Lord Yomi of the Makai sat back comfortably, sated, watching the trembling wreck of the young youko that lay dripping blood and tears on the silk sheets. He leaned forward to look into the wide lavender eyes of his victim. They were glazed, unfocused, and dead. Yomi sighed, vaguely disappointed. The young ones were the sweetest, but they broke so easily. This little squirrel had broken after only one week.

Feeling the urge for a glass of wine and a snack, he rose and donned a dressing gown of deep red silk embroidered with black roses. As he left the room, he turned and spoke to the Oni guard that stood outside the door. "I'm finished with that one." He said. "Dispose of it in the usual manner."

"Yes, my lord." The guard replied tonelessly, bowing.

Yomi ambled off, cheerfully humming a bawdy ballad under his breath.

The moa stumbled awkwardly in a pothole, causing Hiei to curse and Norkie to queep re- provingly at the clumsy bird. Hiei glared sourly at the little ginger furball. It was bad enough that Kurama had let it come, but did it absolutely have to ride on his bird? All right, so the little monster was handy to have around when you're robbing a treasure room, but it still played with his hair every chance it got. What was this attraction that he held for small furry things?

"Oh, be nice." Kurama said, noticing that his lover was grumping again. "If Norkie hadn't disabled those alarms and booby traps for us, we wouldn't have gotten nearly as much loot."

Kurama patted the bulging saddlebags. It had been an unusually good heist. They had come away with so many goodies that the moas could barely carry it all. Even though he inhabited a human body most of the time, he was still a Kitsune, and thieving was in his very nature. For Hiei, it had been a successful survival tactic ever since very early childhood. Hiei was still not entirely happy about their newest partner in crime. "Fine. You carry him." Hiei tossed Norkie expertly into Kurama's lap, causing the furball to queep furiously at him and treat him to an expert raspberry. Kurama chuckled softly as Norkie smoothed his ruffled fur.

"Let's get going. "The city's not too far now, and there's a fence who wants to see us."

Hiei's face darkened. "That's Yomi's place." He said. "I don't like going there, and you shouldn't either. Just how long has that pervert been after you?"

"Too long. But hey, his city has the best places to sell stolen goods. Whoa!"

Kurama's moa bucked and shied wildly, smelling death. He managed to get the bird back under control and dismounted, tying the reins to a handy bush. He found the cause quickly. The naked body of a young squirrel-spirit lay crumpled in a ditch, and the poor thing had not died easily. "Screwed over and throat cut." Hiei said grimly, turning the body over. "One of Yomi's, I think."

"Snf... Queep." Norkie said, triple eyes brimming with tears.

"Come on." Kurama sighed, standing up. "There's nothing we can do now."

"Fzz!" Norkie hissed, and scampered off.

"What's the furball up to?" Hiei asked.

Norkie came back, rolling a stone. As they watched, he pushed it next to the body and went back for another. "He's building a cairn." Kurama said, moving forward to help.

Hiei grunted disapprovingly, but helped nonetheless.

Once the body was covered and a few appropriate prayers had been muttered, they continued on their way. Norkie was silent and still for the rest of the trip, bristling with suppressed anger. They passed a statue of Yomi on their way through the gates of the city, which Norkie favored with a five-star Bronx cheer. "THBBBBBTTTTT!!!"

Both Kurama and Hiei had a hard time keeping their faces straight as the Oni watchman standing nearby jumped at the noise and peered around suspiciously. "Stupid fuzzball." Hiei muttered when they were out of earshot.

"Queep!"

They found the purveyor of stolen goods disguised as an ordinary jewelry shop and goldsmith's. A few minutes of sign and countersign with the woman behind the counter got them into the back room to talk to the head man himself.

The fence, a long-boned, cadaverous demon with the bearing of an elderly weasel was sitting at a cluttered desk, grading pearls. "Yes?" He said, looking up and putting the pearls aside.

Kurama wordlessly emptied their saddlebags onto the desk.

"Quite a haul." The demon said, picking up a heavy gold ring. "You are either extremely lucky, extremely good, or the one you robbed so thoroughly was criminally negligent." He paused as Norkie hauled himself up onto the desk. "Ah. That explains it. Handy little things, aren't they?"

"Oh, yes!" Kurama said with a smile, stroking Norkie's ginger fur.

They got down to some serious haggling at that point, leaving Norkie to his own thoughts. Norkie had no real interest in treasure or the arguments that people had over it; Norkies like solving tricky problems and exploring new places. Bored, he started whooffing through the clutter on the fence's desk.

The fence laid a beautifully chased and engraved dagger on the desk and crossed his bony arms. "Three hundred fifty, and that's my final offer."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Kurama sputtered. "You mark these things up three hundred percent anyway. How would you like it if I just found another-" "Queep!"

Norkie had found a treasure. It was a tiny katana, small enough to fit his three-fingered forepaw, with the beautiful ripples in the blade that spoke of its Damascus-style forging. The fence smiled indulgently. "You like that, little one?"

"Queep!"

"That's a Sprite's sword, the finest rye ever seen. The smith who forged it used the star-metal of a meteorite that had fallen into a sacred well. One might say that it is out of this world."

Norkie queeped again and spat a star opal out onto the desk. The fence looked surprised for a moment, and then examined the stone. "A fair trade. The sword is yours."

"Queep!" Norkie struck an impressive ninja-like pose, tiny sword raised as if to slash an invisible enemy. This is very hard to do when you're the same general size and shape as a furry softball.

"Stupid furball." Hiei said. "Where are you going to find an enemy your own size?"

"Fizz! Yah!" Norkie said, swinging the sword about and ignoring Hiei entirely.

The negotiations continued briskly, although there was one brief interruption when Norkie mock-sparred with a particularly grotesque statuette of one of the demon gods.

Later that evening, Kurama reclined on the bed in the hotel room which they had rented with their slightly less ill-gotten gains, watching Norkie practice with the Sprite sword. Hiei sat in a chair, cleaning and sharpening his own blade. "He's pretty good with that, for a beginner." Hiei said, glancing at Kurama.

"Well, the Harlequin did say that they leam fast." Kurama said, watching as the militant fuzzball stealthily snuck up on a bust of the city's ruler. "Don't forget that he's been watching you fight for some time."

"Fizz! Yah!" Ching-zipp-zash-whacka-whacka! Clunk-clunk-clunkitty-clunk.

The bust was suddenly divested of eyes, horns, ears, nose, and most of the hair. The word "Putz" had been carved into the forehead. "Queep!"

Norkie ignored their startled gaze, trotted over to Hiei, and borrowed his whetstone.

"A ninja Norkie?" Kurama said.

"What the hell." Hiei said. "A guard with his tendons cut is better than a guard who's jumping up and down on you."

"Queep!"

Ninja Norkie awoke at moonrise, picked up his sword, and inspected his travelling companions for signs of consciousness. No, both of them were fast asleep, curled up together in a heart- warming embrace. Good. Silently he hopped up to the windowsill and clambered onto the roof. Yomi's palace loomed gargoyle-like over the sprawling city. Somewhere in that building lay his objective, and tonight was his only opportunity to achieve it. The blood of innocents cried out for vengeance, and Ninja Norkie would claim it for them. For the squirrel-spirit under the roadside cairn, for all the others who fell before her. "Queep." He said quietly, and scampered off across the roof tops.

His journey was long, but not hard. Yomi's city had quite an active night life, and moas and carts rumbled through the streets without pause. An enterprising Ninja Norkie could find free rides aplenty in a place like this. Getting into the palace was another matter. It was thickly walled, and the gates were heavily guarded; it had been built to keep out enemy hosts, no matter their size. They hadn't built them to keep out very small ones, however. Ninja Norkie found enough hand- and footholds in the rough blocks to climb up, and there was an old mulberry tree on the other side which furnished him with a way down. Getting into the castle proper was no major hassle either. A rat hole in the stables led him to the kitchens, where some Oni cooks were stirring up a pot of stew for their evening meal.

"Will our Lord and Master be entertaining himself tonight again?" One said, getting out some earthenware bowls.

"Nah. The new boy's come down with some sort of sickness." Said another, taking the stew off the fire.

"How'd he manage that?" The third one said, pouring dark beer into three tall mugs.

"Probably ate some of those berries off the wisteria vine growing outside the window." The first one replied. "You know that they're poisonous."

"So, what's Yomi going to do tonight?" The second one asked, slicing some bread.

"He's sulking in the top of the tower again. You know how he gets when there's a full moon out. He likes to sleep in a room with stained-glass windows for that." The third cook replied. "Yeah." Number two said. "I seen those windows in the tower. He would like them." Ninja Norkie was very pleased at his good fortune. He let the three cooks get into their meal before he ran for the door. He found his way to the tower by listening to more such conversations, and by the simple expedient of climbing every staircase he came across. He was quite out of breath when he reached the top of the long spiral staircase in the tower, so he spent a few minutes catching his breath and examining the door. The wood was thick, but old, and there was a small gap by the bottom hinge. It was the work of but a moment to enlarge the gap just enough to allow him through.

He dropped down onto a soft thick carpet that was patterned with the silver-pastel glow of bright moonlight shining through the stained glass windows set in the walls and ceiling. A massive four-poster bed stood prominently in the center of the room. A closer look revealed Yomi, stretched out in the center of it with the sheets all kicked down around the foot of the bed. Yomi himself didn't need any more revealing, as he was butt naked and fast asleep. Norkie offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to any deities that might be peeved at this guy as he watched the patches of multicolored light slide over Yomi's chest and belly. This was just too good to be a coincidence. Well, to work!

The light of the full moon always made Yomi feel a little strange; it gave him odd urges and odder dreams, but it was strangely exhilarating. He always wanted to mn around naked in the garden or something. Since this would have led to considerable embarrassment, he consoled himself by coming up here with something young and juicy. Unfortunately, this time the aforementioned something was very ill. Yomi may be a perverted sicko, but he didn't want to catch anything off of anyone. Being unwell was so dull.

He'd come up here anyway, for he enjoyed the play of moonlight through skillfully worked glass. Moonlight also had another strange effect on him. It made him sleep lightly but deeply, with some strange and astonishingly vivid dreams. Right now, he was dreaming that a nest of vines was coiling tenderly around him while a beautiful wood nymph looked on in sensual expectation...

The scene began to change, as it sometimes did. The nymph disappeared and the nest of vines became his own four-poster bed- much more comfortable! He seemed to be held spreadeagled in the studded leather restraints that were specially built into the posts as part of the design, and someone had stuffed a rolled-up sock into his mouth. Hey, wow! Yomi thought dreamily. I haven't been in this position since my Uncle taught me the tricks of the trade when I was a teenager! What a nice change.

He drew in a quick breath as something small with sharp toenails, maybe a rat, trotted up his left leg. He raised his head to get a look at it. A small ball of ginger fur with three beady black eyes was sitting on his stomach, watching him. A Norkie?

Norkies were rather rare around here, sticking to forested places for the most part and shunning civilization. I've never done it with one of these. What a strange dream!

Ninja Norkie gave Yomi a slow grin, baring row after row of small sharp teeth. With a flourish, he drew the Sprite sword and held it up so that the colored light played lovingly over the Damascene ripples in the metal of the blade. Yomi's eyes brightened. Such a beautiful little knife! It flickered in the moonlight, once, twice, three times, drawing three tiny cuts on Yomi's breastbone. How delicately sharp the little sword is! Yomi did not feel the blade as it sliced, but felt the sick soreness of a razor cut a few seconds after.

Ninja Norkie gave him another, far more evil grin and trotted off towards Yomi's nether regions. Oh, wow. This will be really something!

The sock was quite effective in muffling his screams.

Kurama was having a terrible time trying to wake Norkie up. The little fellow's fur was all rompled from hard sleeping. "C'mon, little buddy. Time to go for breakfast. Rise and shine!"

"Queep." Norkie said sleepily. The obvious translation was: "Sink and rust."

"What's with him?" Hiei asked. "It's usually him that tries to get us up."

"I don't know."

Norkie sat up, stretched and revealed every fang he had in a huge yawn. He then grabbed his sword and crawled into Kurama's jacket pocket. Faint, fuzzy snores emanated from there a moment later.

Kurama shrugged and they packed up their belongings and went to see about breakfast.

The little breakfast place they went to was packed full, and strangely cheerful. "What's all this about?" Kurama wondered.

His question was answered when a boisterous group of cat-spirits sat down at the table next to them. "Did you hear what happened to Yomi?" One of them giggled to the others. "It's too much !"

"Oh tell us, tell us!" The others chorused.

"It's all over town!" The first one said. "Yomi finally found someone that couldn't be screwed! The servants at the castle found him in his tower room this morning- tied to the bed and gagged with one of his own socks! But that's not all. Get this- Someone had castrated him!" The Cats erupted in giggles as Kurama and Hiei stared, both shocked and pleased, at each other.

"Oh, he's still alive, of course; you don't kill a guy like him so easy." The gossip continued.

"But now, he has to find a sorcerer who doesn't totally loathe him who will help him grow back his bits! Unmanned as he is, he can't do it alone."

"Any idea of who did it?" A cat spirit asked.

"No clue, and Yomi wouldn't talk about it to anyone. The work was done with a very small, very sharp knife, though. Plus, they'll have to call in an exterminator. There were a bunch of little paw prints in the blood."

The cat's calk then turned to less interesting things. Kurama and Hiei stared at Norkie, who was sitting on the table munching on Kurama's toast. "Just what were you up to last night?" Kurama said softly.

Norkie turned to him and gave him a slow, toothy grin.

Hiei smiled and ruffled Norkie's fur. "I could get to like this critter." He said, and went back to eating his breakfast.

Yomi stood uncomfortably in front of the throne, waiting for Mukuro to stop laughing. It had been a solid hour since she had started, and she was still going strong. "You-" She gasped between guffaws. "You are a complete and utter twit. You can't expect to go around carrying on like that without someone deciding to remove the offensive bits! Oh, Gods, I haven't laughed this hard in centuries. Maybe I ought to leave you like this for a few decades, just to teach you some restraint."

"Mukuro, please!" Yomi begged. "My powers have been cut in half by this! I do have a lot of enemies, you know."

"Yeah, I know. I'm lucky that I don't have to worry about this kind of thing. Just give me a little while to research the spells necessary for this kind of undertaking, get the ingredients, the ceremonial robes, that sort of thing."

"How long will that take?"

"Oh, I dunno. Five years or so."

"Mukuro!!!"

"Gonna cut down a bit on the amorous adventures?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

"Aw, come on!"

"That's your bad habit."

"Mukuro! This is no laughing matter!"

"For me, it is. All right, earboy. I'll see what I can do, but it'll cost you."

"Anything!"

"I'll want a service from you, a favor in the future. I also want a picture of you naked."

"What, now?"

"Oh, yes! I shall have it blown up to life-size and framed. 'The Consequences of Lechery', I think I will call it."

"You can't do this to me!" Yomi wailed.

"Sure I can. Do you think you're going to find another sorcerer who won't turn you down fiat? Come on, earboy, I've got a photograper waiting in the next room."

"Did you plan this?" Yomi asked suspiciously.

"Of course not." Mukuro sniffed. "I merely knew that it had to happen at some time. Now come, boy! Or face the rest of your life as a eunuch!"

Yomi heaved a defeated sigh. "Yes, Mukuro." He said, and followed her into the next room.