"Hi, Keiko!"  Atsuko waves a drunken greeting at me as I enter the apartment.  It’s barely noon and already she’s been at it.  I would have thought she’d still be asleep…  "Yuusuke’s not in right now, I think he’s out with Kuwabara…"

"I know," I tell her calmly.  "Actually, I came here to see you."

"Oh I see!" She exclaims enthusiastically.  "You want tips on how to be a good wife to my Yuusuke, ne?"  She leans in close enough that the alcohol in her breath almost smothers me.  I back away hastily.

"Nooo, that’s not it."

She shrugs.  "Well, whatever…"

She slumps back down against the wall, a total wreck of a human being...  It’s rather obvious where Yuusuke gets his  churlish behavior  from.  Anyone with a mother like that is never going to learn even the rudiments of appropriate comportment.

"Urameshi-san, you really shouldn’t drink so much.  It’ll be the death of you one of these days."

"Eh?"  She blinks at me.  "And just what does that matter?"

"It would matter to Yuusuke," I inform her.

"He would get over it.  After all, he’s been through it all before, and he made me think he was dead, that time…"

"He was dead!  And he almost stayed that way!"  I snort in disbelief.  "Don’t you remember how sad you were?  He’d feel the same way!"

"We all have to die sometime, Keiko," she replies, calmly enough - but there is an glimmer of worry in her eyes.  "But why are we talking about such things?!  We’re both still alive!"

I walk over to the kitchen and open the cutlery draw.  I can feel her unsteady gaze following me.  Carefully, I choose a sharp carving knife from the selection available.  I turn to face Atsuko, knife in hand.  And I smile.

"Not for much longer."

Her eyes widen in horror, and she presses back against the wall.  She manages a flustered smile.

"Eh, Keiko-chan, you’re just kidding, right?"  She laughs nervously as I walk towards her, knife firmly grasped in one hand, a smile plastered on my face.

"No, I’m not," I assure her.

"But… but what about Yuusuke? Eh?  You don’t want to hurt him, do you?"  She is sliding sideways along the wall, away from me.  I pursue her relentlessly.

"Just making sure you knew that he is going to suffer.  It’s a lot more fun that way."

I leap for her, knocking her to the ground.  She catches hold of the wrist of the hand which holds the knife, trying to force it away from her.  We roll around on the floor as she struggles, both of us getting minor cuts and bruises, until at last I have a clear strike at her chest.

"KEEIIKOOOUuhhh!!!"

The scream changes in mid-syllable to an unintelligible moan of anguished pain as the knife strikes home, sliding between her ribs and puncturing her left lung with an audible ‘pop’.   I strike twice more for good measure, before sitting back to watch her gasp out her last breaths before she drowns in her own blood.

She stares at me with eyes glazed over with pain.  As I watch, the little spark of light within them slowly fades away.

I am not in very good condition, either - I am bleeding rather badly from a gash in the shoulder where she had been successful in turning the knife back against me - but that scarcely matters to me.  After all, it’s not as if it's my body.

Pounding and shouting at the door grabs my attention.  Atsuko’s screams have been noticed.  Good.  The neighbors’ testimony should help.

I watch impassively as her spirit is guided to the Reikai, then slip out of the body I had borrowed just as it grows faint from the blood-loss.  Before my spirit’s eyes, Keiko collapses in a heap, just as Atsuko’s neighbors break down the door.

I smile to myself.  I have kept my end of the bargain, now it is time for Koenma to keep his.

That little bitch won’t be leading my brother on anymore.  She won’t be manipulating Kurama, and she won’t get away with killing Hiei!  My Hiei, whom I loved so much…  I was even willing to share him with Kurama, if that fox ever got up the nerve to tell him…  But he never did.  And I didn’t find out until too late that -

I steel myself against the emotions that surge over my spirit form.

Yukina is going to die.

Or Koenma is going to pay.

Nobody crosses Kuwabara Shizuru and gets away with it.

Nobody.

Go to Evil fic 7