A/N: This is total, unabashed nerd-indulgence here. About the first half of this ficlet was originally intended as part of the next chapter of "One Does Experiment"; but it would have become too long to the brink of pointless deferment from that fic's main plot, so it's getting its own fic, -let. Then it was going to be its own lemon one-shot, but the way it's formed, it would have been like 5 pages brain-tease followed by about another 5 pages mind-fuck, but wouldn't have meshed up entirely prettily; so now it's an idea split in two—this is the foreplay, the lemon will follow.

And just so you know how nerdy it really is, the second half of this ficlet was formed out of the idea of the title, which itself I got from the name of a chapter of Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge (and the crowd hisses, nerd!)—so, so unfortunate I could not make this work more cohesively into "Experiment"! Mind, I was compelled to go with that inspiration, ever since initially reading through that book, and thinking of the Shuichi/Yoko dichotomy as soon as I hit the term "mutual delimitation," defined as "each giving the other the distinctive marks of its singularity by the differentiation of its domain of application" (and the crowd hisses nerd! but I think in this situation geek! is more appropriate). But enough brain, let's get to the meat then:

The Formation of Strategies
27 February 2012

After Enki's victory in the first Makai Tournament, the more formidable contestants were given government jobs, designations which, in Demon World, tended to be more exciting than their counterparts in the Human or Spirit Worlds. It may have been a gesture of good faith on Enki's part, but there was a strategic aspect to his move as well: so employed, it was easier to keep track of the more powerful and ambitious apparitions of Demon World.

Of course, not all the Tournament's competitors jumped at the job opportunities, which was well and good—with the exception of a few. And of course, with Kurama straddling the Human-Demon divide so that he might see Yusuke and Hiei as he pleased, and occasionally play messenger, he was persuaded and contracted into a small, peripheral job for the benefit of Enki's council: keep an eye on Yomi.

Kurama found him easily enough, after only a week of searching. Because he traveled with a child, Yomi tended not to isolate himself entirely from urbanized areas, and checked in periodically with this or that contact. A brief visit with Youda in the dining hall of the main media station in Gandhara City brought Kurama to the steppes in the north, where the grasses bobbed in waves; it didn't take long for him to send out an inquiry, and receive an answer in turn. Yomi's life currently looped in a manner almost monastic in its routine and meditation—both the quiet type, and instructive fighting with Shura. Kurama saw no need to disturb him, only to watch him time to time.

Whether Yomi was aware of this voyeurism from the first or not, it did not take him long to indicate so, and one day when Kurama made his inquiries, the grasses did not reply as usual, and in fact barely made their announcements to him, before bending groundward under the weight of familiar feet.

The horned demon's greeting was warm. Their encounters had improved in their consistency, even if it'd been a while; and so Kurama found it too difficult to voice protest, when Yomi invited him to join the father-and-son hermits. It also synced up with Enki's wishes nicely, and so once every month or so, Kurama found himself camped out on the steppes, sparring or sharing stories from elsewhere in Demon World and beyond. On occasion he and Yomi would talk politics, but not often.

When those occasions did happen, they did so uncannily. Or, whichever demon broached the subject, constructed their topic so that it appeared to have occurred as such, to better ensure an amicable discussion. Such was the occasion one afternoon, following a particularly rigorous sparring session with Shura, who napped off his exhaustion, while Yomi invited Kurama to a nearby cave, to sit down with him to a "focusing activity."

Yomi practiced these activities to exercise a chosen sense, his hearing in this case, and Kurama rested quietly nearby while Yomi sat in a meditative stance, paying all his ears' attention to some sound far in the distance, too far even for Kurama's vulpine range of hearing to detect.

Or, Kurama thought it was all of Yomi's attention.

"You want to tell me something," Yomi said at last, at least half an hour into his activity.

"Pardon?" Kurama managed. The dark and cool of the cave, coupled with the sedation of his own pose, had lulled him into something other than pure consciousness, and Yomi's interruption was unexpected.

"Do you know what I am listening to?" Kurama shook his head, knowing Yomi would detect the movement. "Deep in this cave a stalactiteis being conceived; I can hear each drop of water bead and fall from the cave's ceiling, and land and trickle down the shaft being carved out by the same repetitive activity. Similarly, all this time we've sat here, I can sense a tenseness in you, a holding-back; I can almost hear each drop of intent gather and erode away your restraint. Speak."

Kurama bit his lips to restrain his smile from growing any bigger than he thought Yomi merited. "I'm pursuing higher education in the fall," he complied. "At a human university."

He heard a suppressed snort. "What could they possibly teach that you don't already know?"

Kurama had heard much the same thing when he'd told Hiei, and Yusuke too. Kuwabara had been too flattered at hearing that Kurama was vying to be his classmate to express his confusion on the matter, at first. "Things change all the time," Kurama replied. "I don't think I should stoppermy receptors just because I've surpassed others' perceived levels of capacity. Would you argue that you've reached a point where you have nothing left to learn, Yomi?"

This time Yomi did not suppress his snort. "I have learned to accept your choices, and accept that you make them according to some logic that makes sense to you." He paused, then continued, "And I trust that your sharing with me, means there is something else you have not shared yet."

That did merit a smile. "They want you to return to the city," Kurama told him. "To take a place on the council. They want you for Intelligence." He slipped a look at Yomi while he said this.

Pensive as ever, which told Kurama nothing. "They want me present because you will be less present to watch me," Yomi restated. "Isn't that right?"

Ah but he was perceptive. Kurama wouldn't lie. "You're too powerful to suddenly slip off the grid," he confirmed. "They would rather you work with them and be accounted for, than risk you floating and possibly turning against them, especially due to your previous endorsements."

"Regarding the humans, you mean."

Yomi had been "staring" at him in the relative quiet of the cave for some time. Now Kurama looked him full in the face, knowing that he knew he did. "Yes, Yomi. You're not the only one that disagrees with the new decree, but you're more formidable than the current active dissenters, should you ever choose to join their ranks." He paused, then added, "Or lead their ranks. You're a megalomaniac, a natural dictator."

Silence in the cavern. Ruptured at last by Yomi laughing.

"And what about you, Kurama? Do you share the council's opinion, or are you going along with it for your own convenience?"

Silence again. Yomi bared his teeth, self-righteous amusement glowing in the near dark. "Life," he pronounced, when Kurama did not respond, "is a series of compromises and strategies, you're the perfect person to understand that. You compromise your personal principles in order to play out a particular situation and come out on top at the end, isn't that correct?"

Kurama inhaled deeply. Cautiously: "I'm unsure what you're referring to."

"Of course," Yomi egged on, "sometimes we opt to turn the outcome, before it turns out. You and I both know that first hand, I believe. Are we less satisfied with where we turned out, for deviating from the plans we first laid down?"

Ah. "Truth is versatile," Kurama agreed. "Or rather, its range, the mediums utilized to seek it out, its contexts. I believe in adaptation. I believe in one's ability to surpass their material confines and attain a greater—perspective." To anyone else he might have said "vision." He didn't look at Yomi, because metaphors aside, Yomi couldn't look at him.

Nonetheless he smiled, knowing that Yomi would know he did. "I encourage it. I also believe that sometimes it is because of our material confines, that we are able to attain new, perhaps better—experiences, perceptions. Our discourse right now vindicates that: once you would have appealed to me on basis of my pride; now you do so on that of my conscience. You have adapted to my adaptation."

"And you want to go to school," remarked Yomi wryly, and Kurama felt that the smirk on his lips was an echo, a revanche against the one on the Fox's own. "But ethos and pathos aside, what I'm appealing to you for…?"

"For my opinion?" Kurama thought, took a breath, and said slowly, thoughtfully, "Chauvinist though you are,"—Yomi snorted—"I do think, with the obvious exception of Yusuke, that you are certainly the most humanized—or, rather, humanistic—demon in power; or you would be, if you accept this position. I don't mean it insultingly," he quickly added; Yomi's face, visible in the shadows, had itself become shadowed with skepticism. "You may have a dictator's personality, but you're not feudalistic, and you don't cling to dusty self-immolating ideals, which I cannot say for other leaders, for all else they may have done beneficially. Stubborn as you can be, you've also shown yourself more willing to step forward, more often." He paused. "The obvious matter of the humans excepted."

Yomi was clearly amused. "You don't give speeches of quite this temper around your other friends, do you?" he ventured. "Kurama, I'm touched."

Something in his tone, both mocking and genuine. "I'm sincere," Kurama deflected. "Gandhara is the closest experience I have of the modernized Human World, while retaining full knowledge that I walk on Demon soil. Whether that is intentional or coincidental, it shows that you can progress beyond your biases—"

"What are my biases against the Human World, Kurama?" Yomi broke in, in that tone that was knowingly, tactically curious. "You've used the word 'chauvinism' and I'll accept that; but what are my particular interests in human flesh, if you'll assess that?"

Kurama paused, thinking. "Libertine," he replied. "Possessive."

"Nationalist," Yomi rebutted flatly, as though it were obvious.

That one was unexpected. "Beg pardon?" asked the Fox.

Yomi bared his teeth, as much an expression of challenge and reprimand, as of mirth at Kurama's expense. "When seeking one unifying factor for a population as diverse as Demon World's, what is the most visceral? Food. That's a practical tool to wield regardless of personal sentiments, wouldn't you agree?"

Kurama stared at him one moment; two. "The opportunity for such a tool is past," he regained. "But you can adapt. I believe you can adapt. I think you should accept Enki's offer, not to assuage any apprehensions, or misapprehensions as it may be; but because you could become the most beneficial member of his cabinet if you so choose. Keep Demon world strong during this transitional time."

Silence. Yomi appeared broodingly thoughtful. Kurama thought he heard water dripping somewhere, unless that was his ears ringing.

Finally: "The Wheel of Fortune spins round and round again," Yomi mused, "though no two outcomes are ever quite the same, are they? You believe the worlds are merging once again like they were back then, don't you?"

The Fox nodded. "They are moving that way, yes, but they will interact differently."

"Of course," Yomi humored. "They will adapt. You adapted. I adapted." In a slightly different tone: "I can adapt. Will you adapt?" The inquired one furrowed his brow and Yomi smiled a mocking smile. "They are moving that way," he repeated. "And you want me to be, not the enforcer like your friends who rove the border, but the administrator, the integrator. But would I not perform my job best with the occasional consultation of someone who has actually been integrated?"

Those were his terms, then. Not unreasonable, and it could have been worse; he could have opted for the more sneering "assimilate" over "integrate"; he could have chosen something more demanding than "occasional." "And someone like Yusuke would not do," Kurama tested.

"Urameshi's situation is the inversion," Yomi confirmed. "He would not do."

"I see," he said deliberately. Yomi's mocking smile again. "And you think it's a modest demand, don't you?"

"From a 'dictator', yes. I can adapt. Will you?"

Kurama pursed his lips. "I am ever adapting," was his answer, superficially resentful.

Yomi laughed, not mockingly. "They will move that way," he said. "But they will interact differently."

Kurama seized the phrasing's open potential. "Nothing exploitative," he stipulated cautiously.

"On either end," rejoined the blind demon placatingly. His face smoothed in relaxed sobriety, surety. "Exploitative? No, the time for that is past. I would think that 'mutualistic' is more contemporary."

"'Mutualistic' is acceptable," Kurama conceded.

Yomi smirked. "I'm glad we're in agreement." Then: "What are your interests in human flesh, Kurama?"

Taken aback, confused: "Excuse me?"

"Very well then," he dismissed. "What are my interests in human flesh?"

Somewhere water dripped, forming a stalagmite. "Mutualistic?" he tested.

Yomi laughed, and Kurama tensed—the ex-king, future attaché was rising, using his knee as a brace. The other demon, horned demon, larger demon—larger even from this position, Yomi standing now and he still sitting—bared down his teeth again, and Kurama was unable to tell what that connoted: pleasure, in what?; challenge, taken or issued?; hunger—for—?

"Libertine," Yomi said. "Possessive." The lips pressed together thoughtfully, and then split again, just a hint of teeth showing now as he added, "Chauvinistic, yet. But not exploitative; perhaps mutualistic." That full, mocking grin. "I can believe in fair exchange. I can adapt."

Kurama stared at the rocky floor, the gravel and the dust, a tad disturbed. "Can you accept?" he asked.

Humorously: "Don't I accept you, Kurama?" The Fox looked up; Yomi was already walking toward the cave's entrance, or exit. "My son has wakened," he explained over his shoulder. "Tell Enki I accept his position, if you'll accept mine."

Of course: Kurama pulled Yomi back and Yomi pulled him in. That was mutualistic, wasn't it? He hesitated to ask that Yomi elaborate his intent behind that word, position.

Nonetheless, he climbed to his feet, brushed off those bits of the cave floor that cling to him, and cautiously, because it was best to move cautiously when you did not see as well in the dark, the new consul followed Yomi toward the sunlight.

A/N: "A discursive formation does not occupy therefore all the possible volume that is opened up to it of right by the systems of formation of its objects, its enunciations, and its concepts; it is essentially incomplete, owing to the system of formation of its strategic choices. Hence the fact that, taken up again, placed, and interpreted in a new constellation, a given discursive formation may reveal new possibilities […]" – Foucault 67.

NERD! XP