that - a village for my subordinates and their families, as well as where the vault that contains my collection - don't laugh, you imbecile, it's a collection and if you call it a hoard I will own your ass to Gandara and back - is located. I'm sure many of my acquaintances and partners are still there, but there is always the chance that they gave up on me and either left - which wouldn't be terrible, only expected - or selected a new leader, which would, truthfully, be rather...Oh, screw that. It would piss me off beyond belief that they could even think to replace me. Now Fushimi Inari, on the other hand, will take a while to explain. The shrine you know is the human version of our own - ours is immeasurably older and far more sacred; it also happens to be the ancestral home of the fox demons. For me it isn't only an ancestral home; I was actually born there. My family, you see, is a long line of silver youko - though I've been the only one for the many centuries since my mother died and the one litter of kits I had with my original mate have all been dead for a very, very long time - and it is the silver foxes who, since ancient times, have been charged with the protection of the shrine. So every fifty years or so I venture back to put up stronger wards and help out for a couple of months with the day-to-day goings-on. It's relaxing, there, and it's a tremendous boost to my ego to have them looking to me as their own personal hero, the Guardian of Fushimi Inari." He laughed, smiling for the first time in weeks. "The kits are so cute, especially the younger ones that attempt to butt in on the older ones' classes. I've really missed them all, so maybe after checking in on everything at the Village I'll spend a few years at the shrine, getting to know everyone. I wonder if old Kaiki is still running the swordsmanship classes?" he mused to himself. "Well, either way, Yusuke, I do have a life to return to. Now that I can devote myself to re-integrating into Makai and don't have to worry about Koenma unless I steal something from him - it wouldn't be the first time, after all - I can finally be myself. And hey, you're always welcome to join me. You'd make a great thief!"

Yusuke shook his head and laughed, tilting his head into a ray of sun that had come into the room through the parting clouds. "Ah, who knows? We have our whole lives ahead of us, after all!"