Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
Here he comes to save the day! The Mighty Yusuke is on his way!
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio 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 36: The Other Side of Bloodlust (Part 4)
Back inside the main observatory of the world-famous Tokyo Tower...
It didn't appear so at first, but soon enough, the last man standing of the six Spirit World Warriors was Detective-Investigator Daiji Matsudaira, also known as Aoshi Shinomori's Heisei Era reincarnation.
The Reikai's personal army had arrived in the scene to take back the Demon Sword that Suzaku stole, but they proved no match against the S-Level youkai.
Among the six, Daiji performed the best not because he had the highest power level of them all (Kurama had that distinction, and the half-youko could probably go higher had he allowed himself to revert to his youko form), but because he did the most research when it came to electricity and all its forms.
He wasn't any expert on science and natural phenomena by any stretch of the imagination, but as an avid sleuth since his youth, he had made it a point to increase his general knowledge as much as possible.
Thusly, he was aware of electricity, the effects of electrocution, what materials were considered conductors/semiconductors/insulators, magnetism, galvanism, electromagnetic radiation, the full electromagnetic spectrum, the different waves and rays incorporated into the field, and so on, and so forth.
The use of nonmagnetic, nonconductive ceramic kodachi was only part of his anti-Suzaku plan.
For example, any enclosure formed by conducting material could block electrical and non-static electric fields. In short, if one were inside an elevator or even a car as he was struck by lightning, the conducting material would absorb the electricity without harming the person inside. This was called a Faraday Cage.
This was also the temporary shield that kept Daiji from getting electrocuted by Suzaku's rain of Ankoku-Raiko-Ha from above and before him. Of course, the Quest-Class human (he was Quest-Class because he had the ability to psychically turn spirit energy into solid objects) had enough presence of mind to dissipate his Faraday Cage before Suzaku used the metal material against him.
Every time Suzaku attacked with something long-range, Daiji created a Faraday Cage and threw ceramic short swords to the sky from behind his shield while letting gravity rain blades on his foes. As for close-range techniques like the Ankoku-Raijin-Ken, the Oniwabanshu Okashira either blocked them with his ceramic blades or kicked nonmetallic debris at the demon (so that he wouldn't risk getting shocked while making limb or skin contact with the walking taser).
He slowly but surely tore apart the supposed Class-S Suzaku while he remained elusive thanks to his Ryusui no Ugoki or Water Flow Movement that he accomplished by making his body move like the waves from a stream, making it difficult to time an attack against him and his afterimages.
In fact, one drawback of lightspeed arrows was the fact that they came out too fast, as soon as one triggered them, so they should be used with incredible pinpoint accuracy and increased reaction time on the shooter's part, or else their timing would become "off".
Long story short, Suzaku couldn't even touch the Aoshi reincarnation, especially after the human gathered enough energy to create a ceramic gun with ceramic bullets.
The demon ended up a sitting duck against the shinobi's different moves, from the Spiral Sword Dance Six Series to the scissor-like cut of the Gokou Juji or the Yin-Yang Cross.
On his way to score a flawless victory against the Suzaku clone he fought, Daiji hoped his victory could turn the tides when it came to dealing with this demon who had the ability to clone himself with doppelgangers that shared his same power level.
Huge clumps of pure iron... this time silvery because of the removal of the impurities of the gritty black iron sand... formed on either side of the ragged, out-of-breath, (ceramic) bullet-ridden, and heavily lacerated Suzaku.
Daiji recognized that move: A magnetic tempest of metal clumps that hit targets with the speed of bullets.
Well, he could evade projectiles that went at the speed of light (almost lightspeed anyway, since the top speed of light could only be achieved through a vacuum, so even the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha traveled slower than top lightspeed thanks to the atmosphere) by gauging and predicting where Suzaku fired them, so how much more bullet speed?
'I'll finish this Suzaku off with a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren then help the others with their Suzakus.' However, when he was about to do the ultimate Spiral Sword Dance, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise up in premonition (or perhaps through static shock).
He escaped the magnetic shockwave from behind that would've juggled him in the air while pillars of light shot up from beneath him, but he got torn apart by flying metal debris in the other direction.
He then landed many feet away in time to see another Suzaku absorb the electromagnetic dispersal and shoot Ankoku-Raiko-Ha at him with renewed vigor.
He took on the two Suzaku at the same time, his ceramic gun blazing while he kept throwing endless short swords into the air above his enemies (who deflected them with metal debris, objects, and whatnot.
Daiji's troubles weren't over. A third upside-down Suzaku shot at Aoshi's present self from the ceiling.
Matsudaira couldn't form a Faraday Cage anymore for fear of the nearest Suzaku magnetically turning it against him. Nevertheless, their projectiles of choice remained the one-shot-at-a-time Lightning Storms of Torment, which he could avoid with ease care of the Water Flow Movement. He remained safe.
One of the Suzakus screamed after Daiji managed to stick a ceramic blade into his eye; specifically the one acting as a second sniper aside from the Demon-Sword-wielding one at the uppermost Tokyo Tower observatory.
The healthiest of the three Suzakus summoned a lightning bolt and energized himself enough to make an electrical sphere of blood-boiling electromagnetic radiation that microwaved anyone it its path who wasn't a Suzaku.
The decidedly non-Suzaku Daiji summoned a Faraday Cage to survive the "choudenji" explosion.
The cage then crumpled like an aluminum soda can thanks to a nearby Suzaku. Daiji had no choice but to bail out with a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren and resist the painful surge of radiation that made his blood evaporate from his pores in a red-colored steam.
A fourth Suzaku ambushed the detective with the black iron sand sword whip. Matsudaira left a deep, cross-scar on that demon's chest that exposed his internal organs and rib cage, but in return, the human looked like he had survived in a car crash.
A Dusk to Dawn Strike traveled towards the Suzaku that produced the energy sphere. He swatted the first blade and the second blade hidden behind it, but he didn't expect the third one that stabbed at his throat or the fourth one that came from above his head.
All things considered, Matsudaira did well for a Class-A faced with multiple Class-S beings. However, he was hopelessly outmatched, especially after he saw that the Suzakus could heal themselves by summoning lightning unto their bodies (which the nigh-lobotomized Suzaku did after removing the swords stuck in him).
Daiji went into permanent Ryusui no Ugoki mode, becoming a one-man army of afterimages that sliced up the gathering Suzakus... there were now five of them around... bit by bit, from nose to ear, from finger to finger, from limb to limb, until they were injured enough to be finished off by the Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren.
None of their Ankoku-Raijin-Ken or Ankoku-Raiko-Ha were landing, and they were getting injured too much by this uncatchable apparition of a ninja to do much damage or anything else. It looked like Matsudaira could win the war of attrition against the Suzakus, at the very least.
However, the Suzaku atop the topmost observatory had other ideas. First, he informed his clones to disperse themselves across the observatory via telepathic communication through radio waves. He then shot an Ankoku-Raiko-Ha arrow (using the Demon Sword as a bow) not at the elusive detective, but at one of the six Suzakus.
The energy bolt traveled at the (near) speed of light from one Suzaku to the next, ricocheting like a pinball would inside a pinball machine, becoming stronger and gathering more voltage each time.
It didn't hit the detective at first, but soon, because that one energized lightning bolt covered more ground thanks to its speed and repeated recoil from Suzaku to Suzaku, even Aoshi's incarnate couldn't avoid getting partially electrocuted by the traveling blast.
It hit Daiji repetitively until he stopped and convulsed from shock and paralysis, and soon the Lightning Storm of Torment hit him in full force with voltage upwards to a billion.
Once Matsudaira collapsed along with the rest of his comrades, the six Suzakus levitated towards the special observatory along with the seventh one a hundred meters away.
They then charged up their power with repeated summoned lightning strikes, their auras glowing like daylight. They all cackled while they prepared a Prism of Seven Lightning Storm of Torment that was so concentrated with energy, it could very well blow up the half-a-century-old historical landmark to oblivion in an instant, like it was never there.
"Goodbye, warriors of the Spirit World. We will now send you straight back to Koenma Daio. SHICHI-GOKU-ANKOKU-RAIKO-HA!"
A voice from out of the blue roused Daiji Matsudaira, Sanosuke Sagara, Shuichi "Kurama" Minamino, Kazuma Kuwabara, Natsuki Shinkai, and Yahiko Myojin from their slumber.
To Kurama and Kuwabara, it was a familiar voice.
"Hey, Suzaku. I see you're still full of shit as usual. CHOU REI-GAN!"
It was the voice of Yusuke Urameshi.
"Y-Yusuke..." Kurama murmured, his muscles still aching from being eaten alive by one of his own plants.
The (out-of-school) youth seemingly phased into existence in the middle of the Tokyo Tower's main observatory right when the seven Suzakus blasted seven simultaneous lightspeed lightning bolt arrows through the hole in the floor they made in the topmost observatory.
He'd been charging up the Spirit Gun (or "Ray Gun" or "Spirit Bullet") he'd just unleashed for quite a while; since he heard the news of the Demon Sword falling into enemy hands, in fact, so his index finger cramped up a little.
All the same, the shot did the trick, and two irresistible forces slammed into one another and cancelled each other out thusly. It was an explosion of concentrated energy.
"RENSHYA!"
Except Yusuke wasn't quite through.
Urameshi shot another Rei-Gan right after the first one disintegrated the Shichi-Goku-Ankoku-Raiko-Ha, with the intention of ending the fight in two shots.
The half-conscious Daiji nodded in approval of the tactic. It reminded him of a spiritual version of his own Onmyou Hasshi, which involved shooting projectiles consecutively, with one sword hidden behind another kodachi.
After Kuwabara gathered enough of his wits to form coherent words and realize what was happening before him, he shouted, "URAMESHI!"
"Hey, Kuwabara! Whaddya think? I'm kickass, aren't it?" said Yusuke.
"No, you're a dumbass! Suzaku can absorb energy now!" retorted Kazuma.
Urameshi's jaw dropped. "...WHAT? Bullshit! Since when did that happen?"
Sure enough, the seven demons outstretched their hands and absorbed the energy from the Rei-Gan, rendering the attack null and void. However, Yusuke didn't take the sudden turn of events lying down.
He leapt up while the Suzakus were busy gathering energy and used his speed and power to physically overwhelm them.
In an eye blink, he showered the first three Suzakus with a swarm of punches from his Hyaku Retsu-Ken, finishing each combo with an uppercut to the chin that blew them back one after another.
As for the remaining four Shisejyu, he blasted them with his "SHOT GUN!" or a spray of energy buckshot that lived up to its rifle namesake.
Even the dizzy Sano had to smilingly shake his head at the recklessness of the sleek-haired youth. "Jeez, that kid's crazy!"
While Yahiko helped Natsuki up from the rubble she got buried in earlier, he stared up, rubbed his eyes as if to clear them, then gasped at what he saw.
"Holy shit. Did you see that, Cat Eyes? That guy just punched the piss out of the Suzaku clones! The same ones that kicked our collective asses seven ways till Sunday. Who the heck is he?"
"He's Urameshi Yusuke. A comrade of ours this time around," said a bloody Kurama after he crawled military-style to where Myojin and Shinkai were. "He's arguably the strongest one of us spirit detectives."
To himself, Shuichi added, 'The only one missing now from Team Urameshi is...!'
"E-Even stronger than... Xinhai?" wondered Natsuki out loud.
"Hell yes, he's stronger than that Raijuta loser!" said Yahiko, unaware that he was actually insulting Natsuki's abusive father (not that Shinkai particularly cared). "I think he can even give Kenshin a run for his money. Kenshin would still win against him, though."
After the dust settled, Yusuke's eyes widened at seeing one last Suzaku standing after he left three other Suzakus down for the count.
The half-mazoku cocked his fist back to deliver a "REI-KOU-DAN!" to the antenna-haired bastard's face, but his arching energy blast merely grinded against the black-iron-sand-covered blade of the Youtou Shinnoken, sending sparks flying everywhere.
"Ah. This brings me back. How many years has it been since we last fought? As I've heard from Hell, you've grown stronger by leaps and bounds," the steaming Suzaku chatted while completing his energy absorption of the second Rei-Gan and proceeded to soak up the reiki from the Rei-Kou-Dan.
"But that's to be expected of a descendant of mazoku, even if you are the bastard human child half-breed of one. No wonder you managed to beat me."
"That's the last thing I want to hear from you, you cheating bastard." Yusuke thrust his pointer finger up at Suzaku's face and began charging his third Rei-Gan for the day.
Sanosuke went beside Kuwabara, tapped his shoulder, and asked, "Have these two... met before? I've never seen Suzaku so... excited. They sound like they've... dated or something."
Kazuma guffawed at Sagara's quip. "Kind of. They have a history. They've gone through a death match already. Urameshi even used up his life force just to beat Suzaku once upon a time. If I hadn't spared him part of my own life force, that idiot would've been a goner."
Sanosuke took one look at the regent-haired teenager's wistful eyes and asked, "...Did you and 'Urameshi' used to date too?" which earned him an uppercut care of Kuwabara.
Yusuke continued. "The only reason you're Class-S right now is because the Demon Sword leveled you up. This power you have is not your own. Have you no shame? No pride? This is just like the time you had mind-controlled humans attack Keiko so that I'd be too distracted to fight you properly. You haven't changed one bit."
"It doesn't matter how you win as long as you win." Suzaku himself aimed his fist at Yusuke's face, his thumb tucked behind his forefinger, closed one eye, and said to the freelance Reikai Tantei, "I only have one question for you, Urameshi Yusuke. Have you ever heard of the Railgun?"
"Railgun? What the hell is that? A knockoff of my Rei-Gan?" asked Yusuke.
Suzaku chuckled. "No, not exactly."
Daiji's blood curdled upon hearing the word "Railgun". 'Oh no. He couldn't mean...! Suzaku can simulate that weapon too?'
Despite being the most recently injured of the six Spirit World Warriors the Suzakus had defeated, Detective Matsudaira stood up on unsteady, spaghetti-legged feet and beckoned the powerful stranger.
"Kid, get out of there! If Suzaku's not bluffing, his Railgun is going to blow your head off!"
"Oh, hi there, Ossan (Old Guy)!" said Urameshi. "What's a Railgun?"
"...Ossan," repeated Daiji in deadpan while in the background, the rest of the Reikai Senshi... most of all Natsuki... resisted the urge to laugh."I'm not that old. The name's Detective Matsudaira Daiji. Also, the Railgun is an electromagnetic projectile launcher based on the principles of the homopolar motor..."
"What? Homosexual motor? Speak in plain Japanese, please! I didn't go to college!" said Urameshi, his hands held up in surrender.
"...It's a gun that can fire off anything metal at mach three."
"Well, why didn't you just say so?"
Using his magnetic field, Suzaku telekinetically moved one of many metal bolts lying around and let it float towards his waiting thumb. He then fired that object at Yusuke's head at three times the speed of sound, the blast breaking the sound barrier and destroying everything in its path.
Yusuke shot the Rei-Gan, but it too dispersed from the might of the Railgun. It would've eaten up a good chunk of Yusuke's head had the youth not used the Spirit Gun and blew himself back from the recoil before the supersonic bullet did fatal damage to his person.
Nevertheless, even though Suzaku's electromagnetic cannon wasn't as fast as the Ankoku-Raiko-Ha, shooting solid objects at speeds they had no business traveling in left an impact far more destructive than a normal gun or even lightning bolts.
"YUSUKE!" came a female scream. The six looked up in time to see the ghost (or rather, the astral projection) of Keiko Yukimura call out to her falling boyfriend in despair while grabbing hold of Puu in her cold, transparent bosom.
The A-Level Yusuke (the rating on the Spirit Detector surprised Yahiko) crashed back to the main Tokyo Tower observatory hard, the obliterating force of the red laser beam that traveled about a thousand meters per second almost melting his clothes into his skin.
Kurama and Kuwabara shouted, "YUSUKE!" and "URAMESHI!" respectively after they saw their comrade fall.
"Yusuke! Yusuke, are you all right?" the ghostly form of Keiko, which wasn't in a solidified state like the spirits of Yahiko and Sanosuke, drifted beside her beloved while the Demon-Sword-wielding Suzaku watched the drama unfold.
Behind the demon, the rest of his clones had begun recovering from Urameshi's assault.
"I'm fine. Really. My skin stings like it went through a bad suntan, though," reassured Yusuke while rubbing his nose with his forefinger.
"D-Dummy. Don't scare me like that," said Yukimura before she stuck her intangible hand into Yusuke's stomach and grabbed hold of (or rather, "tickled") his spine in order to make it tingle.
Urameshi shuddered. "STOP THAT, KEIKO! It's creepy!"
"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Yukimura Keiko, in the flesh? Or rather, not in the flesh. I guess the rumors were true. Seiryu did get away with cursing her so that he could gain the same power as Xinhai possessed."
"...What did you say?" demanded not Keiko, but Natsuki. "What does the One-Eight-Ten Killer have to do with anything?"
Keiko herself couldn't get a word in edgewise because she had no idea who Feng Xinhai was nor did she care at the moment. Yusuke's wellbeing worried her more. Besides, she didn't want to remember what Seiryu did to her. Not right now.
Yusuke himself took note of that name: Xinhai. The person who taught Seiryu the technique that cursed Keiko with jaki and left her in a comatose state.
"Ah, I said too much. Forget I said anything." The Suzaku Seven were again shoulder to shoulder while they floated right above the main observatory and prepared to shoot their Railguns at the supine Yusuke.
"Rejoice, Urameshi Yusuke. Soon, you'll be a ghost just like your girlfriend!"
Even though it was, at most, a meaningless gesture, Keiko set Puu aside, beckoning him to fly away, and then stood in front of Yusuke with her arms outstretched as though to protect him from the upcoming cannon blasts.
"Please don't do this."
From behind her, to her alarm, Yusuke began to chuckle heartily. She knew better than to think he was going mad. She heard that laughter before.
He laughed like that whenever he enjoyed himself and let loose in battle.
"If your only power is to blow up stuff like some sort of living nuke, there's surprisingly not a lot you can do," began Yusuke.
"What nonsense are you blathering about? Having the power to decimate cities can make you do anything! No one can stand in your way. You can become a god, worshipped by lowly humans and lesser demons," orated Suzaku.
"I don't think so. I disagree. Maybe because I don't want any of that. Who the hell wants to become a 'god', whatever that means?"
For a while now, since he'd been hit by Rando's World of Suffering or Kugai technique, Yusuke had been suffering from a bit of power incontinence.
His increased empathy for others had made it difficult for him to control his own strength, since his emotions were directly connected to his superpowers.
None of his special abilities as a half-human, half-demon hybrid were of any use all throughout his misadventures with the ghost of his comatose girlfriend.
It was because most of those missions to wake Keiko from her coma were designed to gather good karma for Keiko so that she could clear out all the bad karma (jaki) she'd been "infected" with care of Suzaku's second-in-command, Seiryu.
The missions had nothing to do with killing, maiming, or defeating any demons at all. No tournaments or monsters that could level mountains were involved.
Yusuke soon realized he became too powerful to be of any significant use when he pulled out all the stops during such missions. It was like using a blowtorch to light candles. He was overkill.
How Urameshi missed moments like this wherein he could let loose without a care in the world, like he was back in the Demon World picking endless fights with the best and most powerful demons that realm had to offer.
"I mean, unless you're some sort of psycho who loves killing everything in sight or a megalomaniac who wants to take over the world, it's a nearly worthless power. So I'm glad that you're here, Suzaku. I've now found something I can use my worthless power on until the next Demon World Unification Tournament!" said Yusuke.
"Ramblings of a man gone mad. Be gone," said Suzaku.
Seven Railguns fired off simultaneously, acting like the Prism of Seven Lightning Storm of Torment. The screws, nuts, and bolts that they shot were able to travel that fast because the Suzakus formed parallel currents on both sides of their arms with their electrical might.
They worked like a real-world Railgun, which was an electromagnetic projectile launcher the size of an entire building (thus the bigness, mass, and cost of acquiring one was never feasible enough for practical military application in light of 1993 technology).
While not as fast or long-reaching as the Shichi-Goku-Ankoku-Raiko-Ha with its shorter range (about 50 meters) and speed (1,030 meters per second or 2,307 miles per hour), the Railgun was filled with a denser and more concentrated energy.
The technique shot out a solid object at three times the speed of sound, thus these cannons were harder to neutralize even with the presence of spirit energy that could normally buffer the damage.
Its range might be wide enough to level Tokyo Tower, but whatever it did touch, it could obliterate into atoms. It could even pierce through the Rei-Gan and vaporize everything else within its fifty-meter range.
So, while seven red beams of supersonic death converged towards Yusuke's form, he only had one thing to say.
"JYU REI JYOU ANTE!"
A blast of wind tousled Yusuke's hair and lifted him off the ground after he said the magic words. The spiritual handcuffs that partially absorbed his strength disappeared in an instant, his aura flaring and forming itself into the shape of a winged creature surrounded in blue spiritual flames.
'I knew it! He was hiding his power level all this time! That technique of his... the Luminescent Spirit Ante... must be something that held his full potential back!' thought Yahiko. Sure enough, Yusuke's power rose from A-Plus to S-Minus according to his Spirit Detector.
Yusuke, like the projectiles shooting towards him, charged into action right over Keiko's head at speeds that his not-so-insignificant body mass had no business of traveling under.
He was, after all, one of the few people in all the three worlds who could match Jaganshi Hiei's speed sprint for sprint, fist for fist, and dodge for dodge.
He dove head-on against the blasts, his skin melting and his muscle sinews unraveling because of their sheer overwhelming power, but not at a rate his healing factor could not take.
He didn't have the same frightening regenerative abilities as someone like the Elder Toguro, but anything that didn't kill him made him stronger. Like the X-Men's Wolverine. Or a Super Saiyan.
He also glowed white-hot with energy that partially kept the supersonic masses fired off by super electromagnetic cannons from totally atomizing him. All those three factors... speed, healing, and an energy shield... kept him from becoming a faded stain on the floor while he raced to face the Shisejyu and his clones head on.
The Suzaku Seven attempted to fire off a second round of Railgun shots when Urameshi tapped into his vast reserves of energy, cocked both fists back, and did a "DOUBLE BARREL SHOT GUN!" at them.
It was 'double barreled' because he used both fists instead of only one to unleash his special kind of mayhem in the form of reiki bullets.
Six of seven Suzakus jumped right at Yusuke to avoid getting filled with fist-sized holes, each of them prepared to used their different electromagnetic powers at the teenage demon hybrid before finishing him off altogether with the Roku-Goku-Ankoku-Raijin-Ken (just like old times, when Urameshi and Suzaku were both B-Level fighters).
A pair of Suzaku had metal orbiting around them, one with clumps of pure silvery iron forming some sort of asteroid ring, the other with smaller black iron sand particles moving like a swarm of angry hornets, their grit powerful enough to grind a car into metallic dust.
Two other Suzakus glowed with electromagnetic radiation, which gave them access to the full electromagnetic spectrum: Visible light, radio waves, microwaves, infrared rays, ultraviolet rays, x-rays, and even gamma rays were within their control. Plasma orbs that superheated the air formed all over their bodies while they bathed in a deluge of electromagnetism.
The final couple of Suzakus had their electromagnetic powers magnetize the entirety of Tokyo Tower in order to psychically and magnetically control all the metal nearby... from cars to consumer electronics to I-beams... in order to throw them right into Yusuke's path while they, the demon clones themselves, blasted continuous Ni-Goku-Ankoku-Raijin-Ken or Prism of Two Lightning Storms of Torment at the spirit detective.
The Demon World Unification Tournament participant finished them all off with a Double Beretta Rei-Gan, blasting six shots to their chest (three shots each from either side of him) before they could even get near them, with everything metal they were "carrying" falling back to the earth care of gravity after they all died simultaneously.
All except one.
The Suzaku wielding the Demon Sword increased his power output by again summoning lighting and using his magnified magnetism abilities to make an I-beam wrap itself around Yusuke like a stiff boa constrictor.
"H-Hey, what's the big idea? Take this shit off me!"
"I'm going to turn you into a Railgun projectile now, Urameshi Yusuke!" Suzaku practically twittered with glee, his antennae-like bangs standing up on end like rabbit-ear antennas on a CRT television set. "I'm going to finish you and your friends off in one big shot! Happy landings!"
Various worried iterations of "YUSUKE!" or "URAMESHI!" echoed from below the Spirit World Detective, even from people that Yusuke didn't know or barely knew, like Kenshin's friends and comrades from the Meiji Era.
However, Suzaku made the mistake of bringing Urameshi within striking range through psychic magnetism, even if it was to shoot his entire mass at mach three and burn off every trace of his flesh and bones through friction, like a meteor entering Earth's atmosphere.
If to a Class-S, breaking an arm was equivalent to crushing an ant, then shrugging off a coiled metal bar used for construction purposes wasn't a stretch of the imagination.
Had Suzaku fought Yusuke as soon as he resurrected for a second time (and became S-Level for the first time), the demon might've stood a chance since even the half-youkai was just getting used to his powers.
However, that wasn't the case anymore, and Urameshi had long ago become adept at controlling his monarch-level abilities.
After Yusuke broke through the iron bar by melting it with the heat of his pseudo-Sei Kou Ki powers, he melted the metal into liquid sparks before he became hot enough to cause the metal to sublimate altogether, his aura glowing as golden as Suzaku's while he combined spirit energy and demon energy together.
Suzaku attempted a Storm of Torment Fist at Yusuke, but his electrical energy got swallowed by the immense mass of power the half-demon had become. It was like firing a rocket at the sun; it made no difference.
The sweat dripping from the youkai's pores instantly evaporated because the heat from Urameshi's might burned him from the inside out far more effectively than his microwave radiation powers ever could.
Even though Yusuke was no taller than Suzaku, to the demon, the half-demon practically towered over him while he felt his body burn in the teenager's light. He had nothing left under his sleeve. His bag of tricks were empty. He had no other recourse.
"TAKO NAGURI...!"
Yusuke's glowing fists went from two to eight and he became Mahakala or Shiva, the eight-armed (usually, it was six) male god who transcended time and death and was the male equivalent of Mahakali or Kali, the goddess of empowerment or shakti.
The supersonic fists struck the Shisejyu eight times simultaneously, and the punches would've vaporized the demon like eight Railgun shots had his survival instincts not kicked in and prompted him to counterattack with Kenshin's own powerful move.
"...KUZU RYU SEN!"
Lieutenant Fujita Goro felt a chill run up his spine after he stared up the foot of Tokyo Tower and grinned while consuming the entirety of his cigarette in one breath.
"Battousai. Have you finally awakened? Will you give me an even better fight than before, when you were hopelessly outmatched because the vagabond in you refuses to unleash your true capabilities?"
He popped open the trunk of his car and retrieved his (not-standard-issue-to-the-Heisei-Era-Japanese-police) curved katana. It was no Ikeda Kishimaru Kunishige (Saito's sword during the Ikedaya Affair of 1864), but it wasn't the sword but the skill of the swordsman who made the difference in any given fight.
Sano's jaw dropped. 'Kuzu Ryu Sen? That's one of Kenshin's moves! He used it on Shishio before they both died!'
Even Yahiko, who had never seen the Nine-Headed Dragon Flash before, reacted thusly by his eyes bugging out. Almost every move from Himura's Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu was some sort of "Ryu Sen" variant.
The Demon Sword stood up against the might of Urameshi's version of the Sacred Light Energy, blocking each of the fists with his own concurrent attack that hit nine times versus the teenaged demon's eight.
In short, Suzaku blocked all of Yusuke's strikes and did an extra one... the stabbing tsuki or throat thrust that misfired and hit the youngster on the chest instead... that sent the Reikai Tantei reeling and bloodied into the nearest metal column, his body leaving an imprint on the rigid iron bar.
However, Suzaku didn't really win the exchange. Instead of firing off a normal (albeit Sei-Kou-Ki-assisted) Octopus Assault, Urameshi did something extra and unleashed a Tako Naguri Shot Gun at the Shisejyu.
So even though the demon drove the half-breed back with a Gatotsu-like stab, Yusuke's blocked fists were still able to blast eight synchronized clusters of energy buckshot that pierced through Suzaku's guard and dealt huge damage to his person.
The Crimson Sparrow dropped down to the main observatory on unsteady feet while the rest of the Reikai's chosen ones regarded him and Yusuke warily.
The Mazoku Phoenix had ended up in a deadlock against the Shisejyu Phoenix, but with the Youtou Shinnoken serving as their equalizer of sorts.
"I was having so much fun, I almost forgot you had Kenshin's sword on you. He totally saved your ass that time." Yusuke harrumphed before dropping back down to the main observatory along with the others and tapped into his endless reserves of power to heal the stab wound he suffered in the hands of the Youtou Shinnoken.
"S-Silence! I'LL KILL YOU! All this means is that I've mastered both the magnifying powers of the Demon Sword as well as the abilities of its guardian, Battousai! Nothing more, nothing less!" sputtered Suzaku.
"I knew it. You're regaining control of that Demon Sword, aren't you, Kenshin?" Sanosuke said after he clenched his fist and pumped it inwards in anticipation.
"That may be a bad idea," Kurama interjected in the middle of Sano's celebration.
The street fighter carefully regarded the one Heisei Era Reikai Tantei that reminded him of the twin-personality Kenshin the most (jokes about him being Kuwabara's girlfriend aside).
"What? Why? If Kenshin wakes up and takes the Youtou Shinnoken away from Goldilocks, all our problems would be over," said Sano.
"I have a feeling it's not Himura Kenshin that's awakening at Suzaku's every swing of that sword. It's instead the Youkiri Battousai that's taking control," said Minamino.
"Is that really a bad thing? Is there supposed to be a difference?" asked Sagara.
"Is there supposed to be a difference between the Hitokiri Battousai and Rurouni Kenshin?" rebutted Kurama. "We're not sure if even Kenshin could keep his sanity in check while controlling a sword filled with murderous intent."
A cold, ectoplasmic sweat manifested itself on Sano's head even though as a ghost, he didn't need to perspire. He remembered how unhinged, berserk, and bloodthirsty Battousai became during his fight with Saito.
"I-Is this Youkiri Battousai anything like the Hitokiri Battousai?" inquired the street brawler. What he was implying was actually, 'Is Battousai the Demon-Slayer an even bigger threat than even an S-Level Suzaku?'
Shuichi confessed, "I don't know, and neither does Kenshin. All I know is that the more corrupted with power and bloodlust the Demon Sword is, the more Suzaku would lose himself to Battousai the Demon-Slayer. And I don't think any of us would stand a chance against a berserk, super-powered Kenshin. Let's hope this is not the case."
Sanosuke gulped, wondering how dangerous would the Hitokiri Battousai be if he gained superpowers that could rival a self-described living nuke.
Sagara had kicked the bucket long before the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima were dropped, but he'd heard the haunting tales about it in the afterlife. Disturbing stories. By people from Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell.
"You're all blabbing about Battousai like he matters! Like I'm not even here! The only person who matters right now is me! Suzaku of the Shisejyu! Remember that!"
Using the Kaifuku or Restoration by absorbing the souls of his deceased duplicates, the last surviving Shisejyu healed up all the wounds inflicted upon him by (arguably) his greatest rival.
Never again. Never again would he rely on Battousai Himura's power to win this fight. He'd master the Demon Sword and become its one true bearer if it was the last thing he'd do.
Kuwabara, using his spiritual sensitivity, saw and talked to Keiko's ghost, asking her how her condition was.
She answered, "I've been doing a lot of good deeds lately. Hopefully, I'll wake up from my coma like Yusuke did back when he went comatose."
Kazuma turned blue. "Er, you're not going to go around kissing people in order to live again like Yusuke did, are you?" he asked, remembering that gross dream he had of him kissing Yusuke when the latter was still a ghost.
Yukimura blushed, remembering when she kissed Urameshi in the lips in order to wake him up from his slumber, like a reverse Sleeping Beauty. "W-Who knows?"
Kuwabara himself reddened when he imagined Botan kissing Keiko to revive her. No, wait, Botan was an Angel of Death. That didn't make sense. Nevertheless, he kept on imagining it.
Both phoenixes glowed with blinding light. Like twin miniature suns, their auras battled each other for supremacy, which reminded Yusuke of his initial encounter with one of the Three Kings of Makai, Yomi.
"I've put you to the brink before, Urameshi Yusuke, and I could do it again!" swore Suzaku. "I won't only force you to use up your life force, I'll also snuff it out!"
This time around, it was Suzaku who acted cautious because he suspected that Urameshi had not unleashed his true power yet. Even Yusuke kept his trigger-happy pointer finger holstered, remembering that the Shisejyu had access to Kenshin's unknown spiritual powers and intimidating swordsmanship.
"YUSUKE, WATCH OUT!" Keiko warned in time, allowing both Suzaku and Yusuke to avoid the barrage of vacuum slices that cut apart the I-beams surrounding them.
The two turned in time to see a burly, (dyed) blond Chinese man with slicked-back hair, gloves, a three-piece expensive suit, and a nodachi emerge from a portal that looked quite familiar to the Reikai Tantei freelancer and ramen cart vendor.
"Hey, isn't that Itsuki's portal?" said Yusuke before his suspicions were confirmed by the appearance of three other portals from behind Suzaku.
Out came forth the owner of the portals, Itsuki, and two others, which was Karasu the "Mad Bomber" and Rando the copycat demon.
"YOU! What are you doing here?" demanded Suzaku, holding his Demon Sword tight in his grip.
"Relax, Blondie. We're not after your little Reikai trinket..." started Rando.
"Reikai trinket? It doesn't belong to the Spirit World! It belongs to me now!" spat Suzaku.
"...Whatever. We're on official Shin Juppon Gatana business here. Chojin-sama doesn't quite trust you'd be able to handle the power of that sword by yourself, so he sent the rest of us Shin Ju as backup. You're welcome," declared Rando with a snort while he snarled as soon as he spotted Yusuke at the corner of his eye.
The rest of the gathered Reikai Warriors tensed in attention. Five of the New Ten Swords were now together inside the tall metallic tower.
The "Hei" scar or the wound bearing the combined kanji for one, eight, and ten burned on Daiji's chest while he shouted, "XINHAI FENG!"
Matsudaira did an afterimage-filled charge towards the Taiwanese Triad mafia boss, noticing that one gloved hand was bulkier than the other after he executed a Jissen Kenbu at him, with the intention of doing a combo with a Kaiten Kenbu then a Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren.
The right-handed Xinhai switched his platinum sword from the right to the left, grabbed hold of Daiji's ceramic short sword, and crushed it with a titanium prosthetic hand reminiscent of the iron one worn by Gottfried "Gotz" von Berlichingen (also known as Gotz the Iron Hand who was a German mercenary and imperial knight during the Thirteenth to Fourteenth Century).
Feng probably opted for a nonmagnetic prosthetic hand and sword in case Suzaku really did manage to get the Demon Sword. At any rate, Daiji pressed on, spinning into his Spiral Sword Dance with the intention of transitioning into a Spiral Sword Dance Six Series at the last minute (by producing a new ceramic kodachi), but his assault halted not by the metal-handed Triad boss but another figure with a Japanese longsword.
A fiery humanoid form made of jaki flame and shaped like the Triad Mountain Master appeared beside Xinhai, black nodachi and all, blocking Detective Matsudaira's attempt at the Kaiten Kenbu with a One-Eight-Ten kata from the original Kanji Killer's Nikaido Heiho Ryu.
It then finished strong with the from-behind hand-switch technique that stopped the Kaiten Kenbu Rokuren short by disarming the officer of both swords.
'So this is the shikigami I heard about from Battousai and his friends! This Xinhai is different. He's using his full power!' thought Daiji after being pushed back by Feng's familiar.
"All things in due time, Blue Meanie. We'll have our fight later," promised the titanium-handed Xinhai.
Natsuki also saw the (nonmagnetic) metal hand and forearm of her father while her own arm throbbed in pain. Xinhai had hurt her twice over before, first by nearly chopping the arm of her past self, Yutaro, when Feng was known by the name Raijuta Isurugi. He then broke her arm during the present Heisei Era when she was a child.
How she wished she'd finished him off back at the Shinjuku Hisashi Building when she had a chance so that he wouldn't have regained his full power now.
"Ossan, what did you say his name was?" Yusuke, the man... really, more like a boy... who took down all seven Suzakus at the same time asked Matsudaira.
"Xinhai. Xinhai Feng." At the back of his mind, Daiji wondered if he could somehow "trick" the out-of-school youth into fighting and "softening up" the Triad Dragon Head before he himself moved in for the kill, but the thought somehow didn't sit well with him.
Urameshi rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. "So he's Xinhai Feng." The man who taught Seiryu how to use Keiko's suffering to power himself up even at the cost of the girl's health. That guy. Instinctively, the hanyou cracked his knuckles.
"I heard you were the one who screwed up and let Suzaku get the Demon Sword," came Karasu muffled voice, addressing Shuichi. The masked demon guffawed. "How unbecoming. You're not the Kurama I used to know."
Kurama rejoined, "As opposed to you, who has already died but allowed yourself to become the Chojin's zombie slave all because you want a rematch against me as an S-Class demon?"
Kuwabara chimed in, "Ooh, BURN! He got you there, Karasu!" and nudged the sweatdropping Kurama's ribs.
"We'll see who has the last laugh," pledged the alleged Mad Bomber.
Karasu got the moniker because he'd been conducting some "suicide bombings" under the Overfiend's orders. The news media presumed there was a whole group of look-alike suicide bombers with facemasks, high-collared attire, and long, stringy hair called the "Mad Bombers" doing all the bombing.
This was because normal human beings who didn't believe in the supernatural couldn't wrap their mind around the fact that all the bombings were perpetrated by one demon who could survive multiple explosions and still come out of them intact and alive.
Meanwhile, Kuwabara and Yusuke greeted each other by shaking hands and bumping fists. "It's been a while, bro. Where've you been?"
"We're making great progress in gathering positive energy for Keiko so that she can finally wake up from her coma," informed Yusuke.
"That's awesome, man!" cheered Kuwabara.
"So there's you, me, and Kurama in this mission. There's only one more guy left before Team Urameshi is complete once more!" added Yusuke.
Kazuma harrumphed. "That midget better be here. He's missing out on all the fun." He then turned his back on Urameshi. "It sure is nice that you remembered him yet forgot all about me during the Demon World Unification Tournament..."
The sheepish Yusuke slapped Kuwabara's back (although he overdid it and made the ginger-haired teenager choke on his spit). "Oh, come on, dude! Don't be like that! And don't take it the wrong way! It was a demons-only party back then!"
"THAT'S DISCRIMINATION! And you're half-human, at least!" yelped Kazuma.
As for Rando, the pasty-skinned kabuki demon with red hair and blue veins swaggered over the pair of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu kendoists he defeated once upon a time and sneered at them while beckoning them to fight him with a mocking "Come hither," gesture with his index finger.
While Yahiko made his move and Natsuki held him back, the white-skinned youkai's smile grew wider. The demon then summoned sand and dust from all the wreckage and destruction caused by the momentous battles that took place inside the observatory in order to turn it into the Armor of Sand and Shield of Sand.
Rando then turned towards the distracted Yusuke and remarked, "So how is my Kugai curse affecting you? That was smart of me to use, wasn't it? The World of Suffering is the perfect kryptonite to the Superman that is Urameshi Yusuke, whose power is influenced by his emotions!"
The spider-like demon attempted to surprise Urameshi with a silken web followed by the Genocide Cutter when in a split second, Yusuke's arms disappeared and reappeared within his midst. Afterwards, the youkai fell while the half-human ignored him and walked away.
"!?" were the symbols of wordless exclamation in Rando's mind after collapsing on the ground with a fat lip, a bleeding nose, eyes he could barely open, a swollen face, bruises, lumps, open and closed fractured bones, internal bleeding, external bleeding, torn tendons, torn muscles, and a concussion.
"U-Urameshi, you bastard...!" Rando croaked, realizing his folly. This was how powerful Yusuke was without the handicaps of an injured shoulder or a pacifistic swordsman holding him back. He then cocooned himself in his silken threads in order to heal his damage as quickly as possible.
Nothing short of an interabang or interrobang (the informal, nonstandard use of an exclamation point and a question mark together) could convey how flabbergasted Rando was at the turn of events.
Never mind lightspeed lightning bolts or coin-sized objects going at three times the speed of sound. Going at speeds before even a demonic mind could react was something far more... mind-boggling.
Sano did a low whistle before nudging Yahiko's shoulder. "That guy's something else, isn't he?" He didn't get any response from the younger ghost. "Hey, Yahiko-chan, what gives?"
After seeing (or not seeing) that exchange, Yahiko started to doubt whether Kenshin could really beat Yusuke on a one-on-one duel. It'd be a tossup, most likely. Like when pitting Himura against Hajime Saito.
Actually, he already had reservations about the idea after Urameshi countered the Kuzu Ryu Sen with eight Shot Gun blasts. The man was extraordinary.
Myojin hadn't felt this awestruck since seeing the vagabond swordsman beat up an entire army of yakuza with a sword that couldn't cut unless used like a sickle for the first time.
Yusuke sighed. The way he manhandled Rando with a supersonic Hyaku Retsu-Ken reminded him of how Toguro Ototo practically turned his older brother, Toguro Ani, into ground meat. Sometimes he forgot how strong he'd become. It gave him a complicated feeling.
Just then, the black-haired teenager blanked out and had his own interrobang moment after he saw a bandaged fist fly towards his face.
Was Rando out for revenge (again)? Yusuke reacted thusly, making a homage to that famous moment in the Ashita no Joe series between rivals Joe Yabuki and Toru Rikishi with a cross-counter exchange.
"FUTAE NO KIWAMI!"
"ROOSTER HEAD! What's the big idea?" both Kuwabara and Yahiko exclaimed.
Sagara collapsed into Kuwabara's arms while Yusuke was left standing, a trickle of blood trailing on the side of his lip.
"What's the big idea, Kuwabara? What the hell, man? Is that friend of yours really one of the Reikai's allies or did he become a turncoat all of a sudden?" ranted Yusuke while spitting out saliva and blood all over Kazuma's face. "Hell, look the kanji on his coat! It says 'Evil' outright!"
"I have no fucking clue, Urameshi. Hey, Rooster Head! Explain yourself!" said Kuwabara before he slapped Sano awake. To both Yusuke and Kazuma's chagrin, the nineteen-year-old (by appearance) ghost cackled like a madman. "What's so funny?"
"I haven't been hit that hard since Shishio Makoto punched my lights out back in Mount Hiei. So this is the guy who you never won against, Boke?" sniggered Sano while he got up on wobbly feet. "He's a helluva guy."
"Yeah, the same way you never won against Kenshin, Rooster Head," retorted Kazuma before he karate-chopped Sagara's head. Contrary to the nickname given to him, Kuwabara acted more like the "Tsukkomi" (straight man) to Sanosuke's "Boke" (comic or stooge) more often than not.
It was Yusuke's turn to do a belly laugh. "You guys are hilarious! You should go on tour or something." Sanosuke's demeanor reminded Urameshi a lot of Chu, especially their boisterousness and love for fighting. "You have some seriously crazy-ass friends, Kuwabara."
"Hey! That's my line, kiddo," said a grinning Sano.
Kurama was the one of the seven Spirit World Warriors (and the ghost of a Reikai Senshi's girlfriend) who addressed the quiet demon with loose garments and verdant hair, asking, "Itsuki, what are you and the Shin Ju doing here?"
Instead of answering the half-youko, the one-eyed Gatekeeper and Triad Vanguard turned towards his superior and asked, "489, is it time for the operation to start?"
"Yes, 438. It is." Feng Xinhai crossed his arms and told Suzaku. "Under the Chojin's orders, you're going to have to cooperate with the rest of the Shin Ju so that we could finish off all the Spirit World Warriors together."
"I cooperate with no one, human," Suzaku drawled while he formed a bow of light using the blade of the Youtou Shinnoken as the spine of his weapon and aimed his Ankoku-Raiko-Ha arrow at the Taiwanese mountain of muscle. "You're not the only one who's an S-Class Shin Ju now, Xinhai. I'm the one who's calling the shots. I can finish the Reikai Warriors off alone."
"You were barely able to hold your own against Urameshi Yusuke. Know your place in the Shin Ju, Suzaku," rebuked Feng.
After hearing Suzaku mention Xinhai's S-Class standing, Yahiko couldn't help himself; he just had to check the mafia boss's power level. Indeed, he was S-Flat, like Suzaku.
"Hey, wait a minute. You're supposed to be the New Ten Swords, but I'm only counting five of you. Where's the rest of the Juppon Gatana?" Myojin then asked the Shin Ju.
Kurama tapped Yahiko's shoulder. "Actually, Jine is... indisposed at the moment, so that only leaves four more. There are only nine of ten of the Shin Juppon Gatana left," informed the demon fox.
"Obviously, we have the remaining five... or maybe four... Shin Ju as backup," said Karasu. "If worse comes to worst, we can always mobilize the entirety of the Shin Juppon Gatana against you Spirit World Warriors. We're holding all the cards this time around."
The Triad Dragon Head considered his deputy's words. "You know what? I'll be merciful to them." He then spoke to the gathered Reikai Tantei, Kenshingumi, the Oniwabanshu Okashira, and the ghost of Keiko Yukimura.
"Let us have the Demon Sword, and we'll withdraw our forces. If you insist on trying to get that weapon back, then there's a real possibility of Minato being wiped out of the map, whether it's by five of us or ten of us Shin Ju."
"We don't negotiate with terrorists," snarled Yusuke, pointing his pointer finger at the Chinese Dragon Head and letting it fill up to the brim with spiritual might while it whistled an ever-familiar sound.
"So you five jokers are all part of this Ten Swords group, huh? Well, it's seven against five. The odds are against you," added Urameshi before Kuwabara, Sanosuke, and Yahiko groaned. They knew exactly what was coming next.
"No. It's seven against seven. ANKOKU-YORO-JIN!" As Suzaku spoke, he again split off from one Suzaku to seven, with each and everyone of his clones having a mind of his own and powers roughly equivalent to that of the original.
"Don't you mean seven against eleven, Suzaku?" an unfazed Xinhai asked while he allowed his sheathed nodachi to rest on his back like some sort of long pole. Directly in front of him, his flaming shikigami clone interspersed itself between him and the saint beast.
"What happens after we kill all the Reikai Tantei and Battousai's allies?" asked Suzaku. "Am I supposed to hand over the Demon Sword to our great leader quietly? NO! THE YOUTOU SHINNOKEN IS MINE! Even if I have to fight the Overfiend himself and win, I'd do so! It's in my blood! It's my destiny to become the One True King of Makai!"
"...So says the rambling madman. GATOTSU ISHIKI!"
Someone should've noticed the footsteps along the rails and metal I-beams of the Tokyo Tower growing louder and louder a minute or so ago, but everyone was too distracted by the appearance of the Shin Juppon Gatana to notice this bizarre phenomenon.
Ergo, neither the Spirit World Warriors nor the New Ten Swords expected the tall, lean, and wolfish form of Goro Fujita... better known by the name of Hajime Saito... leap (or even fly) up into the broken windows and the gaping hole in the wall before he charged straightaway at the Suzaku who wielded the Demon Sword.
Coincidentally, even though Saito was too far away at the time to hear Suzaku call Yusuke "a man gone mad" earlier, the former Shinsengumi Captain managed to throw the youkai's own words back at him.
"Lieutenant Fujita?!" blustered Kuwabara. "What are you doing here?"
"SAITO...!" both Sanosuke and Yahiko chorused.
The younger of the two solidified ghosts then aimed his Spirit Detector at Saito, which gave off a reading of A-Plus. 'Not bad. Around Kurama's power level, huh?'
"Saito Hajime," murmured Detective Daiji while he beheld his fellow police officer, remembering the Mibu wolf's name thanks to the memories of the Oni Gang Boss and his past self, Aoshi Shinomori.
While they were also surprised by Goro's sudden appearance, both Natsuki and Keiko could only stare blankly at the unknown police officer. "Who...?"
Even Yusuke was taken aback. He'd met the man before while fighting off more of the Chojin's goons, but he couldn't exclaim his name because he forgot what it was.
"!?" This was the Shin Ju's own interabang moment while they stared at the policeman who successfully scaled 145 meters without using an elevator or stairs.
Even the usually nonchalant and verbose Xinhai was at a loss for words. There weren't many humans like Saito and himself who could do such feats of strength, and the only other human near their power level (that was still alive) was half-demonic.
Suzaku wasn't as impressed as his fellow Shin Ju with Hajime once he recovered from his initial surprise, especially after he saw that the copper was using a steel weapon.
He levitated before the police officer lunged with his blade, then aimed his lightning bolt arrow at the human.
The rest of the six Suzakus formed their own Lightning Storm of Torment energy bows and arrows, with the intention of doing a variant of the Prism of Seven Lightning Storm of Torment on Saito.
Hajime's eyes glowed as yellow as a wolf's, his muscles flexing while he redirected his momentum by doing what Natsuki identified as a "Reprise".
In fencing, when one were to miss a lunge, the fencer could do a Reprise surprise attack by performing a short forward recovery and an immediate second lunge without missing a beat.
The second lunge in this instance was the "GATOTSU SANSHIKI!"
Even though Suzaku activated his magnetic barrier to arrest Fujita's movements (by repelling the metal sword away in order to allow him... actually, them... to shoot lightning bolts at the cop with impunity), something unexpected happened.
As though there weren't any barrier at all, Goro's sword pierced right through Suzaku's midsection, with the tip of his blade sticking out of the demon's back while they were both showered with youkai blood and ichor.
Furthermore, before the rest of the six Suzakus could assist their seventh self, Saito's lunge became a leap after the lieutenant pushed himself and the bleeding, shell-shocked Suzaku into the sky in a single bound. Like a bird or a plane.
They disappeared into the overcast skies, their ascent parting the clouds before they turned into a twinkle in the heavens after they were launched off the ground with sufficient strength to overcome both Suzaku's magnetic force and Earth's gravity.
"Shit! Roach Bangs got the other Roach Bangs!" said Sano before he raised his head up, put his hand over his bushy hair, and stared at the two figures of Saito and Suzaku fly off into the darkness before the dawn.
This prompted Yahiko to kick Sano's butt and Kazuma to smack the street fighter upside the noggin with his forearm.
As Yusuke, Kurama, Kuwabara, Yahiko, Sanosuke, Natsuki, Daiji, and Keiko as well as Karasu, Rando (he just got out of his cocoon to see what the racket was all about), Xinhai, and six other Suzakus stared at the unbelievable sight of a man with a steel blade besting the master of electromagnetism...the seventh Suzaku who possessed the Demon Sword... Itsuki went to work with the operation that the Shin Ju was supposed to conduct.
The One-Eight-Ten Killer set his sights on Urameshi and barreled over him like a raging bull, the very sinews of his taut muscles visible on his tight undershirt while he unsheathed his lengthy, washing-pole-like blade and began slashing and stabbing at the Reikai Tantei with it using the sword style he mimicked from Jine Udo.
By reaction time alone, Yusuke avoided every one of the slanted, vertical, and horizontal brushstroke-like slashes of the ginormous muscleman before he got nicked from behind by the Triad Dragon Head's shadow, the shikigami made of flames that wielded a blackened, flaming version of Xinhai's sword.
It was the same familiar that made the Kenshingumi believe they were facing the Chojin himself when they first engaged battle with it.
At any rate, the beefy Feng attempted to take advantage of the distraction by switching his sword from one hand to another behind his back and attacking out of left field (literally).
Yusuke ducked that slash, fired a "SHOT GUN!" at the scorching familiar to keep it at bay, then pounded on the large target before him with a "HYAKU RETSU-KEN!" his fists aching by the end of the exchange.
Goddamn. Punching the Taiwanese Triad leader was like punching a man made of rubber.
However, unlike with his encounters with Sanosuke and Rando, Yusuke ended up getting blindsided with a punch to the temple by a titanium prosthetic fist that had him reeling.
As Urameshi stumbled forward to regain his balance, both Feng and his shikigami tackled the teen into a waiting portal made by Itsuki to "Kami-sama" knew where.
"YUSUKE!" shouted Keiko upon noticing her boyfriend and that scary yakuza (actually, Triad) boss disappear into the void.
"XINHAI!" both Natsuki and Daiji screamed before many different portals leading to different parts of Minato (or even outside of the ward altogether) opened all over Tokyo Tower's heavily damaged main observatory.
The pair then fell into separate portals after being pushed into them by two of the six Suzakus.
It was then that chaos ensued.
Some of the Spirit World Warriors were able to avoid getting sucked into the multiple black holes (like with Kurama and his glider or Kuwabara with his Jigen Tou).
However, the trio of Itsuki, Rando, and Karasu coordinated with each other to get every one of the Meiji and Heisei Era soldiers of Koenma's army to fall into those openings one after another.
Energy mines that exploded upon contact flew all over the pockmarked enclosure care of Karasu, while Rando himself swung around with his silken webbing like Spider-Man and kicked several people into waiting portals. Then the Shin Ju went into their own portals along with the clones of the currently missing "original" Suzaku.
To Be Continued...
Next: Old and New Rivalries.
Yusuke: (after firing his Double Beretta Rei-Gan at Suzaku) I know what you're thinking. Did I fire seven shots or six? Well, with all this confusion, I've forgotten myself, so you have to ask yourself one question: Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?
So long! Farewell!
Abdiel