"Demon Realm Thieves..." "A Thousand-Year Reunion" "620)\i1\fs60}Minamino" "Hello?" "Shuichi?" "Mom!" "Is something the matter?" "Meals?" "I'm eating fine." "Earthquake?" "You're kidding." "Are you sure you don't have the wrong place?" "I'm fine." "Everything is going well on this end." "you just have a good time on your trip." "You don't need to worry about anything at home." "I'm currently taking a phone call in the Demon Realm." "who is taking a trip." "the mother who had raised me by herself... and remarried." "and the two of them seemed very happy." "I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to your old lady's ceremony." "as he left for the Demon Realm a little before I did." "I half-forced the two of them" "though it was mostly for my own convenience." "you take care Mom." "I'm here two months after Yusuke and Hiei arrived." "I agreed to join Yomi on the battle line as an advisor." "I owed a debt to Yomi." "Demon Realm City Gandara" "Rose Whip!" "I know you're there." "you really have come." "Stop horsing around." "You even sent messengers to invite me here." "What the hell kind of greeting was that? compared to your presence before." "I wanted to see if you could really serve as an advisor to me." "then? and you go and get all cautious on me." "I'm not the same person I was before." "I am one of the three great kings of the Demon Realm. and I am out to defeat them." "huh?" "Do not think poorly of me. then they will be negligible opponents." "you will have won." "lend me your strength." "Yomi-sama..." "Yoda?" "It's almost time for the Demon Realm unification war council." "I know..." "We will allow Kurama there to take part in today's council meeting." "Escort him there for me." "This man?" "he doesn't have that great a spectral power." "Are you serious about letting this man participate in our national war council meeting?" "I am." "Come with me." "please take a look at this graph. with our own nation's overall represented as being 100. in what amounts to one-man-teams." "I will now include the projections for military strengths a year from now." "Raizen's power is down to zero!" "What does that mean?" "You're not saying...!" "Yes." "Raizen will die within the year." "Raizen's strength has already declined to the point where his life is at risk." "This information is reliable." "it is thought that any further military planning should aim to acquire the military strength flowing out as well as to dig up any able personnel from everywhere else." "Yoda?" "what do you think?" "I'd like to hear your views." "I am intrigued. let's have a look at your ingenuity and wisdom." "Assuming you have any ingenuity and wisdom to show. together with their second-strongest member after the King." "I can show you data on roughly all of the primary forces for all three nations." "the Kings and their Number-Twos will be fine." "Perhaps you cannot completely grasp it all as the numbers get larger." "then." "I will show you the data on military strength as measured by our nation's esteemed intelligence agents." "Raizen." "Mukuro." "our own King Yomi-sama." "the data on each nation's Number-Two power holder." "the Sage Priest Hokushin." "the Malevolent Headmaster Kirin." "Military Chancellor Shachi-dono." "your view? the Number-Two guy is not even skilled enough to be the King's right-hand man." "it will come down to the two remaining nations." "But there is no difference between the two King's powers." "the struggle would ordinarily come to rest in comparison to the Kings. and of no use. there's no telling who will win under these circumstances." "huh?" "That's some shabby ingenuity and wisdom you've got there. this scenario is going to change radically." "What!" "?" "The adjutant general holds the key to the organization." "all of the Number-Twos will be replaced." "What did you say!" "?" "Don't make me laugh!" "You mean that after the 500 years the power relationships between us are going to collapse that suddenly!" "?" "Shachi." "This is a newcomer saying this." "Miserable Kurama!" "I'll remember this." "That was the most interesting council meeting in a long time." "Shachi was glaring at you the whole time during your remarks. and were starting to overflow with bloodlust towards you." "You could tell that much? the flow of air around him..." "I could tell all of it." "I have become stronger." "shall we see if you're right as you believe? in order to lead Raizen's forces in the near future. has also obtained a surprising amount of power in just a short time." "Kurama." "The three of you are going to reach the Number-Two position in half a year." "isn't it?" "The adjutant general holds the key to the organization." "right? I forgot something very important." "There's someone I simply must have you meet." "Come with me." "We're here." "Who do you think it is?" "It's a man I've continually been looking for over this last thousand years." "He's the one who took my sight from me." "He's here?" "On the other side of that door?" "Yeah." "at least." "Your heartbeat has quickened." "What's the matter?" "at the shape he is in now. and his words have grown remarkably few." "I can vividly remember when I was attacked by him a thousand years ago... and I was the deputy." "Our positions were reversed." "My eyes had not yet lost their sight." "you and I were both bent on making a name for ourselves among the rising powers of the Demon Realm. and build our nation." "The method we chose in order to get both of them at once was to become thieves." "That was the most popular method in the Demon Realm." "and hot blooded." "and leapt into whatever danger there was. and attacked many castles and villages... and looked on as many subordinates were killed." "That personality of yours is going to get you killed one day." "you were calm and composed." "You had a different kind of cruelness to you. and always thought three steps ahead of others. you could say that my foolishly simple ideal of choosing death over surrender is what fueled your anxieties over any future expectations." "I probably wasn't qualified to be your deputy." "Then it happened." "I heard that there was a high-priced treasure gathered inside that castle. and led several men toward the empty ruins of a castle." "What's going on here!" "?" "What!" "?" "Who are you!" "?" "What are you after!" "?" "He was strong." "I mean in comparison to me at the time." "I'll finish you!" "W- wait!" "W- who...!" "?" "Life is more important than any reward." "That's the dig he got in at me as he left. as I always did." "you never appeared. we have come to this day." "I did not meet up with you again." "Why was that? might be able to solve that puzzle for me." "I spent a thousand years until I finally tracked him down." "What's so funny? and your heartbeat has returned to normal." "wake up!" "kill me..." "I can't take this suffering any longer..." "Very well." "You have suffered more than enough." "answer my question one more time." "who was it that ordered you to come after me?" "That terrible man with those cold eyes..." "Kurama...! I give you notice that I do not blame you." "I was certainly a fool back then." "I did in fact watch on as hundreds of our men were killed." "I probably would have done the same thing." "I probably would not have hesitated to kill me." "What do you want? I'd like for you to lend me your strength as an advisor to me." "wasn't I? in your own way." "And if I say... no?" "huh?" "What!" "?" "isn't she?" "It would be nice if that plane did not crash." "on their honeymoon after remarrying... that's B-grade material." "you... escaped to the Human Realm as a spirit body and took possession of." "Shiori. and who you so desperately focused your love on." "The first step in military strategy is to gather intelligence." "That was your teaching." "You were puzzled when you first saw me?" "Who the hell taught you how to put on such a poor charade? you are still thinking calmly." "Coming up with some way not to lose the person you hold dear... you have started thinking ahead two or three steps beyond my threat." "one way or another. rather than of affection or hatred. and what a fearsome fellow you are. and that is precisely when I will need your composure and cold-bloodedness." "Utilize those powers of yours for me." "Kurama has been enlisted as an advisor to Yomi. both carried smoldering embers of hatred toward each other that could erupt at any time."