Demon Sword
A Yuyu Hakusho/Rurouni Kenshin Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Ghost hunting might not be a bad idea.
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 28: Homework Never Ends (Part 3)
"Ah! Big Bro! What brings you here?" was what Shota didn't say from behind Yusuke Urameshi because the only time they ever interacted was when the older boy pretended to be a mustachioed bad guy who was out to bring his deceased dog Jiro to Hell if he didn't stop crying about the poor earthbound canine.
The little boy instead queried, "Hey, Mister! How much for two bowls?" as he dug into his pockets for his allowance. "Never mind, I saw the price list!" He proceeded to pay the man for the food.
'Ah. The little brat doesn't even remember me. Well, granted, he only saw me twice in his lifetime, and that was when he was dreaming or half-conscious, but still...' thought Yusuke.
"Shota-kun, I though we were going to go on a picnic! We're supposed to eat at the park!" complained a girl the same age as the bespectacled boy.
"I already paid for it, Iori!" protested Shota. He then tilted his head to the side as he stared at the gel-haired ramen cook. He'd almost asked if he met the guy before. Maybe this person bullied him in the past...?
Iori noticed Puu sitting atop Yusuke's head. "Wow! That looks so cute. Is that the mascot of your restaurant, Mister?"
"This?" The cook scratched his head. "Oh... this is a doll." The blue bird... thing gave the ramen vendor woodpecker pecks on his scalp in response. "OW! Okay, fine. Not a doll. It's a... What's it called, Keiko? How am I supposed to...? I mean, it's called a Plate Pussy."
Yusuke flinched as his head snapped back, with one of his cheeks reddening. Was he having an allergic reaction? Shota hated those. "PLATYPUS! IT'S A PLATYPUS! Whatever that is... Duck beaver. Yeah."
"...W-What?" Shota's friend Iori blurted out. "O-Okay. Platypus, huh? Did you steal it from the zoo, Mister?"
"...Your bowl of soup is ready, Princess! Eat up. I'll get your boyfriend's order in a minute," the presumably out-of-school youth cut Iori off, the supposed "pet" atop his head establishing the pecking order.
'What a weirdo,' thought Shota as he shook his head, his mouth a straight, flat line of expressionless disbelief. Regardless, for whatever reason, the thirteen-year-old kid wanted to punch the ramen vendor's face, and he didn't know why. What had gotten into him? He'd never even met the guy, and he wanted to punch him.
"Uh, is there something the matter, kid?" the hooligan-haired cook asked as he handed Shota his ramen. "Do I have condiments on my face?"
"N-Nothing." Shota waved the short-order cook off.
"Okay. If you say so," Yusuke shrugged as he went about cleaning his cooking utensils.
"It happened again," Iori blurted out after she joined Shota on the bench attached to Yusuke's ramen cart and gently slurped her noodles.
"What happened again?" Shota asked as he slurped his own noodles even more daintily than his female companion.
"That. The thing we talked about before," she answered while lightly wiping her mouth with a napkin. "It's starting to really freak me out. Those weird sounds. My dolls and dresses flying out of my closet by themselves. My stuff moving from room to room without my knowledge. It's getting really creepy in our house."
Iori dabbed her eyes with another napkin. "My parents wouldn't even believe me when I tell them about those weird occurrences. They keep saying it's all in my imagination. You're the only one I can count on, Shota-kun," she declared while holding the boy's hands.
The tomato-faced Shota answered, "I-It must be a p-poltergeist. I've read as much as I could about it in the library, but that wasn't enough, so I looked through the b-b-bookstore on the o-occult section." He swallowed the frog in his throat. "Y-You can count on m-me!"
Iori said, "It's settled then! Let's go back to my house after our picnic."
The red-faced and fidgeting Shota replied, "Eh? EH?"
"I had my doubts, but you came through, Sayaka-chan! We actually have a case to solve for Keiko's sake thanks to your insistence on revisiting Shota-kun," whispered Yusuke to Sayaka after his two preteen customers bowed and started to leave.
As though waking up from a flowery, sparkle-filled daze, Sayaka crowed while her wandering eyes followed the exiting thirteen-year-olds, "Huh? A case? What case?"
Yusuke sweated salty liquids while Keiko perspired ectoplasm. "N-Never mind," they chorused.
The mansion that Yusuke, Keiko, Sayaka, and Puu ended up in while following the two preteen lovebirds after a day of picnicking sported a ceiling so high, the house could double as an assembly hall.
The spacious abode sported an overhanging television set that Yusuke only saw in brochures for five-star hotels and resorts, ornate carpets Sayaka could've sworn were props for an old-fashioned sword-and-sandal Hollywood movie, and glass windows and doors galore that reminded Keiko of the Western saying of, "Don't throw rocks if you live in a glass house."
"Goddamn. Where the hell did we end up in? A museum or an opera house? This place is huge! Does this even count as a residential home?" said Yusuke in a low voice while hiding behind one of many statues, trees, and other structures across Iori's equally spacious and bricked front yard... a yard so big, the trio (or quartet, if one would count Puu) had a hard time telling where the neighborhood ended and the girl's immense property began.
As for Puu, he interacted with the local "wildlife", flying around with the birds and the bees while Yusuke swatted after him. "What the hell has gotten into you, you stupid bird monster? We're in stealth mode right now, dammit!"
"I wonder what Botan would do right about now?" wondered Sayaka aloud as she and Keiko followed after Shota and Iori within the mansion, ignoring Yusuke as he made a commotion outside the yard alongside the penguin-shaped, floppy-eared spirit beast.
"The ramen vendor from earlier is following us," was the first thing Keiko and Sayaka overheard Iori say to Shota while sitting across the couch of the mansion's enormous guestroom. "He's been following us all this time. Is he a pedophile?"
Shota forced out laughter that strained his constricted throat. "You're right. I can even see him playing with his flying pet penguin thing right now. I'm surprised none of your bodyguards caught him yet."
Actually, Yusuke took care of all the mansion's impressive security details in ten seconds flat.
With moist eyes, Iori grabbed hold of Shota's sleeves and shrieked, "Shota-kun! He's like the Otaku Murderer from four years ago! He even has that strange platypus thing to lure children in his dark-tinted van! He's even scarier than the ghost I was talking about! We have to call the police!"
"Eh?" mumbled Shota before regaining his senses and running towards the nearest phone. "I'm right on it, Iori-chan!"
"AH, OKAY! I'M GOING! I'M GOING! I heard you loud and clear the first time! This is not what it looks like! There's no need to involve any cops!" Yusuke called out to the kids within the house after capturing Puu.
The last thing he wanted was to ruin Keiko's first mission. He also wanted to apologize for the beat-up security team within the area, but he had enough common sense to hold his tongue at the last minute. However, he wanted to make one thing perfectly clear.
"I'm going... BUT I'M NOT A PEDOPHILE!"
"What a considerate pedophile. Bye-bye, Lolicon-ojisan!" was Iori's sudden one-eighty after realizing that the weirdo ramen vendor was leaving without a fight, seemingly not hearing what he'd said afterwards.
"WHAT DID I JUST SAY? I don't have a Lolita complex and I'm not a dirty old man either!" protested Yusuke as he jumped over the ten-foot wall.
Unfortunately, Puu chose that moment to escape Urameshi's grasp and nibble at the half-demon's belt, which caused his pants to drop to his heels and reveal his black briefs for all to see (he had a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for briefs, and a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule for boxers; Sunday was a surprise).
Iori screeched and covered her eyes while a pale-faced Shota fell on his posterior, the policeman on the other line shouting, "Hello? What's going on there? Is this a prank call?"
"JUST GO AWAY ALREADY, YOU MORON!" Keiko screamed at her boyfriend... or perhaps ex-boyfriend by the time this mission was over... after throwing a stone that hit the struggling Yusuke straight on the noggin and knocked him over the wall with Puu in tow. "Jeez, does he really have to embarrass himself every time?"
"AH! Where'd that rock come from?" asked Shota, his drooping lower jaw seemingly unhinged from its sockets.
"I told you that our house was haunted!" answered a trembling Iori as she tackled Shota, her skin as white as eggshells.
'Stupid Yusuke.'
Distracted by how her disembodied (to Shota and Iori) rock throw at Yusuke affected the pair of kids before her, Keiko failed to notice the firecracker gunshots from beyond the wall, her focus reserved solely on the two petrified children.
"Ah, I shouldn't have done that." Keiko bowed at the shuffling and turning preteens repeatedly and apologetically, even though they couldn't see her.
"Never mind that, Big Sis! At least we can now get to the bottom of their ghostly problems!" reassured Sayaka. The little ghost girl took a look at her clipboard and filled in her poltergeist report.
"I guess we should first make sure that this really is a ghoul or not. Anyway, although I'm a student ferry-girl, I'm still authorized to deliver souls to the nearest shinigami available."
"Uh-huh," muttered Keiko as she scrambled her brains over the stories Yusuke told concerning his quest for resurrection. No matter how she rationalized it, all of Yusuke's missions were solved through his own pigheaded stubbornness and inherent luckiness.
Was that what she was supposed to do to? Recklessly confront challenges head-first and rely on luck she might not even have to pull her through? She didn't even have demon blood or an ability to defy fate itself either!
Three years ago, all she needed to worry about was getting her delinquent childhood friend to school. How did it all come to this?
"Uh? Keiko-neechan? Hello?" Sayaka waved her hand in front of the dazed Keiko. "You shouldn't worry about this mission too much. We're just testing out the waters. Maybe we're not facing an onryo. Maybe it's a zashiki-warashi like I was before."
"Oh, right! I guess you were a zashiki-warashi. But aren't those types of ghosts a lot more concerned with pranks than, well... you know. What you did," Keiko pointed out before realizing her insensitivity. "My apologies. I said something I shouldn't have."
"Oh, it's okay." Incidentally, the onryo were vengeful spirits straight out of purgatory, while the zashiki-warashi were the ghosts of children who were often mischievous instead of dangerous. As a result, Sayaka appended, "I guess not all ghosts of children are harmless, huh?"
"I-I guess." Keiko nodded while biting her lip. "Although I am hoping that the ghost we're dealing with is a zashiki-warashi."
Once Shota had Iori (and himself) calmed down from their encounter with the "child predator" and the supernatural, they proceeded straight into Iori's room, which turned out to be more of an entire wing of the house than a mere room.
On one part of Iori's room lay what looked like an exhibit of dolls of all shapes and sizes: A toy store full of mannequins and marionettes, to be exact. Were it owned by a thirty-year-old NEET (not in education, employment, or training) man living in his parent's home, he'd be called a potential psycho.
"Oh, pretty! Look at all those dolls," marveled Sayaka. "Iori must have been born with a silver spoon in her mouth to have this many toys. My parents couldn't even afford to buy me one doll."
"They're kind of creeping me out, to be honest. It's like they're staring right through my soul... in a manner of speaking," confessed Keiko.
While "normal girl" tea parties were held with imaginary cups of tea while talking to stuffed animals, Iori's tea party came with lovely female servants fully decked in uniforms typically seen in Akihabara maid cafes and ceramic tea sets worth more than a school year's worth of Shota's tuition to Sarayashiki Junior High.
The imported green tea itself had a foreign name that the preteen boy couldn't identify. He did remember the maid say that it was manufactured by a tea company that held all three Royal Warrants or something to that effect. 'What does that even mean?' he thought.
"Hey, Shota-kun. My parents are away at work for once instead of following my every movement. The only people here are the servants and my bodyguards. We're practically alone." Iori's mouth curved ever so slightly as she saw her favorite male companion turn beet red over her statement.
'Eh? EH? Is that something junior high students should be saying to each other? Even Yusuke never pulled anything like this on me...'
Keiko's eyes swirled at the boldness of the two children before her. From behind her, the servants tittered at the scene while she herself remained unseen to the naked eye.
"Ah? Well... Um. Yeah." Shota fidgeted he stubbed his toe on one of the table legs, dropped his glasses, and nearly shattered the cup of tea given to him, his unseeing eyes darting back and forth like he were a trapped animal of some sort. "D-Do you regularly invite boys back to your m-mansion?"
Keiko then heard Sayaka sigh from behind her as the spirit guide trainee reminisced about all the good times she spent with her former puppy love.
As Yusuke nursed his sore head on the other side of the wall he just fell over, he caught Puu by the stomach and shook him around like a bell.
"What is up with you today? This is the last time I'm taking you with me in a mission, y'hear?" admonished Urameshi as he pulled at the spirit beast's mouth as though he were an errant child. The sleek-haired teenager then felt a shudder up the back of his neck, which prompted him to turn around.
"We finally found you, kid... if you really are a kid. Those were some pretty nifty moves you did there. Did you use some sort of knockout gas or something on us?"
The retired Spirit World Detective soon found himself surrounded by a multitude of men who sported greasy hair, tinted sunglasses, black ties, black shoes, white shirts, and black suits. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear he just broke into a yakuza hideout, Area 51, or a black-tie affair for blind people.
"Huh. You're all still alive and kicking, eh? I'm impressed. Usually when I punch humans, they stay down." Yusuke smirked.
"Who are you? Are you a spy? An assassin? Were you hired by one of our masters' enemies from rival companies?" grilled one of the men in black."
"I don't know who the hell you are and how you were able to knock out the front yard guards, but we won't let you soil Iori-sama's pristine virtue!" said the seeming leader of the aforementioned eighty-eight bodyguards employed by Iori's parents to safeguard their precious daughter as they brandished enough weapons and armaments to conquer an entire city, or at least bring down a drug cartel.
"Fine by me. I was kind of getting bored babysitting those two middle school lovebirds anyway." Yusuke's knuckles crackled while Puu rested on his shoulder like a parrot would to a stereotypical pirate captain. "Wait, did you just say I'm after the little girl's virtue? That's messed up! You've got it all...!"
The wall exploded from the simultaneous impact of a hundred or so bullets. Nevertheless, it was enough to wake the Class-A Yusuke from his stupor over being accused of pedophilia and unleash just as many fists against all those bullets.
Meanwhile, Iori tilted her head to the side and brushed back a stray strand of hair over her eyes. "Nope. You're the first boy I've invited to my house."
"Y-Yeah. I-It's because of t-the ghost, right? So that I can h-help you get rid of it."
She shrugged. "I guess."
"Y-You seem quite f-forward today, Iori-chan," the boy mumbled under his breath, his sweaty head as red and piping hot as a freshly steamed lobster.
"Not really. If you want to talk about daring, then that would have to be you, Shota-kun," said Iori, her mouth curved upwards and her eyes closed in bliss. "You were shy and quiet when we first became classmates back in elementary, right? You were also a bit of a crybaby."
Shota deflated like an untied balloon upon hearing... or rather discovering... that her childhood friend of three years was aware of his days as a introverted loner who was regularly bullied for his utter spinelessness.
"Y-Yeah. I'm surprised you remembered me back then when I... was like that."
With sultry eyes and a cat's smile, Iori asked, "What made you change, I wonder? Was it love? Was it a girl?"
'It was actually a dog,' Shota thought before waving Iori off. "I haven't changed all that much. I still wear glasses. I'm still a huge nerd. I still get bullied at school."
"You're now friends with some of your former bullies. You're a lot more talkative now. Even though people do tease you, everyone wants to hang out with you because you know a lot of interesting stuff," Iori countered, smirking. "I was so impressed when you started to become more confident with yourself."
"I-I'm not all that brave," a turnip bearing Shota's face, hairdo, and signature glasses insisted. "My heart still does the conga every time I'm asked to speak in front of class. I-I even nearly drowned in our swimming class's final exams!"
"I know you're scared. It's kind of cute how you still stand up to people even though you're the same ol' Shota-kun deep down inside." Iori giggled. "But isn't it braver for a person to do things although they're afraid to do them? That's something I've always admired about you."
A blushing Keiko and Sayaka flanked the pair on both sides, the floating specters watching the scene unfold before them as though it were an afternoon television drama as Iori and Shota looked away from each other in smiling embarrassment.
"I wish I were as brave as you. I wish I could stand up for myself. I... barely get to do anything anymore. It can get kind of lonely here, caged around in this house like a bird. Even if it's still a couple of weeks till we start junior high, I'm really looking forward to being there with you, Shota-kun."
"Oooh! I like the atmosphere that these two are having! They're so lovey-dovey!" said Sayaka.
"Is it really all right for you to cheer Shota on like this, Sayaka-chan?" hissed Keiko even though she had no reason to whisper. "Didn't you have a crush on this kid?"
"It's okay," said Sayaka. "My one-sided love doesn't compare to their mutual affection."
"Sayaka-chan..."
"Iori-chan, I..." began Shota.
"Ah! Can you wait a minute, Shota-kun? I have something to show you."
"S-Sure. What is it?" Shota asked, but Iori had already gone straight for her closet that, for any normal tenant, was large enough to be an entire apartment in and of itself.
"Ah, you were almost there, Shota-kun. Hang in there," Sayaka cheered as her ectoplasmic tears cascaded over her cheeks.
"Um, Sayaka-chan? We should go. I don't think there's a poltergeist here at all. That was only an excuse Iori-chan made to get Shota-kun in her home," Keiko said, while adding to herself, 'I think you already knew that from the start, didn't you, Sayaka-chan?'
Sayaka pouted. "Just a few more minutes, Keiko-neechan! I swear we'll be hunting for real ghosts afterwards!"
"WE'RE NOT WATCHING A TV DRAMA! Didn't your mother teach you not to snoop into other people's business? Let's go!" Keiko dragged Sayaka by the hem of her dress's collar while the latter shrieked, "I don't want to go! Things are just getting good! Even my mother would cheer me on!"
After a couple of minutes, while Keiko struggled with an adamant Sayaka, Iori came out wearing a familiar uniform that made the ghost of the comatose girl gasp.
"Wait a second! I know that uniform! That's the same uniform I used to wear! Oh, Iori-chan mentioned something about going to Sarayashiki too..." Keiko trailed off.
"What do you think? Does it look good on me?" Iori asked Shota, and of course the thirteen-year-old boy responded accordingly, stating, "Yes! You look very cute in that outfit, Iori-chan! It suits you quite well! I can't wait for us to start going to Sarayashiki Junior High!"
Iori giggled, her skirt swaying back and forth along with her hips as she held her cheeks with her palms. "I'm so happy that you..."
"Iori! WHO IS THAT BOY AND WHAT IS HE DOING IN OUR HOUSE?" boomed the last voice Iori wanted to hear at the time.
"PAPA? I thought you had a party to attend to!" screamed Iori as her gaze wandered all over the room for a hole she could crawl through right then and there.
For Shota's part, he clutched his chest, froze up, held his breath, sweated rivulets of ice-cold saltiness, and fell sideward to the floor like a stiff cardboard sign blown away by a wayward breeze. A leg of his twitched from time to time afterwards.
"I can't believe you'd do something like this, Iori! How could you bring back boys to your room while believing that we were away, thinking that you'd be alone with them?" the pearl-wearing mother of Iori berated, her svelte figure, tiara-accentuating updo, and black dress reminding Keiko of a Hollywood poster for a movie whose name she couldn't recall.
'The only thing that's missing is a cigarette holder.' The astral projection of the comatose Yukimura noted.
"I was hoping you'd prove your father wrong when we stayed behind, but then this happens. I am so disappointed." The mouth of Iori's mother puckered for a cigarette holder or cigarette that, as Keiko observed, wasn't there.
"Why can't either of you trust me? You never let me do anything on my own! I-I mean, Shota-kun is just a classmate of mine from school! A classmate! There's nothing between us at all!" a panicked Iori blathered to her parents as they both shook their heads and turned their backs on her.
A different pain entered the pale and worn Shota upon hearing Iori's denials; they were pinpricks, but they plunged right into his heart.
"You're forbidden to see this boy ever again. In fact, I'm sending you to an all-girls school instead of that Sarayashiki Junior High School you've insisted on enrolling to," came the ultimatum of Iori's business-suited and mustachioed father.
"Eh?" Shota blurted out. Everything was happening way too fast. Wasn't he supposed to help Iori with her ghost problem? What was going on?
"Father, that's a bit too harsh," balked Iori's Mama at her husband while their daughter dropped to her knees, her eyes moist and red.
"It's about time we disciplined her, Mother. We've spoiled her far too much. This is for her own good," Iori's Papa maintained as he adjusted his tie.
"Spoil me? SPOIL ME? You two have SUFFOCATED me! Living in this house is like living in a PRISON!" Everyone fell silent and held their breaths after hearing what Iori had squeaked out. For a second or two, those present wondered if they'd gone deaf because of how quiet the room was.
Shota in particular clutched his head and covered his mouth as his vision blurred and warped. Iori, who was so demure and ladylike that she'd probably flinch, yelp, and hide away into a corner at the mere sight of plates breaking, had just answered back her father's decision to separate the two of them. He didn't know if he should feel happy or alarmed at such a gesture.
At that point, the predictable shouting match between everyone involved (save a couple of eavesdropping ghosts) commenced.
"YES! Yes, you're spoiled! Have you taken a look at your room? Your closet? How can you be so ungrateful to us? We provided your every whim! Bought you clothes! Brought you toys! Let you go to whichever school suited your fancy! And you have the audacity...!"
"YOU CAN'T BUY YOUR DAUGHTER'S LOVE! You're always so strict with my grades! All I do is study and play with dolls! You never let me out of the house! I'm always supposed to act like the perfect little girl! Is that all I am to you? A trophy you can brag about to others? I never get to have any fun!"
"Fun? FUN? What do you want to do for FUN? The next thing I know, you'll be parading around in pastel clothes, knee-high socks, and dyed hair while dating middle-aged businessmen who are much older than I am! THERE'S NO WAY I'D ALLOW THAT!"
"Father, you're overreacting. She's a good girl and she made a mistake. Hasn't she been a good girl all this time? Hasn't she done all her homework and passed all her tests with flying colors? Let's ground her and be done with it."
"We have to discipline her now, Mother! Can't you see she's already giving us lip?"
"She's right, Sir! She's a perfect student back in our elementary school! She aces all her tests, a-and she was even ranked high among the people who t-took their entrance tests in Sarayashiki Junior High!"
"YOU! Keep quiet. Stay out of this! This is a family matter!"
"Papa...!"
"Father..."
"I bet her grades have been dipping slightly because of that boy over there! She's just a child! As soon as we take our eyes off of her, something might happen to her, and by that time, it'll be too late for regrets! Don't you remember the last time we were lax with our children?"
"Father, please. I don't want to remember that."
"I'VE NEVER FORGOTTEN! S-She doesn't know any better. I'd die before I let her be friends with a suspicious boy like that! What we're doing is all for her sake anyway, right? She should stop acting so spoiled and respect her mother and father for once! I only want to protect Ake... Iori."
"...Protect me? PROTECT ME? You don't even remember my name at times! You keep calling me by someone else's name, even! My name is Iori! I AM NOT AKE...!"
In an instant, Iori's father grabbed hold of his daughter's collar and slapped her so hard, a button from her Sarayashiki uniform popped out.
"I don't want to hear another word from you, young lady. Stay inside this room. You're not going to Sarayashiki Junior High, and that's final. As for you, young man, our maids can escort you out of this house."
For the longest time, Akemi stared at the towering figure of her father as she lay there on the floor, her face stinging more with shock and humiliation than actual pain.
"Iori-chan, please understand your Papa's..." her mother began, but Iori wouldn't hear any of it.
"PAPA, I HATE YOU!" Iori screamed as she ran past her father and the boy that inspired her to finally speak up for herself after years and years of constant academic pressure and overprotective parents.
Once again, Yusuke stood in the middle of a devastated lot, surrounded by well-dressed bodies strewn all around, fighting with only his pinky finger raised.
He sighed. 'I hate bullying the weak. Maybe I should've stayed in Makai for more than three years. Hell, if I did, then maybe I wouldn't have to deal with this Kugai nonsense.'
The leader of the Dark Martial Arts Tournament's Urameshi Team came face-to-face with the leader of the bodyguards hired to protect the little girl that called him a pedophilic pervert a while back.
"Haven't you've had enough? You've impressed me, though. If it weren't for you, then I wouldn't have been forced to raise my pinky at all."
"BASTARD! I'LL CAVE YOUR FACE IN!" roared the captain of the guards.
"A swing and a miss," mocked Yusuke while dodging his enemy's punch.
As the lead bodyguard lost his balance, Yusuke flicked his pinky finger and, in true Younger Toguro fashion, the force of his action was enough to collapse the abdomen of the persistent bodyguard and empty his lungs of air.
The yojimbo's sunglasses fell off his face as he dropped to his knees and vomited the contents of his stomach. Even at the reduced power level of Class-A, the half-demon remained a force to be reckoned with against mortal men.
"No. Not again. I've failed to protect our precious princess. I'm so sorry, Iori-sama..."
'What a drama queen,' Yusuke mused as he kicked the gangster-looking agent around to see if he were alive and breathing. 'He knew he didn't stand a chance and he still fought me. Who does he think he is? Kuwabara Kazuma?'
The almost seventeen-year-old boy's eyes furrowed. 'Wait. Did he say, 'Not again'? Did this bullshit happen before?'
Puu squawked at Yusuke just as the ex-Reikai Tantei felt the dark presence of jealousy and resentment personified appear within the spacious confines of Shota's (kind of) girlfriend's mansion.
"Holy shit, there's your poltergeist."
"We saw something we weren't supposed to see, didn't we?" queried Keiko, to which Sayaka could only answer with a nod. "Let's go. We've seen enough."
"How dare you." Three simple words, yet their impact shook the room and put the world to a seeming standstill.
"S-Sayaka-chan?" stuttered Keiko as her guardian ferry-girl-in-training clutched her body and moaned in pain. "What's going on?"
"I can feel it... that pain. Loneliness. Jealousy. I can't breathe, Big Sis. It's the same pain I felt when... when... I tried bringing Shota along with me to Heaven. Someone else is suffering the same pain."
As the crying Iori was about to exit her own room, she felt something tug at her dress. It was her expensive, life-sized porcelain doll that was about four feet or so tall.
It murmured something at Iori before it raised its heavyset head. Even though it lacked the moving parts and full articulation to do so, it opened its pursed mouth and hyperventilated. Its chest swelled and contracted. Its shoulders were raised so high that they came into contact with its stubby neck.
Iori afterwards fell down to the floor as the Goldilocks-like doll with golden curls proportionately grew every time it sucked in air like a sputtering, secondhand car. The girl lying beside its feet gagged and choked, her complexion turning blue, as the doll siphoned the air within the room unto itself.
"P-Please stop... W-Why are you doing this?" beseeched Iori as she coughed, wheezed, and saw the darkness creep at the edges of her vision.
"No. It can't be. The poltergeist was real?" Keiko said to herself, fear and awe gripping her as her mind raced on what she could possibly do against such a beast.
"Iori!" Shota and Iori's Papa shouted in unison while the mother screamed for her servants and her bodyguards to do something and protect their precious only child.
At the back of Shota's mind, a mantra of 'The poltergeist is real,' repeated itself over and over.
"Where are our bodyguards? Where are our maids and butlers? Somebody, anybody... HELP US!" shrieked Iori's Mama.
Keiko and Sayaka could only float there in midair as they helplessly watched Shota and the rest of Iori's family collapse to the ground while the (they guessed) possessed doll continued to grow. The porcelain facade of the toy broke open, revealing hints of exposed muscle tissue and tendons. Something unthinkable lay beneath that plaything's surface.
"What the heck is that thing? Is that supposed to be a shinentai? A monster? I've never seen anything like it!" Keiko said as she tried to figure out what was going on. "And how is it suffocating them? By sucking in all the air? That only works if we're in an enclosed space!"
"We better do something, Big Sis! Or else we won't be the only ghosts floating around in this mansion!" Sayaka beckoned Keiko, but the latter had no clue what to do. It wasn't even about raising her karma to wake her up from her coma anymore; other lives were at stake this time around.
"...B-But what can we do?" Keiko asked, and the novice shinigami had no answers.
"Papa. Mama. I can't breathe... It hurts... H-Help me," Iori mumbled as her glassy eyes stared into nothingness.
"Iori!" Although he himself couldn't breathe, his chest constricting so tightly it felt like his heart and lungs were on the verge of bursting, Iori's daddy crawled towards his sweaty, breathless daughter and attempted to drag her away out of the monstrous mannequin's proverbial clutches.
"DAMMIT, leave my daughter alone!" Iori's Papa punched the overgrown doll repeatedly, making its porcelain facade crack until the skin of his knuckles got torn away by the sharp shards. Inside the toy were strips of exposed muscle tissue, tendons, and cartilage, as if there were a living organism inside of it.
"Why her, not me?" was the last thing the middle-aged father heard before he passed out altogether with a chop on the head by the titanic mannequin.
"Mister...!" shouted Shota as he struggled to stand and walk despite his lightheadedness. For one reason or another, a feeling of deja vu enveloped his heart.
Flashes of Shota battling a mustachioed villain who had his dog Jiro chained up as well as visions of a long-haired, pale-skinned little girl in pajamas swam inside the surface of his mind. "LEAVE Iori-CHAN ALONE, YOU MONSTER!"
The blonde monstrosity turned and expelled a blast of air that flung Shota right into the glass shrine full of a variety of variegated dolls.
"SHOTA-KUN!" screamed Sayaka as she tried to catch the boy in mid-flight, but he ended up passing through her and crashing into the display case anyway. It took her several minutes to turn and rush towards the unmoving body of her first crush.
Keiko winced and covered her mouth at the resulting crash and pool of blood. Was this really happening? 'Do something. Dammit, do something!' she inwardly screamed at her frozen astral body. Back in the hospital where her body lay, her blood pressure and heart rate rose in response to what her soul was seeing.
"Please don't kill my family! Take me instead! I don't want to lose another one of them. I beg of you!" beseeched the mother. The ogre of guts and porcelain grabbed the woman and enveloped it into a hug. Iori's mother then heard it say, "We'll be together always," as it crushed the life out of her.
Soon, only ghosts and goblins were left standing and cognizant within Iori's room while the rest of the girl's family, herself, and her elementary school classmate got knocked out by the oxygen-depriving fiend lurking inside a cursed mannequin.
Sayaka trembled as she gazed upon the unmoving form of Shota, his blood pooling underneath him. Then, she heard Keiko gasp as her body grew warm with a familiar internal fire that spread inside her from head to toe.
'What's going on?' Keiko thought as she saw debris, doll fragments, broken tiles, and a host of other things not nailed to the ground orbit around a glowing Sayaka as if she were the sun and they were the planets.
The behemoth reacted in kind, letting go of Iori's mother as it screeched at Sayaka.
The astral projection of Keiko then recalled Yusuke's stories of how he met the little ghost girl; she was more of a poltergeist than the monster within Iori's room.
"If you lay another tendril on this family, I won't forgive you," said Sayaka as she raised her palm at the thing wearing Iori's doll as its "skin" and produced an energy blast so powerful that even Urameshi would've been proud of it, which obliterated the dollish facade of the creature. The mannequin's ceramic hide shattered and its frilly dress unraveled from the concussive force of the spiritual beam.
Sayaka's efforts to save her one-time crush only made things worse. Free from the confines of the broken toy emerged a creature made of taut red tendrils intertwined together like strands of toffee, exposed pinkish meat akin to uncooked ham, long organic tubes that made it look like it was on life support, and twin spongy, honeycombed sacks that expanded and contracted in regular intervals.
In a heartbeat, the alien manifestation slithered towards Sayaka before the ghost could react. Although it lacked a mouth, it whispered in the little girl's mind, "We're very much alike," before swallowing her whole by engulfing her with its folds of guts, skin, and meat.
Without thinking, Keiko flew straight at the pink, red, and slimy eyesore, intent on somehow plucking Sayaka's soul from the depths of its honeycombed abyss.
The wheezing sounds from the grotesque, sentient meat bag grew louder, and even though the Yukimura spirit's breaths were more of a reflex action than a necessity, she felt herself gasping for air she didn't need to breathe anyway.
The wall facing right at the yard of the mansion burst open right then and there before the slimy collection of what appeared to be viscera feasted upon Keiko's ghost.
A gush of fresh air entered the abode from the hole in the wall, which made Iori, her parents, and Shota stir from their restless slumber, the vacuum created by the monster dissipating as the surge of oxygen filled their lungs and ruffled their hair.
Meanwhile, the slimy mass of blubber and flesh reeled from a world-stopping punch from one pissed-off Yusuke Urameshi. In turn, Keiko felt like an entire planet was lifted off of her shoulders as soon as she saw her boyfriend barrel into the scene.
"Yusuke! Great timing! Sayaka-chan was swallowed by that thing and it even tried to kill Shota, Iori, and her parents by sucking out all the air inside the room!"
The high-pitched hisses and pants from the fleshy, meaty creature worsened as it again slithered across the room, aided by a green mucus that lubricated its sluggish locomotion.
"Keiko! Get these people out of here while I finish off this demon or whatever!" instructed Yusuke as he let his fists fly at what he presumed was a youkai of some sort. However, the spongy and moist material of the ballooning twin meat sacks that served as its main body absorbed the majority of his blows regardless of his Class-A strength.
'H-How am I supposed to do that? I'm a ghost! They can't see me!' wondered Keiko before she spotted Puu hovering towards her. 'I know!'
'Sorry, Keiko. This poltergeist is too much for you. We'll deal with improving your bad karma later, I promise,' Yusuke pledged as he piled on the punishment and combination attacks against his foe.
The ghost-hunting mission was supposed to be a piece of cake, but it turned out so tough that even his old ghostly self would've had a tough time dealing with it.
"Spit her out! Spit Sayaka out, you oversized meat sack! HYAKU RETSU-KEN!" raged Urameshi.
A dazed, bloody, and blurry-eyed Shota looked up in time to see the ramen vendor that Iori called a pedophile earlier deliver an uppercut at the air-sucking ogre.
A flash of insight hit him right that instant as the image of the "bad guy" that almost took his dead dog Jiro away to Hell a few years back superimposed itself onto the seventeen-year-old fighter that saved their lives just now.
'It's him! It's the same guy!' A hazier memory of the teenager saving Shota from the clutches of a beautiful girl of about his age also emerged from the depths of his consciousness. "Mister, we've met before! Who the hell are you?"
In the middle of releasing another volley of fists at the living, sentient flesh bag, Yusuke turned his head sideways and remarked, "I guess you can call me your guardian angel, kid."
Shota nodded at the familiar stranger before gritting his teeth, crawling towards the prone form of Iori, and shaking her awake. "W-We need to get out of h-here, Iori-chan. You're not safe here."
Iori's eyes fluttered as she smiled. "Thank you. You're always there for me, Shota-kun." She took several breaths of air. Where's Papa? Where's Mama?"
"Over here, you two!" squawked a voice from above. "It's not safe in here!"
"AH! The flying penguin platypus is talking!" Iori pointed at the ceiling where Puu flew about, and even Shota couldn't help but gawk at the sight even after all the other bizarre things he'd experienced (and remembered) so far.
'Oh no, she didn't,' Yusuke told himself as he wrestled around with the undead meat sponge while keeping the fight away from the civilians. Puu talked to the children again, and the teenager recognized who the voice belonged to. 'She totally did, that idiot. Keiko possessed Puu, just like Genkai-baasan did in the Dark Martial Arts Tournament!'
"I have no time to explain. If you all want to live, we should get out of this mansion. Let me guide the way to safety. By the way, here are your parents, Iori-chan! They're perfectly safe!" Puu... or rather Keiko... explained the situation to the two preteens.
"I don't know what's going on, but this nice... talking bluebird helped us come to," said Iori's mother as she dusted herself off and favored her sore ribs.
"PAPA! MAMA!" a tearful Iori stumbled and fell into her sobbing parents' waiting arms. "I'm sorry I've said those awful, awful things to you!"
"Papa is sorry too, Iori-chan!" Iori's father assured. "I was only looking out for you. Always remember, no parent would ever want something bad happen to his or her own child!"
For a minute or so, the spongy, meaty colossus that ballooned and shrunk like a beating heart stayed stock-still, its pinkish mass leaning against the struggling Urameshi.
'Huh. Why did it stop its rampage?' pondered Yusuke before an ear-shattering screech assailed his ear drums and a flood of green sludge engulfed him.
"What the hell is this? Snot? It's disgusting!" complained Urameshi.
The color from the faces of Iori's parents drained as they heard a tiny voice in their head say the word, "Traitors."
"We don't have much time! Follow me!" insisted the Keiko-possessed Puu to Shota, Iori, and her family while the creature behind them continued to expectorate the sticky substance that the unprepared Yusuke slipped on. 'Is... Is the monster... crying...?'
"This is the grossest opponent I've ever fought... including that guy who hid underneath a fog of his own sweat!"
The more the monster hacked, rasped, and violently released the bubbly liquid from its insides, the more the gel changed color. Soon, the pale substance turned light to dark yellow, green, brown, and grey as the creature sucked in more of the remaining air within its vicinity, dirt and irritants included.
"Ah, isn't that the pedo... I mean, the ramen cook?" a bleary-eyed Iori asked no one in particular as she spotted Yusuke fighting the beast and rode piggyback on her father's shoulders.
"That's it, now you're pissing me off! REI...!"
The meaty monster distended its body many times its original size by inhaling every last wisp of air it could gorge itself with, went airborne using a jet stream of exhaled air, and landed smack dab on Yusuke with a force that created a crater on the floor.
"BIG BROTHER!" screamed Shota, wincing at the wet squelch and flying bits of crushed plaster.
"YUSUKE!" squealed Keiko using Puu's limited vocal cords in spite of herself.
"Father, use the car phone and call the police or the SAT or the JSDF! Maybe even call an exorcist! Call anyone that can deal with that horrible thing inside our house!" beckoned Iori's mother.
"No. We shouldn't panic. Don't worry," the feminine-sounding Puu assured everyone as they exited the house and looked at the scene of destruction from a distance. "Yusuke is a powerful young man. Something like that..."
As if on cue, the monster flipped over its back (or whatever served as its back) care off a simple backhand from Keiko's Class-A half-demon boyfriend.
"...Isn't enough to kill him." However, despite her bold declaration, a nagging feeling continued to haunt the back of Yukimura's mind.
'Thanks, Keiko. Now I won't have to hold back.'
Once "Puu" had ushered away all the innocent bystanders, Yusuke flipped the gigantic yet abstract organism over like a hamburger patty with one hand.
"You know what's sad? I'm still kind of holding back. But if you had fought me two to three years ago, I might've had trouble dealing with you. You're tough."
The honeycombed sponge monster shrunk in size as it expelled a dank gas that filled the room despite the hole in the wall Yusuke made to "ventilate" it.
"You have to do better than that. I've survived the poisonous atmosphere of the Demon World without suffocating. You'll have to suck up all the air in the neighborhood or put me in an airtight vacuum pack before I'll be in any sort of trouble breathing."
The monster gurgled and spat green and brown slime from its tubular orifices. Nevertheless, before it had a chance to engulf Yusuke with its bodily fluids, the ex-Reikai Tantei had already charged, his fists this time around glowing with the electric power of his spiritual might.
Of course, the monster was no match against Yusuke. It was a foregone conclusion. It buckled down and crumpled like a sheet of paper after only the first combo. Every punch landed and exploded onto the ogre's skin, frying its exposed curtains of flesh as it wailed and wheezed in agony. If it had teeth, it would've gnashed them. If it had eyes, it would've cried.
It was as Urameshi expected. The beast went down so fast and easily, the teenager flinched and offered a silent prayer for its future spiritual wellbeing. Too easy. 'Hey, hey. Aren't I the one who's looking like the bad guy here? Ah, never mind. That damn Kugai Rando gave me must be acting up again.'
He thrust his pointer finger at the shrunken and shriveled form of the sponge-like organism. 'Sayaka's somewhere in there. I have to be careful how and where I aim my Rei-Gan.' The mucus that the expandable meat sack creature released had strands of red on them. At that point, the fiend sweated phlegm and blood. All it took was one shot to finish it off.
"WHY DID YOU BETRAY ME? WHY DIDN'T YOU LOVE ME?"
The Kugai worked its Buddhist magic on Yusuke once again as he became one with the suffering of the world, or at least those nearest to him. In the space of time it took a person to gasp and sigh, he felt the overpowering, suffocating reason why this mutated ghost (of a human, not a demon) remained earthbound and couldn't rest in peace.
The wave of choleric spiritual energy at the tip of Yusuke's index finger dissipated as an unbidden moistness invaded his vision. 'You poor thing...'
This time around, instead of sucking the air around them, the blob of spongy flesh enveloped the Spirit World Detective, stuck its tubes into his mouth, and used them like straws to suck out the air inside of him.
The Keiko-possessed Puu, Shota, Iori, and the rest of the rich little girl's family were sprinting towards the lengthy yard when the airborne spirit beast yelped and flopped down on the grassy ground.
"H-Hey! Are you okay?" Keiko heard someone say; she didn't know who exactly did so, her vision swimming for some reason. 'W-Wait, didn't Botan mention something about Puu being able to feel the exact same things as Yusuke does because of their special bond?'
The spirit of the comatose Yukimura daughter beckoned the plush and diminutive Puu to stand upright using its stubby legs and its gigantic bunny ears. 'Yusuke, what's going on with you?'
'Keiko? Keiko, is that you?'
Keiko blinked several times using the bird monster's round eyes. 'Yusuke?' Apparently, telepathy was possible between the half-demon and his other, cuddlier self.
'Yeah, it's me.' After a second of silence, Yusuke admitted, 'Listen, I can't blast that poltergeist away.'
'Why not? Is it because it swallowed Sayaka-chan whole?'
'N-No. That poltergeist is their... that girl's...' Yusuke then screamed inside his head.
Keiko's blood ran cold. Or perhaps Puu's blood did. "YUSUKE! What in the world...?"
The next thing Yukimura knew, Puu's small beak, stubby wings, and entire bowling pin body changed, the spirit beast transforming into a much slenderer and larger version of itself. The beastly bird had again taken on the form of the immortal phoenix.
"N-No way," crowed Keiko as she raised Puu's impressive wings over his face and craned his swan-like neck low. 'Why did Puu transform into his big bird form now of all times...? Oh no, Iori-chan and her family are totally freaking out! They probably think I'm in cahoots with the other monster and I'm about to eat them!'
As Keiko suspected, Iori's father ushered his daughter and wife into their black limousine while fetching a handgun and pointing it at the transformed Puu for good measure.
"You got us out here so that you can eat us up, didn't you? I WON'T LET THAT HAPPEN! I WON'T LET ANOTHER DAUGHTER OF MINE DIE BEFORE ME!"
To everyone's shock, most of all Keiko's, Shota shielded the blue firebird despite his already worn and bloodied self. "Get out of the way, kid, you'll get...!"
"Don't hurt Big Brother's pet! I trust that man who saved us earlier with my whole heart. He's the one who saved my life way before all this happened. He's just trying to help!"
'Shota-kun...' trailed off Keiko before her mind raced in order to make sense of what was going on. 'Let's see. If Puu transformed into a phoenix, then that must mean Yusuke has transformed too. But how is that possible? Aren't the Spirit Cuffs supposed to hinder his strength?'
While the standoff between Iori's father and Shota continued, Iori got out of the car and breathlessly stood beside her childhood friend. "If Shota-kun trusts that ramen cook and his talking pet, then so will I."
Something else occurred to Keiko. 'Oh wait, that Kugai thing that the pasty kabuki demon used against Yusuke is still in effect. He must've emphatically felt a strong emotion that affected his energy levels and self-control. I'm no expert when it comes to spirit energy, but I saw the same thing happen with Yusuke's fight against... Rando. Yeah, Rando was his name.'
'YUSUKE! Yusuke, can you hear me?' beckoned Yukimura telepathically, but she heard no answer. She only felt pain and a sense of... 'Betrayal? By whom?'
She concentrated hard on Puu's bond with Urameshi, letting the flow of emotions from the World of Suffering's karmic ability to absorb others' pain wash over her.
Had her ghost form possessed lungs, they would've shriveled up and collapsed. Had her spirit owned a functioning heart, it would've exploded into giblets.
They'd been gone for so long that she'd forgotten their faces. When will they come back? They promised they would be there for her, right?
She didn't want to die. She wanted to live.
Why didn't they ever come back for her? Why did they lie? Why was she replaced? Why was her replacement such a brat? She couldn't take it anymore. She tried to be a good girl, but she had about enough.
With tears in Puu's eyes, Keiko gently pushed the two children who were shielding her aside and addressed the understandably concerned parents before her.
"Please, come back with me to the house," she spoke as clearly as she could using the spirit beast's beak and tongue.
"I knew it! It's in league with that monster. It wants us to go back there to be eaten or murdered by her comrade!" ranted Iori's Papa.
Keiko stifled a sob. "That's no monster. That's actually your...!"
"I don't want to hurt you anymore," a tattooed and long-haired Yusuke said after recovering from retching out the tubes and tentacles that the monster... no, the earthbound ghost... inserted into his esophagus in order to suck the air and life out of him.
"Please. For your own sake. Stop this." He bit his lower lip until he drew blood, his teeth tearing deep into the soft tissue. The monster didn't listen. Or rather, it couldn't. The only thing driving its movement, its existence, was the pain it suffered before it died. Before she died.
The half-demon stood stock-still, his muscles aching from the effort of holding back the ocean of energy flowing underneath his skin, the quadruple spirit cuffs he and Genkai made to keep his power levels in check biting right through his bones. In place of his heart, the Spirit Light Wave Gem pulsed and palpitated in his chest, demanding release.
Regardless, like the Class-S Sensui, the mere act of laughing or breathing would be enough to tear the mansion apart. If he really exerted himself, he could probably break a continent in half. It was only a matter of time, though. Yusuke knew that if he held his power back any longer, he'd be on the rampage like "she" was. 'Dammit, what am I supposed to do now?'
He raised his pointer finger at the inflated bag of flesh, a familiar whistling sound echoing in his ears as his digit grew warmer and warmer.
The twin bags of spongy pink meat gorged itself with even more air from within and outside the mansion, which made it swell and distend even further. It used its hefty mass to crush Yusuke in a sea of flesh, but nothing it did posed any danger to the half-demon that didn't want to kill it.
Just as he was about to do make his toughest choice since deciding to kill Doctor Kamiya for the greater good, Yusuke's luck saved him in the nick of time... and not a moment too soon; he had enough stored energy to blow up the moon at that point.
Right by the hole Yusuke made earlier hovered a gigantic Puu and his four passengers: Shota, Iori, and her parents. 'Puu? No, Keiko? That moron! What the hell is she thinking, putting those people in danger again?'
Yusuke cursed under his breath, knowing that once he released his spirit energy, it'd cause property and collateral damage from within a wide radius, even if it was in the form of a concentrated beam of light.
"AKEMI! AKEMI! You're Akemi, aren't you?" Iori's Papa beckoned, which made Yusuke choke in his spit and compelled the monster who smothered him to stop moving.
'No way,' Yusuke thought. 'Did Keiko read my mind through Puu? What is she planning?'
"We're so sorry we weren't able to be there for you in your final moments! Because it had something to do with your asthma, your mother and I thought that the medicine we bought for you was enough to take care of it!" shouted the father.
"We were so stupid. You must've been lonely lying there in the hospital, breathing your last breaths with Papa and Mama nowhere to be found. It all happened so fast..." sobbed the mother.
Yusuke clutched his chest as he felt the monster's... Akemi's... inferno of hatred burst forth. 'No, no! This is a bad idea. Akemi is now a ball of pure rage! Admitting to her that you abandoned her, even if you're apologizing, will...!'
As Yusuke predicted, the enraged Akemi flung its tentacles at her parents, lashing out like a child would against something it didn't understand. The Keiko-possessed Puu moved back to avoid the vine-like tubes, but Iori's parents actually leapt towards them.
"PAPA! MAMA!" Iori screamed after them as they were tied up by their limbs and hung in the air like marionettes.
'Looks like I have no choice.' With one swift movement, Yusuke released himself from the spongy mass in a spectacular explosion of blood, guts, and bodily fluids.
"Akemi! Forgive me! I didn't want things to end up like this, but I won't let you turn into a murderer! Please find a way to forgive your parents and go back to Heaven!"
"NO! Please don't hurt our daughter!" beseeched the tentacle-bound father as Urameshi forced himself to stop his S-Level punch from hitting Akemi, even at the cost of nearly tearing apart his biceps, triceps, and whatever else arm muscles he had.
"We've made her suffer enough. Let her be. It's better this way," chimed in the mother as she held her daughter's tentacles with tears in her eyes. "I didn't realize it earlier, but she told me through telepathy that she wanted to be together with me and her father."
"Please forgive them, Oneechan! You were angry with me too when you suddenly possessed my doll, right? You were probably jealous of all the attention they gave me," Iori cried out while she held Shota's hand for support.
"I didn't understand it back then either, but I now know that Papa and Mama were looking out for me because they don't want to me to end up like you! They've learned their lesson! I was being a had girl, but everything they did for me was all because of what happened to you!"
Iori's tears wouldn't stop at that point and neither would Puu's tears as his eyes cried for Keiko's sake. "I don't deserve the amount of love and protection they gave me. If you have to sacrifice someone, sacrifice me instead, Akemi-neechan...!"
A stray tentacle grabbed hold of Iori and flung her towards the monstrous Akemi before Keiko could notice what had happened. 'Did I make the right decision? I don't want this entire family to die because of my wrong choices!'
Yusuke grabbed hold of his sore arm as Akemi's inflatable flesh sacks burst forth with continuous sprays of clear, salty liquid. It... or rather, her... pulled her estranged family towards herself by the time the Keiko-possessed Puu and Shota landed inside the room.
Afterwards, the spongy material and the multiple folds of pink flesh and meat receded and shrunk back until the ectoplasm-ridden, ten-year-old forms of a girl in a hospital gown and another girl in pajamas appeared before everyone.
Tragically, only Yusuke, Keiko, and Puu could see the ghosts. For all Shota and the others knew, the monster had disappeared altogether; the only people they could actually see were Urameshi and his pet bird.
"See? You found a way to forgive them after all," a misty-eyed yet smiling Sayaka told the shorter girl. "I'm only a trainee, but I'm allowed to assist ferry-girls in ferrying souls back to Heaven. You have the honor of being the first soul I'll ever ferry into the afterlife."
"C-Can you l-let me say goodbye f-first?" came the tentative, breathy request of the lonely, asthmatic girl. Sayaka nodded.
Keiko left Puu's body as Yusuke and his spirit beast transformed back into their relatively normal forms.
"Where is Akemi now? Is she in Heaven?" asked Iori's father as he grabbed hold of Yusuke.
"I-I'm right here, Papa. Mama. I-Iori," said the Akemi-possessed Puu.
To Be Continued...
Next: Keiko's second mission.
May kailangan pa ba akong sabihin?
Abdiel
